#mass-convergence | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

satoruhour · 1 year

Note

need reader to have a confession with priest!geto about how they feel guilty for touching themselves late alone at night and priest!geto helps them by just fucking their brains out as a “penance” for their sins.

yes, i’m okay in the head btw! (lie)

AU REVOIR, O HEAVEN !

wc: 12.2k

warnings: DARK CONTENT, SLOW BUILDUP, CORRUPTION, priest!geto, fem!reader, age gap (reader is in early 20s, geto in late 20s), long descriptive fic that goes in depth of christian lore, lots and lots of christian references / metaphors / analogies, comparison to Satan’s banishment and fall from heaven, religious themes used in inappropriate ways, questions of religion and life, multiple scenes of f! and m! masturbation, fingering, clit stimulation, virginity loss, both f! and m! receiving oral, cumshot, praise, degradation, spitting, sex in a religious place, p -> v sex, unprotected sex, creampie / breeding kink, multiple rounds, n*sfw under the cut

for a small town like yours, it was a no-brainer that everyone knew everyone; and everyone’s drama as well. from the baker’s daughter being a whore to the mayor of the town being sacked for purposes that have since been twisted by word of mouth. that was another thing: word got around fast, and it was particularly suffocating in a conservative town such as yours. people were not outright about the obvious choices they favoured, but there was the older generation who were not shy to turn down progressive ideas.

because of that, the previous priest was kicked out because of the misuse of funds from mass collection and offertory. it was one thing to see a bunch of notes missing from the sack and the money counter but it was another thing to see that money going into funding a new strip club that was opening in the next town over.

it was simply unheard of, and the parishioners basically gave him a free ride to that very strip club by excommunicating him from his own church. it was unbecoming of a priest, especially in such a small congregation that everyone made sure the new priest to transfer here was a God-honouring one.

you hope he was. you’ve always felt the obligated need to serve your god and your parents. always the good girl, following the Ten Commandments, saving yourself for marriage. it was the natural order of a christian, and you could only hope that you’d get even a fraction of the eternal life they preach about in mass. but lately you’ve been having some . . thoughts, and you pray that this new priest could help you immensely, even if you had to do a hundred Hail Mary’s at the pews.

it was peculiar, the first time it occurred to you. the area where your body separates into two and forms two legs — the centre of it all, the middle where Eve had it covered in statues and paintings with a leaf, the middle where you had only learned of it in anatomical drawings. you knew what the vagina, cervix and the ovaries were, but seeing the convergence of pink and maroon between your legs confused you, even scared you.

and the next was when you’d had a guy come up to you whilst doing up your university application, saying something along the lines of how cute you were, would you like to grab a drink some time? and you were left dumbfounded and unable to answer. you let your eyes travel over his features, of the exposed arms of his button up shirt and the thickness of his forearms, you let your eyes skim over his plump thighs before you’re asked “are you okay?”

“n . . no sorry, i already have a boyfriend.” you lie through your teeth and all the guy does is sigh before walking away — but now you’re left with a bigger problem . . why was the thing between your legs throbbing? you swear you can feel your panties getting wet as well, but you aren’t quite sure why.

that night you’re lying in bed with a lewd website shining right in your face, as you’ve laid here for about two hours already, going through in your head whether you really wanted to do this. your hands had been clean, untainted from the moment you were born, but you imagine going to university and knowing not a thing about sex and that makes your whole body burn in embarrassment.

you chicken out and fall asleep.

“honey! come down here, i want you to meet someone.” your mother calls out to you, running about like she usually does. she’s always overworking — caring for the newborn, cooking the meals, cleaning the place. why don’t you ask dad to help sometimes? / nonsense! he works so hard and deserves a break! i don’t mind. / but he just lazes around at home after work . .

you’re pleasantly surprised to find a long-haired man at your front door, clad in a thick and loose turtleneck sweater with a gentle smile on his face. that uncomfortable feeling returns to your core and you land a hand to your stomach to calm the churning that’s happening.

“hello, and you are?”

you’d never think you would see one of God’s angels on earth in actual flesh in front of you. you’re convinced God is looking over you and you think you might see heaven when that silky voice repeats himself again.

“hi, kind miss, are you alright?”

“h . . huh? oh! yeah, uhm— who are you?”

your mother smacks you on your shoulder and sidles up to your side, holding onto your arm a little tightly that it hurts just a bit.

“don’t be rude!” she whisper-shouts to you, “this is geto suguru, and—”

“and i’m the new priest for the church.”

that catches you off-guard. he’s the new priest that was just transferred over? he looks anything but a holy man of God, what with his long hair and gauges in his ears; if you didn’t know any better you would think he was the one paying for the strip club instead. he seems to read your mind.

“i know i look . . a bit of a delinquent, miss, but i promise you the word of God is what i strictly live by. i honour and praise him with all that i can.”

“ah, i’m sorry if you thought i thought that way, father.” you mumble, giving him an awkward smile that he misses because he’s too busy focusing on the way you say father. you’re prepared to close the door on him already; the pulsing sensation between your legs isn’t fading and your whole body feels like it burns in hell. you rub your thighs together for some sort of relief, nothing.

“that’s usually the response i get, so i thought i would preface it first.” a little laugh leaves geto’s lips and if it wasn’t for you holding on for dear life on the door, you definitely would’ve buckled under your knees. “no hard feelings.”

“he’s a charmer, ain’t he?” there’s another sheepish laugh from the pastor at that. “told me he’s been going around giving cakes to all the people as a way to thank them for letting him take over the church.” your heart melts at that — he looked so hot and had a heart of gold, too?

“what cake did you get us, father?” you blurt out and you have no time to take it back, but the preacher doesn’t seem to mind. you also don’t seem to mind that barrier of authority that was established ever since he‘s introduced himself as the new priest of the church. it felt . . friendlier, less intimidating than the previous. it was probably mostly due to him not wearing his cassock or collar, though.

“chocolate.” that one word possibly ignited every nerve in you. the smooth lilt in his voice paired with the slight smirk. it was detrimental. you were going to hell, you were condemned to eternal damnation.

“how’d you know i liked chocolate?”

he shrugs, “lucky guess.” wrong.

he had come around the day before already, but you were too distracted with work and pressured with a deadline that music drained out everything else — one look at your side profile and the hard-working first year university student was all it took for geto to return again today with another cake of your liking. oh! you’re such a sweet one for asking what flavour we like; frankly, my dear boy, my husband and i don’t really eat cake but her . . loves it for some reason. i wonder where she gets the sweet tooth from, honestly.

geto could only thank his saviour that your mother had promised not to tell you he already came around yesterday. and it looks like she didn’t.

“i should get going, miss . .”

“(y/n).”

geto simply nods his head, resisting the urge to call your name pretty and only manages a decent call to your mother. “mrs (l/n), i’m heading off, thank you for having me. (y/n).”

you return his smile, hesitantly, inching the door close with immense difficulty — you wanted to see him walk away with that imposing height of his, of the proper gait he carried himself with and the politeness in which he greets people of the town.

that night you locked yourself in your room, muttering out some dumb excuse of having to study for a test when in reality you were more interested in the feeling between your legs. it both excited and scared you when you first find a comfortable position on your bed, stalling for a good half ’n hour before the clinking cutlery of dinner happening downstairs had brought you to your senses. there were countless articles open in your safari tab, none of which helped your growing dilemma — a tear in the Red Sea between the sin of pleasure and the liberation of acting on it. you felt like Moses, treading in the centre, on the fence.

one last text made you yelp out loud.

[8:03 pm, read]: R u coming down 4 dinner?

it was your mother, as if she knew what was happening behind doors.

[8:03 pm, delivered]: nope, sorry mummy. need to study for this test, its important !

[8:05 pm, read]: Alright, alright. I left out a serving of what we cooked tonite. Heat up if u need to with the microwave O.K.? Don’t sleep so late!

you simply favourited her message, losing all motivation from before; until your mind crosses over dinner and goes straight to that chocolate cake, and then to the person who had brought it.

“Farewell happy fields / Where joy forever dwells: Hail, horrors, hail.”

“geto . . geto suguru.” the name feels foreign. it does sound like a countryside name but it felt like he had come from the city instead. “geto . .” you sigh, letting your hands tremble and move along your body. they brush over your chest, over your nipples and you recoil a little from the strange feeling. they harden under your touch as you continue to repeat his name.

each murmur of his name is a step farther from God, dipping your toes into the waters of hell as your fingers travel lower, lower, lower. you press a finger against your clit unknowingly, and you let out a loud moan; you immediately slap a hand over your mouth.

but the pleasure’s too much, and so you try again. one hand goes back to your nipples, squeezing your tits and playing with them while your fingers rub pathetic circles along your core.

“su . .” you gulp. “geto—”

you pant softly to yourself as you continue to rub your clit, messy, inexperienced circles in whatever shape or form. as long as it felt good to you, you were doing it. you made sure to keep your moans in as your hips bucked into your hands, back arching off the bed in needy movements. your hands were getting tired, clutching at the bedsheets.

long hair, built physique, crucifix on his neck. funny, you never noticed that before, but now you imagine it clearly, dangling over your face. you’re imagining geto fucking you, thrusting his cock into you as he groans out your name.

you’re at the end of your tether, feeling the deep plunge of your body in Satan’s lair the same time you cum for the first time in your life and your body shakes so violently. you flail around on your bed, bite into your shirt, anything to keep you quiet from the immense orgasm you had just felt. your pussy clenches around nothing and your hand aches so much it might fall off, but it just feel so damn good that you only have a minute’s rest before you’re rubbing at your clit again.

scooping up a little of your cum, you marvel at the clear liquid, sucking on your finger to try the thing that’s always drenched your panties. and soon you’re conjuring the image of the long-haired priest yet again, never really studying for that test you made up or even eating dinner — all you do is rest and come again, each time more wrecked than the last time.

you dreaded going to church the next morning.

it had slipped your mind that service was to continue once geto has gotten settled down in the rectory, a small outhouse at the back of the church that had been revamped. you’re not sure on how father geto was able to get it done up so fast but, you’re not one to question.

with the short walk to church, you regret not eating the night before, groaning softly at the discomfort of your growling stomach. what you were more worried of though, was what would happen to you once you stepped foot in the church. was your body going to go up in flames? were you going to get ridiculed by the townspeople? were you going to get called out by father geto in front of everyone?

“what’s gotten you so worked up?” your father was walking behind and smoking, as always, not giving a shit about your mother and the newborn.

“nothing . . just, wondering if i got everything in my head for my test.” your mother coos, and your baby brother in the carrier thinks it’s because of him. he babbles into your mom’s shirt, giggling.

“you’ll do fine, honey,” the reassurance worried you only more. you were lying outright — you had no test, you weren’t even studying, you were busy—!

