#father paul fic

[dreamingofwordswithlife]

Hey y'all. So I'm currently writing a purely self indulgent fic about Father Paul from Midnight Mass. Would anyone be interested in reading it? Either way, I'll probably be posting it in chapters here. Let me know!

[professional-sinner]

Pushing a priest down onto the bed and riding him until he cums inside sounds pretty good right now 😇

[proverbsss]

eating you right (father paul hill/john pruitt x reader) -nsfw

(pt. 2 of "reading you right" linked here)

Father Paul Hill, Midnight Mass

reader(s): I am not responsible for how you see your own headboard following the consumption of this fic <3

notifs: paul hill wants to worship you!! ; reader turns the tables for a subby paul; reader's still down HORRENDOUS ; cunnilingus, hierophilia

Your legs are unsteady as John leads you to his bedroom by your hand.

"Haha, look at Wobbles try and make their way down my hall," Paul teases.

"You edged me on your boot," you complain sharply, though this of course is tinged with pleasure and the hope that his treatment will continue. The muscles in your pelvic floor are on fire and your hips burn.

"Mmm, technically you edged you on my boot," he quibbles, pleased with himself, "Can you make it to the bed yourself?"

Rather than answer verbally, you turn back to look at him. It's a tart, cursing look that John meets with yet another grin. Even so, it's now you begin to notice the usual signs of how wrecked he is. You were so caught up in your own delicious torment that you failed to clock Paul mirroring it. You might some of your get your own back yet.

He's comfortable with your routine of the last few days, starting to strip out of his jeans when you say, "Wait." His doe eyes flick over to you, questioning.

"I don't know…" you pick your words carefully, the neediness of earlier converting itself into a sadistic little impulse to tease. "I don't know if we want your pants off yet, right?"

Paul stops a minute. Makes his positively adorable thinking face. There's a reset somewhere in his eyes as he works out why you might have said what you said.

"We don't..?" he repeats, uncertain.

"Nah," you throw out, dragging the tips of your fingers along the foot of the bed. If this duvet could talk, it would already have plenty dirty to say. "I think we probably want you to keep them on and sit first."

Paul clears his throat. His chin dips to his chest a little. Gears recalibrated toward submitting and taking orders fire fast behind those pretty eyes. "Okay, yes." He sits, trembling a bit, on the edge of the bed.

"I'm gonna sit next to you, Father, and you don't move for a little bit. Okay?"

He nods. Good enough for now. Your underwear clings wetly to you under the sleepshirt you were just hiking up for him in the living room. You pull the hem of the shirt down, a bit demurely over your thighs. Paul watches every move.

"Still don't move, baby." You purr at him. He preens silently at the pet name. "Close your eyes." When his eyes are closed, you take his face into both your hands, fingers grazing his ears, the peach fuzz of his tapered sideburns. In a decisive, hushed moment you bring Paul's face to yours and kiss him. Deeply. First-time tier kisses, slow and curious and just beginning to use your tongue.

Paul half-laughs, shyly against your mouth. "Still no moving," you remind into his lips, and he nods "good boy. Good Father." Oh, he likes that very much.

You lick his bottom lip and enthusiastically he opens his mouth to invite you closer, hands scrunching at his sides in desperation to follow your instruction and not not not touch you.

You withdraw from the kiss after another moment, riled yourself and needing to catch your breath. Still you have enough command of yourself to make this all about him, about how pathetic and needy and perfect he is. You bat your eyes at Paul and smile.

"You probably want to make it up to me. How badly you made me need you before,"

Paul tilts his head uncertainly from side to side. A smirk flickers at the corner of his mouth.

"You wanna know how to make me feel good after that, Paul? You wanna know what I need from you?"

He nods again, thoughts boyishly absent from his eyes, his demeanor relaxed and yet so, so ready to do what he's told.

"Can we make that a yes?" you prompt gently.

"Yes." The huskiness in his voice is like a refresher to your thirst for him. You tingle all over with anticipation.

"Good. I'm going to lay back, and I want you on top of me." As you lay down on the soft bedcovers, you realize all the tension your muscles held kneeling on the ground and fucking yourself onto him, even now some melts away and you sigh contentedly. Paul crawls over you, tenderness and want in his eyes and it calls up a smile to your lips.

"What are you smiling at?"

"My little pet priest. Bet he'd do anything I'd ask him."

Paul lays his head down on your belly, happiness going a little fuzzy because of the attention you show him. His curls call out to your hands and you play with his hair. He's radiant. And for now he's yours. He's kissing your neck now, giggling in the crook of your shoulder, lips tickling your chin, your cheek, your ears. You luxuriate in all this for a moment, then tell him, "Give me your ear please, I'm gonna whisper what I want."

His back muscles ripple like a cat's under his shirt as he makes the necessary adjustment to put his ear up to your mouth. But he's too close, too fucking perfect, so you have to bite his earlobe with such exquisite access.

He groans, tenses in his upper body, and rolls his hips over yours. "That's. Not whispering," he complains.

"Shh, shh." you tell him, "You wanna know? Really?" He cocks his head enough for you to see him nod, his length getting easier to feel against your thigh. You reach a hand up in his and gently bring his ear to your lips, "I need you to eat me out like your life depends on it."

He moans, low in his throat, at just the thought of that.

"You want to do that for me?" That serious attention is in his expression again as he nods at you, starting to kiss his way down your chest. "Can you tell me using your words that's something you want?"

In addition to teasing the everloving fuck out of him, getting his consent turns you on more than anything. The thought of Crockett Island's well-mannered, mildly twitchy new priest so eager to touch you, taste you, have you that he'd kept you in his quarters for the last two days reminds you in a heady rush.

"I…" he lifts his head from your chest and blinks, not reluctant, but so fucking needy, "I want to eat you out." He nods quickly, lashes dropping over his eyelids. "Like my life depends on it."

"Good boy. Do it then, please."

His beautiful, hot mouth begins an eager assault of kisses across your chest, migrating down your belly. You arch your back. Usually you two take a little more time here, but there isn't any to spare. So quickly, so deliberately, Paul finds your clothed sex. He wants to touch you, and he wants you telling him that he can.

"Can I take these off you? Please."

You have nothing smart to say. You're no less eager to feel his tongue, his kisses, the vibrations of his voice where you're most sensitive. You nod, and he holds his gaze to your eyes for a beat before pulling your useless underwear off your legs, discarding them on the floor.

You think without meaning to of the word 'devotion,' used in religious terms to describe a supplication, an adoring, faithful, upturned look. It applies equally to the naked need written on Paul's face with his hands carefully spreading your thighs apart.

"Please let m--" he swallows, begins again, "Please may I worship you?"

"Fuck, Paul, yes, please."

And he may have dedicated years to seminary study, he may have pored with his hands wrapped around old books of his faith and volunteered his body in the service of a Christian God, but that tongue of his was made for sinning.

He starts by kissing gently around your cunt, soft, spellbinding little pecks that make your body jerk to close your legs. You still open up for him, gasping and squeezing your eyes shut with how good, how good, how earth-shatteringly good he feels. His tongue starts to lap at your clit and you do feel yourself drip a bit as he deepens the kiss of his mouth on you. Your mind pleasantly lets go of so much residual tension, of today, of every day before this moment with Paul kitten-licking between your wet lips.

Your hips buck as he sucks a little more intently at your clit and your hands lift up and knot themselves up in his hair. He lives for it as you start to fuck his face.

"Yes, yes, salvation is your fucking cunt, thank you--" he sputters out, certainly only half aware of what he's saying but so, so pleased to look up at you and find your face entirely lost in what he's making you feel.

"Here, here," he takes one hand that's left a few fingernail marks in your thigh and hurriedly covers the knuckles of your hand that's controlling his head, "Put me where you want me. Use me, please."

His mouth and your cunt make an obscene symphony together as you moan and arch toward him, trying to win back enough self-control to direct him the way he needs. He's doing pretty goddamn well on his own, you think and laugh to yourself, your calves shaking and heels digging into the bed. His nose bumps an especially sensitive square inch toward the hood over your clit, and his tongue grazes the inside of you. You see stars, the way the old expression goes, you literally see stars. You have to fight to keep your eyes open to how beautifully looks, you'll need this memory of your pleasure, his pleasure, you and he together, for all time.

Your hips are bouncing off his face rather quick and desperately and Paul is drunk with chasing your cum. He sees you biting your fist and between kisses and sucks he has to ask, "You need more? What do you need? Tell me. I worship you. I deify you. I need this," And like a madman he shakes his head to deepen the stimulation of his tongue hitting, soothing, exciting your clit.

"Oh, Paul!" you cry out and reach for his bedframe. "Oh fuck," you're curling into him and keening and he's humping his mattress outright. "Finger me. Fuck please, give me something to-"

Something to cum around, of course. You feel slicker and sluttier than you've ever felt as Paul obediently probes a finger inside your cunt. You fuck his hand, unabashed, so far gone, so trembly. And even the trembling is helping you get more contact out of his tongue, and he's not tired, his thirst is unmatched, the hand not fingering you finds that little arch where his nose bumped up against you before and spreads you the littlest bit open to lap at your clit.

You make a sound that's kind of a shriek and kind of a delighted giggle, and words something like "Ha-fuck, I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna cum on you--" fall out of your mouth. Paul moans, the pitch of his voice increasing in a way that sort of matches yours, nearly as desperate for your orgasm as you are. Nobody could be as desperate for this as you, however. No one in the history of fucking cumming has ever felt like this.

"Please," he sucks attentively at your clit and shakes his head again, a black curl plastered across his forehead, his gorgeous brown-green eyes searching you and seeing all of you, then closing again, a holy sight. "Please cum. That's it, please I want to drink you in, please--"

And your upper body accomodates for how powerfully you need to let go, the need for release screams out of your body and you almost hit the headboard, but Paul stops you, adjusts the hand that kept you exposed to him to grip your hip and pull you down to his mouth. Your body thrusts and bucks and arches of its own volition, you're just here, in this tear-you-apart pleasure of cumming on his tongue like no one's ever made you cum before. You're panting, your heart is racing, your blood is on fire.

