⸂⸂⸜(രᴗര๑)⸝⸃⸃

♡ he keeps your letters folded in the inside pocket of his jacket and rereads them on the plane, tracing your handwriting with his thumb, especially your name or the way you sign off, like it anchors him when everything else is moving too fast. on long flights, while everyone else sleeps or talks quietly, he stays still with the letter in his hands, staring out the window like he’s trying to imagine you somewhere in the clouds just out of reach.

♡ he calls you after shows even when he’s exhausted, voice low and warm, like he’s trying not to disturb the calm that comes after all the noise. there’s still adrenaline in him, but it softens when he hears you. he’ll sit on the edge of the bed, loosening his clothes, eyes half closed as if your voice is the only thing that’s slowing his thoughts down. “i wish you were here… it’d feel better with you,” he says like it’s the simplest truth in the world, not something heavy or dramatic, just obvious to him. sometimes he’ll go quiet after that, not because he has nothing to say, but because he’s already where he wants to be. on the line with you.

♡ he gets this big smile when he sees your name on the caller id, like it interrupts everything else in the best way. even if he’s in the middle of something, hair still damp from rehearsal, people still around him, he’ll pause like it doesn’t matter anymore. it’s immediate, that shift in him. his voice changes too, softer, lighter, like he’s been given permission to relax. he doesn’t try to hide how happy it makes him, either. it shows in the way he answers, like he’s been waiting longer than he admits.

♡ he asks what you’re wearing, because he likes to picture you clearly while he talks.

♡ he keeps trying to take cute photos to send you, but they never come out the way he wants because he’s always moving, always caught between places, never still long enough. he’ll look at them afterward and sigh a little, almost embarrassed, but he still mails them anyway with a little scribble on the back like “i tried baby.”

♡ he teases you on the phone when he’s feeling playful, saying things like “you’re probably forgetting all about me, huh?” and then immediately gets shy and adds “i’m just kidding… i miss you.” he adds quieter, like the truth slipped out before he could catch it and now he’s just letting it stay there.

♡ he keeps a photo of you tucked behind the mirror in his dressing room. before every show, he kisses the corner of it for luck. sometimes he touches it lightly, not dramatic, just a small pause before everything begins, like he’s reminding himself what he’s coming back to.

♡ during late night calls, he’s usually sprawled across a plush hotel bed, the covers a tangled mess around his legs, the room dimly lit by a bedside lamp. he’d tell you about the roar of the crowd, the sweat, the electric current, but then his voice would drop, becoming intimate, private.

♡ he's got a habit of tracing the lines of his own body as he speaks to you, particularly when the conversation turns suggestive. his fingers might glide over his chest, down his abdomen, lingering just above his hips. a low, involuntary hum would sometimes punctuate his sentences, a quiet, almost unconscious expression of his longing.

♡ he leaves his hotel curtains open at night because he likes imagining you looking at the same moon. he’ll whisper “goodnight, baby” to the window like you can somehow hear him.

♡ in a quiet moment, he details exactly what he’s going to do to you the second he gets through the front door. where his kisses will land first. how he won’t let you speak for a very, very long time.

♡ he always asks about your day first, even when he’s tired, even when he has things to do. he listens like it matters more than anything he did that night. he hums softly when you talk, little affirmations that he’s still there with you, still following every word. if you mention something small, he remembers it later, bringing it up days after like it stayed with him the whole time. he doesn’t just hear you, he holds onto you through the details.

♡ he gets nervous when he thinks he’s calling too much. “am i bothering you?” he asks softly, even though he’s the one who’s lonely in a hotel room. there’s a pause after he says it where he almost wishes he didn’t, but he always listens carefully for your answer, like it decides everything. and of course he never is.

♡ he would ask you if you’re eating well and resting, not in a controlling way, but in a deeply caring one. it’s always the first kind of concern that comes out when he misses you most. “promise me you’re taking care of yourself,” he says gently, like it’s something important he can’t fix from a distance but still needs to say anyway. his voice softens when you reassure him, like that alone is enough to ease something in him he didn’t fully realize was tense.

♡ he would talk to you while doing vocal warm‑downs. he always cooled down his voice after shows, humming gently. you’d hear those soft little notes while he talked to you about his night.

♡ on stage, he becomes even more precise. if he misses you badly that day, it turns into control. sharper spins, tighter timing, a little more intensity in his gaze when he hits the spotlight. the audience thinks it’s just the magic of the bad tour, but backstage he leans against a wall afterward, catching his breath like he’s been running from something he can’t name. someone offers him water and he takes it with a quiet thank you, but his mind is somewhere else.

♡ there are nights in hotel rooms where he just sits by the window, lights off, watching cities pass below like they belong to someone else. he presses his forehead to the glass sometimes, quiet, almost childlike in his loneliness. he doesn’t call it loneliness though. he calls it missing work, missing sleep, missing focus. but when your name shows up in his mind, everything else gets quieter around it.

♡ he gets strangely specific about missing you. not just “i miss you,” but little details. he misses the way you would interrupt his thoughts when he got too inside his own head. he misses the exact timing of your voice when you said his name. he misses how normal things felt around you, like he didn’t have to be a stage version of himself to exist correctly. little things remind him of you.

✧˖°🧡☼⋆｡˚🍊⊹₊✧˖°🧡☼⋆｡˚🍊⊹₊✧˖°🧡☼⋆｡˚🍊⊹₊✧˖°🧡☼⋆｡˚🍊⊹₊✧

He ducked his head down, flicking his pink tongue right along your peak, a soft, pathetic whine catching in the back of his throat at the rich taste of you. He had dreamed about this for years.

His big, dark eyes flickered back up to your face, checking again. Your lips were parted just a little bit, looking so innocent.

His chest felt entirely too warm, his stomach aching with need. He knew he really shouldn’t be doing this to his best friend—the one line he swore he wouldn't cross when you two were just hanging out, watching movies and eating takeout. But you hadn’t ever let him touch you like this in all those years of friendship, and the temptation was eating him alive.

His lips gently enclosed around your nipple, drawing you in. His eyes almost rolled back into his head from how hot and good it felt.

He hadn’t even noticed that his right hand had drifted down, gently palming his heavy length right through the cotton of his boxers as he sucked your hard peak.

Your body shifted slightly, your torso rolling more onto your back as you continued to sleep, completely unaware your best friend was greedily devouring your exposed flesh.

He was already dangerously close, and he had barely even started. His tip was leaking pre-cum, wetting the fabric of his underwear, his hand frantically stroking himself while he gazed up at your pretty face.

His breathing was shaky and ragged. He was almost terrified of what would happen if you were to wake up right now, of how he would ever explain himself to you without losing you.

“Mmh…” he whimpered softly against your skin.

And then, as if sensing his desperation, you unconsciously arched your back up more into his mouth, chasing the friction.

Michael’s cock twitched violently, his entire body trembling. He spurted hot semen into his boxers, biting down on his lower lip to swallow a loud, breathy moan right around your peak.

Reluctantly, chest heaving, he pulled away. He stared down at your dark nipple, now glistening slickly with his saliva. Fuck, he didn’t know how much more of this secret torture he could take.

With shaky hands, he slipped out of his king-sized bed and practically scrambled into the bathroom to clean himself up.

By the time he came back out, looking flushed and trying desperately to act casual, you were stretching your arms over your head and rubbing your sleepy eyes.

“Good mornin’, Mike,” you mumbled, your voice thick with sleep.

He stood by the edge of the bed, offering a breathless, nervous little smile as he looked down at you.

“G’morning, Angel,” he whispered, his heart still hammering against his ribs.

you'd felt the cold air of the room against your behind before you could even register that michael had taken your pants off your hips, sliding them down your legs and leaving them at your ankles. the same thing happened with your underwear, although that time you were painfully aware of the article of clothing being tugged down.

now, you're here, stuck in his lap, receiving your punishment.

you'd be less unnerved if he spoke, if he teased or mocked you. instead, he gives you nothing outside of his large hand against your ass, groping, squeezing, and then pulling away to deliver harsh slaps. it's an incredibly grueling pace, so slow, allowing the sting of each smack to linger. just when you think you can grit and bear the pain, he wordlessly delivers a new one to keep you on edge. sometimes, when you're lucky, michael delivers two smacks in a row— sometimes, even three!— quick, successive, just to see your ass jiggle and actively grow warm and raw beneath him. whenever you tense, he just pinches the meat of your butt, a silent instruction to stay nice and relaxed. as relaxed as you can be, anyway...

as your ass undergoes a few more slaps, you start to tear up, unable to stop yourself from succumbing to the pain. it wasn't just the sting of your butt, it was his silence. his refusal to give you anything more than this. "i'm really sorry," you hiccup out, keeping your head hung low, "baby— michael— i'm sorry, i won't do it again. please, i really am."

"you're really sorry?" he asks. you don't have to see him to know his lips are curled in a little smirk; his tone gives away the fact that he has no intentions on making you feel better. "really, really sorry?" michael's palm traces around the curve of your rear, smoothly gliding over all the skin he'd just terrorized.

"i'm really, really, really sorry," you nod through tears, your head flopping almost as desperation takes over, urging you to nod quickly.

he gives a small hum, sliding his hand from your ass cheek towards your cunt. his middle and index slide over soaked lips, spreading for a moment to smear your own wetness around. "you don't seem that sorry," he remarks, "you're completely soaked."

a whimper escapes you, your eyes closing before you let out a yelp— he'd smacked your pussy! the lips of it anyway, letting the new sound, a far damper slap, fill the room.

"look at that," michael murmurs, delivering another slap to your cunt, "i guess you can't see it... just listen, then." another slap, all far gentler than the ones to your ass, but no less stimulating, causing you to twitch along his thighs. it's not like you can move your legs much, especially with your underwear and pants still around your ankles, but your lower half still jerks, unused to the rough feeling in such a sensitive area.

"michael," you mewl, curling in on yourself momentarily before he coaxes you down, finally using a sweeter touch on you. his fingers press lightly, then move in careful circles around your poor pussy, easing your body into a hesitantly relaxed state. "please..."

"are you begging me to stop or begging me to keep going?" he questions, letting his hand pause just for a second. when your body ruts against his still hand, clit dragging against his finger pads, michael seems to finally give in, letting his fingers spread your lips and glide inside. he stretches your insides slowly, feeling your heat flutter and squeeze around his fingers... then, just as slowly, he slides them back out, chuckling and letting his fingers pat lightly against your pussy lips. "i'll stop here," he decides, "but you're still on punishment. you'll have to finish yourself, since you're so independent."

"nooo..." you whine, shaking your head. your gaze lifts, and this time he doesn't stop you, allowing you to see the satisfied look on his face.

"aww, don't look so sad," he coos, "you're a big girl, you've done it before." his head tilts, a new thought coming to mind as he helps you into a new position, now facing him as you sit in his lap, your raw, bare ass cheeks against his thighs as your underwear and pants lay discarded to the side. "look at me while you do it," michael instructs, one hand holding your lower back while the other holds your wrist, guiding your hand down your stomach.

your fingertips trail gently on their way down, manicured-nails trembling against heated skin until you reach your entrance. "michael, i'm sorry," you try one more time, looking up at him with glossy eyes through your lashes.

michael, however, remains unmoved. "go on." it's more a taunt than encouragement, his eyes focused on yours as you swallow and gradually start to touch yourself. "that's it," he whispers, "don't be shy... just like that... make yourself sing for me, baby..."

looking for more?

i'm unfortunately thinking this is going to be the only thing i post today. i got rear ended last night & hit my head against my steering wheel and it still hurts LOL but my car's fine thank god. but as you can imagine it's hard to focus atm. if there's typos, i'm so sorry. ok i hope you all enjoy and umm apologies but expect 2 the rest of the week <3 i used a read more for this just bc he is kind of mean and it is intense(?) and also kind of longer than my usual bs but that means the pics wldnt work... this place is a prison. so sorry for no pics but it had to be done ultimately.

♱ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐢𝐫 in St. Agnes of the Sorrowful Heart was always cold; a damp, marrow-deep chill that seeped from the old Indiana limestone and settled in the bones. 

It was late, past Compline prayer; the convent silent, save for the groan of ancient pipes and the distant, lonely whistle of a freight train cutting through the Gary night. 

You had chosen this hour deliberately, slipping from the shared dormitory while the other Sisters slept, their soft breaths a chorus of innocence you could no longer claim you belonged to.

You needed confession. Things had gotten worse; past the petty gossip or moments of impatience with the children of the church that darkened your spirit and thoughts. 

You needed to expel the fever that had taken root in your soul, a corruption so vivid and seditious. You’d assumed Father Callaghan, one of your trusted Priests, old and half-deaf, would be taking the late penitent’s slot. 

His absolutions were swift, a mumbled passage, as if he could not be bothered.  He wouldn’t hear the tremor in your voice, wouldn’t parse the specifics of what you relayed to him. He’d just see a nun, a troubled and corrupt one in need of help, and dispense grace like a tired medic. A nun like the rest of them - but only, you were not…

The confessional was a dark oak box, smelling of beeswax, stale incense, and something else— starched cotton and sweat. 

You slid into the penitent’s side, the worn velvet kneeler biting into your shins through the rough wool of your habit. The grate between you and the priest’s side was a black lattice, a barrier meant to anonymize and to spiritualise the conversation. You could see only a deeper shadow within the wooded patterns.

You crossed yourself, the gesture automatic, hollow in effort. 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been… two weeks since my last confession.”

Your heart thrashed against your ribs. The silence on the other end was deafening; embarrassing to say the least. 

This was a disaster. A divine trap you’d set for yourself. The reaction wouldn’t be a welcome one, and there may just be a kick back; perhaps you’d be stripped of your status and kicked from the convent. 

And yet, you felt you had to break the silence, come clean, for the pressure of the secret, compounded, was a geyser demanding its sudden release. 

If you did not seek help - you’d act lewdly. This could not be. 

To flee the confession would also be an admission of something far worse. Facing this alone was not wise; you had to prove to your parents that you could follow through on their wishes for you. 

So, you began to fill the void Father Callaghan left between you; the words tumbling out in a desperate, whispered rush, directed at the shadow behind the grate.

