The Peacock 53

  "Anything that could, did go wrong during my dinner date with Father Griffin.  It was a pricey, Nouvelle Cuisine kind of joint and naturally he was picking up the tab.  But he hated everything about the place: our table, the music (too loud and contemporary for his delicate baroque ears).  He dismissed the wine as plonk and seemed to have an immediate hate on for our first server for being a woman (he actually had the colossal gall to demand a male server, instead, and then he hated the male server because he was too old, around thirty, already balding and too skinny.  Yes, he actually said that.)  He thought the pasta was overcooked, the chicken underdone and the salad greens wilted and the dressing insipid.  And don't get me started about his running commentary on the dreadful cheesecake for dessert.  And, I was just seventeen, didn't have a clue about elegant matters, and I really thought the place and food were just fine.

"Then there was the conversation.  Or should I say, monologue.  It was all about him, his horrible childhood and how he was bullied as a sissy, and all his little revenge strategies in theological seminary and all the other students and ordinands, all male, he had successfully bedded.  And all I could do was sit there spellbound and dumbfounded..."

"Rather like watching an elephant giving birth?" Carl asks.

"Rather like watching two elephants having sex.  Two bull elephants.  Then he invited me back to the clergy house for a drink.  And, stupidly, I accepted.  But I was totally under his spell.  That guy was powerful.  He still is powerful, but at least now Father Griffin is powerful for good."

"He tries to be."

"At the clergy house, Father Griffin tried to spirit me upstairs with him before anyone could see that he had a visitor.  But just as we reached his floor and were heading towards his suite, who should emerge from the bathroom but Father Stephen, looking very unclerical in a T shirt and jeans.  He just said to me as I followed Father Griffin to his door, pointing, 'if anything happens, knock on my door.'"

"as I was sitting, at Father Griffin's bidding, on the sofa, he muttered that I shouldn't pay any heed to whatever Father Stephen just told me.  And now, I was really frightened..."