Bless Me, Father, for I Have Sinned

by Ashley B. D. Zacharias

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last confession.”

Mary proceeded to recite a list of mundane sins for the priest behind the carved wooden screen. Impure thoughts. Intemperate language. A couple of other venial sins. Nothing the least bit interesting. It wasn't even worth the effort to ask for salacious details about her impure thoughts. She was probably fantasizing about having an affair with the latest American Idol.

When the short, dull recitation was done, Father Ignatius gave her the obligatory Hail Marys and told her to go forth and sin no more.

She did not go forth as instructed. Instead she replied, “That's not enough, Father.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The penance that you prescribed is not harsh enough to correct my behavior. My sins are minor but they are persistent. You've been our priest for more than a year, so surely you've noticed that I keep coming back here and confessing the same sins every time. I have been trying to change but I don't have the strength to do it on my own. I need you to assign a harsh penance. Something that will focus my thoughts entirely toward goodness and light. A penance that will remain vivid in my thoughts from one confession to the next.”

“I could assign a reading from the Bible,” the priest suggested. “Something challenging.”

“No. That's not at all what I need. I read the Bible already. I need a physical penance.”

“What do you suggest?”

“How about flagellation?”

There was a long, shocked silence from the screen. After almost a minute, the priest stuttered, “I...I...I couldn't do that. That...that's not prescribed. The church doesn't...wouldn't...would never permit a thing like that. There are guidelines...regulations...rules about penitence. It wouldn't be Catholic.”

“We both know that's not true, Father. Christ himself was scourged for our sins. The church has a long history of self-flagellation and flagellating others. Look at all the saints who were flagellated. George, Jerome, Easmus–”

The priest interrupted her. “You've done your homework, haven't you?”

“Yes, Father.”

“But it doesn't matter. You're no saint, Mary.”

“No, Father. I'm certainly no saint. Not with the kind of thoughts that I have. But I believe that I could be a better person if I were made to suffer a real penance. My only point is that the saints were not made less saintly for their suffering. A little pain doesn't hurt.”

“I think it's supposed to hurt,” the priest replied, dryly. “That's the definition of pain.”

“I mean physical pain does not cause spiritual damage.”

“So what are you proposing? That I tell you to flog yourself?” Mary could hear the smile in his voice. He was not taking her seriously.

“No, Father. I would not have the courage to administer a decent flogging on myself. I'm asking you to flog me.”

“Good God, no!” the priest sputtered. “No way! No! No! Put that idea right out of your mind! God. I could be defrocked for such a thing. I can't even suggest that you flagellate yourself, much less be an active participant in the...the scene.”

“You won't be defrocked, Father. No one will ever know but you and me and God. As far as I'm concerned, the seal of the confessional works in both directions. I would never, ever discuss my confession or penance with another mortal soul. I never have done it before and will never talk about it in the future. Not with anyone. Not even with my husband. You've heard my confessions for a year, Father and you know that I've never had to confess to gossip. That's one sin that I never commit.”

Actually he did not know that. He could hardly be expected to remember every confession of everyone in his congregation. They all ran together in his memory. “It doesn't matter,” he replied. “I won't do this to you.”

“You must do it to save my immortal soul. My soul is your responsibility. Saving it is your calling and you must do what you have to do to keep me from burning in Hell for eternity. I'm going to bring an instrument of chastisement to your office after your mass tomorrow night and I'll wait until you come and mortify my flesh. I'll wait all night if I have to, but I'm not leaving until you administer the penance that I require.”

“Don't do anything–” the priest began to say but she had dashed out, leaving him protesting to an empty confessional.

* * *

Throughout the evening mass, Father Ignatius was in turmoil. For two days he had been thinking about almost nothing but Mary White's penance. Would she be waiting in his office to be flagellated like she had said?

Surely not. The idea was absurd.

But he had left his office unlocked and dismissed his alter boys as quickly as was practical against the possibility that the woman had meant it.

The idea was utter nonsense, but he could not help but dwell on the details. Exactly what did she have in mind? Flagellation could mean a whip or cane or some other specialized implement like a cat 'o nine tales. It could be performed on the upper back, buttocks, thighs or calves. Contemporary self-flagellation normally consisted of a person striking their own upper back by lashing knotted cords over their shoulders. Was that what Mary had in mind? That he strike her back with knotted cords?

Any form of flagellation would require that she expose her bare skin to some extent. No one was ever flogged through their clothing. Did she intend to bare her back or buttocks to him? He was a priest, for God's sake. And she was a married woman. A fine, fair woman of about thirty years of age with a nicely rounded, slightly plump body.

Lord save him, he was lusting after a married woman.

As he walked from the sacristy to his office, he could not help but to fantasize how it would feel to lay into that womanly flesh with a whip or switch and feel it yield to his strength. It would quiver with anticipation of each stroke and twitch reflexively to the pain that he delivered. He would hear her moan in fear and suffering.

Lord help him, he was getting hard thinking about it.

What kind of God would expose a man of the cloth to such lascivious fantasies?

When he pushed his office door open, his question was answered: a cruel, merciless God because, Lord save him, Mary was sitting, waiting for him, as promised, with bowed head and downcast eyes.

She was wearing a white blouse and full, calf-length flower-print cotton skirt. Her legs were bare above her white ankle socks and shoes.

A wide brown leather strap was laying across her knees, held in place by her folded hands.

He realized that she was praying softly, asking God for forgiveness for her many sins.

Trite, venial sins as he recalled from her confession. Sins that barely mattered a whit in God's grand scheme of the universe.

“Mary, you cannot mean to–”

She interrupted his protest by standing, holding out the strap, and saying, clearly, “I am ready to suffer for my sins, Father.”

She pushed the strap into his hands.

Lord help him, he accepted it. He could tell from its weight and length that it was a standard men's leather belt with the buckle and ends cut off square. He had a similar belt, intact, at home for casual wear.

While he stood there, dumbfounded, she walked to the door, pushed it closed and twisted the latch to lock it. He knew that he should be protesting, telling her to go home to her husband, vowing that he would never strike her. But he did none of that. He watched with sick fascination while she bent over his desk and hiked her skirt to her waist, presenting her naked buttocks to him.

Damn her, she was not even wearing panties under her skirt.

That alone made him want to punish her. The slut.

He raised the strap and snapped it sharply across her rump. She squealed like a little girl.

He delivered a second and third blow in quick succession, then stopped to watch the red bloom across her white flesh in three distinct bands.

In for a penny, in for a pound. A pound of quivering female flesh, in this instance. He began strapping the woman's ass with a slow, steady rhythm, appreciating the way it twitched and quaked.

She squawked and yelped a lovely tune.

After a dozen firm blows, he stopped and appraised his work.

Her ass was painted a bright red across both cheeks. It was quivering constantly from the pain that she was suffering. She was weeping freely now, her tears soaking his notes for Sunday's sermon that lay on his desk.

“Enough?” he asked.

“More,” she whimpered.

He gave her twitching ass another dozen lashes with the strap.

“Do you regret your sins?” he asked when he was finished.

“Yes, Father. I regret them deeply and sincerely.” Her voice was soft and erratic beneath her sobs, but her words were clear.

“Then your contrition is sincere. Go forth and sin no more.”

She stood and smoothed her skirt over her scarlet cheeks. Her face was dripping with tears and her cheeks scarlet with shame. She kept her eyes demurely downcast as she walked back to the door.

“Don't forget your strap,” the priest said, holding it out to her.

“You keep it, Father,” she replied. “I'm sure it won't be long until I sin again and need to suffer another penance.”

* * *

For three weeks, Father Ignatius lived in a fog. He felt like he was sleepwalking through his days. He could not stop thinking about Mary White's ass. In his mind, he replayed over and over how her tender white cheeks had bounced from the blows of his strap. His mind dwelt for endless hours on visions of the intimate parts that he had seen peeking from between her upper thighs. He imagined how those soft hairs would feel. He dreamed of caressing those plump dark lips. He believed that he could feel her slickness on his fingers.

Performing the mass became more difficult than ever before.

As soon as Father Ignatius mounted the pulpit he could not control himself. He had to scan the congregation, searching for Mary's pious face. He knew that she only attended the eleven o'clock Sunday mass, but he searched for her at the beginning of other masses as well, on the chance that she might have broken her routine and come to an extra service. If it were the wrong mass and she was absent, then his heart was pierced by disappointment even as he knew that he should expect not to find her.