“My sins… they are of impurity. Of thought. And… maybe action, should I not confess..” You swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet. “I have… entertained lustful thoughts. Repeatedly. Vividly. I have… touched myself, Father. To the point of… completion. While picturing… someone.”

Another silence. This one was different. Thick. Charged. You could hear, or perhaps imagine, the soft shift of fabric from the other side.

“These are grave matters,” Father Callaghan said, his voice carefully neutral, but the neutrality itself felt like a strained wire, it was not like him to be this strained. 

“To whom do these thoughts pertain?” The words seemed muffled behind the grate.

You closed your eyes. Here was the precipice. “A man of God, Father.”

A sharp, almost missable intake of breath. “A man… of this parish?”

“Yes.” The word was a breath, a surrender.

“You must name the nature of this… fixation. To understand the sin, one must confront it in its entirety, to understand the root of its evil.” His instruction was clerical, but the cadence was off, a beat too fast. It was so unlike Father Callaghan to give this advice. 

And so, under the guise of contrition, you painted the portrait of your damnation, but you started not with the lust, but with the light. 

You described him—the subject, the man of God, as a force of nature within the grey walls of St. Agnes. 

His laugh, which was far from a polite chuckle but instead a full-bodied, echoing thing that made the dusty vestments in the sacristy stir; it was enough to set your heart alight.

His way with the parish children, patient, invested and more so like a peer to them, than any other priest you had witnessed. He didn’t just supervise games; he invented them, his eyes large and innocent. 

You confessed to watching him…last Tuesday, trying to explain the physics of a seesaw to a group of wide-eyed six year olds by dramatically acting out the parts of the lever and the fulcrum, his cassock hitched up as he crouched, his hands animated, until he tumbled backwards into the woodchips, laughing uproariously while the children shrieked with delight. 

Despite your heart swelling with magic and pride for his work; your eyes were drawn to the way his cassock would tighten around his arms, or his shoulders as he lifted and played with the kids. 

“He has… a childlike joy, unabridged, unlike people I have met around the convent," you whispered to the shadow. 

“But it’s married to a sharpness. He’s a quick mind. He’ll quote Scripture one minute and then, in the next breath, be speaking with the kids about the latest magazines and the superstar’s gossip that lay within them. All with the same intense passion. It’s… dizzying. It makes everyone else seem half-asleep, his dedication knows no bounds.”

You spoke of the music, too. 

A month ago, you’d been dusting the seldom-used parlor for visiting priests, looking wilted and tired after study, prayer and then watching over 30 odd children. 

He’d paused in the doorway, his head tilted. “You look like you could use some company,” he’d said, and then vanished. You’d assumed he was playing a trick, but then he returned ten minutes later with a small, portable record player—where he’d found it, God only knew—and a vinyl LP in a plain white sleeve. 

“Gospel,” he’d announced, as if presenting a relic. “What I find myself gravitating to when I am losing motivation." 

He’d put it on “Lord Let Your Spirit Fall on Me" –, and the room had filled with the scratchy, aching sound and the soulful singing of Shirley Caesar. 

He hadn’t stayed very long with you; he helped clean in silence with a small smile on his face, but somehow it felt intimate. He had come to seek you out clearly, to find you and spend an extra minute or two. 

A week later, a cassette tape appeared in your assigned mailbox in the convent. On the label, in his precise script: For the Long Nights: A Mixtape. It was 8 different gospel songs; your heart had melted.

Your mind in the confessional didn’t just recall the gifts; it flooded with the man himself. The corrective penance your parents had prescribed was actually the beginnings of your downfall - they’d sealed you tight in the coffin that was sinking down into the dark, damp soil. 

You’d expected another dour, disapproving elder confronting you when you had first arrived at the convent, whipping you into shape, but instead, you found Father Michael in a sun-dappled office that looked like a scholar’s study crossed with a college dorm. 

Books were piled not just on shelves but on the floor, the windowsill, the second chair. Theological texts jostled with well-thumbed Disney picture books, and other contemporary authors. 

A small, cheap record player sat on a filing cabinet, a stack of LPs beside it; The Clash next to Mozart. Strange, beautiful trinkets—a fossil, crystals, a tiny, intricate metal bird -were scattered like offerings around his space. His desk was sprawled with miscellaneous papers, each scribbled on in thick sharpie.

He’d been leaning against his desk, a mug of tea steaming in his hand. 

What shocked you most about meeting him, is that he wasn’t in his cassock; just dressed in black trousers, a black shirt and a grey sweater over the top, the collar a stark white line at his throat. It sat tight there, showing off the veiny chords of his neck; the dusting of hair he’d missed shaving, stark and dark against his skin.

His skin was a gorgeous dark brown, his features sharp, yet slightly feminine. High cheekbones and full lips; his hair neatly gelled, holding back his thick hair. 

He’d looked up as you entered, and his face had broken into a warm, open smile that held no trace of judgment.

 “Ah, our infamous new novice Sister,” he’d said, his voice that same cello-string tenor. 

“Sit, please. And don’t look so terrified. I’m not here merely to correct you or scare you into becoming closer with God and your calling. My job, as I see it, is to inspire. To help things—and people—flourish, even in unlikely soil.”

You had grimaced at him; not able to marry the image of older Priests you’d met with this strapping young one. He was in charge of the whole convent and didn’t seem a day older than thirty. He was despicably hot; as if placed by Satan himself there in your life to tempt you, to lead you down the stray path that your parents so desperately hoped you wouldn’t wander down.

That was it. The realisation that he wasn’t going to be like the rest of them; that was the hook.

In a world of grey rules and whispered penances, he spoke of flourishing. He asked you about the books you missed from childhood, the music you liked. 

When you’d haltingly admitted you felt like a caged bird in this life that had been chosen for you, he’d nodded, without so much as pity, but in understanding. 

“If we liken this place to a cage, then you must know there is always an open door,” he’d said softly, moving himself to sit at his desk. “Sometimes we just forget how to open it.” 

He had grinned at you then, putting his mug on the desk and then folding his hands on his desk in front of him. “My door is always open for you Sister, seek me out when you are in need.”

And by the power of christ; you would seek him out. In your dreams, in your minds eye when you prayed, on the cold hard floor of the church. He would become your rebellion. 

Every stolen glance at him during Mass felt like a tiny act of defiance against the life of a nun. It made each day livable; passable, even. 

Sister Alessanda would ask what had got you all giddy afterward, and you’d have to say it was due to Father Michael’s preaching. And really - you could lie to them and say it was his sweet rhetoric, the way he spoke of God. It was colorful and less boring than how other Scripture was read. It made the old and new testament seem new and current. 

However, if you were in the front row, you were usually just ogling at him. His eyes would often flutter to yours and he’d supply a soft smile.

It was all so exciting - it made this punishment feel less abrasive and lonely. 

The memories continued to bubble to the peak of your mind, and well… you confessed it all. 

The Thursday evening music class for the parish kids was another weird interaction that left you feeling guilt.

You, as a novice, were assisting. He was at the old upright wooden piano, effortlessly playing snippets of Disney’s ‘Jungle Book’; its most famous song, “I Wa’na Be Like You,” making the kids laugh. His voice was incredible, even if he was half joking.

Then he’d segued into the opening of The Beatles’ “Something.” He’d sung the first line, and his voice had wrapped around the words with a tenderness that stole the air from the room. 

He’d caught your eye over the heads of the children as you were miming along. “Sister,” he grinned. All of the children and your other Sisters stared at you, as well as him.

“You know this one,” he’d said, a statement that felt like a shared secret. He’d shifted on the bench. “Come on over here with me. Let’s show the class harmony.”

You’d sat beside him, your hip a hair’s breadth from his. 

Up close, you could see the details that haunted you: the faint, uneven dusting of what you assumed to be vitiligo along his jawline, pale patches against his skin that disappeared into his hairline, a unique flaw that made him heartbreakingly real. 

The shadow of a beard, ruthlessly shaved but still suggesting the normalcy of man beneath the perfect priest. And… a bit of make-up on his collar - clearly to cover what he perceived as an imperfection. It was not.

His lips, as he concentrated on the keys, were surprisingly full and dark pink, slightly parted and wet. His fingers, long and slim, moved with a dexterous grace that was utterly mesmerising. 

He was unbelievably tantalizing; like the apple dangling from the tree in the garden of Eden. You wanted to take a bite so badly, but alas, it was forbidden. 

Your eyes shifted from his lips back to the keys, where you were playing the dainty high notes of the song, adding in very little to his expert playing on the main melody.

You sang, your voice trembling with nerves, and he leaned into the harmony, his shoulder pressing against yours. 

The warmth of him was welcome in the cold of the convent building, despite the blazing summer of Gary. You were squirming on the bench, a slow, unconscious shift born of a building, unbearable tension low in your belly.

The song ended beautifully and the children clapped loudly. 

There was no sign of him moving away at that point, until he spoke; 

“Your voice is magic,” he’d murmured, his eyes on your profile. He looked at you like he was seeing through all the pretense of your garments. The power of his gaze made you want to hide behind something, it was so… all consuming.

“I’ve known it since I first heard you in the choir. Sister, you must hone your gift and allow God to fully bestow this talent to you.” He cleared his throat, looking around to ensure the babble from the class was enough to cover what he said next. 

“I will help you hone this gift, so we can get you performing solo hymnals for the congregation. We will work together on this.” 

He gave you a breathtaking smile, one that showed his very white, straight teeth, and from this angle; you could see a small extra tooth on his bottom row of teeth. It was so intensely endearing, he was just… different from anyone you’d met before. 

“Your playing on the piano, however, is a mess. Here.” He’d reached over, his right hand enveloping your left on the keys. You’d almost forgot at this point that he was your senior… older, wiser and a man of God.

His palm was warm, his touch firm. “This is your anchor.” He guided your finger to middle C, his thumb brushing the sensitive skin of your inner wrist.

The reaction was instantaneous and visceral. A sharp, electric jolt shot up your arm, straight to your core, and a tiny, choked gasp escaped you. You flinched. It was the first time you had been touched in what felt like years.

He froze. You felt his hand tense, his breath hitch. 

In his eyes, you saw a mirror of your own shocked, guilty recognition—a current far stronger than any of you could believe.

It was as if you’d both touched a live wire of mutual wanting or gotten some electric shock. Then, as if the contact had burned him, he wrenched his hand back and stood up so abruptly the piano bench shrieked against the linoleum.

“I—forgive me,” he stammered, his face draining of color as he turned toward the class. 

He couldn’t meet their eyes, shy all of a sudden. “I… I’m needed elsewhere. Excuse me.” And he’d practically fled the hall, leaving a roomful of confused children and a few raised eyebrows from the other sisters. 

You’d sat there, your wrist still tingling, humiliated and exhilarated. You were sure, then, that your corruption was contagious.

You told the shadow of Father Callaghan about the team outing to celebrate Moira’s promotion and well, all the wine consumed that evening. 

He’d cornered you by the forgotten pietà in a dim alcove, a glass of cheap red in his hand. His eyes were bright, his movements looser. He smelled of spices and the faint, clean scent of the convent’s detergent, clearly coming from his fluffy sweater. 

“Tell me,” he’d slurred, just a little, his gaze intense. 

“What were you running from? Before this? I can always tell. The ones running to God have a peace about them. The ones running from something… they have a fire in them. You seem like you are at war with yourself.” He’d leaned closer, his voice dropping. 

“Read Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. Or… or Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. They’re about the mess of faith. The human cost. It might… help. It’s what I read when I lost my way a bit at the start of all of this” he gestured to himself, and to his tight collar.

“Or it might make it worse.” He’d given a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “I’m being a terrible priest tonight.” 

Later, when everyone was leaving, he stood in front of you at the coat room. He’d blocked your exit with his tall, lean body. He was so close that you had to crane your neck to peer up at him, your heart thumping in your ears.

His eyes were dark, liquid. “You don’t understand the power you have, Sister,” he’d said, his words slightly slurred but his intent piercingly clear, “what you do to people, its–.” Before you could process it or hear the rest, Sister Bernadette had bustled between you, breaking the spell.

“He… notices things,” you confessed, your voice growing thready, returning to the present narrative for the shadow. 

“Small things. Sister Agnes gets migraines; he always has a cold cloth and a quiet word for her when she’s choir-mistressing, he even covers for her from time to time. But with me…” You swallowed. 

“With me, it’s different. It’s not pastoral care. It’s… attention. He’s seeking me out to make contact. If I’m struggling with a heavy tray in the refectory, his hand is there on my back and shoulder, to steady me before I’ve even registered the strain. If I’m translating a particularly dense passage of Latin for the bulletin, he’ll ‘happen’ to walk by and offer an alternative phrasing, his finger tapping the page, his shoulder brushing mine. He brings me books from his own shelves, leaving them on the narrow shelf by my bed in the dormitory. It isn’t even theological texts. It’s poetry. Novels. ‘For the soul behind the habit,’ the note on the first one said. He treats the other sisters with kindness. He treats me… like I’m a person he’s desperately trying to get to know.”

Then, you let Father Callaghan into the heat of your transgression. The memory of the lake picnic. The water fight with the children out in the gardens.

“I saw him, Father… this moment is when I damned myself to Hell,” you whispered, the shame molten in your throat. 

“His shirt… it was plastered to him. I could see every line, every contour. The collar was soaked through, tight against his throat.I imagined what it would feel like to unbutton and peel it away from his hot skin. To put my mouth there, on his pulse.” you let out a choked sound, the silence on the other end suffocating you.

“I went back to my dormitory that night and I… – well I, - I touched myself.” You forced the words out, explicit, laying them bare. No resolution would come if you held back the disgusting truth.

“I lay on my bed and I put my hand under my nightgown. I was already wet, just from the memory. I pictured his hands, those large, capable hands that hold the host… I pictured them on me. Hungry. I imagined him pushing my gown up, his calloused palms scraping over my thighs, his fingers digging into my hips. I thought of him seeing me, all of me, exposed and wanting him, and I wondered if that bright joy in his eyes would turn into something darker, possessive. I imagined him saying, ‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it? To be looked at? To be known?’ And then I imagined him… punishing me. For my thoughts. his breath hot in my ear as he asked me to describe, in detail, every single fantasy I’d ever had about him. 

