"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I have had… impure thoughts."

Gabriel froze when he heard the voice the other side of the grille. From what Father Stephen had said, he wasn’t even expecting someone to enter the other side. Let alone her.

He couldn’t speak. Although this was a confession between her and God, with him as the mere intercessor, he felt that he somehow violated her privacy by listening.

It was all in his own head, of course. If he hadn’t had such dangerous and inappropriate thoughts towards her, there would be no issue. She would just be any other girl. As it was, this felt like reading her diary.

Unable to speak, he let her continue.

"It’s been ages since my last confession. Like, years maybe." Leonie paused, expecting a response or prompt from the other side of the box, but there was only silence. "So I guess there’s way too many sins to list. But it’s the recent ones that are troubling me. Thoughts that I’ve been having about someone."

Again she paused. Gabriel knew he was supposed to question her but he couldn’t face asking her about some boyfriend. While it was absolutely none of his business what she did, the mere thought of it wrenched his gut.

"Anyway, I keep having these inappropriate thoughts and dreams even, and I just wanted it all to stop. So I thought that if I confessed it, then maybe that would help." Leonie felt an urge to confess it all, but she could hardly let Father Stephen know she had a massive crush on his colleague. The problem with her accent was that he was going to know it was her, and that would be super embarrassing next time she saw him.

She continued. "I think of him all the time, it’s really distracting. I just want to be with him so much. I imagine us doing things together, sinful things, and once my mind starts running away with it all I can’t stop."

Gabriel could hardly breathe. For the first time he felt the constraints of his vows like a straitjacket, and how he was cut off from the world. Out there, some guy who was free to do what he liked, had Leonie’s adoration. While he, Gabriel, had made irrevocable vows to reject worldly things such as romantic and sexual emotions.

After everything with Joanne it had seemed like a relief. Now for some reason, the Lord had decided to torment him. Or perhaps test his faith. Maybe this confession was to remind him that Leonie was destined for another path than he was. He, Gabriel, had chosen his lot.

Yet his body and his heart stirred as her voice continued. That sweet, slightly husky accent so different from the brisk English tones of all the other girls. "The problem is, you see, that he’s off limits, which is why it’s so wrong," Leonie was saying. "I don’t mean that he’s married or anything." She said this hurriedly, not wanting Father Stephen to think she was a total harlot. "Just that he’s…" the phrase "forbidden fruit" was in her head, and she couldn’t bring herself to say that either. "He’s committed to someone else." Someone else being God.

Again silence. Was she in this booth alone? Or had Father Stephen fallen asleep? Or worse, had he had a heart attack? Or even worse, was he struck dumb with horror at her confession?

Leonie felt a momentary pang of panic. Yet as much as she desired to get out of the place, she had a weird impulse to stay. There was something strangely intimate about the confession booth, this proximity to the person the other side, only a grille between them. For she was certain that Father Stephen was there. She had that human sixth sense that she wasn’t alone.

She wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to open the confession box to check on his wellbeing.

"Anyway, so I guess I just needed to get that off my chest," she said quickly. "So I should pray about it, right?"

Gabriel was in agony. How could he have the right to absolve her when he was guilty of the same sin towards her? She longed for some unknown boyfriend, he longed for her.

He closed his eyes, wishing she would leave, and longing for her to stay. Just to hear her voice.

"I’ll be going then," Leonie said. She exited the confessional as quietly as possible, feeling confused and uncomfortable. Was that something they did in England, maybe? Just let you speak and hear the voice of God in your own heart or something? That was probably it. She hoped so.

Leonie left the chapel in a hurry, still feeling strangely disturbed. She had heard Father Stephen breathing so he couldn’t be dead. Perhaps he had been asleep. If her confession had been so dull as to bore a priest to sleep, maybe there wasn’t so much sin to worry about.

She crossed the courtyard to the main school entrance, and stopped in her tracks.

There, coming towards her, was Father Stephen. Then who…?

"Good morning, Father," she greeted him.

"Good morning, my child." Father Stephen saw the puzzlement on her face. "Were you looking for me?"

"Only I thought, to have gone to confession…" she tailed off.

