Characters: Duncan, Baelor, Maekar, Aerion, Valarr, Daeron, Lyonel x Fem!Reader
Summary: written for this request // you’re losing an argument so you decide to play dirty by stripping off your dress right in front of them.
W/C: ~2.8k
Warnings: 18+ ONLY - MDNI!!! graphic sexual content, rough sex, dubious consent elements, overstimulation, squirting, spanking/impact play, hair pulling, light choking, biting/marking, internal ejaculation, mix of degradation and praise, possessiveness/mild yandere vibes, size kink/belly bulge, manhandling, oral sex (giving & receiving), multiple orgasms, intense dirty talk.
A/N: my god this is FILTHY - I may have gotten a bit too carried away and i apologize in advance <3 please heed the warnings!! also unbeta’d i meant for this to be something quick
dividers: @/cursedcarmine | @/dividers-are-us
Main masterlist
Dunk is mid-lecture, voice earnest and hands gesturing as he warns you about wandering off alone or doing something reckless.
He’s sure he’s making a point, full of righteous indignation, and slightly red from how much he cares.
Then you start loosening your dress slowly, his words faltering the moment your bodice unlaces, silk slipping softly to the floor. His eyes go wide, color rushing from his face straight down his neck as he stammers.
“By the gods…y-you can’t just—that’s not fair—”
He tries to look away like the honorable oaf he is, but his gaze keeps dragging back to your bare tits and the slick already glistening between your thighs, the sight making his breeches tent painfully fast.
Honour holds for about five heartbeats before it gives.
Moments later he has his big, rough hands under your thighs hoisting you up and pinning you against the wall with his body crowding yours as he pounds into you, already lost and rutting like a bull in heat.
Every brutal thrust drives so deep you feel the thick head of his cock kiss your cervix, the force of it creating a faint, obscene bulge low in your belly that he can see every time he pulls back and slams home again.
He groans loud and broken each time your cunt clenches tight around him, the sound raw and desperate.
“Shouldn’t—fuck—do this when I’m mad at ya,” he pants against your throat, voice wrecked and ragged but his hips never slow.
He keeps going until he feels you clench around him and you’re gasping his name then he pulls out at the last second with a strangled curse, spilling hot and thick across your stomach in heavy, shuddering pulses.
After a moment, he’ll ease you down onto unsteady legs before dropping to his knees, hands spreading your thighs wider as his mouth finds your heat without hesitation.
Apologies spill from him between filthy sucks on your clit until you’re shaking, fingers tangled in his hair until neither of you can remember what the argument was even about.
Baelor is calm and measured, laying out his point with logic and quiet authority—every word annoyingly irrefutable, especially as he explains with infuriating patience why you shouldn’t have challenged the council on your own.
The more he speaks, the more you know he’s right… and the more it grates.
It doesn’t stop you from testing him anyway.
If anything, it’s what prompts you to let your gown whisper to the floor.
He pauses, eyes darkening, but he doesn’t falter outwardly. Instead he steps closer, voice dropping to velvet command.
“You would wield your beauty itself as a blade, my love, to tempt your prince’s mercy?”
He towers over you, pinning you gently against the bedpost with his body alone. His hands come to rest at your hips, firm yet careful as they hold you in place.
His gaze lingers, roaming over you with a flicker of both admonishment and need in his eyes.
“You think to test me so boldly… and yet…” His voice dips, rougher now. “I find I cannot resist.”
With that, his hands shift, tightening on your waist as he turns you around. In one smooth motion, he guides you forward over the edge of the bed, following close behind until his body presses to yours.
He starts with his fingers, working you until your body convulses around him, sobs spilling from your lips.
Every reaction only seems to draw him in further, his restraint wearing thinner with each passing moment and pushing him on until he has you squirting over his wrist.
When you’ve come undone he doesn’t pause, quickly replacing his fingers with his cock, entering you slowly allowing you to feel the stretch inch by punishing inch.
Each thrust is deep, pressing against your cervix while your voice breaks into ragged, babbled apologies, begging even as your body screams for more.
He spends the night proving his point with relentless attention, drawing out every gasp and shiver until your soft sounds turn to breathless pleas.
“Please… I can’t, not again,” you manage, but he only presses on, guiding you through it again and again and keeping you exquisitely overstimulated, your body trembling as each wave crashes into the next, until at last you’re spent and utterly broken beneath him.
When you finally collapse, he leans close, his voice low and smooth against your ear.
“Perhaps… we might revisit the matter on the morrow.”
Justice served, in his way.
Maekar is already scowling, his voice sharp as Valyrian steel as he lectures you about your recklessness—or your defiance.
He’s certain he’s winning this argument, every word dripping with that prickly judgment you know so well.
So, of course… you start loosening your dress. Just enough that his sharp words falter. His eyes go wide, his scowl faltering into something very close to disbelief.
“What—what are you—” he stammers, voice cracking where it never should.
He’s a stubborn man, but even Maekar cannot argue with this kind of… persuasion.
You let the gown fall.
He doesn’t move for a full five seconds—just stares with those violet eyes like he’s trying to decide whether he’s angrier or harder.
“You little viper,” he growls and then in two strides he’s on you. Big hands seize your waist, and he hauls you over his shoulder like you weigh nothing, carrying you straight to the bed with purposeful, angry steps.
No more lectures. No more words.
He throws you down onto the mattress and pins your wrists above your head with one iron grip before his mouth descends on your throat, biting hard enough to leave dark marks that will linger for days.
After that, he’ll fuck you like punishment—hard and relentless, hips snapping so brutally the bedframe groans beneath you. One hand cracks across your ass again and again until the skin glows bright red and stings with every thrust.
“This what you wanted?” he snarls, already pounding deep, voice rough with lust and lingering anger. “My cock splitting your disobedient cunt?”
You can only moan and nod, too wrecked to form words. He drives into you even harder, the wet slap of skin echoing with every brutal thrust until his rhythm starts to falter.
With a deep, guttural groan he’ll bury himself to the hilt and cum hard inside you—thick, hot pulses flooding your cunt as he grinds deep, making sure every drop stays buried where it belongs.
