The Case Against Satan by Ray Russell Page A

Father. All men think about those things.” She leaned closer and whispered in his ear. Her lips were wet, her breath was hot. She suggested a few specifics the like of which Father Halloran had not heard in all hisyears of receiving confession. His stomach jumped to hear them. She snickered; then she seized his hand and licked it, like a dog.
    He jerked it away as if he had received an electric shock. She reached swiftly for his other hand and pressed it to her breast.
    â€œNo, Susan!” He stepped back, knocking over an ash tray.
    She threw her arms around him—they were like steel springs—and covered his lips with hers, fluttering her tongue inside his mouth.
    â€œStop!” He pushed her away. She went stumbling backward.
    â€œHypocrite!” she said softly when she had gained her footing. “You don’t fool me! You want me—just as much as I want you! If you thought you could get away with it, if you thought nobody would ever find out, you’d grab me, wouldn’t you? You’d paw me. You’d throw me down
here
, right
here,”
—she stamped on the floor with her bare foot—“and do all those things you’re turning over in your mind. All of them. You’d glut yourself, glut yourself like a pig, like a
pig
you’d grunt and drool and sweat over me, empty yourself into me, cover me with your spit and slime—” Her voice rose higher, became coarser. “Hypocrite! Filthy lecher!
Pig!”
    On the last word she threw herself at the priest—
“Help! God help me!”
he croaked—as she sunk strong sharp fingers into his throat.
    When Garth dragged her wild naked body off Father Halloran, the nails of her hands were stained as red as the nails of her feet—but with the blood of the celibate.

V
CROSS OF PAIN
    The Bishop was sitting stunned at the grotesque story when there was a knock at the study door. Gregory answered it. Mrs. Farley, the housekeeper, murmured something to him and Gregory excused himself to the Bishop and walked into the living room.
    Susan Garth was there, waiting for him.
    â€œHello, Susan.”
    â€œHello, Father.”
    â€œWhat can I do for you?”
    She shrugged. “I just thought . . . maybe you could help me . . . maybe we could just talk about it . . . or whatever you want to do . . .”
    â€œDoes your father know you’re here?”
    â€œHe knows.”
    â€œFine. Well, Susan, you come at a rather bad time. I have a visitor. Perhaps—”
    Mrs. Farley entered the living room and put a note into Gregory’s hand. “His Excellency heard me tell you she was here,” she whispered in explanation.
    The note read, simply:
Let me see her
.
    Pocketing it, Gregory said to the girl, “Well, maybe this isn’t such a bad time, after all. As matter of fact, Susan, I’d like you to meet someone. His Excellency, Bishop Crimmings. Do you mind?”
    â€œNo, I—guess not.”
    â€œThen come along.” He led her to the study and opened the door. The study looked to Susan about the same as it had the one and only time she had been in it. Perhaps the books were different;there was a typewriter that had not been there before; and seated in the leather chair Father Halloran had occupied was a big old man with white hair and a stern face.
    Gregory asked the Bishop, “You’ll want me to stay, won’t you, Your Excellency?”
    â€œNo, Father,” said the Bishop crisply. “You may go.”
    â€œPlease
stay, Father Sargent!” the girl pleaded. “I don’t want to be alone here with—” She looked down at her lean strong hands.
    â€œYou may
go,
Father,” the Bishop repeated.
    Gregory left the study, closing the door.
    It was very quiet in the room, but the quiet did not spell peace to Susan, as it had before. It seemed swollen with potential violence.
    â€œCome here,