"Enough-enough-enough fuck please---" you shake and beg and tug a little at his hair as he licks hungrily at you, but he's going to let you go when he's fully satisfied. Your voice continues to climb in whispers and shuddering gasps.

"Like my life," he makes a disgusting, gorgeous slurping noise over your wet needy hole, "depends on it." Like a man starved. Like a man crazed. How will you ever function again. You cry out as he drags his tongue up and down your slit, one last long articulation, before his hand finally relaxes on your hip.

Your eyes flutter as you remember suddenly to breathe, and Paul's hands glide up your leg as you sink them down back onto the bed.

"What did you just do to me?" You utter, mystifed, not fully with the thought as it escapes.

"You have no idea how intoxicating you are." He says, dead serious, if breathless and soaked in you. He sucks his middle finger clean. "None at all."

[lasagna-with-teeth]

Thinking about making a priest watch porn for the first time and he's all shy and flustered, he keeps trying to look away and avoid the sinful thoughts - but he keeps glancing back at the screen, unable to resist the temptation. <3

[doing-something-unholy]

I think Pruitt is a masochist and a monster fucker because no one else would call that Thing an angel after getting their throat ripped out by it.

[littleredwritingcat]

Thirst Trap: Chapter 18

Midnights Become My Afternoons

Before I say anything else, I must give a shout out SO LONG AND LOUD AND EVERLASTING that it will be heard the world over. @purplelupins did me the honor of betaing this chapter, and boy I'm glad. This wouldn't be half as good without Nora's suggestions, candor, and perceptive feedback.

I'm *so* excited for the first chapter of her new piece, Red Sky of a Shepherd's Warning - I feel just like a kid on Christmas Eve (at Midnight Mass, perhaps?)

In other news, I know this has been slow going. I suspect that Thirst Trap is one or two chapters away from being complete.

For all of you who have hung in there with me, I thank you.

It's been....oh, hell...three years now?

Good gravy.

I'm also going to slap a big ol' trigger warning on this chapter. I had to spin the wheel-o-death, kids.

Herein are the results.

So. Is everyone comfortable? Is everyone ready for John to make more bad decisions?

I know I am!

And *another* shout-out to the brilliant @error4343 - fan art truly is worth a thousand words.

@everythingbutresolved @agirlinherhead @honey-tree-evil-eye @thenookienostradamus @pinksiamese @purplelupins @lakesofneptune @thevampireauthoress @prettyblondguys @midwestmisfit @rothko-mirror @jyngerpeach @chronic-ghost @yepthatsacowalright @ebiemidnightlibrarian @choosekindly @lovepollution @p-e-r-s-e-p-h-o-n-e @perpetual-fangirl900 @vintageglassheart02 @hamishlinklaters

[pocketsizedmrdarcy]

John Ward is 6'2, Paul Hill is 6'4, and Damien Karras is 5'5.

[snowvies]

𝐬𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐬 ❄︎ 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

you

𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬

𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫

[chellestrash]

Mercy for the Sinner

Paul Hill/John Pruitt x GN!Reader

Summary: Description of one of the many nights you spent at the little wooden house next to the town church.

Warnings: 18+, uh oh, smut, explicit in some places but pretty basic stuff, priest kink, hierophilia, catholic guilt, prayers, corruption 

Word count: 2.2k

A/N: Alright sooo...I know this won't be everyone's cup of tea so if it’s not yours just...move on thank youuu. First Paul fic so might be shit but I couldn't let it just sit in my head I wouldn't be able to do anything, so yeah. Enjoy! Thank you @chelseasdagger​ for proofreading like alwaaays!

You let a loud moan slip past your lips as you feel yourself loosing balance. Grabbing the headboard behind Paul, you steady yourself on top of him. With your fingers gripping the wooden frame, you feel your body tightening around him.

His fingers press into your body as you rock slowly on top of him. His grip makes you feel wanted, makes you feel needed in that place, that moment, like he doesn't want you to leave. Maybe he will, later. Once this is over, once he’ll rethink what happened between you two again. Once the deep desire and longing present at this moment wears out. Maybe then he’ll ask you to leave, tell you that you should, you have to, you can't stay here, you… he, he can't risk people seeing you here. The house is too close to the church, too close to the main road, it's too close to… people.

So maybe then, but not now. Not right now, not at this moment when no matter what he keeps telling himself, with every single fiber of his body he could feel how much he needed and wanted this. Needed and wanted you.

Rolling your hips back on top of him, you feel your lips part.  Your head falls back and his hand traces up your back, almost to your neck. A gasp and another loud moan falls from you, and his fingers dig deeper into your skin as he pulls you in closer.

Paul watches you move on top of him, his head tilted back slightly, his eyes fixed on you. His mouth falls open as if he was to say something, but he decides against it. Fighting with his own thoughts, he turns away, glancing up at the ceiling the moment your eyes open and search for his gaze.

“It's okay, no one knows.”

Your words are quiet and gentle. Your hand now rests on his cheek as you turn his face to look at you again. You see his eyes dance around your face, lingering at your lips but never quite making it up to your eyes. You slowly lift your hips up on top of him, feeling his length slowly dragging out of you. You bite down on your lower lip, attempting to muffle the moan now stuck in your throat. Paul lets out a shaky breath, pushing his hips up slightly, chasing the feeling of your body around him, silently affirming you that he still wants this. His fingers dig into your hips as he pulls you back down on top of him, slowly helping you get back to the previous pace. The gentle hands of the priest reassuringly guide you to keep fucking yourself on his cock. Cupping his face in your hands, you catch the glimpse of his gaze, you catch the second his dark brown eyes fix on yours and for a moment, for a short second you’re his, you hope, you pray? You pray for the kiss, knowing it won't happen, you still wish for it.

The priest battles his own thoughts, fighting the urge to kiss you, the normal, human need for affection. The longing for closeness of another being, and the knowledge, the awareness of his sins. Wrapping his arms tightly around you, he suddenly pulls your body closer to his, nudging his face into your neck. It feels almost like an escape, from the choice from the decision, from your eyes. Your hips buck slightly against his body the moment you can feel his warm lips against your shoulder. Your arms wrap around his back, your hand pushing into the curls at the back of his neck.

Paul moves his hips underneath you, pushing harder inside you with every thrust, your bodies gradually beginning to move at the same pace, the same tempo. A whine slips past your lips when you feel his tip right under your stomach, the way he feels inside you, the way you can feel him so deep within you, makes your fingers wrap tightly around his pretty curls. With his every move, you tug at them a bit harder, each of his thrusts followed by a quiet grunt.

He curses himself in his mind for it all. Not for the act alone, but more so for the fact that if you were to stop right now, walk out and leave, promise him it wouldn't happen again, he'd beg you to stay. The worst part is that he's sure you know it. You can tell by the way he holds you close, the way his hands never leave your body, the way his cock reacts to the movements of your body.

“Almost there, almost there, Father.”

His body tenses up at the way you use the title so freely, like it doesn't mean anything, as if it simply doesn't matter. The warmth between his legs feels impossible to fight back now. His heart beats faster, his whole body tensing up as the feeling gets closer and closer.

“I-God,”

His eyes widen at his own words.

“It's okay.”

You reassure him quietly.

“It's okay, Father, it's okay.”

Biting into his lip, he fights another moan as his hips raise up one more time to push further inside you. You twitch, clenching around the priest when his legs shake slightly, his stomach tenses with eyes shut tightly. You talk him through the climax, like you always do. Praising the way it feels inside you, the way he attempts to hold it back for you.

The couple of drops of sweat shine in the warm lamp light, the few strands of hair stuck to his forehead. His fingers dig deep into your thighs as he helps you with the pace again moments after.  Paul did this every time, every time he accidentally finished first, never wanting to leave you unsatisfied or to feel like someone else could’ve done the job better.

You rest your head against Paul's body now and feel his hands on your back. It's bizarre how gentle and how innocent the closeness feels at that moment as you both attempt to calm your bodies down. The images of his body under you slowly fade as the overwhelming silence, so familiar to you now, fills the small bedroom once again. It's not a bad thing, it wasn’t the wrong decision, you tell yourself. You repeat it in your mind like you do each time you two meet, each time this happens. Your guilt doesn't stand in your way. The church, the faith, the people on the island, throughout your life you managed to get your own perspective on this, understand what's important to you, what values you believe in. But you know, you know and understand it's not the same for the man lying in the bed with you right now.

Despite the gentle touches, despite the way his arms wrap around you to hold you so close to him, you know he's somewhere else, somewhere far away now. Overthinking, overanalyzing… possibly regretting the choice he made to see you again today. Maybe, maybe that’s it, but this wasn’t your decision alone. It was a mutual agreement, just like it always was. You glance up slowly, shifting your gaze from the droplets of rain falling down the small bedroom window to the face of the priest.

Paul holds you in his arms, craving the feeling of another person so, so close to him. His body slows down now, his chest rising and falling less drastically, his thumb slowly brushing over your back. His mind is racing, of course it is, he's unable to stop. He feels the guilt growing in him with every second, every minute passing. He wonders, he asks himself how he let this happen again, how was this possible and why, of God, why did he need you so badly. He glances down when you enter his mind and your eyes meet for a brief moment before he turns away quickly. He shouldn't have done this, he shouldn't have broken like this, he shouldn't have let you break him like this again. The wave of regret washes over him when his heartbeat slows down again. Your body weighs heavy on top of him, skin to skin, and the realization of his choices, his weakness, slowly fill up every little part of his body. He should pray, ask for forgiveness, pray and tell you to leave, to fight the urges that lead you back to him and him back to you time after time.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Your quiet voice cuts through the silence filling the small house like a knife. There's a sharp pain in his chest when your words reach his ears and he swallows hard, closing his eyes.

“Don’t.”

