The Priest's Virgin Concubine

The Priest's Virgin Concubine
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~~ All characters in this book are over 18. ~~
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Chapter 1: Help Wanted

"Ah, Father Kelly." The wrinkled face of the secretary peered around the corner and into the waiting room. "Come in. Bishop Whitford will see you now."

It really wasn't fair, Justin Kelly thought, as he stood and made his way into the office of the Catholic Bishop of Peoria, that after four years of college and another four of seminary school, a priest still had to go through the process of applying for a position, the same as any other college graduate who left college with a diploma clutched in one fist and a pile of student loans in another.

You would think, he thought wryly, that after two thousand years the Church would have figured out a better way of doing things.

"Father Kelly, My Lord." The secretary gave him a stern look, as if he were a child who couldn't be trusted not to be rude, and closed the door behind her.

"Kelly, yes." The gray-haired man behind the desk waved a hand. "Sit, please."

"Thank you," he hesitated. "My Lord."

Bishop Whitford snorted softly. "Melissa thinks that she has to remind everyone who comes in here of my exalted rank. Please. Sir will do. Bishop, if you must." Faded blue eyes twinkled. "Or you could just call me John."

"Yes, sir."

"Good enough." He picked up a piece of paper. "You come to us from Mundelein, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Like it?"

"Very much, yes, sir."

Bishop Whitford looked at him over the rims of his glasses. His face was suddenly intent. "And why do you want to be a priest, Father Kelly? Why should I put the souls which are my charge in your care?"

Luckily, his seminary training had left him ready for this question. The priests at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, commonly known as Mundelein Seminary, didn't let anyone graduate who didn't have a vocation stronger than steel. And they spent many of their waking hours rooting out those who thought being a priest was a road to an easy life where the hardest thing you had to do was say mass every morning.

He leaned forward, trusting that his face would betray none of his inner nervousness. "I come from a family that has sent many men into the priesthood, sir. My own grand-uncle was our parish priest back home, before he passed away.

"I first thought that I might have a calling when I was in middle school. By the time I was in high school, I was sure of it. It wasn't a sudden revelation. I simply knew. That I was needed. That a life of service to God also meant a life of sacrifice, but that I was ready to lay my life down on His altar."

"And what did your family have to say about this?"

"At first they thought it was just a phase. Something that I would grow out of, the same way young girls grow out of their fascination with boy bands as they grow older." He smiled in wry remembrance. "Even when I was in college, my mother kept asking me if I had met a nice girl yet, and I kept telling her that no, I hadn't, because I was going to be a priest, Mom." He snorted. "Sometimes I think she suspected that I was gay, and that wanting to be a priest was a cover-up."

"Are you?" Bishop Whitford asked mildly.

"No." A single, flat word.

Whitford studied him, then nodded once. "Good. I'm not saying being homosexual makes a man a child-molester. But some people can't seem to distinguish between the two. And the good Lord knows we've had enough trouble where that's concerned. I'd rather not have to deal with the fallout from that sort of thing, thank you very much."

"I would think the better idea would be to get rid of the pedophiles who think that being a priest gives them an easy way to prey on the weak," Justin said.

"Yes, yes." The bishop waved a hand vaguely. "Unfortunately, they don't come in here with 'pervert' flashing over their heads in bright red letters, son." His mouth set. "So maybe you let me do my job, all right?"

Justin took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, hiding his irritation. If the bishop noticed, he ignored it. "Hmmm. Well and so. Your instructors at Mundelein speak well of you, true enough. 'An agile and flexible mind,' Professor Taub says. 'A man who isn't afraid to think for himself, or to say what he thinks.'" He grinned. "Got into a few sparring matches with the old goat, did you?"

Justin flushed, though part of it was pride. Professor Taub had been one of his professors in theology, and one who delighted in playing devil's advocate, taking up contrary, sometimes even heretical positions, in order to sharpen his student's skills. His sharp mind and acid wit made debating him a hazardous practice. But Justin had managed to pin him down a time or two. "If every professor had been of his quality, sir, my time at Mundelein would have seemed much shorter."

"Or actually been much shorter," the bishop said with a laugh. "God knows he doesn't suffer fools gladly. Or at all. One of him is enough. Many more, and the dropout rate would triple overnight."