“i raised a smart girl, didn’t i?” you can only manage a smile, reaching the church within minutes. taking the chance to mutter a short prayer and a plea, you take a deep breath and that light from above Lucifer’s kingdom seem to call out to you again.

stepping into the simple but cozy church, you dip your hands in holy water. Father, Son, Holy Spirit along your forehead, chest and shoulders before you trail behind your mother, suggesting places for you to sit at the back. she only waved your hand away, pointing towards the front. we always sit at the front! why the sudden change? / nothing . . maybe thought we could switch it up a little.

the mass starts after a few minutes of waiting, and you have the luxury of wallowing in your self-pity and guilt for those few minutes, trying to get the very filthy imagery of father geto above you, father geto between your legs, father geto himself out of your head. you fail, it’s only amplified when the bell rings and the congregation stands up.

everyone waits in anticipation for the new priest in this small town, hoping he won’t disappoint them like the last one. but they already seem to be in good spirits as he makes the entrance down the very short church. two altar boys follow behind him in the procession, accompanied by an organist and a duo of choir singers, straining to have their voice heard over the loud instrument. he’s already made some friends, nodding to the excited kid who whispers and the shy girl who waves her hands at him. but while everyone feels anticipation in hopes of a good sermon, dread is only making your legs feel like lead, you feel lightheaded, dizzy even.

because whatever you had imagined last night was him in his sweater get-up, and it just now sinks in what a disgusting thing you were doing as you watch the rich purple of his chasuble sway alongside his stole — the very image of him in his priest robes (in Lent season too, not to mention) — meant to deter you from more thoughts, only fed your desires.

geto suguru made being a pastor look so natural, and attractive, that it was almost criminal.

“good morning, brothers and sisters, how are we all doing this morning?” there’s a few murmurs around, but geto doesn’t falter, instead pressing on with his very convincing, beautiful speech; as does he with the rest of the mass. he conducts himself with as much professionalism as he can, handling the Eucharist with proper hands, giving a sermon whilst giving you too many eyes, distributing Holy Communion with a gentle, accepting smile; your skin burnt when he handed you the body of Christ, a soft inaudible “amen” hanging off your lips.

father geto was all the talk after, some hanging around to catch a minute of geto’s time if they could and you were no different, purposely looping your arm through your mother’s and slowly down your pace.

“goin’ out for a smoke.” your father gruffly tells the three of you, two of which understands better. your newborn simply cuddles deeper into your mother’s breast, humming softly into the nap.

“’kay.” it was opportunistic, now, as your eyes flit around the place to find geto talking to two older ladies. he’s politely bent down to reach their heights better, chasuble now removed and simply in his alb, one patting his shoulder and the other giggling. you think you imagine it but his eyes dart over to you for a moment and then off to the other parishioners.

“how are you two lovely ladies doing?” you hear him before you see him and the voice startles you a little, jumping back from brushing your baby brother’s almost non-existent hair.

“fine.” it comes out kurt and abrupt and you burn when your mother nudges you like yesterday.

“think what she means is that we’re perfectly fine. how was your first mass?”

father geto looks around the church, recalls the altar boys, ingrains each church-goer into his head, “i hope the congregation likes me.”

“oh, nonsense! i’m sure they do,” your mother reassures. she was always good like that, putting others before her and making sure they see the best in themselves, “that was a very riveting sermon you delivered.”

“yeah—! yeah, i . . really enjoyed it, father geto.”

a small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth, “did you now?”

you nod, and he continues, “you enjoyed me telling you that sin was revolting?”

when he phrases it like that . . you swallow, “isn’t that what God’s whole schtick is?”

and that makes father geto laugh, because for such an innocent flower like you, you make it sound like you were forced to go to church and made to learn the basis of why God exists and now you just don’t know what to do with it. it’s common for people at their university age where they’re exposed to more views and mindsets, to question the religion you were born in and think about what it meant to be tied to a god you didn’t even really know existed, and when that happens, Christianity turns stagnant and boring.

“yes, pretty much, miss (y/n), but His schtick also involves forgiving anyone who has sinned against Him. after all, that’s what He died on the cross for.”

“y . . yeah, i know, father geto.”

you only realise now his purple chasuble matches his eyes, eyes that swirl with the colours of amethyst. they’re much brighter in the parish lighting, and they hold your stare much longer than yesterday. there’s the tugging feeling at your stomach again that goes right down to your centre and it throbs; your eyes flutter and blink to get you out of your head.

“good that you know . . of course, it’s not an invitation to sin. self-restraint and chastity still exists,” you hate how he puts an emphasis on the latter word, because he could be referring to anything, “but we need not be worried for our lives. we only need to pray and repent in prayer, and God will have mercy on us.”

but well, if God didn’t want you to sin, how then can he explain creating such an attractive person? if God valued his followers’ self control, why did he have to plant such lewd, inappropriate thoughts of his preacher in your head?

father geto could probably see your dilemma with how hard he was staring at you, and he only makes it worse by putting his larger hand on your left shoulder. it descends deeper to your upper arm and the skin there ignites—

“i hope you liked the chocolate cake.”

you manage a small smile, “haven’t had the chance to try it, sorry, father.”

“don’t apologise.” you forget your mother and baby brother is even beside you with how he talks to you. you’d love to be on his chest, hearing the deep rumbling of his voice or even have his hands be somewhere else but your arm. you don’t know how simply talking to you has got him doing everything in his power to restrain himself; not even a prayer from God could help.

“The mind is its own place, and in it self / Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.”

what you don’t know, either, that the hand on your shoulder was between his legs just last afternoon, trying so hard not to sneak under his cassock. he could barely keep his moans in, palming his bulge from above his robes at the mere thought of you. no touching means less sin, right? he comes to that pathetic conclusion easily, so all he does is bury himself in the outhouse after distributing his cakes, hips positioned over his pillow and he grinds.

the feeling for father geto was so archaic, been so long since he’s given up his life to God right after graduating university. all the carefree times that he’s experienced — drinking in dorms, going to parties, getting some nice quick fucks in between exams — were going to stop for good. but that doesn’t mean he stopped lusting.

lust. one of the seven deadly sins, a weak point for father geto’s journey as a pastor. it’s obvious now too that he hasn’t really left his older ways, bucking his hips into the fabric of his pillow. he thinks of you, your sweet little eyes and your cute outfit at home, he thinks of your face twisted into pleasure as he’s positioned between your legs.

father geto twitches, friction against the underside of his cock feeling so good after years and years of holding back — with a pretty face to think of, too. his hips ruts in short thrusts, desperate for that high and he chokes on a moan imagining your sweet voice begging to cum. and so does he, shooting such a large, hot load into his underwear that even his cassock is stained with his cum. but unlike you, he’s already thinking of his next round — if he’s doomed to die by lust, then might as well go all the way.

father geto spares a glance towards the door just to be safe before flipping over on his back, and pulls his robes above his lower half. the sight is dirty, underwear painted a darker colour and cum sticking to every part of the fabric. once he wraps a hand around his cock, geto is gone, pumping it so fast he might have gotten a burn along his length but it’s all rewarded by the second quick orgasm he reaches — spurting ribbons of cum all over his holy garments.

it’s why he didn’t have time to write a proper sermon for the morning mass. he was up all night, stroking himself — just, from the thought of you.

it was father geto’s turn to have uneven breaths as you asked if he was okay, hand on your shoulder shaking. but the visions of last night is overtaken quickly by his need to impress the other parishioners, and so he gives you a tense smile.

“enjoy the cake.” it sounded like an innuendo if you’ve ever heard one, but you mutter a soft thank you, before heading off back home with your family. that contact with your shoulder is all you can think of, giddy at the warmth of his hand and eyes.

“baby, could you open the door for me?” your mother calls out to you, hastily wiping her hands on her apron and abandoning the kitchen to tend to your crying baby brother.

“ok, mummy!” the doorbell’s been rung twice now, jogging a little to the door to prevent the person from waiting. you didn’t think to look through the peephole, a tight-knit (conservative) community made you trust anyone, opening the door to find father geto standing in front of you.

“o-oh. hi, father . .?”

he was dressed in his roman collar, a black shirt with a white strip around the neck and some black jeans. it wasn’t as casual as the first day, and it still held an ode to God even on a weekday.

“hi, (y/n).”

“ohhh! it’s father geto, come, come!” your mother bellows throughout the house, baby brother on her hip as she bounces him to get him to stop wailing. “are you hungry already?”

geto displays a meek smile, “a little, mrs (l/n), since you mentioned how big of a feast you were cooking.”

your mouth drops in recognition; was that why she was so preoccupied for the whole day? doing the maximum in the kitchen not just because it was for your father’s recent promotion at his job, but also for dinner with father geto.

“you’re having . . dinner with us.” it’s more of a statement to yourself than a question to the priest, but he still catches on and assists you by closing the door himself, and taking off his shoes. already, he looks part of the family, looking like a hard-working husband coming back from his job to you. instead, he’s answered the vocation of priesthood, and not matrimony.

“it looks like i am.” it’s such a sly comment, like he already knew the effect he had on everyone. this sucking up was just to get every church-goer to like him more, and it’s working.

geto is charming at the dinner table as he is at the parish, cracking jokes that make both your parents and you laugh, talking about his university life and telling a myriad of stories that he’s gone through.

“what did you major in in university, father?” it felt such a weird question, especially with an honorific attached to something that you were doing at the moment — it felt out of place that someone so close to your age was already pursuing a lifetime commitment of serving God.

“my studies focused mostly on philosophy and theology. i minored in linguistics.” there’s a chorus of ooh’s that echo throughout the table, cleaning up the last bit of food on his plate before he continued. “i’m currently going more in depth for latin, which is a stunning language, beyond those who say it’s dead and should stay dead.”

that only makes him hotter, and you cross your legs beside him, looking at him from the corner of your eye at you play with the last meatball on your plate. the sauce leaves a trail of red from the tomato, somehow mirroring the murder of your old self — or what you thought it was. it was more of a knife wound, a cowardly stab in the arm.

that dinner with father geto only deepened your sense of guilt.

it was the way the priest was quick to stand just as your mother does, offering to help with cleaning up the dinner table. even when she brushes him off, he insisted, answering for her when he only silently takes the plates to the back. all your mom does is shake her head with a smile, letting you help as well. your father just watches curiously, entertaining the baby with his canned alcohol.

“i’m embarrassed i can’t fight back against you well enough to stop ya from cleaning up at my own house,” your mother confesses, already having used her last breath to tell him to not help with the dishes as well. you scrub at a stain on geto’s plate over and over, a stubborn one at that until you finally are able to get it out. it still leaves a faint red glow, though.

“it’s nothing, really, mrs (l/n), i’m happy to help whenever.” father geto’s eyes rake over your figure as you clean alongside your mother, heel bouncing up and down; to non-existent music or in impatience he wasn’t sure.

she just takes the soapy plate from your hands with a laugh, “c’mon, it’s okay, my dear. go entertain father geto.”

it was the way his courtesy shined through when he doesn’t enter your room until he has gotten verbal confirmation from you, guiding him in with a uneasy hand as he looked around your quaint little space. it was filled with photos, some plants, tons of research papers and a messy table to match, but all he did was reassure you. you take note of his flowing hair and the laid back hairstyle he liked to don when it wasn’t for mass.

“how is university treating you?” you’re stuck on being completely honest and lying with every answer, but father geto has a face that makes it difficult to lie to.

“it’s . . alright, i guess,” you settle on your bed, crossing your legs and hoping he wouldn’t pick up any of your essays. thinking is manifesting, though, and his hands naturally go for the paper with the many red markings on the front page.

“Paradise Lost? by Milton?” ah. that paper. you shoot up from the sheets before he can read it, because frankly your thesis in that paper was weak and wasn’t well supported, but you still believed it deeply. you were just having a little bit of trouble straying from your reverence for God. you only manage to clutch the top of your paper, but geto is adamant on reading it, piqued by genuine curiosity.

