Letters to Maxine

CHAPTER 14

C'est la chouette

Tuesday, March 13 9:03 pm

Saint Gabriels

A young girl in her mid to late teens sat in the confessional and closed the door.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been three weeks since my last confession."

Father Moritz sighed and shook his head, knowing that a tedious hour still lay ahead. The nonsensical guilt offerings and self-righteous contrition brought him great misery.

Forty-three years of sitting in small booths wreaking of old cedar and booze, he was no stranger to unnatural passion, lust, and greed. Those moments used to excite him. Whenever a woman or young girl sat opposite the veiled screen confessing their sexual deviancy, he'd masturbate in the wooden stall set aside for the wicked. However, it wasn't until he ministered over the congregation of Sacré-Coeur, in Dole, France, that he learned ejaculation was possible without any physical touch.

No, he didn't need to see the faces of une jeune femme or their shapes. The simple tone and sweetness in their voices and confessions were enough to arouse him. But it was their smells that brought him to full climax. And not that of perfumes, shampoos, or feminine cleansers, no. His acute sensation brought the rapturous fragrance of their raw cunnilingus.

The guilt in their voices and pleading hearts couldn't eliminate the physical reaction from retelling their moments of lust and pleasure.

However, an encounter with une ancienne sorcière, fifteen years past sent him on the path of being born anew. This rebirth, unlike the first, eradicated his prior obligation to God, his Country, and the church. And she imposed her will over him.

It was a late November confession. The supper bells had not yet sounded, and he was exhausted and starving.

She was young, in her early twenties, and very unassuming. A fair maiden from the French countryside.

She sat in the confessional and began her act of contrition.

"Bénis-moi père car j'ai péché."

At first, her voice was tender. Father Moritz believed her to be a blemishless lamb secure in her ignorance and virginity. And for the first moments of her repentance, she confirmed this thought. That is until she became familiar.

"Father Moritz," she said. "I've seen your sins and your lust."

Her English shattered his previous conclusion. Instead, a powerful chemical reaction surged through him, imprinting his genetic code.   

His spine tingled and brought him to an immediate emission. It was strong and lasting, paralyzing him from the waist down. He tried to speak but could only whine.

"She has watched you, Father. She has watched you and is grooming you for greatness."

He was stunned by another orgasm. This one was felt deep in his rectum and made him yip.

The young girl in her early twenties knew what was happening. During his euphoria, she wouldn't speak, but her breathing was loud and riddled with appetence.

And somehow, she shared her scent with him. He could smell her fermented and molasses-dripping labia. It was acute and personal, a strange connection with the moment, unlike anything he had experienced before.

"As the screech owl hunts at night, so shall she show you to stalk the body of her preordained sacrifice."

With each breath, his toes curled, and his hips jerked with each orgasmic pulsation.

"C'est la chouette, and she wants you."

Her smell piqued, causing his neck to flex and his jaw to open wide.

And with the final pulsation the young girl in her early twenties passed her last words in a whisper.

"Elle este créature de la nuit. And you will hear her in the wind and rain. And she will come to you in the wilderness. And you will answer."

She shushed him.

Gone were the euphoria and continuous emissions. As the blood rushed back to Moritz's hips, legs, and feet, he sat back. The smell of old cedar and booze returned. Yet, forevermore, that smell was entangled with just a hint of her molasses.

The girl in her early twenties, thought to be unassuming, was still. Through the screened veil, he saw the darkness of her profile. While he couldn't make out her features, he didn't care. He had experienced her in the most intimate ways and was fulfilled.

"Father?" she said. Her voice was innocent, like the blemishless lamb, and again secure in the ignorance of her virginity.

"Father Moritz, Puis-je aller?"

He sighed and smiled. He felt warm, detached, and relaxed. Any sense of anxiety had vanished, and he was at peace.

"The Lord has freed you from your sins," he said. "Go in peace."

He heard her genuflect and then kiss her rosaries. That was when he realized the effects of the encounter. Certain senses were heightened.

"Grâce à Dieu," she said.

Over the next years, whenever he heard the voice of the ancient witch, his toes and rectum would tingle. He could hear the breath and the heartbeats of his victims with great precision. But his sense of smell became his most powerful tool. It led him on the hunt and gave him the power to overcome human flesh and bone. Though he hadn't smelled the young girl in her early twenties since her scent was replaced with something more rapturous. It was the sweetest of perfumes and oils, more pleasing than molasses.

"You, yes, you. Yours is the scent of une ancienne sorcière, the ancient one. You, my lover, are my beast. You, my lover, are my November Witch, and I hear you."

In the present, sitting in the confessional at Our Lady of Hope, the young girl in her mid to late teens rambled on about Oija Boards and the abandoned Lady of Hope Asylum for the sick.

Father Moritz felt the tingles and smelled the ripeness of the one who sat across from the veiled screen in the confessional that smelled of old cedar and booze.

However, there was something familiar and it piqued his senses.

Molasses. I smell you, but how? I've not caught this scent since my liberation. But now I understand. This young woman, that smells like you, is your promised sacrifice. And now she will be mine.

"My daughter, why play with the darkness?" he said. "There are things not of this world. And we must be diligent to leave them be."

"I'm sorry, Father—"

"En français s'il te plaît."

"How did you know I spoke—"

Father Moritz repeated himself and waited.

"Je suis désolé Père," she said.

Yes, belle jeune fille. It is you and I have your sweet scent. Yes, we will be mated soon enough.

With his final absolvement and her obligatory parting words, he heard the drumming of her heartbeat and the rushing of her blood.

She opened the door stepping into the sanctuary for her final blessing from the esteemed queen of heaven.

As she knelt in the pew and bowed her head, she twirled her rosaries in her fingers. Father Moritz peeked through the curtain and yipped.

Her Catholic School uniform was perfect and bore the insignia of Saint Gabriel's. Her brown hair flowed from her shoulders with a slight curl on the ends. Her face was covered by praying hands, but it didn't matter. No, it never does.

"I have your smell, you, my prissy one..."