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The psychologist’s office was unsettling. There were books crammed on every shelf, under the desk, on top of the coffee table, and even more piles of them on the floor. On each dusty stack there was an assortment of chachkis, little trinkets he treasured enough to keep on display. The doctor’s feet were propped onto an ottoman right in front of his crimson armchair, and he was looking at him curiously– waiting for Aaron to collect his thoughts.
Dr. Jeffrey Parson’s name was the first one to pop up on his laptop’s display when he looked up Psychologists in Prince William County, Virginia. He had expected an airy, light-filled space where positive thinking would naturally, automatically come to him. He’d also expected an old gentleman, warm and reassuring, softly pushing him to just talk and let it all out. That’s what he needed really – to just let it out and finally be able to bury this huge problem in the depths of his mind. He couldn’t have been more far off if he tried.
Parson was about his age, scruffy and unkept just like his packed, suffocatingly dark office. It didn’t even have a window. The doctor ran his practice in the basement of his own house. He was a twitchy man with an obvious eye tic. He kept forcefully blinking, keeping his eyes shut close for just a second too long to look natural. Aaron found himself wondering how someone so… weirdly wired could be an efficient therapist.
By that point Aaron just wanted to up and leave. He wasn’t one to talk much anyway, let alone of his feelings. He was rightfully profiled by Reid as an Alpha Male, plus this Dr. Parson was giving him the creeps– and his office smelled.
“Aaron?”
“Yes?”
“You know, the whole point of going to therapy is to talk. I can’t really do my job if you refuse to say more than three words at a time. I realize it can be hard at first, so why don’t we start from the beginning? Talk me through the first time you met her.”
A little nudge is all it took for his mind to wander back to the year before.
It was November 15th, 2006. It was a cloudy day. Windy, too.
Winter was quickly approaching, but the parking lot was still scattered with orange hues. “The fall foliage season usually starts earlier in higher elevations and moves eastward, but American Beeches turn orange quite late in the season” Reid’s words rumbled from the back of Hotch’s mind as he locked his SUV and made his way into the FBI building.
The air smelled different that day. It smelled fresher, somehow. It hadn’t rained at all, but it smelled like it. Hotch enjoyed fall, enjoyed not sweating through his shirt, enjoyed the warm colors and the warm feeling of his coffee cup in his hands.
Still clad in his blue trench coat, he threw his briefcase on his office’s couch, sank into his chair and dove right into the mountain of paperwork that was neatly stacked on his desk. It was one of those slow days at the office, but he wouldn’t dare say it out loud. Nobody was allowed to jinx it. Oh God, he hoped nobody jinxed it. He needed a slow, boring, uneventful day. Not because he was tired or because he was overworked, but because he had to be home by 6pm or Haley would be livid.
His mind shifted to his wife. She had begun being unreasonable just before Jack was conceived, and he admitted to himself that he only got her pregnant to try and repair the first, little crack in his marriage. Of course, Jack had brought immense light and joy into both of their lives, but when the newborn bubble popped – and his paternity leave was up – everything somehow worsened.
He loved Haley. She had been his high school sweetheart, and their marriage had been envied by all their friends. From the outside, their family looked perfect. They were a good-looking couple, he held a prestigious job while she stayed home taking care of their beautiful son, and both seemed devoted to the other. Despite their recent disagreements and fights about his job, Aaron still loved her dearly. In a brotherly way, almost.
His train of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Come in”
A raven haired, milky skinned, doe-eyed girl materialized in front of him, followed by a cloud of honey and powder - the notes of her intoxicating perfume. In a single moment all his senses were heightened. It felt as if she was laced with some kind of stimulant drug that made its way from her body to his veins when she shook his hand.
“Agent Hotchner? I’m Agent Emily Prentiss”
Dr. Parson’s words pulled him from his reverie for just a moment, “Didn’t you say you met her over ten years ago?”
“Yes. Yes, I was getting there. When she told me her name I realized I had worked for her mother, Ambassador Prentiss, doing security checks. I remembered seeing her pictures around the house, but at the time she was off to Yale. I saw her once or twice during that summer break, but I never really paid her any attention. It was my first command and I wanted to be impeccable, my job was all I had on my mind. And of course, I had just proposed to Haley.”