And when it was the Sunday morning mass and he did locate her, he was unable to turn his eyes away. He preached to her alone, as though the rest of the congregation did not exist. As he spoke, he searched her eyes, looking to make some kind of spiritual connection with her across the gulf between pulpit and pew.

But it was the spirit of Lucifer, not of Christ, that would have to forge that bestial connection. He lusted after her as avidly as any rake lusting after his favorite whore in a sleezy cathouse. It made no difference to Father Ignatius that Mary's husband sat only an arm's length away from her or that their two sons were seated between them. When Mary was in the nave, her family did not exist for the horny priest.

Mary's face showed no hint of reciprocation. She sat on her pew, knelt in prayer, and stood for hymns looking up at him with a bland expression as though nothing unusual had ever happened between them.

He mumbled his sermons, lost his place, and rambled on, spouting disorganized nonsense.

Not a single person complained. Not a single person approached him after a service and asked him what the hell he had been trying to say. He realized with wry dismay that nobody in the entire congregation cared about what he said from the pulpit. They did not even bother pretending to listen.

He prayed fervently that no one would notice his erection beneath his cassock and alb. He began resorting to taping his penis to his thigh with adhesive tape before he left his office. It was the only way the he could be certain that it would not tent his garments in front of his flock. When his cramped member became engorged by the sight of Mary, the pain served to further distract him from the business of conducting mass. He often had to rely on his alter boys to guide him through his duties.

Hearing confessions was the worst. Why should he care if Joe Picelli picked up some floozy in the Commodore Lounge and was afraid that he might have caught herpes? Why should he get upset if Nancy Pekedale found her son's stash and smoked some of his grass? And if Roger Quann was embezzling from his clients' retirement savings, that was their problem, not his. Caveat emptor. He was wrestling with sins of his own. If God couldn't be bothered striking those assholes dead on the spot, why should he worry about them?

The only asshole that he cared about was Mary White's. He had had a wonderful view of it while he was beating her ass. He wondered if her husband had ever sodomized that lovely tight rosebud. If so, he'd never admitted it in confession. The priest would have remembered that.

Father Ignatius wished that he could ask Mr. White outright, but he could hardly raise the issue without reason. “By the way, Roger, have you ever buggered your wife?” That would be quite the icebreaker. His only option would be to press him a lot harder for details about his impure thoughts and deeds the next time he had him in the box and hope that White would volunteer something interesting.

Maybe he should give a sermon on Sodom and Gomorrah and see if he could stimulate Mary to confess something more intimate than using indelicate language when she was driving on the freeway.

For three weeks, confessions were an agony because, every time someone entered the confessional, Father Ignatius strained his eyes trying to peer through the wooden screen, praying that he would catch a glimpse of Mary's lovely features; then strain his ears, praying that he would hear her delicate voice asking for his blessing. And, he was sorely disappointed by every earnest confessor for three long weeks.

Then, his prayers were finally answered on Friday afternoon. His heart almost stopped when he heard Mary's sweet voice saying, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been three weeks since my last confession.”

His heart began pounding so hard that he was certain that it was going to burst from the strain. He could barely speak, his lungs seemed bereft of air.

Mary recited her usual litany of venial nothings. The only item that held any promise was her confession that she had lust in her heart.

“Please tell me about that,” he stuttered.

“What can I tell you?” she asked. “I felt a surge of lust in my heart that was most inappropriate.”

“Were you lusting for a specific person?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Who were you lusting for?” he asked, his heart thudding audibly. He feared that he knew the answer already.

“For my husband.”

Father Ignatius was struck dumb for a moment. He felt his heart sinking in utter disappointment. Why was she not lusting after her priest? “You are married to your husband, right?” he finally asked, feeling foolish at hearing his own question.

“Oh, yes, Father. Roger and I were married in this church ten years ago by Father Peter.”

“God approves of physical relations between man and wife. You should lust after him. That is one of the joys of marriage.”

“Not the way that I was lusting after Roger, Father. The nature of my lust was sinful, even in marriage.”

“Oh. I see.” Father Ignatius spoke softly and cautiously. “It's true that the purpose of sex in marriage is for procreation and that there are some acts of a sexual nature that a man and woman may perform that cannot lead to pregnancy, but that does not necessarily make those other acts sinful in themselves. It's a matter of intent and context. Simply put, as long as a man and wife are loving to each other and engage in normal sexual relations most of the time, there is nothing wrong with the occasional deviation. A little variation is permitted for the sake of love. If a husband and wife are in agreement and want to experiment a little, that is not automatically sinful.” He let his admonition trail off in a way that he considered tasteful. This was not the first time that he had encountered this situation. He gave the same advice, word for word, to someone's husband or wife every month or so. Some older priests were more straitlaced but he believed that there was nothing inherently sinful in a husband and wife enjoying their physicality. He firmly believed that many marriages would be a lot stronger if more husbands ate out their wives more often. And he preferred not to hear those stories in the confessional.

“We do those things, Father,” she answered with a hint of annoyance in her tone. “I'm not talking about going down on him. In my heart, I lust after him in other ways that are not so natural. Ways that are truly sinful.”

“What might those ways be?” Father Ignatius asked.

“I cannot bring myself to tell you,” Mary replied. “It's too shameful.”

“If I do not know the sin, then I cannot give you absolution for it.”

“I'm not asking for absolution, Father. I'm asking that you make me penitent. I'm begging you for it. The penance that you administered last time worked perfectly, Father. Did you notice that, this time, I did not have to confess to a single one of the sins that I committed last time? Every time I thought about committing one of those sins, I reminded myself that there would be consequences and I was able to turn my thoughts in another direction. You are blessed for giving me this strength. But now, I need further correction to improve myself more.”

“You want me to do the same thing again?” Father Ignatius' heart began skipping beats in anticipation of more thrills to come.

“Not quite the same thing, Father. The sin of abnormal lust in my heart is more stubborn than my previous sins and will require a more severe chastisement. I will prepare myself for the appropriate discipline and wait in your office after your last mass on Sunday evening.”

“Not my office. Go to the undercroft at nine o'clock. There is a room below the alter. Wait in there. It is more private than my office.”

“Undercroft?”

“A fancy name for a church basement.”

“Yes, Father. I will be there.”

He heard the rustle of the woman leaving the confessional.

* * *

Father Ignatius was never certain how he managed to stumble through the next two days. His mind was plagued by questions about what Mary might consider “more severe chastisement.” The two dozen strokes of the strap that he administered to her naked buttocks the first time had been severe by his reckoning. He had not stinted in their delivery. But, this time, she said that she expected more. He was aware of many different possible punishments but had no idea which one she would choose for herself.

The fact that she would choose her own method of correction was interesting in itself. Not asking for his recommendation suggested a lack of trust that he found vaguely offensive. He was a priest. He was guided by God. Did she fear that he would do something too severe or did she fear something not severe enough? Or did she fear that he would have no idea what to suggest?

That latter concern was ill-founded. In two days, he imagined dozens of different punishments that he would be happy to visit upon the lovely Mary's luscious body.

As soon as he could get away from his well-wishers after the last mass, he rushed down the stairs to the undercroft. It was a miracle that he did not trip on the hem of his cassock and break his neck.

When he reached the door, he paused for a minute to regain his composure. It would not do to appear unpriestly before his penitent.

When he pushed the door open, he found Mary seated demurely on one of the two rough-hewn wooden chairs in the room. A paper bag was sitting on the table near at hand. This room had been used for extra storage but, after suggesting that Mary's penance be served here, he had cleaned it out. Then, inspired by the Medieval nature of physical chastisement and the natural setting of the stone walls and concrete floor, he had taken the trouble install some sturdy, rough-hewn missionary-style furniture: two chairs, a table, and a cabinet with a good lock. It gave the room the air of a dungeon.

He hoped that Mary was impressed by the effort that he had undertaken on her behalf.

As soon as he closed the door, she spoke, softly and demurely. “My sin has been lust, Father, so the appropriate penance will be the denial of sexual satisfaction.”

She stood and unbuttoned the front of her sundress. When she slipped it from her shoulders, she revealed that she was naked underneath.

Father Ignatius wondered if she ever wore underwear. He could not tear his eyes from her breasts. They were not large but perfectly formed. They made his mouth water.