"You know him, sir?"

"We went to graduate school together, when we were both a lot younger. He decided to stay on the academic path, while I went into administration. Pity, really. With a mind like his, he'd probably be an archbishop now. Maybe even a cardinal. Of course," he said, "maybe it's for the best. Brian always hated the political side of things. All he wanted was to study and learn, and to pass what he learned on to others.

"Well." The shrewd eyes studied him. "We can definitely use you, Father Kelly. You probably know that it's standard practice for a new priest to be sent to a larger parish. Preferably one with several other priests who can help him get his feet wet before he is given a parish of his own."

Justin nodded.

"But I've got a bit of a problem on my hands." Whitford steepled his fingers. "Tell me, young man. Have you ever heard of Fertile Valley?"

His brows knitted. "Fertile Valley? Illinois? No." It seemed a strange name for a town in a state that wasn't exactly renowned for its high mountain peaks and lush valleys.

"Yes, Illinois. It's a small town, well south of here, down near the rivers. Not a big place. Twenty-five hundred, maybe three thousand people. Farm town, you know? Set in their ways, don't like change. Your people would mostly be German and Irish Catholics who came over from the old country two hundred years ago and haven't moved since, with a few Swedes and Norwegians pitched in. They had the same parish priest for nearly forty years. But Father Snodgrass retired last fall and moved out to New Mexico.

"Since then, I've sent three priests there. None of them lasted more than six weeks." He shook his head. "You get that, sometimes. A town just doesn't take to the stranger, and I'm not going to make a man stay in a place where he's not wanted. No one is happy, and before you know it, half the church has walked away and found someplace else to worship. Or decided that it would be a lot nicer to sleep late in Sundays.

"Last week, after Father Cobden requested a transfer, I received a letter from the head of the Woman's Auxiliary. Very polite it was, too, but it didn't take too much to read between the lines. They want new blood, not an old priest who has bounced around half the country and isn't good enough to settle anywhere. Someone," he lifted a piece of paper, and read, squinting, "'someone who is not so set in his ways that it would take a forklift to get him out.'" He smiled mildly and put the paper down again.

Justin blinked. "And you chose...me?"

"Why not? You're young, just out of the seminary, and you even have a talent for preaching a decent homily, if what I hear is true. I know it's not a place where a young man with a lot of ambition goes, but there's nothing that says you can't request a transfer in a couple of years.

The older man leaned forward. "I'll be honest, Justin. You'd be doing me a favor if you took this position. St. Catherine's isn't a troublesome parish. They're good, hardworking people who don't cause a lot of bother. Not like some parishes, where everyone starts screaming bloody murder every time a gay couple gets married. I just need someone who can mind the house for a while. And after a year or two, if you're not happy there, I'll send you to a parish more to your liking. Chicago, St. Louis, someplace where you can stretch your wings, if you have a mind."

Justin shook his head. "No, sir. St. Catherine's will be fine, I'm sure." He smiled crookedly. "My hometown isn't very big. I didn't really enjoy living in the Chicago area, to be honest."

What he didn't say was that having a bishop's favor in his pocket was something valuable. Something that could be cashed in later on in his career, if he wanted to. And on the flip side, he didn't want to be known as someone who thought he was too good to take a posting at a small-town parish. According to shop talk at Mundelein, that was the sort of thing that could follow a priest forever, and wreck his career before it began.

And besides. My own parish! Not taking orders from some old war-horse who has been there since before the Second Vatican Council, and thinks the mass should still be in Latin.

So he squared his shoulders, looked Bishop Whitford square in the eye, and said, "I'll take it, sir. When do I start?"

Three days later Justin was driving south down the interstate, all his worldly possessions packed into the trunk and the back seat of his old Plymouth. The windows were down, and warm spring air ruffled his hair, almost drowning out the sound of the ballgame on the radio, where, the good Lord be thanked, the Cardinals were beating the unholy bejesus out of San Diego.

My own parish. Finally. There had been times when he had thought that this day would never come. The confusion of his family. The jeers in high school. The times in college when he had been tempted, so tempted, to put aside his calling and do something easier. Something that would not require him to live a life of chastity and abandon any chance of a wife and children of his own. The harsh years in the seminary, when many of the instructors had seemed almost spitefully eager to drive him away. But all of that was forgotten now, lost in the thrill of his first posting.

