Chapter 11: Forgive me, father 1

The church smelled the same as it did in her childhood—aged wood, faint incense, and the kind of silence that pressed down on your chest like guilt.

Mara hadn’t been in here in years. Not since she was seventeen and still believed in salvation. Back when she thought confession could cleanse anything if you just cried hard enough. But she wasn’t here for God. Not anymore.

She slipped into the cool building like a thief, her heels muffled against the worn, cracked tiles. A chill lingered in the air despite the summer heat outside, wrapping around her bare shoulders like penance. The sanctuary was dim, lit by the last breath of afternoon sun bleeding through stained glass and a handful of flickering votive candles that seemed too weak to keep the shadows at bay.

Her eyes found the altar. Empty. Good.

She didn’t want an audience. Only him.

Her gaze slid to the side aisle—to the old wooden confessionals. The same ones that had once filled her with dread. Back then, they represented shame, guilt, judgment. Now they called to her with a different pull. Like a warm bath after a cold night. Like whiskey on the tongue after months of sobriety.

Or like sin after abstinence.

She made her way down the aisle, slower with each step. Her heart beat harder the closer she got, blood thrumming loud in her ears. Her fingers itched as she reached for the confessional door, the wood worn smooth from years of trembling hands.

The door creaked softly. She slipped inside, the darkness wrapping around her like a cloak, and pulled the door shut behind her. She exhaled as she settled onto the narrow bench, her back straight, her hands folded in her lap—but only for a moment.

The screen between them was thin. A lattice of carved wood and shadow, not nearly enough to hide what pulsed just beneath the surface.

She couldn’t see him. But she felt him.

His presence thrummed through the wall, quiet and heavy. Familiar. Forbidden.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she said, voice low and unsteady.

It surprised her—that tremble. She hadn’t expected to feel nervous. But something about the dark, the stillness, the intimacy of it all, made her blood rush and her stomach twist with anticipation.

“It’s been… a long time. Years.”

A pause. Silence stretched.

Then his voice came through the screen, low and steady, the kind of voice made for secrets and psalms. “What burdens you, child?”

She smiled faintly, her lips curving with something like mischief. “I’m not a child.”

Another pause. But this one was different. He was thinking. Imagining.

“No,” he said slowly. “I suppose you’re not.”

Her pulse kicked up.

She leaned forward, close enough that her breath fogged the edge of the screen. Her knees pressed together, her thighs already tingling.

“I’ve been having dreams,” she whispered. “Things I’m ashamed to admit. Things I shouldn’t want.”

He was silent, but she heard it—a shift in his breath. The tiniest hitch. Encouragement.

“I touch myself while thinking of someone I shouldn’t,” she continued, her voice silk and smoke.

A pause.

Then—“A man of God.”

The breath that came from the other side was sharp. Controlled, but only barely.

She smiled to herself. That was permission.

“I imagine him pulling me into a dark room, his collar still on, but his hands anything but holy. I imagine him gripping my throat with one hand while the other lifts my skirt. I imagine his mouth on my skin, his belt undone, my knees on the cold stone floor.”

Her voice thickened with heat.

“I imagine him using me like I’m something he shouldn’t touch but can’t stay away from. Like I’m the fall he’s already chosen.”

She shifted slightly on the bench, thighs squeezing together.

“I imagine him telling me he’d give up heaven for just one more taste.”

Still, he said nothing. But she didn’t need words. The rhythm of his breath had broken. She could feel the battle in him—the fight to stay still. To stay good.

She leaned even closer, her lips barely an inch from the screen. “Do you want to hear more, Father?”

There was a long, loaded silence. And then, barely a whisper—

“Tell me everything.”

The words lit her up inside.

So she did.

She told him about her fingers sliding between her thighs, the way she moaned his title while she came, the fantasies she had while lying naked in bed, whispering prayers turned dirty with every breath.

She told him about the altar. About bending over it. About imagining the way he’d pull her hair and push inside her like punishment and worship all at once.

And he listened.

He never stopped her. Not once.

When the silence finally returned, it wasn’t awkward. It was thick with everything left unsaid—everything felt.

She opened the confessional door slowly and stepped back into the dusky light. Her legs shook slightly as she walked toward the exit, the ghost of her confession still heavy on her tongue.

And then—

“Wait.”

The word cut through the hush.

She turned.

The door to the other booth opened.

And for the first time, she saw him.

Father Elijah.

His robes clung to his frame, unable to hide the tension coiled beneath. The white collar at his throat looked tighter than ever. But it was his eyes that struck her—dark, stormy, burning with restraint and desire. He looked like a man unraveling.

Their gazes locked.

The air between them snapped taut, charged and brittle.

And then he spoke. His voice was hoarse. Raw.

“Come back tomorrow.”

Mara smiled. Slow. Wicked.

Like a wolf with blood on its tongue.

“Yes, Father.”