saffron ꫂ❁

The rain was a silver shimmering curtain call over Manhattan, a hissing, cold veil that turned neon signs into bleeding watercolors and slicked the fire escapes into glistening iron latticework. 

It was late in the evening and you were awake because the city never truly slept, and neither did your thoughts. A book lay open on your lap, unread, your attention instead on the rhythmic drumming against your windowpane.

That's when you heard it; a big thud, and then a scraping metal sound, a pained gasp, and the unmistakable, wet slap of something heavy collapsing onto the grated platform outside. 

Your heart jumped into your throat. You knew that sound. Well, you didn’t know for sure, per se, but you'd come to recognize the graceless arrival of your… occasional esteemed visitor.

You scrambled off the bed, the book tumbling to the floor, and yanked the curtain aside. 

There he was, crumpled in a heap of red and blue, one arm draped over the railing, the other clutching his middle. The rain had plastered the suit to his form, turning it into a second, darker skin. And against that dark blue, spreading from beneath his gloved fingers with a terrifying speed, was a slick, violent crimson.

"Oh, my god," you breathed, fumbling with the window latch. It stuck, as always, and you shoved it upward with a grunt, the chill, wet air rushing in. "Spider-Man?"

He lifted his head. Even through the mask, you could see the effort it cost him. "Hey, neighbor," he said, his voice a strained parody of its usual melodic, teasing lilt. It was hoarse, punctuated by a sharp intake of breath. 

"Mind if I… crash the party? Literally." He tumbled over, now fully laying on the ground.

You didn't answer, just reached out, your hands slipping on his wet shoulders. "What happened? You need to get inside before someone sees you… now."

"Got into a disagreement… with a new guy in town. And by guy, I mean ‘alien’ with crazy looking metal wings." He tried to help himself, pushing with his legs, but a full-body shudder wracked him, and he slumped. 

"He made his point. Forcefully," his voice was strained but laced with humour. 

"Let's just say the giant Pepsi billboard on 42nd street now has a… man shaped hole through the middle of it, from where he dropped me."

You just stared at him in sheer disbelief, not even beginning to be able to picture what the hell that messy scene looked like. And why the hell did this have to keep happening in your city?

With a strength born of pure adrenaline, you hauled him through the window by his arms. He was heavier than he looked, all lean muscle and sodden fabric, and you both tumbled onto your floor in a wet, tangled heap. He smelled like a damp…dog.

"Okay, okay, just lay still for now until I figure out what the hell I am going to do with you," you said, your voice trembling only a little. You were now running your hands through your hair on edge. What if a neighbor had seen you bring him in?

You pushed yourself up, and started mapping the emergency in front of you. The suit was torn across his abdomen, a vicious, ragged split. Beneath it, the wound was a nightmare; a deep, angry gash that wept blood steadily. It looked like some of the fabric of the suit was in the wound as well. 

Your stomach turned, he was really badly hurt. 

You'd prepared for this though, in a hazy, half-believing way… that maybe your spidey friend wouldn't just come along to your fire escape to watch sunsets and talk about how hot Iron Man was and instead, would need your help. 

You'd gone into work after his 5th visit and brought some medical supplies home. The perks of being a trainee doctor.

As you ran to fetch the basket of supplies from your tiny bathroom, he spoke, his head lolling to watch you. 

"You should see… the other guy. He's probably really banged up from where I – got him… But I guess we'd never truly know with all their crazy regeneration alien stuff. Probably not a scratch on him." He tried for a laugh; it came out as a wet cough. "I swear I got him good, I swea–"

"Shut up and save your breath," you ordered, kneeling beside him with the kit. You began cutting away the suit around the wound with blunt scissors, your fingers working with a clinical precision that belied the panic screaming in your mind. 

The skin revealed was warm and golden brown, now marred by that brutal tear. You cleaned it with antiseptic, your touch as gentle as you could make it. He hissed sharply, his whole body tensing as you poured some saline over the gash.

"Sorry, sorry," you murmured.

"S'okay. Your hands are… really soft despite all the stingy chemical stuff." His voice was closer to a whisper now, his breathing shallow. "You're really beautiful, you know that?"

You froze, a cotton pad soaked in peroxide hovering over the wound. 

Your eyes flicked up. He was looking right at you, the white lenses of his mask somehow managing to convey an intense, unwavering delight despite his pain.

