April, 2010

"Now touch me," Teddy told Ingrid after she'd tied his hands behind the chair.

"What?" She stood in front of her so-called therapist, crossing her arms over her chest. "I mean... how? Where?"

"Wherever you want. However you want."

One of her eyebrows jumped up. "Isn't that – I mean..."

"Well, you won't let me touch you, so we have to do something to get you back in the groove. I had you tie me up so in case I twitch or anything, you know I won't hurt you. Because I can't. Come on now. I'm a big boy, I can take it."

Ingrid sighed and knelt before him, reluctant. "Are you sure about this?"

"Very."

She sucked in a breath and trailed her fingertips across his bare thighs. His hairs stood on end, but Teddy didn't otherwise react. Her palms then flattened on his chest and she dragged them down to his waist. His body felt warm to the touch.

Ingrid inched forward on her knees and sat up. His well-defined collarbones created cavernous crevices at the top of his chest, which she suddenly craved to kiss. She stretched her neck, her lips hovering above his skin. It burned her mouth when she pressed it against his clavicle, and she thought she could hear Teddy hiss.

"You okay?" she drew back to ask, searching his hooded eyes.

"Yeah, I'm good. You keep going. Knock yourself out. It'll be your turn next, if you want. Of course, you don't have to. But just so you know."

Ingrid gnawed at her bottom lip. "Maybe not today," she whispered and pecked his cheek. "But I think I'm going to torture the hell out of you."

Teddy snickered. "Fuck, yeah!"

December, 2017

Ingrid soon spotted an open Starbucks as she aimlessly wandered the streets and ducked in for an americano. She tipped the barista way too much and loaded her venti cup with sugar before braving the winter again. Then her bladder suddenly ached and she went back inside to use the toilet.

Relieved and slightly more awake and sober, Ingrid continued her random trek through the snow, until she clocked a liquor store across the road somewhere. She made her way towards it, the hand holding her cup reddened from the cold despite the hot brew inside.

"Hola, señor!" she greeted as she strode in.

The Asian man behind the counter raised an eyebrow at her.

"Tequila, por favor," she demanded, grinning.

"I'm Chinese, you know," the man told her.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but I just ordered a tequila, didn't I? That shit's Spanish."

"Actually, it's Mexican."

Ingrid groaned. "They speak fucking Spanish, don't they?"

"I guess," the man grumbled.

"Right, enough of that. Gimme it, come on."

"Any brand preferences?"

"Don't know, don't care. Cheap and strong. Actually, no, scratch that – " She made a movement with her finger as if she could strike the word through in the air. "Good and strong. I don't care how fucking expensive it is."

"Alright."

He picked out a bottle, wrapped it up in a paper bag, took her money. Then hesitated as she asked him to open it for her.

"Isn't it a bit early for this shit?" he wondered aloud.

"Five o'clock somewhere, right? Just get on with it." A dismissive flick of her wrist. "I'm gonna freeze to death out there, I need something to keep me warm. Here."

She slapped a crumpled hundred-dollar bill on the countertop, sliding it over to him.

"Benjamin says, please, motherfucker."

He quickly pocketed the note and popped the cork open for her. Ingrid grabbed it by the neck and filled her coffee cup in. The first sip of her tequila americano made her body buzz all over.

She had lunch at some point, then a hot dog in Central Park, where she found a bench under the darkening sky to light a joint. Except she had no lighter. Or matches.

"Fucking hell!"

She pinched the unlit cigarette between thumb and forefinger, removing it from her lips, and lamented at the sky, her head thrown back.

"Salud, I suppose," she mumbled, raising her tequila bottle into a pseudo-toast.

Peeling the brown paper off the glass, Ingrid glanced into the bag to see how much she had left. Her americano had run out some time ago. Hopefully, the tequila would last a little longer.

Nightfall crept up on her by the time she skulked out of another Starbucks, whose toilet facilities she'd used after knocking back a cupcake and a couple of espresso shots. The storm had intensified outside, threatening to go full blizzard overnight. Ingrid shuddered. She had no clue which corner of the Big Apple she'd ended up in or where she really wanted to go.

She reached for her phone in the inner breast-pocket of her coat. Tried turning it on. It sputtered briefly to life, only to invade her with a heap of panic-inducing notifications, then it died of its own accord and she breathed a sigh of relief. Confrontation avoided.

