“I sense that something ails you, Daughter,” he murmurs. “Rest assured, you have not failed our Lord: your efficiency is beyond reproach.” A telling pause. “Or is there something else?”
Anneka draws breath, but then falls silent—a virtuous woman, she is quiet save when he bids her speak—but he can feel the tension fluttering in her chest like a caged bird seeking flight, and he thinks it would be so easy to set her free; but then she lets her breath out explosively, and quietly wails, “Why has our Lord not taken me yet, Father? He claimed Virginia and Sarah last month! They’re so happy now they know the Lord in all his glory. And Lucile and Mary the month before. They are no more devout than I”—she blushes suddenly—“I’m sorry I spoke out of turn. But I keep praying and, and…”
Oh, that. Schiller smiles contentedly and stares at the window opposite, deliberately avoiding direct eye contact with her. Reassurance first: “You’re quite right, you are every bit as deserving as they are. In fact, your patience is an inspiration to everyone who knows you, and will be reflected in the magnitude of the reward our Father in Heaven intends bestow upon you.” He sees the slight rise of her blouse as her shoulders tense, reflected in the glass, darkly. “But I thought it necessary to maintain your purity because the stigmata of the chosen may be recognized by those who fear and hate our Lord’s servants. Just as the communicants of the Middle Temple are obvious to the prying unbelievers, so too are the chosen of the Inner Temple recognizable to the enemies of the Lord. I place too much value on your ability to travel freely among the unbelievers without detection, as a trusted servant of the Mission, to Elevate you lightly.” Her shoulders begin to slump. He pauses a moment before adding, “But now we are in England, and our Lord has a very special mission in mind for you. One that none of his handmaids in Colorado can accomplish.”
“A”—almost a hiccup—“mission?”
“Yes. And to carry out this mission you must first be Elevated.”
“Oh, Father!” She clasps her hands before her, eyes brimming with the joy of a willing martyr. “Will you do—will it hurt?”
“Only a little, my daughter,” he says gently. He glances at his Patek Philippe: an hour and twenty minutes until we get there. Should be long enough. “Unfasten your seat belt and disrobe, for our Lord desires to return you to the natural purity of humanity before Eve’s fall, and for that we must both be naked.”
As Anneka unzips her skirt, the thing that cleaves to the remains of his original sin is already uncoiling and inflating, leaving him headachy and prickly hot as it suckles on his bulbourethral artery. He slides out of his jacket and removes his tie. “How must we do this, Father?” Anneka asks nervously. It’s her first time, of course: as a virtuous girl raised in the chaste bosom of Schiller’s ministry, she has never been alone with a man who was not an initiate of the Middle or Inner Temples. (Nor is sex education on the school curriculum in Schiller’s compound in Colorado.)
“First we undress, then we pray together,” Schiller reassures her. While she peels off her pantyhose and unhooks her brassiere, he removes his shirt and trousers, then he ducks across the aisle to the wide bench seat opposite. He kneels on the floor of the car and leads her through a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and the Celebration of the Mission. Schiller still wears his boxers, and Anneka is naked save for a somewhat unchaste G-string. Her garment distracts him with visions of a sinful nature, but Schiller has done this before, so many times that the prayers of the ritual come naturally to him in his sleep; and in any case, this is the one situation where such sinful imaginings might be forgiven by his Lord, for the purpose is procreation, after a fashion.
Finally, it is time. “Recline the seat,” Schiller directs her—Anneka’s hand goes to the button that turns the rear bench into a bed almost before he finishes the phrase—“then render yourself as naked as Eve, close your eyes, and imagine your body to be the tabernacle of the Lord.” As she obeys he shoves his underpants down, hands shaking with the urgent need to obey the commands of his little master, who has not fed for far too long and who shares with Schiller a keen appreciation of the fair and virtuous woman who spreads her legs before him. She’s virginal, but shaved: evidently she anticipated her long-deferred Elevation. It’s almost more than Schiller can bear. He growls softly in the back of his throat, then crawls forward to commence the act of communion that will Elevate Anneka into the ranks of the Inner Temple.
Many years ago, plagued by nocturnal visions of succubi and tormented by sinful urges, Schiller found solace in the Inner Codex of his faith. It came to him after much study that he must become the gateway to his Lord’s re-emergence into the world: and so, to open the way, he took a razor blade and cut away his manhood, flensing aside all that which was unclean from his life. Then and only then were his prayers answered by the Lord.
As he lowers himself atop the still-willing Anneka, Raymond Schiller rejoices in his renewed virility. Through long years of bleak despair after his premature self-mutilation, he doubted himself; but then he found his way to the Lord in His Inner Temple. There, his Lord blessed him by making him the first to be united with the little master, the New Flesh that replaces the Sin of Adam. Now it is his duty to guide the handmaids through the eye of the needle, to initiate them into the Inner Temple where all shall dwell in joyous submission to the will of the Lord. Once inducted, the Lord’s beneficence takes root in their bodies. Thus impregnated, the Temple Maidens are thereby equipped to Elevate the men of power that Schiller needs beside him to fight the good fight and return the Lord to His rightful place astride the Throne of Earth.