“And then what?”
“Then she asked me where she could put her stuff, because that was supposed to be her first day at the BAU. You can imagine my surprise when I heard that – nobody had told me she was hired due to a delay in the paperwork. As you’ve noticed, I’m naturally standoffish and distrustful, so of course I thought her mother had something to do with her landing a job in a unit so competitive. She simply did not have the credentials, coming from a desk job in the Midwest.”
“I assume she proved you wrong – considering she’s still working for you”
“She exceeded everyone’s expectations, yes. She’s a talented profiler and a fearless agent”
“And as a woman?”
Aaron paused.
“At first, she looked perfectly normal. A beautiful, young, regular woman. But I saw it in her eyes, not long after, that wicked glint – the one that ruined my life.”
The following week Aaron went back to that hideous office, he had no idea why, but he did. It still smelled rotten in there, and it was still as dusty as the week before. It made his nose and his palate itch, and his eyes water.
“I’m not ashamed of what I did, nor do I regret it, which horrifies me. She brings out the worst in me, she turns me into someone I don’t recognize - I always prided myself for being so morally just. But she’s a cynical, restless woman who dragged me into her unsettlingly hollow life. I swear doctor, nobody could even fathom the decadence of that woman – but I saw it in her eyes before I even attended that degenerate party. The longing for more”
That spiked the Doctor’s interest. He shifted in his seat, elbows resting on his knees, completely caught up in Aaron’s story, “The Sin to Win weekend?”
“Precisely. A few weeks before this party I overheard her telling Morgan about it. She kept it vague, though she did want to let us know of its existence, or else she would’ve never mentioned it. She wanted to pique our curiosity, breadcrumb us, me, until I finally gave in. It was two weeks later that we finished working a case so disturbing I decided to let them have the weekend off. She mentioned Sin to Win again, and I knew it was trouble when she told us we had to sign an NDA to participate, so me and everyone else just dropped it. We’re FBI agents, we represent the government and should stray from anything that involves an NDA. But she had sung the siren’s song, and I was hooked.”
Aaron realized his shoulders were extremely tense. He tried to relax in his own leather armchair but found that he couldn’t. No, what he was about to tell the doctor would’ve ruined many careers if it wasn’t for HIPAA.
“That weekend Haley was visiting her family. Never in my life had I lucked out like that. It was an opportunity I just could not miss. Emily is gorgeous, witty, insubordinate at times but never foul mouthed or impulsive. But I knew there was more to her – see, as a profiler I pride myself into reading others, capturing their essence, and I had perceived hers. She had pulled me in, and truth is, I was done for before I even stepped into that house.”
Aaron went on telling his psychologist about Sin to Win. He recounted the car ride to Ambassador Prentiss’ historic villa in Atlantic City, the eerie feeling you get when a hurricane is about to hit your city – the stillness before the havoc.
Pulling up to the gated house, he could already hear the loud music. It wasn’t pop – no, this wasn’t a house party hosted and attended by teenagers, what he was hearing was sultry, jazzy, inviting. It was Emily in the form of notes.
At first he was drawn to the glamour. His eyes filled with wonder looking at the immense crystal chandelier hanging in the hollow space just besides the white marble staircase. Men and women, all impeccably dressed, were chatting and dancing holding champagne glasses. It was enchanting in its opulence. There were waiters running everywhere, governors, diplomats, people from the State Department that Aaron recognized. Important people. It was a spectacle, watching all of it unfold beneath his eyes. The live band, a 10-people ensemble, had a group of very drunk guests try ballroom dancing; their steps smooth enough to impress Aaron.
He kept wandering, looking for the familiar brunette in each of the dozens of rooms. It didn’t take long for Aaron to find his way to her – sometimes it felt as if he could smell the train her scent left. It was so primal, so raw, so visceral. He had felt deep in his bones the shift in the air when she was close.
