AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bore it in the weight of my day.
Ached as I sat under his pulpit.
And thirsted for it as I took my place on the other side of his screen another night.
“I was wondering when you’d return to confession,” Anthony said after I recited the holy words to begin the sacred right.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me again.” I wasn’t sure I could behave. But was omission the same as lying in God’s eyes?
“I’d never deny you forgiveness, little lamb, nor this place.”
“What if I desecrated this space?” I whispered, not sure I wanted him to hear me.I’d fucked my hand to visions of it night after night, prying open his thighs as I sunk between them here, to service him. To make him miss me as much as I missed him.
He shifted, and silence ached between us. “What brought those thoughts to mind?”
“I’ve had them since I first saw you behind the altar.” The admission made me lighter, and maybe that was bad. He didn’t deserve the weight of my impure thoughts.
“Me…? After?” His voice came breathless.
“Are you surprised?”
“I thought you’d hate me.” The tenor of his words changed. Lowered.
“I never hated you. I loved you.”
“After all I’ve done, how can you say that?” Regret flooded the space, making breathing hard.
“Do you forget who you were to me before? You were my protector. My safety.”
“All the more reason to despise me. I took your darkest secrets entrusted to me and turned my back on you.” It was almost an apology. I'd never hoped for one. I’d have come back had he uttered it or not.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m not sure I can forgive myself for what I did to you.”
“Aren’t you in the business of forgiveness, Father? Is your sin so grave you cannot ask God for fogginess?”
“Don’t call me that.” His gasp strained.
“Father? Isn’t that what you are?” I pressed, taking joy in the strain in him.
“Not to you, never to you.”
“What are you to me?” I asked, all delight stripped from my voice.
“I don’t know.” His head hung, haunting in the shadow cast by the screen.
“Why does it bother you when I use that word?” I thought I knew why.
“I believe you know.”
“Does it it give you impure thoughts, Father?” I pushed my luck, but I’d avoided him for months. I didn’t know what it would take for me to stay away from him, but I couldn’t. Weeks of resisting had only made the urges greater. Even a detox hadn’t prevented my return.
“Is your design to torture me for my abandonment? Is that why you return week after week?”
“Only if in torturing myself, I torture you.”
He exhaled and brought his tented fingers to his lips. “Why do you torture yourself?”