“the retelling of Milton’s Paradise Lost humanises the experience of Satan’s (or Lucifer’s) fall from glory . .” he trails off, reading over your evidences and analysis. you feel like you’re being read like an open book, laid out bare for vultures to pick at and for God to enumerate your sins until you felt no shame.

with his head still tilted down, father geto has to look up through his lashes and bangs, seemingly making you cower more and more in your spot as the unsolicited advice for your essay dies down on his tongue. the size of his hands has you hypnotised, and he decides it’s against his own values to give feedback about a text he so childishly brushed off when he was in university, even if he had to read it to complete four years in the seminary. geto places a hand upon yours and the heat is dizzying; you can’t help but think if he was just normal person, instead, holding your hand like this.

it was the way he let you explain yourself a little better through your own words. it was a premature essay, anyway, made to test out your close reading and citation skills. but he found your interpretation of Milton’s poem to be much more insightful than he expected it to be — you think maybe, your understanding of the text grows the more you learn about your body, how you like to be pleasured; you feel like Lucifer.

“i . . don’t necessarily think you are born into evil. it’s multi-faceted and loaded, this question. God our Father would do anything but create evil willingly, it’s just unfortunate that the people that bring up their offspring contribute to the shaping of their identity and outcome.”

“then, how . .” your lips twist as you think of a way to word the question, “how would that justify evil existing? wouldn’t the fact that evil is developed somehow meant that God created evil in some shape or form, in the first place?”

father geto rushes to answer but—

“why did he have to create the serpent that tempted Eve in the first place? couldn’t he have just left them alone in Eden?”

“...there to dwell / In adamantine chains and penal fire / Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.”

you frown, not expecting the other to answer but instead just wallowing in your thoughts. you never thought the talk with father geto would turn into some philosophy lesson, but the more you chatted with him on the bed, the more the conversation seemed to steer that way.

your own faith wavers in the night, a quietness settling over the two of you like a cloak of stars. the mass of each star weighs heavily with your questions up in the air until you faintly hear his answer.

“i don’t . . know, miss (y/n).”

“ah! no no— sorry to dump everything on you, father geto,” you scratch the back of your head, “it was just passing thoughts. i’ve never thought to think of this before.”

it was morbid, it was macabre. it was like looking over and seeing a skeleton in your place instead of flesh and skin and yet each question after question ignites something in him that no one has excited before. he can already feel lust influencing the other six, pumping through his veins at a life void of God, void of religion, a free place to think of the omnipotence of a higher being that no one was sure really existed.

“it’s okay . . it’s natural to ask. it’s natural to inquire. God,” he nods like he was in a trance; the word feels weird on his tongue, “God would want this.”

that night you did anything but sin, clutching the essay between your hands and digging your knees into the floor with elbows on your bed until they ached and you prayed. you wished blessings on your family, you wished blessings on the parishioners, you wished blessings on father geto and you wished eternal damnation on yourself.

there’s a heavy pull on your heart when you go to sleep a few minutes after and the dream you have of your body turning to soot and burning with each feet into flames makes you crave salvation all the more — like all a bad dream, it will be fine as long as you pray, and pray, and pray.

but the flesh desires what the heart denies: the more you ‘hang’ with father geto (by God, he was perfectly okay with that word when you let it slip to your mother. he merely throws up a peace sign in a ‘cool’ way and then immediately cringes, but it makes you laugh), the more you find yourself attracted to his morals, to his ideals, to the natural way in which he exists. he could speak for hours on end, voice sounding like birdsong and a chilling breeze all at the same time.

his voice did wonders in your head, as well, coaxing you into betraying your own code; and you betray it easily. that phantasmic voice leaving you to remove your top and pinching your nipples as soft little moans leave your mouth. the imaginary sway of his crucifix above your face while you harshly abuse your clit and dip a finger into you for the first time. the feeling is so foreign and weird that you shamelessly think of the slight lilt of his voice helping you: “it’ll feel better soon, (y/n). c’mon, finger your pussy for father geto.”

father geto had a natural talent for talking and preaching. that downturn of tone like hitting a dead-end when he holds a point above your head (“but”) and then resolves it into perfect cadence like chords ending a phrase when he proposes a solution (“God will take care of everything”). he does it so much you think he’s rather convincing himself more than he’s convincing you, though.

“perhaps this parable that Jesus uses tells us rather to look within ourselves, to look within the vineyard that is us. the owner have done everything: kept the roots tied so it would not be trampled, making sure they get all the sunlight and water it needs, yet . .” he pauses a little, looking at the almost full parish now that he’s won over the hearts of your town. his eyes flit down to you at the second pew, shooting you a quick smile.

“and yet he yields sour grapes. we pray, we act civil and diplomatic, we are giving, but are you truly doing it for the glory of God? is that maybe why we only get the sour grapes — not satisfied with the ‘thank you’ after doing a favour or silence from God after praying daily?”

geto looks over the last bits of the scribbled sermon, a little more coherent than last week, but still done with thoughts of you. there’s multiple smudges of his words that he has to squint and stutter a bit, caused by the frantic cleaning of his cum upon the paper.

“we all . . naturally expect things back, but to be Christian, to be a follower of Christ, we would have to abandon all thoughts of that.” father geto’s mind wanders to last night as his eyes look for you again. “we would need to be generous, to be kind without needing anything in return.”

father geto integrates into the church easily, shown in how his sermons capture the hearts of many. albeit, they never really take in the true meanings of the preachings he gives, but it’s enough for geto if they nod and mutter amen like fools in mass; whatever they do out of it is out of his hands.

but along the many preachings he does, there is one subject he fears approaching: lust, the one thing that threatens the downfall of his vocation and yet he cannot get enough of it. each walk and meeting with you only heightens his desire, makes his cock throb beneath his robes. each sunday he wishes he could split his soul in half — one as the confessor and one as the confessing — and repent in the confessional box.

“today’s gospel from Mark, chapter 6 talks about lust, briefly.” there’s a shake in his voice, eyes now scrambling over the congregation to find you in a much more revealing top contrasting with the out-of-place cardigan you have on. he’s sure it was mrs (l/n) that had made you put that on before you left the house; the house where he’s memorised the placement of your shoe rack and how your door creaks when it’s opened too quickly. geto is so fucked.

geto clears his throat before continuing, seeing you adjust your body for a moment, “King Herod is tempted by his flesh when he sees one of Herodias’ daughters dancing, so much so that she tempts him to commit murder. a clear beheading, just from giving into her body, and when she asks of him, he delivers like a dog. this calls us to truly think of the desires that we possess. they need not be sexual,” soft whispers emerge, a taboo subject, “they can also be related to money, to power.”

“lust for more things turns into greed when we act on that initial lust,” geto is sweating by now. he pulls lightly on his collar when you press your arms together in retaliation and he has to look away from the way your tits perk up so perfectly.

you had to know what you were doing, surely. partially — you were feeling cold, but you stifle a smile when you realise how geto’s eyes linger a little longer on you, or rather your chest, before he coughs and continues,

“when we are driven so terribly by the feeling that we abandon all morals just to please this person, thing on earth is when we tread into dangerous territory. no earthly possession must make you feel this way,”

the irony settles in his bones after he says it and his dick twitches at the thought of having you under the podium right now, sticking his fat cock down your throat while you struggle to keep the gagging noises to a minimum.

“no matter . .” a gulp, “how rewarding the aftermath must be.”

father geto knows you both are braving the edge of God’s merry kingdom. it is just a matter of who falls first.

“your place is in the kingdom of God, meant to fulfil eternal life with Jesus and the Lord which is what we all should be keeping in mind and working towards, ignoring all the distractions that will soon fade and die off.”

geto coughs again in the mic and breaths shakily, finally tearing his eyes away from you before he concludes the sermon and eases into the Offertory and Eucharist. he buries himself so deep in the procession in order to get you out of his mind, and it’s shown in the haste in which he carries the mass. it feels like he rushes so much that even the day outside follows too, because evening seems to arrive earlier than usual.

the sun sets outside, illuminating the altar. it taunts you like reminding you of the beauty of your faith; it deepens the need developing in your core.

“body of Christ.” you can faintly hear it being repeated over and over at the front, just a few steps away from your turn and you wish you weren’t standing behind your dad’s hulking figure so you could actually prepare yourself for father geto. you’re greeted with his cascading hair tied up into a bun and the cup containing Jesus’ body, gold and shining. you see your stretched reflection before your eyes snap back to the pastor in front and you will your hands not to hail routine.

instead, you stick out your tongue for the father to put the communion on and you take in the little panic of his hands and the choked sentence of body of Christ. his eyes drift down to your pink tongue, to the small twitch it does when he places the host on it and he cannot wait for you to get out of his sight, lest he be overtaken by the sin he particularly preached about just minutes ago.

“any test to study for tonight, darling?” your mother asks after dinner, meaning to ask after seeing you be so fidgety like you needed to be somewhere.

“uh . . no, not exactly, but i do have something i need to do.”

“oh! what is it, sweetie?” she doesn’t read your expressions, you mannerisms, so you were safe from that, but you willed your voice to not break. your body is on fire, you needed to quell your needs, now.

“just— i promised father geto i would meet him later for a confession, since he’s so busy, he could only propose a late timing,” no, you didn’t. either way, you give a reason, explain yourself before she can speculate, works every time.

“oh, okay . .” she trails off, seemingly unaffected, “just don’t get home too late, alright, darling?”

you nod even though she’s too focused on the dishes, pressing a hand to her back in thanks and she carries on, carefree, while you sprint to your room. lock the door, get your phone out.

“ . . ings turns into greed when we act on that initial lust . .” the words recorded just hours ago leave the phone speakers on a low volume, already lighting a flame in your pussy when your hand brushes over the microphone and he stops at the same time, “when we are terribly dri . .”

you sigh loudly when your hand starts to make its way down to your centre, rubbing slightly to the sound of his voice. your clit is just begging to be touched, begging for your inexperienced hands flicking your nub in every which way. impatient, your hands dip into your cunt and your jaw drops open at the intrusion of your fingers, just as your eyes widen and your imagination has never worked as well as it does now.

you can see geto’s amethyst eyes boring into yours, you can see his hips fucking into yours and yet it doesn’t give you the same kick as you think it would — you’re fucking yourself with your fingers even faster, circles on your clit increasing in speed and messiness and you smear your juices all around.

“father— father geto—” it was pathetic, the way you moaned for a man of God, but the feeling of your cunt clenching around what you wished was his dick was too good, the coil in your stomach still feeling rather uncomfortable but welcoming and you’re unravelling with a silent scream soon, back arching off the sheets.

“s . . suguru, f-fuck,” the swear word feels weird on your lips, as with his first name, but the trembling of your virgin body is so delicious that you just keep rubbing and rubbing, taking so long to come down from your high as your pants get heavier and heavier. and then his face starts to fade off, eyes turning into lilac air and you’re glancing towards the crumpled essay on your bed with guilt festering in your chest.

“ . . mptations of the flesh are childish, are temporary. they lead you to do foolish things that have no place in the kingdom of God. we may repent and put it past us but the memories that our tainted bodies possess, they remember the sinful things that you did.” the recording of father geto dies out as with his powerful conclusion, speaking so loudly into the mic that it screeches with feedback, you remember. you don’t even know where the guilt builds up from, in your torso and your heart, despite questioning the faith you were in for all your life.

if God did not want us to sin, why did he create temptations and ask us to pray for forgiveness?

you roll over and remove your fingers with a small whine, taking up your phone and opening up the contact with father geto hesitantly. it was meant to be a strictly professional exchange like the conversations he’d had with many other parishioners: updates on the church, changes in mass timings, but your chat was filled with questions from you and answers from him. you didn’t dare ask him anything out of the faith.

[9:37 pm, delivered]: uhm. father geto? are you there?

oh god, it’s you. the you who on the second walk around the town exchanged numbers with him because he found your thoughts so intriguing.

[9:39 pm, read]: Yes, Miss (Y/N). What is it?

you take a deep breath. better to ask for that confession, you couldn’t risk your mother asking about it tomorrow.

