ACTS OF DEVOTION
I fly to thee O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me.
(Memorare of St. Bernard)
The cool air of April carried the damp smell of evening rain into the bedroom. The stillness of the night ruptured as the curtains blew forward, like hands outstretched towards the bed, before wafting back down as the breeze subsided. Ruth could feel the cool air on the back of her calf. The thick quilt that covered the rest of her had shifted as she moved, exposing the bare leg to the breeze that felt oh-so good, delicate, and soft as it caressed her skin, its kiss chilling and refreshing like a swim in a summer stream.
Ruth had settled into bed half an hour ago. She’d said her prayers, made her pleas to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with an extra one for the Virgin Mary. She had clutched her string of rosary beads in her hands. She counted Hail Mary’s, pressing her fingers into the beads until the tips turned white. She wrapped it around her wrists until her hands were bound, the crucifix pressed between her palms until it left an indent, her very own stigmata.
There was nobility in suffering. Every Saturday afternoon she confessed to lustful thoughts. Every Saturday she atoned by suffering the heavy weight of her husband over her, moving, then moving again, and again, until he was sweaty, she was chafed, and her womb a new potential home. Nothing had quickened inside her yet, and she wondered if it ever would. She would pray for it if she didn’t have so much already to beg of God.
Ruth’s knees ached against the hardwood floor as she prayed, and while her words filled the room – Glory be ... Our Father ... Hail Mary ... Hail Mary ... Hail Mary ... The beads in her fingers kept her place in prayer as her thoughts remained on more corporeal matters.
Behind her closed eyes, images danced. She had spent the afternoon fixated on memories of her lunch with Grace and the new baby. In the privacy of the home, and in the comfort of her good and trustworthy friend, Grace was free to undo her shirt, baring her breast to feed the baby. Her nipples were larger and darker than Ruth’s by half, but Ruth couldn’t look away even as the baby’s head concealed her view. There was a thrill to it, an excitement her own husband had only managed to conjure in her once or twice.
She bit the inside of her cheek until she was sure it might bleed, before excusing herself to the washroom. Inside, she slapped at her own wrist, imagining her own hand was the ruler held by Sister Margot when she was still a schoolgirl. When the skin was red, she pushed down her silk stockings, dabbing at the unwelcomed damp with tissue in one hand, and tugging on the hairs with the other, until the pain was unbearable, and the image of Grace’s swollen breast was free of her mind.
Now, under the blankets, shrouded by the dark, and at peace, that vision of Grace reappeared on the backs of her eyes. If she parted her eyelids, it did not go away. Instead, through the slits, she could almost imagine Grace next to her, her chest bare and inviting – drink.
Ruth’s fingers were damp, and her sheets rumpled. No one had ever taught her what to do, but she had been learning all her life. She laid on her stomach, an arm under her, her hips raised. There was pleasure in it, and she kept her mouth close to the pillow, drool pooling, muffling her faint sounds.
A shudder rumbled through the room and pierced through Ruth’s body in ecstasy. She should pray again, she thought. Get on her knees without cleaning herself first, let the floor splinter into her knees and shins until they bled, and beg God for forgiveness.
It was harder to will her desires away when they had so recently been satiated. “Let it last,” Ruth breathed into the pillow. Her husband would be gone for days for some uncle’s funeral. Her womb was empty. The room was hers. A blessing.
“It is.” The voice was not hers, but it wasn’t unfamiliar. On the other side of the bed, in the space usually occupied by her husband, the weight of the mattress seemed to dip. “A blessing.”
The image of Grace became more refined, even in the dark, and her heavy breasts began to leak onto the sheets. There were prayers on her lips, ready to break forth. Her damp fingers began to slip out from under her to reach towards the set of white rosary beads on the bedside. She needed the priest. She needed the doctor. She needed her husband. She needed –
“Oh please,” she whispered, her true prayers breaking from her lips pressed tight.
Whatever creature in its familiar form slipped lower into the heat beneath the blankets. Grace’s hand on hip beckoned her to turn over, her touch as delicate as Spring breeze.
Ruth obeyed. Her head spun with lust and madness. “Oh Lord have mercy,” she whispered. Grace did not recoil; she only smiled.
“He is merciful,” she said. Ruth lifted her hips towards the thing concealed as her friend. The skirt of her nightdress had already been rucked up in her own frantic desperation. As she moved, the bare skin of her pelvis touched the skin of Grace’s abdomen, and Ruth thought she might just burst.
Grace caressed her thighs gently. She gently offered a still-leaking breast to Ruth’s mouth. She accepted with a gentle suck, and the light, sweet milk that followed.
I will be damned for this, she thought, but she could not get herself to pull away, to reach out for any holy object that might shield her. But what protection could she need here? She felt full, primal and spiritual hunger satiated for the first time since her own infancy.
“Oh my dear,” Grace told her, removing her breast from Ruth’s mouth before slipping lower still.
She did not comfort Ruth or tell her where this apparition had come from. As Grace suckled on Ruth’s own sweet milk, Ruth enjoyed the air on her legs and cheeks. On her back, there was no pillow to muffle her cries. Her shouts reverberated like hymns against the rafters.
When Grace brought her to a shuddering end, it was as if heaven and hell shook with righteous bliss. Grace vanished soon after. In the cold bed, Ruth allowed her eyes to finally shut, that lovely taste still on her lips. It seemed to her Eve knew something God could never understand. To devour is an act of devotion.
There was a sticky dampness between Ruth’s legs when she woke up, a chill sun on her face. She tossed back the sheets to see the red shame of her monthly spilled across the white bed sheets. She stood quickly, drawing a bath, and stripping the sheets.
Naked, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her skin was warmer, her cheeks fuller. Her hair was a mess, and she’d need to find time to visit the beauty parlor before mass tomorrow. She looked down at her body. Under her feet was the blood-stained cotton nightgown. Her sticky red thighs were pressed together, but more blood left her despite her efforts, staining the thing further in strange places.
Ruth settled into the hot bath, the warm water bringing an instant relief to her already sore back and breasts. She began to scrub the blood away, turning the water pink as she did. The soap bubbles tickled the tops of her thighs, and she sank deeper into the water, her hands tracing their way from the tips of her breasts to the bloody mess she’d made. Ruth brough a finger to her lips and tasted herself, the blood, and the bathwater. Even then, she could almost recall the taste of milk on her lips.
Emily Parise, 27, California - USA ✯ IG: @emilycparise
“Emily Parise is a graduate student studying Theatre in the USA with an emphasis on Shakespeare. Outside of academia, her creative work uses moments of erotic intimacy to explore characters at their most vulnerable. Her short story "Acts of Devotion" contrasts queer erotic desire with the pain and repression of Catholicism, prompting us to consider what it actually means to be damned, and to whom do we actually sell our souls?”