You felt a flush creep up your neck. It was two in the morning. You were in ratty sweatpants and an old faded Madonna tshirt, your hair was a mess, and you had no makeup on. 

"I look like I was dragged through a hedge backward," you muttered, focusing back on the gash. "Had a backshift at the hospital."

You began to apply antibiotic ointment, your fingers carefully smoothing it along the edges. "And now you're bleeding out on my floor. Not the time for flattery."

"It's always the time," he breathed. "And you're wrong. You look… gorgeous. Best view in the city. It's why I always come to your fire escape."

You ignored him, or tried to, as you started to place sterile gauze pads over the wound. The bleeding was slowing, thank god. But as you worked, you noticed other things. The way his left arm was held slightly stiff. 

The faint, purpling bruise already blooming along his collarbone and sternum; with his beautiful black body hair swirling into the nebula-looking bruise on his skin. You gulped letting your mind wander slightly.

But you were distracted fairly quickly when he'd tried to sit up a little to help you wrap the bandage around his torso, he'd winced, his hand flying to his ribs to stop you.

"You took a bad hit to the head too, didn't you?" you asked, your voice firm. "You've never babbled on about how I look before."

You were concerned at the thought of him getting into these crazy fights; and challenging evil…aliens or whatever they were. A little concussion was the least of his concerns in reality, but not to you.

He didn’t reply straight away, still writhing dramatically in pain… it was hard to watch, but you pushed again to get an answer.

"I need you to think for me. When you went through the billboard. Did you fall head first?"

"Might've… dinged the noggin a little. It's fine. Hard head n'all."

"Mhm, okay can you stand so I can move you onto the bed?" you asked, the sternness still in your voice. “I’ll be able to bandage you up easier if I can stand over you.”

"Be honest Y/N, you're just trying to bed this ol' spidey boy, aren't you?" One of his weirdly emotive white lenses winked.

"Ugh no, you are so annoying. now stand!" He stood up, wobbling slightly but leaning on your shoulder allowed him to be able to hobble over to your cosy bed. 

He lay up wincing, agonised sounds choking and spluttering out of him; the pain he was feeling was even making your eyes water.

"You'll need to stay here for a bit, rest. You're clearly in a bad way." 

"Uh-huh, it will probably take me around 45 minutes to regenerate that skin on my torso, give or take."

Once his head was on the pillow, you started to think about the long lasting effects of a concussion and then the word vomit was outing your thought; 

"Take off the mask."

The air in the room changed. The playful, pained flirtation vanished, replaced by a sudden, electric stillness. Even his breathing seemed to stop. "What?"

"The mask. Take it off. I need to check your pupils, make sure you don't have a concussion. And I want to see the rest of the damage." You sat back on your heels, crossing your arms.

"Don't you get the whole point of why I am masked, Y/N?" he asked, disbelief in his voice.

"You're in my apartment, bleeding on my expensive sheets. You don't get to have secrets right now," you said firmly. "Plus, aren't we friends now?"

For a long moment, he didn't move, he just looked at you through the hollowed out expression of his mask. The only sound was the rain and the distant sigh of traffic far below. Then, a slow, resigned sigh escaped him. 

"You play dirty, girl. You know I can't resist you telling me what to do."

"I am not even going to begin to dissect what the hell that means. Off."

"Well I like when you are a bossy boots and tell me to water your plants whilst I am out on the fire escape or to swing over and bring you bagels from your favourite shop in the Bronx, or do whatever you ask, really–"

"Enough, okay, I get it, I tell you what to do a lot. But you come back, right? You may as well show me your face if we are going to be real friends. Your secret is safe with me."

He made a gargled sound of annoyance, but you knew it didn’t run deep. His gloved hands came up, trembling slightly—from pain or nerves, you couldn't tell. They gripped the edge of the mask at the back of his neck. 

There was a soft, sticky sound as it peeled away from his sweat-damp skin. He pulled it forward, 

over his head, and let it drop to the floor with a damp plop.

The first thing you saw was the hair. A cascade of dark, glossy curls sprang free, tumbling around his face and shoulders, shimmering under your lamplight. 

Then, his face. 

Sheened with a fine layer of rain water that made his olive skin glow in your orange salt lamp's light. 

A small, angry gash marred the high arch of his cheekbone. His lips, which you'd never truly imagined, were full and lush, now busted and bruised at the corner, swelling prettily. That was the witty mouth that had been spouting major attitude at you when you chastised him for making so much noise right outside your window.

