The Darker Side

  A pause. Michael could imagine the priest covering a sigh.

  “And where do you touch yourself, my child?”

  A sharp breath, indrawn.

  She likes this question, Michael thinks.

  “Between my legs, Father. Under the panties, and inside the lips of my pussy.”

  Michael’s mouth dropped open farther. What kind of harlot uses the word pussy in a confessional?

  He chastised himself for his own hypocrisy. Hypocrisy was a form of pride, and pride was a sin. The truth was, the whole thing had given him a raging hard-on. The idea of Mrs. Stevens (she of the blonde hair and the large bosoms) touching herself there—heck, the idea of her in panties—was an image that boggled the mind’s eye.

  The downside to this, of course, was that he’d have to come clean in confession. He’d have to admit—again—to hiding behind the curtain against the wall, to putting his ear up against the confessional booth, to listening to that most private of moments. In this case, he could add his own lustful thoughts to the quality of the sin.

  It made it more difficult that the priest he’d be confessing this to was his own father. Not Father Confessor, but Father Dad. No way around it, though. Confession was a must, and Michael would never allow himself to withhold a confession, whatever the price. Failure to confess was a one-way ticket to an eternity in hellfire. Michael believed in hell. No secret was worth that.

  One of the many things Michael admired about Dad was that he kept the separation between his job as a priest and his job as a father absolute. There was never a hint to Michael in real life that his dad had any personal opinion about what Michael had revealed in confession.

  As Michael listened to Mrs. Stevens getting more graphic about her sin of masturbation (wet, wet, she whispered, so very, very wet), he experienced a moment of admiration and love for his father. Dad was the best man Michael knew, the most decent, the most honorable. It was a question of character, and Frank Murphy had it in spades. He needed no priest’s collar to prove it either.

  Dad was the reason Michael wanted to become a priest. Dad was the reason he’d decided to enter the priesthood as a virgin. If he was honest with himself (and Michael prized honesty above all other things), that pledge was what he used to rationalize this moment. He was never going to know the touch of a woman, so was it really so bad to take a gander into the world of Mrs. Stevens and her wet white panties? Just a tiny, dirty peek?

  Not so bad, no, he thought, but still a sin. Still to be confessed.

  He was amazed at his father’s patience sometimes. Mrs. Stevens didn’t sound all that sorry to Michael. She sounded pretty excited, as a matter of fact. Even at thirteen, Michael could tell she was using this moment to sin some more, that she was getting off on confessing her masturbation to a handsome and celibate priest. She probably had wet panties right now.

  Pubic hair as blonde as the hair on her head, glistening as she gasped…

  This image both repulsed and excited him.

  “Who’s in there?”

  The whisper would have shocked him to his bones if he hadn’t sensed her coming. It was nearly impossible for them to sneak up on each other. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because they were twins.

  Michael pulled his ear away from the booth with great care and some reluctance, making sure the wood didn’t creak. He turned to his twin and smiled.

  “Mrs. Stevens.”

  She made a face. “That whore? Why do you like listening to her, anyway? Does it make your pee-pee hard?” she teased.

  “No,” Michael whispered in protest. “Of course not.”

  Frances just smiled back. It was a knowing smile. Michael reflected that lying was the other thing they couldn’t do with each other.

  He sighed and shrugged.

  “I’ll go to confession.”

  “Good.”

  That would be the end of it, he knew. The final thing they shared, the thing in his life he was most certain of, other than his faith, was that his twin would always love him, no matter what.

  “Let’s move away from here,” he whispers.

  They pad away from the confessional booth like master thieves. They head back to the living quarters, and their shared room. It was a small room. Some might even call it bleak, but it was home to them.

  The room was separated by a curtain hung from the ceiling that they could draw shut when they needed to. Father had put it up when Frances had begun to develop breasts.

  “This is a wall,” he’d said. “A wall with no door. When you draw it closed, only the person who drew it can open it again. You understand?”

  “Yes, Father,” they’d agreed, not really understanding the need for it at the time.

  They understood better now. Michael masturbated at night, sometimes, after Frances had fallen asleep. He’d fight the urge, but it could become overwhelming. In a hidden place, inside a dark grotto that he wasn’t quite ready to peer into yet, it was somehow more exciting to do it while thinking of his sister there, an arm’s length away and yet untouchable. He tried to be silent, but knew, sometimes, he gasped louder than he should. Had she heard him in those moments? He thought maybe. Yes. Maybe she had.

  He’d heard her too. Late at night, when she must have thought he was sleeping, he’d heard her little sighs and muffled moans, and had realized that she was touching herself. It shocked him at first, then intrigued him, then brought forth something he decided not to look at.

  He’d never touch his sister, not in a million years, but he admitted something to her once.

  “I’ll never have sex,” he told her. “But…if I was going to, it would be with a woman just like you, Frances.”

  “I know,” she’d said and smiled. “I feel the same way.”

  Some might call it twisted; they called it love, and were careful not to look too deep. Besides, nothing ever happened.

  Frances was going to become a nun. It was their plan. The fact that it would separate them was difficult, very difficult, but wasn’t suffering one of the things that God demanded of the faithful?