For a long moment the only sound is your ragged breathing and the creak of the bed as he collapses beside you. Then Maekar drags you against his chest, one large hand possessively cupping your marked ass while the other strokes through your hair.
When he finally speaks again it’s only to rasp against your ear: “Next time you pull that, I won’t stop until you’re crying my name instead of arguing.”
Aerion's voice drips with disdain, each word sharp with superiority. There’s no reasoning with him when he’s like this—only surrendering to the storm he has already decided to unleash.
So you do the one thing you know will stop his tirade. In one slow movement, you slip your gown from your shoulders, letting the it fall to the floor.
The sight robs him of every ounce of arrogance. He opens his mouth… then closes it, caught completely off guard.
Your slow, deliberate smile only sharpens the effect and his gaze darkens, hungry and dangerous as they trace your curves before lingering on your slick thighs.
Then he laughs, sharp and unhinged, sending shivers down your spine. His hand grips your throat enough to hold but not to steal your breath, thumb pressing just beneath your jaw so you’re forced to meet those wild violet eyes.
“You offer yourself like tribute? How quaint,” he purrs, voice dripping with mocking sweetness. “As if a dragon needs permission to take what already belongs to him.”
In the next breath he yanks you forward and crashes his mouth against yours—all teeth and fire, the kiss is less affection and more conquest. When he pulls back, his lips are wet and curled in a cruel smile.
“You think this will silence me, little lamb?”
He spins you around and shoves you face down onto the bed with startling strength, one knee pinning your thighs apart. His hand stays locked around the back of your neck, holding you down as he rips his own breeches open.
“Dragons do not bargain,” he growls against your ear, hot and vicious. “They burn. They claim. They breed.”
He spits once before he lines himself up and drives into you in one savage thrust—so deep you feel the blunt head of his cock kiss your cervix.
A broken sound escapes your throat, but Aerion only laughs again, low and delighted, as he starts fucking you with brutal, punishing strokes.
The bed slams against the wall with every snap of his hips. One hand yanks your hair back, forcing your back to arch sharply while the other cracks across your ass, leaving bright red prints that bloom on your skin.
“Sing for me,” he demands, voice wild with lust and lingering fury. “Let the whole Red Keep hear how sweetly a dragon’s whore moans.”
He rides you harder, faster, until his rhythm turns erratic and his breathing turns into snarls. With a final, feral groan he buries himself to the hilt and cums deep inside you—thick, scalding pulses flooding your cunt as he grinds against your cervix like he wants his seed to take root.
Only when he’s spent does he loosen his grip on your neck. He stays buried inside you, chest pressed to your back, lips brushing the shell of your ear.
“Next time you dare interrupt a dragon…” he whispers, voice soft but trembling with dangerous amusement, “…you’d best be prepared to burn, my sweet.”
Valarr was coolly dismantling your argument as he lays out his point, certain that logic is on his side.
You watch him for a moment before you slowly begin to slip out of your dress, letting it fall from your shoulders with deliberate grace.
His words falter mid-sentence, a sharp intake of breath catching where confidence had been. He swallows, eyes darkening as they trace your curves, lingering on the swell of your breasts.
For a heartbeat he simply stares, the prince’s usual composure cracking. Then a slow, heated smile curves his lips.
He rises from his chair and crosses the room in two quick strides, trying to look composed even as his hands betray a slight tremble when he pulls you flush against him.
One arm wraps around your waist, firm and possessive, while the other cups your jaw, tilting your face up so you meet his two-toned eyes.
“You think you can win every argument by making me forget my own name?” he asks, thumb brushing your lower lip. There’s a hint of boyish amusement in his tone, but the grip on your waist is unmistakably dominant. “Clever girl.”
He leans down and kisses you—deep and hungry. When he pulls back, his breathing is already uneven.
“Since you’ve decided to distract me so shamelessly…” He lifts you with surprising ease, carrying you to the bed and laying you down with careful gentleness, though his eyes burn with clear want. “…then I’ll have to remind you who’s in charge here.”
He settles over you, caging you in while his mouth trails hot, open mouthed kisses down your throat, then lower, sucking lightly at the curve of your breast before drawing a nipple into his mouth with a low, appreciative groan.
One hand pins your wrists above your head while the other strokes slowly between your thighs, teasing, learning what makes you gasp.
“Look at me,” he commands quietly, voice still young but threaded with authority. When you obey, his expression softens just a fraction, warm affection shining through the dominance.
He keeps you on edge like that, kissing and touching until you’re trembling and whispering his name. Only then does he push his breeches down and slide inside you—slow and deep, a soft hiss escaping him as he feels how wet you are.
“That’s it… take all of me,” he breathes against your neck, hips rolling in a steady, powerful rhythm. “You’re mine to argue with… mine to fuck… mine to love.”
He builds the pace gradually until your legs are shaking around his waist. When you start to clench around him, he presses his forehead to yours, eyes locked on yours.
“Come for me, sweet girl,” he whispers, voice rough with restraint. “Let me feel you.”
The moment you shatter around him, he follows with a broken groan, burying himself to the hilt and spilling deep inside you—filling you as he holds you close, hips jerking with each wave.
Afterwards he doesn’t pull away. He stays buried inside you, rolling you both onto your sides so he can tuck you against his chest. His hand strokes slow circles over your back while the other brushes damp strands of hair from your face with tenderness.
“Should you wish to end an argument again,” he murmurs, pressing a gentle kiss to your temple, a shy smile tugging at his lips, “you may simply ask, my love. Though I must admit… your method is far more enjoyable.”
Daeron tries to reason with you, convinced that careful words will eventually sway you, when you start sliding your dress off your shoulders, before letting it pool at the ground.
He stops mid-word, the goblet of wine in his hand stopping halfway to his lips. A crooked, thoroughly amused grin tugs at his mouth as his eyes rake over every newly revealed inch of skin.
“Seven hells, love—warn a man,” he laughs, low and warm.
He sets the wine down (a small miracle) and reaches for you instead, pulling you straight into his lap with strong, eager hands.
The moment your bare chest presses against him, his mouth is on you—kissing every bit of newly exposed skin with wet, open-mouthed affection.
His hands greedily cup and squeeze your tits, thumbs brushing over your nipples before pinching just hard enough to make you whine and arch into him.