Next she removed a metal and leather device from the paper bag. “This is a modern chastity belt. As long as I am wearing it, I will be unable to obtain sexual satisfaction. The metal shield not only bars any kind of penetration, but also protects the sensitive parts of my anatomy from manual manipulation. Small perforations allow the necessary bodily functions.” Her voice was flat and expressionless as she explained the function of the device.

As she spoke, she belted it around her waist and then threaded the metal shield between her legs to cover her sex. There was a flat lock where the three parts met half-way between her navel and pubic mound. Steel hasps fit into the lock with audible clicks that sounded ominously permanent. Father Ignatius did not doubt that the belt would stay in place until the key was inserted and turned.

She handed two keys to the priest. “These are the only keys to the belt. Please keep them safe. It might be best if you stored them in separate places. I will return to this room after evening mass, two weeks from now so that you can free me. The first part of my chastisement is, as I indicated, the denial of any sexual satisfaction for that period of time. It has been a long time since I spent two weeks without having an orgasm somehow.” She blushed when she admitted that. “The second part of my chastisement is that the device will soon become quite uncomfortable. I had to supply precise measurements to the manufacturer and they made it as comfortable as possible but, obviously, it cannot remain comfortable for long. It is rigid and intrusive and will become an increasing source of irritation. I expect to suffer some chafing as the days wear on. I fear that I may become raw in places if I am not constantly vigilant.” She looked longingly at the keys that the priest was holding. “You may be interested to know that I already feel pangs of denial and I have only suffered celibacy for a few minutes. Two weeks will be a long time.”

A thought occurred to the priest. “What about your husband? While you are denying yourself, you will be denying him as well. How are you going to explain wearing a chastity belt to him? What happens when he asks you for the keys?”

She laughed softly. “That is the third and most onerous part of my punishment. I cannot let my husband know that I am wearing this device. For the next two weeks I will have no choice but to satisfy his needs with my hands and mouth. I will have to keep him so sated that he will not ask to use my body in the normal way. I will minister to him with my tongue and lips morning and night with such enthusiasm that he will not think about doing anything else. If twice a day is not sufficient, then I will service him three times. Or more. Whatever is required.”

Still naked but for the sandals on her feet, she approached the priest, walking with care, her legs slightly spread to keep from rubbing the insides of her upper thighs against the leather and metal shield. She took his hand and led him back to the chair.

He did not resist. Could not resist.

As she sank to her knees in front of him, she said, “I know that I am putting a burden on you, Father. I feel that it is my duty to relieve you of some of that weight. It will also be my honor.” She brushed her hand over the rigid member that was pressing against his cassock, then began unbuttoning the garment.

God help him, he was powerless to resist. He watched her open the lower part of his garments, unbuttoning and pushing them aside until his manhood was freed of its impediments.

She pushed him into the chair and then lowered her head and began licking and sucking on him.

After a few minutes, his groans rose to heaven as his seed filled her mouth in powerful pulses.

She swallowed every drop and then licked him clean. Looking up at him with wide green eyes that feigned naive innocence, she said softly, “Do you think that will keep my husband so happy that that he will not think to ask for anything else?”

“God, yes,” the priest gasped.

“I'm not so sure,” she replied with an endearing smile. “It will be a challenge. I pray to heaven that I'm up to it. Don't forget to meet me here after your last mass fourteen days from today. And don't forget to bring the keys.”

As she left the room, she scooped her dress from the floor and slipped it over her shoulders. She re-buttoned it as she climbed back up the stairs.

Father Ignatius listened to her footsteps fade away. They were slow and measured. She was walking carefully to keep from chafing herself against the belt any more than necessary.

Her punishment was going to be her husband's delight. God willing, for the next fourteen days he would be receiving as many enthusiastic blow jobs as he could handle. And he would never know the reason why.

* * *

The following Sunday, when Mary attended mass with her husband, Father Ignatius could not stop staring at her again, but for a different reason this time. He was searching her face for some indiction of sexual frustration. He saw nothing exceptional. But when he glanced down the pew to her husband, he saw utter bliss on the man's face.

Of all the people in the church, only the priest and the penitent knew that she was being forced to keep her husband contented because, concealed beneath her conservative pink tweed Sunday suit, a bizarre device was locked about her sex.

Constant sexual arousal was exhausting Father Ignatius. He had not had a moment's peace since Mary had first asked for corporal chastisement four weeks ago. At this rate, he was going to die of lust himself. And, when he expelled his last breath, his soul would plummet straight to Hell.

He had not found the courage to confess his sins to the monseigneur and earn absolution. He lacked courage because he knew that the monseigneur would demand that he stop this Medieval nonsense and return to modern church practices. If he refused, he would be removed from this parish and reassigned. But he did not want to stop torturing Mary. He enjoyed it too much.

Until he gained absolution, his soul was at constant risk of eternal damnation.

He looked at Mary's beatific face, then at her husband's delighted glow, and knew that the risk of sudden death was worth it.

A few days later, while hearing confessions, he was given good reason to doubt the wisdom of that decision.

When Maria Cortez finished confessing a handful of standard, boring sins, she refused the usual act of contrition that he specified. Instead, she said, “A few Hail Mary's are not sufficient, Father. I require a physical penance to correct my thoughts and behavior. The salvation of my soul depends upon it.”

“I do not understand what you are saying.” He understood damn well what she was saying because it was exactly what Mary White had said a month earlier. Hearing Maria utter Mary's words made him hard instantly.

“I wish to follow the tradition of mortifying the flesh to purify the soul. A day of physical discomfort will give me the focus required to reflect properly on my sins.”

He did not bother to object. “Did you have some type of physical discomfort in mind?” he sighed.

“Yes, Father. I have some skill as a seamstress and have tailored a modern version of a hair shirt. I will meet you before your Friday mass so that you can secure the shirt to me. I will wear it until you release me from it after Sunday morning mass.”

Father Ignatius sighed but realized that there was no use arguing. This women sounded as determined to punish herself as Mary White had been. Besides, he was curious to see what this woman's idea of a modern version of a hair shirt might be. “Meet me in the undercroft at six o'clock on Friday evening. There is a small room directly under the altar. I will leave the door open for you.”

“Yes, Father. Thank you.”

He did not have to explain what an undercroft was to Maria.

* * *

Friday evening, Father Ignatius watched Maria strip off her shoes, blouse, and skirt. She blushed with modesty when she removed her bra to reveal full round breasts with wide dark areoles and prominent nipples. Her shame increased when she slipped her panties down to reveal her untrimmed thatch of dark pubic hair.

The priest noted that his erection was only modest. A month ago, he would have been sporting a full hard on at the sight of her lovely curves. Mary had given him so much more stimulation that he was already becoming jaded to mere nudity.

When the woman was entirely naked, she removed a black garment from a plastic bag. He could not see the form of the shirt, but he could see that the material was dotted with innumerable silver studs. She rolled it up then stepped through a pair of leg holes with exaggerated gingerness. After she snuggled it against her crotch, she began carefully unrolling it up the length of her torso. It was a leotard that had been tailored to fit her body like a glove. The unbroken front clung to every curve of her breasts and abdomen. She raised her hands to fit the ends of a zipper together at the back of her neck. “If you would, Father, please lower the zipper down my back to the top of my... to the bottom of my spine passed the two small silver holes.”

He did as she asked. She flinched as the edges of the garment were pulled together and fastened down her spine.

The zipper continued all the way under her crotch and up to the base of her pubic mound, but he only lowered it a third of the way down her ass as he had been instructed. At that spot, there was a small grommeted hole on each side of the zipper. Maria took a small padlock from the plastic bag and handed it to him. “Please thread this from the inside through one of those little holes above the zipper and back through the hole on the other side. Then lock it.”

He did as instructed. The function of the padlock was clear. Once it was locked, the loop was too small for the zipper to pass back through it. Unless she cut the material, the leotard was locked onto her body. As well, the holes were strategically positioned so that the padlock, now closed on the inside of the leotard, was nestled out of the way in the upper part of her ass crack. She could wear blue jeans with only the hasp of the lock protruding enough to make a small, virtually unnoticeable lump.

She pulled the zipper down over her ass then reached between her legs and pulled it the rest of the way to the base of her pubic mound.

He understood the function of that part of the zipper as well. When she had to relieve herself, she could unzip her crotch from the top of her vulva around to the lock just above her anus. The material would relax slightly over her buttocks. Not much because it was held tightly by the heavy bands around the tops of her thighs but enough to pull out of the way. Unlike most leotards, this one covered each cheek completely, all the way down to the tops of her legs.