You feel his fingers grip your arm tighter to a point where it hurts slightly, a pleasant sensation you choose not to point out at this time and spare him the details. Looking up slowly, you bite the inside of your cheek, carefully considering your options. Your eyes scan his face; his dark, now slightly curled hair is pushed back, only a couple stands still on his forehead. His deep, dark eyes running from your now oh so innocent gaze, the few droplets of sweat running down the side of his face. You rest your head against his chest again, his eyes back on you the moment you look away, and he knows you can tell he's watching you carefully. Your fingers draw small patterns on his ribs as you choose to continue the confession.

“My God.”

You whisper and he gasps almost silently.

“My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart.”

You recite the prayer from memory.

“In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against You, whom I should love above all things”.

You pause, glancing up and watching as he listens with his head resting against the bed. His eyes are shut tightly, his lips parted.

“I firmly intend, with Your help, to do penance, to sin no more.”

It's funny how easy the words come to you. How difficult it is to forget the prayers you've been through since childhood, how with the passing of time, for you, they've lost the meaning they used to carry. And the meaning they still have for him.

“... and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.”

Your hips move back on top of him again, and you feel his hand at your side. His touch follows with a quiet grunt he didn't quite manage to fight back.

“...my God…”

His cock twitches underneath you and he curses his own body in his mind, his shaky inhale interrupting your words. But he doesn't stop you.

“...have mercy.”

You finish the prayer and rest your chin on your arms crossed on top of his chest. With your face now turned to him, you watch his face, waiting for his reaction. The priest spends a moment in silence, his eyes closed. His thoughts slip from him, the images of you plaguing his mind. His Adam's apple bobs slightly as he slowly recalls his part of the prayer, the confession.

“God, the father of mercies.”

He starts, his voice barely a whisper, as if he worries that God himself might be listening. You shift on top of him and Paul swallows hard. His eyes now open but again, they never find your gaze, focused on something far behind you.

“God, the father of mercies…”

He repeats, and you kick your feet in the air slowly, waiting for him as he closes his eyes with a quiet sigh.

“...through the death and the resurrection of His Son has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins…”

He pauses for a second, your eyes never leaving his face, his hand resting on your back, thumb gently brushing over your skin.

“Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace.”

Another pause, and you watch him fight with himself, doubting his own words and the power and meaning behind them.

“And I absolve you… from your sins… in the name of the Father, and, and of… the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen.”

You mumble quietly and give him a brief moment of peace before pushing your tongue against his chest. You lick a stripe right from his nipple up, up over his neck before kissing the side of his jaw. The priest swallows hard, inhaling sharply through his teeth before brushing his hand over your hair.

“Rest.”

He instructs, and for once, you listen.

“Am I forgiven, then?”

“Don't. Don't ask me that when you know the answer. God can not forgive us for our sins if we, his children, don't regret them. Regret, is the foundation of penance, of forgiveness. If you lack regret for your sins, for your choices, for this…if you lack that feeling within you, God can not help you.”

How could you regret it?

“Do you regret it, father?”

“Yes.”

His eyes finally meet yours.

“But I don't enough to be forgiven for this.”

There's not enough regret, instead there's longing, the need and the desire for more. The feelings have been present in the back of his mind ever since he got to feel you for the first time. There was regret, anger and guilt, but it was never, never enough to push him away from you. Always too much and never enough.

[raccoonspooky]

Looking back, I should've been on my knees

RATED E! 6k Words. Father Paul x Fem Reader sort of? Or hallucination of "God?" Umm Father Paul x Faceless third person entity he's fantasizing about. Solo masturbation.

TW for mental instability, delusional behavior and blood drinking. Dude's jerking off with a corpse in the room. Full list of tags on ao3 Y/N device is not used in this fic.

Tags of note under the cut

Tags of note: Religious Imagery and Symbolism, Sacrilege, Guilt, Horny Delirium, Masturbation as a form of worship/prayer.

Salt dry, ocean wind glides through the empty church with a prayer on its breath. The litany is hollow, the words are rehearsed. Maybe the sentiment is echoed from this morning as if the word of god traveled out to sea but the wind pushed it back to the church… or maybe it’s something the ocean came up with all on its own.

Besides such empty delivery, the air is alive with the wind’s echoed praise.

The Monsignor knows the words, they've become a part of him over the years; and after a handful of new developments, he’s begun to associate taste with memory and comprehension. The world is bright and it flares brighter as the wind settles against worn pews to flutter ragged hymnals barely holding onto their cracked spines. With the wind’s closing Amen, it parts way for an older presence that begins to make its way through the church.

It ambles along slowly, taking its time to spread throughout every board and nail. Its sense of divinity turns chipped paint into a hallowed thing. Father Pruitt can feel His proximity before his attention directs toward himself.

In his office, oxygen seems to pull into itself until it cuts out entirely. His nearness is welcomed but the old building seems unable to compensate for the reverence it wants to give. Father Pruitt respectfully drops to his knees and angles toward the emanating warmth. He tilts his head up and his hands come together, tied together by hopeful adoration. Each inhale burns from the lack of oxygen in the room but faith comes with ache. Pain is an essential component of life, a blessing disguised as penance. Iron coats his tongue, it’s long since become paste at the corners of his lips. Somewhere beyond himself, he’s aware that someone lays still behind him, it’s only been a few moments since they took their last breath. They still linger, waiting and Father Pruitt is honored to be here for their transition. God wouldn't leave the faithful cold. He arrived with something incomprehensible, something winged and beautiful.

The Monsignor’s vestments are heavy at the edges, weighed down by bloodied sacrament. The Lord himself told Father Pruitt that he was ready to greet one of his chosen and thus he enacted His will. Their atonement was burdened thick with tar but he freed them of such weight. He consumed their guilt, drank their regret… and now, one of his flock walks without sin alongside God and his son. There’s salt rimming his eyes and his lashes soak up unfallen tears. A rod of iron expands in his throat and like in revelation, he will wield the scepter to show the world the power of an almighty god.

Some of his strength lingers here, it curls around his collar, reminding him of his place. The touch isn’t ungentle but it further steals his breath. He’s done well. The Lord rewards him with sparks of twinkling gold that erupts behind his eyes. The blood he swallowed meets his own and he’s made stronger for it, God’s light reaches inside of him and his body is made clean in his shadow. As a servant of God, he fights the pleasure that comes with subservience. The only pleasure he should want should come from devotion alone. This closeness, this sense of love, this is his reward. The Lord assigned him an angel to rescue him from the stray path he previously wandered and since then he’s been blessed with clarity.

Reborn and given purpose, Father Pruitt has never felt so alive. He has never felt so close. A lifetime of prayers left unanswered and now his God shares this very room. Spidery doubt and hidden cowardice were burned out of him when the Angel showed him His glory. He remembers laying on the ground, feeling dirt in his lungs. God was far from him then. Sure that he was to die, the Monsignor came close to renouncing all that he knew… and then the Angel cauterized his wound before it could fester.

With his head full of twisted, rambling thoughts and an old man’s regret, Father Pruitt wasn’t aware of how much of his light was lost to blind faith until the Angel taught him how to see. He stood on two legs out of reflex and memory. Much of this form of faith is cemented in ritual and Father Pruitt had long since forgotten who the ritual was for. He’d forgotten whose halls he was sheltered by. God was an abstract thing to the old man. God was made real by hope alone.

He was wrong of course. God is as real as he is. He’s here in this room and his presence expands into the Monsignor. It’s… exhausting, but too holy, too pure to look away from. His love is vast and unending and the Father will take the pain that comes with it because God has faith in him to endure.

“Feed.” The presence insists, looking down at him with grace.

In half a breath, Father Pruitt becomes a flurry of movement. Robes flutter heavily and his fingernails scrape against the wooden floor as he frantically scoops darkened blood into his hands. He licks his palms and messily sucks his fingers into his mouth but it’s not enough. His nose crushes against the ground and behind the taste of iron and God's watchful gaze is the bitter taste of dirt and earth.

On his knees, he drags himself through the rust and clumsily reaches for the lamb’s cold wrist. They’re not yet stiff, and he punctures their flesh with a garbled thanks. He didn’t dare to further mutilate one of God’s children without His approval. The flesh is satisfyingly weighty between his teeth, it promises nourishment but the Lord has not yet instructed him to bite and swallow. The lamb’s blood is too bitter, too coagulated in their veins. It’s gummy in his mouth and his throat protests swallowing. He nearly gags in discomfort and his tongue trembles as it drags over one of the lamb’s wounds, a weak hint of fresh blood keeps him from disobeying God’s insistence. Father Pruitt groans against their flesh, unsatisfied but aware. He is to taste his sin. He is to give his thanks and understand that sacrifice is necessary and never asked for lightly.

Shame is held at an arm’s distance only because of the presence in the room. He’s alive with purpose, able-bodied, and here to enact greatness. He’s sound of mind and his thoughts no longer weave around and through each other until he’s unsure of where he started. The Lord’s angel faithfully tells him God’s will, and he’s never felt so loved. It took a lifetime, but his prayers were heard. God showed himself and recalling the memory is too much to comprehend.

With his pupils blown wide and his mind buried in thanks, his body distances itself from his waking thoughts. His flesh awakes under the watchful eye of God, reminding him that despite his sensitivity toward the divine, he is still only a man. Blessedly mortal as any other. Time is an unforgiving concept. He’s spent so long unaware of how far he’d fallen. He’s a shepherd once more and his little church is attuned to so much beyond its old walls. His blood thrums with promise, the true word of god was made clear to him and he smears his index finger through the blood beneath him, smiling in awe to the above as he makes a cross over his heart. Pledging himself again and again.

Father Pruitt’s head bows and he recites the lord's prayer as a reflex. The shape of the words is branded into his very being, they slot into worn groves beneath his skin. He uses them to center himself toward a place of rest and the word Amen lingers in the air, made alive by the promise in his prayer. His hands separate from each other and he reaches to squeeze his throat. He swallows dryly, shaken by everything he just felt. He uses his wrist to wipe his mouth but all he does is smear blood across his cheek.