He left the interstate at Marion, cutting west towards Carbondale, and then turned south again, guiding the car down a narrow two-lane highway. Crops were in the fields on either side of the road. Mostly corn and soybeans, the twin pillars of Illinois' agriculture industry, but there was also wheat, coming up from the ground in pale green shoots, many weeks away from ripening to rich gold, and in some fields he caught the unmistakable aroma of alfalfa. The weather was warm, but without the awful humidity which would occur later in the summer, when it pressed down on you like an anvil. Eventually, the road began to rise and fall as it left the griddle-flat plains of central Illinois behind and entered the more hilly regions of the southern portion of the state.

After a quick stop to stretch his legs, he was on the road again. The day grew warmer, and traffic was light. Once in a while, he passed through deep tracts of green woods, and the sounds of insects rose on either side of the car like a wave. A last climb up a steep hillside, and then he came to the summit. Warned by the beep of the GPS on his phone, he pulled the car over to the side of the road and got out to take a look. The day was almost eerily quiet, the silence broken only by the hum of cicadas in the underbrush and the soft sigh of the wind in the trees. He could smell the hot asphalt under his feet. Off to the northwest, the dim shapes of thunderheads, dark blue and smoky gray, were slowly growing.

At his feet, the road fell away in a long, gentle slope. A wide valley ran from northeast to southwest. It was widest in front of him, narrowing on either side. The afternoon light fell on dozens of fields, flung out like a rumpled patchwork quilt done in colors of brown and green and gold. A slash of deeper green showed where a large creek or small river ran through the valley, maybe the same one that had carved it millennia ago. In the distance, perhaps five miles away, he could glimpse the streets and houses of a small town. And in the middle, a white steeple of what might be his church. Far away, he could glimpse, on the edge of sight, blue hills that might be in Kentucky.

"Fertile Valley," he whispered. Somehow, the name seemed completely appropriate. He breathed in deep. The air was rich and strong and full of the smell of life and growing things. "Well. Let's go."

Disappointingly, the steeple he had seen from the hilltop did not belong to his church. Instead, the honor of having what was apparently the tallest structure in Dresden County belonged to the local Lutheran church, which occupied a corner lot at the intersection of Lincoln and Main.

I'll have to do something about that, Justin thought with a grin, as he drove through the small business district. Can't have the local protestants looking down on us. Maybe a fire. Just a small one.

He shook off the thought as he looked around at his new home for the first time. Unlike some of the small, seedy towns, barely clinging to life, which he had driven through on his journey south, where the only thriving businesses seemed to be dollar stores, fast-food restaurants, and Wal-Mart, Fertile Valley seemed to be enjoying a quiet, low-key prosperity. The stores on Main Street weren't large, but they all seemed to be doing a steady business. There were no boarded-up storefronts, no whitewashed windows. He saw a hardware store, an insurance agency, a grocery, what seemed to be a pair of small restaurants, and a long, low, broad-fronted building whose sign simply read, "Fertile Valley General Store."

Good grief. I must have hit a time warp and come out in nineteen fifty-seven.

But no. All the cars on the street were modern, right down to the higher-than-normal amount of farm trucks that reminded him of his own hometown. And a pair of teenage girls that he passed were looking at their cell phones and laughing as they talked. As he stopped for a red light, they caught him looking at him and stared back, their expressions curious, but not hostile. Awkwardly, hoping he hadn't been gaping like an idiot, he turned away, but not before he heard their giggles.

The town wasn't large, and it didn't take him long to find his destination. St. Catherine's was a church in the old style, foursquare and solid, built of brick, with a modest bell-tower painted white and shingled in green. As Justin parked his car in the freshly-sealed asphalt parking lot, he could see the squat shape of the rectory off to one side, which gave the building a slightly lopsided look.

To his surprise, the front door of the church was unlocked, and he let himself in. Inside, the building was cool and dim, smelling of beeswax and furniture polish. "Hello?" he called. "Is anyone here?"

"One minute!" a female voice responded from down a short hall to his right. A few moments later, a door opened, and a middle-aged woman came out, wiping her hands clean on a dustrag. "Can I help you?"

