5

The previous affairs of the mayor's wife had become common knowledge, often referenced to and remarked upon at dinner parties of even the most polite nature. On the subject of sexual intercourse, both pre-marital and marital alike, it was said that she had developed an intricate and inexcusable dialect of depravity. Four years prior, so the story goes, she had made love to a recently ordained priest in the parish sacristy before his inaugural mass. Accuracy of the affair was muddled. One version insisted that she had not only slept with the young priest but with the two red-haired altar boys who were thought to have called in sick with the mumps, while another revolved around a bizarre sequence of events involving the holy sacrament, several packets of incense, and the reckless spending of collection money gathered from the five o'clock service.