He doesn’t stop there. His lips travel lower, sucking marks into the valley between your breasts, then down your stomach, until he’s sliding you off his lap and onto the edge of the table. With a wicked grin he drops to his knees, pushing your thighs wide apart before burying his face between them without hesitation.
“Fuck… you taste so sweet,” he groans against your cunt, voice already thick and messy. “Better than any wine I’ve ever had.”
His tongue laps at you eagerly, almost sloppy in his hunger, while two thick fingers curl deep inside you stroking that perfect spot with practiced ease.
He hums and praises you the whole time—soft, filthy words vibrating against your clit until your thighs start to tremble.
“Come on my face, love,” he murmurs, sucking harder. “Drown me. Let me feel it.”
You shatter with a broken cry, hips jerking against his mouth. He doesn’t let up, only growling in satisfaction as he continues until you come a second time, flooding his tongue while he drinks every drop like a man dying of thirst.
Only then does he rise, lips shiny and swollen and eyes dark with lust and affection. He leans over you, hands bracing on either side, letting his weight press you gently against the surface.
Then he slides into you slowly and deeply, savoring every inch, every shiver, and every gasp that escapes you as he sets the rhythm with lazy but unrelenting thrusts.
“Gods… this cunt,” he mutters against your shoulder, voice rough and reverent. “So fucking perfect… made for me. I don’t deserve you, sweet girl.”
He keeps the pace unhurried, grinding deep on every stroke, murmuring praise and little endearments until your legs are shaking again. When you clench around him, he groans long and low, burying himself to the hilt as he comes hard.
He stays buried deep, draped over your face nuzzled into the crook of your neck, arms wrapped around you, holding you close while he catches his breath.
“Fight me again tomorrow,” he whispers against your skin, pressing a lazy kiss just below your ear, a smile clear in his voice. “I like losing when it feels this fucking good.”
Lyonel's laughter booms across the room, full of fire and pride. “By the gods, woman! You argue like a bloody gale!”
His words falter as your dress hits the floor, and for a long moment he simply stares, wide-eyed and raucous. Then a grin spreads across his face wickedly.
“Oh, you fight dirty.”
He strides forward, big hands seizing your hips and tugging you flush against him. His body is all heat and solid strength, chest rumbling as he growls low against your ear. “And I bloody love it.”
Before you can respond, he scoops you up effortlessly and tosses you over the thick arm of the chair, leaving your ass up and your chest pressed into the cushions. He gives one playful, resounding smack to your backside, the sound echoing sharply.
“Thought you could end an argument with this pretty cunt? Hmm?”
He drops to his knees behind you before spreading you wide with both large hands, and devours you. His tongue dives straight to your entrance first—hot, broad, and greedy—licking through your soaked folds before pushing inside, tasting you deep.
His beard is already glistening, soaked with your arousal as he growls against your cunt, voice rough and filthy.
Only when you start whimpering and pushing back against his face does he drag his tongue upward, circling your swollen clit with slow strokes. Then he slides two thick fingers inside you, curling them hard against that perfect spot while his mouth sucks greedily on your clit.
He doesn’t stop until your thighs are shaking violently and you’re squirting hard down his chin and beard, soaking his face as he groans in pure satisfaction and keeps licking you through every pulsing wave.
When the last tremor finally fades, Lyonel rises behind you, breathing heavy. He gives your ass another firm smack, then grips your hips and lines himself up. In one smooth, powerful thrust he buries his thick cock inside your still-spasming cunt, stretching you open with a deep, satisfied groan.
“Fuck… still fluttering around me,” he rasps, voice rough with pleasure. “That’s my girl.”
He starts slow, deep rolls of his hips that quickly turn harder, more demanding. One hand fists in your hair, the other braces on the small of your back, keeping you arched and pinned exactly how he wants you.
The wet slap of skin on skin fills the room as he fucks you with the same fiery energy he argues with—joyful and entirely unapologetic.
When you clench down hard around him again, he lets out a loud, rumbling groan and slams into the hilt. You feel the hot flood of his release as he spills deep inside you, pulse after thick pulse, filling you until it starts to leak out around his cock.
He stays buried deep, draped over your back, pressing lazy kisses along your spine while he catches his breath. A low, satisfied chuckle vibrates through his chest.
“Next time you want to win an argument, love…” he murmurs against your shoulder, nipping lightly, “just do that again. I’ll gladly lose every damn time.”
He gives your ass one last affectionate squeeze before gently pulling out, then scoops you up into his arms like you weigh nothing.
“Come on, my little storm. Let’s get you cleaned up before I decide round two begins this very instant.”
Price who pins you down with that heavy meaty weight of his body, thick cock buried deep inside, stretching your cunt open so good just like he used to. Got one of your thighs shoved up against your chest, fingers digging into the soft spill of your flesh, slow grinding of his hips dragging broken whimpers out of your throat that you hate yourself for making.
Years. Fucking years he was gone, vanished like smoke, and the second you finally started piecing yourself back together, he showed up at your door with that same damn cigar between clenched teeth and (cruel) blue eyes that always saw too much.
“Missed this tight cunt,” he grunts, voice rough as honeyed gravel, beard scraping your neck as he bites down, sucking a fresh mark into your skin. “Knew you’d still open up for me.”
You whimper, fingers digging into his shoulders, half pushing him away and half pulling him closer. He feels it, chuckles low, the sound vibrating through his chest into yours as he grinds deeper, the fat head of his cock kissing that spot that makes your vision spark white.
“Shh, easy love,” he murmurs, all honey and smoke, the manipulative bastard. One big hand slides up to cup your jaw, thumb pressing into your bottom lip to keep your mouth open for him, dirty fingers pushing down onto your slick tongue. “Don’t fight it. You were never good at pretending you didn’t need this.” and you hear the need me go unsaid, implied.
He pulls out almost all the way, just the tip stretching your slick hole, then slams back in hard enough to punch the air from your lungs. “Look at you. Already creaming on my cock again. Bet no one else could make you this wet, could they?”
His pace picks up, heavy balls slapping against you with every thrust, the wet obscene sound of it filling the room alongside your desperate gasps. He’s watching your face the whole time- hungry, possessive, a little mean.
