Her mind spun with twisted visions. Jugglers played with her eyes to amuse those watching. Acrobats flew over her netted bowels and wrestlers squeezed the living soul from her heart.
In a desperate craze, she fell to her knees and grabbed his sweaty hands and kissed them with terrorized respect. She grovelled at his feet and further pleaded with him, to choose another, more worthy than her.
"Oh, please, Holiness — don't do this to me! Let me give my chastity to my promised, Hartford. Then you may come in, onto me!"
The ArchBishop's indifference to her pleading grew, as did his anger. He had wanted her for days, ever since his searchers showed him a likeness of her, swimming alone in the crater lake. She would be his best, he thought. Of all the others, she is the most beautiful and would bring to him the highest fulfilment and the heartiest offspring.
"You cannot bargain away from a privilege!" he told her. "This is a favour done for you. All the world will look to you in praise and will worship you. You will be proud when you hear the people shout their homage to you … 'Paise Mercedes, Mother of Grace!'. Don't you want this?"
She continued to beg her position but he paid no attention. She repeated, over and over, "please don't do this to me!", while embracing him, still down on her knees. She cried and tried to regain her breath but her spirit weakened and totally fell to the surrender of his ultimate dominance over her.
"I Am the Almighty. You must obey me!" he barked at her, as he leered down fixed upon her eyes.
Mercedes cried hysterically. She allowed her body drop all the way to the floor. She turned limp and helpless like a weak little kitten with no hopes of survival.
The ArchBishop bent down to her and took her face into his hand. He wiped her tears with his scented napkin. He gently seized her by the shoulders and slowly lifted her, and the choir in the background grew stronger in volume. He embraced her and his hands groped for the lacings that kept her clothing closed around her. Then for a final time he rumbled at her, eagerly trying to make her realize that what he was about to do to her, was a blessing and not a violation of her body, as some were sure to regard it.
"You will thank me one day, my lovely child. You will bare my son or daughter — the child of god — and the world will pay fealty to you, and you will be happy." and, as he finished his self-forgiving reasoning to her, he ran his hands over her breasts and down to the smooth roundness of her hips. He kissed her mouth and brought his hands to her shoulders where he moved his fingers beneath the material of her garb and disrobed her. Her dress fell, in around her feet, revealing her silky smooth whiteness.