Coherence is blessedly kept out of reach as if the Lord wants him to take a moment just to feel. With a slow exhale, he listens to his alarmingly rapid heartbeat. His back hurts but only because he woke in a wound up ball of contorted limbs. Old ache ghosts over his limbs but it's phantom pain. For years, he became so used to suffering that now he finds it difficult to focus on anything besides the pain he once used to keep his head on straight.

Something itchy and raw wakes in his chest. Without the presence of divinity and the lead weight it blankets him with, he’s left to venerate the hunger that’s newly lodged within him. Without God’s presence, he is left wanting, left waiting for His next command. It’s not a burden, if anything it’s a reminder of his second chance with this all. Still, idle hands are twitchy and his emotions slip and slide all over the place while he’s too nervous to shelve them back to where they belong. He’s kept on edge, eager to serve but frustrated that sometimes it takes time for His will to flourish.

It’s difficult to keep everything contained. He feels so much bigger than his body. He wants to show everyone the same light he saw. If everyone could just open their eyes, they’d find salvation and love unending. He’s made progress with some of the wary, he’s welcomed new members to the church… but he could do this all so much faster. Now that he knows God's love directly, he’ll do anything for more. He doubts nothing, questions nothing. Today, the Lord sensed his dry throat, and then a new face knocked on his office door. He freed them of their burden as the Lord instructed and Father Pruitt was nourished by their sacrifice. He felt their soul as it loosened from their flesh… and he was too weak to find no pleasure in it. To consume someone’s faith and take it into your own is indescribable. Its sanctity is meant for God alone, but as his servant, he’s allowed just a taste… just a tiny mouthful of something honest.

To the Monsignor, it proves that he’s doing something right. Honesty is the first virtue that has any meaning to it. Without honesty, there’s no goodness, no belief, or love. The lamb was startled at first, they struggled as he held them down. The taste of fear and pain burst across his tongue with his first bite but it was cleansed immediately with the incoming rush of delirium and then the closing sermon of bright, biting joy. Release. Weightlessness. After a lifetime of blind devotion, being able to taste the concept has Father Pruitt near feral for another hit. The mouth is a sacred part of one’s self, we use it to take communion and to speak with god. We consume his son’s blood and flesh. We are made sentimental creatures for the inherent desire to consume something beloved. Love twists into a set of teeth just as we shape words into worship with our tongues.

Regarding faith, Father Pruitt has never aligned with the idea that we as people are put onto this earth to suffer. He thinks perhaps that the pleasure he finds in servitude to God is something for him alone. It’s a sign that he’s using His gift for good. The body in the room isn’t pretty but God still came for them. His tongue still salivates, he wishes that he took things slower but he didn’t want the sacrifice to suffer. Their blood was complex, when he swallowed it trailed down his throat with legs like fine wine. He could’ve fed on them for hours, taking the time to pick apart the individual components of personality that flavored them in such a way… but he was a man of god. A man of faith. He wouldn’t take what wasn’t offered. The lamb deserved something quick in exchange for their sacrifice that God so wanted.

God asks us to listen. God asks us to obey and follow in his footsteps. He gave the world his son so the faithful could understand we can only do so much in our earthly vessels. We can love one another, and do good as we are able to— God only asks for what we are able to give. We aren't given bodies to be ashamed of them and push them past their mortal capabilities. God made man in his image, he did not give us the ability to think and feel as a punishment. What we do with our bodies is another thing entirely.

As to answer his thoughts, one of the Monsignor’s twitching hands finds his belt after awkwardly runching up his robes. This isn’t sin. This is worship. God gave him this body with all of its functions and he was awarded a glimpse of all that is good for a reason. His mind translates enlightenment in the only way he can understand. It turns something holy, something sacred into sensation rather than comprehension. Sin is not one thing or the other. It’s a fluid concept. The church is old and lost in its ways just like he was not so long ago.

Perhaps he’s a heretic, and such thoughts might've once sequestered him into a panicked, praying stupor… but he’s promised his very soul in exchange for the truth. No such heresy comes from worship. No such shame should come from pleasure found in servitude. Uneasy but determined, Father Pruitt decides that his faith has yet to wrong him. Wouldn’t he be distrusting God by questioning the morality of the way his body reacts to His word?

The noise of his belt buckle clinking against itself cuts through the heavy silence in the room. Some spell laid over him lifts with a promise to return and Father Pruitt thanks it for its mercy. He’s airy now, eager to offer himself in this way. This may as well be liturgical practice, this is… right. This is physical devotion and the same as self-appointed lashing or any other physical offering. Father Pruitt’s breaths are slow but heavy, he swallows dryly, and as soon as he’s fumbled his zipper somewhat undone, he shoves a blood-sticky, prayer-warmed hand into his waistband with a haggard breath of thanks. His cock is half hard, twitching to life and he can feel its pulse more than he’s attuned to his heartbeat. The first graze of touch has him gnashing his teeth.

At the edge of coherence, he’s aware that the blood is staining not just his soul. His vestment robes are soaked through, he’s yet to perfect the ritual but he’s sure that he’ll eventually get the hang of it. Blood has since streaked across the floor. Some drips steadily from the pool atop his desk and Father Pruitt resists cleaning the mess with his tongue. Kneeling in the worst of it, he’s sure that soaked denim is soon to cut into his skin. His hand was far from clean but he didn’t think twice about wrapping it around his cock. It swells as if to meet the blood on his hand and it only takes a few shy strokes until he’s fully hard, each awkward pump of his fist has his eyes nearly rolling back in his head. He’s unpracticed, unsure of what he likes, and in a lifetime before, he was beleaguered with too much shame to ever think of doing something like this.

A chuckle leaves him while he ponders whether or not someone a few hundred years ago assumed people would spend all day touching themselves if such pleasure wasn’t branded as a sin. Something so effortlessly taken, so effortlessly given could easily become wrong if one was to lose themself in unearned pleasure. But his body is a vessel of the Lord’s, he is nothing but a servant. He acts only by his Lord’s will. Even now, he mumbles thanks and prayer while his hand rapidly follows his words. Although they are patched together gracelessly, the sentiment is there. Father Pruitt hunches over, gulping down a breath as he works his cock with frantic, overeager strokes.

He thanks God for his grace, thanks God for his mercy. He asks that God may bring peace to those in need. He asks God for his congregation’s health and happiness.

So much of what he once knew as truth is now muddled with new realities. Stubbornly, he wonders if this is wrong. His hand slows and he forces himself to a stop even as his needy prick throbs with angry discomfort. He shouldn’t want anything besides what’s best for his flock, he shouldn’t feel so high-strung and on edge. Shouldn't this feel like worship? He wonders if he should feel calm, he wonders if he should slow down and perhaps acclimate to the sensation so he’s not panting like a dog… but all he can do is think of the first gush of wet blood that spilled into his mouth. Recalling the first swallow and the way the blood immediately awoke all of his senses to new heights forces a whimper from his throat and it clings to his bottom lip, making it tremble.

He decides that the same pleasure found in servitude to God is no different from the consuming want that emanates through him now. Father Pruitt sucks in a wet sounding breath and he shifts on his knees so he can better angle his hips. He fucks into his fist and the room balances on the closing note of a song. It hums with the same low note that lingers in the aftermath of an Amen. This is not selfish. This is not wrong. This is for Him. The Lord wants him to understand his miracle, this body is a gift… it is meant to be cherished.

The original sin was a gift. God allowed his first creations to ask questions, he made Eve a curious soul because she was a needed balance to Adam’s instinct to listen and obey.

Men were created to listen. Men were created to serve. Even with free will, Adam still chose to submit.

Everything is new and wonderful. Behind closed eyes, Father Pruitt sees only stars. An involuntary shudder builds in his ribcage and it escapes down his spine to find uneasy purchase atop his nerves. His hips cant upward, chasing his retreating fist and by now his breath has turned ragged, and his limbs feel loosely tacked on.

Buried memories awaken amongst the rapture and the crumbling relics speak long lost invocations in the language of heaven. He can’t understand them, but to hear something so ancient and otherworldly brings new wetness to his eyes. Like this he’s only a vessel of worship, he cannot speak or think clearly, he’s mindless and obedient to pleasure, seeking more to honor his Almighty. Mindlessly pumping his fist, Father Pruitt looks up and groans a pitched whimper.

“Yes, God.” He thinks. “I am yours, I am yours.”

His tongue feels oily, it can’t find its place in his mouth. He wants to give his thanks but the noise that pushes past his teeth is tangled up in its afterbirth and it struggles to make itself known. His soul swells with love, he’s made pure by this bloodied baptism. He understands it now. This hunger. He’s a newborn babe, brought screaming into the world. A lifetime of devotion made him pure once again. He’s without sin. He should be without guilt. Unashamed, Father Pruitt easily falls headfirst into a memory that he once kept secret from the lord. The memory is wet and tight, his breaths are shared with another’s and her lips feel so right against his.

Maybe this love wasn’t his to take, but he’s never regretted it. He’s never regretted her. Even now, the memory is only a wisp of what once was, but being able to recall anything of it is more than he could wish for. His knuckles scrape against denim and his movements pick up speed. Caught in a mess of prayer and thanks, the Monsignor hiccups while half swallowing a moan.

The presence inside of him blends the memory of her with the tinge of iron and fear. He remembers being so afraid of what he’d done, but not afraid enough to stop. She was everything in that instance of broken resolve. She was the universe itself. She was God and all things holy. She trembled around him, crying out to God and he selfishly commanded her to say his name instead. The command was strong only because it was backed by regret. He knew that this was unforgivable, he knew that no penance or no amount of hail Mary’s could amount to the weight of what he’d already done.

You cannot commit half a sin.