Maria was acting as though she were suffering considerable discomfort. She was moving very slowly and cautiously, breathing shallowly and quickly. Then she explained. “This leotard is decorated by five hundred metal studs. What you cannot see is that each of those studs covers the head of a short, moderately sharp thumbtack. The tacks are not long enough or sharp enough to break my skin, but they will irritate me constantly, especially when I move. However, when I sit or lie down, or if someone presses against me, they will cause considerable actual pain. You will hold the keys and will force me to wear it continuously until after Sunday morning mass. That means that I will have to spend all night tonight, all day tomorrow and all tomorrow night being poked by five hundred steel points. When I sewed it, I had to try it on to test it, but I have never worn it for more than two or three minutes at a time. Even that was terribly uncomfortable. Wearing it constantly for the next day and a half will be a trial of agony, as you see.” She slowly turned to model the garment for her priest.

As he examined her, he appreciated her attention to detail. Though her entire torso was covered with the painful studs, they were concentrated most heavily across her buttock cheeks and breasts. They were placed especially close together over her nipples, looking almost like scales. There was also an irregular line of studs down each side, beginning just under her arm pits and extending across her hips. He smiled when he realized that those studs formed the letters “BLESS ME FATHER” on one side and “FOR I HAVE SINNED” on the other.

She would probably find it slightly less painful to lie on her back and punish her buttocks than to try to lie on her side and have those letters gouging into the tender flesh across her hip bones and ribs. Lying facedown and punishing her breasts would be the worst.

He wondered how long she could remain standing before she became so exhausted that she would willingly accept the pain of sitting or lying down. He guessed not more than eight or nine hours. Other than standing, the only position that would spare her the agony of resting her weight on the spikes would be to support herself on her hands and knees. He wondered if she could sleep on all fours like a cow.

She walked across the concrete floor in her bare feet and grasped the priest's hands in hers. She wrapped his arms around her body to push his palms flat and hard against her buttocks. The pressure made her gasp in pain. Taking fast, shallow breaths, she drew his hands hard across the studs on her hips and abdomen and then upwards to her breasts. She moaned when she flattened her breasts with his palms, pushing the sharp little spikes hard and deep against the nerves there. “Grab me, Father. Feel my devotion.” She sounded like she was forcing herself to say the words.

He gripped her breasts tightly and she opened her mouth wide and groaned in agony, waiting while he took his time, feeling her up through the material. When he finally released her, she wrapped her arms around his back and groaned in his ear, “Hug me, Father. Hug me hard to yourself.”

The woman was a glutton for pain.

She gasped again as he massaged the studs that peppered her back, pulling her torso and abdomen tight against his body. “Lord, God, Almighty,” she almost screamed. “Madre de Dios!”

Then she turned her face upward and kissed him full on the lips.

She did not try to free herself but kept kissing him until he chose to break off.

“What about your husband?” he asked.

“I cannot let him see me unclothed. There's only one way that I can give him pleasure tonight and tomorrow night,” she said. Then she sank to her knees, unfastened the priest's vestments and demonstrated how she would be satisfying her husband when she got home.

That part of Maria's penance was the same as Mary's.

* * *

Maria Cortez attended mass with her husband on Friday night and again on Sunday morning. This was not unusual. The woman and her husband were devout and often attended two masses on the weekend.

This time, Father Ignatius noted that the woman's posture was perfect. He knew why she was sitting rigidly upright and not leaning against the back of the pew. Looking carefully, he could see that she was putting as much of her weight as possible on her thighs and straining her legs to try to keep her weight off her buttocks. Even so, from the pulpit, he could see her jaw clench every time she had to sit down on the hard wood after kneeling in prayer or standing to sing a hymn. By the end of each mass, the poor woman's ass must have been dimpled like a pair of giant golf balls. He half expected to see a pool of blood forming beneath her. He prayed that she was correct when she said that the tacks were too short to penetrate her skin. They had been rubbing against her for so many long, hard hours that he feared that they may have eroded small wounds in her skin.

He noticed that she never squirmed in her seat, but, once in place, stayed perfectly still until the ritual required that she stand or kneel again.

Thirty-six hours of this continuous torture must be nearly killing her.  She could not have slept a wink for two nights, lying on her personal bed of tiny nails. By Sunday mass, she looked utterly exhausted. When she knelt before him to receive communion, he looked into her eyes. They looked like pink and black marbles sunk into soft grey cushions.

After mass, he got away from his parishioners as quickly as he could and rushed down to the undercroft to unlock the garment's zipper. He wanted to relieve the woman of her suffering immediately.

She was not there when he arrived. After waiting for a full quarter hour, he had no choice but to return to his office and begin working on his duties for the day. God might have rested on Sunday but it is a busy workday for His priests.

As he worked through his duties, he worried about Maria. Wherever she was, she must be suffering terribly. But his concern was tempered by an streak of disappointment. He had come to expect some kind of sexual reward from the women when they completed their physical penance. He had been hoping that Maria would perform a sexual act on him in gratitude for ending her penance. Now he was suffering terrible frustration and his blue balls ached for relief.

As time rolled on, he became less worried and more irritated that she was making him wait on her convenience. Maybe she didn't need him to release her. Maybe she had taken a pair of scissors and cut the garment from herself already. Maybe she had done that as soon as she had left him on Friday night and had been only pretending to suffer for the last day and a half.

It was late in the afternoon when Maria finally caught up with him in the sacristy where he was preparing the host for the evening mass.

“Father! Thank God I found you at last. I can't stand to spend another minute in penance in this terrible shirt. Please unlock me.”

He looked at her with a mild expression. “I waited for you in the undercroft after the morning mass as we agreed.”

“Yes, Father. I'm so sorry. I was going to excuse myself from my family to use the restroom and then go downstairs but my husband grew impatient while you were still wishing the congregation farewell and insisted on taking me home. I was not able to return until now.”

“I see. Well, I cannot do anything for you in the sacristy. It is too public. Please go to the undercroft and wait for me.”

“Yes, Father.” Maria turned to leave.

“Wait a minute.”

“Yes, Father?” she turned back.

“Are you contrite about your sins?”

“Yes, Father.”

“I think you would benefit from a little additional contemplation. You are to go down to the room in the undercroft and prostate yourself on the floor. Pray for forgiveness while you are waiting. I will be down as soon as I finish my business here.”

“Prostrate myself? You want me to lay face down on the floor while I'm wearing this shirt?”

“Yes.”

“The floor is concrete,” she wailed.

Her distress pleased him. “Prostrate yourself cruciform. Remove all your clothing but for the leotard and then lie down and stretch your arms wide like Christ on the cross. In your prayers give Christ thanks for the suffering that he endured for the sake of your sins.”

“Yes, Father.” Her voice was quavering in fear of the agony that she would feel when she pressed the full weight of her upper body against the spikes covering her breasts and abdomen.

She did not know how long she would have to suffer this agony.

For a full hour, he waited in his office, stroking his cock gently, being careful to avoid stimulating himself enough to cause an orgasm. The woman would have spent the first minute or two pressing down against the floor  with her hands to support as much of her weight as possible. But if her arms were stretched to their full extent, she would have no leverage. She would tire almost immediately and have to rest her full weight on her torso. The dense clusters of cruel steel points would press deep into the unfortunate woman's nipples and aureole. That part of a woman's anatomy is thick with sensitive nerve endings. She would suffer a full measure of agony. Every minute would feel like an eternity. As much pain as the woman below him must be experiencing, that was the degree of pleasure that he was enjoying. He wanted the afternoon never to end. After an hour, though, he could dally no longer. He had to get on with preparing for the evening mass. He though briefly about leaving Maria prostrate on the concrete floor until the mass ended at ten-thirty but dared not. Mary White would be coming to have her chastity belt removed and he did not want the two women to meet.

When he entered the room in the undercroft, he found Maria stretched out as instructed. The concrete below her face was pooled with tears and she was sobbing continuously. When she saw him, she begged for him to forgive her sins.

“You are forgiven,” he intoned as he drew the key from his pocket, “but remain where you are. Spread your legs as far apart as possible.”

She did as instructed.

“Now raise you behind into the air a few inches and spread your knees wide.”

Pressing down with her knees forced her breasts into even more full contact with the concrete floor. She barely managed to stifle her screams.