[9:40 pm, delivered]: is it alright to have

[9:41 pm, delivered]: can i come over to the church, for a bit

father geto straights up in the rectory, getting closer to the socket where his phone was charging and hovers over the screen. his hands are clammy when typing a response and he manages it in about three minutes.

[9:44 pm, read]: Of course, my dear. The doors of the church are open for the congregation at any time.

bidding goodbye to your mother, you stay on the lit path to the church and you’re bathing in anticipation, too excited to see father geto that you bump into a dark shadow. almost resembling a hard wall, hands emerge from its sides to clutch at your biceps.

“miss (y/n), what is it? what has gotten you up so late at night?” if he was still in university, he would’ve laughed at how he asked that question. hundreds of texts of u up? that mimic the nature of the question right now.

“i was hoping . .” you ignore the tingly feeling of the way in which his hands leave goosebumps along your biceps and then to your forearms. finally, they clutch your hands between his, meant to be like a warm hug but instead is like fire, licking at your fingers and wrist like you’re at the stake. “i was hoping that i could, request you for a confession?”

the priest across you swallows with a nod, swiftly putting a hand across your back to lead you to the booth. you both could’ve done it perfectly fine in the pews, sitting across each other. “the confessional is where we will feel the strongest compulsion of Christ. come,” he answers your question before you can ask it, “take your place on the kneeler behind the curtains.”

father geto showers in the same sea of anticipation when he makes sure you’re okay before heading over to his side of the confessional. he’s imagined this scene over and over — you on the pew kneeler, breath warming the velvet curtains — he cannot help the bulge that forms.

the first words he speak behind the curtain shock you, voice sounding so close yet so muffled and distant.

“come, now, (y/n), make the Sign of the Cross with me.”

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

upon your head, chest and shoulders you do it, taking a deep breath before you start. “bless me, father, for i have sinned. it has been . . about five years since my last confession.”

geto nods, the soft carry of your voice in the late night having an effect on the priest. the hold he has on the crucifix of the rosary is so tight it makes an indent on his skin, the only thing on mortal flesh to keep him from falling.

“What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield.”

your thighs rub together, hot breath sending chills down your clutched hands and down your arm as you ponder over the things you’ve done — “i’ve . . lied to my mother at times, to my friends when they ask me where i’m from. i have stolen money for my own needs, n-not— that high of an amount but um . . still a fair amount.”

“what did you need to buy, sweetheart?”

the name surprises you, but you simply ignore it. “i wanted new clothes — was all the rave at uni when the girls wore miniskirts and little tops. unfortunately it didn’t suit me.”

geto swears under his breath when the image of you in such skimpy clothing infiltrate his thoughts. his curiosity overtakes him; overwhelmed with emotion, he never had the chance to see what you were wearing before he pulls back the curtains and hopes your eyes are closed and they are: pulled tight with quivering eyebrows. there, like a sinning Christian is you in a thin camisole, cleavage showing beneath your arms. he peers lower, gasps softly to himself when you’re wearing a skirt.

“father? father, what’s wrong?” you think you hear the swift swoosh and the rings of the miniature curtain clatter.

“n—nothing is wrong, miss (y/n). are there any other sins you want to confess?”

you swallow, “i . . i’ve wished misfortune on my father.”

not the sin he was hoping for but he wasn’t surprised; his head moves in understanding. he had seen your father — merely a ghost in the house and hardly contributing to fostering the family. it goes against what Mary and Joseph stands for as the Holy Family, but father geto has seen a lot of absent fathers and incompetency to truly be taken aback anymore.

“i’ve also . . i’m not sure whether to tell you this, father geto.”

your breaths were all you could hear in the silence of the church, an eerie quietness settling as if the critters and animals of the earth strived to listen to your ultimate sin, too. Beelzebub, Asmodeus, possibly even Lucifer himself clawed themselves up from hell to eavesdrop.

“of course you can, my dear.” the wind through the wooden confessional box sounds like the hisses of the three demons, like they have had holy water sprayed on them from the mere sounding of his voice; but they look hopefully for a server of Christ to fall exactly like they did.

“it’s, related to my body, father. i,” gulping, you continue with a prompt from the other, “i’ve had this growing need, like, one has when they’re hungry. they have the need to fill their stomachs. or— or a sudden pain you have to massage yourself through, like a cramp in the arm of sorts.”

“well . . is it your torso or your arm?”

“it’s . .” you spare a glance towards your centre under your very, very short skirt, the familiar pulsing of your clit turning more and more prominent. “it’s related to my pussy, father.”

you hear a choke from the other side, and then you realise your choice of words.

“ah— m-my bad! i meant my . . vagina, father geto.”

“no— no u-uhm, the previous term was fine. could you describe what you did? how far did you go so i c-can . . give you the appropriate penance?”

behind the curtains, geto have already started palming his bulge, massaging the ache in his length that still continues to grow and harden. the way you describe is so terribly innocent and unknowing, a deepening urge to corrupt you running through his veins.

“i played with um— my breasts, first. i pulled up my top and felt around my nipples, but i got impatient and . .” geto hangs on to every word of yours, shifting to get his robes out of the way. it was just like the first night: his underwear stained with so much pre-cum it’s probably changed the colour of the garment. he peels it away and the lack of restraint leaves him sighing softly while you ramble on—

“i tried playing with that . . thing between my legs.” you recall the quick google search from that first night, “i played with my clit, father.”

geto stifles a groan into his hand just as he starts to stroke himself softly. “y . . yeah, and?”

“i tried to um . . fit my finger in. it was uncomfortable, at first,” you cannot ignore the pull of your core; your hand shimmies past the clasped hands and down to your skirt. you have no panties to swipe to the side: you came here without any. your finger rubs gently at the throbbing bundle of nerves, a soft whine leaving your lips before you remember you’re in the midst of a confession.

“but i . . i got it into my pussy soon enough. and then i put in another finger.” there was a more audible grunt from the other side, the confessional weirdly heating up immensely as you follow your confession: two fingers easily glide in from just how wet you were.

“when?” there’s a strain in father geto’s voice when he asks it, maybe because he was trying so hard to keep quiet. his jaw is locked as he pumps his cock slowly because his tip is leaking so much that even a simple movement would give him away.

“w-wha—?”

“w-when did you first start . . touching your pussy, (y/n)?” hearing a priest say such a lewd word makes you clench around your fingers.

“after you came to deliver t-that chocolate cake . . father geto.”

“f-fuck—” geto squeezes his eyes shut and it’s like he’s a university student again losing his virginity for the first time by the hands of some random chick pumping him. the implied confession has him stroking faster; it was after that trip he made to your house, it was after seeing you stand at the door like a good little girl, it was because of him, right? right?

you snap back the curtains and your mouth waters at the scene: father geto hunching over the little window that separates the two of you and his head hung low; his cassock gathers around his hips and his cock— good Lord, his cock was so big, clutched tightly between his left hand. his tip was weeping, an angry red as it continued to push out globs of pre.

“f-father!” geto doesn’t seem to care, giving you a drunk and nonchalant glance as he continues to stroke his shaft. he knows it’s wrong, doing this in the house of the Lord but it feels so fucking good. “y-you—”

you’re at a loss for words, pointing to his exposed bottom, but even though you’re speaking out against him, you can’t help but follow his hand as it moves up and down like a spell. his eyes are simply pleading, hips bucking up and you would think he was a parishioner instead. shaking in the presence of God, in the presence of you—

you stick your hand past the squeezy window, drawing his interest and before you know it you’re blindly bumping into his erection. there, he silently grabs your hand, guiding it to his shaft. he uncomfortably leans down to look at your face, eyebrows still furrowed but your tongue stuck out and his dick twitches in your hand.

“s-shit, baby . .” geto swears under his breath, and again when you pull on his dick to the window. uncomfortably his body lightly slams against the partition, a soft thud coming from the booth as his head collides with the wood, “(y/n) . .”

he can’t see you, but he can hear you. “may i, father geto?”

you don’t wait for his answer, gauging mainly from the heavy breaths coming from above you. they really do need to change the confessional, too, because you can clearly hear every word he mumbles out from the holes in the partition.

“shiiit—” when you kitten lick his tip, collection the pre-cum that continues to leave his tip, and it feels better than his Rite of Ordination and when he finally got to host his first mass. it’s better than that prophetic dream he has of God calling him to serve Him and the churches in the city with church-goers of boring faces and predictable stories.

here was a rural place, a place where he never expected such a pretty girl to practice the Christian faith, only to falter in the presence of a pastor. he’s gotten such a cute little slut to corrupt. you start to bob your head slowly, unsure of what to do apart from putting his cock on your mouth. your teeth grazes his skin a little and he hisses.

“no teeth. suck in your cheeks,” he cannot see you but he wishes he can, and he knows you listen to his advice when he feels only the smooth glide of your mouth and he wishes it was your pussy that you fingered.

“going deeper, darling,” geto grunts when he pushes his cock past your mouth and into your throat, the sweet gag you do making him dig his forehead deeper into the uneven wooden partition. he can hear your struggling sounds, the muffled moans with his cock down your cavern. but he cannot go any longer without seeing you and reluctantly he pushes you off, still holding your hand and you seem to catch his drift soon enough.

you’re as eager as him, bouncing off the kneeler and leaving your side of the booth, and you’re opening the door to his. the reality of the situation fully sinks in, geto standing there with his cock dripping with your saliva and your camisole pulled down under your tits.

“oh . . baby,” geto coaxes you into him, under a little spell of his when you trail in a light as a feather. you don’t resist his hands pushing you down to your knees, and just like earlier, you’re sticking your tongue out and the priest looks at you from under hooded lids.

“did you touch yourself to me, little girl?” it comes out stronger than intended but you seem to like it, even when your answers are cut off by him slapping his tip on your tongue. it’s so heavy, his cock, and thick too that you can help but suckle on it when you get the opportunity.

“ever since that day, father geto.” you look drunk, swirling your tongue around the tip and continuing to talk, “i . . i imagine you above me and sometimes i dangle my crucifix thinkin’ it’s yours.”

a small laugh escapes the priest. “did you now?” it’s reminiscent of the time where you praise his sermon. his laugh is cut off as you continue to suck him off, hands still confused. he helps you by bringing your hands to the places you can’t reach and you follow like second nature. “dirty fucking slut, aren’t you?”

“i promise i didn’t know anything before this . . father.” you look up at him through your lashes, big doe eyes proving every last bit of your innocence. aht, partially. you did watch a video of this chick blowing her boyfriend, cumming with your own fingers in your throat, wishing it was geto’s cock in your mouth instead.

but having a real cock in your mouth? it was divine, better than the body of Christ in melting on your tongue. your ministrations speed up, the obscene noises of you gurgling reverberating in the wooden box late at night. it would be even worse at the altar where it would echo everywhere.

“y—yeah, baby, that’s it, that’s it . .” his eyes are shut tight, intoxicated on the way your warm mouth feels. you whine into his shaft, tears forming at the corners of your eyes from how deep he was in you.

“mmf— mmph!” your moans sends vibrations up his body, interrupted when geto thrusts his hips into your mouth suddenly and your nose meets with his pubes, eyes rolling back from the muskiness of his body. it smells like incense and sweat, filling your senses as he keeps you right up to his hilt.

“ohh . . fuckfuck fuucck—!” the father pulls you off to let you breathe, pleasantly surprised when you start pumping him violently, tongue stuck out again. there’s a hint of light from the outside that highlights the pinkness of your tongue and he’s never wanted to cum this badly before.