Close as they were, he wished to be closer. He wanted to shed her of her modesty and hide beneath her skin. He wanted to take her flesh for his own, anoint it in oils and make her holy so he had some excuse for the way he felt. He wanted to become some permanent piece of her because he was unable to rid himself of his devotion to God. She’d never push his faith, she would never have been able to claim him as he claimed her and the unfair trade burned him like a hot iron. Couldn’t he offer her just a piece of himself? After years of unshaken faith, couldn’t he give her something worth keeping? As the church is one with the body of Christ, partaking in his flesh and blood —couldn’t he offer her some minuscule, unimportant piece of himself?

From that first sin and all the subsequent moments of stolen love, John —Not the priest. Not Father Pruitt, Not God’s devoted parishioner—, wanted to see her soul. He wanted to see the thing he’d given everything for.

He found love in a sense of shame. He had no right to fuck his guilt into a woman chosen for him by God. He should’ve listened. His love was a desperate, aborted thing. Barely alive and stolen from his Lord, he gave handfuls of both to each party when neither wanted anything to do with his sickly worship.

You cannot worship out of fear. You cannot form shame into love.

Christened again, he understands with an old man’s regret that it’s natural to be afraid. He was blind to the gift he was given back then, he rejected a woman who loved him and rejected the God he so loved because of self-appointed shame. He lived the rest of his life a broken old fool, but he’s seen the light now. He can lead his congregation to salvation, just like the Angel who gave him a second chance at life. He’ll take their burden. He’ll take their guilt and their shame. He can handle it. Even now, there’s an ache inside of him that demands it. Even now, he’s hungry.

Rather than recoil, he chases the feeling. Acceptance is all it wants. It wants to be heard. It wants to be known.

This want, this hunger— It’s all part of His plan.

In shameful instances of the past, there were moments of resentment. God blessed him not only with forgiveness but also with the inability to harbor the concept of resentment any longer. He’s never known a love so unending. He’s never known something so bright, so vast. He feels it in his veins, the blood circulating through him is the same as liquid gold.

Faith tells him when to sleep and what to dream. It forces his lips as he speaks his sermons. Inside of him is something ancient and divine and he is so honored to hold such privilege. He doesn’t mind the ache of constant hunger. God tells him to consume mortal sin and feel it burn as it goes down his throat. It won’t corrupt him. His conviction is imbued into his bones, into his soul. When he is hungry, the Lord will provide. The sky is cracked open and he can see everything there ever was. It’s simple in its complexity. Everything is one centered breath, time itself exists in the span of a single heartbeat.

We exist out of love. God sees us wholly and without sin. He sees the perfect version of who we are meant to be because we came out of His imperfection. In the end, we are memory and devotion in its purest form. To love and be loved is our only purpose in life and Father Pruitt has been afraid for so long that he held a finite source. He held an unfair reserve over his heart, offering only part of himself to the woman he loved and the Lord who blessed him with such a feeling.

Containing multitudes, he understands that God wants him whole. He’s not a fractured mess of a man who once was. The air around him is perfectly, succinctly still. Each exhale feels almost rude. The room is severe, he looks up and waits for a sign. He wants to beg for direction.

“Please,” he begs the empty air and his voice weakens upon the crest of a gasp. He swallows and manages a firmer plea, but the air remains still. Looking up doesn’t seem to offer him anything, so Father Pruitt shuts his eyes. His hand acts on its own accord and his fist loosely settles around his stubbornly devoted cock. Blood lingers on his taste buds though he’s sure that the taste is long gone. He wonders if it’s a reminder or if it’s a promise of more.

In his mind, real as anything else— his hand slowly skims up someone’s bare calf. His touch is reverent, his head is bowed. He wants to look up at her, but he doesn’t need to look to know who she is. He hasn’t seen her face as it was in so long. His eyes are adjusted to the dark and looking up seems wrong, she didn’t ask him to look. He has a duty to perform, he can’t blind himself now. She’s naked in all of her glory and the universe narrows down until all he can see is her parting legs.

He waits for no direction, with her spread like an offering he understands his place. He is to bow before her holiness and he is to worship as God commands him to. This isn’t a test, this isn’t a cruel memory. He can smell her blood as it circulates beneath her skin. She’s real and she’s here. She reaches between her thighs to spread her lips— showing him everything he never deserved— and he stumbles forward to bury his tongue in her folds.

Unsure if she’s an embodiment of the Lord, one of his angels, or one of his memories given life once more… The Monsignor decides that they’re all the same. He decides he doesn’t care and he’ll take what he is given. His head is bowed as if in prayer, one hand holds her calf while the other words his cock. His tongue strokes through her folds and she’s decadent. She’s his as he is the Lord’s. Her skin is so soft in his hands, she’s otherworldly and the world itself. He has no purpose but to serve, to taste, and feed. God asks so little of his children. He gives and he gives and the Father is fed and loved for it. He could stay here forever, he could kneel and rot to nothing happily like this.

Was this… a reward? Was this God’s favor? He struggles for an answer but the closer he gets to the truth, the further he strays from the task at hand.

“Stay with me.” She commands, voice soft but words piercing. Fingers tighten in his hair and his previous curiosity mutates into his instinct to serve. She’s given him so much and the worship she asks for is so easy to give. So close to divinity, he’s barely able to breathe while refusing to part from her body. Devoted to his worship, his nose slots beside her clit as he curls his tongue between her lips. He’s so full of love but she urges him to take another mouthful.

Her pleasure drips wetly down his chin. Wet and warm like blood. Sweeter though. There’s no struggle, no initial fear. She tastes of heaven itself and Father Pruitt holds her hips still, tracing his thanks with his tongue as she writhes against his assault. She twists on her altar, back contorting as he sucks on her clit and Father Pruitt wonders if she’s to be prayed to or to be prayed for. She’s all movement, difficult to hold onto, and difficult to comprehend.

His cock leaks into his palm and each pump of his fist is slick. He is only a parishioner right now, his throat is bare, clerical collar forgotten somewhere beyond this place. The sin of his making whispers that he wants more. Behind the curtain of humility and faith… he wants to bury himself inside of her so deeply that her body will mold to his. He wants to lay her before God himself so as to show his Lord what devotion he’s willing to give. He wants no separation between their bodies, he wants no separation from his Lord. If God would give him this for just an instance, he would linger on this earth for the rest of eternity guiding all who wander toward the Almighty's light. He’d be kept alive only by the memory of something perfect.

The Angel who commands his heart promises that he is worthy of such love. He’s submitted, he’s given everything he is and more. He could take what he wants, nothing would punish him for it. Her pussy drips that much wetter, she grinds against his face, begging so sweetly. She only wants his worship, she already owns his soul…

Abruptly, she comes apart, unravels beneath his tongue and Father Pruitt groans along with her. He pulls away from her cunt only to look at what she’s become. This gift is his strength. This gift is his weapon. Take His body and drink His blood. This gift is the broken love he once gave to her and his Lord and it is returned to him in abundance, kept fat and happy by God who thrums with awareness beneath his skin. The ache of being begins to burn. Father Pruitt hisses behind his teeth as a ray of sunlight streaks across his back from a high window.

It ties him to his body and he’s thankful for the pain. He would’ve stayed wherever he was, licking her cunt for all of eternity if not for the earthly reminder of his flesh. Clarity pulls him from the depth of worship and he’s not allowed a moment to mourn the loss of his vision. She retreats with grace, her footsteps fade toward the sacred place she calls home inside of him. He’s taken his fill. He’s served righteously and he won’t ask for more. A younger version of him might’ve begged, but Father Pruitt knows better than to question God’s will. The Lord washed his palette clean.

The church’s next service will serve his blessed blood as communion and they will be made stronger because of his worship.

This is His will.

“You’ve done well, Father.” God’s voice is feminine and kept soft.

Father Pruitt takes her praise with all the grace he can summon. He wants to snatch it from the air and stuff it down his throat, he wants to bury his face in it and fuck it into a wet mess. All he’s ever wanted to be is worthy. All he’s ever wanted to be was seen.

An ethereal touch forces his eyes open. She crooks her finger beneath his chin as if to lift his gaze toward her unseen face and ghostly fingers settle on the side of his face. She’s so real. He can sense her somewhere. Whoever she is, a memory or some asset of God…he doesn’t care. Her touch is so soft, so divine, and otherworldly that it pulls an unbridled moan from his chest. Burdened by earthly gravity, it spills to the floor like incense smoke, curling at the edges and cleansing the curdled and blackened mess he kneels in.

His soul was never his to begin with. She doesn’t ask him for worship, nor does she ask him for bloody sacrifice. Her guidance is freely given, so gently laid that he feels as if he’s shrouded by sheer feathers. Her form isn’t here, not in this room in a physical sense, and yet somehow she is. She’s with him. Inside of him. A part of him. His belief has never been based on physical senses and he’s lived long enough to know that there is so much more beyond what he can see. He can almost hear the musical tone of her laughter, of her happiness found in his belief. Her wings constrict, holding him close and shielding him from the world. She asks him to let go. She asks him to breathe. Fingers tighten at his throat, and he’s reminded of who he breathes for.

He is owned as he is loved.

The sense of ownership builds until it finds the ends of his mortal body. It stretches thin after that, pulling beyond until it has nowhere else to go. The whisper comes again and she tells him to let go. He doesn’t need to hold on so tight. Wherever he begins and ends doesn’t matter to her. Father Pruitt inches toward embarrassment, feeling stupid for worrying over such a concept for so long and the presence only holds him closer in response.

There’s no slamming edge to his orgasm, the presence he feels it’s expansive and somewhere beyond himself. Torn from his body, he’s unaware of the pitched moans he whines into his empty office, he’s unaware of the way he bites the side of his thumb to keep quiet. His cock surges and holy light fills him up from the inside as thick white dribble arcs against the inside of his robes. He lurches forward and he’s forced to catch himself with his free hand. Startled, he yelps when his palm slaps against slimy wet sludge. The texture is so similar to his cum that he recoils, he’s pulled back into his body with an abrupt shove and Father Pruitt nearly falls face forward once again with the sudden shock of coherence.