And I would. I would tell him everything, and he would listen, and then he would… he would take me. As his consequence. As my absolution. I came, Father, thinking of that. Thinking of him claiming me, ruining me, because I felt so far from God that only a fall this profound felt like a tether to the bible.”

You were crying now, silent tears tracking through the dust on your cheeks. “The worst part is… in these thoughts, he’s not angry. He’s sad. Disappointed. And that makes it worse. Because I want to please him, even in my sin. Especially in my sin.”

You continued, your voice breaking. 

You told him about the ice in the cloister garden. You’d been rushing fresh produce to the kitchens, your mind a whirl of him the day before teaching you how to sing, and your foot had shot out from under you. The crack of your head against the frozen flagstone was a bright, shocking pain. You saw stars, and felt warm blood instantly matting your hair as you lay there.

He was there in mere seconds, having seen your fall from his office window. 

“Foolish girl,” he’d muttered, but his voice was thick with alarm, not scorn. He knelt in the slush, his cassock be damned, his hands cradling your head. 

“Let me see.” His fingers, trembling slightly, pushed back the heavy wool of your wimple, fumbled with the pins of your coif. They came loose. Your long, soft hair, perpetually bound, spilled out over his hands and onto the dirty ice.

He froze.

For a long second, he didn’t move. He just stared, his breath pluming in the air between you, his fingers tangled in the dark strands. His expression shifted from professional concern to something utterly stunned, raw. 

A muscle feathered in his jaw. He looked… overcome. As if he’d uncovered something sacred and forbidden. “Your…hair, its–” he started, his voice a rough whisper. He didn’t finish. 

He simply swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing above the tight collar, and his touch changed. The frightened assessment changed; a slow, almost delirious smoothing of your hair back from the wound, his thumb brushing your temple, softly, almost… lovingly. His gaze held yours, and in that grey Indiana light, you saw him stripped bare from his duty; a man utterly arrested by the sight of you. 

Then, as if catching himself, he blinked, and the mask slammed down. “You’ve cut it, pretty badly. We shall have to get you to the infirmary” he said briskly, his hands returning to a practical pressure on the wound. “Can you stand?” 

But the moment hung in the air, more intimate than any touch that followed in the infirmary.

The word vomit continued. 

“I feel… disconnected,” you whispered finally, your forehead now pressed against the cool wood of the grate. 

“From God, from my vows. This… lust. It feels more real to me than grace has in months. It pulls at me like a tide. I am adrift, Father. And I am so… so terribly sorry for burdening you.”

The silence that followed was absolute. It was the silence of a held breath, filled to the brim with the utmost tension. 

You could feel it radiating through the grate, a heat that contradicted the convent’s chill.

Then, a sound. The soft click of the latch on his side of the confessional.

Your head jerked up. The shadow behind the grate moved, resolved. The door on his side creaked open, a slice of dim amber light from a vigil candle slicing into the dark booth.

Footsteps, slow and deliberate, on the stone flags. They came around the front of the confessional. Your heart hammered against your ribs, a frantic drum of panic and a weird thrill. 

The heavy velvet curtain of your booth was wrenched aside.

Father Michael stood there, framed by the gothic arch of the confessional doorway. It had been him the whole time. Your face drained of all life very suddenly and you began to shake violently.

The faint light from the sanctuary behind him cast him in silhouette, a tall, broad-shouldered cutout against the gloom. 

He was out of his cassock, wearing only his black trousers and a black shirt with his collar. It was clinging to the lean muscle of his chest and arms; his hair was wild as if he’d put his hand through it stressed. 

His face was in shadow, but you could see the tight line of his jaw, the faint gleam of his eyes in the candlelight. The archway behind, framed him like a figure from Scripture, the irony of it carving itself into your mind.

He looked down at you, where you knelt, frozen, a supplicant at an altar you hadn’t intended. Your gaze then dropped, catching on the unbuckled belt of his trousers.

For a long moment, he just stared. The church was a cavern of shadows around you, the statues of saints watching with blank stone eyes. The only sounds were the distant wind and the ragged, too-loud sound of your own breathing.

“You…” he began, his usually animated tenor was raw, scraped thin. “You thought you were speaking to Father Callahan.”

You couldn’t speak, and only managed a faint, trembling nod.

A harsh, humorless sound escaped him. He took a step closer, and you had to crane your neck further to look up at him. The power dynamic had violently, irrevocably shifted. You were on your knees. He was standing over you. Sick, twisted and ever so primal.

“Every word,” he breathed, the words laced with a kind of furious wonder. “Every detail. My God.” He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture agitated, utterly unlike his usual composure. His blasphemy was deserved.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done–?” His voice broke. “To me?” He supplied again, exasperated.

You flinched. “Father, I—”

“Don’t,” he snarled, the word a low whip-crack. He dropped into a crouch suddenly, bringing his face level with yours. 

Up close, you could see the storm in his eyes— dark brown deep set eyes, flecked with gold and now dark with dilated pupils. 

You could see the faint stubble along his jaw, the pulse pounding in the very throat you’d fantasized about. 

The scent of him—starch, faint sweat, and that underlying warmth—enveloped you, intoxicating. 

“Don’t call me that. I fear that even just the use of that word will create more lustful delirium.  Not after what you just poured into my head. My head, which is supposed to be filled with Scripture, with prayer. Not… not filth.”

He was close enough that you could feel the heat coming off him. His breath fanned your cheek. 

“You’ve ripped the floodgates open,” he whispered, the anger mingling with a desperate, aching confession. 

“For months I have fought these thoughts. I knelt on this very stone until my knees bruised. I have fasted. I have scourged myself with discipline. I have looked at you across the refectory, across the moments our paths have intertwined and I have begged God to take the feeling from me. To make me a better vessel. A pure one.”

He leaned even closer, his voice dropping to a tortured rasp. 

“And now… you come here. In the dark. And you give me… images. Vivid, sinful, exquisite images. Of you watching me. Of you touching yourself, thinking of me...” His gaze dropped to your lips, then dragged slowly, burning, back up to your eyes. 

“How am I supposed to pray now? To run this convent honestly? How can I deny what I want when you have just painted it in the most lurid colors imaginable? You’ve made it real. Reciprocated.”

He stood up abruptly, turning away, his back tense. He fumbled carelessly with his belt buckle, his trousers straining around his groin.

“I am not built for this,” he said, more to the vaulted ceiling than to you. 

“I thought I was. I wanted to be devout. I wanted the clarity, the purpose.” He raked another hand through his hair.

“B-but I’m sick. Sick with the thought of you. Your skin, which I’ve only ever glimpsed. Your hair—God, when I saw it down, after your fall, it was like seeing a different person, a woman… I haven’t slept properly since. I lie awake and imagine how you’d look spread out on my bed in the rectory, the grey convent sheets against your skin, your hair fanned out, your eyes…”

He choked off the sentence, spinning back to face you. The defensive anger was back, a shield against the vulnerability. 

“This is your fault. Your confession. You brought the devil into this booth, and now he’s in me.”

The accusation was unfair, blasphemous, and it ignited a spark in you. You found your voice, small but steady. “I came for absolution, Father–”

“Absolution?” He barked the word. 

“There is no absolution for what you’ve made me feel! You think a few Hail Marys will scrub this from my mind? I will see you, on your knees on the floor of the convent, far from being in prayer. Every time I close my eyes... you'll be kneeling in front of me with my–” he clears his throat, in a moment of hesitation “dick in your mouth instead… I will hear your voice describing your own wetness, and I will feel my own—” He cut himself off again, rageful, his fists clenched at his sides. 

“You need to go. Now. Get out of my sight.”

He said it with force, but his eyes betrayed him. They were pleading, frantic.

“Go,” he growled again, when you didn’t move, still rooted to the kneeler by shock and a terrifying, magnetic pull. 

“Before I do something… something we’ll both regret. Something I will regret.”

The second warning held a different timbre. A promise. A threat. A hunger.

Slowly, muscles protesting, you began to rise. Your legs were weak, trembling. You kept your eyes on him, this young, beautiful, tormented man who was your priest, your downfall, your sin incarnate. 

You took a shaky step backward, toward the aisle, the vast, dark nave behind you.

You turned to leave.

A hand shot out, iron-strong, and wrapped around your upper arm, spinning you back. A gasp was torn from your lips, lost as his other hand cupped the back of your head, fingers tangling in the hair at your nape beneath your wimple. And then his mouth crashed down onto yours.

Devoid of tenderness, or even of passion, instead it was a collision of two supernovas in space, creating a black hole event. The feeling, all consuming. An outlet for all the pent-up fury, desire, and spiritual agony he had just spilled. 

His lips were hard, desperate, moving over yours with a frantic need, reciprocating all of the pain, sorrow and want you had just explained to him. 

The taste of him; wine, the faint bitterness of coffee, flooded your senses, overwhelming you. You made a sound, a muffled whimper against his mouth, a useless protest to keep both of your virtues, but it was no use. Your hands, of their own volition, came up to clutch at the front of his shirt, feeling the solid wall of his chest beneath.

He groaned, the vibration passing from his lips to yours, and the kiss deepened, turned hotter, wetter. His tongue swept into your mouth, and you met it with your own, the sin becoming tangible, a slick, heated dance. In his agony, he bit your lip, and now you tasted the bitter tang of metallic blood.

The hand on your arm slid down to your lower back, pressing you tightly against him. You could feel the hard, insistent ridge of his erection against your belly, even through the layers of your habit and his trousers. The evidence of his desire, so blunt and physical, sent a fresh, scalding wave of lust through you.

This was the transgression you’d fantasized about, but the reality was a thousand times more potent. It was the forbidden fruit, bitten, juice running down your chin. It was the fall from grace, and you were clutching him as you tumbled.

He broke the kiss as suddenly as he’d initiated it, tearing his mouth from yours with a ragged gasp. Both of you were breathing heavily, the sounds echoing loudly in the sacred space. Your lips felt swollen, bruised, already missing the pressure of his. His eyes were wild, horrified, and blazing with undiminished hunger. Your blood was smeared across his plump dark lips. He looked like a wild animal, caught in the headlights of your shared disaster. The sin.

He stared at you, at your kiss-reddened mouth, your wide eyes, your heaving chest. A profound shame seemed to crash over him, mingling with the unspent desire. He released you as if your skin had burned him, taking two stumbling steps back.

“Get out,” he said again, but the growl was gone. It was a hollow, broken command. He didn’t look at you again. He turned and strode away, his footsteps echoing sharply before being swallowed by the darkness near the sacristy door.

You were left alone in the nave, the taste of him on your lips, the ghost of his hands on your body, the cold of the church seeping back in to replace the heat he’d left behind. You touched your fingers to your mouth, trembling. There would be no sleep tonight. Only the replay of his words, his anger, and the devastating pressure of his kiss.

—

The summons came after Lauds. The note was plain, slipped into your hand by a postulant whose eyes held a knowing glint you didn’t care to decipher. Three words, in a script that was all sharp angles and repressed energy: My office. Now.

The walk to the rectory was a death march. The sky was the color of old slate, pressing down on the grim brick building, and the air smelled of impending rain and damp earth. 

You knew what this was. The reckoning. 

He had spent the night in horrified prayer and had emerged resolved. He would remove you. Send you to another convent, or worse, sever you from the parish entirely. You were a danger—to him, to his vocation, to the fragile order of things. Your confession hadn’t just damned you; it had been a lit match tossed into his own restraint. 

He would cut the fuse. You would be cast out, your vows in tatters, branded not just a lustful nun, but the ruin of a priest.

Your knock was as light as a feather.

“Enter.”

His voice was cold, stripped of all its usual warmth and animation. You pushed the heavy oak door open.

He sat behind the wide, polished desk, a fortress of dark wood. He was in full cassock and collar, every button fastened, every line severe. He looked exhausted, shadows like smudges of ash beneath his eyes, but his expression was closed, impassive as a church wall. He did not look up from the dense theological text open before him.

“Close the door.”

You did. The latch clicked with the finality of a coffin lid. You stood before the desk, hands folded, eyes downcast, awaiting sentence.

The silence was thick and choking. It was broken only by the slow, merciless tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the corner, measuring out the last moments of your life here.

Finally, with a sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul, he closed the book. He stared at his hands, steepled on the desktop.

“What you did last night,” he began, his voice low and carefully even, “in the confessional… it was inappropriate.”

Your head jerked up. That wasn’t the word you expected. 

He finally lifted his gaze. It was like being struck by a bolt of cold lightning. 

“A confession is for contrition. For the outline of a sin, so that absolution can be shaped around it. It is not….” He paused, his jaw working. 

“It is not a narrative. It is not meant to be graphic. Do you understand the difference?”

You could only stare, mute. 

“You painted a picture,” he continued, his voice dropping, growing tighter. “With such… vivid detail. You didn’t just confess an impure thought. You described everything. the physical sensations.” A muscle feathered in his jaw. 

“You described your own… self-violation… with a precision that was not necessary for repentance. It was evocative. It was descriptive.” He said the word like it was a curse. 

“That is not the purpose of the sacrament. You forced me, as your confessor, to… to visualise your sin. To participate in it, second-hand. That is a burden you should not have placed on me.”

The accusation was so unfair, so brilliantly twisted, that it stole the air from your lungs. He was blaming you for the content of your confession. A spark of defiance, hot and sudden, flared in your chest.

“I was confessing the truth, father.” you heard yourself say, your voice quieter than you intended, but steady. “The whole truth. Isn’t that what’s required? Or are we only to confess the parts of our sins that are… convenient?”

His eyes widened a fraction. He hadn’t expected you to speak so abruptly. The cold mask slipped, revealing a flash of something raw—anger, shock, admiration. He leaned back in his chair, as if physically pushed by your words.

“The whole truth,” he repeated slowly, “is a dangerous thing when it involves… imagery. When it becomes a shared experience between penitent and priest.” His hand, which had been steepled, drifted down to the desktop. His fingers tapped once, twice, a nervous rhythm. 

