Anna's heart pounds. He knows. Somehow, he knows she hasn't been entirely honest. Her shame consumes her again. It is too much. How is she to admit that she has carried her Sin here, to this holy assembly?
She feels the Reverend move closer to her, touching her shoulders at first. Under his touch, she leans into him. She's aware he's close, closer than any man has ever been to her. And parts of him are touching parts of her in a way that she had always understood to be sinful. She does not dare to move as something stirs between her buttocks.
Her mind tries to make sense of it. Perhaps this is part of her wickedness? Perhaps this is part of her punishment, her redemption? Is it her fault that this is happening to her now, here? Everything else is her fault, so is this too? There is no answer. She does not know what to do. So, when Morrow speaks again, urging her to confess in full, she talks of the thing she knows for sure to be wrong.
"I am- I've worn indecent undergarments to church," she says. Her voice falters. She sniffles and looks at her feet in shame. She feels the stirring thing lengthen and harden.
Anna's words send a thrill through Morrow. He feels the hot, clinging heat of her youthful body against his. His penis uncoils like a cobra roused, snaking its way up his body until it butts against his stomach. It feels like an iron rod. Ever so slightly, he pivots his hips and sets it snugly into the cleft of Anna's buttocks, where it throbs like a living thing.
She has not moved away, he notices. She must know what that hardness is. But she continues to lean against him.
His next word is an exhalation. It sounds to the congregation like disgust, and it is, but there is more in that word that only Morrow, and perhaps Anna, senses.
"So. So it is. Not just indecency. Not just PRIDE!" He yelled the last word. "No. It is more than that. An invitation to LUST! For why else would one wear indecent garments to Church, except to TEMPT!"
A man has leapt to his feet in the congregation. It is Farmer Giles, an old man of seventy years, but with the muscles and constitution of one at least twenty years younger. Giles is a widower. He lives alone on his farm, refusing all help from other villagers to tend his crops and his animals. Since the death of his wife three years ago, he has confessed to Morrow time and time again of the crime of masturbation. Morrow set him a Path of Change. It has been a year since Giles sinned in this way. In that time, Giles has become even more welded to The Path than he ever was before. He is devout in his calling out of sin wherever he sees it. Today is no different.
"Whore!" Giles shouts, full-throated. "The Whore of Babylon! She has descended! Kill the whore! Kill her!"
In short order, more men are on their feet. Their voices join with Giles'--the clamour shakes the Church as if it would bring the building tumbling down about their ears.