Trying so hard to ignore the look in his eyes that says he knows exactly how much he wrecked you when he left, and exactly how easily he can do it again.
( + read on AO3 )
✣ PAIRING: Father Jud Duplenticy x Art historian fem!reader (2nd person POV)
✣ THEMES AND WARNINGS: NSFW, Minors do not interact!!!! Religious themes, angst, grief/mourning, smut with so many feelings it's embarrassing, penetration (f receiving).
✣ NOTES: Wasn't planning on making a part 2 but as often with me, ideas came and aligned in a way that felt natural; I hope you enjoy this second part as much as I did writing it. ♡
✣ SYNOPSIS: Your souls touched once. He's carried that memory ever since, unaware that you'd cross paths again in his hour of need.
You've always liked the smell of churches. The gilded mystery to it. Heady incense, mildewy stones, the cleanliness of beeswax candles.
You like this church in particular. With its towering spire, the florid shapes in the patterns rimming the choir, pure light beams falling off the window onto the altar cloth.
You like the wiry silhouette standing near that altar. His slightly tense shoulders, dark hair, darker clothes, a modest, shadowy smudge at the end of the nave.
The gentle hum of his voice flits to your ears.
Time has passed since you last heard the distinct click and clank of the entrance to Our Lady of Perpetual Grace. Funny how certain things never truly sink down into the swamps of memory, how they always sit like oil on water, awaiting to be scooped up again at the slightest stir.
You wish you could skulk in anonymity a little longer. Take in the sights of this place you've missed, simmer in the sun like a spoiled house cat, lulled by the murmurs of conversation between the priest and a couple of elderly parishioners.
What is this unnameable weight you feel, shifting and warping in your stomach? Are you nervous? Are you afraid? Is it a hint of enthusiastic thrill?
The congregants are taking leave of him. You try to ignore the thrum in your chest.
Take a breath.
Your voice bounces through the dusty gold beams, splitting in echoes around the sanctuary like images of a kaleidoscope. A little louder than you intended.
“Hello, Father.”
He recognizes your voice before anything else. You can tell from the way his back straightens, head slightly pivoting, unveiling the side of his cheekbone, and long lashes batting two three times as the sole indicator of surprise.
His gaze falls over you next, bathing you in a familiar sea—mixture of water and grass.
“Oh—” his breath hitches, imperceptibly, “—it's you.”
It's you. He says it as if the past year only lasted a few minutes, like you've only been gone for a short break outside, carrying back to him a whiff of birch trees and wet soil to resume a pending dialogue. Like you were always destined to land back onto the edge of his sleeve.
A strange, woolly silence falls through. The profound closeness, rekindled yet elusive, escapes like dry sand between your fingers.
You both speak up at the same time, voices overlapping and crashing back down in an awkward succession of “Please, you go first” and “Sorry, what were you saying?”.
There's another fragment of silence, dismissed by a clumsy laugh on both your parts. Eyes refusing to meet. His hands digging into his pockets, yours picking at your nails.
Eventually, he asks the great question: What are you doing here?
It's expected, yet you find yourself stammering around it. Offering a disjointed explanation despite it being summarized in nine easy words: Gothic Revival and Christian Buildings of the East Coast. It's a book. It comes out in eight months. It needs pictures. You timidly point over to the photographer the publishing house hired. He's traipsing near the walls, nose up in the air, seemingly disinterested in meeting the priest—or interacting with anything from Chimney Rock, for that matter. There's no friendship lost between the two of you, and you're glad to temporarily escape the aura of superiority he radiates to a point of suffocation.
Father Jud barely gazes in the direction of your unappreciative travel companion.
“You wrote a book?”
His warm stupefaction makes your heart weep.
He sounds impressed. He shouldn't be. Nonetheless, you can't remember the last time anyone was that enthused about your work.
“I only wrote the chapter on colored glass,” you try to temper his interest. “I say write, but frankly, it's mostly a fine arts book. The sort people like to buy for the pictures and display on their coffee tables, you know?”
“You never sent that paper you wrote last year, by the way.”
You had promised you would. You also remember distinctly where you made that promise—his head still lying on your chest, body tangled in your bedsheets.
A brutal gush of heat climbs up your spine.
You apologize, blaming your memory. But something in the way you say it makes him think it could've been deliberate. You're quick to change the subject, glad to redirect some of the attention towards him. What about him?
The anomaly would be easy to miss, with how snugly it hides beneath his features, waiting in the dimples of his smile. During those seconds of hesitation, while his eyes carelessly focus on a crack in the tile, you manage to catch it. He's exhausted. There's a grayness to him, a lack.
“Is everything alright?”
The answer lies, eloquent, in the small, fluttering moments of silence.
A click, a clank.
Father Jud's gaze is carried back to the narthex, his attention slipping off you like river water on a pebble. You look over your shoulder. Members of the congregation stepping in, one tall figure dressed in black; two small children with forlorn airs clutching her hand.
All residual color has left Father Jud's face. He apologizes to you, stumbling with his words. He has to take care of this. He hopes to catch you later.
There's an itch in your side, the understanding that something's going on that eludes you. But this realm isn't yours, this town isn't yours, you are but a migratory bird brought back by the whims of the winds. All you can do is witness.
You're silent as you leave. On your way down the nave, you gaze at the kids and their mother. Morosity weighs them down, a dark and heavy corvid perched onto their backs.
For the joyous and easygoing, it is simple to forget churches don't just gather elated, living crowds for weddings and baptisms. Seeping into the hardy walls, pain perfumes the transept too, persistent as mold. Churches were built for mourners too.
You feel eyes pet your spine as you walk away. It could be a mistake, a feeble impression induced by the sporadic rays of light.
You do not glance back to verify.
A funeral mass is held at the church the next day.
You hear about this when the photographer walks up to your table in the dining room of the inn you're staying at, all huffing and puffing, pulling you away from an excellent mystery novel you found at the tiny bookstore down the street. It was supposed to be the perfect hour for photography, according to him.
“Well, we're obviously not going to disturb them now,” you feel the need to issue the reminder.
