Zorah Maria Esposito lifted her chin, willing the power of the Lord flow over her as she sang her solo during the mass while communion was being served. She was too distracted though and while she could sing this song in her sleep and never miss a note, she felt her heart was in the wrong for not being solely focused on the beautiful lyrics, an ode to Jesus.
Her uncle, her mother’s brother, Father Ippocrate Giannone was conducting the service and at the moment he was the reason she was nervous. He’d approached her earlier, a prideful tilt to his head, his robes swishing with his brusque movements and announced he wanted to see her immediately following mass.
The twenty-five other choir members were all wide-eyed as his judgemental eyes stared down at her. All she could offer was a meek “yes Father Giannone” before he swirled back out of the room with a flourish.
Now watching from the back of the church, in the high loft overlooking the church, she noticed his eyes kept flicking to a man sitting in the front row. She couldn’t see the other man’s face but knew he wasn’t someone from their parish, certain she would have recognized the man from his build alone.
As she stepped back to her place in the choir, her best friend Sidonia elbowed her, whispering. “What do you think he wants?”
“I didn’t know the last six times you asked.” She exhaled shakily.
“Do you think he found out we stayed late Thursday night? I mean we were only praying. We locked up right? We didn’t forget to lock the chapel when we left?”
“We locked up, Sidonia. He wouldn’t be angry we stayed longer to pray.”
“Did you confess a sin?”
“No.”
The choir director turned and shot them warning glances as the communion service drew to a close and they froze.
By the time Zorah hung her robe and assured Sidonia she would meet her back at their apartment, she was decidedly more nervous than previously. Dawdling, offering to tidy the room, she hung back until the last of the choir members left.
Her uncle never was a friendly fellow, despite being a priest. Where some were warm, kind and loving, forgiving transgressions in the name of Jesus, her uncle tended to cast judgements of hell, fire, and brimstone without second thoughts. Her skin more than once felt the whip of his flogger used to punish her for the sins she was undoubtedly committing in her mind.
Since the death of his parents, Ippocrate declared himself the head of the family, which consisted of himself, Zipporah his only sibling, and her daughter Zorah. Zipporah spent more time on her knees praying than Zorah did, and it was saying something. Her mother had been repenting since she’d found herself pregnant at sixteen from the sweet words of a bad boy. Her parents refused to consider adoption for their only child and insisted all children were blessings and forced Zipporah to raise her baby. Then they died when Zorah was only two and it left the mother and child under the watchful and ever condescending eyes of Father Ippocrate.
She was startled by movement near the door since she was supposed to be alone and looked up in alarm. The man with the broad shoulders who’d been sitting in the front row of service was in the choir room.
“Hello,” she nodded nervously. She rarely was near a boy or a man alone. She worked in a dentist office so there were times patients were in the room waiting but this felt different. He was one of the most handsome men she ever saw before. Dark blue eyes, the color of overripe blueberries which would pop on the tongue, bored into her pale brown ones. His hair was thick, black, and glossy, slicked back away from his temples. His shoulders were wide enough she could likely put three of her side to side and there would be room to spare, and he was well over six feet tall and as her eyes perused his frame, trim and fit. Her gaze roving back to his face noted the straight nose and thick lips and she was transfixed as he drew his tongue over the bottom lip which curved into the smallest hint of a smile.
“Scusi,” his thick Italian accent rolled off a tongue which offered a growly voice. His eyes mocked as he caught her looking at his body.
She blushed a hot red, “can I help you?”
“What are you doing?” he asked nodding to the book in her hand.
She swallowed nervously, “I was putting the last of the hymnals away in their proper place. Director Mallorca requested I do so before I go home.”
“And where is home?”
The curious edge to his voice gave her pause and she whispered, “it is not a far walk from here.” She took a breath and rushed out, “can I help you, sir? I need to see my uncle as he’s waiting for me.”
“Sir?” he chuckled, “oh sweet Zorah, is this how you would address me?”
“Do we know each other?” she frowned at him. She couldn’t place him. If anything, his eyes would be ones to remember, she was sure of it.
“Not yet, amoré.”
He stepped further into the room, and she knew her eyes were cartoonishly wide as he moved towards her and from the way he moved she almost wondered if the man floated, his eyes focused on her like a hawk eying it’s prey. She was backed against the shelves of books, her fingers clutched tight around the hymnal in her hand and her breath coming to a full stop. Her eyes closed and she tilted her head away from him as he leaned over her, his nose brushing up the side of her neck as if he were sniffing her, his breath hot in her ear when he whispered.
“So fucking innocent. Almost worth saying a prayer of thanks.” He stood upright and cupped her chin, “I will see you soon.” His lips burned her forehead with a kiss.
Without further ado he stood upright and walked back to the door. She was trembling in terror and an awareness of a man she’d never experienced before. The way he intimately breathed against her neck made goosebumps cover her flesh and she could still feel his lips on her forehead.
“Zorah,” he turned at the door, giving her a hard look, this one scary, menacing and she struggled to catch a breath at his frigid countenance, “you best remain untouched until then or there will be hell to pay.”
With that he disappeared into the church, and she gripped the bookshelf behind her wondering what was happening and why was her heart pounding so hard. Fear was certainly one reason but another emotion, one she never allowed herself to experience before teased her brain. She almost fell to her knees in repentance.