There she was, standing in the middle of an empty study, surrounded by hundreds of books all neatly placed on dark wooden bookshelves. The intense, warm and spicy smell of cedar saturated his nostrils, sending him into a dreamy haze stirred by the soft orange lights that reflected on Emily’s bare back.
A green banker’s lamp turned on after a soft click, and finally Aaron could fully take in the sight of her. A black bandage dress was hugging her curves up to her knees, a halter neck gently lifting and squeezing her full chest. The ribbon elegantly tied in a bow sitting just below her nape, her porcelain back gloriously bare under his gaze.
Time seemed to still and stretch as he took in every inch of her skin—from the way her shoulders squared at a perfect ninety degrees to the dimples in her lower back. His gaze kept on tracing her curves, landing on the soft dip where her neck met her sharp collarbone and then lower to watch, mesmerized, the rise and fall of her chest. He saw the gentle swell of her breasts hitch as she took in the sight of him, and his eyes wandered back to her face just in time to see her smile.
“Aaron, hi. I didn’t think you’d come.”
She was stunned, almost breathless. She quickly regained her composure though, and produced a piece of paper and a pen from a desk drawer.
“The NDA. You have to sign it, sorry.”
She offered a gentle smile, and her poker face faltered for a second. Her nerves were starting to rub off on Aaron too. Why was she so anxious? Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so why the NDA? He’d sign it, of course, because he couldn’t risk not getting to the bottom of the whole thing. Wordlessly, he grabbed the paper and pen and scrabbled his name on it. Emily took it while letting out a breath. She’d held it until he handed the paper to her, and her face was painted with a mix of relief and mischievousness.
“Can I ask what’s it for?”
“Come, and you’ll see”
She maintained that same smile while locking eyes with him, briefly, just for a second, but it was enough for his feet to start moving after her – as if that was all they were ever meant to do.
Her hands slid a bookshelf to the side, revealing another room. Of course a house that old would have that sort of hidden space. Aaron had figured it must’ve been built around the 1920s, an era where illegal parties flowing with prohibited alcohol took place every weekend.
Her stilettos’ red bottoms left a crimson hue on the white marble as she walked, and Aaron removed his gaze from her slender calves only to take in the hedonistic scene unfolding in front of her.
The Spanish-style patio cradled a rectangular pool, which was filled with fully dressed people. Everywhere you turned you’d see a waiter in a white tux carry trays of empty Martini glasses, and the amount of people smoking made Aaron’s head spin just a little faster. The bar was flowing with spirits and liqueurs, the capable hands of the mixers producing an ungodly amount of drinks per minute.
On the outdoor couches, scattered here and there, lay couples aggressively making out. Such PDA bewildered Aaron, who was a southern gentleman through and through. Everywhere you turned you’d see something more scandalous going on: from a very old man disturbingly kiss a 20-something year old’s neck to a woman trying to snort a line behind a column. Dancers dressed in nothing but feathers and sequins were throwing confetti and glitter everywhere, gently rubbing themselves on senators and prosecutors.
“So, what do you think?”
Emily stopped right on the very top of the stairs, taking it all in. Aaron was speechless and took his sweet time replying to her, carefully weighing his words.
“I’m both horrified and delighted, honestly”
That earned him a bright smile from her. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, her hip gently nudging his. She was the only one who wasn’t drinking, he noticed. Even he had been promptly served a dry martini.
“I was so surprised when you showed up – I didn’t think you’d be into anything remotely sinful. You’re a family man, quite a devoted one too. You’re vanilla” She added with a laugh that sounded more mocking than anything else, “By the way, we’re off the clock, so I get to call you vanilla with no consequences.”
Aaron smiled; she’d already done so many things on the clock that should’ve had consequences. But he’d gone soft for her, and let most of it slide.
“I’m not vanilla” he mumbled, “I just hold myself back.”
Her gaze, once glued to the havoc unfolding below her, turned to him. Her eyes fully betrayed her for the first time. The image she had so carefully spun – all fearlessness and justice – wavered, then crumbled like an old brick wall. Finally, she let the woman beneath emerge: lustful, aching, hungry for something only Aaron’s touch could satisfy. In that split second she’d let the mask fall and just be Eve.