"Hello," he smiled, determined to put his best foot forward. "I'm Father Justin Kelly. The new-"

"The new priest," the woman finished for him with a welcoming smile of her own. She cocked her head to the side as she examined him. "A Kelly, eh? Irish, are you?"

"Well, mostly," he replied. A phrase of his grandmother's came to mind, and he managed to put the faintest trace of Eire into his accent. "And haven't we let a few strangers into the clan, to keep us respectable?"

The woman put her hands on her waist and laughed. Justin judged her age to be around forty-five or fifty. She was of medium height, slim and rangy, with an air of bustling energy about her. Her hair was a rusty brown, worn past her shoulders, with a few silver streaks at the temples. There were smile-lines at the corners of her eyes, which were the color of corn leaves, and her face was kind. The face of your favorite elementary school teacher, maybe, endlessly patient as you struggled with fractions and state capitals. A small gold band graced the ring finger of her left hand.

"I'm Megan. Megan Murray." She offered her hand, and Justin took it. Her grip was warm and firm. "Most people call me Meg. We thought you would be arriving today. So I wanted to take a quick look round and make sure that everything was ready."

He recognized the name of the woman who had penned the letter to Bishop Whitford. This was a woman it would not do to offend. "And to get a look at me so you could tell everyone what I was like, if I happened to show up," he guessed with a smile.

"Of course," Megan agreed. She waved a hand. "So. Do you want the dollar tour?"

He nodded, and she led him down the hall. "Schoolrooms down this way. We have Sunday school here in the morning before mass on Sundays. We used to have a Catholic grade school, but that was a long time ago," she sighed. "Not enough money to pay the teachers." She pointed to a door. "There's a big basement downstairs, where we have things like birthday and anniversary parties sometimes."

"That's nice," he nodded. "And cooking facilities, I'm guessing?"

"Lord, yes," Megan laughed. "We have a big pancake and sausage fundraiser every spring. It brings in a lot of money for the church."

They walked back to the vestibule, where Megan pointed out the bathrooms. "And here is your kingdom," she smiled, opening up the wide double doors at the end of the hall.

The worship area was almost stark in its simplicity. But it was still lovely in its spare beauty. Two columns of pews, made of heavy, dark wood and cushioned in red, perhaps fifteen deep, marched back on either side of a narrow aisle. On the left was an overhang for a choir. The windows were made of stained glass, deep and rich with dark colors -- gold and blue and red and green. To one side of the altar was a small baptismal font.

It wasn't fancy. It did not have any gold or gilt, any elaborate carvings or rich, heavy carpets. It was plain and solid and functional, just like the craftsmen who had built it long ago. But it was also, very plainly, loved. Every inch of it was spotless - the pews polished to a gleam, the carpet vacuumed, the hymnals set firmly in their racks, and the altar cloth a fresh, laundered white.

"Well?" Megan's face was slightly lined with worry. "Does it look all right?"

"It's lovely," he said honestly.

The older woman's shoulders relaxed. "Thank goodness. You should have seen Father Franklin when he saw it for the first time. He came here from a big church in Detroit, and I guess he was used to things being a little bit more...elaborate. His face looked like he had bitten into an apple and felt something move. I know we're not big and fancy, but we do our best."

"I'm sure you do. And remember, it's not the size, but..."

"It's what you do with it?" Briefly, Megan's eyes twinkled with a wicked gleam, and Justin could imagine her thirty years younger, listening to hair metal with a beer in one hand and a boyfriend on her arm. "I never heard that applied to a church before," she grinned. "And from a priest, no less." Her voice dropped into an Irish accent much more genuine than his own. "Sure, and wouldn't your poor, sainted mother be ashamed of ye!"

"Obviously, you've never met my mother," Justin replied. His face felt ready to burst into flames. Great. Prove yourself an idiot on your first day in town.

But his companion merely laughed. Outside, thunder rumbled. Megan glanced towards the windows. The stained glass hid the outdoors, but the light outside seemed to be fading, as if the thunderheads he had seen on the way in were drawing near. "Good." Her voice held a sense of grudging approval, as if she were willing to give the universe credit for trying. "We've been praying for rain for the last week. Now." She patted his arm in a proprietary manner. "Let me just show you the rectory, and then I'll let you get settled."