LITMIR.BIZ

      8

      2:40 a.m.

      Reverend George Dollar shut off the lamp and sat in the darkness of his office wanting the absolution, temporary though it was. He had yet to stop shaking, but it was slightly better than when he’d first come in and had almost knocked over the umbrella stand at the back door. Just the thought of the attention that noise could have brought from upstairs triggered a more violent shudder. No, Miriam could not know that he was the biggest sinner in his congregation. Disgusting. Doomed.

      How could he have let it happen? He’d been making such progress. Had he grown complacent? Surely not.

      He was being tested, he decided with a flash of revelation. Satan had sent a demon, not unlike the two that had taunted Jesus upon entering Gadara. His demon had been informed of his progress, and, like a maggot, had infested his mind and contaminated it until he’d succumbed to a fever. He’d never noticed it coming on because it was natural to feel warm at this time of year. Especially this year.

      Tears welled anew behind his closed lids, and this time they weren’t only tears of remorse, but of self-pity. Why had the Lord taken so long to share this insight? For almost two hours he’d been praying and paging through his Bible, while asking for forgiveness. He’d read Psalms 130 and 139; then, when there’d been no sign from above, Psalm 143. He’d even fallen to his knees and raised his palms in supplication, and in the loudest whisper he dared—ever conscious that Miriam had the ears of a safecracker—had invited the Almighty to strike him dead if that was His will. Unfortunately, his knees gave out before getting a response, and now, sitting here in the darkness, it had come.

      A test…no doubt because I’ve proven myself a worthy soldier.

      The thought made him bite at his knuckles the way he had when, as a schoolboy, he’d sit outside the principal’s office awaiting a thrashing for a childish infraction. Oh, but for a return to those innocent days.

      “Give me a sign to know I have Your forgiveness,” he declared in a low vibrato. Impassioned, he raised his right fist to the ceiling and pointed at it with his left hand. “Say the word, and I’ll smite this wicked limb here and now that it might never again act in weakness!”

      With growing zeal, he reached for the carved-bone letter opener a member of his congregation had made for him several Christmases ago. The blade had as sharp an edge as anything in Miriam’s kitchen, and he’d already had a close encounter with it. The last time he’d invited the Lord to smite him, he’d slipped and cut himself so badly, the wound had required seven stitches—not to mention a lot of explaining to his wife.

      Now, as then, the room remained silent.

      The reverend smiled knowingly. “You don’t think I would do it, except by accident. And You’re right, of course. I’m as big a coward as I am a weakling.”

      He replaced the letter opener in its wooden tray and covered his face with his hands. Despite having scrubbed them in the kitchen sink, they still carried the smell of sex and the earth he’d dug in.

      As visions of his earlier behavior flashed again in his mind’s eye, he flung himself to the carpet and began sobbing. “Help me. Stop me. End this, damn it. End it!”