He reached between her legs to feel for the zipper pull that hung down from the base of her pubic mound. Slowly he drew it over her crotch. As the garment parted, he revealed her lower lips lining her lovely wet slit then her puckered brown anus. Finally he reached the point where the lock restricted the zipper from moving any further. He used the key to unlock the padlock. “Lower your rear.”

She pushed her abdomen against the concrete, forcing that set of spikes to dimple her flesh anew.

He removed the lock and then slowly raised the zipper along her spine, allowing the back of the leotard to part. When he finally uncoupled the neckline, he said, “Your suffering has caused me a certain discomfort.”

“I'm sorry Father. If you allow me to remove this leotard, I will be pleased to relieve your discomfort with my breasts.”

“With your breasts?” The priest did not understand what she meant but his curiosity was aroused.

“Yes, Father. I will show you.”

“Show me.”

With a low groan, she pushed herself off the floor and gingerly pulled the leotard away from her skin. Though the points had not pierced her skin or caused bleeding, they had dimpled her flesh so deeply that she had to pull them away, particularly around the brown tips of her breasts.

The process must have been excruciating.

Father Ignatius found the sight breathtaking.

As she rolled the garment down her torso, she revealed a delightful pattern of small dark bruises with a depression at the center of each one. He could almost read the words that had been spelled by the studs along the sides of her torso. Her skin would be mottled for some time. He wondered idly how she would explain that to her husband. Most likely she would make love to him in the dark for the foreseeable future.

When she was entirely naked, she opened the priest's cassock to free his rampant member and then pushed her sternum lightly against it. Putting a hand on the side of each ample breast, she pushed them together to completely engulf his male organ. She began squeezing, rubbing, and massaging him with her breasts. While doing this, she drooled copious amounts of saliva down onto him to provide some lubrication.

Involuntarily, he began rocking his hips to increase the stimulation.

He came so hard that his seed flew into her face. She had felt him coming and deliberately bent her head over his member to collect his emission on her face.

He watched in fascination as she lowered her face to lick him clean, then used her finger to swipe his creamy seed from her face and breasts and push it into her mouth. As she did that, she kept looking up at him and smiling as though she were eating the most delightful treat on earth.

He almost forgot about going back upstairs and performing the evening mass.

* * *

Late in the evening, Father Ignatius returned to the little undercroft dungeon and found Mary waiting patiently for him.

She smiled happily when she saw him and said, “Bless me, Father, for I have been celibate for a fortnight. Now I beg you to unlock my sex.” She reached down to grasp her hem and bunch up her her skirt to expose the chastity belt that was still locked about her waist.

Father Ignatius took the key from his pocket and played with it idly. “I was celibate for years.”

Mary stared at the key with an intense, hungry look and did not answer. She did not know what she could say about his vow of celibacy. Or the fact that she had been instrumental in breaking it for him.

“Maybe you would benefit from another two weeks of celibacy, Mary,” he said with a leer.

She was taken aback. After a pause, she said, “On behalf of my husband, I beg you not to do that.  I've been keeping him sated with my mouth morning and night for the last two weeks, but he is growing impatient for normal love. I dare not try to put him off a single day longer for fear that he will discover our secret. That would be disastrous for us.”

The priest cringed at her use of the plural pronoun. She was clearly implying that she would expose him as a participant in these highly questionable activities if she were questioned. Still, he had to maintain his authority. It would not do for this woman to dictate terms to him. “So your main concern is for your husband's happiness, not your own?”

“Yes, Father. I owe my husband the full use of my whole body, not just my tongue and lips.”

“Very well. Then that is what you shall give him. Your sin was unnatural lust for your husband so the second half of your penance will be a surfeit of natural lust. As you have been satisfying him with your mouth twice a day for the past two weeks, so, for the next two weeks, you will satisfy him twice each day without using your mouth. Twice daily is the minimum. You should tell him explicitly that you want to make love to him as often as possible and tell him that you will welcome him between your legs as often as he is able penetrate you. Let him know that it is a private game and you want to win as high a score as possible. Do you think that he would like that?”

She looked at the priest in shock and said nothing for a long moment. Then she whispered, “It's too much.”

He smiled. “Every wife should love her husband too much.” To screw her further, he added another condition. “To make it clear that you are ready to take him into yourself at any time, you will wear only skirts and dresses. No pants or panties. Nothing that has to be removed to give him access. For two weeks, you have worn an impenetrable barrier between your legs. For the next two weeks, you will wear no barrier whatsoever.”

She lowered her eyes and whispered, “Yes, Father.”

“This will be good for your marriage. I have seldom seen a man in my congregation as happy as your husband during the past two weeks. God will be pleased to see his happiness continue.”

“Yes, Father.”

He offered her the key.

She stepped forward but, before accepting it, whispered, “I began my period of celibacy with service to you. I should end it in the same way.”

She sank to her knees and opened his cassock.

As the priest had received service between Maria's breasts six hours earlier, it took a few extra minutes for Mary to coax his seed from him with her mouth. But, after two weeks of servicing her husband in this manner twice daily, Mary was now able to keep her mouth open wide for long periods without suffering undue discomfort. Practice makes perfect.

Only after she had received his seed in her mouth and licked his shrinking member clean did she take the key and remove the hateful barrier to her sex from between her legs.

As she stepped out of the belt, she laughed wryly. “One of the things that I most wanted at the end of my penance was to wear pants again. The chastity belt was too bulky to hide under anything but loose dresses. Now it looks like I'll be wearing those dresses for another two weeks anyway. If pantyhose is out of the question. I'm going to have to buy stay-ups to wear with my suits to mass.”

The priest nodded gravely, waiting until she turned to the door before breaking into a happy grin.

He would be fantasizing about Mary's naked sex when he watched her during his sermons.

* * *

Father Ignatius was disappointed that neither Mary nor Maria came to confession during the following week, but not surprised. Mary would not be ready to ask for another penance as she was still serving the two-week extension to her previous one that he had improvised. Maria would probably not come back until her bruises from the spiked leotard faded.

Then, on Friday, he was surprised by yet another sinner.

After confessing her sins and being assigned the usual Hail Marys, Marilyn Esciu said, “For the sake of my soul, Father, I beg you to give me a physical penance. I require something more intense than Hail Marys to turn my thoughts to the correct path.”

Again? Was every woman in this congregation going to cone to confession and beg to be tortured in some way? What kind of sickness was spreading through his parish?

A sickness that gave him constant erections, apparently. The words, physical penance alone were now sufficient to make him hard.

“What did you have in mind?”

Marilyn Esciu was a somewhat overweight woman in her mid-twenties. She was newly married – he had performed the ceremony himself less than a year ago – to a handsome young man who worked in construction. Father Ignatius was not particularly surprised when Marilyn replied, “Gluttony is a mortal sin, Father, and anyone can see that I have been committing that sin since I was wed. I try to eat in moderation, but always fail. I keep gaining weight rather than losing it.”

That was true, Father Ignatius remembered her wedding dress – strapless with a corseted brocade waist that offered an amazing view of her cleavage – and doubted that she would fit into it again.

She sounded like she was near tears when she added ,“Mortal sins are a serious matter. I need a serious penance to strengthen my resolve to change my ways.”

“Obviously you have given this some thought.”

“Yes, Father.”

“So what do you think would be an appropriate penance?”

“Fasting, of course.”

Of course. Father Ignatius knew more than most about fasting; he had written a major essay about it when he was a seminarian. It could be medically dangerous for people with low body fat or if undertaken for so long that it deprived a person of necessary vitamins and minerals. However, Marilyn would not be damaged by missing a few meals. Human beings, like other animals, had found themselves in situations where food was scarce throughout history. If they had been so fragile that they would be damaged by moderate periods of food deprivation, the species would have died out long ago.

There was a long tradition of fasting in the Catholic church, thought religious fasts seldom required total abstinence from food. The church preferred partial fasts that involved fewer meals of smaller portions than normal, such as Black Fasts that permitted a person bread and water only. People had carried much less body fat in the Middle Ages and total fasts back then would have been dangerous.

There are numerous Biblical references that provide a theological basis for fasting. The best known is the forty days Jesus spent in the desert, but that is not the only one. Father Ignatius would not have a problem suggesting a safe fast for a penitent.

“How much weight do you want to lose?” he asked.

“When I visited my doctor last week, she said that I should lose twenty pounds.”