“What you shared wasn’t just a sin. It was a… a temptation. Delivered directly.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” you whispered, the defense weak even to your own ears.

“It doesn’t matter!” he snapped, the control breaking for a second. 

He stood up abruptly, turning his back to you, one hand raking through his hair. You saw his other hand—the one at his side—drift to the front of his cassock. He pressed the heel of his palm low against himself, a hard, frustrated press through the heavy wool, holding it there for a beat too long before snatching it away and clenching it into a fist at his side. 

The gesture was unconscious; a physical confession more honest than any of his words. He was still clearly turned on by you. 

When he turned back, his face was flushed. “Don’t you see? The content… it was a violation in itself. You painted a scene so real I can’t scrub it from my mind. It’s there. On a loop.”

He was breathing heavily now. He came around the desk, to lean back against its edge, putting a smaller distance between.He crossed his arms, a defensive posture, but his eyes were pinned on you, dark and stormy.

“My failure,” he said, the words ground out, “was in not stopping you. In listening and… picturing it. And then, of course, my subsequent… lapse… was a separate, profound sin. A betrayal of my office. For that, you have my apology.”

The apology was ash in the air. Meaningless. You both knew it.

“The appropriate course,” he continued, his voice attempting that flat control again and failing, “is distance. Permanent reassignment. For the well-being of both our souls.”

There it was. The sentence. But you also saw the pulse hammering in his throat, the faint tremor in his crossed arms.

“That is what I should do,” he said, staring at a point over your head. “What any sane man in my position must do.”

The silence this time was different. It was full of the things he wasn’t saying. The tick-tock of the clock was like a countdown.

“But.” He pushed off the desk, taking a single step toward you. You were still sitting, and he loomed, but the power wasn’t in his height now; it was in the desperate vulnerability cracking his voice. 

“You spoke of disconnection. From God. From grace.” He crouched suddenly, bringing his face level with yours. His eyes searched yours, pleading. “Do you know what that feels like? To hear a mirror of your own deepest hunger spoken aloud in the dark? To have your own secret corruption given a voice, and for that voice to be… beautiful?”

You were shaking. You couldn’t look away.

“We are already damned in the wanting,” he whispered, the words a hot, agonized confession. “The thought is the sin. The desire is the transgression. We carry it with us, and it poisons everything. It makes a mockery of our prayers.” He reached out, his hand hovering near your face, not touching, but you could feel the heat of it. 

“What if… what if we surrendered to it? Just once. Not in secret fantasy, but in truth. Let the fire burn itself out on the fuel of our bodies, until there is nothing left but ash and the clear, unambiguous memory of the sin.”

“Father, I must confess I never wanted this life… but wanting you… its the first real thing I’ve felt here. In my loneliness.”

He regarded you up through his eyelashes, still crouched down. “And I, share the same sentiment. I just became good at pretending, Sister. It was easier to run from intimacy that I struggled with; to vow it out entirely.” He looked away for a moment, deep in thought about his past life. 

“Y-you’ve had… relations before, Father?” you asked, shock in your hushed voice. 

“Yes. Once. It was a mistake that cost me dearly. I vowed it would be the last time I was taken advantage of in such a way.” he turned back to you and gently placed a palm on your covered thigh. 

“I swore to never let… intimacy hurt me ever again, so I sought out this line of work. However it was foolish; my desire and lust cannot be pushed down. I feel too deeply.” He was looking at you so closely now, his eyebrows furrowed. 

“I feel for you Sister, and I fear that if I do not… act now, I shall never see you again; if you do decide to leave the parish.”

“Father Michael, I have been longing for you ever since we met.”

His logic from before, about acting on this situation was a twisted theology, but it found fertile ground in your own desperate heart. The idea was horrifying. And it made a perfect, devastating sense.

“One time,” he breathed, his eyes holding yours captive. “To know it. To have no more ghosts of ‘what if’ haunting us. And then, when it’s done… when the curiosity is dead, because it has been answered… then we could seek true forgiveness. We could go to our separate altars with hearts that are no longer curious, but informed. Perhaps… perhaps then we could finally understand the depth of the grace we’d need. Perhaps the sin itself could be the path to a clearer repentance.”

He was offering a pact. A mutual, deliberate fall as a precursor to a purer ascent. It was the most corrupt, and the most heartbreakingly logical, thing you had ever heard.

He stood up, turning away, his shoulders tense. “It’s a corruption of every vow,” he said to the bookshelves. “But is it a greater corruption than a lifetime of this… this festering? This slow poison that makes us hypocrites in our own skin?”

He turned back, and the last vestige of the stern priest was gone. He was just a man, terrified and hopeful, standing on the edge of an abyss. He held out his hand to you. It shook violently.

“I called you here to send you away initially,” he said, his voice raw. “That was the right path. The safe path. But I can’t.” The admission seemed to cost him everything. “God help me, I look at you and I don’t see a problem to be solved. I see the only honest answer to a question that’s been burning a hole in my soul for months.”

You looked from his trembling hand to his face, to the torment and the desperate hope warring in his eyes. The spark of defiance in you hadn’t died; it had changed, melding with a profound, terrifying understanding.

He was right. The wanting was the sin. It was already inside you, a constant, a presence that coloured every Hail Mary, every moment of supposed peace. It was a shadow on your soul. Could you ever truly seek absolution for this? Was it best to just leave after it?

Your own voice, when it came, was quiet but clear in the silent office.

“You’re right,” you said. The words felt like a key turning. “The thoughts… they’re a constant sin. They’re already there. We’re already carrying the weight of it.” You took a shaky breath, your eyes locked on his. “Maybe… maybe you have to experience the sin so you can truly let it go.”

A profound, shuddering relief washed over his features, followed immediately by a deeper, more profound terror. You had agreed. You had mirrored his corrupted logic. You were both reaching for it.

“We are so similar Sister, in our affinities. We are bound to find solace and maybe find resolution in each other. In our fantasy.” He got up from the desk and smoothed his long cassock.

He held out his hand, and it shook. "Not here, though" he said quietly. "Not with the door of my office standing between us and the rest of the convent.” He nodded toward the hall beyond, toward the private wing of the rectory that no Sister had cause to enter. 

"My rooms are through there. If we’re going to damn ourselves for this, I won't have it happen somewhere so easily interrupted." 

He pulled you up slowly, his hand warm and big in yours. His eyes were like a does, innocent, yet corrupt all the same. 

You let yourself follow him down the hall. He walked like he expected, at any moment, for you to change your mind, glancing back once at the threshold of the hallway as if giving you the chance. You weren’t going to. However your mind did drift to think about his seeking out Preisthood… why a soul so tortured by a woman would be driven to this… this place.

The door clicked shut. The sound echoed in the small, spare room, a final period on the sentence you’d begun in the confessional. 

You stood frozen just inside, the worn wooden floorboards cool under your stockinged feet. The reality of where you were—in his private room, the bed, the crucifix on the wall—crashed down with a weight that stole your breath. 

He didn’t move from the door. He leaned against it, his head bowed, his shoulders tense under the fabric of his cassock. 

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. You could hear the distant, mournful cry of a train whistle from the tracks beyond the convent walls. A sound from the real world, a reminder.

Finally, he pushed off the door and turned to you. In the grey afternoon light filtering through the single window, he looked exhausted, the shadows under his eyes like bruises. The charming, animated young priest was gone. In his place was a man, weary and wired, standing on the edge of a cliff.

“You can still leave,” he said, his voice quiet, stripped bare. “If you walk out that door right now, we never speak of this again. I’ll find a way to… to handle my own failing. You can keep your vows intact.”

It was an out. A last chance at redemption offered by the very agent of your temptation. The kindness in it, the sheer, devastating responsibility of it, made your chest hurt. 

You looked at him; the sharp line of his jaw, the mouth you’d dreamed of, the hands that had touched you so innocently before, and you knew you were already damned. The wanting was a root, grown too deep to tear out.

You shook your head, a tiny, helpless movement.

He closed his eyes for a second, a flicker of pain crossing his features. When he opened them, they were dark, resigned, and frighteningly tender. “Okay,” he breathed. “Okay. C’mere.”

You took the few steps to the center of the room. He met you there, but didn’t touch you immediately. He just looked at you, his gaze sweeping over your face, your habit, as if memorizing the last moment before the fall.

“We go slow,” he said, his voice a low, steady murmur meant to calm the frantic beating of your own heart. “This is your first time. It should be… it should be good. It should feel good. That’s all I want. To show you that.”

His assumption that you were a virgin was… not shocking. Any young girl who walked through these hallowed halls had to be.

He reached up then, his hands going to your wimple. His fingers, so unfamiliar with ritual, found the pins slowly. He was hesitant, almost shy, the opposite of what you had fantasised about.

Each pin was removed with a soft snick, the sound absurdly loud in the quiet. He set them carefully on the dresser, lining them up in a neat row, as if maintaining order somewhere mattered. 

The stiff linen came away, then the coif. He placed them on the chair, smoothing the fabric with an absent touch.

Then it was just your hair, bound in its tight, daily knot. He reached for it, his hands surrounding the bun completely. For a long moment, he just held it, his eyes closed, his brow furrowed. You could see the pulse beating in his throat. This was it. The first real unveiling.

He found the pins. One, two, three… they joined the others. His movements were methodical, painfully slow. Then, with a soft, deliberate pull, he loosened the knot.

Your hair didn’t cascade dramatically. It unfurled slowly, a heavy, dark wave slipping over his wrists and down your back. It was longer than you remembered, a lifetime of growth kept secret. The release of the constant, familiar pressure of the tight pins was a profound, physical relief.

He made a sound—a soft, choked inhale, as if he’d been punched in the gut. He was utterly still, his hands suspended in the air, now empty of the bun but full of the memory of its shape. 

Then, slowly, he brought his hands down, letting the strands slide through his fingers. He watched, mesmerised, as they fell, catching the dull light. He reached out and touched it again, combing his fingers from your scalp all the way to the ends.

“Goodness,” he whispered, the word full of awe, not piety. 

He gathered a thick handful, brought it to his face, and pressed it against his cheek, his eyes closing. He inhaled deeply, his chest rising and falling. “I knew,” he murmured into the dark strands. “I knew it would be like this. I dreamed it was like this.” He opened his eyes, looking at the hair fisted in his hand, then at your face. His expression was one of pure, unguarded wonder, mixed with a deep, aching sorrow. 

“It’s beautiful and I so wish you didn’t have to tuck it away.”

He spent what felt like an eternity just touching your hair. Wrapping it around his hands, weighing its heaviness, brushing it over your shoulders. He was worshiping it. And you let him, a strange, powerful feeling blooming in your chest. You had done this. You had reduced Father Michael to this state of trembling awe.

He undressed you with the same deliberate, slow care. The rough wool tunic was unbuttoned, and he helped you shrug it off, folding it with a distracted neatness. The scapular, the long underskirt. Each layer was removed with a solemn, heartbreaking tenderness. He was revealing you, and in doing so, revealing his own vulnerability. When you stood in just your simple, knee-length cotton shift, he paused.

His gaze traveled over you, the thin fabric clinging to the curves of your body. He looked at the shape of your breasts, the dip of your waist, the swell of your hips. His expression was one of deep, almost painful appreciation, like a man looking at a masterpiece he knows he must destroy.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, his voice thick. “It’s a crime, what we hide under all that wool.”

He hooked his fingers in the hem of the shift. “Lift your arms for me.”

A fresh wave of hesitation washed over you. This was the final barrier. The last vestige of the Sister, the postulant. You hesitated, your arms trembling at your sides.

He saw it. He didn’t rush you. He just waited, his eyes soft, patient. “It’s just me,” he whispered. “Michael. And ‘m not gonna hurt you.”

The use of his own name, not his title, broke the spell. You lifted your arms. He drew the shift up and over your head, and let it fall to the floor.

You were naked before him. The air was cool, raising goosebumps on your skin. A violent shiver of self-consciousness seized you, and you instinctively crossed your arms over your chest, hunched slightly.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice firm but impossibly gentle. He reached out and gently pried your arms apart, holding your wrists, lowering them to your sides. 

“Don’t hide from me. Not after everything.” His hands slid up your arms to your shoulders, then down your sides, a warm, steadying touch. “Look at you. You’re… magnificent. Every part of you.”

He knelt then, right on the wooden floor in front of you. He was eye-level with your navel. 

His hands came to rest on your hips, his thumbs making slow, soothing circles on the skin. His gaze dropped, and he stared, openly, at the thatch of dark, neat curls between your thighs.

He didn’t touch at first. He just looked, his breath coming a little faster. Then he reached out, his fingertips trembling slightly, and just brushed through the soft hair. A soft sigh escaped him.

“So pretty,” he breathed, full of wonder. He combed his fingers through it more firmly, a gentle, petting motion. “So real. So you.” He looked up at you, his eyes serious. “This is a gift, you understand? This… all of this… is a gift. And I’m…” He shook his head, dropping his gaze again, a muscle working in his jaw. “I’m so selfish for taking it.”

He leaned in then, and pressed his lips to the soft skin just above your pubic bone. A kiss of gratitude, of farewell knowing that this was likely the only intimate moment you’d both share. 

He lingered there, his forehead resting against your lower belly, his warm breath washing over you. You could feel the fine tremors running through his body.

After a long moment, he rose. “My turn,” he said, and the shyness was back, mixed with a new tension.

He turned slightly away as he began to undress, a self-conscious gesture that made your heart twist. He removed his cassock, folding it with automatic habit. Then his clerical shirt. He pulled it over his head, his back to you.

When he turned around, you saw him fully. The vitiligo was even more striking up close. The large, beautiful patch of stark white skin swept from under his right arm, across his ribs, over his hip, and down his thigh, the border sharp and clean against his warmer and darker skin tone. It was a part of him, undeniable and beautiful.

He saw you looking. A faint, self-deprecating smile touched his lips, and he glanced away. 

“Not what you pictured when you thought of your sexy priest, huh?” he said quietly, a defensive edge in his voice.

