For almost all of his existence, Father Don Josiah led a cloistered life. From his childhood days in St. Mary's all-boys Catholic school to his ordination as a priest, his devoutly religious mother ensured that women, for him, would be only respectable ladies and nuns. They would always be fully dressed: the only female nudes he'd ever see were statues, to be enjoyed aesthetically,
not
erotically.
His eyes would be as chaste as his loins--he would never look at the overt sexuality on the television, in the movies, or on the Internet (Mother would have
none
of these in her son's life!), and if he were ever to touch himself, it was to be with soap, to get clean...
not
dirty.
His mother despised the sin of the world: she hated how people had turned away from God. Don's adulterous father died when he was a boy, but his widowed mother had lost his father spiritually even earlier. His father's many affairs turned her to God for comfort, and his death bound her closer to her son, to nurture him in a way completely divorced from his father's ways.
For all of these reasons, women were mostly a mystery to Don. Because of this, it was inconceivable to him that the gentler sex could have in them a reservoir of passion at all comparable to that of the goatish male. He had always assumed that prostitutes, pornographic actresses and strippers did what they did slavishly, and with shame and regret: his traditionalist preconceptions were such that the very notion of a 'happy whore' or a nymphomaniac was non-existent...such women couldn't be content with, much less enjoy, a life in the sex industry.
This safe, Edenic cocoon that his mother had constructed for him was shaken that Sunday when he'd seen Camilla at Mass. The dark, salacious world in which Camilla thrived was opened even wider for him on Wednesday night when he walked through the front door of
Club Ritz
. Why did he, a devoutly religious priest, want to go to such a place? As he'd rationalized his intentions, he hoped to find a girl quickly and give her some money he'd saved to 'rescue' her from the degrading life she was forced to live. What he hadn't anticipated was that she would take his cash in exchange for lap-dances and 'rescue' him from his sexual confinement.
What's more, he absolutely refused to acknowledge in his conscious mind that his real reason for going to
Club Ritz
could have been to satisfy desires he'd kept in perfect, uninterrupted hibernation...that is, until Camilla had roused him from that sleep. Last Sunday, he'd been disappointed at not seeing her at Mass, though he'd never admit to himself that his reasons for missing her were at all sexual; he rationalized that he'd wished to save her
soul
, or if not
her
soul, then at least that of a local stripper.
So sure was he that he wouldn't be tempted to indulge in the spectacle of flesh the other lechers were enjoying, that he even wore his priest's collar, with no fear of embarrassment. What he didn't know was that she'd used Nigrovum to lure him to her striptease establishment, with the image of that rose she'd visualized touching him in Mass; indeed, that rose pulled him to
Club Ritz
like the star that had led the Magi to the baby Jesus.
It had been a boring, slow Wednesday night, and Camilla was sitting alone at a table waiting for a customer to show an interest in her. Desperate for a lover to distract her from her growing unnatural urges for Agape, Camilla--lacking Mr. Holland again--remembered that cute priest she'd seen two Sundays ago. She wanted him, so she'd focused all her mental energy and photographic memory to make a mental image of the priest she'd given a psychic hand-job to during Mass. Within a few minutes, she'd conjured up a vivid, detailed, and uncannily accurate mental picture of Father Josiah; then she visualized him willingly driving from his home to
Club Ritz
. Soon after, she could feel his presence coming nearer and nearer. Then she went out to a small room where the front door was, a relatively quiet area where she could chat on her cell-phone.
She called up Mr. Holland, and asked him if he was going to come over. He said he couldn't because his in-laws were occupying his time in preparations for his wife's funeral. He had to pretend he was mourning, and thus couldn't get away. Though she was disappointed to hear this, she felt encouraged by the approaching psychic presence of Father Josiah.
He opened the front door to the strip joint and saw her still chatting on her cell-phone. The muffled sound of Bruno Mars's 'It Will Rain' could be heard beyond the inner door leading inside the main area of the bar. Having a stripper there in that little room, with no one else around, was perfect for him: he didn't have to go inside the bar and risk being embarrassed in his priest's clothes. He just had to wait for her to finish her phone call so he could save her soul.
Though his eyes were fixed on her golden curly hair, beautiful blue eyes, ruby-red lips and everything above her shoulders, he couldn't help noticing--from the corners of his eyes, her S-like curves, pink underwear (which he thought was a bikini), pointy high heels, and everything below her shoulders. As lovely and exciting as she was to behold, he reminded himself: this was a living soul, not a sex object. This was one of God's suffering children, not one of man's pleasurable toys.
She saw him watching and waiting for her. He imagined how offended she'd be to see what must have seemed the leers of a lecherous priest; but he was surprised to see the smile on her face--she seemed pleased to no end. He had no way of knowing that Camilla had always wanted to seduce a man of the cloth...him in particular, and that his decision to come to
Club Ritz
had been more hers than his.
She briefly stopped talking to Mr. Holland on her phone, smiled at Father Josiah, and sweetly said, "Just a minute, Father," while caressing his cheek. He blushed and felt his penis getting erect; he focused all his will towards making himself go limp again, thinking of fat old ladies. It was working...then she finished her call.
She put her cell-phone in her purse and turned around to face Father Josiah. Wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him down to be eye-level with her, and gently pressing her nose and forehead against his, she asked, "So, what can I do for you, Father?"
"I want to help you," he answered, trying desperately to ignore his again-hardening penis. Fat old ladies, fat old ladies, he thought.
"How about me helping you first?" she said, gently pulling him toward the door leading inside the main area of the bar.
"Please, I'm a man of God. I'm not interested in that," he said, pulling his money out of his pocket.
"Oh, I think you are," Camilla said, tickling his chin. "If not, why haven't you pulled away?"
"I...I have s-some money for you. Two thousand dollars to help you get out of here and start a new life."
"Oh, we can have a lot of fun for two-thousand," she purred, taking him into the bar.
