A priest on his knees

Some of the best sex in my life has been administered by men of the cloth.

By Augusten Burroughs

May 15, 2002 | Lately, you cannot pick up a newspaper or click onto a Web site without encountering another mortifying story involving a priest, his penis and a child. We have turned our collective eyes away from terrorists and are now obsessing over men of the cloth. We have stopped asking, Where's Chandra? and are now asking, Is Griffin spending too much quality time with Father O'Brian?

Well, I'm here to defend our holy fathers. The fact of the matter is, Catholic priests have given me some of the best blow jobs of my life.

"Do you really think this is OK?" I asked Father Bill, in Chicago. We were sitting in his black Crown Victoria, parked on Mayrose Street. A street, I might add, that is not altogether unpopulated, especially at 10 at night. "It's fine," he told me. "We'll just look like a couple of guys waiting for somebody to come out of a store."

But I wasn't so sure. "Maybe we should just pull around, you know, in back of something."

He smiled and I was struck by how warm and sincere his smile was. Then I remembered, well of course. What else would it be? The pine tree-shaped air freshener that hung from his rearview mirror gave the car a pleasing, artificial scent. Somehow, this aroma suited him. "Would you feel more comfortable if we parked in the alley?" he asked. I told him I would. Father Bill put the car in gear and drove around the block. That's the great thing about Chicago: It has alleys.

I was fascinated by Father Bill. He was a handsome man in his mid-40s and when we met in the bar, I would never have pegged him as a Catholic priest. In fact, he looked suspiciously like a software developer I once dated. "Are you in software?" was my opening line to him, my come-on.

He rested his drink on the bar and turned to me, sliding sideways on the stool. "As a matter of fact," he said in a leading tone of voice, "no. But I could be if you want me to." I did smile at his charming offer to shape-shift for me. It showed that he had a playful personality. But I told him no, that was OK, he could just be whatever he was. And because I am from New York and not Chicago, I pressed the issue. "So what are you then?"

He chuckled to himself and glanced down at his hands. The answer was, it seemed, a private joke between him and his fingers. I looked at his thumb for a clue. He didn't look like a construction worker or a typist.

"I'm a Catholic priest," he said.

I thought he was maybe joking, going for shock value. But after I sat down and had a few more drinks, adding to the 15 or so already coursing through my veins, it turned out to be the truth. He was a real, live Catholic priest -- the kind that knows lots of old ladies by first name. When I pressed him, he was even able to quote from the Bible. His memory was astonishing. He signaled the bartender and ordered us another round. He was drinking something red, which I teased him about. "What's that, the blood of Christ?" He smiled at this. "Not quite. Just a Cape Codder."

"I thought you guys weren't supposed to go to gay bars. Or be gay, for that matter." Or drink, but I didn't say this.

Here he laughed wickedly. "Oh, we do a lot we're not supposed to do. Trust me." And who wouldn't trust him? A priest? And that's how I ended up in his car, now behind a restaurant in a scummy alley in Chicago.

"I'm sorry," I told him. I said this after my penis refused to become erect. I was mortified by my impotence, at 26, but also didn't want to disappoint Father Bill. He was such a nice guy. "I've had way too much to drink," I told him.

He pulled his face up from my lap and sat back against the seat. He said, "You know, you should really go to rehab."

This was a stunning thing to hear, especially from a man who had, not an hour before, bought me five drinks. "Really?"

"I think so," he said.

I decided that perhaps he was being passive-aggressive, sort of punishing me in some clever priest way for being too drunk to get hard, thus spoiling his free evening. "And why is that?"

He said, "Because there's something in your eyes that makes me think now that this is not a one-time event, like you told me at the bar? When you apologized for being 'loaded.' I think that's the word you used. Because you had a lousy day at work? Anyway, now something -- call it instinct -- is telling me you do this a lot. Like every night."

He was right, of course; my drinking was quite out of hand. And the fact that he was now able to see this impressed me. "Well," I said. And then we sat silent in the car and I noticed he didn't have air conditioning or a CD player and this humble fact made me feel tender toward him. I felt strangely connected to him at that moment and became instantly aroused.

He noticed. And this is when I got one of the best blow jobs of my life. Along with, at the end, a piece of paper with the name of a rehab hospital scribbled on it. "It's in Minnesota. It's the best. Lots of celebrities go there."

He seemed to think that this would be something that might impress me, and he was sadly correct. The possibility of seeing Elizabeth Taylor or Robert Downey Jr. in withdrawal would be enough to make me want to go to rehab whether I was a drunk or not.

I left him then, parked there on the alley. He offered to drive me home, but I told him my apartment was only a few blocks away.

Next Page: The other priest blow job was when I was 14

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