Brave New Worlds

willingness (four glasses each, only mildly diluted with Dr. Pepper), but beyond the Arbutus the two of them have truly earned this moment. Neither has ever skipped Mass. Neither has ever missed a Sacrament of Extramarital Intercourse. And while any act of nonconceptual love technically lay beyond the Church's powers of absolution, surely Christ would forgive them a solitary lapse. And so they go at it, this sterile union, this forbidden fruitlessness, this coupling from which no soul can come.
    "Hedonists dissolving in vats of molten sulfur," says Xallibos.
    The bedroom door squeals open. One of Kate's middle children, Beatrice, a gaunt six-year-old with flaking skin, enters holding a rude toy boat whittled from a hunk of bark.
    "Look what I made in school yesterday!"
    "We're busy," says Kate, pulling the tattered muslin sheet over her nakedness.
    "Do you like my boat, Stephen?" asks Beatrice.
    He slams a pillow atop his groin. "Lovely, dear. "
    "Go back to bed," Kate commands her daughter.
    "Onanists drowning in lakes of boiling semen," says Xallibos.
    Beatrice fixes Stephen with her receding eyes. "Can we sail it tomorrow on Parson's Pond?"
    "Certainly. Of course. Please go away. "
    "Just you and me, right, Stephen? Not Claude or Tommy or Yolanda or anybody . "
    "Flaying machines," says Xallibos, "peeling the damned like ripe bananas. "
    "Do you want a spanking?" seethes Kate. "that's exactly what you're going to get, young lady, the worst spanking of your whole life!"
    The child issues an elaborate shrug and strides off in a huff.
    "I love you," says Stephen, removing the pillow from his privates like a chef lifting the lid from a stew pot.
    Again they press together, throwing all they have into it, every limb and gland and orifice, no holds barred, no positions banned.
    "Unpardonable," Kate groans.
    "Unpardonable," Stephen agrees. He's never been so excited. His entire body is an appendage to his loins.
    "We'll be damned," she says.
    "Forever," he echoes.
    "Kiss me," she commands.
    "Farewell, friends," says Xallibos. "And keep those kiddies coming!"

    Wrestling the baptismal font from the trunk of his car, Connie ponders the vessel's resemblance to a birdbath—a place, he muses, for pious sparrows to accomplish their avian ablutions. As he sets the vessel on his shoulder and starts away, its edges digging into his flesh, a different metaphor suggests itself. But if the font is Connie's Cross, and Constitution Road his Via Dolorosa, where does that leave his upcoming mission to Angela Dunfey? Is he about to perform some mysterious act of vicarious atonement?
    "Morning, Father. "
    He slips the font from his shoulder, standing it up upright beside a fire hydrant. His parishioner Valerie Gallogher weaves amid the mob, dressed in a threadbare woolen parka.
    "Far to go?" she asks brightly.
    "End of the block. "
    "Want help?"
    "I need the exercise. "
    Valerie extends her arm and they shake hands, mitten clinging to mitten. "Made any special plans for Saint Patrick's Day?"
    "I'm going to bake shamrock cookies. "
    "Green?"
    "Can't afford food coloring. "
    "I think I've got some green—you're welcome to it. Who's at the end of the block?"
    "Angela Dunfey. "
    A shadow flits across Valerie's face. "And her daughter?"
    "Yes," moans Connie. His throat constricts. "Her daughter. "
    Valerie lays a sympathetic hand on his arm. "If I don't have green, we can probably fake it. "
    "Oh, Valerie, Valerie—I wish I'd never taken Holy Orders. "
    "We'll mix yellow with orange. I'm sorry, Father. "
    "I wish this cup would pass. "
    "I mean yellow with blue. "
    Connie loops his arms around the font, embracing it as he might a frightened child. "Stay with me. "
    Together they walk through the serrated March air and, reaching the Warren Avenue intersection, enter the tumble-down pile of bricks labeled No. 47. The foyer is as dim as a crypt. Switching on his penlight, Connie holds it aloft until he discerns the label Angela Dunfey glued to a dented mailbox. He begins the climb to apartment 8-C, his parishioner right behind. On the third landing, Connie stops to catch his breath. On the sixth, he puts down the font. Valerie wipes his brow with her parka sleeve. She takes up the font, and the two of them resume their ascent.
    Angela Dunfey's door is wormy, cracked, and hanging by one hinge. The mere act of knocking swings it open.
    They find themselves in the kitchen—a small musty space that would have felt claustrophobic were it not so