You stepped closer without thinking. You reached out and laid your palm flat on the border where dark met light on his side. His skin was warm, the texture no different. He flinched, a tiny intake of breath, but didn’t pull away.

“No,” you whispered, your eyes meeting his. “You’re better. You’re real.”

The words seemed to disarm him completely. His eyes glistened for a second before he blinked rapidly. He captured your hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed your palm, a long, tender press. Then he pulled you against him, skin to skin, and kissed you. It was a deep, slow kiss, full of a gratitude and a yearning that stole the last of your hesitation.

He led you to the bed, laying you back on the grey blanket. He didn’t cover you immediately. He lay beside you, propped on an elbow, and just looked at you, his free hand tracing idle patterns on your stomach.

“We have all the time in the world,” he murmured. “My world stops here. Just for this. Let everything else melt away.”

He began to touch you in earnest. He started at your temples, massaging them gently. “You hold so much tension here,” he whispered. He then kissed your eyelids, the bridge of your nose, the corners of your mouth. He mapped your face with devotion.

He moved down your throat, sucking gently at the pulse point until you moaned. “You have no idea the power you have,” he said against your skin, his voice rough. “Just the sight of you, walking into a room. It undoes me.”

His mouth moved to your breasts. He took his time, worshiping each one. He licked and sucked and nibbled until you were arching off the bed, your fingers tangling in the sheets. His hand cupped the weight of your breast, his thumb brushing your peaked nipple. “So perfect,” he groaned. “So responsive. You were made for this. For pleasure,” he pressed his mouth down again on your nipple and suckled. “Isn’t it cruel that God created all these areas on the body that are so sensitive to tough; and then denies you of that, if your calling is to the congregation?” He looked up at you and tutted.

“I’m beginning to think God is the corrupt one and not us,”

He kissed down your sternum, over the quivering plane of your stomach. He nuzzled into the short hair on your pubic bone, inhaling deeply. “And this,” he whispered, his breath hot. “This drives me out of my mind. Knowing it’s under all that wool. And now knowing it’s only mine to see, in this moment.”

He settled between your legs. He kissed the inside of each thigh, his stubble a delicious scrape. He looked up at you, his eyes dark and warm. “This might feel like a lot. Just breathe. My only job today is to make you feel good.”

His first touch was the soft, flat press of his tongue, a slow, sweeping stroke that made you jolt and gasp. He soothed you with a hand on your belly. “Easy. I’ve got you.”

It was better than anything you’d ever imagined, or ANY feeling your own hand could give ou.

He began to eat you out with a dedicated intensity that was more intimate than anything you could have imagined.

His tongue explored every fold, every hidden contour, before finding your clit. He licked around it, circled it, then flicked over it with the very tip, his eyes closed in concentration. 

One of his hands slid under your ass, tilting your hips up. The other hand came up, and his thumb found your entrance, rubbing gently, then pressing inside, just to the first knuckle.

The stretch of his thumb, combined with the relentless, perfect rhythm of his tongue, sent pleasure shooting tight in your core. You were trembling, your breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. The anticipation of him taking you in such a forbidden way.

The power dynamic was intoxicating. Here you were, naked and spread open, and Father Michael was naked, on his stomach, on this small bed; his mouth between your legs, serving your pleasure with a desperate, devoted focus. The thought alone was enough to make your pleasure climb higher.

“That’s it,” he murmured against you, the vibration shooting straight to your spine. “Let it happen. Come for me. I want to taste it. I want to know I did this for you.”

His words, the raw, gentle command from his lips, broke you. Your climax rolled through you, a deep, shuddering wave that had you crying out, genuinely almost moved to tears by how much better it felt than whatever pleasure you could have given yourself. 

He gentled you through it, his mouth soft and persistent, until you were limp and oversensitive, pushing weakly at his head.

“Please, Father, oh my–” you picked your head up to look at him between your legs, to store the memory in your head forever. He was perfect, cheeks tinged pink, his stubble, swollen lips and his hair, now messy and showing off the height of his afro that he hid constantly with gel.

He kissed his way up your body, his own breathing ragged. He gathered you into his arms, holding you close. You could feel his heart hammering against your cheek, feel the hard, thick length of him pressed against your hip. He was still fully dressed from the waist down, a last bastion of… something.

After long minutes of quiet, just his hands stroking your hair, your back, he shifted.

“Are you ready for me?” he asked, his voice thick with restraint.

You nodded against his chest, dazed.

He moved over you, bracing himself on his arms. The difference in his size, the weight of him hovering above you, was suddenly very real. He was all lean muscle and warm, contrast-painted skin. His face was serious, his eyes searching yours, full of a concern that made your throat tighten.

“This will hurt,” he said softly, a final, gentle warning. “Just at first. I’ll go so slow. You tell me to stop, and I stop. Promise me.”

“I promise,” you whispered.

He reached between you, his hand fumbling with the fastening of his trousers. He pushed them and his briefs down just enough to free himself. He was thick, fully erect, the skin flushed and smooth. The vitiligo has dropped below his waistband it seemed, splattering over his hip bone and stopping there. 

 A drop of moisture gleamed at the tip of his dick, your eyes fixated on it. He took himself in hand, his grip firm, and started moving it up and down. He made his own hands look small as he did it, his hips bucking whenever his hand made it back down to the base. 

“I was doing this in the confession booth, y’know?” he said, his eyes lazy with lust.

“Y-you were?” 

“Mhmmm, thinking of all the things you were saying made me delirious, I had to touch myself”

His eyes left yours once more and he glanced down at himself and then the angle at which you were laying. He pulled your legs, to bring your sopping wet cunt closer and then guided his dark pink head to your entrance. You were so slick with your arousal and his saliva that when he tried to push in, it slipped up, nudging your clit. It was so sensitive that you jolted.

He pressed forward, just an inch. “Sshit” he hissed.

There was a sharp, burning pressure as he finally pressed into you, a tearing sensation that was profoundly alien. 

You gasped, a sharp cry escaping you, your eyes squeezing shut against the sudden sting.

He froze immediately. “Breathe,” he whispered, his own breath coming in a controlled, shaky stream. He was trembling with the effort of holding still. “Just breathe through it. Look at me. Look at me, m’love.”

You forced your eyes open and the endearing name. His face was inches from yours at this new angle now, his brow furrowed in concern and pain—his own, from the strain of holding back from you. “M’not gonna hurt you,” he murmured. “It’s going to feel good. Breathe.”

You took a ragged breath and nodded. The burning was intense. He pushed forward another slow, inexorable inch. A tear escaped, tracking down your temple into your hair. The pain was bright, shocking but it felt like every nerve in your body was alive and on fire. It felt so good, so wrong, so right and so painful all at once.

“I know,” he whispered, his voice cracking. He leaned down and kissed the tear away, his lips soft on your skin. “I know it hurts. Just a little more. Then I’ll make it better. I swear to you.”

With a final, careful push, he sank the rest of the way home, burying himself to the hilt inside you.

The feeling of fullness was immense, overwhelming. The sharp pain was there, but beneath it was the shockingly hot sensation of being filled. He was inside you. Father Michael was inside you. The thought, blasphemous and thrilling, cut through the pain.

He let out a long, shaky groan, dropping his forehead to yours. His whole body was trembling. “Christ,” he breathed, the word a pained prayer. 

“You’re so… tight. So perfect. Just… give yourself a minute. Just get used to me.”

He didn’t move. He just stayed there, joined with you, letting your body stretch and accommodate him. He kissed you, slow and deep, his tongue soothing, distracting. Slowly, the sharpest edge of the pain began to blur, replaced by a deep, throbbing ache and that strange, full sensation.

Tentatively, he began to move. A slow, gentle rocking of his hips, a subtle retreat and advance. The way his dick curved up inside you was maddening, filling you up and hitting every good nerve.

It still hurt, but the hurt was now mingled with sparks of extreme pleasure.

“That’s it,” he encouraged, his voice a rough whisper against your lips. “Just like that. It’ll start to feel good. I’ll make it feel good. I’ll take care of you.”

He kept the pace agonizingly slow, each shallow thrust going a little deeper, a little smoother as your body yielded to him. He watched your face intently, his own a mask of concentrated empathy. 

After what felt like an eternity, the pain receded like a tide, leaving behind a raw, open sensitivity that began to glow with a low, gathering warmth. 

A soft, surprised moan escaped you on one particularly deep rock of his hips.

He smiled then, a real, relieved smile that lit up his tired face. “There she is,” he whispered, his voice full of wonder. “There’s the pleasure.”

He began to move with more purpose, establishing a slow, deep, rolling rhythm. The bed began to creak softly beneath you. His thrusts were measured, each one aimed at fanning that new warmth into a flame. One of his hands slid under your lower back, arching you up to meet him. The next thrust hit a spot so deep and startlingly good that you cried out, a sound of pure shock.

“Yeah,” he grunted, his own control starting to slip. “Right there. I’ve got you.”

He fucked you like that for long, slow minutes, building the pleasure back from its ashes. You were climbing again, the tightening tension returning, deeper now, rooted in the very core of you where he moved. 

You were beneath him, being taken by him, being taught by him and it was better than any schoolgirl silly fantasy you’d had before. He was gentle and reassuring and everything this situation called for. 

The man whose homilies you’d listened to, whose guidance you’d sought, was now the source of this devastating, intimate friction.

“Father Michael,” you moaned, the title slipping out unbidden, wrapped in pleasure.

He stilled above you for a second, his eyes flying open to meet yours. A dark, hungry understanding flashed in them. A slow, wicked smile touched his swollen lips. “Say that again,” he breathed, his voice dropping an octave.

“Father Michael,” you whispered, the words a sin and a caress.

He groaned, a deep, ragged sound, and began to move again, his thrusts gaining a new, possessive force. 

“It turns you on, doesn’t it?” he panted, his breath hot on your ear. “Even just to say it. The title. The power. I should have seen you from a mile away. The first day you walked in, with those quiet eyes… I should have known you’d be trouble. The deepest kind of trouble.”

His words, acknowledging the very dynamic that was fueling your fire, sent a fresh, scalding wave of lust through you. You were wet for him, for your priest, in a way that felt like its own damnation.

“You’re just like me,” he thrusted again, exhaling, “So shy but so dirty.”

Suddenly, he caught both your wrists in one of his large hands. He pulled them up, above your head, and pinned them there to the mattress. The surrender was absolute. 

You were completely at his mercy, held down by his weight and his grip. He looked down at you, pinned and helpless beneath him, and the look in his eyes was fiercely possessive.

“Keep them there,” he ordered, his voice guttural. He used his new leverage to drive into you harder, deeper. The pace was still controlled, but it was relentless now. Each thrust was getting you closer. 

You were pinned, filled by your confessor, and utterly helpless.

He looked down at where your bodies joined, watching himself disappear into you, then back up at your face, your wrists trapped in his hand. “Mine,” he growled. “You’re mine, Sister. My good girl. Got you all to myself.”

The combination of his words, his dominance, and the perfect, grinding angle pushed you over another edge. This climax was sharper, more intense, a crashing wave that made you sob his name—his title, his name, a tangled litany—as your body clenched around his. 

It was better than every single bleary orgasm you’d given yourself in the past. You understood wholeheartedly now why this was so sought after by other non practicing women, and why their lives were led around this act. It was a shattering that your own fingers had only ever mimicked in lonely imitation.

He groaned, his rhythm faltering as he rode out the pulses of your orgasm, his own release clearly nearing.

When it subsided, he released your wrists, his hand coming down to cup your face, his thumb stroking your cheek. He was breathing hard, sweat beading on his temples and upper lip. 

His hair was a glorious mess. The neat gel had completely surrendered. A short, dense, wiry Afro crowned his head, the tight, dark coils springing free with a life of their own. It made him look younger, wilder, utterly undone.

You reached up, sinking your fingers into it. The texture was incredible—dense, soft yet wiry, the coils wrapping around your fingers. He groaned at the touch, a sound of pure pleasure, and pressed his head into your hand.

“Your hair,” you breathed, twisting a curl around your finger.

He gave a shaky, breathless laugh. “It’s a mess,” But he nuzzled into your palm, even as he began to move inside you again, his thrusts regaining their deep, purposeful rhythm.

After a few more strokes, he pulled out, his body glistening. “On your side,” he rasped, his voice raw. He helped you turn, his movements gentle again. He curled behind you, pulling your top leg up toward your chest. He entered you again from this new angle, his arm hooking under your knee to hold it open. 

It was deep, incredibly intimate, his chest against your back, his mouth on your shoulder. He fucked you like this for a while, slow and deep, his free hand roaming over your breast, your stomach, down to where your bodies joined, his fingers finding your clit and rubbing slow, firm circles.

“You can come again,” he murmured into your skin. To get to your ear, he yanked away your long hair and by the way he pulled it tight, so much so that it hurt but gave you pleasure. He noticed then and grabbed more of it in his hand and pulled.

“I know you can. One more for me. Let me feel you.”

And you did; hard. The feeling came in more sudden shocking waves, your pussy pulsating like it hadn’t before. It was unbelievable, how sensitive your body was to his touch. He was still plowing into you, both hands on either sides of your hips now, pushing himself into you over and over again. All you could hear was a string of “Yes, yes yes.”

He was close. You could feel it in the tension in his body as he pressed into your back, and in the ragged, open-mouthed breaths against your shoulder. He pulled out once more.

“Get on all fours,” he said, the command leaving no room for hesitation.

You obeyed, your body moving pliantly, sore and used. He moved behind you. One hand gripped the swell of your hip, his fingers digging in. The other hand plunged into the hair at the crown of your head, fisting a thick, unyielding handful. He didn’t pull to hurt you, but to possess you, to control the arch of your back. He pushed into you from behind in one deep, powerful stroke that punched the air from your lungs.

He panted, setting a hard, driving pace that had the bed slamming against the wall in a steady, brutal rhythm. He used the grip in your hair to pull you back onto every thrust. His other hand slid around your hip, his fingers finding your oversensitive clit, rubbing rough, frantic circles. “Gonna come,” he gritted out, the words strained. “Need to see your face when I do.”