But it was his eyes that stole the air from your lungs. Huge, liquid brown doe eyes, wide with pain and vulnerability and a breathtaking shyness you'd never associated with the wisecracking wall-crawler. They held a universe of feeling, framed by long, sooty lashes. He looked heartbreakingly young, and impossibly beautiful.

"Oh," you said, the word leaving you in a soft exhale. You didn’t even realise he’d started to take off his gloves as well.

He averted his gaze, suddenly unable to meet yours. 

The confident, flirty Spider-Man was gone, replaced by a young man who seemed to want to fold into himself. "Told you it was just a ding," he mumbled, his voice unmuffled now, a warm, smooth tenor, even roughened by pain.

You reached out, your fingers gently tilting his chin back, making him look at you. Your thumb brushed the unharmed side of his jaw. It was partially stubbly. 

"What's your name?" you whispered, well and truly bewildered by the sight of this delicate man lying on your bed.

He swallowed. "Michael."

His eyes were now trained onto yours, brown and dark, and devoted. They were bloodshot from the rain, as he swung through the night. 

"Michael," you repeated, and the name felt both strange and perfectly right on your tongue. “Huh. what a normal name,”

After breaking your mesmerised look, you pushed away your feelings of awe and got back to work. He seemed thankful for the change in pace. 

You shifted to check his pupils with the small flashlight from your kit. They reacted normally. 

"Okay, Michael. Tell me what actually happened. The real version. You seem fairly human to me and I am not satisfied with only knowing parts of your story. I need to figure out if we need to take you to a hospital."

His eyes went wider than they already were; “absolutely NOT. no hospitals - how are we going to explain I was flung through a billboard?”

“You are impossible, you know that?” You asked, mirth in your voice. “I should have told you to shoo the first time you commandeered my fire escape.”

He rolled his eyes and grinned at you. “But ya didn’t! Because you likeeee me.”

And then, he told you what happened. Haltingly at first, then with more flow as he saw you weren't recoiling, weren't fixing to call the news or trying to snap a photo on your film camera. 

He told you about the sleek, chrome-skinned alien that had descended in a beam of green light, and how it had backhanded him through the Pepsi billboard like he was a ragdoll. 

He had been trying to save the burning apartment block that the alien had set alight with some form of blaster gun. He'd been standing on the sidewalk, giving tiny little toddlers that he had rescued from the building some cuddles before he'd been scooped up by the threat, and beaten within an inch of his life. 

This clearly didn't happen regularly—he had never looked this injured before, not in all the times he had come to visit you. He described the freefall, the desperate, dizzying swing across three blocks as he narrowly escaped, knowing his injuries would fail him in his fight. The only thought in his pain-fogged mind was the route back to your fire escape, your window, the one safe harbor he could think of.

"I knew you'd help," he finished, his eyes searching your face. "You always do. Even when I just show up to be a pest."

You finished taping the butterfly stitch on his cheekbone, securely, your hands lingering on the warmth of his forehead. 

There was a bit of a tension; you weren’t sure if it was sexual… or if it was just innocent attraction. It had been a faint agony in the background of this whole mess and now had roared to life, crazily poignant in the small space between your bodies on the bed. The air was thick with the scent of him, rain, sweat, blood and then of course the chemicals you'd used on his wounds. Your eyes kept drifting to his bruised lips.

"You're not a pest," you said, your voice low. "You're a mess. A brave, stupid mess. Charming, somehow, despite it all."

He gave a lopsided smile. "You forgot handsome."

"You've got nerve fishing for compliments, Michael."

He seemed startled at the use of his name; almost like he forgot he even told you or that he had removed his mask. Every single interaction you’d had before was with it on; and despite that you’d still been attracted to his personality… his voice. Now that you knew what he looked like; those feelings were going to be hard to push down. 

Your dating life was already a mess; you didn’t want to start courting a literal superhero. I think after this you’ve dealt with enough aliens to last a lifetime.

He began to lift himself up a bit on the pillows, so that he was eye level with you. 

"Suppose so. I guess it's just because you're looking at me all weird and I want to know whether or not you find me attractive."

You were staring, admittedly. You couldn't stop. 

"Does it matter if I do or not? I am helping you, aren't I?" you smirked, starting to pack up your medical kit.

