I think there’s also a kind of empire-of-ownership in that psalm – also sexualised… ‘I can only be free if there is absolutely nobody different from me anywhere near me…’

I like the way you make it clear in the next segment that his cries for help are utterly and totally unanswered. His sense, abruptly, that God is impossibly remote from him, as he is from others…

Anyway, love your writings.

I am also extremely interested in the way Christianity uses pain, and sexualizes it. And in fact, I wrote a whole book about it. The Splinter. But in this case, I really wanted to avoid going off on a tangent down an exploration of mortification of the flesh, because it doesn’t inform the plot in any meaningful way.

So, as one adult to another – thanks immensely for the story. Now the quibbles.

Ok, I get why, but you might want to consider how very uninterested the Inquisition was in witchcraft. They tended to tell accusers to stop bugging them. The inquisition in Spain condemned only TWO accused witches to death in its whole history. They were fuckwits, but they had agendas.

The plot about the jewishness is a LOT more likely, but the Latin in Daniel’s prayer is a bit wonky. You have Adiuva me Domine Deus meus salvum fac me secundum misericordiam tuam,but I wondered if you were thinking of Deus in adjutorium meum intende, with the response: Domine ad adjuvandum me festina. This is the beginning of every one of the hours, except the first one said that day.

I’ve been v. interested for many years in the extent to which Christianity sexualises pain… not sure it works quite this way for everyone, and I worry that Daniel’s thoughts are a bit off-the-peg. Everyone in holy orders gets that they can get off on excess self-scourging, for instance. They also worry about the homoerotic Christ, another widely-known thing.

Hope this helps. it’s meant helpfully. You’re a real writer, or I wouldn’t bother.

Your pulling me in with every chapter…

Thank you,
-TFP