A Saint Tempted

Eckt as a youth was considered handsome. Many a maid had
taken the second glance to dwell on his features. After his
vision and subsequent calling this admiration only grew. In
that perverse but familiar way, the forbidden became all the
more attractive. For Eckt had forsaken all the pleasures
offered by the world to a young man. The carnal road was a
way diverted should he succumb. All came to know this and
there developed a trend, an insidious practice among the
maids of the land. On hearing of Eckt's approach maidens
young (and some not so young) would disrobe, singly or in
groups, to catch his eye. This wickedness went further.
Devoted only to spreading the news of his vision the prophet
depended for his nightly lodging upon the kindness of
Innkeeper and farmer. A simple meal of bread and cheese
and bed of straw was all he asked. These were given. But
in these beds of straw and linen Eckt encountered naked
sirens intention being the means of his fall from grace. In
pairs, quartets, singly or as many as a dozen in the proffered
beds, in the straw, under the beds, in lascivious pose
straining to maximize every wicked wile they lay in wait.
But Eckt resisted. Year after year Eckt resisted. In
summer he took to sleeping outside, under bridges. Even
there the heartier and most wanton sirens offered
themselves. As the devil will turn the tiniest crack into
a fissure a mile wide so did doubt displace virtue in
young Eckt. Logically, he thought, temptation required
the greatest effort of virtue when knowledge of that
thing resisted was freshest. Memory cooled was so
much less a lure than nerves still a'tingle from recent
experience. He thought that surely resisting after
succumbing would be the better training for the spiritual
muscle and sinew of virtue. This thought, this evil logic,
remained simmering in Eckt's mind and one fateful day....