"Well, yeah. I care what people think of me." His eyes had gone vulnerable again, sparkly and light. 

"Didn't you tell me no one knew of your identity?" you asked, side eying him.

He started shifting in the bed again, uncomfortable, and hissed again. 

"Shit—Michael, are you ok?"

"M'fine, it's just the regeneration can be a bit painful when the wound is this bad." You didn't even question 'regeneration' because, what the fuck? He looked human, but was clearly not.

"People know me in my normal life—I go to college and work in a recording studio when I'm not… taking care of Spidey business."

Once he settled against the pillows again, the shyness was melting from his expression, replaced by a warm, vulnerable affection that made your mouth go all dry. 

The rain, the darkness, the intimacy of the wound-tending, it had stripped away every barrier of friendship you'd once had with this masked vigilante. 

He was just a boy, a startlingly young man, sitting half-naked and injured on your queen size bed, and you were just you, and the world outside had ceased to exist.

Without overthinking it, without letting the fear or the absurdity of the situation stop you, you leaned forward. You closed the gap, and you pressed your lips to his. 

It was soft, chaste, a mere brush of skin against swollen skin. But it sent a jolt through you both. 

He went perfectly still for a second, then a small, sound escaped him; a mixture of pain and pleasure. 

His hand came up, his fingers; bare now, you realised, slid into your hair, cupping the back of your head. 

He kissed you back, carefully, tenderly, mindful of his busted lip. It was sweet and hesitant and flooded with a warmth that spread from your lips down to your toes. He tasted of something sweet, like nerds gummy clusters or something silly like that.

When you pulled back, his doe eyes were wide, dazed. A faint blush darkened his cheeks. 

"Whoa," he breathed.

You sat back, your own face flaming. The reality came crashing in. The mask on the floor. The bandages. His age. He looked… he couldn't be older than twenty, he couldn’t be ages with you. You’d just turned 24. He had to be younger. 

"Oh, my god," you said, the words tumbling out. "How old are you?"

The blush deepened. "Nineteen."

"Nineteen?" You stared at him, flabbergasted. All this time. 

The fearless protector of New York, the quipping hero who'd faced aliens and other vigilante’s, was a teenager. 

A teenager with incredible hair and soulful eyes who blushed when kissed. The absurdity of it swelled in your chest, wonder tangled up right alongside it. Underneath both sat a protective ache that was almost overwhelming.

He looked down, suddenly self-conscious. "I know, I'm…ugh, I should get home. I've imposed enough, and—"

"Don't you dare," you cut him off, your voice firming. The shock was receding, replaced by a fierce, surging certainty. You stood up, offering him your hand. 

"You can barely stand. You're not swinging anywhere. If you need to stay the night to rest, you can. The couch pulls out. It's not much, but it's dry and it's safe."

He looked from your hand to your face, that vulnerability shining in his eyes again. 

Slowly, he reached up and took it. His grip was strong, even now. You helped him to his feet, steadying him as he swayed.

"You're sure?" he asked, his voice small.

You led him the few steps to your couch, guiding him to sit. "I'm sure." You fetched a blanket and a pillow from your bed. 

"Now, lie down. Try to sleep. I'll be right over there if you need anything."

He obeyed, settling back with a weary sigh that seemed to come from his bones. As you tucked the blanket around him, his hand shot out, catching your wrist. 

His touch was warm and his hand… so big that it engulfed your wrist entirely. 

"Thank you, Y/N," he whispered. "For… everything. My aunt would have murdered me herself if she saw the state I got into. She doesn't understand that I can heal from this sort of thing."

Really you didn't much believe it either or understand the science behind it. You just smiled, shaking your arm away from his grip. 

You turned off the main light, leaving only the soft, golden glow of your bedside lamp. 

You climbed into your own bed, facing the couch. In the semi-darkness, you watched him. His eyes were already closed, his long lashes fanning over his cheeks, his bruised lips slightly parted as his breathing evened out into sleep. 

★⋆.

The first thing you became aware of was warmth. A deep, cocooning warmth that seeped into your bones, delicious in the way it cradled you in a state of perfect, sleepy contentment. 

You were floating in the hazy, golden space between dreams and waking, and in that space, there was only him. Michael.

His face painted itself on the inside of your eyelids in exquisite, lingering detail. The memory of last night was a vivid recollection; a sensation, a tapestry of feeling woven from the lamplight. 