The thwarted plan doesn't bother you as much as it does the photographer, who whines about it for what seems the better part of the afternoon. When he moves on to complaining about Chimney Rock next and the nothingness of tiny towns, you decide you've had your fair share of empty discourse for the day. Your spirit aches for more. Stimulation. Connection. All things you found here, once.
The evening douses the sky a pensive, grayish-blue when you reach the bar, the boisterous haven you crashed into for hours on end on your first stay around. You're hit with a warm draft of wheat and honey, tobacco, smoked wood. You've barely passed the threshold and the bartender already identifies you. Perhaps because you've spent more than one evening with Father Jud, casually requisitioning a piece of his bar. Nothing worse than patrons who talk and talk to the point of forgetting to drink—that's just no way to run a business.
“If you're looking for the priest, he left already,” he signals to you with fatigued resignation, his voice soaring above the hum of the crowd.
You're a little perplexed, glancing at him, ready to defend yourself, but he swipes his hand fretfully, almost ushering you back towards the exit. You don't know why, you let yourself through the doors again, ousted like a fruit fly, having all but forgotten the prospect of a drink and drowning in the clamor of patrons.
Ink drawn trees bend over the deserted road like claws. The grounds feel spongy and lethargic from the fresh hug of rain. Your feet carry you towards the church. You don't realize you're headed there until the outline of the spire traverses the night sky.
A muffled thump halts you. A soft echo, rippling through the dozy tall grass, perturbing the melodic stridulation of katydids. You can hear mild grunts as you get closer, a scraping, something thrown against a rough surface in a jagged rhythm. You emerge at the end of the path, under a canopy of trees.
You'd recognize his outline even with your eyes closed.
“Father?”
His arm finishes its movement, bending in a gracious curve, pushed into an arrow-straight line. There's another one of those dim hisses; the rock he throws ricochets off tree bark and vanishes under the spell of gravity, swallowed whole by grass. It's such a bizarre spectacle to stumble onto, you're unsure how to react.
He does this a couple more times, oblivious to your presence, before he abruptly bows forward like a broken stick, and you're rushing over, alarmed, thinking he just lost his balance. He's only sitting down, svelte silhouette clumsily set upon the sturdy ground, paying no heed to the muck on his clothes.
You crouch next to him, hiding your disconcertment as best you can.
“Did that tree do something to you?” you whisper.
He's not inebriated enough not to recognize you. Also not inebriated enough to escape the rush of shame once he does. Eyebrows pinched, his nose crumples into a grimace.
“There you are,” he sighs. As if you got lost, somehow, and he had been looking in the woods for you.
He presses both heels of his hands against his eyelids. A low grunt rises from the pits of his throat.
“That tree is huge.”
You'd chortle at the statement if you weren't so worried. You can smell malt on his breath.
The tree's gnarly trunk is fractured from deep gashes, bark split open, unveiling younger rings of wood, torn edges rimmed a queer color—vermilion red, harsh, metallic—like lipstick staining a vulgar and warped mouth.
A widow and two children in a church. A funeral. A lacerated tree. The story weaves itself into your mind, braiding the disjointed pieces together. Someone had an accident here. But a thread is still missing—where does a guilt-burdened priest fit into this sorrowful tapestry?
Your hand carefully reaches for his shoulder.
“Can you walk?”
It turns out he can. With a dollop of help. You pass an arm around his waist to help him up. He smells of the forest and chestnuts, body all warm from the liquor. How long has he been out here, macerating in peat-flavored night?
“If we meet someone, I'll just tell them you had some bad fish.”
His cackle perturbs the remaining chirping creatures lurking in the dark. That sound surprises you enough that you find yourself mimicking him.
You both wobble along the path to the rectory. His legs are longer than yours, but in his state, he could easily crash onto the cobbles, make you tumble along with him.
“Keys,” you tell him once you reach the front door.
He goes through two pockets before he finds them, clammy hands slipping the jingling set into yours. The door glides open. A few last steps. You guide him to the sofa, in which he seems to sink rather than sit. While you remove the plump cushions to give him more space, his forehead nudges your shoulder. Body leaning into yours, limp and indolent. When he exhales, the warmth of his breath penetrates your clothing, tingling your skin. Your hand draws a circle on his back. A gentle stroke, between his shoulders, steady, patient.
“I'm going to make you lie down now,” you forewarn in a murmur.
His eyes flutter shut as soon as he's nestled against the matted upholstery. You gingerly arrange him into a safer position. Steering him onto his side, knees brought closer to his body. Removing his shoes. When you stand back up, his fingers grip your wrist. Thumb pad grazing your pulse. He mumbles something unintelligible. So you wait. A couple of heartbeats that stretch into a minute. His hand drops eventually. You carefully replace it to his side.
You've never been to the rectory before. There was no reason for it, your domain confined to the church alone. But the parlor is homey, the furniture simple—a tad worn out, yet inviting. A slightly collapsed armchair receives you. For what seems like a long time, you doze off gently, coddled by the cushions, the clicking song of insects gathered in pockets of darkness beyond the windows. Eyes floating back to Father Jud every so often, his chest rising gently as he breathes, lashes fluttering, chasing a dream. The glow of the sole lamp keeping you company reflects and divides on the windows turned into a gallery of mirrors, jet-black and hypnotic.
You don't realize your eyes have closed.
A tumbling sound jolts you up.
“Sorry—” you hear him whisper from somewhere behind you, a superfluous precaution since you're the only people here, “—didn't mean to wake you.”
A tartan plaid cloaks your knees. Your mouth feels like cotton. Outside the windows, pale blues are fading into apricot orange, tickling the tree line. The insects have stopped singing. A speck of cool light climbs up your arm.
You wonder what woke him up—anxiety or dawn.
When you ask what time it is, Father Jud replies, a little past six. Your eyes trail from the mug he brings you—that little tea pouch tainting the hot water amber—to him next, trying to read his features.
“About yesterday—” he nibbles on a fingernail, sitting back onto the sofa at arm's length, “—I owe you an apology.” His throat is dry, his voice slightly sibilant.
“You don't owe me anything. You don't even have to explain if you don't want to.”
He ruffles through his already disheveled hair. Not feeling like himself. He would like to curl up on the couch. Forget. Sleep a few hundred years more.
