Giorgia Bongiovanni

May 3 5:00 pm

Saint Gabriel's

Father Moritz was biding his time until his last confession. As much as he loved his newfound popularity with the church parishioners, he couldn't stand listening to them babble about nonsensical transgressions. Plus, he worried he was getting too much attention as of late.

Someone knocked on the old wooden door frame of the confessional that reeked of old cedar and booze. However, the thick scarlet curtain still waited for this person to emerge.

A sudden feeling of rage and anxiety washed over him. His heightened senses detected an unfamiliar, sickly, sweet odor that made him recoil.

He looked at his schedule beneath his bible, wondering who this could be.

Giorgia Bongiovanni.

Are you the sister of the portly sergeant who hates my good friend, Corporal Kelly?

Her perfume wafted through the air, mingling with the overpowering aroma of her cunnilingus.

You are rotten, and you smell putrid. Why are you here?

He felt no tingle of arousal in either his rectum or his toes. He knew this to be a divine encounter, but images of love and death seared his mind.

"Father? May I come in?"

Miss Bongiovani's voice snapped him from his trance. He refused to look at her, his eyes shut tight.

You, young Giorgia, my fille de joie. My witch has not marked you for deliverance, but your scent repulses me. It is fitting for you to suffer. For you have brought back the memory of my young Murron.

That wicked night flashed in his mind. Near the beach of La Cabrera, Spain, just a stone's throw from San Antonio's convent and monastery.

Murron's fiery red hair and vibrant locks flashed in his mind's eye.

He took her where the air was thick with the scent of wildflowers, riding her as he surged and pulsated inside of her. And amidst the primal moans of ecstasy and ejaculation, he buried his dagger into her neck.

His anger blazed with such intensity that his blade impaled her, trapping her against the gritty sand.

Oh Murron. You must stay dead. Your anti-Christ beliefs and sacrifice of our child in luciferin worship demanded your immediate death.

2

A year had passed since Giorgia had last heard Johnny Keegan's voice. They wanted to be wed and have their child together. However, her strict Roman Catholic family subjected her to shame and degradation. They labeled her a harlot, desperate to wash away the tarnish of her transgressions.

Her brother, Sal, took charge of all the logistical aspects of terminating the pregnancy. His rank in the Height's PD granted him the authority to slip her into the clinic's back, avoiding questions.

On this, the anniversary of the abortion, she exhausted her will and her fight.

Beside herself with grief, she longed to run to Johnny Keegan, love him again, and become his wife. But she couldn't bear the thought of being shunned by her family.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," she said.

He refused to look at Miss Bongiovanni, as her sweet smells of perfume and hair product nauseated him with increasing anger.

"Yes, child, be quick!"

Her voice trembled, and he heard her sniffle. And although he wouldn't move or dare look her way, he felt her tears and the anguish in her heart. But he couldn't have compassion or pity. Instead, contempt filled him. But he didn't understand why.

"I was involved with a policeman," she said. "We were lovers."

"Yes, yes," he snapped.

"We got pregnant by accident and wanted to get married and elope, but I couldn't reject my faith and family."

He responded through gritted and bared teeth as the anger built to rage.

"And yet you committed fornication, a crime against the church and your God."

He longed for the smell of old wood, booze, and molasses and wanted to be rid of Miss Bongiovanni. Her voice pierced him with each whine, stutter, and sorrowful sob.

"They forced me, Father. I didn't want to do it, but they forced me, and I had an abortion."

Father Moritz dropped to his knees, his lips turned up into a scowl. His heart pounded in his chest, thumping like a relentless drum. Trembling fingers reached out, their quivers evident as they strained and stretched wide. A gasp escaped his lips, parting them in a wide, fearful arc.

He pressed his cheek against the screen, his fingernails clawing at the old cedar wall separating them.

"And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech," he whispered. Saliva dripped from his mouth as he arched his neck and trembled. "Neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord."

Giorgia Bongiovanni froze, her mind filled with horrific images of blood. She saw the body of her disfigured and discarded baby in a plastic bag amid the garbage of paper towels and small white cups.

Somehow, Father Moritz's words bewitched her. Thoughts of suicide and darkness were penetrating deep to where her soul met spirit and marrow met bone. She couldn't fight or resist as exhaustion, and the shame of depravity overtook her.

She wanted to weep, to cry out, but everything turned to blackness and silence.

"Daughter," said Moritz. "You have done evil in God's eyes. You have sacrificed your child in the fires of Ben Hinnom's slaughter. And now, the piles of corpses rotting in the valley will have your child's body heaped upon them with no hope of salvation."

Father Moritz returned to his chair and sat back. The exhaustion of the encounter overwhelmed him as the pain and anguish dissipated.

Giorgia Bongiovanni trembled on the other side of the screen. Tears drenched her cheeks, and her face and lips turned pale white from the moment's terror. Between sobs, she managed a simple question.

"What are you saying?"

A wry smile befell Father Moritz's lips as he realized why the November Witch sent this young fille de joie.

"Blood for blood. Life for life, and death for death. Now go."

Moritz let go a low growl as his upper lip spasmed. "Go and seek your penance on the tree."