The shocking softness of his curls between your fingers when you'd checked his head for lumps. The way his big, brown eyes had held yours, wide with a vulnerability that had cracked something open inside your chest. 

The feel of his jaw under your thumb, the prickle of stubble against your skin.

And his hands. God, his hands. You dreamed of them. Long, elegant fingers, surprisingly graceful for all their strength. You saw them peeling off the damp mask, trembling slightly. 

You felt them again, cupping the back of your head while you kissed, his touch so tender it made your heart soar. In your dream-state, those hands were everywhere; brushing hair from your face, tracing the line of your jaw, and going further and further down your body.

Their warmth seeped into you, claiming you in the gentlest, most possessive way.

A soft, sighing breath escaped you, a smile touching your lips as you nuzzled deeper into your pillow. 

Then, a tickle. A faint, warm puff of air against your forehead. Your dreaming mind incorporated it—his breath, as he leaned in close. But the rhythm was off. It was too steady, too… present. 

Your eyes fluttered open, blurry with sleep. And found themselves staring directly into another pair of eyes, mere inches from your own.

They were brown, liquid, and crinkled at the corners with unmasked, utterly delighted amusement. Michael was lying on his side, propped up on an elbow, his head resting on his hand. 

He had clearly been watching you sleep for who-knows-how-long, a soft, goofy grin plastered across his beautiful, bruised face. His curls were a wild, glorious mess on his head, from having slept on them. 

A jolt of pure, undiluted shock electrified your spine. 

A strangled, gasping scream ripped from your throat; less out of fear, more out of the sheer, overwhelming proximity of him. 

Your body spasmed backward, forgetting the edge of the bed existed. With a yelp and a clumsy thud, you landed in a heap on the floor, the blanket tangling around your legs. Your heart hammered against your ribs.

"Oh, shit! Sorry! I was trying to be funny!" His voice, laced with genuine alarm and a leftover trace of sleep-roughness, came from above. He was peering over the bed at you.

Before you could even untangle your limbs or process the embarrassment, strong hands were hooking under your arms. He hauled you up from the floor as if you weighed nothing, the motion so swift and effortless it stole your breath anew. 

He meant to set you on your feet, but his strength, even injured, was miscalibrated.

You were pulled into him, your body colliding flush against his bare chest in the ripped spiderman suit. One of his arms banded around your back to steady you, the other still gripping your arm. 

You were pressed together from chest to thigh, the thin fabric of your sleep shirt and his suit doing nothing to mask the solid, warm reality of him. The air left your lungs in a soft rush.

He looked down, his eyes wide with apology that quickly melted into something else. Something hotter, more intense. 

The playful grin was gone, replaced by a look of dazed wonder. His face was so close you could see the individual flecks of gold in his irises, the faint scar bisecting his eyebrow. His bruised lower lip was slightly fuller than the upper.

He was leaning down, his head tilting. His gaze dropped to your mouth. The intention was as clear as daylight: he was going to kiss you. Again. 

The morning-after kiss, without the blood and the panic, just the two of you, breath mingling, hearts pounding in a synchronous rhythm. The tension was insane, pulsing in the air between you. 

Your own lips parted instinctively, drawn to him like a magnet. The memory of last night's sweet, hesitant kiss bloomed fresh and urgent.

Then, your nerves, frayed by the fall and the overwhelming onslaught of him, short-circuited your brain-to-mouth filter. 

Just as his lips were a whisper from yours, you blurted it out, voice squeaky with adrenaline. 

"You smell like a wet dog."

He froze. His gorgeous, soulful eyes blinked once, slowly, the romantic haze evaporating into pure, unadulterated bewilderment. "I… what?"

"A wet dog," you repeated, the words gaining momentum as you committed to the bizarre sabotage. "You should… you should probably shower."

A beat of silence hung in the air. Then, a slow, bewildered smile spread across his face, transforming his confusion into delighted amusement. 

He threw his head back and laughed, a rich, warm sound that filled your small bedroom. It was a beautiful laugh, unrestrained and genuine.

“You think I am smelly and don't want to give me a kiss? I wish I could say I am surprised but most girls don't want to kiss me." He loosened his hold, letting you find your footing, and gave you a weird little half-wink-half-blink. That was something you certainly did not believe. That girls didn’t kiss him? He was a literal superhero.