With wild eyes, he whips his head around, looking for her even though he can feel the emptiness of her unsaid goodbye. The air in his lungs is too thin, his heart is too fast. His dick feels rubbed raw and he wipes his palms on his thighs, groaning with discomfort as he puts himself back together.

John can still feel her on his skin. He can taste her on his tongue. He knows exactly where her presence left and he accepts her loss just like any other day. She’s needed elsewhere and he knows to let her go. Others are in need, others love her just as he does.

His mind and body are that of his Lord’s and he has work to do. With an awkward stretch, Father Paul manages to force his legs into working order and he stands with pins and needles swarming his calves and feet. His back aches, and he leans backward in an attempt to pop a stiff joint. His eyes meet the still gaze of the vacant body pushed into a corner and he sees no recognition upon their face. They’re beyond him now. With her. With God and his angels. Safe in transport toward the kingdom of heaven. He wonders if they saw her too, he wonders if they felt just a smidgen of what he felt beneath her touch.

Did they see her face? Did she smile as she held them in her arms to absolve them of sin?

Gently, he removes his vestment robes, and as respectfully as possible, he covers the body as if swaddling an infant. He closes their eyes with an accompanying prayer. He tells them that they’re beautiful, he tells them that they’re loved. He prays for God to soon wash their soul clean so that they may leave this world holy and pure as Mary’s blessed son.

Father Paul doesn’t tell them that their blood was sweet with sin. He doesn’t tell them that he no longer can tell the difference between all that is Holy and that he’s beginning to rethink the reality of heaven.

Thanks for reading! Woof this dude is going through it.

I wanted to write something "Short" for my boo @ventiswampwater but idk how to write short i guess haha.

Let me know your thoughts!!

[runscold-runsdeep]

Haven’t posted anything in a hot minute, so here’s a wip preview of a fic request!

[dreamingofwordswithlife]

Update on Father Paul fic!

Hey everyone! I just want to say that I appreciate all the support and encouragement to post my fic! Life has been really hectic recently with work and now school so I haven't been working on it as much as I'd like >.< Please be patient with me!

Under the read more is the link to the original post! If you haven't seen it yet and want to read a new Father Paul fic, please leave me some love to know that y'all still want this!

[professional-sinner]

My sharing a bed trope Father Paul fic is live! You can find it on ao3

Enjoy!!!

Father Paul x fem reader

[proverbsss]

reading you right (father paul hill/john pruitt x reader) -nsfw

Father Paul Hill, Midnight Mass

prompt(s): "Me. You. Bed. Now." [from this post]

[Pt. 2 Out Now!! Linked Here :)]

anon: I had a normal amount of fun writing this, hope you enjoy :) i wanna do a pt. 2 because ofc i do,, honestly I got a lil hot n bothered lmao

notifs: paul hill is a tease!! ; shoe-grinding ; fluffy smut ; hierophilia ; you're father paul's dirty little secret ; denial ; reader begging ; reader's down HORRENDOUS ; terms used: good girl, slutty thing, pet

"You've been lying there moaning for ten minutes." Father Paul chuckles, trying to focus on his reading.

You feel your leg twitch as you lay on your stomach, looking a bit dazed across the room. A giggle escapes you. In your mind's eye a constant stream of images plays- every dirty thing you’ve done with Father Paul in the last 48 hours, a rare weekend’s reprieve from prying Beverly Keane, sitting bedside with her sister or aunt or who-the-hell cares on the mainland. It was too easy to sneak into the house behind St. Patrick’s, and too goddamn pleasurable to leave after the first night. A delightful ease of domesticity has settled over the two of you. And you’re even more whipped for the Father than you were when this whole messy arrangement began.

"I can't help it-"

"It's understandable to whine like a whore while I'm still inside you, but cooing like that when I'm not even touching you is a little ridiculous." Smug, he licks his finger and turns a page. "A man's ego can only grow so big."

“What are you reading?” you ask, completely uninterested, and your voice betrays it. You might enjoy a good book now and again, but something worlds more tempting is sitting before you. In his jeans and tee shirt, only his glossy ankle boots remaining, Paul is a rare sight out of uniform, like something sent from heaven. Or Hell. Both, somehow.

“You asked me that fifteen minutes ago. Or did you forget already?” He shoots you a disapproving, but playful look. He can hardly resist you more than you can him. Hardly. There is that last smidgeon of reserve that Paul prides himself on. He can’t be bothered to think of you as a sin, because life’s become far, far more complicated in the last few months than any one man can hold in his head, and because it feels like paradise to touch you.

Caught in your inattention, you abandon the ruse of asking about his book. "You fucked me too good...." You whine.

"You're going to complain about it?" He laughs at you.

"You're laughing at me." 

"Of course I'm laughing at you," he admonishes. Not to be taken in by your wiles, Paul's eyes trace the paragraph he's started unsuccessfully three times.

"You whine before I fuck you, you whine while I fuck you, and you whine after I've fucked you. You're silly."

The vision renews itself in your mind of last night creeping around in here, your excitement waiting in the antechamber of St. Patrick’s late at night, Paul sneaking up on you in the dark and taking you in that muggy little den where they keep the wine and spare things. You want him to grunt against your ear like that again, to fuck you like he needs you in order to breathe.

"I'm not silly!" You gasp out. He hears the difference in your voice and scans your body with his eyes. Grinning. He licks his bottom lip and pretends the fool. “I want it, please, I want it, I don’t caaaare…” Your caterwauling would be annoying if it wasn’t so bone-deep genuine. Paul could probably keep you here forever as a pet, a secret from innocuous parishioners, visitors from all walks of life, and you’d be satisfied as long as he used you from time to time. Fed you.

“Oh, that’s undignified.” He smiles, turns the page and hopes he can pick up without the aid of the passage his mind simply refused to retain.

You get on all fours and start to crawl over to him. You tug on the leg of his jeans, utterly debased.

“You’re insatiable, you know that?” his tongue flicks and flutters around the word in a musical way that you know you could find better uses for. You nod. His voice. He could guide you anywhere with it. To make things worse, he imitates you. The facsimile of your lust in his voice is enough to make you jump him. “‘Father, I can't focus on my book....Father, please fuck me with your fingers, I can't without it, I need it...I told you pack things to stay because I imagined I’d be enjoying some downtime other than between my sheets.'"

You bite your lip, the adoring way you look up at him unfairly reminiscent of Biblical portraiture, the Madonna (too ineffably ironic), Saint Lucia, devout, suppliant little succubi. Paul’s heart breaks a little, and his cock twitches with interest, which he endeavors to suppress. 

“What’s that look for, child?” He plays up the religious bent of your dynamic, something that presses inexpressibly sinful and delicious buttons in your dirty mind. 

"I do need you."

You pout. Your words with Paul repeating them was enough to rev your proverbial engine. You shift just the littlest bit, yet the friction of the floor underneath you is enough to tease out a whimper. Not totally on purpose, but not totally by accident. John chuckles again. 

“Present tense?” He pretends to turn a page, but he’s not reading a damn thing now.

"I need you all the time you're not in me.” It’s filthy, but it feels true in these moments when all the thoughts are leaving your head empty. 

He smiles one of his private smiles. His eyelids crinkle as he reaches up to scratch his cheek. "Let's not be pornographic, huh?"

"I wanna fuck again..."

"What else is new?"

"You've ruined me." He looks at you then like you’re something to eat. The book is shut and put down. You have your beloved hot priest’s attention. His eyes ask, smoldering, what will you do now you have it?

“You have my boot. Or aren’t you smart enough to get yourself off.” His tone shifts and a shadowy, serious dominance settles in his countenance. Every behavior, every quirk of his expression, curve of his smile, owns and owns you. He may plead and beg to bury his head between your thighs from time to time, on one occasion he may have shown up at your door, his satchel a deceptive front for rope and ribbon, which you were to restrain and blindfold him with. Life’s too short for dynamics that don’t shift and change like the tides. But in this moment, this energy, you are his. And he intends to impress that upon you.

You gape at him just a moment, heady lust clouding your already addled brain. Then slowly, carefully, you adjust your position, grab the upper part of Paul’s calf, and hoist your lower body up onto his shoe, your pelvic bone bumping his shin. Any hesitations or embarrassment that linger in you drown in the deeper, sweeter excitement of feeling some real friction as you roll your hips. Oh. God.

This might be the senseless, reckless need talking, but fuck. Just the sensation of the toe of his shoe right between your thighs, exactly where you need it, makes you feel a little bit crazy. You look up at him in awe, and thank God he’s not picked up his book again but instead is sitting comfortably, his gaze dropped low to watch you, his groin thrusting the tiniest bit forward at nothing, too much nothing. He groans, and you chase your pleasure like a thing possessed.

Words slip out of your mouth without a shred of logic behind them, and Paul tells you to repeat yourself. He bites his bottom lip as he watches you. “Hello? Still a brain in there?"

“I said you make me so sensitive,” you mumble, finding a new groove in the contour of his shoe, where it meets his ankle, and leaning on his knee, shaking, groping for his thighs, all involuntarily. Your dripping, dripping on his shoe, and the thought of how uncivilized that is makes Paul bite his fist.

"Uh huh, so it's all my fault, then."

"Yes..."

"Yes, 'what'?"

"Yes it's all your fault, Father."

“It’s my fault you’re going to cum on my shoe?”

You whine again. Your soul’s leaving your body, want spreads through every inch of your body, intense and blinding, high, so high.

“C’n I cum, please, can I cum?” You pant, feeling his hands wrap around yours, warm and loving. 

“Look at me, pet.” He orders. You obey. His irises envelop you. You steady yours on them, trying to get a grip, breath filling your belly and leaving your parted lips in rapid gasps. “No.”

Your brows shoot up in surprise. Disappointment isn’t the word for it, desire lets itself out as a sound. You slow down, somewhere in a high place you hear him say:

“Stop grinding, slutty thing. Your Father told you ‘no.’”

You sink against him, laying your head on one of his thighs. He kisses the top of your head, and murmurs, “Good girl. Good girl, good.”