His own desire, long disguised as poise and professionalism, trembled and burned in his chest and groin. His own quiet confession of hunger made something primal awaken in both of them, slipping like silk through their fingers.
She licked her lips, hesitantly parted them before shutting her mouth. A second later, she spoke again, “You don’t have to hold yourself back with me.”
That’s all it took for him to come undone. In a heartbeat their lips found one another, and it was not gentle. Months of restraint had made both desperate to drink the other in, feel their bodies pressed to the other’s, feeling their heat and the curves of their bodies beneath their fingertips. The taste of something so forbidden like Emily made him feverish, his heart was leaping out of his chest and his groin started growing painful. Her hands were everywhere, from his chest to his nape all the way to his back, scratching him over his suit jacket in what felt like a prelude of what was about to happen.
Her anticipation grew unbearable when she felt his hands slide from her neck down to her breasts, cupping one softly at first, then squeezing and kneading it in a frenzied haze. He could feel the shiver run down her naked back, and suddenly he remembered they were in public. He tried putting himself back in those cuffs that restrained his true essence, he wanted the animal back in the cage. But as he opened his eyes and met Emily’s dark gaze, all he could do was follow her in another concealed room.
He had barely any time to scan the place: there was a large, round bed and a chaise longue just in front of the fireplace, which by now had little burning wood left. The orange hues of the room were suffocating, and he didn’t know if the room was too hot or his body temperature had risen to a dangerous level.
Emily wasted no time relieving him of his tie and jacket, starting to undo the buttons of his shirt as she pushed him to the edge of the bed. His own hands found the hem of her dress, pulling it over her head, leaving her naked for his eyes to ravish.
With his back now pressed into the mattress, he lowered his gaze to watch her climb on top of him in just her tiny, tiny thong and heels, and he could’ve come just at the sight of her like that. But what really sent him to the edge was when he looked at the ceiling and saw a mirror hanging right on top of them.
He watched the muscles of her back contracting and shifting under her alabaster skin, the curve of her ass settle on top of his thighs and he felt the heat and stickiness of her core soak her underwear and his pants. Forcing himself out of the reverie, he pulled her panties down as he flipped her on the bed and kicked his own slacks away from it.
He kneeled in front of her, wordlessly sinking his head in between her thighs. The first, glorious, taste of her earned him a prolonged moan, and again he had to fight the urge to come undone right then and there. Instead, he kept sliding his tongue in between her wet folds, enjoying the sweet taste of her nectar. She matched his tongue’s pace by bucking her hips while threading her fingers into his hair, making sure the pressure on her cunt was up to her standards.
He felt her shifting beneath her, and suddenly her stiletto poked his shoulder and pushed him off her. His confused gaze met hers, and she was smiling – mischievous, devilish and ravenous.
“Don’t make me come yet. Isn’t delayed gratification the definition of maturity?”
That made him smile, and he moved on to leave a wet trail of kisses from her belly button all the way to her left breast. His shaft was rubbing between her wet thighs, and all it would’ve taken was a little readjustment for him to slip inside of her, but no, he wanted to savor every inch of her skin before fully indulging in her.
One of her hands found his neck again, keeping his head on her breast, as the other met the skin of his back, lightly, mindlessly, scratching it. Her leg curled around his calf, trapping him in, as if she was scared he was going to pull away.
The room was filled with his groans and her soft moans, and she had been patiently letting him taste her, taking in all the pleasure his tongue was offering her. In a second she found herself on all fours in front of him, bending forward to take his length in her mouth. Aaron had one knee on the bed and the other leg keeping him stood up, and was pushing himself to her throat with such force that she kept gagging on his member.
“Oh, you’re a good girl, I know you can take it”
She looked up at him, teary eyed, slobber falling from her mouth and coating his dick in a way that made his head spin. Now it was his hands that found her raven strands, pulling it up in a half ponytail. Looking up, Aaron could see their reflection in the mirror. She was on her elbows and knees, her pale hourglass figure contrasted deliciously against the dark bedsheets as she chocked on his cock.