He judged that to be about right. Marilyn was a tall woman, overweight but not especially obese. Most of her excess weight was carried on her thighs and belly. And on her breasts. She sported the best endowed chest in his congregation and he suspected that it was all mother nature. Marilyn did not seem the type to want implants. Combined, her magnificent mammaries must weight at least fifteen pounds. Her husband was going to be sorely disappointed if she lost half the size of her breasts by fasting.

Remembering her wedding dress, Father Ignatius was certain that she would keep her breasts and lose her excess weight elsewhere.

So, if her doctor recommended twenty pounds, then twenty pounds it would be. “After mass tonight, go down to the undercroft and wait for me in the small room underneath the altar. I will explain your penance for gluttony at that time.”

“Yes, Father.”

“And do not eat anything from now until then. Drink only water.”

“Yes, Father.”

Marilyn was his last confession for the day and he followed her out of the confessional. He had some shopping to do so he took a hundred and fifty dollars from the poor box. He rationalized that this was no sin because the money would be spent in observance of religious piety.

Gluttony was a mortal sin, after all.

* * *

Marilyn was waiting in the dungeon room as instructed. Father Ignatius entered carrying a large, heavy cardboard box. After depositing it on the table, he returned to lock the door.

He spoke first. “What did you eat this evening?”

She looked up at him and jutted her chin forward defiantly. “I was hungry. I wasn't prepared to begin fasting yet.”

“What did you eat?”

“I couldn't let my husband eat alone. I had already put the roast in the oven and couldn't let it go to waste. Waste is a sin.”

“What did you eat?”

“Roast beef, mashed potatoes, and cole slaw.” She looked at him with a slight rueful grin on her face. “And a spoonful of horseradish. Does that count, too?”

“What else?”

“A dish of ice cream. Cookie dough ice cream.”

“What else?”

“Nothing else.”

“What else?” he insisted.

“Well, a few crackers. With peanut butter. Just before I came here.”

“What did you drink?”

“Milk. I always drink milk with my crackers.”

“What instructions did I give you?”

“To drink only water.” She rushed to justify her disobedience. “But I was the one who asked for the fasting and I wasn't ready to begin yet. It was my idea so I should decide when to start. I needed to get myself prepared.”

“The way to not waste food is to not prepare it in the first place. Putting food that you don't need into your stomach wastes it just as surely as putting it into a garbage can. You compounded your sin of gluttony with the sin of wastefulness. Now you have tripled your sin by adding disobedience to gluttony and wastefulness. Do you agree that there should be consequences for your sins?”

“What kind of consequences?”

“Painful consequences. Consequences that will discourage you from sinning again.”

The woman dropped her eyes for the first time. “Yes, Father.”

He unlocked a cabinet in the corner, removed a leather strap, and laid it on the table. It was the strap that Mary White had left with him five weeks earlier.

Marilyn's eyes fixated on the leather strip and her jaw sagged to part her lips slightly. The purpose of the implement was obvious; shock was evident on her face.

“Stand up.”

She stood.

He moved the chair so that the back was facing her, pressing against her ample stomach.

“Lower your panties and raise your skirt to your waist.”

Her hands were trembling, but she did as instructed.

“Bend over and grab the seat of the chair with both hands.”

She obeyed.

He waled into her backside without mercy until she was screaming in pain and begging him to stop. He must have given her a good three dozen strokes before he lowered the strap again. Her full white cheeks were burnished scarlet by the leather. She remained bent over the chair, limp and sobbing freely until he told her to stand again.

She could not look at him.

He placed the strap back on the table and said, “Do not make me use that again or it will be worse for you.”

She did not answer.

He took bathroom scales from the box and set them on the floor in the corner. “Take off your clothes.”

She stripped to her underwear. Her movements were slow and reluctant.

“All of your clothes.” He kept his voice flat, fearful of revealing how eager he was to see her magnificent breasts. He had spent many hours in the pulpit looking down at her, fantasizing about this very moment.

She wore an industrial-strength bra. When she reached behind her back and unhooked it, the huge cups fell forward, allowing her globes to fall into their natural position. She slipped the straps from her shoulders to reveal wonderful bright pink nipples and full, round areoles.

Father Ignatius prayed that angels in heaven would be so endowed. It would make eternity a paradise indeed.

She made no move to lower her panties. He let that pass without comment. Unlike her heavy-duty bra, the flimsy silk would add but a negligible amount to her weight. Besides, he had seen all that she had to offer between her legs when he had strapped her naked ass.

“Step on the scales.”

She was even less eager to step on the scales than she had been to present her naked ass for whipping or to strip off her clothes.

He had to tell her again, “Step on the scales now or I'll have to give your behind another hiding.”

She looked at the strap laying on the table, licked her lips nervously, then stepped on the scales. She knew how to operate electronic scales and tapped them on before mounting the platform.

Father Ignatius took a little notebook from the box and jotted the number down.

“You can get dressed now.”

Her body jiggled as she pranced back to her clothes and threw them on as quickly as possible.

“Your fast begins now. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Father,” she said contritely.

“You can break your fast whenever you want.”

Her expression brightened considerably. “Yes, Father,” she replied with a jaunty tone.

“There's only one condition.”

“Yes?”

He took three cans of dog food from his box, a can opener, and a spoon. “You will break your fast the way a dog breaks its fast, with a dog's breakfast.”

“What?” she almost shrieked.

“The next thing that you eat will be one of these cans of dog food. They are quality low-fat medical food from a veterinarian. They are healthy and nutritious, though probably not delicious. At least, not for people. You will keep one of them in your purse along with the can opener and spoon at all times. Put the others with the food that you would normally eat in your kitchen. If you want a slice of roast beef or a bowl of ice cream, you can go right ahead as long as you eat a full can of dog food first.”

“I will never eat dog food.”

“That's how you know that you're not really hungry, merely peckish. A person who is really hungry will eat anything. Insects, rodents, maggots. Anything. All you have to do is look at that dog food and ask yourself if you are ready to eat it. If the answer is no, then you are not nearly as hungry as you think. You don't have to look at clocks or calendars to know when you have fasted for long enough. Just look at the can. As long as there is still dog food in it, then you know that you are not close to starving to death no matter what you are feeling.”

“I will starve to death before I put dog food in my mouth,” she replied.

He opened the can and pushed it across the table to her. “Smell that. It smells disgusting, right? I guarantee that you'll decide that it's the most delectable, mouth-watering smell in the world long before you starve to death.”

She averted her face.

He took the can away and replaced it with another unopened can from his box. “I bought a case of two dozen. Don't worry about running out of dog food. If something happens to these three cans, I will replace them for you. Starting tomorrow morning, you'll come back here every day at nine o'clock sharp so that I can weigh you. As well, you will be ready to show me the can of dog food in your purse any time I ask to see it. I'm serious when I say that you will carry it with you at all times. Disobedience will incur a severe punishment in addition to the fast. Just remember. You can eat anything you want any time you want. The only condition is that you eat an entire can of dog food as an appetizer. You asked for a fast. I've granted your wish. And I've told you how you can end it any time you change your mind.” He could not contain his smile.

“You have no idea how stubborn I am,” she snarled defiantly. “I mean it when I say that I will starve to death before I put a single spoonful of that shit in my mouth.”

“I guess we're going to see which of us is the more stubborn, then. When you find your thoughts occupied with food, then get down on your knees and pray for forgiveness. That's what fasting is about. Turning your thoughts from your stomach to God.”

Her purse was capacious. She easily fit all three cans in it, along with the can opener and long-handled spoon.

“I'll see you at nine tomorrow morning for your next weight check.”

She did not reply.

Unlike the other 'special penitents', Marilyn left without offering her mouth to his service. Maybe she feared that she would have to eat dog food before eating him.

Not for the first time, he wished that one of the women would invite him to plumb the depths of their sex instead of their mouths. As good as the regular blow jobs felt, he was ready for something more.

He understood how Mary's husband must have felt after she had been wearing her chastity belt for two weeks.

* * *

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”

Father Ignatius' heart leaped with joy to hear Mary White's voice behind the confessional screen. He had not expected to hear from her yet. Her penance to make herself constantly available to her husband would not expire for another week.

“I have only one sin worth discussing, Father. I have been gossiping.”

He was confused to hear this. “I thought that you told me that gossip was the one sin that you never commit.”

“Apparently I sometimes lie, as well,” she replied, casually. “I should confess to that, too, I guess. The worst part about the gossip, though, is that I told two other women about what has transpired between you and me in the confessional. I'm sure that you agree that I need a severe penance for this transgression.”