Fireworks are setting off under your skin, your thighs are trembling, every bit of you is sticky. “That wasn’t easy, I bet.” He says, voice condescending and sweet, but every bit as needy as you are. You make another noise in response. 

“I’m not done with you, you know,” he takes your chin into one of his hands, lifts your head. He kisses you again, with a fierceness that just sharpens your feeling. “I’m not even close to done with you.” He rests his in your neck, kisses you once, twice, up your jaw, on your cheeks, the ear he can reach. He bites your earlobe and almost hisses, “Me. You. Bed. Now.”

[Pt. 2 Out Now!! Linked Here :)]

[theredofoctober]

Midnight Mass DARK AU Fic— GOD HAS MANY HANDS

Cross posted from AO3

Pairing: Dark!Father Paul Hill x OC

Synopsis: A nun moves to Crockett Island for mysterious reasons. Father Paul succumbs to new and wicked whims

TW/CW: non con, religious trauma, blood

Father Paul is a darker, somewhat OOC version of himself, though as close to Hamish's portrayal as I could make him in those parameters

Read beneath the cut

-

The nun had been avoiding Father Paul Hill since she'd first arrived from the mainland, sequestered, a cloister of one, in a cottage at the furthest edge of Crockett Island.

How she loved that house, in its cultivated solitude. Sometimes, when the nun played hymns on the piano over the draughts that jimmied the windows at night, she imagined herself the sole living person in existence, a single pulse—a single breath—in the dark.

But it wasn't enough; her thoughts were always with her, constant tenants that had followed her for thirty miles across open water, and would follow her under the earth, in time. As a good Catholic, the nun was meant to believe in the washing away of one's sins by God's will, that to repent was to be reborn.

Yet she had repented, and it only felt like running away.

The nun left her new home very little, only to collect her scant groceries from the single store, or as deliveries from the mainland, at the port. Still she hadn't entered the church, although it—the Lord's voice—called to her often, its song undulating through her in a constant wave. Yet the thought of the many eyes and whispering mouths attending each sermon repelled her with a strength she'd felt only at the precipice of night terrors— no, she couldn't go there. Not yet.

And no matter: the nun had her own fashions of private worship, leftovers from the convent of St. Aurelia. She could worship in her home, for now, and remain devout.

Father Paul, the priest on the island, did not seem to agree. Several times the nun had bumped into him whilst running errands, a surprisingly youthful figure in blue jeans and tousled hair, ignorant, it seemed, of his own dark good looks. He'd struck her as both quaintly awkward and charismatic, an artful combination that had likely won over the congregation as much as outward appearances.

The man seemed to spring up from grassy hillocks and rugged shoreline like a Shakespearian ghost, ever-ready with a warm greeting and, inevitably, a gentle enquiry as to when the nun would be attending mass. Did he know that she was coming, or was it mere chance that brought them together, again and again? God's will, Father Paul would likely declare, but the nun was less certain of that.

She'd noticed a particular darkness in the priest's eyes, a furtive stirring of old, untended pain, and new.

The priest had suffered in his life; that, or he was hiding something. The nun had no interest in exposing herself to such volatility, intriguing a man though life's ills had forged. She'd vowed to engage nothing and no-one that might disrupt her peace, and thus she'd nodded her way through every interaction, eyes lowered, thrumming desperately for some gap in the conversation to take her leave.

After that came the phonecalls. Most, after the first, went unanswered; the nun got into the habit of disconnecting the line when she began her day's work—the editing of religious texts for publication—and considered having the telephone uninstalled altogether when she was disturbed in the evening, as well.

It was a blessing that the nun rarely dreamed, for she was sure that the priest would find his way there, too, as he had her daily ruminations.

Thought after thought came in their torrents, all of Father Paul, all of him. He coiled inside her as if with many fingers, many hands opening every hole she had, making them his possessions. The image was sin and sickness, boiling at the perimeters of her mind, irrepressible. But the nun would repress it, she told herself, she would not fold under the fancied urgings of a man that didn't know her.

And he did not know her, no matter what he'd heard from the mouths of gossips, nor from enquiries with the tight-lipped secretaries of St. Aurelia, who would give not an inch, holding grimly to self-preserving discretion.

A few days after the priest's calls ceased there came a knock at the door, an imperious rap that seemed to invite itself in. Bev Keene, the unofficial church administrator, stood about the house for half an hour, wrinkling her nose at the living room decor, and smiling blandly over a cup of tea.

"I don't believe we've seen your face at Mass yet, Sister. Honestly, the whole flock has been expecting you. You don't want to disappoint them, do you? They're all so eager to welcome you to the congregation. Following God's own lessons, after all. 'The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin'— Psalm 146:9'. Words to think on."

There was a clammy sense of shame in the air around Beverly, a bitterness she herself seemed indifferent to. One couldn't stand beside her and not feel unclean, riddled with the squirming discomfort of a child pulled up before their teacher. The nun made quiet attempts to usher the woman from the house, which Bev coolly evaded.

"You do know Father Paul has been trying to flag you down? You'd do well to visit the man. His hands are very full at the moment and he's still so keen to make time for you!"

Too much time, the nun thought, but she felt so harassed that it occured to her that if she acquiesced just once this campaign of polite coercion might come to an end.

So it was that she left her house, one night, and made the long walk to the church, turning around on herself several times as her resolve wavered, then ultimately trudging on.

The air was pale with silence, unstirred but for the crunch of the nun's sensible shoes on unturned stones, her feathered breathing. How easily the walking put her out of breath; perhaps it was the incessant choir of nerves she felt, not the journey, that so tired her.

The wind tugged, insistent, at the nun's veil, and she heard, on that breeze, a strange, sharp cry from far off. A scream, or the shriek of an owl— neither were so savage as this noise, as it seemed to her, a yell of killing triumph.

The nun drew a cross against the dark. Likely it had been nothing, but she'd always feared the unpredictability of nature, the omen of it. There was a certain paganism to the Catholic faith that nurtured superstition, and with the nun's anxieties already at their static heights, her walk took on the feeling of folk horror.

At last the church rose into view, as modest a structure as expected for such a small community. Still the nun stopped in the middle of the grass, taken, again, by a great surge of disquiet. Lights were on in the church, which was not unusual; there were late services that dragged on, and the priest or Bev Keene would sometimes linger afterwards to clean, or rearrange the pews.

But the yellow windows were of such an arid, malevolent hue, like sulphur in a bell jar, that by the time the nun reached the church doors she was trembling, her shadow a cave drawing on the wall.

Slowly, she opened the doors, sighing at the familiar scents of dust and incense. Home was in the smell of this building, more so even than in her own precious space; the nun stepped into the church, between the rows, and closed her eyes a moment, taking comfort where she could before dread quenched the feeling again.

"Ah, Sister! I wasn't sure you'd come by."

The nun sprung to her left, hands seizing the top of nearest bench. Father Paul Hill was coming down the aisle towards her, his lined face breaking into a smile that would have disarmed the Devil himself with its warmth.

"I'd hoped, Sister— prayed, I, ah, I even prayed on it, just a little. I hope you don't mind; I know that can seem a little off-putting, unanticipated goodwill after hardship, but there it is. Does that sound conceited? Maybe it does, unintentionally, of course, but the road to Hell, you know—"

The sudden flow of low, mildly stammering chatter arrested the nun, it being so benign that she could do nothing but stand limply in its swell. There was no flitting away through the doors again now, not when those soft, dark eyes were clipped to her face, now the priest's hand was reaching out to envelop her own. Cold, so cold, that hand, and yet somehow feverish at once.

Was he sick, this Father Paul, or was he, too, felled by trepidation?

"Would you like some tea?" asked the priest. "Or coffee, although it is getting late. There's a kettle and some clean cups somewhere in the backroom, I believe. I always make one, for meetings like this. Something about a hot beverage calms the soul."

Helpless, the nun let herself be ushered to a pew at the front of the church, bound in a swaddle of talk. She knew that there would be purpose beneath the niceties, and sure enough when Father Paul at last sat beside her, drinks in hand, the nun felt as if the jaws of some unseen trap had closed barbed teeth around her.

"I get the feeling you're not one hundred percent comfortable in God's house yet," said the priest. "I understand that. I do. All people of strong faith, we're tested daily, for the bettering of our souls. 'Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him'— James 1:2. All the more reason to seek support, to seek support and guidance, from those who offer it with open arms."

It was nothing the nun hadn't heard before. She sipped her tea with a quiet agony as still the priest yammered on, his voice hypnotic in its depth and repetition.

"I know you must feel rejected, just now. Cast down, like Lucifer himself was, by his father, and likely hurt by the fall in more ways than one; just imagine, consumed though he was by wickedness, the Devil felt, as we all have, as we all do, the spurns and judgement of a loved one."

The priest reached out and touched the nun's arm lightly, making her splash tea over the rim of her cup in surprise.

"The convent of St. Aurelia. It was the only family you had, the community there, wasn't it? I understand your parents died when you were young, a tragic accident. My condolences. Though they know peace now it's never easy, a loss, losing, sometimes, the only people you cared to know. Gone, in a second, and suddenly you find yourself breaking bread with strangers. It's a strength, getting through it alone. I commend you for that."

The sheer compassion in the man's voice made the nun's eyes mist, but she merely blinked until Father Paul came sharply into view again. The nun stared down at his jeans, at a loose white thread she itched to pull free. Her eyes remained there as the priest talked, urging her towards the inescapable question.

"But then, there was another upheaval," he said. "You were asked to leave the convent, abruptly— suddenly, so unexpected. You'd lived there for so long, nearly ten years. It must feel like a betrayal— this, this departure, Eve out of Eden—"

A cool hand touched the nun's jaw, tipped her chin so that she was forced to gaze into the tunnelling black of Father Paul's stare. There was something ruthless in those eyes, the zeal of a man turned to madness by his own preaching. Yet soft, still, as salted butter, and the nun floated in that molten darkness.