  There was a reason for everything, they both believed that. Father had a twin sister as well. Father had not gone to the seminary a virgin. He’d lain with a woman, and had gotten her pregnant. She’d died in childbirth. It was difficult, but, as in all things, Father was up to the task God had placed before him. He had raised them and had convinced the church to allow him into the seminary. His twin, Aunt Michelle, had cared for them while he was in the seminary. When father returned as an ordained priest, he took them back, and Aunt Michelle joined a convent and became a nun.

  It was an unusual life, they knew that, but Father was a good father. He was kind, he was wise, he was hard but fair. He raised them to love God above all things, but he also demanded that they test their faith with intellect, putting them into public, not private schools, and exposing them to the sinful world outside the walls of the church.

  “There are far more people in this world who do not believe in God than do,” he’d told them. “If you want to spread the word of God to the faithless, you have to understand them. Understanding breeds compassion, compassion breeds love, and love is the best way to bring Christ into a sinner’s heart.”

  Michael and Frances did as he said, and entered that world together. They viewed it like two soldiers who’d been sent on a mission. They hung out together, socialized little but were not unfriendly. They were both so attractive that other oddities were forgiven. Michael’s refusals of advances drove the girls crazy, while Frances’s refusals convinced the boys that she was the most desirable creature on earth.

  They had no real friends at school, only acquaintances, and that was fine with them. They were content in the path they saw before them and had no doubts about their future.

  Father and Aunt Michelle were twins, and had become a priest and a nun. Frances and Michael were twins, and shared the same destiny. What else could this be but a sign from God?

  They sat down on the
ir beds to do their homework. Michael was uncomfortably aware that he still had an erection. The image of Mrs. Stevens was a vivid one. He glanced over at his twin and was shocked to see that she was looking at him.

  She knows. She always knows.

  It excited him, it disgusted him, it filled him with guilt and something far darker.

  The expression on her face was one of speculation. She smiled and reached for the curtain. Before she drew it between them, she said:

  “Be sure to go to confession tomorrow.”

  He swallowed and nodded.

  “I will.”

  “I love you, Michael.”

  “I love you too.”

  She drew the curtain closed.

  MICHAEL AND FRANCES WERE SIXTEEN when everything changed.

  There was no evidence that their world was about to come crashing down around them. The world—and God—were strange and cruel like that. This was something Michael had always known and accepted, until it happened to him.

  They were asleep when the sound of voices woke Michael up. He glanced over and saw that Frances was still sleeping. Years later, he’d wonder why he’d been awoken. He’d come to understand that God had called him from sleep, because God had a plan.

  The voices weren’t loud, but they had a sense of urgency to them. The fact of them was strange; it was 2:00 A.M. Father went to bed at 9:30 and woke up at 4:30.

  Michael stood up and went to the door. He put his ear to it as he had done so many times to the wall of the confessional booth. He closed his eyes, and he listened.

  One of the voices was female, and strangely familiar, though he couldn’t quite place it. The other belonged to his father.

  “They don’t need to know!” his father whispered. “There’s no reason. This was our sin, our secret. They’re fine, they’re healthy, and they both plan to lead holy lives, devoted to God. Why burden them with this now?”

  “God spoke to me, Frank. I’ve spent the last sixteen years praying to him, asking him for forgiveness. I have calluses on my knees from praying. He finally answered. Do you know what he said? He said just one word: truth. I heard it in my heart, clear as a bell. God is love, Frank, remember? Love can only come from truth. I agreed to hide this in the beginning because I was ashamed. I was certain God would never forgive me. But he spoke to me, he told me he will forgive me. All I have to do is obey him, to tell the truth.”

  “You’re hearing things! Do you really think that God would want you to ruin their lives by telling them the truth, by telling them you are their mother?”

  Michael’s head shot away from the door like he’d had his ear pressed against a hot iron.

  What had he said?

  Mother. The word was mother.

  How many times, in early years, had they pressed Father, had they asked him about their mother?

  She died in childbirth, he’d told them. She’s with God now, she’s the reason I joined the priesthood. Let her be.

  One day they stopped asking, but they never stopped wondering.

  And why did her voice sound familiar?

  “What is it?”

  He started in the dark. His twin stood behind him. He realized he was shivering.

  “Michael?”

  She put her arms around his waist and hugged herself to him, cheek against his shoulder blades. He continued to shiver, but even in his fear he was aware of her small breasts against his back. He chastised himself in silence.

  Lust is the devil’s work, and the devil is tireless.

  “F-father is arguing with someone. A woman. I heard him say she’s our mother.”

  He felt her stiffen against him.

  “What?”

  He wanted to turn around. He wanted to turn around and tell her to forget it, they should go back to bed and wake up the next morning and realize that it had all been a dream. He couldn’t turn around right now, though. She’d see his lust.

  The devil is tireless…

  “I heard him. Listen.”

  She continued to clutch him as they strained to hear. He marveled at the dexterity of Satan. Michael was terrified of what they might hear, angered at what they’d already heard, he was a little bit dizzy, he was trying to hear more but didn’t want to hear more, and through it all, he was never unaware of those small breasts against his back, the hint of what might (just might) be her nipples. Lucifer could walk and chew gum at the same time, no doubt about that.