It was at that point that he decided he couldn’t take it anymore, so he quickly turned her around and slid inside of her. She was soaked in her slick and his saliva, warm, tight. He let out an obscene groan, and Emily felt a wave of heat in her lower abdomen. Thrusting hard between her moans, he reached to cup one of her breasts and prop her up, the skin of her back now pressing into his chest. His head quickly found her crook her neck, and he shamelessly inhaled her scent.
“Fuck, please, fuck me faster”
That nearly had his knees buckling, but he picked up the pace nonetheless. He was all over her, yet he felt hungry still, he wanted more of her. He squeezed her, needed her closer, he wanted to settle under her skin.
He caught her chin in between his fingers, forcefully turning her face towards him and crushing his lips onto hers. The kiss was wet and sloppy and he was sure she could still taste her own tang on his skin. The firm grip he had on her breast and hip would surely leave a mark the following day, but he didn’t care. He was fucking her brains out, letting himself go just like she wanted all this time.
He felt her cunt squeezing his cock, and that along with her breathless moans cued him that she was about to come. Keeping one of his arms across her chest, he slid the other one in between her folds, gently massaging her clit. With a long moan he felt her orgasm crashing like a wave, and that’s all it took for him to come unraveling after her. In that moment sinning truly felt like winning.
As Aaron finished his recounting – a watered down, less explicit version of it - the doctor sighed.
“You know, Aaron, it’s okay to not feel bad about not feeling guilty. Your mind, your body knew that Emily was exactly what you needed. A break from the routine, a thrill, someone to make you feel like you. The most primal, visceral parts of you were begging to come out.”
“I know, I just… I needed to tell someone. The story isn’t over yet, I haven’t told you the next part. If it was just physical attraction, animalistic needs, sexual connection, I’d be less worried. If it was just that I’d know that giving in would wash her out of my system. But she hasn’t, no, she’s still embedded deep into my DNA. And it terrifies me because I have a lot on the line – it’s not just Haley, it’s Jack, it’s my job. And she’s no good for me doctor; as I’m no good for her.”
Dr. Parson nodded in understanding, taking a sip from the maroon water bottle sitting on a pile of diagnostic manuals.
“Go on then”
And so Aaron started talking again.
She looked so peaceful after coming down from her orgasm. Her cheeks were rosy, plump and glowing with a thin layer of sweat, and her half-lidded gaze was scanning the chaise-longue in front of them.
“You wanna go lay there?” she asked carefully, not sure whether he’d agree or just bolt out of the room. Aaron didn’t understand back then, but he definitely did now. She was waiting for the inevitable moment when he’d remember that he had a wife and kid.
She got up as he nodded, her body still splendidly stripped of any fabric, and clutching a dark cotton sheet she made her way to the couch, looking at him over her shoulder, inviting him, tempting him once again with that glance.
Again, as if he were a puppet and she the puppeteer, he retraced her steps till he was laid on the orange velvet of the chaise-longue, legs spread to accommodate Emily’s body, her back now laid on his chest.
She put a cigarette in between her swollen lips, lit it by bending over a candle that was silently burning on the little coffee table that separated them from the fireplace. She took a long drag, eyes closed, and she looked ethereal: her face was bathed in a soft amber glow, golden embers traced the curve of her full breasts, nipples still hard from the cold. He held her in his gaze, treasuring the rare sight of her content features.
Just as he was about to tell her how gorgeous she looked, her hands rose up to his lips to offer him her cigarette. He took it from her fingers, held it between his index and his thumb, and took a long drag himself. His brows furrowed slightly while doing so, the feeling of his head spinning overtaking him as he wasn’t used to smoking anymore. It was a habit he had given up because it disgusted Haley.
Immediately she turned around, caught his face in her hands and pressed her lips on his, a coy smile plastered on her face when the smoke that came out of his mouth went directly into hers. The taste was nasty, really, but she made it look so delicious.
“So, did you have fun?” She looked up at him with the same playful smile, “it sure looked like you did.”