“Hey, take a breath.” You've caught that downcast shadow, trembling near his mouth. You're leaning into him. Hand jutting to meet his. “Listen, when things get a little too overwhelming, I like to go for a walk to ground myself. Let's try that. It's the perfect time for it.”
Your fingers press on his wrist, on that small bone that's shaped like a marble. They're cold, but he doesn't mind. They draw him to you, out of himself. A guiding touch.
“You'll notice most things are still sitting where they're supposed to be.” You're encouraging him now, your knees stretching as you gently pull him to his feet. “Everything's more palpable in the daylight.”
The sun is out now.
Shrouding leafy bosks in a tender, golden mist. You should rejoice in the return of light, but you've forgotten all about the colored glass, the conceited photographer, the book, the motives for your visit back.
Father Jud strides next to you. Took a few clunky minutes to adjust to each other's pace—when he isn't stupored and liquor-dazed, he can saunter pretty fast. His knuckles brush yours from time to time, swift, bashful, not volatile enough to seem entirely fortuitous. Dry brushwood cracks beneath your mirrored steps.
The tree rears at the end of the path. In the daylight, you both see it as it is. Gnarled, ancient, the stuff of stories, all knotted and owl-burrowed, with branches stretching like pianist fingers, playing a symphony of rustles. Slightly less monumental than the darkness painted it to be. Not at all the scythe of Death.
You're picking up a browning serrate leaf, letting it twist between your fingers, while Father Jud lingers a short moment, focused on that textured cut twisting across the trunk. When he pivots back to you, he searches for your gaze.
“I was helping this family—trying to help them.” His tone seems a little more poised. Less frost-thin, less on the verge of dissolving. But it's all in his eyes now, that glasslike sensitivity. “The parents were having some issues, so I've been counseling them these last months.” He rubs his nose, the freckles powdering his skin. They sit with such contrast upon his tired complexion, you can't help but wonder if they'll fly away if you blow on them, like achenes on a dandelion.
“The point is, they were going to be okay. They had a chance to make it work. He wasn't…”
He marks a pause, fingers tensing over his abdomen. Grappling with something intangible, yet cold, frighteningly foreign.
“This—wasn't supposed to happen to them. I struggle to make sense of it. I shouldn't, but I just can't help it.”
He confesses it to you. The crack in the belief, a startling paradox. It's the delirious twist of fate and the void of significance in such a tragedy. His faith stands enlightened on the matter, knowing the futility of running after some divine explanation—if there is one, it remains out of reach, etched on slates in a dialect that he'll never begin to comprehend. But his humanity, fragile, imperfect, and unshakeable keeps scrabbling through the wreckage like a dog, eager for shards that might be assembled to answer the great and doomed question. Why?
“He was on his way to the rectory when the crash happened.”
“I'm sorry. I really am.”
Our Lady of Perpetual Grace emerges before you. Ivy-tangled low wall and intricate frontispiece. You stop before the porch, that very same one under which you both sought escape from the deluge one afternoon, what seems like another lifetime ago.
“It's not your fault, you know?” you tell him. You wonder if anyone has.
“I know.”
His voice sounds hollow. You want to grab his shoulders, repeat it again and again, make it a litany, a canticle, if that's what it takes for him to believe it. You move like a falling acorn, swift, fast, leaving yourself no time to overthink it. Your arms carefully slide around him. He's a little bone-stiff; you pay it no heed. That's how they are, after all, those who haven't been spontaneously held in a long time. When his mind links with his body once more, understanding that it's you, pressing him against your heart, he crumples under your touch, melts into it. For as tall as he is, he suddenly feels minuscule, atom-wide, aching to drown into something greater, this corporeal burst of affection that he wasn't ready for. It's the modest, unsure realization that he craved this, needed this, ignorant to what starved extent until it was given to him.
You let him go a little sooner than he would've liked. You're all clumsy again, tripping two steps back, sniffing. You need to shower, need to change, wipe off the traces of a night spent in an armchair. You promise you'll bother him again soon.
“I'll hold you to that,” he retorts, gently solemn.
Your scent lingers on him long after you're gone.
Behind the altar, hoisted like a star upon the apse's sturdy wall, the Christ effigy is catching the first slivers of light. Its heart bursts into a fire, a transient scintillation, fragmented, condemned to exist for but a mere particle of a moment—one blink of the eye, and it'll be lost until the next day. Father Jud watches it as he does every day, his throat tight, motionless, like the slightest flinch could break the magic. It is gone now, that brief, shimmery interlude. But it will be back again tomorrow, and oddly, he finds comfort in the thought.
His shoulders are draped in the purple stole.
It's the afternoon, and the sun is playing hard to get once more. The curtain to the confessional is removed with a shrill rattle, announcing the penitent's walk out of the stuffy box, welcomed back amongst his peers, now forgiven and absolved.
The curtain stridently sings again a minute later. A blurry silhouette gesticulates behind the screen. Gray light yields to pensive, intimate darkness.
“It's odd, sitting in here.”
The fragrance of your freshly washed hair replaces the preceding congregant's heady cologne.
“—I feel like you can read my mind.”
“It's probably all for the better that I can't,” he smirks.
His palms lay flat onto his lap, awaiting your next stream of thoughts.
“Do people always know what to say when they come in here? Do they rehearse their text beforehand, or do they fumble a little?”
Your question makes him smile.
He can't breach the Seal of Confession, of course, but children and the young, they're oddly the ones who stammer the least when stuck in the stall beside him. They need some guidance, mostly to remain on one trajectory, but otherwise, words flow with such relief out of their mouths, one can only envy their candor. Their lack of filter gladdens him, especially when he's trusted with secrets such as admitting to putting a dead spider in the bed of a sibling or faking a grade to avoid being raked over the coals. He has to remind himself that this is important to those young souls, that all beings who step into the box are to be taken seriously, no matter the nature of what they confide. All equals.
“Depends. Some like the small talk beforehand. It puts them at ease. Someone once took ten full minutes to explain the steps of their anchovy and pear aspic recipe to me.”
“Or,” you scowl, “it was a confession of culinary sins.”
He stifles a small snicker.
“You're doing it now, too, you know,” bringing your attention to your own behavior. “Diversion.”
