Passing through the kitchen, Nora saw a single candle alight on the center of the table. Next to the candle sat a small white card, and written on it in Søren’s elegant handwriting were instructions: Bathe first. Then come to me.

Holding the card by the corner, she dipped it into the candle flame and let the fire eat Søren’s words. She blew out the flame just as it touched her fingers, and she rinsed the ashes down the sink. Like almost all parish priests, Søren had a housekeeper who handled all his household needs. Nora was grateful for Mrs. Scalera—a woman formidable enough that she could force even Søren to sit down and eat something on occasion—but Nora knew all it would take would be for his housekeeper to find a stray note from him to her, a single long black hair or hairpin, or any other telltale sign that a woman had spent the night to endanger Søren’s career.

Nora started undressing even as she took the narrow stairway to the second floor. She loved the rectory. For seventeen years it had been her secret second home. A small Gothic two-story cottage, Nora knew it was a far cry from the sprawling mansion where Søren had been born and had lived until he was eleven. But that house had never been a home to him. For all its exterior beauty it had been a house of horrors. This place, however, had captured his heart just as she had all those years ago.

Breathing in the steam from the warm water, Nora let the heat seep into her skin. Søren often bathed her before their sessions. It was an act of dominance, the act of a parent with a small child, but more importantly, it relaxed her muscles so that his beatings would only hurt, not injure her.

Nora did not linger in the bath. Nor did she bother washing her hair. She wanted him, needed him. Tonight was their last night together for two or three months. Five years, she reminded herself, as tears welled up in her eyes. Five years they’d lived apart. Two months should feel like nothing.

But what if she left him and this time she couldn’t come back?

She pulled herself out of the water and dried off. Wearing nothing but a white towel, she walked down the hallway to his bedroom. At first glance Søren’s bedroom seemed an appropriate reflection of what he appeared to be. The dark wood of the two-hundred-year-old four-poster bed perfectly matched the wood of the floor. The ceiling arched like a church nave. The oriel window broke apart the moonlight that intruded into the room. All was neat, spare, humble, elegant and pious. Unsullied by modern technology, uncluttered by superfluous decoration, it was the bedroom of a man who had nothing to prove.

Still…a trained eye that knew what to look for would see marks on the bedposts that were not the natural byproducts of time. The lock on the heirloom chest under the window seemed unnecessarily heavy for simply guarding linens. And the rosewood box on the bedside table didn’t just hold his white collar—it held hers.

Nora’s eyes scanned the candlelit room trying to locate Søren. She didn’t see him. Instead she saw the bed… He’d changed the sheets. The white sheets were gone and in their place rich black sheets graced the bed. Black sheets meant only one thing. Nora inhaled sharply and forgot to exhale again.

“Breathe, little one,” Søren instructed as he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.

“Yes, sir.” In and out she breathed, dragging air into her stomach and pushing it out through her nose. Nora closed her eyes as he brought her collar around her neck; she shivered as he raised her hair to buckle and lock it closed.

“Down,” he ordered.

Nora stepped away from him; her feet trembled beneath her. As she walked to the bed, Søren took the towel from her. Naked, she lay across the sheets, the black sheets, and forced herself to keep breathing.

Søren stood next to the bed looking down at her. He reached up to his neck and removed his own white collar. He unbuttoned his shirt and slowly pulled it off. Nora had never seen a man with a more beautiful body than Søren’s. His morning runs and the five hundred push-ups and sit-ups he did every day kept him in immaculate shape. Lean, taut muscle wrapped every inch of his tall frame. Sometimes she could simply not keep her hands off him. But tonight she feared his touch as much as she craved it.

Søren let his shirt fall to the floor. Barefoot and wearing only his black pants, he crawled onto the bed, crawled over her.

He bent his head and kissed her. She loved how he kissed her, like he owned, as he owned her. Sometimes Nora marveled at the thought that while she’d had more lovers than she could count, Søren had shared his body with only three people in his entire life. His devotion to her humbled her, and Nora wrapped her arms around him to pull him even closer. Rarely, if ever, could she touch him when they made love. Søren was a sadist and a dominant. When he took her she was almost always tied down, bound to the bed, the floor or the St. Andrew’s Cross. Only on nights like this did he leave her arms and legs free. The act he was about to perform was sadistic enough no bondage was necessary to satisfy him.

Søren pulled up from her and reached to the bedside table. Nora’s hands dug into the sheets, the black sheets.

Nora looked up and into his eyes—gray eyes the color of a rising storm.

When he brought his hand back she saw the small curved blade shining in his hand.

* * *

Michael paced his room while trying to decide exactly how to tell his mom he planned to leave town for the summer. He hated to lie to her. But he couldn’t just come out and tell her that he was running off with Nora Sutherlin. He knew his mom knew what he was. Or at least she knew that he wasn’t like other kids. The boys at his school got in trouble for Playboy magazines stashed under their mattresses or for knocking up the cheerleaders. But when Michael got in trouble it was for burning and cutting himself, for downloading pictures of men being tied up and beaten by women and even other men. And when in trouble, he didn’t get grounded. He got slapped and thrown against the wall by his dad with enough force to leave bruises—the bad kind—all over him.