He slid his hands under her breasts, his hairy arms locked at the forearms and sank his nose in the crook of her neck once again. She smelled of heat - feral, sharp, all-consuming - a mix that made him go into rut. He held her closer, stamping a kiss on her forehead “I had lots of fun” his tone wasn’t laced with irony or innuendos, “Why do you do this?”
“You mean why do I throw these parties? I don’t know. I like watching people leave their armor at home and just embrace their true selves here – don’t you think it’s liberating? I’ve never invited anyone; like you, people just show up. Their Id yearns for freedom”
Her words resonated with him. She was well aware that people didn’t show up for her – people didn’t care about her. Her parties were surreal in their opulence, but the underlying hollowness of it all made his chest hurt for her. She was an observer rather than a participant in her own revelry, not engaging in any of the craze going on in her own mansion.
Pleasure-seekers like himself were drawn to her like moths to fire, exploiting her to explore their moral decay. Aaron felt sick to his stomach, sick of having been a part of those people. He realized he wasn’t any better than those people laughing and dancing just outside the door, outside their bubble.
He caught a glimpse of his wedding band pressed on her ribs. Another pang to his chest. The thought of Haley started gnawing at him, but he couldn’t stop the feathering of his fingertips on Emily’s warm skin. Her words echoed in his mind, pulling his thoughts backwards to a Psych class he took in college: In Freud’s theories the id, ego, and superego are the three components of the human psyche that work together to create a personality. The id is the primitive, instinctual part driven by the pleasure principle. The ego is the rational, conscious mediator between the id and external reality. The superego is the internalized moral conscience, developed from societal and parental standards, which aims to impose guilt for bad behavior.
Emily represented his Id, while Haley was his Superego. Emily had resuscitated a part of him he’d long suppressed, his primal urges becoming unbearable in her presence, but Haley was who he was supposed to be, how he wanted to be perceived. He couldn’t function with one and not the other. He needed both.
As he walked in the office the following Monday, he heard Morgan laugh at something Emily was saying. Of course, he couldn’t help but eavesdrop.
“So, Sin to Win weekend. How’d that go?”
Aaron watched her mouth curl into one of her secretive smiles.
“I always win big.”
For many weeks, nothing worthy of note happened. Emily’s wickedness had manifested itself, devoured everything around her, and went back into hibernation - ‘till the next time its hunger forced it out of its cave. She acted as if nothing had ever happened, as if whatever had possessed her that evening had also wiped her memory. There were no mischievous looks, no knowing glances, not even a subtle smile carelessly thrown at his direction. Life went on normally, much to Aaron’s relief, and the only breaks in his fast-paced life were his therapy sessions.
Despite being seemingly out of that Emily-shaped tangle, he kept seeing Dr. Parson. Aaron had grasped that he was full of self-imposed rules that acted as brakes on his most primal needs, and was still in the process of figuring out if he wanted to break free of them or let them swallow him.
Then, one day, he and Emily found themselves sharing a view of New York City’s skyline. They had just finished working a quick case, and the whole team was out for drinks. A single martini was all Emily drank, Aaron noticed, and she seemed perfectly content just watching the drunken ruckus her friends were making, rather than actively being part of it.
“I’ve noticed,” started Aaron, now much more at ease talking to his therapist than the first session, “that she isn’t capable of enduring being at a disadvantage. She isn’t hyper-vigilant; it doesn’t really come from a place of paranoia, no.” He stopped pacing. His stubble was poking at his fingertips, sharp and hard, but the discomfort kept him focused. “She just enjoys being the only one that’s in control. The only one whose mental faculties haven’t been compromised. Every insolent smile, every cool remark is carefully fabricated in her sober mind. It’s all calculated.”
“Where do you think that comes from?”
“She’s the daughter of an ambassador. I suppose she’s used to calculating her every move.”
The doctor nodded, satisfied with Aaron’s reply. Emily had pulled Parson in her little mystery game too, but of course his main mission was to help Hotch figure out what he wanted to do about his attraction – and disgust - towards her.