“I'm sorry. I've never sat in a confessional before. I'm not sure what to say.”
It isn't the mirage of salvation through spirituality that lured you in, but rather old-fashioned, incorrigible human curiosity. He recognizes it with ease, remembering vividly the feeling of being poked by your probing mind, of your indefatigable questioning.
“What constitutes a sin?” you ponder.
A maze-wide question that divides into countless, tortuous answers. He could offer the clean-cut version to you, what's been quoted in catechism over and over again. Or explain the intricacies observed by those who study the complicated field of hamartiology. He could remind you of the difference between mortal and venial sin. But none of those tangents he senses could bring you satisfaction.
“Back at the seminary, I found many in the clergy seem to believe that shame is a gift from God. That it helps recognize sin.”
The slight disdain in this muttered sentence makes you frown.
“You don't agree with them?”
“Not really. No. It's a reductive take. Victims feel shame; it doesn't mean they did anything wrong.”
“What about regret? Or guilt? Are those indicators of sin?”
He blinks, perplexed by your separation of the two words. From his side of the lace-thin motif of the partition, he considers you inquisitively.
“Do you find a difference between regret and guilt?”
“I think I do,” you retort, suddenly grave. “It's etymological.”
It's the first time someone uses the word etymological in his confessional.
“Guilt, you know what it means better than I do. It's, hum—”
“A betrayal of morals, of our own beliefs,” he helps complete when you stagger. “Provoked by acts we know to be wrong and hope to atone for.”
“Yes. On the other hand, I read "regret" comes from Old French, from the word, "regreter". It means to look back on, to long after.”
It's a word tainted with a certain flavor of sorrow, of melancholia. Regret, perhaps, would be a sin against man rather than God. The burden of life not lived.
“You don't find that same intent in guilt. The implication of a desire that hasn't been fulfilled. Of something that's been missed and remains missing.”
When the last word leaves your mouth, it dawns on him, slowly, then all at once, the weight of something, alive, vibrant, caught in between the both of you, in the stale air of the confessional. Something you haven't spoken of and that he's barely mentioned but which has remained attached to every move you've made towards each other. It was there when you helped him stagger back to the rectory at night, when he sheltered your legs with a plaid before dawn reached the sky, when he brought you chamomile tea after rousing you up, or when you urged him to come walk with you, holding him when it felt like he might disappear into the soil.
Every small gesture, like a thin root undulating from a greater stem, like powder off a comet, hiding something unavoidable, unmissable. He'll call it a tenderness, so as not to name it the other, greater, frighteningly, infinitely more complicated word. And it's been hunkering down a long time, obscured, not festering but blooming, because over a year ago he made a choice, knocking on your door, refusing regret, refusing to let whatever this was become something missed, a hole, a smothering of desire.
Was this born from sin?
Why doesn't he feel guilt if it is?
“So tell me,” you continue after a long lull, shattering his trail of feverish thought, “is confession just some mechanical listing of set rules you've transgressed? Regardless of whether or not you understand what you're supposed to feel sorry for?”
“No,” he articulates, once he finds the voice to do so. “That's not all that confession is.”
“Enlighten me then.”
He exhales longly. Grasping for the proper words to materialize his stance.
“Confession means something different to everyone. Because when you reveal what you believe to be a sin, you're also revealing a part of who you are to yourself. Saint Augustine wrote…”
“I don't care what Saint Augustine wrote,” cutting him off abruptly. “Tell me what you think.”
The more you prod him, he thinks, the more he irreparably likes you.
“Fine,” indulging you with a grin. “With free will comes responsibility over our sins. But taking responsibility, that's the real difficult part, isn't it?”
He rubs the knuckles of his left hand, pensive.
“It's more convenient to blame someone else for our wrongdoings. Confession isn't just repenting for offending God. It's a gift to ourselves as well. By speaking our sins, our mistakes out loud, we make them tangible. It's a chance to own up to what we've done. It makes bearing responsibility, if not easier, at least possible.”
He marks a pause.
“There you go, I think it's about courage. About not running away from things.”
His eyes travel to the wooden panel erected between you, trying to pierce through the cruciform-patterned openwork to seek your expression. He catches the glimmer in the depth of your pupils, shadowing his. Your hair, its fragrance, it's haunting him. He wants to reach through the fragile net of wood and touch you.
“Father?”
There's a tremor in your voice.
“Yes?”
“What comes next?”
It takes him a moment to realize you're talking about the sacrament.
“I give you your penance,” he replies, somewhat impersonally. “And you'll recite your Act of Contrition. Basically, say that you're sorry.”
“It's that easy then? A few words, some prayer, and you're forgiven?”
You seem disappointed.
“In the heart of Christ, yes. Why should repenting be difficult for it to count? You still have to live with yourself after; that's tough enough as it is.” His head tilts in your direction, his voice grows softer. “I think it's what matters most. To know you're loved, regardless of whether you deserve it or not. Isn't it what people need in order to do better?”
A silence settles in the booth. Ancient aromas of varnished wood linger around you. If you close your eyes and listen, you can hear his breathing, echoing yours.
Your voice pierces the holy silence. Landing you both back onto mortal soil.
“I think I forgot my phone at the rectory.”
You hear amusement in his voice.
“Well, you could've just led with that.”
You're foraging through the cushions of the sitting area. Nobody pays you any heed. As soon as you walked inside, a timid hand rapped on the door. Father Jud gestured briefly to you—“I'm doing this now,” he meant, and led the visitor into the adjacent office. The garbled hum of a conversation carries through on the other side.
By day, the building is traversed with the regular tapping of footsteps, disjointed fragments of voices, ruffles of all kinds of attires. Night truly throws a distorted spell, for under broad daylight, the rectory shakes off its garb of an empty, silent house, absorbing echoes carried from the village, laughter of children galloping near the flower beds, congregants cycling by and ringing their bells. You nearly don't recognize the room in which you spent queasy, somnolent, dream-stunned hours.