“i’m cumming— baby, baby, i’m g’nna c-cum—” there’s a long, drawn out whine from father geto upon feeling the warmth of your hands stroking his cock so obediently, resting his tip on your tongue where you’d willingly drink his cum like wine. geto shoots his load into your mouth and is the loudest he’s ever been; he doesn’t care who hears him, he doesn’t care if he gets transferred out tomorrow, all he wants to think about is you on your knees and your nipples hardened from confessing to him. he’d like to bet that your pussy was drooling too, hips bucking into the soft skin of your hands.

some of his cum gets onto your face and on your lips, and geto almost cums again when you use his tip to smear his seed around your face, sucking lightly on his tip.

“dirty girl . .” he pulls on your biceps to bring you up, and your lips meet instantaneously like you were meant to be separated for eternity, doomed only to meet for one day a year. it’s messy and sloppy, drool drips from your sides of your mouths as your lips merge together.

“was that your first kiss, baby?” father geto can tell by how you don‘t know how to follow his lead, teeth clashing and breathing uneven.

“am i that obvious?” you frown, feeling self-conscious, but geto is quick to reassure you.

“father geto’s going to teach you everything you need to know, alright?” he brings you in with a finger to your chin, hovers over your lips like a tease.

he teaches you everything you want to know and more, like how the front of the church looks like and how cold the marble of the altar feels against your back as he eats you out and the sensations are all too much for you. he teaches you that using God’s name in vain is alright when it comes to moaning out how good he makes you feel and how your penance is whatever he makes it out to be he teaches you how you can take not one, not two, but three fingers up your pussy.

they’re so much thicker than your own, one hand pushing on your shaking thighs to keep them open while his three fingers move in and out of you. you’re leaking so much, your virgin cunt dripping like holy water down the white marble and onto the matching marble floor.

he teaches you his first name and he makes sure you say it.

“su—suguru . . god, r-right there—” he latches his mouth onto your clit, suckling and flicking his tongue impatiently because he just wants to see you cum. your legs stretch out to knock over a candelabra and the clatter of the metal against the ground is enough to wake up a whole village but you. don’t. care.

your hips grind onto his tongue, feeling the borderline painful stretch of his thick fingers in you but they reach all the right spots that you can’t find it in you to care.

“you taste so good—” geto spits onto your cunt and goes back to sucking on your clit, “pussy’s so fuckin’ sweet, holy fuck.” your noises come out of you non-stop as you bury your hands in his hair, finally knowing what you sound like in an unrestrictive space under the apse.

father geto teaches you how to take a cock up your cute, tight pussy, not bothering for a condom when basically all of your clothes have been discarded throughout the night. it’s almost midnight and your mother have fallen asleep on the couch, unaware her sweet, sweet daughter is losing her virginity in the place she was baptised, where she got her first communion.

the first push into your drenched cunt is painful, mushroom tip stretching you out slightly as you clutch tightly onto his forearm, brows knitted together at the girth of his cock.

“been wanting . . to fuck this pussy so bad, baby,” geto grunts it out, obsessed with how his length slowly disappears into you. he can feel each ridge of your gummy walls, hugging him so snugly that there’s several moans that leave his lips, “have you been— thinking ’bout this as much as i h-have?”

your jaw stretches beyond your limit when he eases himself inch by inch into you, thanking the hells below that your vision was finally coming true. above you there’s that same crucifix, sterling silver with amethyst stones embedded into the design, you remember, catching the light of the lone spotlight above the both of you. there’s a similar glint in father geto’s purple eyes.

“all the time, father—” you moan out, pulling him by his necklace to your lips that are more experienced now, each minute that passes is one more atom of your body turning black from the fire that licks at you from below the altar. you kiss the lips of your parish priest, whimpering slightly when his hips buck and you feel the stretch more clearly now.

“is this what Isaac felt when Abraham tried to bind him for a sacrifice on Moriah? helpless, confused, betrayed?”

geto lets out a hum, sucking hickeys into your neck and you think it’s a million times better than questioning a God that never showed himself, who never really had the intentions of the people in mind, who created sin to watch the downfall of men while he enjoys his time in his kingdom.

if this was what was meant by losing yourself to your devils, you would gladly shake hands with Lucifer and hope the warmth of the fire in hell would be a hug warmer than any hug you’ve received by people of the Christian faith.

“well, baby, do you feel helpless?” thrust “confused,” thrust “and betrayed?” thrust

he punctures each word with a snap of his hips and the pain gives way to pleasure and soon he’s already lost in the comfort of your pussy, hips starting a pace easily that emphasises just how wet you are. the echoes of your weeping cunt and the lewd slapping of his balls into your ass is like the bell ringing during mass, loud, resonating, it shakes your whole body.

“mmfuck . . helpless, m-maybe,” you whine out, legs wrapping around his back, “confused, n-not— suguruuu, yesyesyes!”

you try again, “n-not really. betrayed . .”

you feel like a sacrifice, but it was willing, of a confession that has led to this lewd showing of just how much the temptations of the flesh were insanely undeniable. there’s a murmur of i don’t think i can last much longer into your ear, cock driving into your tight pussy so harshly you’re hoping the small altar doesn’t move.

“b-betrayed, i think—” you squeal when father geto angles his hips up and it kisses your cervix just nicely, sending multiple chills down your body. your moans penetrate the holy air, hair splayed out like a painting and geto knows this is better than any Eucharist he’s ever tasted.

you clench around his fat cock, and he twitches, switching to short, pathetic thrusts into your pussy and he cries out your name as he cums deep in you, giving you all of his seed deep in your womb. your breath catches in your throat at the feeling of your first load, the warmth already hooking you in and you pull so hard on his hair he has no choice but to follow your hand.

you let him handle you deep into the night, taking you off the altar and pushing you up against it, entering you again and you brace yourself against the marble.

“s-sorry, sweetheart, you were saying?” he also wants to apologise that he hadn’t made you cum just yet, but your pussy’s so fucking heavenly he just has to be in you again.

“i-i feel a little betrayed,“ you sag over the altar, back arching into his hold. father geto is fixated on the movement of your ass fucking back onto him, “that a priest would break his m-marriage to God for me.”

“i thought they were supposed to be men of God,” you barely manage to form sentences. geto’s laugh at that startles you, as with the hand grabbing a fistful of your hair and pulling. payback. you love it, however, a sweet Christian girl turned into a slut, and the last bits of the thread unravels when father geto reaches around to rub your clit.

“’m gonna— cum, suguru—” you whine out, body turning to mush with how hard he rams into your pussy. by now there’s a ring of white around the base of his cock, your juices slowly starting to coat it, too and Lucifer succeeds at sin yet again.

you cannot blame Eve when the serpent is as beautiful and cunning as geto suguru, nor can you blame her when his thick cock just reaches so deep into you, tip kissing your sweet spots and his hand impatiently drawing messy circles on your bundle of nerves.

“that just makes it the best though, right?” geto breathlessly says, “a holy man fucking a virgin raw in a holy place where prayers are said.” your legs are spreading further and further, his sweaty body engulfs yours, you’re dizzy, “you’re too tempting, sweet girl. tempting enough for me to want to abandon priesthood just so i can be buried in this pussy for fucking eternity.”

and you cum, head and heart going a hundred miles per hour as your body trembles in his hold. “there we go, little slut, thereee we go . .” you can feel the chill of the sterling silver into your back and his smile before he orgasms a second time into your waiting pussy, a second, heavy load let go into your pussy. it’s so warm and filling, and you already want more, more, more.

lust for more things turns into greed when we act on that initial lust.

“aw,” father geto coos at your fucked out face, flipping you around to give you a sloppy kiss and forcing himself to his knees just to watch his cum drip out of you, “does she want more?”

“always, father.” you answer with a drunken smile, putting a leg on his shoulder. again, your finger hooks around his crucifix, and you drag the priest down deeper into hell, somewhere father geto would‘ve always ended up.

somewhere where he would renounce his priesthood and worship something, and someone: you.

“Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.”

a/n: LOOOONG MAN WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS. also i put the author’s note at the bottom this time bc i wanted to format of the fic to look the best without my goofy words ruining it! hope you guys liked it :) / tagging @crysugu @omgeto @kazushawty @suguruplsr @hydrovillette @slttygeto @hyomagiri @jabamin

part two ✶

2K notes · View notes

minecraft-inspo · 26 days

Text

A couple of birds I modeled and textured for the Prehistoric Nature mod

Confuciusornis

Known from Yixian and the overlying Jiufotang Formation of China, this animal has been found in great abundance, numbering hundreds of specimens. Like many modern birds, Confuciusornis was likely sexually dimorphic, with distinct male and female forms. However, the exact nature of this dimorphism has long been controversial, with the big question being whether the tail streamers, known from only a fraction of preserved specimens, were present in both sexes. Fortunately, a 2024 study based on nearly 200 specimens found a statistically significant correlation between the presence of tail feathers, total body mass, and limb proportions, supporting the conclusion that the tailed form most likely represents the male sex. Also like modern birds, Confuciusornis completely lacked teeth, though this appears to have been a convergent innovation, as teeth were still present in several lineages closer to the Neoaves.

Enaliornis

Enaliornis is a genus of primitive Hesperornithiformes that lived from the Albian to Cenomanian in what was then the Tethys Sea. Despite being known from numerous individuals and three separate species, it is incredibly fragmentary, and any reconstruction is largely an exercise in speculation. It is unknown whether it was flightless like more derived Hesperornithiformes, as the forelimbs are not preserved. Like its later cousins, Enaliornis was a specialized foot-propelled diver, though it was likely still capable of upright terrestrial locomotion.

Check out the rest of our recent work on the Prehistoric Nature discord server!

#minecraft #paleontology #prehistoric nature #modded minecraft #blockbench #palaeoblr #confuciusornis #enaliornis

341 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years

Text

It was all downhill after the Cuecat

Sometime in 2001, I walked into a Radio Shack on San Francisco’s Market Street and asked for a Cuecat: a handheld barcode scanner that looked a bit like a cat and a bit like a sex toy. The clerk handed one over to me and I left, feeling a little giddy. I didn’t have to pay a cent.

The Cuecat was a good idea and a terrible idea. The good idea was to widely distribute barcode scanners to computer owners, along with software that could read and decode barcodes; the company’s marketing plan called for magazines and newspapers to print barcodes alongside ads and articles, so readers could scan them and be taken to the digital edition. To get the Cuecat into widespread use, the company raised millions in the capital markets, then mass-manufactured these things and gave them away for free at Radio Shacks around the country. Every Wired and Forbes subscriber got one in the mail!

That was the good idea (it’s basically a prototype for today’s QR-codes). The terrible idea was that this gadget would spy on you. Also, it would only work with special barcodes that had to be licensed from the manufacturer. Also, it would only work on Windows.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001017162623/http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2000/nf20000928_029.htm

But the manufacturer didn’t have the last word! Not at all. A couple of enterprising hardware hackers — Pierre-Philippe Coupard and Michael Rothwell — tore down a Cuecat, dumped its ROM, and produced their own driver for it — a surveillance-free driver that worked with any barcode. You could use it to scan the UPCs on your books or CDs or DVDs to create a catalog of your media; you could use it to scan UPCs on your groceries to make a shopping list. You could do any and every one of these things, because the Cuecat was yours.

Cuecat’s manufacturer, Digital Convergence, did not like this at all. They sent out legal demand letters and even shut down some of the repositories that were hosting alternative Cuecat firmware. They changed the license agreement that came with the Cuecat software CD to prohibit reverse-engineering.

http://www.cexx.org/cuecat.htm

It didn’t matter, both as a practical matter and as a matter of law. As a practical matter, the (ahem) cat was out of the bag: there were so many web-hosting companies back then, and people mirrored the code to so many of them, the company would have its hands full chasing them all down and intimidating them into removing the code.