"Tell me, Sister. Why were you asked to leave the convent of St. Aurelia?"

The nun broke free of the look, the encroaching hand, and the priest blinked, seeming, for a moment, embarrassed.

"This isn't confession, I know. I know that, but, uh, this opportunity, us meeting like this. It feels like time for truths—fears—to be addressed."

Attempting to rise, the nun shook her head, but it only took a meek gesture of Father Paul's hand for her to sink down again, her limbs hewn of iron weights. He looked at her with a sorrowed fascination, his tea going cold, barely touched.

Still he spoke in that low, lulling tone, still seemed so very amenable.

"I've watched you run away from me like a frightened lamb," said the priest. "Well, from everyone, but me, most of all. At first, I'll admit, I was a little hurt. Wondered what I'd done to scare you away when we'd barely spoken two words to each other. But I reflected on it, the puzzle of whatever was keeping a young woman like yourself—a woman of faith, with so much to give—in such isolation."

Father Paul set his cup down on the floor and folded his hands over his knees. Every motion, every gesture was compelling, as if conducting some strain of terrible music. The words were dangerous, he was, somehow. The nun wanted to stand up, make some clumsy excuse to leave, but she knew that she'd be drawn back, a helpless wave called in by the moon.

She didn't know why. All men were an obscurity to her, this one more than most.

"I thought about dropping in, at the cottage," said Father Paul. "But I didn't want to overwhelm you. Bev Keene did that on my behalf, I fear— sorry about that. Well-intentioned, but heavy-handed. I think she frightened you, her intensity—"

It was yours, the nun itched to say, your intensity, you wouldn't leave me alone—

But she couldn't open her mouth, could only listen as the priest burbled on.

"—Anyway, now you're here, I understand. God has allowed me that. Yes, God, I believe that, I really do. Your guilt, your shame is paralysing you, Sister. Shame that you were sent away from St. Aurelia's, so strong you came all the way to Crockett Island to hide from it. But you don't have to hide it, Sister, not with me."

Sunken into a cringing-self revulsion, the nun shifted back across the pew, putting space between herself and the priest. He inched towards her, his smile the pitying grimace of a doctor with a vicious syringe.

"You'll lose nothing by talking, if anything, you'll gain something. If you remember Psalm 32:5: 'I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.' Your silence, your turmoil. You could be rid of it today, uh, tonight, this very hour, if you wanted to be. It's in your hands, Sister. That freedom. To feel clean again."

Father Paul was close enough that the nun could taste his breath on her face, make out every crease and furrow in his skin. She sensed, under his relaxed confidence, a tension, as before a cat springs. She saw it in the way his head turned too sharply, in the incline of his body over hers.

The priest's eyes were gelid, sinkholes in a slate pit. Coldly, the nun understood that she was being given no choice, that she must speak, feed whatever hunger for contrition stirred in the man's heart, or else sate some other appetite. Or another, still—

Father Paul's hand closed over the nun's thigh, and this time it didn’t tremble away from her. There was something sure, animal, in his touch, the way his fingers latched over warm flesh through the habit, seeking her skin like a caiman crawls to water.

"Please, Father," the nun began, her voice a tremulous whisper.

She stammered over those two words until they guttered to ash.

"What was it, Sister?" asked the priest, his tone rough with a broken kindness. "What did you do at St. Aurelia's that you're so ashamed of?"

His hand slipped the nun's skirt up her thigh with a tender ceremony, and she cried out, a juddering crow-caw of anguish. Father Paul's head tilted slightly, and for a moment there was a luminescence to that stare, the milky white of things seen only in caverns, deep underground.

"I wish things could be different," said the Priest, mournfully. "The telling of secrets. The unburdening of the soul. It's never easy. I wish that it could be. But the nature of growth, Sister, it's painful. Growing pains, they hurt, they always do."

The skirt was up, over the nun's knee, and she wanted achingly to run, to strike the man that touched her with such mercy, but instead she let him push her back onto the pew. The nun gazed up at him, seized by a dread of the inevitable, of the thing she'd known would come when a scent had been caught of her great sin.

"Father," she whimpered, and again could say no more; her mouth was as dry as wafer, her voice drier still.

This time, the priest made no answer. His fingers brushed the bare skin of the nun's thigh, the place behind her knee where a pulse beat with the miserable violence of the Deus irae. The black-silver eyes were fixed there, almost lidless in their lack of blinking, and the nun realised that the priest had bent down, bent in the mode of praying over the exposed limb, his sharp nose almost touching her skin.

Gone, suddenly, was the quizzical arch of those dark brows, all bumbling affability extinguished. Fronds of black hair sprung down onto the priest's forehead, and as he lifted the nun's leg high to press his face to her pulsepoint she saw a creature unhinged, not a man at all, or not entirely.

Pain broke like a cheap mirror across the nun's thigh, and she tried to scream, tried, and failed. The sound was thieved from her lungs as though by the hand of a ghost, as was her strength as she tried to kick, and did no more than dislodge, from her foot, the plain little shoe.

It hit the floor with a resounding thud, like a closed book, but the nun did not hear it, her focus narrowed on the keen, ruby artery of suffering the priest plucked out of her thigh.

His other hand was at her hip, not tight enough to hurt, but enough to hold her to him as he drank from the wound he'd bitten open as though she were a flask in a desert. Blood ran down her leg in sumptuous plenty, soaking her underwear, redding the white.

The nun's body was so stiff with pain and terror that her back and neck ached with the tautness of it. She clutched the side of the pew and muttered faintly to an ear she was abruptly certain did not exist.

"Spirit of our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Most Holy Trinity, Immaculate Virgin Mary..."

"Yes," said Father Paul, his lips still touching the cut behind the pale knee. "If you won't confess, then pray, pray. There's absolution for us all, in one way or another."

His face was a slick of carmine, dripping its excess onto the nun's calf. As his stare met hers she saw, slowly, the intelligence come back to that primal hollow, something of humanity, although not much of it.

"We all sin, Sister, all of us, even I. God will forgive us, as he'll forgive us again, and again. This isn't the first time someone has touched you; now, at least, we'll be cleansed together, as one."

Was this how he justified his monstrous want, a forgivable sin? Or else the stepping stone to a greater good, the regeneration of a soul? He was lying to himself, as the nun had, in taking flight from her past; no wonder there were holes in her wings.

The priest crawled up her trembling body, shushed her, murmured nothings of consolation as his bloodied hands pushed the useless feather of her underwear aside, as he laid his face alongside hers, anointing her with cloying scarlet.

"I won't judge you, Sister," he said, "if you find pleasure in this. It's normal, in fact, quite normal, the exhilaration of meeting the Lord with the truth bared—"

"Please, God, help me," said the nun, and the priest's irises shifted with that bestial madness, the sheen of lust and religion and killing made one in those terrible eyes.

He kissed her mouth as his fingers breeched her tightness, chaste, at first, then with the passion of a hunter in the night, the covenant of the unholy. His thumb danced her clitoris with the skill of knowing, and the nun had enough presence of mind to be surprised by that before her thoughts were dashed to cinders.

"They tried to cleanse you of this need, in St Aurelia's, didn't they, Sister?" asked Father Paul. "Tried, and failed with the futility of man to erase the very need of man to trespass. I saw it in your eyes: you're young, and on fire with it. I'll burn, with you, a while."

The nun lay under him like a saint carved into marble, as though his touch didn't move her at all. Presently the fingers left, and as fabric rustled another hardness, another piercing thing struck deep, the nail in Christ's palm, the suffering of Job—

"God," she screamed out, and there was so much love in Father Paul's eyes as he moved upon her that she could see scarcely believe that he was within, his cock the spear in the side of Christ, tearing the red scraps of her faith asunder.

It seemed to last the length of three great days, each thrust a thundering violence. Yet still the priest muttered his prayers and maddened sweetness, still kissed her brow with an angel's pure lips as she suffered beneath him. He wanted to bite her again, she felt it; he was starved of that which he had taken.

But it was as if he didn't dare, as if this carnality was the closest he could allow himself to taking such communion again.

"God, forgive us our sins," breathed the priest, against the nun's ruined veil, its wimple crushed and smeared with garnet death. "That we might begin again tomorrow anew. Amen."

He stilled, arcing away from the nun, his groans deep and low. She wished to feel nothing, only the agonies of unhappiness, but even in this God had no mercy; as the hated organ pulsed within there was an answering ripple through her own flesh, the spasms of a joy thrust upon her.

They lay together, a moment, clinging, the devout before some terrible miracle. Then, slowly, the priest gathered himself upright, looked at the blood on his hands and upon the woman. Abashed, he helped her sit; she didn't stop him, allowed him to smooth down her habit, give back the fallen shoe.

"I— I apologise, Sister," said Father Paul, in tones of genuine regret. "I seem to have forgotten myself. God moves me in strange ways, as of late, and I don't dare question His might and wisdom. I'd advise you against that, too. Questioning, I mean. He placed you here for a reason, I feel that completely."

Dully, the nun let him speak, the impossibility of answering a colossus between them.

"It's a pity you feel this way," the priest murmured. "I'd hoped to salvage your trust in God's plan, but I see that will take time. That's okay. We've got plenty of that, on Crockett Island."

He helped the nun to her feet, both of them unsteady in the waning crisis of frenzy. There was a lunacy in the moment, how a kind of performance fell into place between them, a play of being decent and ordinary people.

"Come to the rec center, if there's anything else you need to work through," said the priest. "I'm thinking of offering counselling there, in the evenings. Might, ah, could do you some good."

The nun beheld him with an abstract, distant terror, thinking—a sin, another sin—that she would rather carve out her own throat than be alone with this man once more. But rather than say so she only nodded, a coward's sort of kneeling.

"Yes, Father," she whispered, and stumbled out of the church, down to the beach.

She wanted to keep walking, into the ocean, under the cleansing black of the waves. But again the nun failed her resolve, and tottered on, a broken seabird trailing the shoreline, until the lonely cottage emerged in the distance.

[purplelupins]