Mandy Goes To Confession by gunhilltrain
This is a sequel to Mandy’s Pantyless Adventure and Mandy’s Cemetery Adventure. The stories are about two new college graduates, Paul D’Amato and Miranda Grossman, who have met and started an affair in the summer of 1977. The male narrator is the same guy as in “The My Summer with Nora” series, most of which takes place three years earlier.
He has just graduated from City College while she is from Lehman College, both of which are branches of the City University of New York. They live a couple of miles from each other in the North Bronx. In this story, she has just returned from an out-of-town trip.
Vivian is Mandy’s roommate and lover from before she met Paul, although she already knew Mandy platonically at Lehman. Vivian knew about her roommate’s new boyfriend because he’s been to the apartment a number of times. However, he was never told what was going on between the two women, although he has some suspicions.
In any case, Vivian initiated her own affair with Paul when Mandy was on that trip.
***********
Mandy’s Plan
Miranda had only been back for a few days when she revealed her plan for a new sexual escapade. We were sitting in a coffee shop when she brought up the topic.
“Remember how I proposed that we do something wild in a church? That was over ten days ago.”
By that point, I paid attention to whatever she had invented because I knew that she might indeed make it happen. “Okay, I remember that.”
“What I had been considering was having sex, or at least sexual activity, it the Confessional of a Catholic Church while a Mass was actually taking place.”
Why did I have to have this girlfriend with such an overabundance of imagination? She detected some skepticism in me and she said, “Oh come on, everything else I’ve come up with so far has worked perfectly.”
“Indeed it has. But his is way, way too much. I really doubt we’d be able to pull it off.” Yet, as a lapsed Catholic, the whole idea did have a certain appeal to me.
She seemed miffed for a moment, but not for long. She had already created a backup plan. “There’s another variation I have. It won’t be during a Mass, but you’ll go into the priest’s both and then I’ll go into the side booth and pretend to be a penitent.”
I blurted out, “But you’re Jewish.”
“So I converted! Besides, I know the part of the ritual I’ll have to do — ‘bless me, Father, for I have sinned,’ and so forth. And of course, you’ll play the part of the priest.”
“And do you have a church in mind for this?”
“It should be in the biggest church we can find, which would probably be St. Nicholas of Tolentine on University Avenue.” That was on the southwest corner of Fordham Road. I had never been in it, but it was indeed huge. It went through an entire block to the avenue on the far side.
I joked, “Why not St. Patrick’s Cathedral?” Mandy frowned at me. “I was pulling your leg.”
She said, “Then we should go over there and scout it out. You’ve got time this afternoon?”
It was now a Saturday, “Yeah, what the hell, let’s have a look.”
“Great! It should only take us about thirty minutes to get there, if that.”
On the bus ride over there, I thought briefly about my other, secret girlfriend, Vivian. She was Mandy’s roommate and I suspected she was also her lover. I hadn’t seen Vivian since Mandy had returned, and I wondered where I stood with her. Was our thing together perhaps a mere fling?
It all seemed pretty complicated.
*****
Back then churches were usually open during the day, and we were able to just walk in. Mandy was casually dressed in blue jeans, a short-sleeved blouse, and sneakers. She was a tall, well-built girl with dark-blonde hair down to her chin. That was a bit on the short side for the 1970s.
Overall, I was pleased with my recently-acquired girlfriend, especially since I had lost the previous one only in June. I hadn’t expected to meet a new one so soon.
She church has been built in 1907, and it was indeed impressive. It had to be about three times the size of my old parish, Holy Spirit, which was a couple of miles south on University. Fortunately, the place was nearly empty when we went there.
Mandy and I examined the four wooden confessionals in the back near the entrances. They had the usual layout used by the Catholic Church. The priest sat in his little booth in the middle, while two parishioners knelt in the compartments on either side of him. One person would have to wait while the other one had his or her turn to repent their sins.
St. Nicholas had more elaborately designed confessionals than the ones I was used to. The priest had a door with a glass window for his space, and the side sections also had such doors. At Holy Spirit, the lay people only had curtains.
I said, “Well, this is the key thing; let’s see if these doors are locked or not.” If they were…
Before I did anything, I looked around the huge interior. Only a handful of people were in the pews far to the front. I tried the three doors on one set, and they all opened readily. Just to be sure, I went to an adjacent set of booths to check on those.