You remained silent and motioned to the bathroom. He just tutted and padded to the bathroom. a few seconds later the spray started hitting the bottom of the tub. 

You had mere minutes to change a bit and make sure you looked more presentable. You pulled on some clean jeans and a tattered sweater and then quickly fixed your crazy hair in the mirror. 

The shower shut off just in time for you to be done with the pruning. 

The door opened, and steam billowed out. Michael stepped out. Your breath caught.

The only thing covering him was one of your towels, slung low around his narrow hips. The towel was tied loosely, dipping below the sharp cut of his hip bones and the beginnings of a faint tan line.

The water clung to his deep, rich bronze skin, gleaming under the morning light. Droplets traced paths down the defined planes of his chest, over the faint, dark dusting of hair that formed a tantalizing trail from his navel downward. 

That happy trail disappeared beneath the towel, pointing like an arrow to the pronounced V-cut of his obliques that framed his lean, taut stomach. He was oh so lean.

Your eyes fixed on his abdomen. The place where the vicious, bleeding gash had been last night. Only to find smooth, unbroken skin. 

There was no pucker where he’d been sliced, not even a pink line. Nothing. 

His curls, wet and free, were a riot of dark, springy coils framing his face. Water dripped from the ends onto his shoulders. He saw you staring and a slow, shy smile touched his lips. 

"Better?" he asked, his voice breathy. “Or am I still smelly by your standards?”

You stepped closer, poking a finger directly at the center of his flawless stomach. 

"Explain this."

He looked down, then back up, feigning innocence. "Explain what?"

"The hole that was here. It's gone."

"Oh. That." He had the decency to look sheepish. "Yeah. That tends to happen."

"You were milking it," you said, a smile threatening to break through. "All that 'ahh, the pain' drama last night. You were totally milking it."

A grin spread across his face, bright and unrepentant. "Okay, maybe a little! But in my defense, it did hurt! And you were so… nice about it." He shuffled his feet. 

"It's usually the other way around. I'm the one looking out for everyone. I liked you looking after me. I didn't want your attention to wander. Sue me."

You laughed, shaking your head. "You're ridiculous."

Still chuckling, you turned and scooped his suit off the floor. You walked back and shoved the bundle into his arms. "Here. Get dressed. I've got class to go to."

He clutched the suit, the towel dipping even lower. "Yeah! Me too. Biochem. Wouldn't miss it." His eyes danced; he was a terrible liar.

"Right. Well, go get ready."

He grinned and ducked into your bathroom, closing the door most of the way. You busied yourself gathering your books. The door pushed open a moment later. "Uh, a little help?"

You turned. He was struggling into the top half of the suit. The tear you'd cut last night ran diagonally from his hip almost to the opposite side of his waist. Because he was leaning to pull it on, the torn fabric gaped open.

The torn material revealed a long, lean strip of his lower abdomen and hip, and the very low line of dark, curling hair that led downward. You saw a fleeting, breathtaking glimpse that made your mouth go dry. Huge. genuinely massive. Shit. He had to go or you were going to try sleep with him and you really did not need a casual relationship with a fucking SUPERHERO right now.

You gulped audibly. 

"Okay! You're good! Suit's on!” You clapped your hands with finality, and turned around to grab your back. 

“ I need to go, so please finish getting dressed and get out. And be safe. And don't scare me like that ever again."

He finally got the suit top settled, the material sealing most of the way. 

He stepped out, now fully suited except for the mask. He took two quick steps toward you, leaned in, and pressed a soft, warm kiss to your cheek. His lips lingered for a second. He pulled back, eyes sparkling.

"See you soon, neighbor." His eyes were quite literally twinkling. “We can continue this,” he gestured between you, clearly marking the tension and the vibes exchanged. “At a later date.”

He pulled the mask on, gave you a little salute, and slipped out your window onto the fire escape. 

You rushed to the window to make sure he was going to get away alright, and partially to make sure none of your neighbors were out for a cigarette or something. 

He stood on the grated platform in the morning sun. He looked back at you, gave a final wave, and then simply stepped off the edge. 

Your heart lurched. He fell, a plummeting streak of color, for one terrifying second. Then, a web shot out. 

The line went taut, and his fall became a breathtaking arc, swinging him out and up into the open orange sky. He swung away, growing smaller against the city.

You let out a shaky laugh, your cheek still tingling from where he kissed you goodbye.

tags;

♱ 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?”

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