She'd have to find somewhere to spend the night, though. Somewhere at the very least relatively safe. She patted herself down, calculated she ought to have enough cash left on her to book a hotel room or something. Then an idea flashed through her brain, before Edgar's voice echoed in her mind like the ripples of a thunder after a strike of lightning.

How about a church?

*

To her sardonic surprise, most of these supposedly welcoming houses of God that she came across had their doors locked firmly shut.

"Typical," she muttered against the padlocked gate of the sixth or seventh church she'd approached.

Ingrid shook the tequila bottle in her paper bag. Alarmingly little sloshed around the bottom of it. The rest reverberated between her temples, making her lean into walls as she walked. She prowled on, tired and tipsy, but just as she was beginning to lose hope, lights glinted ahead in what appeared to be a building dedicated to divine worship.

Ingrid's axis tilted when she pushed herself off the wall she'd been dragging her feet alongside and she crashed into a pole before she crumpled to her knees in the snow. She still felt startlingly lucid, except her brain had been doused with a heavy mist that made it impossible for her to see straight. Her hands, bright red by now from the cold, grabbed fistfuls of snow and rubbed it into her cheeks. That gave her a sobering jolt.

The building she headed for, tucked between imposing brownstones, was a church, all right, although quite small and rather modern at first glance. Its doors were closed, but yellow warmth seeped along the seam between them. Ingrid knocked, then tried the handles, to see which half would give. Someone pulled one door inwards from her hand.

"Welcome," a young black priest smiled affectionately up at her. He couldn't have been older than thirty.

From his garb and the benches she glimpsed lined up behind him, Ingrid guessed she'd stumbled into a catholic establishment.

"Hi." She cleared her throat.

"Sorry, we were just about to close. We don't normally get visitors this late."

"Uh..." She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. "Should I go, then?"

"God, no! Come in, come in." He took a step to the side to let her in, then pushed the door closed. "Can I get you anything? A hot chocolate, maybe? You look positively frozen."

Ingrid shook her head. The frost melted on her eyebrows and dripped down into her eyes. She blinked it away. As an afterthought, she held up her paper-wrapped bottle.

"Ah." A smile that hinted disapproval, albeit not in an accusing way. "Keeping yourself warm by other means, I see."

She couldn't help a grin.

"What can I do for you, then?"

Ingrid hesitated. "Mind holding this for a bit?"

She passed him the bottle as she shrugged out of her coat and retrieved it before she wobbled over to one end of a bench. He followed her and lowered himself sideways on the bench in front of her, leaning his elbows on its backrest.

"I'm Chris, by the way." He stretched out his arm. "Haven't seen you around the parish."

Ingrid rolled her eyes as they shook hands. "Of course you are. Like Jesus fucking Christ, right?"

A corner of his mouth curled slightly upwards.

"Sorry, padre," she muttered, "no offence, I'm just not... big on religion."

"That's all right. We normally have a swear jar around here, though."

Ingrid laughed and plucked a couple of bills from her pocket. "Here," she straightened them out and gave them to him. "Should cover the whole night. I swear quite a lot."

His eyebrows rose at the pair of hundred-dollar notes.

"That's a lot of money. Are you sure you don't need it?"

"You'll put it to better use than what I originally intended for it, I'm sure. Just take it."

He seemed to guess her meaning and accepted the cash.

"Can I have your name, then? So I know whom to thank in my sermon for the generous donation."

"Uh, Ingrid." She gulped. "My name is Ingrid."

"Ingrid, welcome. It's nice to meet you. What brings you out here at this hour?"

Ingrid chipped at the label on her bottle. Swallowed a bitter knot in her throat. "Forgive me, father, for I have sinned – is that how it goes?"

"A confession, then?"

A half-hearted shrug. "If you'll have it from a non-believer."

"Who am I to judge?"

She looked up to meet his eyes. The kindest she remembered seeing. Wise beyond his years, and of a depth that only housed compassion and sincerity. Ingrid gripped the neck of her bottle tight, averting her gaze.

"First things first, though – last time I did this as a kid, the priest blabbered. I want to make sure that won't happen, because the shit I have to tell you..." A sour snicker. "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, you know? That sorta thing."

Nothing changed in his expression. He remained patient and understanding.

"He must have had a good reason to break the Seal of Confession," Chris offered. "Of course, it doesn't make it forgivable, or acceptable. It's a sacred oath. But circumstances can sometimes be unbearably constricting."