He pulled out abruptly. “Get on the floor. Kneel.”

You got out of bed, turned all shaky, and then knelt on the ground before him. He stood there, his body a breathtaking vision of sweat-sheened muscle and stark, beautiful skin. 

His trousers were around his thighs. His Afro was a wild and glorious sight, the curls damp with sweat. 

He fisted himself in his hand, his strokes fast and tight, his eyes burning into yours with a desperate, final intensity.

“Look up at me, Sister,” he demanded, his voice a hoarse scrape.

You looked up at him from your knees. The power dynamic had never been clearer. You were on your knees before your priest. Before Michael. 

He was standing over you, pleasuring himself, about to mark you. The thought was filthy, degrading, and it made a fresh, hot rush of desire pool in your spent core.

“This is what I will always see… when I close my eyes at the altar.” he said, the words a final undeniable benediction.

You stayed there. His fist moved faster. A low, guttural groan was torn from him, a sound of utter surrender and profound anguish.

He came.

It was a hot, pulsing rush that hit your chin, your lips, your cheeks. The first thick, pearlescent spurt landed directly on your parted lips. You flinched, the taste salty and bitter, but you held his gaze, refusing to look away. 

He kept stroking himself through it, his release painting your face in hot, wet stripes, dripping onto your neck, your collarbones, your trembling breasts. He watched it happen, his eyes wide and horrified and ecstatic, his face a mask of ruined bliss.

When it was over, he stood there, his body slack, his breath coming in great, heaving gasps that shook his frame. 

Slowly, as if moving through deep water, he sank to his knees on the floor, bringing himself to your level. He was trembling violently. He reached out, his hand coming under your chin. His thumb, gentle now, brushed through a streak of his come on your cheek, smearing it. He looked at you, at the vivid, degrading evidence of his loss of control painted across your face, at your eyes, wide and trusting and ruined, looking back at him from your knelt position.

All the fierce passion, the possessive heat, drained away, leaving a hollowed-out devastation that seemed to age him ten years in an instant. It all just looked like the aftermath of a personal catastrophe,

He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing painfully. His thumb stroked your chin once more, a tender, agonized gesture.

“Oh, Sister,” he whispered, his voice broken and terribly, terribly soft. “How am I ever going to forget this transgression?”

let me know if u liked it otherwise i fear i may never post again hahaha

tags;

Michael sat on the edge of the hotel bed for a long time after the woman left. She had gathered her things quietly, giving him one last look before closing the door after he’d asked her to leave. His elbows were braced against his knees and he had both of his hands pressed over his face. Like maybe he could hide from what he had just done if he stayed that way long enough.

The room was eerily quiet now. Nothing but the distant hum of traffic and horns from impatient cars down below. 

Just an hour before, music was playing from the stereo on the dresser and the curtains were pulled back wide revealing the glittering city below. Somebody was laughing at something Michael had long forgotten now. 

Now, the glasses on the dining room table were half empty. The sheets behind him were rumpled and smelled of an unfamiliar perfume. And the gold wedding band around Michael’s finger felt like it had doubled in weight.

He twisted it back and forth on his finger. Then he raised his hands back to his face.

“Oh God… what did I do?” he whispered into his hands. The words sounded so small in the expensive suite.

Then, his stomach rolled in an awful way and he rushed to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before losing the contents of his stomach.

He had spent most of his life surround by chaos and noise. People screaming his name, cameras clicking and flashing, executives talking over one another because they all wanted to be right. He had learned out to tune out the noise over the years to find a quiet place inside his own mind when the world became too much.

But now, there was no quiet place deep enough to protect him from himself.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw your face. It wasn’t angry either. That would’ve been easier. Instead, you were smiling. 

The same way that you had when he’d left for this business trip a month ago. You were standing barefoot in the foyer, arms wrapped tightly around his waist with your cheek resting against his chest. You had asked him to let you know when he landed. Reached your hand up to straighten the collar of his jacket that was turned up, because somehow Michael always managed to leave something out of place when he was tired. Then you had kissed him slowly and told him you loved him.

He had said it back without hesitation. He kept replaying it in his head. That was the part he couldn’t understand. He loved you. Truly. With every inch of his being. 

He knew that with the same certainty he knew the first note of every song he’d ever written, the exact number of steps between the wings and center stage. The way your body fit against his like a puzzle piece when you slept. 

He loved the sweet warm scent that clung to your skin after a shower. The tiny line between your eyebrows when you were reading something very carefully. He loved how you talked to yourself when you were cooking and trying to figure out a recipe— and denied it when he caught you, and the way you reached for him in your sleep without stirring.

He loved you, all of you, and he had betrayed you anyway.

The thought made him bend forward until his forehead nearly touched his knees, stomach still churning.

It wasn’t planned. Never. That was the excuse waiting closest to the surface. The one his frightened out of its wits mind kept offering him as if it would soften what happened. Truthfully, he was exhausted and lonely. Frustrated after a long night of industry obligations he didn’t want to attend. Those events were always full of people who treated boundaries like something temporary.

He drank more than usual, but not nearly enough to erase the choices he made that led him here. The woman made him feel admired without asking for anything complicated from him. And for one shameful, shameful hour, he had stepped outside of the life that belonged to him and pretended there would be no cost.

Then that moment came to an end, and there was still you. His mind kept drifting to you. Your clothes in his closet, the books stacked beside his bed that you had started but never finished. The handwritten notes you’d snuck in his luggage when he wasn’t looking. Your voice on his answering machine, asking him if he remembered to eat. 

By morning he had already decided he had to tell you. But then you called. Your voice was warm and sleepy because it was still early back at home where you were. You teased him about sounding completely miserable, told him he should’ve brought you for company. Said you missed him.

Michael sat on the hotel sofa gripping the phone so tightly his tendons ached. 

“I miss you too, baby.” He whispered. He almost confessed his sin to you right then and there. But when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

He couldn’t bear the idea of telling you like that. Not like that. You deserved more from him. From your husband. 

Michael was disgusted with himself, and it showed in the way he’d been sick twice the night before. Now, sitting in the ruined hotel room, His eyes fell to the wedding band on his hand and he began to cry until the sobs crescendoed violently through his body.

The tears slipped between his fingers and fell silently onto his slacks while the world carried on outside. Completely indifferent and undisturbed by the fact that somewhere in it, a man had just shattered the most precious thing he’d ever been trusted to hold.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

It was sunrise when you woke up on the morning Michael returned home. The estate was still dark and its long hallways were silent  except for the occasional creak of the home settling around you. Outside, the sky was turning from black to a deep blue and mist drifted over the lawn.

You stayed in bed a little longer, curled in the sheets on Michael’s side of the bed. It was a habit you’d developed over the years whenever he was away from home. Pressing your face into the pillow, you inhaled deeply and sighed contently. It still carried a faint trace of your husband’s cologne. Warm, sandalwood, clean linen, and something sweet you couldn’t quite pinpoint.

A month had never felt so long

Michael and you had been married long enough to survive separations much longer than that. World tours had taken him across oceans. Film shoots and recording obligations swallowed whole weeks sometimes. There were too many birthdays and anniversaries celebrated through telephone wires than you cared to remember.

But lately, even when Michael was home, you’d missed him. And that bothered you. A lot. He was physically there. Eating dinner with you, sleeping beside you, every now and then resting his large palm on your thigh as he did his reading. But something felt off. His smiled came slower and his kisses were softer, but shorter too. And every now and then, you would look up and see him watching you closely with an expression you couldn’t read. Sadness flickered across his features before he tucked it away, but you didn’t know.

It must be the album you thought. Dangerous was due to release soon, so there was always a deadline or a room full of people waiting for Michael to decide whether the bassline needed to be heavier or if the strings needed another layer.

Michael carried his work inside his body until it reflected in his posture and the hollowed skin beneath his eyes. Over the years, you learned how to recognize the signs before complete burn out.

That was why this morning, you decided to take care of him. You yawned and stretched as you finally climbed out of bed, the cold air of the room hitting you quickly. You pulled one of Michael’s sweatshirts over your head and twisted your hair into a bun to keep it out your face before padding downstairs.

You only turned on the light above the stove, preferring more darkness as the sun slowly rose. Then you mixed pancake batter and started brewing your coffee. By the time the sun had fully risen, the kitchen smelled like butter, bacon, cinnamon, coffee, and maple syrup. You hummed to yourself quietly as you arranged fruit and powdered sugar over the pancakes. Then, you set two mugs on the table.

His car was in the driveway just after seven. You recognized the distinct engine humming in the distance and the faint voices from his security team. Excitement coursed through you so quickly that you nearly forgot to shut off the stove. You rushed into the foyer just as the front door opened.

Michael stepped inside wearing dark slacks, a black sweater, sunglasses—and the exhaustion of a man who had slept little to none. His curls were tucked beneath a hat and his leather overnight bag hung from his opposite hand. Still, he looked beautiful to you.

His head lifted when he saw you, and for a second his whole face changed. Relief, love, and something more dark passed through his expression in a frenzy. You quickly closed the distance between the two of you, and he dropped his bag to catch you.

“Hey handsome. There you are.” You murmured against his neck, leaving soft kisses. Michael melted into your touch and held you tightly. A little too tight.

He pressed his face into you, breathing you in. You laughed softly as you ran your hands over his back in that way that always grounded him.

“You act like you’ve been gone a year.” He didn’t answer, but his arms tightened. The force of the embrace surprised you enough to make your smile fade a little.

“Mikey?”

“Just missed you. That’s all.” He whispered His voice was strained though. You turned your face and kissed his temple. 

“I missed you too, baby”

When he finally pulled away, his eyes were wet behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. He removed them quickly like he forgot he was wearing them before looking over your face with a tender gaze.

“You okay? What’s up?” You asked.

He nodded too fast. “Yeah mama, just tired.”

“More like exhausted”

“I’m alright.”

Still not convinced, you reached up and pushed a curl out of his eyes. He leaned into your hand instinctively. Then his gaze dropped to your mouth, and you kissed him. He kissed you back, but something about it felt hesitant. It lasted just a second, almost so quickly you didn’t notice. 

When you pulled away, he gazed at you like you gave him something he didn’t deserve. The expression made you uncomfortable in a way you couldn’t put words to. So you changed the topic.

“I made you breakfast. Your favorite” A shy smile tugged at his lips despite the way he felt inside. 

“Of course you did” That was the thing. You were always taking care of him. Making sure he had what he needed, sometimes at a cost to yourself. He followed you to the kitchen, wondering how many more acts of love he could survive before the truth broke him.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Unfortunately, the distance didn’t disappear when Michael came home. It got worse. 

He was attentive in weird, uneven bursts. One afternoon, he just appeared out of nowhere in the doorway of the library carrying your favorite flowers for no reason. Then he stood watching while you arranged them in a vase, eyes following every movement of your hands. And then that night, he held you so close that you woke up feeling suffocated and sweating against his chest.

The next day though, he barely spoke at all during breakfast. 

He started bringing you gifts after long rehearsals and recording sessions. A new book he thought you might like, a silk scarf in your favorite color, and a small bottle of perfume he had smelled somewhere and immediately associated with you. 

The gifts were appreciated. But they frightened you. Now Michael had always been extremely generous with his time and money. He loved to give, much more than receiving. But you couldn’t help but feel like these offerings weren’t just spontaneous affection, but more so an apology for something you had never accused him of doing.

If you asked if something was wrong, he would just say it was work stuff. 

“This mix isn’t right yet”

“Just not sleeping well, that’s all”

“Management's been on me”

And every time, you believed him. Because you loved him and trusted him. The alternative never entered your mind.

In the past, there had been rumors about your marriage.

Women constantly claimed things and headlines manufactured affairs from various photographs Michael had taken with fans. Every friendly conversation and smile he gave became evidence for the press to declare he had a new secret lover.

Michael was always more hurt by these stories than you were. “How can they say that about us?” He would ask, genuinely distressed. “They don’t know me…Us.” You always reassured him.

The trust was so deeply ingrained in your marriage that you didn’t even consider the possibility of unfaithfulness even while standing in its shadow.

Instead, you turned inward and blamed yourself. Maybe you had gotten too comfortable. Or maybe the marriage was less exciting to him now that the honeymoon phase was long gone.

You wondered whether your complaints about his long nights at the studio had added more pressure on top of the weight he was already carrying. And as embarrassed as you were afraid to admit, you had even begun studying your own reflection more closely when getting dressed.

On date night, you changed your hair twice. Bought a new nightgown— that never got worn because Michael came home at 2am and fell asleep before you could show him.

You tried hard. So much harder.

And that’s what haunted you later.

You cooked more of his favorite meals and waited for him to come home to enjoy them, even though you never knew when he’d arrive. Kept leaving handwritten notes for him to encourage him. Sometimes if you had time, you’d stop by the studio with lunch for him and massage his shoulders while he listened to the same run over and over again, trying to pinpoint how to improve it.

Every act of love you offered made him quieter and pushed him farther away. 

Then one night, you found him standing by himself in the bathroom with the water running endlessly. He was facing the mirror, both hands gripping the sink as his head hung low.

“Runnin' up my water bill, boy” You had said jokingly. But he startled so violently that your stomach clenched. Immediately your face changed when he met your eyes in the reflection of the mirror. You stepped inside immediately.

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing” 

“You’ve been in here forever, Mike. What're you thinkin' about?”

He stared at you through the reflection instead of turning around. For a moment, it looked like he might tell you. His mouth opened and his eyes filled, but then he dropped his gaze.

“Just that record. That’s all.”

You exhaled softly and moved behind him, shutting off the water and wrapping your arms around his waist. His body went rigid under your touch. You felt it immediately.

“Baby,” You whispered, resting your cheek between his shoulder blades. “You’re carrying too much again.”

Grace he didn’t deserve.

Michael closed his eyes as guilt washed over him, nauseating him.

“You don’t have to be perfect all the time. You can just be you with me, you know that right?” A tear slipped down his cheek and disappeared before you could see it.

“I know” He said quietly.

“You can talk to me. Whatever it is.”

His hands came down to where yours were resting against his stomach, holding you too now.

“I know, baby.”

