Condoms and Cannolis by Tamara Palmer
How Father Brennan, a good Irish-Catholic from the farmlands of Iowa could find himself sitting in an airport hotel room in Paris with a silly little condom wavering in his hand the Lord only knew. He’d found it, coyly hidden beneath the toothbrush, toothpaste and t-shirt in the emergency overnight bag courtesy of Air France. He’d never held a condom before, and the lightness of it surprised him. Leave it to the French, he thought, to believe that any male passenger would need a little protection to make it through a stranded, lonely evening.
It was his first trip with his new congregation, Our Lady of Blessed Hearts, in Newark, New Jersey. After a mere four months on the job, he was leading them on their annual pilgrimage to Rome. His eyes filled with tears at the prospect of standing in Vatican City, looking up and admiring the hand of God rendered through Michelangelo’s hand.
When originally presented with the post in Newark, he delayed the decision for as long as possible. A recent seminarian, he knew his job choice would be limited. Father Brennan was desperate to get back to his beloved Midwest of small-town values and honest hard-working Americans, but when he learned of the Newark congregation’s annual journey to Rome, he thought maybe he could stomach the East Coast for a year or two.
The New Jersey stereotypes that haunted him upon acceptance of the post, terrified him once he’d arrived. He felt certain that there were those in his church who helped get drugs into the hands of children, who had murdered or given the authorization to commit murder, or who had endlessly pressured male youths to seek out a similar life of crime. The mafia-like parishioners caused him to say extra Hail Mary’s each night. Although he hadn’t been able to obtain proof, he could read between the lines in their confessions.
Then there were the women. The housewives always came to mass draped in jewels that plummeted down exposed necklines. Heaving breasts were a regular sight. The women’s dresses slinked along their curvy frames, and they wore their sexuality like a fine silk fabric, smoothing it out and making sure it always shone. Not since high school had Father Brennan found women such a distraction. They were still holy Christians, he constantly reminded himself, even if they didn’t wear sweater sets with white pearls the way the women at his childhood congregation had back in Iowa. The temptation was manageable until Donna.
Recently widowed due to mysterious circumstances, Donna sought daily solace in the confines of Our Lady of Blessed Hearts. Father Brennan extended the sympathy that he could, but when her blouses started coming a bit more unbuttoned, and when each visit was accompanied with a Tupperware container of baked ziti or homemade cannoli, Father Brennan knew that libido trouble was brewing. The Father tried to believe that the tokens were a thank you, and not a daily reminder that Donna had her sites on him as a replacement for her husband. Like homosexuals, priests were out of bounds to women, and Donna, like many of the women in his parish, believed there was nothing she could not obtain if she so desired. He knew that someday he would have to talk to her, but now, tired and jetlagged he just stared at the condom, thought of Donna’s ample breasts in the room just down the hall, and wondered in his delirious state whom it was that he was really in love with.
Air France had rebooked their entire twenty person traveling party on a flight to Rome at 6:30 the following morning. Father Brennan tried counting sheep, but the clock just ticked on into the wee hours of the morning. It was 2:00 am in Paris, but back home it was only 9:00 pm. Finally, around 3:30, he drifted off to sleep and not surprisingly dreamed of Donna.
She had knocked on his door to tell him she couldn’t sleep. Wearing a v-necked sweater that hugged her chest, and a bra that hid nothing, she held out a tray of warm cannolis, and asked if she could sit on his bed and share them with him. The Father obliged, closing the door behind her, and then watched as her rear gently swayed in one of the many tight skirts she always wore. She carefully sat at the edge of his bed, making a nest amongst the rumpled hotel comforter. Father Brennan took the chair by the desk, but Donna insisted that he join her for a picnic on the bed. His body did not show the ease that hers did. Robotically he pulled the hotel robe closer around his body as he sat down where he had just been sleeping. He watched Donna eye his bare calf and cinched the belt on the robe even tighter. Donna held a cannoli and the Father reached to take one.
“No, no, no, Father,” she playfully tapped his hand. “My treat,” she smiled, leaning forward and carefully guiding the still-steaming cannoli into his mouth. The powdered sugar instantly melted onto his tongue and a bit of mascarpone oozed out along his teeth. Donna moved her pinky to wipe away the sugar that dusted the edges of his lips, and then proceeded to suck the sugar off her pinky while her lips formed a Betty-Boop-like pucker.
“It’s so sad to be at the airport in Paris. Such a cruel tease knowing such an incredibly romantic city lies so close.” Donna ran her fingers through her thick black curls.
Paris wasn’t the tease Father Brennan worried about as his holy member woke up.
“Your turn,” Donna said, handing a cannoli to Father Brennan and opening her mouth wide. The Father held the cannoli, feeling its long, tubular weight heavy from the cheese and fried dough. He began to move it towards Donna, but then retracted and set the pastry back on the tray. Reaching for the condom on his nightstand, he carefully peeled back the perforated end and removed it from its protective wrapping. It was surprisingly thin, and he wondered exactly what it protected a man from: procreation, disease, or just his own conscience. The cannoli taunted him from the tray. He picked it up and set the open end of the condom over one end of the cannoli, slowly rolling down the remainder like a glove to cover a hand. Once fully sheathed, he guided the cannoli to Donna’s still-awaiting mouth, now open even wider. She gripped it in her lips and began to…
The hotel wake-up call rang loudly in Father Brennan’s ear. Startled and dazed he turned to the bedside lamp and looked around the room. The condom was still in its wrapper on his nightstand, and there was no sign of Donna or any smell of sweet cannoli.
Embarrassed by his excited state, he covered himself and nearly ran into the bathroom. He quickly undressed, careful not to make eye contact with the part of him disobeying his vows, and stepped into the cold shower.
As he packed all of his remaining items back into his carry-on, the condom still lay on the nightstand. He picked it up and thought of Donna. They’d be together for a week in Rome — what if the urge returned? He started to put it in a side pocket of his bag, but then a vision of another parishioner finding it gave him a startled chill. He threw the condom in the trash and didn’t look back as he clicked shut the door on his Parisian hotel room.
Tamara Palmer knew she was going to be a writer before she could even write. She would play elaborate dramas out with her Barbies for days, even weeks, on end. As she got older the stories made their way onto a typewriter and as the story goes… Tamara is actively seeking publishers for her two completed novels, Missing Tyler and Finding Lancelot. Her work has appeared in edifice WRECKED. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband. You can read more of her work at www.tamarapalmer.com