Father Ignatius felt himself flush with fury. “You certainly do,” he spat out.  Mary had promised him that she would protect him by keeping everything that happened between them secret. When Maria and Marilyn had asked for similar treatment, he had realized in the back of his mind that Mary must have prompted them to do it, but he had ignored his misgivings because things had become so interesting. He had reason to be as angry at himself as at her.

But he would vent his anger on her, not on himself. He would order her down to his dungeon and beat her to within an inch of her life.

Then he struggled to bring his emotions under control. He could not afford to do anything drastic. If he did anything without her agreement, especially anything that left physical marks, her husband would get involved and that would ruin him. “What penance do you propose?” he asked as calmly as he could manage.

“I selected a severe penance that is completely appropriate to my sin. More severe than any of us have suffered yet. I will serve my penance in the undercroft room for twelve hours, beginning at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. I am dreading the suffering that I will have to endure but you will know that I will be spending a full day regretting my betrayal to the depths of my soul. You deserve my contrition.”

“I will see you at nine tomorrow morning,” he replied coldly.

He spent the evening wondering what Mary had planned for herself. Maria's spiked leotard had been especially brutal, but Marilyn's penance was no picnic, either. She had been suffering constant gnawing hunger for days and it would continue for weeks longer before she lost enough weight. Even Mary's chastity belt must have been oppressive when she had to wear it for day after day. If Mary said that her next penance would be more severe than those punishments, she must be planning something dreadful.

When he entered the room the following morning, he found Mary waiting patiently. Her face was an emotionless mask. There was a bulging plastic bag on the table.

Without ado, she removed a strange device from the bag. The size of her head, it consisted of metal straps bent into circular shapes and bolted together. “Because I spoke when I should not, I have reproduced an ancient device called a brank that stops a woman's tongue from wagging for as long as she wears it. And the memory of having worn it is certain to stop her tongue in the future. Once I lock it about my head, I will not be able to speak again until you unlock it.” She handed him a pair of keys, then said, “Please forgive my sin, Father.”

Without another word, she raised the device and began fitting it around her head. It formed a kind of tight steel cage formed from two full horizontal hoops and one vertical half hoop. The lower hoop, hinged at the side, fit around her jaw and neck below her ears. From that, another piece projected upward across her mouth, bent around her nose, across her forehead, over the crown of her head, and then back down to the nape of her neck. This piece was hinged at the mouth where a heavy gauge steel angle iron was attached. A second solid hoop was fastened around her head above her brow.

When she swung the front piece into place, Mary had to open her mouth to admit the angle iron. It intruded inside, sliding past her teeth to the back of her tongue. When she closed the hinge, the steel projection pressed her tongue firmly against the floor of her mouth. It was angled slightly downward to put even pressure on the full length of her tongue.

The steel piece in her mouth had a small piece of sheet metal bolted to it. The edges of the sheet metal had been serrated and bent down so that dull points were pressing into her tongue. They were not sharp enough to cut her if she kept her tongue still but she dared not move her tongue against it. That made the device not merely uncomfortable, but viciously cruel. She would have to concentrate on holding her tongue still for as long as she wore the device.

She gagged a little when the foreign object depressed her tongue and she had to pause and take a few deep breaths to accommodate it.

When both hinges were closed, the straps met in the back of her head. They ended in loops of steel. She reached behind her head and threaded the hasp of a heavy padlock through the loops. When the lock clicked closed, the brank could no longer be removed without unlocking it.

Father Ignatius examined the construction with fascination. The straps were bent from heavy gauge steel strips with a row of perforations down the center. He had seen these in hardware stores. They were used for hanging heavy things like pipes from floor joists.The steel straps had been bolted together, but the threaded ends of the bolts were pounded flat so that the nuts could not be unscrewed. They would have to be cut off.

The weight of the device was borne by the straps over and around her head. The lock on the back helped counterbalance the extra weight of the strapping and plates on the front. When he bent to peer into her mouth, she parted her teeth to allow his examination. The device did not hold her jaw closed – she could breath freely through her mouth – but it held her tongue firmly.

She closed her lips back around the tongue depressor and stared at him impassively past the strap that followed the bridge of her nose. The drool that was pooling in her mouth overflowed and spilled down her chin. With her tongue pinned, she could not swallow effectively.

He wanted to ask her if she had made the device herself but she wouldn't be able to utter a single word all day.

He looked at her hands clasped in her lap. She was not wearing a watch and would not be able to count down the hours that she would have to wait. And she certainly would not be leaving this room with this device locked on her head. There were no windows, so she would not know if he returned on time or had decided to let her continue to suffer passed her deadline and late into the night.

Of course, there was no books, television, or radio in the room to speed the passage of time. She could do nothing but sit in silent agony for hour after hour, contemplating her sins.

A tear trickled down her cheek. Already she was suffering to the point of tears. And her long day had barely begun.

Father Ignatius locked the door on his way out, not to keep Mary in, but to keep everyone else out. It would not do to allow anyone to discover her predicament.

If she was discovered, she wouldn't be able to explain herself.

* * *

It was impossible for Father Ignatius to think about anything but the solitary, silent woman confined in the undercroft. An hour in the device would be dreadful. Two hours agony. Twelve hours unimaginable.

But he was not imagining anything. Dreadful torture was really occurring a short walk from his office.

He was tempted to walk downstairs and look in on her to reassure himself that she was not in distress. But he knew that she was; and that leaving her alone was part of her distress. She did not deserve even a slight distraction from her punishment so he left her to suffer alone for hour upon hour.

He was still angry that she had betrayed their secret. Even if that betrayal had resulted in two other women delivering themselves into his hands for delightful punishments of their own, it was still a betrayal and it could have gone badly for both of them.

When the hour hand finally circled the dial and returned to nine, he rushed down to the undercroft and unlocked the door.

Mary was sitting on one of the chairs, her hands folded in her lap, much as he had left her.

The front of her blouse was dark, soaked with saliva. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and her eyes red from crying.

She sat completely still.

He pulled the keys from her pocket, but she slowly shook her head.

He was confused. He was supposed to free her now. Surely she desperately wanted to be free. Yet she was refusing something and could not explain why.

As he stood in confusion, she rose smoothly from the chair, walked to him, and sank to her knees at his feet.

He had become accustomed to his female penitents kneeling to service him at the end of their penance, but Mary couldn't do that now. No part of him was going into any mouth that was filled with jagged steel and blocked by heavy straps.

She unfastened his clothing to free his erection, then pulled a foil packet from a pocket and tore it open. As she unrolled a condom over him, his heart leaped for joy. If the woman could not use her mouth to thank him for her penance, then she must be intending to allow him into her sex.

She rose to her feet, turned, raised her skirt to her waist, spread her legs wide, and bent herself over the edge of the table.

He was confused by what he saw. She was wearing a chastity belt again but it was different from her other belt. This one covered only her sex. Instead of the piece that ran up the crack between her buttocks, it had two pieces that angled across her cheeks, leaving her anus unobstructed.

She pulled a tube from her pocket, squeezed a large dollop of lubricant on her fingers and worked it deep into her asshole.

Her meaning was unequivocal. Her mouth and sex were both blocked so she had prepared her only available orifice for his use.

She rested her cruelly caged head on the table and waited.

He walked over to her and pushed himself inside, not too quickly, but slowly and firmly, taking pleasure in feeling her sphincter muscles reluctantly part to admit him.

She might have wanted to scream or call out, but her tongue was still gripped firmly in its steel trap. She could only moan, softly and deeply.

He worked a slow steady rhythm for several minutes before he finally came.

It was good. Her ass was tight and hot. He had never done this before and wondered how often she had. She had never confessed to letting her husband sodomize her but that did not mean that they didn't do it.

When he finally withdrew his flagging member, he had to remind himself to free the woman's head. He turned the key to unlock the padlock but let her remove the device from her own head. He did not want to accidentally scrape the steel points across her tongue. She took exceptional care in withdrawing it from her mouth.

She said nothing as she returned the device to the plastic bag. Then she looked at him and said, “Tankew, Faddah.” Her tongue was so sore and stiff that she could barely enunciate the words. Fresh tears were flowing down her face.

He had many questions that he wanted to ask but knew that she would not be able to answer them until her mouth recovered from its cruel mistreatment.

She left the brank in the room for him to lock in the cabinet in the corner. He wondered if she would want him to use it on her again some day.