Then there was the law: how could you impose license terms on a gift? How could someone be bound by license terms on a CD that they simply threw away without ever opening it, much less putting it in their computer?

https://slashdot.org/story/00/09/18/1129226/digital-convergence-changes-eula-and-gets-cracked

In the end, Cuecat folded and sold off its remaining inventory. The early 2000s were not a good time to be a tech company, much less a tech company whose business model required millions of people to meekly accept a bad bargain.

Back then, tech users didn’t feel any obligation to please tech companies’ shareholders: if they backed a stupid business, that was their problem, not ours. Venture capitalists were capitalists — if they wanted us give to them according to their need and take from them according to their ability, they should be venture communists.

Last August, philosopher and Centre for Technomoral Futures director Shannon Vallor tweeted, “The saddest thing for me about modern tech’s long spiral into user manipulation and surveillance is how it has just slowly killed off the joy that people like me used to feel about new tech. Every product Meta or Amazon announces makes the future seem bleaker and grayer.”

https://twitter.com/ShannonVallor/status/1559659655097376768

She went on: “I don’t think it’s just my nostalgia, is it? There’s no longer anything being promised to us by tech companies that we actually need or asked for. Just more monitoring, more nudging, more draining of our data, our time, our joy.”

https://twitter.com/ShannonVallor/status/1559663985821106177

Today on Tumblr, @wilwheaton responded: “[T]here is very much no longer a feeling of ‘How can this change/improve my life?’ and a constant dread of ‘How will this complicate things as I try to maintain privacy and sanity in a world that demands I have this thing to operate.’”

https://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/698603648058556416/cory-doctorow-if-you-see-this-and-have-thoughts

Wil finished with, “Cory Doctorow, if you see this and have thoughts, I would LOVE to hear them.”

I’ve got thoughts. I think this all comes back to the Cuecat.

When the Cuecat launched, it was a mixed bag. That’s generally true of technology — or, indeed, any product or service. No matter how many variations a corporation offers, they can never anticipate all the ways that you will want or need to use their technology. This is especially true for the users the company values the least — poor people, people in the global south, women, sex workers, etc.

That’s what makes the phrase “So easy your mom can use it” particularly awful “Moms” are the kinds of people whose priorities and difficulties are absent from the room when tech designers gather to plan their next product. The needs of “moms” are mostly met by mastering, configuring and adapting technology, because tech doesn’t work out of the box for them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/19/the-weakest-link/#moms-are-ninjas

(As an alternative, I advocate for “so easy your boss can use it,” because your boss gets to call up the IT department and shout, “I don’t care what it takes, just make it work!” Your boss can solve problems through raw exercise of authority, without recourse to ingenuity.)

Technology can’t be understood separately from technology users. This is the key insight in Donald Norman’s 2004 book Emotional Design, which argued that the ground state of all technology is broken, and the overarching task of tech users is to troubleshoot the things they use:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/29/banjo-nazis/#cuckoos-egg

Troubleshooting is both an art and a science: it requires both a methodical approach and creative leaps. The great crisis of troubleshooting is that the more frustrated and angry you are, the harder it is to be methodical or creative. Anger turns attention into a narrow tunnel of brittle movements and thinking.

In Emotional Design, Norman argues that technology should be beautiful and charming, because when you like a technology that has stopped working, you are able to troubleshoot it in an expansive, creative, way. Emotional Design was not merely remarkable for what it said, but for who said it.

Donald Norman, after all, was the author of the hugely influential 1998 classic The Design of Everyday Things, which counseled engineers and designers to put function over form — to design things that work well, even if that meant stripping away ornament and sidelining aesthetics.

https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/don-norman/the-design-of-everyday-things/9780465050659/

With Emotional Design, Norman argued that aesthetics were functional, because aesthetics primed users to fix the oversights and errors and blind spots of designers. It was a manifesto for competence and humility.

And yet, as digital technology has permeated deeper into our lives, it has grown less configurable, not more. Companies today succeed where Cuecat failed. Consolidation in the online world means that if you remove a link from one search engine and four social media sites, the material in question vanishes for 99% of internet users.

It’s even worse for apps: anyone who succeeds in removing an app from two app stores essentially banishes it from the world. One mobile platform uses technological and legal countermeasures to make it virtually impossible to sideload an app; the other one relies on strong-arm tactics and deceptive warnings to do so.

That means that when a modern Coupard and Rothwell decides to unfuck some piece of technology — to excise the surveillance and proprietary media requirements, leaving behind the welcome functionality — they can only do so with the sufferance of the manufacturer. If the manufacturer doesn’t like an add-on, mod, plug-in or overlay, they can use copyright takedowns, anticircumvention law, patent threats, trademark threats, cybersecurity law, contract law and other “IP” to simply banish the offending code:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Many of these laws carry dire penalties. For example, distributing a tool that bypasses an “access control” so that you can change the software on a gadget (say, to make your printer accept third-party ink) is a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA, punishable by a $500k fine and a 5-year prison sentence.

If Cuecat’s manufacturers had simply skinned their firmware with a thin scrim of DRM, they could have threatened Coupard and Rothwell with prison sentences. The developments in “IP” over the two decades since the Cuecat have conjured up a new body of de facto law that Jay Freeman calls “felony contempt of business model.”

Once we gave companies the power to literally criminalize the reconfiguration of their products, everything changed. In the Cuecat era, a corporate meeting to plan a product that acted against its users’ interests had to ask, “How will we sweeten the pot and/or obfuscate our code so that our users don’t remove the anti-features we’re planning to harm them with?”

But in a world of Felony Contempt of Business Model, that discussion changes to “Given that we can literally imprison anyone who helps our users get more out of this product, how can we punish users who are disloyal enough to simply quit our service or switch away from our product?”

That is, “how can we raise the switching costs of our products so that users who are angry at us keep using our products?” When Facebook was planning its photos product, they deliberately designed it to tempt users into making it the sole repository of their family photos, in order to hold those photos ransom to keep Facebook users from quitting for G+:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

Companies claim that their lock-in strategies are about protecting their users: “Move into our walled garden, for it is a fortress, whose battlements bristle with fearsome warriors who will defend you from the bandits who roam the countryside”:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

But this “feudal security” offers a terrible temptation to the lords of these fortresses, because once you are inside those walls, the fortress can easily be converted to a prison: these companies can abuse you with impunity, for so long as the cost of the abuse is less than the cost of the things you must give up when you leave.

The tale that companies block you from overriding their decisions is for your own good was always dubious, because companies simply can’t anticipate all the ways their products will fail you. No design team knows as much about your moment-to-moment struggles as you do.

But even where companies are sincere in their desire to be the most benevolent of dictators, the gun on the mantelpiece in Act I is destined to go off by Act III: eventually, the temptation to profit by hurting you will overpower whatever “corporate ethics” once stayed the hand of the techno-feudalist who rules over your fortress. Under feudal security, you are one lapse in corporate leadership from your protector turning into your tormentor.

When Apple launched the Ipad 12 years ago, I published an editorial entitled “Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either),” in which I predicted that app stores would inevitable be turned against users:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Today, Apple bans apps if they “use…a third-party service” unless they “are specifically permitted to do so under the service’s terms of use.” In other words, Apple specifically prohibits developers from offering tools that displease other companies’ shareholders, no matter whether this pleases Apple customers:

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#intellectual-property

Note that clause 5.2.2 of Apple’s developer agreement doesn’t say “You mustn’t violate a legally enforceable term of service.” It just says, “Thou shalt not violate a EULA.” EULAs are garbage-novellas of impenetrable legalese, larded with unenforceable and unconscionable terms.

Apple sometimes will displease other companies on your behalf. For example, it instituted a one-click anti-tracking setting for Ios that cost Facebook $10 billion in a matter of months:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-privacy-change-will-cost-10-billion-this-year.html

But Apple also has big plans to expand its margins by growing its own advertising network. When Apple customers choose ad-blockers that block Apple’s ads, will Apple permit it?

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/

The problem with app stores isn’t whether your computing experience is “curated” — that is, whether entities you trust can produce collections of software they vouch for. The problem is when you can’t choose someone else — when leaving a platform involves high switching costs, whether that’s having to replace hardware, buy new media, or say goodbye to your friends, customers, community or family.

When a company can leverage its claims to protecting you to protect itself from you — from choices you might make that ultimately undermine its shareholders interests, even if they protect your own interests — it would be pretty goddamned naive to expect it to do otherwise.

More and more of our tools are now digital tools, whether we’re talking about social media or cars, tractors or games consoles, toothbrushes or ovens:

https://www.hln.be/economie/gentse-foodboxleverancier-mealhero-failliet-klanten-weten-van-niets~a3139f52/

And more and more, those digital tools look more like apps than Cuecats, with companies leveraging “IP” to let them control who can compete with them — and how. Indeed, browsers are becoming more app-like, rather than the other way around.

Back in 2017, the W3C took the unprecedented step of publishing a DRM standard despite this standard not having anything like the consensus that is the norm for W3C publications, and the W3C rejected a proposal to protect people who reverse-engineered that standard to add accessibility features or correct privacy defects:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

And while we’re seeing remarkable progress on Right to Repair and other policies that allow the users of technology to override the choices of vendors, there’s another strong regulatory current that embraces companies’ ability to control their users, in the hopes that these big companies will police their users to prevent bad stuff, from controversial measures like filtering for copyright infringement to more widely supported ideas like blocking child sex abuse material (CSAM, AKA “child porn”).

There are two problems with this. First, if we tell companies they must control their users (that is, block them from running plugins, mods, skins, filters, etc) then we can’t tell them that they must not control their users. It comes down to whether you want to make Mark Zuckerberg better at his job, or whether you want to abolish the job of “Mark Zuckerberg.”

https://doctorow.medium.com/unspeakable-8c7bbd4974bc

Then there’s the other problem — the gun on the mantelpiece problem. If we give big companies the power to control their users, they will face enormous internal pressure to abuse that power. This isn’t a hypothetical risk: Facebook’s top executives stand accused of accepting bribes from Onlyfans in exchange for adding performers who left Onlyfans to a terrorist watchlist, which meant they couldn’t use other platforms:

https://gizmodo.com/clegg-meta-executives-identified-in-onlyfans-bribery-su-1849649270

I’m not a fan of terrorist watchlists, for obvious reasons. But letting Facebook manage the terrorist watchlist was clearly a mistake. But Facebook’s status as a “trusted reporter” grows directly out of Facebook’s good work on moderation. The lesson is the same as the one with Apple and the ads — just because the company sometimes acts in our interests, it doesn’t follow that we should always trust them to do so.

Back to Shannon Vallor’s question about the origins of “modern tech’s long spiral into user manipulation and surveillance” and how that “killed off the joy that people like me used to feel about new tech”; and Wil Wheaton’s “constant dread of ‘How will this complicate things as I try to maintain privacy and sanity.”

Tech leaders didn’t get stupider or crueler since those halcyon days. The tech industry was and is filled with people who made their bones building weapons of mass destruction for the military-industrial complex; IBM, the company that gave us the PC, built the tabulating machines for Nazi concentration camps:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

We didn’t replace tech investors and leaders with worse people — we have the same kinds of people but we let them get away with more. We let them buy up all their competitors. We let them use the law to lock out competitors they couldn’t buy, including those who would offer their customers tools to lower their switching costs and block abusive anti-features.