  “I forbid it!” Michael’s father raged in a whisper.

  Silence.

  The woman’s voice was calm, sure, certain. He still couldn’t quite place it; the whisper was disguising it.

  “You can’t forbid me to do what God’s ordered, Frank. I am their mother, and God has said it’s time they knew everything.”

  Michael knew something was very wrong when Frances gasped. She buried her face in his back and moaned. It was a sound of horror. Her arms left him and he felt her back away. He turned around and saw that her face was milk-white, her eyes so wide he thought they’d pop out of their sockets, her fist stuffed in her mouth to stifle her moans. She pointed a shaking finger at the door, but couldn’t seem to say anything coherent.

  “Frances? What is it?”

  She pulled the fist from her mouth. He was shocked to see that she’d bitten it hard enough to draw blood in places.

  “Her…” she whispered, still horrified. “Don’t you recognize her voice?” She began to pull her hair. Some of it ripped away from her scalp. “Don’t you recognize her voice?”

  Michael grabbed her wrists to keep her from hurting herself more. He’d always loved her hair. Other than her eyes, it was the thing that made her the most beautiful.

  “Frances! Get hold of yourself!”

  She yanked her wrists out of his grasp and sat down against the wall. She pulled her knees up to her chest and put her forehead against them. She began to rock, back and forth.

  “Go and see. You’ll understand.”

  He could barely hear her.

  But something was starting to swim up from a very deep, very dark place. Something that caused a greasy sweat to break out on his forehead.

  He took a last look at his twin and opened the door. He padded down the hall toward the voices, which were coming from the chapel. The sweat was really coming now and he started to run, because that dark thing was swimming with a vengeance, and he wanted to get there before it broke the surface, so he could prove it wrong, wrong, wrong…

  He burst into the chapel barefoot, in his underwear, covered with sweat and shivering like a naked man in a snowstorm.

  The thing burst through the surface. Laughing.

  Do you see? it asks. Do you seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee hee hee hee hee?

  He did see. He saw his father, the great and honorable Frank Murphy, standing next to the woman who’d said she was their mother.

  The woman was a nun, and he knew her well.

  Aunt Michelle.

  39

  “MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER HAD BEEN BROTHER AND SISTER, twins like my sister and I. They’d lain together and the result had been us.” His face is sad, somber, grave. “They conspired to hide my mother’s pregnancy. It wasn’t so hard. They were both eighteen. They’d gotten drunk and had let the devil lead them.

  “How do I describe what that was like for us? The two people we respected most in the world had spent our lifetime lying to us. Our birthright was incest. We were the result of the forbidden coupling.

  “I asked my father, that night, if he’d ever confessed this sin to another. He said that he had not.” Murphy’s expression is incredulous. “Can you imagine? He’d kept his sin to himself, had consigned himself to hellfire. Why? To protect us? No. Any priest he’d confessed to would have kept his secret. He did it because he was ashamed.

  “Of all the things I learned and heard, that was the one that was unforgivable to me. Not the incest, though that was bad enough. Not the lying to my sister and me, I could even understand that. The one thing
I could not forgive him for was his deception of God.

  “They told us they’d devoted their lives to God and had raised us to fear God as penance for their sin. I couldn’t hear this, couldn’t see past that most basic deception.

  “My sister and I fled the church that morning. Father tried to stop us, but I struck him down.” He smiles, once. “No, I didn’t kill him. He died of cancer ten years ago. I have no idea if he ever confessed to his sin. I like to think he did.”

  “She never talks,” Alan says.

  “He’s in charge,” I reply. “It’s his show.”

  This is common in serial killer teams. One acts as the dominant, calls the plays, provides the rationalization for their actions. Kirby hadn’t been so far off the mark after all.

  “We were troubled for a number of years, I will admit. We lost our way. The only thing we never lost was our love for each other.” His sister places a hand on his shoulder. He reaches up to hold it while continuing to speak. “It took us some time to come back to God. I won’t bore you with the ins and outs of that right now. There’s time for our full story later. All that’s important now is that truth: we did come back to God. I came to realize that the ruination of our lives was the result of a lie, a refusal to bare all to God, a refusal to confess in order to receive salvation.

  “We have since applied this to ourselves, without mercy or restraint. I admitted to sexual longings for my sister. She did the same. We did our penance for our actions, for so nearly following in our parents’ sinful footsteps. And we came, once again, to understand what God’s purpose was for us.”

  He glances up at her, she down at him, and they smile. It’s an image made terrible because it is beatific. Monsters with halos and blood on their teeth. They return their gaze to the camera.

  “God had tested us, from the moment of our conception. He gave us every reason to give up on Him. He provided us with betrayal, doubt, and suffering. He wanted to be sure we were strong enough. God tests all His prophets thus.

  “I came to understand that the face of my father was the face of far too many. The holy man, devoting his life to God and others. The admirable soul who is yet willing to consign himself to eternal damnation because he is willing to reveal some of his secrets, but not all of them. My father admitted to having children out of wedlock, but not to the ultimate truth—that it had been his sister he slept with.