Sicko…pervert…freak… His father had said them all. When his mother tried to defend him against his father, saying Michael was just young and confused, his father had hit her too. The fighting had become an everyday thing, until his dad finally just up and moved out. Michael’s mom had gone into shell shock and still hadn’t completely recovered from it. The night Michael slashed his wrists it was with one thought in mind: maybe if he died his parents wouldn’t have anything to fight about anymore.

Michael took a deep breath and left his bedroom. He found his mom in the kitchen putting away groceries.

“Hey,” he said, rubbing his arms as if he was cold. He wasn’t, but he had goose bumps anyway.

“Hey, you,” she answered as she balled up a plastic bag and threw it under the kitchen sink. His mom was still pretty even after two kids and a marriage that had fallen apart around her. From her, Michael had inherited his straight dark hair, thin frame and pale complexion. From his dad he’d gotten nothing as far as he could tell. Sometimes he wondered if his father wasn’t his real dad. No one on either side of the family had his color eyes. But he knew it was wishful thinking. He looked a lot like his father’s youngest sister, so he knew there was no loving, forgiving real father out there waiting to be found.

“Can I help?” Michael had learned to ask before he helped with anything involving the kitchen. No matter where he put things away, his mom always came back and moved them to their mythical “right” place.

“Almost done. How was your day?” His mom opened the cabinet over the stove and rearranged the pitchers and jars on the shelf to make more room.

“Good. Glad to be out of school. I took your books back to the library. You were done, right?”

“I was. Thank you.”

Michael shifted from one foot to the other. His mother’s stiff posture and her refusal to make eye contact with him did not portend anything good. He wasn’t sure what he’d done this time, but he decided now might not be the best time to tell her he was leaving for the summer.

“Okay, I’m going to go read, I guess.”

“Michael, are you missing something?” his mother asked before he could leave the kitchen.

“What? No, I don’t think so.”

His mother gave him a long, searching look, a familiar look, a look he’d been getting from her for the past three years. He’d even named the look—he called it the Who are you and what have you done  with my son? look. The long hair, the incident over the websites and the burns, the night he’d tried to kill himself… Michael knew his mother was convinced he’d lost his mind a few years ago and she’d given up all hope he’d ever get it back.

She shook her head and walked to the back door. She pulled his skateboard out from behind the open door and handed it to him.

“Thanks. I left this somewhere.”

“You left it in the backseat of Nora Sutherlin’s car.”

Shit. Michael took a breath, decided to try a little deflection on his mom, a survival strategy Father S had taught him during their counseling sessions.

“It’s a BMW Z4 Roadster. It doesn’t have a backseat.”

Her eyes flashed with anger.

“What were you doing in Nora Sutherlin’s BMW Z4 Roadster that doesn’t have a backseat, Michael?”

“Nothing. She gave me a ride home from church.”

Michael’s mother continued to stare at him.

“You know she’s old enough to be your mother, right? I know she doesn’t look like it and God knows she doesn’t act like it, but she is.”

“It was just a ride home, Mom. She’s nice. She’s not like you think she is.”

“I think she’s a very dangerous woman. And I think you could get hurt if you spend any more time with her.”

Michael thought about Nora, how she lived so brazenly. Would he ever be as fearless as her? Michael remembered a few months ago he’d been lurking around the hallways after church, eavesdropping on Nora’s conversations. One of the resident old bats had been going on about the abomination of sodomy. Nora had patted the woman on the back and said, “If it’s an abomination, it’s because you’re doing it wrong. Bear down hard, then relax. It’ll fit better.” Then she’d breezed off, leaving the old ladies blushing and huffing. Michael had run into the bathroom and laughed his ass off in one of the stalls.

Fearless. He could do that.

“I like getting hurt,” he said.

His mother shook her head. “Don’t remind me.”

Michael started to turn and walk away. He felt as though he’d spent most of the past two years turning and walking away from his mom. He’d much rather run up to her and hug her than walk away from her yet again. But that didn’t seem to be an option anymore.

“I’m going to be gone this summer. I leave on Thursday. That’s okay, right?”

“Fine,” his mom said. He thought he heard a note of relief in her voice. “If that’s what you need to do. You’re going to be a camp counselor again?”

“Something like that,” he said. “I’m good on money and stuff. So you don’t have to worry about me.”

“I’ve been worried about you since the day you were born. Won’t stop now.”

Michael tried to laugh but the sound didn’t come out quite right. He started to leave.

“Michael?”

Slowly Michael turned around and faced his mother.

“You aren’t really going to camp, are you?”

“Mom, I—” Michael said and stopped.

“I don’t think I want to know what you’re doing this summer, do I?”

Michael weighed his words.

“No, probably not.”

* * *

Søren placed the first cut on her hip.