We decided to create “Felony Contempt of Business Model,” and let the creators of the next Cuecat reach beyond the walls of their corporate headquarters and into the homes of their customers, the offices of their competitors, and the handful of giant tech sites that control our online discourse, to reach into those places and strangle anything that interfered with their commercial desires.

That’s why plans to impose interoperability on tech giants are so exciting — because the problem with Facebook isn’t “the people I want to speak to are all gathered in one convenient place,” no more than the problem with app stores isn’t “these companies generally have good judgment about which apps I want to use.”

The problem is that when those companies don’t have your back, you have to pay a blisteringly high price to leave their walled gardens. That’s where interop comes in. Think of how an interoperable Facebook could let you leave behind Zuckerberg’s dominion without forswearing access to the people who matter to you:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

Cuecats were cool. The people who made them were assholes. Interop meant that you could get the cool gadget and tell the assholes to fuck off. We have lost the ability to do so, little by little, for decades, and that’s why a new technology that seems cool no longer excites. That’s why we feel dread — because we know that a cool technology is just bait to lure us into a prison that masquerades as a fortress.

Image: Jerry Whiting (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CueCat_barcode_scanner.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A Cuecat scanner with a bundled cable and PS/2 adapter; it resembles a plastic cat and also, slightly, a sex toy. It is posed on a Matrix movie 'code waterfall' background and limned by a green 'supernova' light effect.]

#pluralistic

7K notes · View notes

wings-of-fire-confessions · 13 days

Note

I think people forget the planet WoF takes on is an alien world basically, like the three moons give it away. The planet is considered a super earth (a type of exoplanet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants). I think an alien exoplanet world explains a lot.

“But… why have cows!”

Ever heard of convergent evolution? Pick up a science book or use google people.

“But six limbs unrealistic!”

Alien world, I like to believe most of the species on the planet have six limbs, same reason why most animals have four limbs but there it’s six, (evolved from hexapod fish). Also insects exist? Arachnids exist? lol?

“But the scavengers are humans!”

Either aliens crash landing on the planet millions of years ago in the past. Or again, convergent evolution leading to human-like creatures (though tbh I pictured them as six legged mammal like creatures but that’s beside the point). I’m not touching the magic stuff since that’s fantasy stuff science fantasy for the win

#wof confessions #wof #wings of fire confessions #wings of fire

151 notes · View notes

moondirti · 1 year

Text

animalic (6)

← chapter five // series masterlist

pairing: miguel o'hara x f!reader rating: mature word count: 4k summary: misery makes good company warnings: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, angst, i mean it guys, miguel o'hara is really not nice in this one, fighting, death/extinction, morally questionable characters, weapons of mass destruction, implied drug withdrawal, reader is given a backstory notes: apologies for what's to come. it's okay if you hate me after

“Don’t move. You’ll make it worse.”

There’s a warm hand cupping the back of your head, callused fingers spread to steady the junction between it and your shoulder. It’s the first thing you notice when you wake; that, and the breath fanning across your face.

You think it odd. Signs of life pound beneath you like the febrile concoction of a dream, burning hot in emphasis that you’d survived. A heavy pulse behind your brow, the headache pinching at every sense until they all dim to conductive static. Your tongue, pasty on the roof of your mouth. The hind of your arm itches, the urge running bone-deep, humming from flesh gracelessly torn apart by a gutter. When you shift to examine it, a fire roars up your neck, the smouldering pain robbing you of any effort.

(The only other time you’d been this uncomfortable, you were bitten by a spider the third month of your internship with Alchemax. The puncture site didn’t burn so much as the delirium that followed.)

“What did I just say?”

And, there’s that voice. You find it difficult to discern its more unique attributes, words muffled from behind the wavering pane of your lucidity – yet, even still, it stands as the most tangible thing present. Deep, resonant. Smoked with a ruggedness you can feel in your teeth. It doesn’t occur to you why it seems so unfamiliar; perhaps it’s the fact that you catch it through its source, your ear pressed to a muscled chest. Or, that’s it’s whispering.

You’ve never heard him whisper. Not to you.

The need to retaliate swells once you realise who holds you. It’s nothing productive, not the string of questions you should be asking – what’s happening, where are we; but it’s the only natural instinct that overcomes you. When you attempt to make good on it, though, the clutter of jokes, gripes, and snubs tangle in your throat, emerging as little more than a groan.

And the act wears you more than it probably should, exhausted tremors wracking your frame. A tender ache ripples from a point on your ribcage – separate from the area you’d fractured at the quarry. The pressure here is more centralised, a focused bruise you locate the source of with a wriggle of your elbow, when a rock comes loose and clatters to settle underneath you. It joins a mound of similar rubble, a pseudo-cushion of chalky cement broken off the larger slabs surrounding you.

You assume they do, at least – based on what you can tell of the terrain behind your back. In reality, you have no means to confirm your circumstances. The space around you swims in ink-blot darkness, the type that is almost material, where sheer absence of light could be considered an element of its own. You squeeze your eyes shut, then widen them, and find that there’s no difference between the two.

So – dark, dusty and… cramped. You’re positioned across Miguel’s lap, his legs running under and perpendicular to yours. Neither of you can stretch them to their full extent, however, forced to cross and bend in unwieldy ways, tangling further in each other's limbs. Your clothes are worn out enough to allow you to detect when any surface of his body – tense abdomen and thick thighs – twitches, thrumming with a molasses-slow tension that starts to diffuse through you.

Not a scenario of his own choosing, then.

But the turn of events that might’ve converged to this are lost on you, white noise fluffing the space they’d evacuated. Last you recall, you were staring down a cop car, the lingering comfort of a child’s trust filling you with a remarkable sort of purpose, that which you cannot place. Had you acted against that convict? Or left it up to the man cradling you?

As if on cue, he speaks.

“You’re trapped under a collapsed building.”

He says you like he’s not a confounding variable in this equation. You know it’s meant to single your blame in this, stranding it somewhere where you can brood without cross-examining him or why he’s here too. It nests on a well of guilt you keep suppressed for good reason, irking you in a particularly special way.

“Figured that out for myself, thanks.” Despite the trouble you put into getting the retort out undisturbed, it ends up sounding more unconvincing than not. Miguel waits for the coughing fit you have afterwards to subside before pitching in his acknowledgment.

“Did you, now?”

Little shit isn’t even trying to hide his sarcasm.

You ignore him, continuing with your scepticism. “I’m just wondering why we’re still here.”

Because it’s a genuine conjecture. While you’re not a part of the educated camp in spider-hero abilities – being so clueless to the extent of your own – you’re far too familiar with that infamous super strength. You’d sensed the difference for yourself; your increasing aptness in carrying hefty weights, the fluidity with which you cruise through life, physically unperturbed. And you’ve been on the receiving end of the spectrum too, your skin littered with scars that point to the sheer power of your companion.

A few tonnes of demolished concrete should be a walk in the park for him.

He clicks his tongue like it’s obvious. “I pulled under a steel arc in time for the debris not to crush us. If I disturb this pocket, or try to rearrange a tunnel, then I run the risk again.”

The logic makes sense, as much as you hate to admit it. Of course, that doesn’t stop you from picking at the contrivances in his language. It was you when discussing what went wrong, and now it’s I when it comes to the out. You realise it’s probably unintentional. Somehow, that makes it worse. He must truly believe you’re nothing beyond a malevolent fuck-up; some villain willing to sacrifice herself for the greater demise.

(The latter might have its validity. It’s the former you hold issue with.)

Likewise, you also ascertain an easy fix to all this – on account of your spectral properties. And, if you were a better woman, it would’ve been feasible. Phase out, crawl through until you breach the open, get help.

It’s long since been established that you’re not that person, though – and you’ve come to accept your own incompetence. You don’t mean to die here; you’re not sure if you want him too either, for all your ire. But your immateriality is a fickle thing, recurring at the most inopportune times, in the smallest increments – a potential problem for the doubtlessly long crawl it’d take to escape. You don’t want to imagine what would happen should you solidify within the walls.

Resignation seems easier than tempting it.

Miguel must recognise the option as well. As it stands for him, he can’t afford to let you go, nor is he desperate enough to trust you yet despite it. You don’t bring it up then, maintaining the upper-hand by his misunderstanding of your capacity.

(Maybe you are evil.

Or, just tired.)

“That’s okay. I think it would be funny if we passed like this.” You pitch, nudging your cheek to urge the smile clearly lacking in your tone. There’s no humour behind your choice of phrase, and it’s a jarring step back from where he’d been, expounding himself. You suppose it might be a clumsy distraction from the exact gravity of your predicament, yet even that rolls over in your brain, not quite satisfactory to dissolve as truth. “It’ll make a nice story for the people who dig us up.”

His chest puffs, filling with an irritated inhale. In the same movement, his fingers constrict onto your cranial base; it has the adverse effect of bracing your neck for the sudden shift, minimising the soreness triggered by any activity. You decide to take it as the warning it’s meant to be instead.

“Eres patética.” He murmurs, sinking back down. You wince when his clutch weakens, pain flaring. “And whiplashed.”

You purse your lips, critical. “I’ve had worse.”

“Sure.”

“My arm–”

“Will be fine.” As if to punctuate, he reaches for the wound. A clink sounds when he taps it. “Used the nanotech off my suit as a bandage.”

You should have caught that it doesn’t sting like it would’ve if exposed. Similarly, his hands are gloveless. Bare – while the rest of him isn’t. You’d felt the dry surface of his palm, the fixed warmth it emanated, but for some oversight, you hadn’t considered that he was touching you. Skin-to-skin, the simple size of his fists dwarfing you in every measure.

A stone lodges in your throat.

“Did– How’d you know?” You pry, referencing the perpetual tenebrosity you’re suspended in.

What he replies with shouldn't shock you, not as much as it does. But the air’s shifted to a nuanced degree, a hesitation substituting loud anger. It's the awareness that he's just as tuned in to you as you are him, sympathetic to try and redirect you off the brink of death. Or, more likely, it’s the poignant impression of his fangs, wedged in your flesh, his tongue lapping up the very same path.

(And the wanton moan it’d triggered.)

“I could smell the blood.”

Oh.

Truthfully, you’ve no clue whether you respond aloud or keep your contemplation close to your psyche. He admits it almost… awkwardly, like it’s a condition he’s not so fond of himself. Yet it’s one that reverberates in the strained silence, plucking at taut strings that stretch with every passing second. You play it on repeat, stewing over the way in which he spoke; the diction, the stressors, the slight roll of his accent.

I could smell it. I could smell you. The blood.

Your life on the run hardly ever allows for moments like these. Over the past year, stress has anchored itself by the dock of your being, streamlining a flow of cortisol to every major organ. Continuity hinges on an alertness to the forces propelling you, and while the occasional wisecrack can alleviate some effects it has on your health, you don’t have the luxury of sinking into whatever fear bolsters it all.

It’s with him, though – hanging from a crane, or cornered in a pen of his own design. Only ever with him are you slapped with the resounding, festering distress of your own weakness. It consumes you, gnawing on your gut with its brutal teeth, tearing away the indifference you’d built around your systems. How dissimilar the two of you are; a girl unwilling to fight for even herself, and a man capable of wrapping a slash in the dark.

(He could smell it. And he can probably see, too.

By just how much does he outmatch you?)

“You’re welcome.” Miguel growls. You scold yourself for your elongated reticence, the pace of your heart overtaking the anxious torrent of thoughts that pump through you. It’s good practice to thank the man who’d saved your life four times over. Be that as it may, does it really count if he’s the reason it was necessary to begin with? He’d dropped you off that crane, he’d swung you a hundred feet high. Him, him, him.