"Is there like a Yelp for priests?" Ingrid found herself asking. "Where I can review my experience."

That earned her a chuckle. "Not that I know of, but maybe there should be! It'd help with accountability in cases like this. A feedback system of some sort."

"A church call-centre? Would make for a hell of a business venture."

The young priest laughed. "That's an idea!"

"Tell me something." Ingrid reverted into serious mode. Drunk serious mode. "Don't you miss women?"

An easy-going smile. "Not really, no. I, well... I was abused as a child, by a seemingly well-meaning aunt."

"Shit... Sorry."

"Thank you. It was faith that helped me out of the darkness, so I dedicated my life to it. I'm aware, of course, that not everyone's as lucky. We all have different coping mechanisms and there's no right or wrong answer."

"I watched a man get murdered last night," Ingrid blurted, out of breath, her voice barely there.

Chris quietened, but his countenance did not alter.

"I was, um..." She licked her lips. "I was looking to buy drugs. He was... threatening me, held a knife to my throat."

Absentminded, she brushed her fingertips across the band-aid covering the scratch.

"Then this other guy showed up. A dangerous guy from my past. He killed him – he stabbed him – it happened so fast – "

Her grip tightened on the backrest of the bench before her. Her knuckles whitened, her whole body trembled. Ingrid took a swig from the remnants of tequila.

"And the cherry on top of that fucking cake... When I met him again last month, after I hadn't seen him in years, he told me – he basically confessed that he'd murdered my husband. Who was a shitbag of a human, but still."

Chris placed a soothing hand over her own. "Have you tried telling the police?"

"Can't tell them. Can't tell anyone. Hence..." She made a sweeping motion with her arm. "He's a fucking drug lord, is what he is. And after all that fucked-up shit, I still went to bed with him."

"Did he force himself on you?"

A resentful cackle. "He saved my fucking life, padre."

"That doesn't entitle anyone to anything. Especially this man."

Ingrid chewed on that for a minute. "He gave me weed. Which is what I was looking for in the first place. I needed to unwind so bad. And let me tell you, padre, sex on weed is... quite something. Particularly with a man who knows what he's doing to you. It's like... the world stops spinning and it's just the two of you, and pure, never-ending bliss. It just doesn't – you just don't stop coming. You just pass out from exhaustion at some point."

"Yes, so I'm told."

"I'm not the only one, then."

"I'm afraid not."

Ingrid sighed and emptied her bottle, letting it clatter on the floor as she lay down on the bench.

"I'm so tired," she murmured, "so fucking tired." Tears strained her voice and she covered her face with her hands.

"Do you want me to call someone to come pick you up?"

Ingrid sobbed to herself, sniffling. She shifted to stretch her coat over her body, like a blanket.

"My phone's dead," she said, "and I don't know any numbers by heart."

"Instant messaging, then?"

From somewhere on his person, the young priest produced a sleek, slim smartphone. Ingrid sat up and accepted the device. She struggled to log into messenger and looked up Cait. The girl had been online just minutes before. The letters on the keyboard refused to cooperate in an orderly manner so Ingrid initiated a call.

Cait rejected it. What the hell? the girl typed.

I bedd a dude and mu phines dead

What?...

Ingrid groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. She tried again, focusing hard on each individual letter.

I need

A ride

phonedead

Share location, Cait wrote and Ingrid looked up at Chris.

"Uh..."

She stared back at the screen, blinking, then passed the phone to him.

"Oh, okay," Chris exclaimed. He tapped around for a bit. "There," he said, "your friend will now have your exact location pinpointed on the map. For a limited amount of time, I think."

Ingrid didn't check for herself. She didn't necessarily want to know the specifics of where she'd ended up.

Got it, Cait replied. Coming to get ya. A wink.

No dont

Tell murph or ur dad

Please cait, Ingrid typed with excruciating difficulty, its not safe out here

Relax. I was going to call dad, anyway.

Sit tight! Kiss and a hug.

k

See u

Thanks

"I'll wait with you," the young priest reassured her. "Do you want something to eat? It'll take a while."

"Actually." Ingrid licked her lips and gulped. "Bite of something wouldn't hurt. I've only just realised I've skipped dinner."

"Come along, then." He stood up and held out his hand for her. "I make a mean tuna sandwich."

*

song of the chapter: take me to church by hozier

https://youtu.be/ozs_f4ZT9sw