The chapel had fallen into disrepair, the people no longer felt any need of it and it had been in misuse for many years, stood dark and cold at the edge of the village, like the shell of a body which has lost its heart, its soul, its purpose.
But once every week, on what would once have been a holy day, Agatha would sit at her window which overlooked the chapel and see the bowed figure scuttling through the grounds, no more than a shadow sometimes, other times stark in the light of the moon to show her the cowl, the long robe, the monastic movement and the pious pose.
As she waited, curled in the seat of the window, her face as pale as distant starlight, one hand delved beneath her skirts, rummaged beneath the layers of silk that she always favoured until it found her cold thigh.
Fingers inching along the smooth flesh, slowly as if it was another who was teasing her, they slipped between her legs and began to strum the lips of her cunt, exciting her as she waited. And then there he was!
In an instant she was up from her seat and down the stairs, out into the night and hurrying across to the chapel, skirts billowing behind her so that she seemed like some dark vengeful spectre.
She could see him in a pew, the priest, as soon as she opened the chapel door could make out his bowed head, the slumped shoulders, the contrite attitude. Slowly she slipped through the door and made her way towards him.
The rustle of her skirts must have caught his attention, or perhaps it was simply the chill of her presence, he turned and his eyes grew wide as he picked her out of the gloom, not expecting his customary solitude to be disturbed. She sat beside him, dark and brooding, looking to him like a person who might have sinned.
If only for the fact that Agatha had no belief in sin.
"Will you help me, Father?" she asked softly, turning to him slightly, her skirts parting at the knees to give him a glimpse of her thighs.
In the gloom her flesh looked paler than ever, her dark lips bloody.
"If I can," the priest answered, his voice a little hoarse as he fought to draw his eyes from the bared flesh.
"I have a confession to make, Father."
"Then-" He looked to the confessional in the far corner of the chapel, was about to rise, but Agatha placed her hand on his knee.
"No, here," she insisted. "We will speak here."
Her eyes glared at him, there was no hint of contrition in them, but the priest nodded. "Very well my child."
Agatha smirked to hear him call her "child". As if! But he would learn!
"Father, I have wicked ways," she began, her voice low so that he had to strain to catch her words, leaning a little towards her.
"Sinful thoughts? Sinful deeds?"
She smiled, there was no such thing as sin, said, "I have thoughts of hurting men, Father, of using them."