He turned in your arms and held you with his face buried against your neck. His body was trembling, and you mistook it for exhaustion. So you stroked his curls like you always did and told him it would be okay.

You always made him feel so safe. He nearly confessed right there. He inhaled sharply. “I have to tell you something” he whispered.

You pulled back to look at him. “What is it?” His eyes moved over yours. Fear entered them so suddenly that you went totally still. But then, he shook his head and said it was nothing.

He didn’t have the courage yet. He wanted to tell you. So badly. But he couldn’t bear to put you in that type of agony. He’d rather die. And that’s why he hated himself in this moment. In every moment you’d overextended yourself or did something just because you loved him.

He didn’t deserve it, and he knew it. He was devastated.

Later, you would replay this memory until it felt like punishment that you couldn’t see things for what they were.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

You learned the truth at a charity luncheon six weeks after Michael came home.

The day was unremarkable. You picked out a cream suit and wore a silk blouse underneath. Gold hoops adorned your ears with your hair swept back away from your face. Michael was supposed to be attending with you, but a scheduling conflict came up that morning. He kissed your cheek while you got dressed and apologized, promising he would make it up to you.

It was no big deal it happened a lot. So, you went alone. 

The luncheon was in a private ballroom that had been decorated elegantly with white flowers and soft, gold fabric. Wives of people in the industry, performers, executives, humanitarians, and philanthropists moved about the space while photographers hovered near the entrance. Being Michael’s wife, you had attended enough events like it to smile through small talk without thinking.

Halfway through the event, a woman from Michael’s label approached you at the refreshment table. You knew her vaguely, she’d always been friendly and talkative. And today, you noticed she was on her second glass of champagne, which meant she was sure to be extra chatty.

“It’s sooo good to see you. You look beautiful!” She said, kissing the air beside your cheek.

“Thank you, so do you.”

“We missed you sooo much in New York.” At first you just blinked. The sentence didn’t register initally. 

“Excuse me?” You smiled politely, trying to get clarification.

“The Mercer dinner. Michael was basically hiding in a corner all evening, you know how he gets at those things.”

A cold chill washed over your body. Michael wasn’t in New York. He was in Chicago.

At least that’s what he had told you. 

Still, you maintained your smile, even as your right eye began involuntarily twitching and your heart rate picked up. 

“And when was this?”

The woman gave you the date. It was the exact night Michael had called you from what he claimed was his hotel in Chicago.

He claimed rehearsals ran late. He sounded really distracted and then he ended the call early because he said he was tired and needed some sleep.

Your fingers tightened so hard around your wine glass you thought it might break. “Oh” was all you said, like the wind had been knocked out of you.

Instantly, the woman knew she spoke too much. You saw it in her face. “Well maybe I just have the dates wrong…”

You continued to smile politely, at this point it was frozen on your face despite the rage you felt internally. You felt like you were in the Twilight Zone. 

“You don’t.” you said simply. The activity in the ballroom continued around you. Silverware scraping, laughter and music. But at this point it all seemed far away, and you had tunnel vision.

“Who was he with?” you asked. The woman looked toward the crowd, desperate for an escape.

“That isn’t my business.” At this, your heart rate picked up even more.

“Who was he with?” You asked again calmly, this time your voice took on a covert threatening tone.

She lowered her voice as her eyes darted nervously around the room hoping no one was watching.

“Look, I didn’t see anything happen, okay? I’m sorry. I thought you knew. Please don’t say you heard anything from me! I really need this job, I can’t afford to lose it.” You stared at her unblinking now. That was not an answer. But it was confirmation.

She reached for your arm, but you stepped away before she could touch you. The room tilted and you placed your wine glass on the table before it slipped from your hand and shattered, exactly like you felt you were right in this moment. The truth entered your body slowly, then all at once. 

New York. 

The lie. 

How distant Michael had been. 

The endless gifts. 

Him crying in the bathroom. 

The way he kissed you like he was apologizing. 

You felt sick.

You left the luncheon without saying goodbye to anyone. Outside the afternoon sun was still hot and bright. Papparazzi called your name as you walked toward your car, but you barely heard them over the chaos inside your head. Your mind was racing. 

On the way home, you didn’t cry. Not yet. You sat completely still as if you were having an out of body experience as the city moved past. Your mind began recalling memories with cruel precision. Michael coming home and showering immediately before he’d let you touch him. He claimed it was grime from the plane and he wanted to be clean for you. 

Him pulling away when you touched him. Bringing you flowers with tears in his eyes. 

And then, him whispering, “I have to tell you something”.

Realization settled over you, slowly, coldly. The first tear fell before you reached home.

For weeks, you believed him when he said it was just work. You thought the distance meant you were failing him. You stared at yourself in mirrors wondering if he still thought you were pretty. Dressed more carefully. Tried to cook better, even asking his mother for tips. Swallowed your complaints and loneliness.

And all this time. He knew exactly what he had done. He watched you—allowed you— to chase him while he held the truth in silence. The humiliation of it all made your face so hot it burned to the touch.

When you entered your shared home with Michael, you walked straight upstairs without saying a word to any of the staff. In the bedroom everything was indifferent. His book rested on the nightstand, turned upside down on the last page he read before his eyes got too tired to continue. His sweater was strewn across a chair from him leaving in a rush that morning.

Then, your eyes landed on a picture of you both, taken during the first year of your marriage. Michael was smiling at you instead of the camera.

You picked it up and threw it across the room, feeling satisfaction as the frame struck the wall and shattered into pieces. You sat on the edge of your bed and cried until your chest ached.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Michael felt the change before you said anything. He came home that night expecting the familiar sounds of you moving through the house, playing your favorite music from the stereo. Maybe your voice on the phone talking to one of your girlfriends. 

Instead, everything was silent. He found you sitting at the dining room table with an untouched plate of food in front of you.

You had cried until there was nothing left before you cleaned up the glass from your outburst. Your eyes were swollen, and the sight made his heart lurch.

“Baby?” You looked up. You’d been so deep in your thoughts, wondering where you went wrong, that you hadn’t noticed his presence. “What happened?” He asked.

“Nothing” The word was eerily familiar in your home. Michael swallowed and moved closer, reaching for your shoulder. Sensing his touch impending you rose to your feet suddenly. “I’m tired, I’m going upstairs. Goodnight.”

He watched you leave, and panic began as a faint pressure under his ribs. After a long moment, he followed you and willed himself not to overreact. Maybe the luncheon was exhausting, or paparazzi had said something cruel. Maybe you just didn’t feel good.

When he found you, you were in the bathroom washing your face and completing your bedtime routine. 

“What happened today? Did somebody upset you?” Michael stared at you through the reflection, watching every single movement carefully like doom was soon to come.

Casually, you continued smoothing cleanser over your skin, watching it foam in the reflection. “I said I’m tired.”

Still Michael didn’t depart from the doorway.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

Michael shifted awkwardly on the balls of his feet like a child pestering their mother with a million and one questions. He knew he should probably leave you alone, and usually he would have given you your space. But the guilt of knowing what he had done, paired with your reaction, forced this awkward response. Your answers were too calm.

So Michael stepped closer. “Look at me”. You rinsed your face and reached for a hand towel. He caught your wrist gently. You froze under his touch, eyes lingering where his hand was.

For one hopeful second he thought you might turn into him. Let him hold you, or even ask the question he’d be dreading for six weeks.

But instead, you looked down at his hand and said simply, “Let go”. His fingers opened immediately. The words were not loud at all and that’s what struck him much harder than if you had yelled at him.

You walked past him. He remained next to the sink, gazing at the empty space where you’d stood.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

That night you slept on the far edge of the mattress with your back to Michael. He laid awake behind you, watching you since he’d gotten in bed. The distance between your bodies was short but it felt impenetrable.

He reached towards your waist once during the night. He stopped himself before he could reach you. 

“Baby?” You didn’t answer, but your breathing pattern told him you were awake. “Can I hold you?” More silence. Michael lowered his hand, and the simmering panic he felt tightened.

Over the next three days you became polite and that terrified Michael more than anger would have.

You had stopped waiting for his presence after long workdays. You didn’t accompany him when he watched television. And most painfully for him, when he kissed your cheek before leaving in the morning you stood still and allowed it— but you did not turn your face toward him.

You started calling him Michael.

Not Mike.

Not Mikey.

Not love.

Just Michael. Every withdrawal felt like punishment to him. And he tried everything. Everything except the truth. 

He brought you more flowers. You thanked him and left them wrapped on the table. He ordered you take out from your favorite restaurant, and you said you weren’t hungry. When he asked if you’d take a walk with him you declined, stating you had more work to finish. 

At night he craved your touch. He laid beside you aching to confess, but fear kept closing around his throat.

If you didn’t know, telling you might destroy the marriage. But… if you did know— then the marriage might already be over.

Michael existed in limbo between these two options and it petrified him. He wasn’t able to choose either option. He was too scared.

The fourth evening, he came home early. The house was unusually quiet again. He called your name from the foyer and received no answer. His heart started beating faster before he had even reached the stairs.

He told himself not to panic. You could’ve been in the bath or reading with the bedroom door closed. Maybe you fell asleep early after another long day of barely speaking to him. There were dozens of harmless explanations, but none of them quieted the dread that had been building inside him since you stopped reaching for him.

When he found you, you were in the master bedroom. You were standing with your back to him and your suitcase was open on the floor. For several seconds, Michael’s brain couldn’t register what he was seeing.

He saw the suitcase and the neat stacks of folded clothes—and the empty spaces and hangers starting to form on your side of the closet. But he refused to connect them. He stood there, frozen and helpless in the doorway with one hand wrapped around the strap of his bag. He watched you place items inside the luggage, like maybe the room might reorganize into something less scary if he blinked enough.

Then he forced a nervous smile. It was born out of habit, not natural emotion. 

“Baby?”

You placed another sweater in the suitcase, not answering him or looking at him. The small movement pulled his attention to what was already inside the suitcase. Your jewelry. A soft blue blanket your late grandmother gifted to you. The same one you carried from room to room whenever you were sick or sad.

Quickly, Michael realized these were not items someone packed for just a weekend. They were pieces of your life. A life you shared with him. His smile disappeared.

His hand loosened around the bag strap until it slipped from his fingers and landed softly against the carpet. The soft thud made you pause for just a moment even though you didn’t turn to him.

“What’re you doing?” He asked. His voice was quieter than he intended it to come out. There was already fear laced through it, although he pretended he didn’t understand. 

When you reached for another blouse, he took one step into the room, then another. His eyes moved frantically between your face and the suitcase.

"Where are you going?” You kept folding. The lack of an answer made the pressure in his chest deepen. He could feel his pulse beating hard and uneven under his skin. His mind raced through possibilities. Maybe you were just gonna stay with your mom for a few nights for some reason. Or you needed space? 

He thought if he stayed calm and chose the right words, he could keep the situation from becoming what it already was coming to.

“Baby, look at me.” 

You smoothed your hands over the blouse you had just folded. Michael moved around the bed until he was closer to you. When you still didn’t look at him, he reached out and took the next piece of clothing from your hands. Not roughly, but because he couldn’t bear to watch you continue.

You stared at the empty space between your fingers where the jacket had just been. 

“I found out.” You said.

The room started to close in around Michael, and suddenly he felt like his worst nightmare was coming to life. His hand went slack around the fabric, and the jacket slid from his fingers and fell to the floor. He didn’t ask you what you meant, and that was most damning.

The silence lasted for only a few seconds, but in that time his breathing had stopped. His lips parted and the terror he had spent weeks trying to escape had finally caught up with him.

“Who told you?” He whispered. A sad laugh escaped you.

“What do you mean who told me?”

Michael closed his eyes the minute he heard disbelief wound tightly through your question. He knew instantly he’d said the wrong thing. But panic had pushed him before he could stop it.

“That’s what you wanna know?” You asked. “You don’t wanna know how I feel? Or what I heard? You wanna know who said what so you know how much I know? Are you fucking kidding me, Michael?”

“No” he shook his head quickly and reached toward you before he could think otherwise. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“So what did you mean?” You turned fully to face him now, arms crossed and lips pursed. His mouth opened, but fear crowded every answer he could think of out of him. He looked at you helplessly, eyes starting to fill with tears. The absence of an explanation only made your expression harden.

You nodded slowly as tears stung your eyes. 

“Exactly.”

Michael’s stomach dropped when your first tears fell. Tears that had always pulled him closer to you without thought. He stepped closer, his hands rising toward your arms because his body believed he still had the right to soothe whatever was hurting you.

“Please let me explain” he said softly, voice trembling. You moved away before he could touch you and the rejection stopped him in place. His hands remained suspended in the air between the two of you for a long moment before they fell awkwardly to his sides.

Something heavy settled in his chest, heavier than the guilt he had carried for weeks. This was the first time you were in pain and wouldn’t allow him to get near it.

He had spent years learning the shape of your hurt. When you needed words—when you just needed him to hold you and say nothing. Now, he had become the thing you needed protection from.

“Explain what?” You seethed, angrily wiping away tears that had slipped despite your best efforts to contain them. “Explain to me why you told me you were in Chicago and you were in New York? Or why some random bitch from your label knew where my husband was, and I didn’t?”

Michael flinched at your words and his throat tightened.

“It was only one night.” The words escaped him before he had a chance to think about how they sounded. Your entire face changed and instantly he felt dread.

“One night? Michael, I’m your wife.” You said in disbelief, voice choked with grief.

“Baby, I didn’t mean it like that” He said quickly, voice cracking through tears. “I swear, that’s not what I was trying to say.”

“How many nights would make it matter to you?”

“It matters to me. It matters so much, this has been killing me.” He pleaded.

“Why, because I found out?”

“No, god no” He shook his head frantically, words failing him completely.

“Then why didn’t you tell me Michael? Why did I have to find out from someone else?” Your eyes were locked on him now, unblinking with blatant disbelief.

“I was scared. I’m so sorry.” Michael didn’t know what to do except be honest now that the weight of his decisions had come crashing down on him. You scoffed in disbelief. 

“You were scared?”