I looked around inside them, and the set-up reminded me of the ones I had seen before.
There was a grill-work panel connecting the sections so that people could be anonymous when speaking to the priest. Of course, everyone knew who he was because he slid his nameplate into place on the door each time he was in there. I remembered that it was a good way to avoid the more grumpy or judgmental clergymen.
The priest’s side had a chair, as I expected, and a small table lamp. I remembered from my own confession-going days that such lights were rarely if ever turned on.
The parishioner’s side merely had a small stool to kneel on. A major difference from Holy Spirit was that the doors on both sides had those windows as I mentioned. Those were covered with curtains.
Some light came through the cloth, either from natural daylight or the interior lights of the church. Thus each side had a more light than the near-total darkness I knew from my old church.
When I finished my perusal, Mandy said, “So, looks pretty good, right?”
“Better than I had expected, probably, but it depends on what we intend to pull off in here.”
“Let’s go to the park across the street and we’ll talk about it.”
*******
We bought sodas from a vendor and went across Fordham Road to sit on a bench in Devoe Park. It was a lovely sunny day in mid-October. Mandy said, “So it’s been a while since you’ve been to Confession.”
“We’ve talked about that before. I didn’t want to tell them anything about myself and I eventually stopped going. I kept attending Mass for a while longer to placate my parents. So, what have you got planned for us?”
“It’s mostly going to be a surprise for you. The basic idea is that you’ll be sitting in the priest’s side and I’ll come in to say my confession. Then things will get more than a bit wild, as you’ll find out.”
I said, “There is something implausible about this. In a real Confession, there will be other penitents waiting in line for your place. There is no time limit, of course, but it has to be completed in some reasonable time frame.”
“Haven’t you ever heard the term ‘suspension of disbelief?’ Of course, it’s not going to be totally realistic.”
“Also, I’m guessing that at some point I’m supposed to go over to your side or you’ll come over to mine, correct? The other people out there would see that.”
“That’s another thing we’ll just ignore. That’s the nature of role playing.”
“This one sounds like more of a stretch than I had expected. Also, in real life, somebody in the church may see us going in and out of the booths.”
“Just act like you belong there; that’s always a good strategy for tricky situations like this. And we’ll be dressed well too, which always makes for added credibility.” She went on, “Do they still teach that bit about how the Jews killed Jesus?”
“That wasn’t discussed any longer when I was going to religious instructions myself. Even the hated Protestants and their Reformation were no longer mentioned. In any case, Jesus was a Jew himself.”
“Not for long. He had to go start his own religion and name it after himself.”
I had to laugh at that. “Ah, Mandy, that is a bit of an oversimplification.”
Then she asked me, “So which sexual activities are mortal sins? Like, how about masturbation, for example?”
“I’ve heard that there are these guides to Confession, but I’ve seen one. I’d guess that masturbation is mortal, although I’m not sure. Merely looking at porn without touching is likely venial, while thinking about looking might be a so-called near-occasion of sin.”
“So what is looking at a pretty backside considered then?” She stood up and wiggled the tightly-packed seat of her jeans at me. On impulse, I gave her a good slap on her behind.
“Oh! You must think I’m a really bad girl.”
As she sat down, I said, “I don’t just think it, I know it. Anyway, since you asked, just looking at you might be a near-occasion of sin, while whacking you, even once, might be venial.”
“Discuss it with a priest.”
“Yeah, like I’d ever do that.”
She replied, “I just love seducing good Catholic boys and turning them into sinners.”
“It’s a bit late to worry about that; I’ve been on that track for a while now. I guess I’m going to Hell.”
“And for venial sins, you only go to Purgatory for a while. What is that supposed to be like?”
I replied, “As usual, it’s kind of vague. I always thought of it as Hell-Lite.” I remembered something else. “Dante had the Lustful fairly high up in Hades, almost at the top. I guess he thought there were a lot of worse things than that.”
“Nevertheless, they were still in Hell forever.”
“I always thought that two categories of sins were too narrow. There should be four or five gradations in the middle.”
“I guess they don’t have a suggestion box for that kind of thing.”
“So, can you give me at least an outline of what we’re going to be doing at that church?”
“I guess I didn’t make that clear enough. On the appointed day, you go in first and sit in the priest’s booth. Then, a couple of minutes later, I’ll come in and kneel in the other side. We’ll meet outside first in to confirm that we have both arrived.”