"Father Gabriel has been taking confession his morning." He beamed at her and checked his watch. "There is still time now. Indeed there is time at any hour of the day. Whenever you desire to confess, or simply have questions or wish to talk to one of us, the house of the Lord is always open."

Leonie’s heart was turning over her stomach in horror. "No, it’s okay, I’m fine. Thank you."

She fled.

Mortified, agonised, hideously embarrassed.

Father Gabriel was in there? She had just confessed her sinful crush to Father Gabriel?

Oh God, what had she said? She tried to recall the words she had used. He would surely have guessed it was him. Who else could it be, in this otherwise all-female community?

Madly she wondered if she should paste Father Stephen’s photo to the front of her notebook, so Father Gabriel might think her crush was on his colleague. But it was absurd, Father Stephen was in his sixties or seventies.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. What could she do? How could she face him again?

And she had English next period!

It was obvious Father Gabriel knew. He was totally blanking her. He was avoiding even looking at her.

Leonie felt absolutely miserable.

Even when she gave the correct answer to a question, his response was curt and his eyes barely flicked over her before moving to someone else.

"What real life parallels inspired Miller when he was writing The Crucible?"

Nobody put up their hand and most faces looked blank. So Leonie raised hers, and as no one else did, Gabriel reluctantly chose her to answer.

"The rise of McCarthyism, and the witch hunt for Communists in the US."

"Very good." Gabriel’s face registered no emotion as he said this, if anything there was faint irritation in his tone. He immediately turned to the board again, chalking up "Political parallels - McCarthyism".

Leonie wished she hadn’t even bothered to respond.

Even Mai noticed the English teacher’s attitude. "What’s up with Father Hot? He seems to be in a really bad mood today."

Gabriel wasn’t only short with Leonie, he was severe throughout the class and did not smile once. This at least was something of a relief, as it deflected attention from Leonie. It was still noticeable that he wasn’t nice to her though.

She couldn’t wait for the lesson to end, and grabbed her things as quickly as possible so she could escape.

But as Suki passed by with her two cronies, she smirked at Leonie and muttered: "I guess someone’s no longer the teacher’s pet."

Leonie ignored her but Mai gave Suki a sharp shove with her elbow, nearly sending her flying and causing her to drop the folders she was carrying.

Suki glared. "Watch where the hell you’re going."

"Oh, I’m so sorry!" Mai said, faking remorse. "Did you trip over that great fat foot that’s always in your mouth?" Then she grabbed Leonie and pulled her in the other direction. "Let’s get out of here."

"I suppose everyone has a bad day sometimes," Figgy said, as they walked to the dining hall for lunch. "Perhaps he had some bad news from home. Or a headache." She was a kind girl and preferred to take a sympathetic approach.

"He’s sexually frustrated," Mai said. "All priests are. Celibacy is completely unnatural."

"It’s quite noble though, don’t you think?" Figgy asked.

"No. I think it’s idiotic," Mai said. "What’s the point of having urges if you’re supposed to spend your entire life resisting them? What good does that do, anyway? You could spend all that effort on something worthwhile."

Harry agreed. "Other denominations manage very well with married clergy. It’s completely unnatural to force a person to suppress that side of life. How can they understand what it’s like for their parishioners if they’ve never had a good shag?"

Leonie’s mouth dropped open at Harry saying this. They were so blunt, these British girls. It sounded even more abrupt with Harry’s upper class English accent.

She wondered if Father Stephen or Father Gabriel had ever had a "shag" of any kind, good or otherwise. "Do you think they try it out first before they take their vows?" she asked.

"They’re fools if they don’t," Harry replied. "They should make it a requirement before committing to celibacy. Imagine giving up chocolate before you’d ever tried it. You’d go quite mad, watching other people eat it, and torturing yourself wondering what it might be like."

This turned into a conversation about whether it would be worse to give up chocolate or sex, but Leonie tuned out. She kept wondering about Father Gabriel and if he had ever had a girlfriend before. He was so model good-looking that she could hardly imagine he hadn’t. At her high school every single girl would have wanted to date him, if he had been a fellow student.

But he wasn’t a student. He was a teacher and a priest, and totally off-limits.