“I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to hate me.” Tears were spilling freely now as Michael’s hands dangled at his sides. He didn’t know what to do with them, and he was fighting the urge to reach for you after your previous reaction.

“But you knew how to lie to me, right?” 

He physically drew back, one hand moving toward his chest like your words hit something tender under his ribs. The truth of them hurt because there was nothing he could say to defend himself. 

He had arranged his flight, and divulged a false schedule, called you from one city and said it was another. Every lie required effort and thought.

The truth he claimed he couldn’t manage only required courage. 

You stepped toward him, angry now. 

“You knew how to call me from New York fucking City and tell me you were somewhere else. How to come home and kiss me like you hadn’t touched anyone else.” Now your voice choked, “How to climb in our bed like you didn’t break our vows, and let me touch you like nothing had happened.”

Michael’s face fell more with every sentence. He wanted to interrupt you so badly, tell you that none of those moments were false. Loving you had never been the lie, but unfortunately he understood how paradoxical and cruel that sounded now. You would find no comfort in knowing he had loved you while betraying you. If anything, it would just make what he did seem more senseless.

“Every single time I asked you what was on your mind you looked me in my face and told me you were tired. What the fuck, Michael?”

He flinched again as you swore at him, something you never did. “I know” He said, barely above a whisper.

“And I really thought it was me.”

Michael shook his head immediately, eyes widening. “No baby, it was never you. You’re perfect. Always been so perfect for me.” Your heart sank to your stomach.

“If I’m so perfect for you, why would you do this to me? To us?”

The words silenced him. Your face twisted with disgust as the anger finally gave away beneath the full weight of the humiliation you had felt for the last three days. “I kept trying to figure out what I needed to change. I stopped complaining when you weren’t here when I needed you. I made your favorite foods and waited until they got cold, hoping you’d come home early. I even bought new clothes because I thought maybe you didn’t want me anymore. Oh god, Michael” your hands came to your face as the grief overtook you, no longer able to retain it.

“Baby, I’m so sorry. Please don’t ever think—” His voice cracked heavily as he spoke through tears, stepping toward you before he could stop himself.

“It’s too late. I already did.” A sob tore through you involuntarily before the last word had fully left your mouth. Michael moved on instinct. The sight of you breaking apart in front of him erased every thought except the need to catch you. 

His hands closed gently around your arms as he tried to pull you toward his chest, desperate to offer you the same comfort he’d given you throughout every pain you had endured together— throughout his time loving you.

The same comfort he’d given you when you when your childhood dog passed away. The kind he’d given when you decided to walk away from a career you loved with your soul because it wasn’t right for you anymore. The same comfort he’d provided when you cried quietly at night, wishing he was there more.

You shoved him away, and he stumbled backward. He was completely stunned into silence. His hands remained raised for a moment, fingers still curved around the shape of you even though you weren’t there anymore.

The rejection drove the weight in his chest deeper, your tears had always been something he was allowed to soothe. He’d never needed permission to hold you before. Now the distress on your face only sharpened when he came near you. He lowered his hands slowly, afraid of agitating you further.

“Don’t touch me.” You cried. Michael’s lips parted, but no words followed. His gaze moved helplessly over your face as another tear slipped down his own. That was when the truth settled inside him with unbearable clarity. He was not the person who could make this hurt better. Because he was the reason it existed.

Silence swallowed the room and stretched until it became unbearable for Michael. You turned away first, not angry or dramatically. Just… quietly. You reached for the zipper on the suitcase, and he watched your fingers wrap around the metal tab.

Something inside him screamed. 

The zipper closed with one smooth, unforgiving sound, and to Michael it sounded like the end of every future he had ever imagined with you. Like someone closing one chapter of their life before they began another. The realization made the room spin for Michael.

No.

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.

Then, you reached down and grabbed the handle of your suitcase. His body moved before he had ever made the decision to. Two hurried steps carried him around the bed until he stood directly between you and the bedroom door.

His chest was rising and falling unevenly, his expression somewhere between terror and disbelief. The movement surprised even him. He was blinking rapidly like he was disoriented, like he didn’t consciously decide to block your path.

He just couldn’t bear the idea of watching you walk away. Not while there was still breath in his lungs.

When you looked up at him, your face was streaked with tears. His stomach twisted so violently he thought he might lose the contents of his stomach.

He had done that. Every single tear, every ounce of hurt written across your features. He put it there.

He hated himself with a depth he didn’t know was possible.

“Move” Your voice wasn’t angry anymore. Just exhausted. And that hurt Michael more than if you'd slapped him. His lips trembled and he shook his head.

“I…I can’t” the words came out barely above a whisper. “I can’t let you leave”

“You don’t get to stop me.”

“I know,” He whimpered helplessly. “I know I don’t.” His eyes fell to the floor in shame before lifting back to yours. There was no defensiveness in them. 

“I know I don’t deserve a conversation… or another a chance” He rubbed his hands over his face, dragging them down until they rested over his mouth for a moment. His shoulders shook under the effort of trying to compose himself. When he lowered them again, more tears fell. “I know I’m embarrassing myself. I know” A humorless laugh escaped him and his chin quivered. “I understand that you can’t even stand to look at me right now, and I wouldn’t either…” his voice trailed off sadly, unsure where he was going with this. “But… I don’t know what else to do.”

The admission seemed to cost him something. Michael had spent his whole life trying to solve problems. If a certain dance move didn’t look right, he’d rehearse till his feet were numb. Song wasn’t right? He’d rewrite it 50 times before it saw the light of day. There was always something to do, some way to fix things.

This was the first problem he had ever faced where his effort felt meaningless. There was no way for him to rehearse his way back into your trust, and he couldn’t outwork the betrayal.

“I can fix it.” The words spilled out before he could stop them. His mind was racing miles ahead of him, desperately searching for anything—anything that might convince you to stay.

“I… I won’t travel alone anymore.” He took another careful step toward you before stopping himself, worried of you recoiling from his touch again. 

“I’ll cancel trips if I have to, you come everywhere with me” His breathing remained uneven. “I’ll give you every itinerary before I leave. Every hotel, every phone number.” His words started tumbling over each other now. 

“I’ll tell you where I am before you even have to ask. I’ll…” he frowned in that same way he did when he was a little boy and an interviewer’s question perplexed him. He was frustrated that his own thoughts couldn’t keep up.

“I’ll fire people, I’ll stop going out. I’ll…” His voice broke under a sob. “I’ll do anything. I mean it. There isn’t anything I won’t change.” He searched your face desperately, looking for any tiny shift that would show him you were hearing him. His chest heaved as tears continued to fall. “I swear to God, I’ll spend the rest of my life making this up to you.” His lips were swollen now from how hard he was biting on them in between sentences, trying to stop himself from completely falling apart.

“I’ll do anything to earn your trust back. I don’t care how long it takes.” He shook his head frantically, voice dropping to a whisper so fragile it carried across the room.

“Just…” he couldn’t finish the sentence. This was killing him. His throat closed around the word so he tried again. “Please don’t leave me. I can fix it.”

Now your eyes filled with tears. 

“There isn’t anything to left to fix, Michael. I can’t do this anymore.” You said sadly. 

Your statement settled over him with a chilling finality. He simply stared at you, blinking. For a minute, it seemed like he didn’t understand what you had said.

“I have to go.” Your voice wasn’t angry anymore, just tired. Like somebody who had spent the last three days crying until there was nothing left.

Michael felt his chest seize painfully. His hand instinctively pressed against it, trying to soothe the ache. He had never understood why people described heartbreak as physical until now. 

And when he saw you reach for your suitcase handle again, his stomach dropped when he realized you were done listening. When you stepped toward the door, he moved instinctively, pressing his back further against it. His movements were frantic and clumsy now. His body had totally disconnected from the calm composure he usually carried. His curls fell into his face as tears spilled down his cheeks.

He looked at you the way a drowning person would a shoreline. “Please… please don’t do this to me. I love you.”

“I can’t, Michael. I don’t want this anymore. Not like this.” You said, shutting your eyes tightly.

The words hollowed him out, and he stared at you. Waiting for you to take them back. Or to say you were gonna stay at your mom’s for a few days. But the words never came.

Michael’s breathing quickened and his eyes darted around the room, his mind was betraying him. He could already see it. You carrying your things downstairs, opening the front door… the sound it would make when it closed behind you. You driving away. Never coming home.

His chest tightened so violently he had to press his palm harder against it to ground himself. He dropped to his knees when they buckled. He pressed his forehead against your stomach as his breathing refused to settle.

Every inhale came in sharp and frantic, not fully reaching his lungs. Each breath chased the last as if his body had forgotten how breathing was supposed to work.

His shoulders were trembling now, not from crying, but from panic. Pure, overwhelming panic. Your hand fell away from your suitcase as you dropped to your knees too.

“Michael” you said firmly. He didn’t answer, lost completely in fear and his own thoughts. His fingers curled weakly into the fabric of your shirt, holding on to you like you might disappear if he let go. “Michael” you repeated, more sternly this time. You cupped the side of his face, and his whole body leaned into your palm. For a second, it felt like every other time you’d ever comforted him. After bad dreams, migraines. Whenever the world became too much to bear. 

He was fully hyperventilating now. “Look at me” you said. Slowly, his eyes opened and they were shiny and terrified. 

“I can’t… I..” 

“Breathe Michael, you gotta breathe baby. You’re gonna pass out.”

“I don’t care” he said in between hiccups and breaths. “I can’t… you’re leaving” he gasped. 

“In through your nose, and out. Try for me, please” You deliberately kept your own breathing slow. His breath started to even, he tried but it kept catching in his throat. Then he looked toward the suitcase, and the panic doubled. His chest spasmed again and his hands slipped from your waist to the carpet beneath him.

“…You’re really leaving” he said, voice trembling as he tried to talk between breaths. It wasn’t a question. It was a devastated man finally acknowledging the reality he had tried so desperately to outrun.

When you closed your eyes in response, Michael knew. And it hurt more than if you had just said yes. Because now, you weren’t even trying to lie to him. 

“No” The word dissolved into a sob. “No” His breathing had become so erratic that his entire upper body jerked with each failed inhale. Michael had panic attacks in the past, but never this severe.

Instinctively, you moved closer and your hands found either side of his face. He leaned into you again, desperately. The way a freezing person reaches toward warmth.

“I need you to breathe.”

He swallowed another sob, “I don’t know how” The confession broke your heart. This was a man who commanded stadiums and rehearsed until sunrise. And here he was, sat on the floor looking up at you like a frightened little boy. Totally lost. “I don’t know what to do… how to make you stay.”

The room fell silent. There was still plenty to say, but there just simply weren’t any words left. He searched your face anyway, looking for mercy. Or hope. Instead there was nothing. Just tears that flowed from a place that felt empty now. 

“Oh god, baby. I’m so sorry” he covered his face, the shame, burning through him full force now. What had he done? “I’ll never forgive myself. I don’t expect you to either.”

His eyes drifted to the wedding ring on your left hand. It was still there—for now.

His lifted his gaze back to yours. “Are you gonna take it off?” You were silent. He watched your face carefully for any sort of an answer. But all he got was fresh tears, and trembling lips. He understood without you needing to answer. 

His own wedding band felt heavy now. He looked down at it, turning it slowly. The little gold band that symbolized forever with you. He had broken that promise. “I ruined everything” he said softly. Not dramatically or looking for reassurance. Just a fact.

For a long time neither of you moved. The room felt suspended in time. Michael remained on his knees at your feet, shoulders rising unevenly beneath shaky breaths. His hands had slipped from your hips sometime during the silence. Now they just rested against his thighs, palms open and empty. He didn’t reach for you again. He wanted to. But he finally understood that wanting wasn’t good enough anymore.

You looked down at him one last time. He had exhausted himself. Not physically, spiritually.

He watched quietly as you gathered your purse from a nearby chair. His eyes followed the movement automatically. His lips parted, but he was out of pleas, promises, and apologies.

He couldn’t ask anymore. He had already offered you every version of himself he knew how to give. And there was nothing left. You had rejected all of them.

You walked across the bedroom floor, and the sound of your footsteps seemed unnaturally loud in the moment. This time, he didn’t try to stop you.

His body wanted to. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to stand up. Run after you. Throw himself in front of any door he had to.

But he stayed where he was. He knew you deserved the freedom he’d stolen from you weeks ago. 

When your hand settled around the door knob, you hesitated. “I loved you with everything I had to give, Mike. I really did.”

Michael shut his eyes, the sentence felt like a knife. Not love. Loved. As in past tense. His breathing faltered again. When he opened his eyes, you were already stepping into the hallway. He listened as your footsteps grew fainter. As the front door opened and shut. And then nothing.

It was the kind of silence that settles over a home after someone who once filled it with love is no longer there. Michael stayed where he was. His eyes never left the bedroom doorway, as if maybe you’d come back if he stared long enough. His hand drifted to the center of his chest slowly, right over his heart. The ache that had settled there was dull and heavy. He pressed harder, but it didn’t help.

Hours passed. Afternoon melted into evening. Evening into night. The house darkened around Michael. Someone called the home phone, and it rang until the answering machine picked up. A car pulled into the driveway, then left. The world continued on outside with no reverence for how Michael’s heart had been broken.

Every room suddenly held the shape of someone who wasn't there anymore. The mug you'd used that morning still sat in the kitchen sink. Your favorite throw still rested over the arm of the living room sofa. One of your hair ties lay on his nightstand. Little pieces of you remained everywhere.

Everything except, you. Michael blinked slowly, the reality still refused to settle completely. It felt impossible that a marriage could end in a single afternoon. That a person could wake up having a wife, and go to bed alone.

His thumb rubbed absently over his wedding band. "I did this." He spoke the words into the empty room. He lowered his head, shoulders sagging beneath a grief too large to carry.

And for the first time in his life, there wasn't a stage big enough, a rehearsal long enough, or a song beautiful enough to fix what he had broken.

He simply sat there in the dark room, one hand pressed over his heart, staring at the doorway long after the sun had disappeared, trapped inside the quiet realization that some mistakes don't end when the confession is over.

And this one would follow him into every tomorrow he had left.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

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