You curl your tongue, desperate to quell the barrage of resentment that escalates at his prodding. Despite it pulling you from your rapid dissociation, your fight-or-flight peaks, forcing you to face a confrontation you don’t need. There’s nowhere to run – presently, you’re moored into place, his physicality and unique provocation blocking the possibility all together.

You scoff to placate the spiralling desire to argue.

It doesn’t work.

“For what?” You hiss.

All too quickly, his legs spread, creating a trough for you to slide down into. When your ass hits the unforgiving floor, you involuntarily cringe at the contrast it poses to his leg. A calculated effect, you’re sure – so too is the newfound freedom of his grip releasing your head, the crossing of his forearms pushing you away from the post his pecs provided.

It’s what you wanted, to distance yourself from his overbearing stature. And he manipulates it to his own favour; you’re made to bear your burden, the agony of your injured state tripling as if to exclaim: ‘see?’

Touché.

Nevertheless, it palliates your memory. The chill of the earth under you spikes your nerves, clearing the brume overcasting your day previous. You’d driven a car into that symbiote based on a groundless hypothesis; bold, any scientist would tell you. Yet, as far as your perception extends, it worked.

“Selfish.” He announces, far from discrete. It’s so unlike him that it smites the ego beginning to coagulate at your remembered success.

Your eyes snap to where you assume his face is, squinting like your glare makes any difference. “Excuse me?”

Undeterred by the threat inherent in your tone – that which is all talk – he persists. “Who do you think you are exactly, Wraith?”

The interrogation holds a dangerous quality; again, it feels out of place, a spirit tugging at the strings of his hollow self.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why? What would you prefer? Anomaly, banshee? You drag death behind you like it’s a curse, only you’ve opted into it. I told you it wasn’t our place to interfere, and you had to push it–”

He can be jaded, or subtle. Oftentimes, he’s dismissive and passively rude.

But Miguel O’Hara is never heedlessly hostile. Not like this.

“That wasn’t my fault, asshole. I fucking glitched!”

“¡Órale, estás bien pendeja! Nothing ever is, of course! Has it never occurred to you to take a good look in the mirror?”

The irregularity scares you. Your voice breaks with it.

“O’Hara–”

“Because I’ll tell you what I see; a girl who can’t face what she’s done.”

“You don’t know me.” You shake your head, tamping the stiffness in your shoulder. It does nothing to exercise the sharp unease that flays you alive.

“A self-serving criminal who refuses to listen.”

“I d– I tried.” Hiccupping, the edge worsens.

“You’d have gone back home–”

“There’s nothing left for me there!”

“Like there is anywhere else? You’ve devastated them!”

“Stop it–”

“Wrecked entire worlds! I’ve been the only one holding it all together,” He yells, pushing his knees closer to one another. You’re slowly crushed in the process, thighs drawing up to press against your torso. “You’re no victim. You’re no hero.”

“Stop it!”

“Tell me I’m wrong!”

Feverish tears slice down your cheeks, spouting to escape the pressure that balloons within you. Your lungs tighten alongside it, heart aching. It’s progressed past the point of prevention – no longer do you retain control of how this turns out. All you can do is drift; a feather, seized in this tempest, stirred by a disembodied man.

When you don’t respond, preferring to preserve your energy for the sobs that rip from you, he inches closer. You sense it when he repeats himself, his hot breath lining the shell of your ear.

“Well,” His claws sharpen, grazing the small of your back. “Am I?”

His lisp is more pronounced like this, fangs extended to affect the natural position of his mouth. It warps the undertone, like a pool does light, and sends it back more viscous than ever. He’s uninhibited – an addict missing his fix.

It’s almost impossible to choke the admission out against the hatred churning your stomach. When you unhinge your jaw, it’s a credible wager that you retch all over yourself instead.

“No.” You manage to warble, a mixture of snot and wet misery streaking down your chin. Your wrists stay plastered, allowing the mess to mask your countenance, tucking between your legs in a childlike attempt at comfort. Cruelty crackles – self-propagated now – assaulting your faux-confidence until it plummets to a fraction of what it was.

Cursed. A wraith – haunting the multiverse with her unfinished business.

There’s nothing left to declare as his impressions are confirmed. You both mark it, this changed, spoken into existence by your divulgence. By some miracle, if you were to slip his capture, it’d be no more of a victory than the gore crusting your fingernails. Proof for his belittlement; that you truly are so inconsiderate as to further endanger the lives of millions.

(Would you be able to live with yourself?)

You relapse, agonising over the past week. Not a victim – you’d taken advantage of him with a kiss for an unsure opportunity. Not a hero – you’d punched a robber and gotten a civilian killed in the process. You’d run over a murderer and buried several under an early grave.

(Can you live with yourself?)

And home–

Trapped, you boil in a pond of your transgressions. It’d been a long time coming – your fault, in fact. You should’ve noticed the water was gradually heating.

There’d been a dam of careful construction at this bank, stacked tirelessly over the several nights you’d been given to think on what you’ve done. To prevent your clear culpability from catching up to you, to blind others to it too. He’s right, but not about all things. You’ve memorised your reflection at this point. Put it in a line up, and you’ll point your place in hell with facile certainty.

So, there’s no need to admit anything else. Regardless, his sabotage compels you to. Here, loitering purgatory with the one person who’d never understand; what harm could confession do? His opinion of you skims rock bottom, and you’ve no hope at seeing a priest before you rot.

Forgive me, for I have sinned.

“I’m not innocent.” You start. “Never have been.”

Alpha Centauri, that was the goal.

Located only four light years away, it’s the closest star system to Earth; with suns Rigil Kentaurus, Toliman and Proxima Centauri forming a trinary network. All main sequence stars – like humanity’s very own Sol – orbited by suspected habitable exoplanets. With the average chemical rocket, it’d take upwards of six thousand years to get there.

There lay alternatives, of course. Nuclear fission, with an energy yield of almost zero from its original mass. Fusion, ten times as efficient – still, not nearly enough. Ion accelerators, sunlight capture. Interstellar arks were of no interest; no, you’d wanted to achieve extrasolar travel within your lifetime. Warp drives and hyperspace – all theoretical.

As an undergrad, you’d settled on matter-antimatter collision.

The latter, antimatter, exists as an inverted twin to ordinary subatomic particles, with flipped states on every front. Antiprotons – negative protons with oppositely directed magnetism, and positrons – positively charged electrons. When the two meet their counterparts, their entire mass is converted into energy. And, when such annihilation is modelled within engines, a ship can accelerate to ninety percent the speed of light.

Therein subsisted your only chance to touch the stars.

Of course, like all hypotheticals, it came with its own array of issues. No natural reservoir of the substance is known, and producing at least one tonne would take more power than mankind has used in all its history. Moreover, it’s near nonviable to store. Any container that has ever touched regular matter would only cause preemptive decimation.

You wrote papers and studied computer-generated prototypes. You argued with professors, and attended pro-conferences. Months worth of minimum wage were blown on trips to Argentina, where the neighbouring system can be spotted through a telescope, winking above the horizon. When it all started to appear fruitless, you caught wind of Alchemex’s exploits within the field.

It was a young company, hobbling on its feet after a rocky merger with Oscorp. But they were daring, and rich, endeavouring into categories that most deemed nonprofit. You’d applied for an internship, waited months to hear back. By some cosmic karma, it turned out to be good news when you eventually did.

They were already working on manufacturing the antimatter. It was your suggestion that encouraged them to use magnets to store it within a vacuum.

It looked auspicious. It had been.

Then, you were bit.

The spider was from another division – radiation, you suppose. By some breach on account of a more negligent temp, the critter had found its way into your improvised cubicle. And so the story goes; it’d champed down on the webbing between your thumb and forefinger, before promptly suffocating under the cup you’d snared it in. The area stung for a while, venom having directly found your veins. Yet, by the time you’d returned to your dorm, your immunity seemed to have diluted its effects.

Until, you’d gotten sick. The hysteria was slow to consolidate, starting as a sore throat. You’d used your one day off then, ignorant to just how bad it could get; because the fever only deepened, lesions on the lining of your oesophagus oozing ichor into bile. Your doctor waived the possibility of tuberculosis, mistrusting the notes your instructors sent with you, complaining of in-class fainting bouts.

You couldn’t miss work, though. Never. Not when you were so close.

So you stuffed sheets of pills in your pockets and braved each shift with trembling joints. You’d no friends to notice your suffering, and for such an ambitious company, overtime was expected. Sweating through multiple layers of clothing, you kept an eye on your poster of the galaxy and lagged on those long nights. At the rate you were going, you genuinely dreaded a life cut short before you could realise your objective.

If nothing else, it urged you to work harder.

Your first milestone came at the one kilogram mark. A party was hosted to celebrate, billionaires invited to gather around the vessel which held such a revolutionary feat. Despite your interloper status, you’d been summoned too, to play big girl scientist and present Alchemex’s future course of action. Your affliction was improving, and you were the inspiration behind the project’s advance. It felt like the biggest night of your career.

(‘Magnets! What a genius solution.’ From a nobel prize runner up.

‘That ambition will get you far, mark my words.’ The CEO’s cousin.)

In truth, it was the last.

Because the antimatter had taken centre stage, security slackening with its continued stability. So long as the magnetism wasn’t tampered with, so long as the vacuumed vessel remained airtight, things looked to be fine for your speech. You’d cycled through every known variable, staring down the container, a champagne flute tucked in your sweaty palms.

Your skin prickled.

The glass smashed to the floor. In your embarrassment, you’d brushed it off as clumsiness prompted by the perspiration – notwithstanding your recount, having seen the drink fall through your mass. Did it matter, though? You couldn’t put it past your illness to cause such hallucinations. It was impossible, a trick of sight.

The festivities progressed, yet the tingle of your nerves didn’t subside. Anxiety – you chalked it up to common apprehension. So, when your boss announced your name for all to hear, and the agitation flared, it wasn’t alarming. You could think of nothing else anyway, honed in to the address you’d practised all morning.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Your gut flipped. Your vision blackened.

The steps lost depth; you stumbled up them with all the grace of a hunted fawn.

Today–

Your skin prickled once more, and you collapsed. Through the antimatter’s vessel, through the floor.

There’s nothing to recall after that. Not for a long while.

“I don’t become intangible.” Your brow bone rests on the curve of your knee, body curled in a foetal position. “My particles merely… find the best way through something.”

Miguel has remained eerily quiet throughout your chronicle. You try not to let it dissuade you.

“So–”

“Some came in contact with the antimatter.”

“Yeah.” You murmur, moved by an unnamed emotion. “It detonated, naturally, with a force roughly equivalent to a nuclear bomb. Wiped out everyone in the city upon discharge, then everyone in the state with its impact. Or– maybe, I don’t know. I was discarnate for weeks – the explosion had no effect on my immaterial self, and the radiation couldn’t hurt me when that spider damn well sought and failed at it already.”

You hug yourself tighter.

“I only witnessed the winter that followed. The blast was large-scale enough to trigger firestorms and a global climate cooling – similar to the one they scare you with when talking about nuclear warfare. Crop failure, famine. Millions died and my home devolved into cataclysm. It was mass extinction,” You school yourself, waving the snivel crawling up your nose. “Because of me.”

An end by starvation or infection, confined to this tomb, seems a perfectly fitting penance.

“Explain this to me, O’Hara – what just providence made me spider-woman to a barren land?”

chapter seven →

follow @moondirti-archive and turn on post notifs to be alerted of future updates!

1K notes · View notes