* * *

At nine o'clock, he entered the dungeon room and found, as on previous days, Marilyn Esciu waiting to be weighed. She had now been fasting for five days and had to be almost desperate enough to eat the can of dog food that was stowed in her purse.

She told him that she had not been cheating and he believed that because she had been losing weight rapidly. It was good that she was telling him the truth because the penance for lying to him would be a few hours of contemplative silence enforced by the brank.

By stubbornly clinging to her determination to starve herself to death rather than eat the disgusting paste of meat scraps, offal, and cereals, she had lost almost ten pounds in five days. A few of those pounds would be the contents of her gut that had been full and was now empty, but most of them would be lost fat. Her face looked thinner to his eye.

Though he was no doctor, he knew that her health could be damaged if she lost much more weight at such a rapid pace. It was time to adjust her fast.

Most days she gave him head after her weighing – he wryly thought that his seed was the one thing that she was allowed to eat without eating dog food first – but she made no such offer today. Instead, she began dressing immediately.

He waited until she was fully dressed, then said, “The time has come to change your regime from a total fast to a Black Fast. From now on, you may eat two kaiser buns each day, one in the morning and one in the evening, along with your water. But you eat them dry. No butter or jam or any other addition to them. Unless, you want to eat your can of dog food first, of course. If you do that, then you can eat whatever you want.”

“Not for all the food on earth,” she snarled. Hunger had made her rather ill-tempered.

He smiled. When she lost another five pounds, he would end the black fast and put her on a more reasonable diet. She would lose her remaining weight more slowly but it should be gone in a month or so. That would be a short time to lose twenty pounds, but not dangerously short. His long-term plan was to enforce a maintenance diet with weekly weighings and returning her to a few days of total fasting if she gained more than three pounds over her target weight.

If she kept doing as he said, she would never have to eat a bite of dog food. He liked that. He wanted to control her, to force her to obey him, but did not want her to eat anything disgusting. He had researched the contents of dog food and knew better than her exactly how disgusting it was.

When he opened the door to leave the room, he was shocked to find the other two special penitents, Mary and Maria waiting patiently outside. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his heart suddenly leaping into his chest. Having all three women confront him at once could not be good.

“Father,” Mary said, “if you could wait for a few minutes, it's important that we talk to you. You need to understand what is going on here. We need to tell you what we are really doing.”

He stepped back into the room.

The other two women followed him.

“We, the three of us, are working together. We call ourselves the Magdalenes,” Mary said. “after Mary Magdalene, Jesus' consort. Or possibly his wife if you believe Dan Brown. Or his pet social work project if you believe early church propaganda. We are completely dedicated to the church but we believe that, in one particular aspect, it has been following a false doctrine based on faulty theology and misinterpreted history. Demanding that priests be celibate made some sense in the middle ages. At that time, secular power was passed through hereditary lines. This did not work well. The church authorities didn't know much about inbreeding or genetics but they could see that the nobility decayed visibly from one generation to the next. The church held as much power as the aristocracy and the most certain way to ensure that the priesthood never fell into the same cycle of decay as the secular nobility was to ensure that they had no children. Lacking effective birth control, that meant celibacy. Even then, though, enforced celibacy posed serious problems. Priests are normal men with powerful sexual drives that cannot be suppressed indefinitely. There is nothing new about sexual scandals in the priesthood. There have been rumors about licentious clergy throughout history, extending all the way up to various popes. Today, though, in the age of the Internet, secular governments, and powerful forensic technologies, the truth will out with an inevitability never seen before. Rumors soon become criminal cases and the church risks mortal damage. We Magdalenes offer a practical alternative.”

“I see,” the priest said, darkly.

“I'm sure that you do, but let me make our intentions clear and specific to ensure that there are no misunderstandings between us. In a nutshell, we offer ourselves for any use that you might otherwise be tempted to force from an altar boy. Instead of using his mouth, you may use ours. Instead of buggering him, you can bugger us. Instead of bullying and abusing him, you can bully and abuse us. The one thing that you cannot do is take us vaginally. That is reserved for our husbands.”

Mary raised her skirt to display a chastity belt – the one that covered her vagina but left her anus freely available. The other two women followed suit to show that they were wearing the same device. Marilyn must have slipped hers on when she getting dressed. He had not noticed because he paid closer attention to women when they were taking their clothes off than when they were putting them back on.

“Any time that we are alone in your presence, we will wear these chastity belts to safeguard that which we reserve for our husbands' exclusive use. It's not that we don't trust you, but it would be a tragedy for everyone if a mistake was made.”

The priest shrugged. “It doesn't matter. I'm going to end this now, anyway.”

“There's nothing for you to end,” Maria replied. “We're doing what we are doing without your consent or approval. We're making an offer and it will stand indefinitely. You can take advantage of it whenever and as often you wish, now or next week or next year or never, but nothing that you do will change our terms.”

“Incidentally,” Marilyn said, “there are a couple of reasons for there being three of us rather than just one. First, you can't claim lack of variety. If you get bored with one of us, you can use the others rather than preying on our sons.”

“I'm not a homosexual,” the priest replied archly. “I have no interest in men or boys.”

“Our daughters, then,” she answered. “Same problem, same solution. You can use us and only us to satisfy your natural needs. You try anything with anyone else, consensual or not, and we will go ballistic. We will go straight to the police and tell all. We won't lie. We won't claim that we were raped or abused against our will–”

“Unless we were,” Maria interjected, recalling being forced to lie on a concrete floor with little spikes digging into her nipples for an hour. She had not planned on that.

“Right,” Marilyn continued, “unless you actually have abused against our will. We tell the police all of the details about whatever has happened between us, including admitting our willing participation, and let the lawyers sort out who committed what crimes. We will tell the full and blunt truth simply so that we don't have to worry about coordinating our stories or being consistent with forensic evidence that is uncovered by later investigations.”

“The consequences of our public testimony must be obvious to you. Our marriages will be destroyed. Our families will be devastated. We will never recover our lives. But you won't recover your life either. You will be defrocked. Excommunicated. Likely imprisoned. Destroyed.” Mary stared at the priest. “It's MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction.”

“More accurately, Magdalene Assured Destruction,” Marilyn laughed uneasily. “I would like to say a word about abuse because that is the most delicate part of our deal. We are offering ourselves for physical abuse to make sure that all of your needs are met, including the dark ones, but there are obvious limits to what you can do to us. We can't explain or hide too many visible marks nor can we be kept away from our homes without making prior arrangements. Guide yourself by what you think you could get away with with an altar boy and you'll be on the right track. I think we've already shown you that our limits will give you have ample latitude to make our lives a joyless hell if you need to do that. But none of us enjoy being abused, so we are trusting that you won't be any harsher with us than you need to be.”

Father Ignatius remembered about the things that the women had demanded as penance. He could not imagine himself being any harsher than they had already been with themselves. But he could think of a few more punishments that would be interesting to inflict on these sinful woman.

As far as he was concerned, the greatest sin of all was to lead another person into a sinful life, especially a righteous person like a parish priest. These women would learn a whole new level of contrition before he was done with them.

Mary finished by saying, “So the bottom line is simple. You use us to satisfy your needs and you stay away from everyone else. And you keep quiet about it. We let you use us while we keep an eye on you. And we keep quiet about it. In that way, we will all protect the church and serve God.”

The priest was silent. His eyes were locked on the skirts that the three women were still holding bunched up at their waists, baring their lovely legs, crotches, and lower bellies.

“By the way,” Maria added, “the whole confession and penance thing during the last six weeks was our way of introducing you to our services. If we had simply told you what we were offering, you would not have believed us so we had to show you exactly what we had in mind. But, from now on, you don't have to wait for us to come to confession. When you want us, all you have to do is turn on a red light in your office. Get a lamp with a red bulb and put it by the window. We'll each check at least once a day. If you turn on the light, one of us will make an appointment to meet you in this room as soon as possible. We are here to serve.”

“That's pretty much it,” Maria said. “I believe that Mary and Marilyn have things to do but I have some free time so I'll stay for a while and let you entertain yourself if you wish. I haven't been whipped or buggered in the service of God for quite some time. I believe that there is a strap and lubricant in the cabinet.”

While the other two dropped their hems and left the room, Maria turned and bent over the table, offering her naked ass for the priest's use and abuse if he wished.

He did.

And when he was finished, he gave heartfelt thanks to God and gratefully blessed the three sinners in his congregation.

He could see himself serving this parish for many wonderful years.