Aaron went on talking about that night in NYC. He recalled losing sight of her about two hours in. His every sense was alerted to her absence; his nervous system reacted by sending distress signals to the hypothalamus, which then activated the adrenal medulla – releasing adrenaline into his bloodstream. His heart rate and blood pressure spiked, and he started sweating profusely while making his way up the metal fire escape to the roof. Aaron’s body was trying to regulate its temperature, which had risen due to the instant panic he felt. As he looked around the roof for her, he felt his vison sharpen due to his pupil’s dilation.
Relief washed over him when he spotted a figure sitting cross-legged on a wooden box. The vagus nerve sent a calming signal from the brainstem to the heart, which began to slow down. His adrenaline was getting broken down by enzymes. Blood pressure was decreasing and muscles were starting to relax. There, there.
“You found me awfully fast. Followed the smell of my pheromones?” She was smoking. The image of her barely lit face and the smoke coming out of her pale lips sent him back to that Sin to Win weekend. Sent him back to that concealed room, Emily entangled in his legs, all sweat and heat.
Aaron sighed, “Listen, Emily, about that weekend…” he trailed off, half expecting her to jump in with some witty remark or a shush. Instead, she kept quiet for a few minutes, enjoying her cigarette ‘till near the filter.
“Why did you come up here anyways?” he found himself pressured to say something. He wasn’t a man of many words, but her silence made him awfully nervous.
“For a smoke, Hotch” she smiled – she laughed at him, holding up the cigarette’s butt between two fingers. He looked at her stupidly, his face a perfect portrait of how he was feeling internally, “Right, of course” he replied quickly.
Another long pause, “Why are you here?”
“I don’t know. To talk, I guess.”
“We don’t have anything to talk about, Hotch.” She laughed again. It was true, they had nothing in common besides work, therefore there weren’t many topics of discussion to pick from.
“I’m a married man, Prentiss,” she was Prentiss again, not Emily, just like he wasn’t Aaron anymore, “I love my wife, I love the life I’ve built with her and I won’t give that up for anything in the world.”
“You sound like you’re trying to remind yourself of that. I never asked anything of you, and I surely never doubted your love for Haley” She laughed again. God, her laugh was starting to irk him, and he hated the way her voice wrapped around Haley’s name. He was reminded of the Book of Genesis 39:1 – Joseph and Potiphar’s story, in which the temptress repeatedly asks him to lie with her. Joseph, being a man of God, flees from her advances. Nevertheless, she accuses him of trying to assault her and he’s thrown in prison.
Aaron needed to repent, he needed to wash away the terrible sin he’d committed by sleeping with Emily. His religious guilt was slowly tying his restraints again, was successfully killing his primitive self over and over again. He abruptly stood up, and wordlessly made his way back into the bar, leaving her alone on the roof.
Once he’d paid the tab and collected his coat, he rushed to the nearest church he could find. He made his way to the confessional without so much of a glance to the priest, who followed him quickly to perform the ritual.
“May the Lord be in your heart and help you to confess your sins with true sorrow.”
Robotically, Aaron made the sign of the cross, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
It has been three months since my last confession”. He kneeled, and looked up to the latticed opening to catch a glimpse of the priest. His first thought was that he seemed far too young to give him a satisfactory penance. Aaron felt like he deserved to be whipped or stoned for his adultery, after all it was a mortal sin – he had violated the sacred covenant of marriage. He broke the promise he made to Haley right in front of God himself. Vomiting his sins to the priest, he then recited the Act of Contrition.
“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended You, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend You, my God, who are all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.”
The priest extended his hand over him, saying the words of absolution, “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son has reconciled the world to Himself
and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
The familiarity of this ritual, performed like a theatre act, lulled Aaron into peace, “Amen”
“Now, my friend, go on and recite the Miserere fifty times. Avoid temptation and go make amends with your wife.”
Aaron kneeled in front of Jesus Christ for three more hours, diligently repeating the prayer over one hundred times, thinking God was going to forgive him faster.
Then, peaceful, and half in love with Emily, and tremendously sorry, he made his way back to the hotel.