Searching the coffee table, you push aside varicolored origami stars pinched between pages of tattered magazines. The room carries remembrances of people's passage, so many inconsequential belongings abandoned in their trail: small matchboxes stamped with the emblem of the local pub, packets of caramel or gum, a key chain shaped like a snail, one lonely pastel blue pacifier. Scents, too, a disparate bouquet of them, embalming the upholstery, ranging from musky body spray to sickly sweet vanilla. You wonder who they are, what stories they hide, those peregrine beings, passing by the rectory like pilgrims, coming not for a glimpse of a holy relic or to bathe in a pool of sacred water. Even stumbling on his own questionings, his own uncertainties, Father Jud knows how to talk to them, listens to them. He's the anchor that holds them together despite his own fears. If confession takes courage, so does this.
One soul walks out, another comes in. Like in a confessional. The door handle clicks as the mechanism jumps open or shut. The ballet is almost dizzying.
When the last of them leaves, the ashen sky has melted into fuscous, indigo foam. And the house is falling asleep.
He's surprised to find you still sitting there, cozied on the sofa, one leg curled under yourself with an old edition of Country Living open on your lap. You notice his look, asking what his lips do not.
“Felt like a thief, leaving without saying goodbye.” Truth is, time flew by and you didn't notice.
Father Jud asks if you found your phone, and you flash him the culprit, its screen glumly showing off a red and exhausted battery icon. He crashes onto the armchair ahead of you, worn-out and lax-limbed. Despite the attitude, something seems lighter about him. He's exhausted, brain all chewed out by effort and speech, but relieved, compelled by something he hasn't felt for several days. His eyes fix on a dot of reflected light before they trail back to you. He asks if you're hungry, and you shake your head.
You're ready to take your leave—you should've left a while ago already—but his voice pulls you back.
“Thank you, for yesterday. And this morning.”
“Don't mention it. Grief isn't an easy thing to deal with.”
He snickers, a little painfully.
“Aren't you going to ask me why Christians grieve at all, if they believe in an afterlife?”
A year ago, perhaps, that would've been the sort of thing you would've pressed him on. You can see your silence perplexes him. After a moment, you flip the magazine shut and let it slide onto the table.
“It's in your book. "Jesus wept", right? If he grieved when Lazarus passed, I think it's not entirely unthinkable for Christians to experience grief too. Even if you believe in the afterlife, death is still a separation.”
He stays silent a while, slightly disarmed. There's a world in which that's the sort of answer he would've given you, had you asked the question.
“So you did read it?” he ponders, letting his chin rest on his hand. “The Bible I gave you?”
“Sure.” A shrug, looking to the side, suddenly a little coy. “I skimmed through it.”
You notice he's hiding a grin behind his palm.
“What?”
“Honestly, I was afraid you'd use it as a door wedge or something.”
“That's the long-term plan,” you tease. “But I also like to be informed in my skepticism.”
“What's your general verdict?”
He sees you catch yourself before a wave of corrosive, possibly cruel commentary teeters out. You lick your lips, picking the other path, the less predictable one. There's no point preaching to the choir—he's already aware of your cynicism regarding the Holy Scriptures.
“I won't be attending any catechism classes, that's for certain. But—” you pick the tip of your fingernails, gathering yourself. “—But some parts, I'll admit I enjoyed more than I expected.”
“Really?” He sounds attentive, if not bewildered.
“Yeah, I pushed—no, suffered—through Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. I didn't expect what came after that.”
He nods gently, already knowing which part you're referring to.
“Song of Songs.”
“Yes, that's it. The poetry.” The manner in which your hands gesticulate along with your thoughts touches him. “It's lovely. Unexpected. I don't understand what it does there, how it's supposed to fit in everything else.”
He shifts in his seat.
“How does the first one start again?”
“I'm not sure.”
“You said it's like poetry. You don't remember even a little?”
You realize you're fidgeting. Your body betraying a sudden tension, a burst of restlessness. Rubbing your elbow, you pretend to think. You're not sure what convinces you to speak the words that marked your literary sensitivity. His eyes, perhaps. How full of expression they are, and rather enticing. You feel like how you did earlier in the confessional. As if somehow, he could reach into your thoughts.
“Your—”
Stop, swallow, start again. Not so fast.
They're just words. Only words.
“Your lips cover me with kisses;”
Around the lampshade, a moth flutters like a sleeper's runaway dream. You wish the dimness cloaking the room could hold you as well.
“…your love is better than wine.”
He's looking at you. Still looking at you. His irises probing your mouth, focused on each pause you take, every punctuation sign translated into a breath, your tongue curving as it composes the sound. His alertness wrapped around you, seizing your lungs like ocean water.
“There is a fragrance about you;
the sound of your name recalls it.
No woman could keep from loving you.”
You're looking elsewhere now, shifty eyes. Pretending to focus on memory, not on the intent behind the sentences. It's a failed experiment, the words slip out of your mouth like an accident, infused with unruly earnestness. You fear your heart drums louder than the cadence of your voice, fear it might pour out your mouth, naked and sluiced in truth.
“Take me with...”
A strident, mechanical melody pierces the air.
Relief and disappointment swallow you whole.
The landline shrieks, breaking whatever remained of the poem. Father Jud's hand overlays the handset, like he's trying to muffle its cries. Mouthing a contrite apology. He has to pick up. You're so quick on your feet, signing a goodnight to him before darting through the door. All he's left with is your imprint in the fabric where you sat and a wisp of your fragrance, timorously mingled with those still haunting the room.
It's a good thing the phone rang.
He tries to persuade himself of it the better part of the next day. Repeating it a few times, a carrousel of reason twirling in his brain, thinking if it keeps spinning, it'll eventually start sounding true.
In the quiet serenity of the sacristy, he plays and replays the scene. Your flushed face, speaking a poem that didn't belong to you, making it your own by some heedless spell, and all he could do, sitting there, was watch, weary, transfixed, as if he hadn't been the one distilling it out of you. Battling the irrepressible urge of undoing the gap separating him from you, make the unseen tangible, kiss you until your mouth becomes raw, swollen, your voice uttering to him a breathy “What comes next?”
There's the secret reminiscence of what happened once. The intensity of it, of a shared connection that almost seemed fictitious, imagined, as time ushered forward. There was the understood, hinted covenant that it was all a singular deviation, one that could never be repeated. But your voice oscillated in the nave once more, and he's struck with a vertigo he never wants to cure. He fails to perceive this unnamable pull as a slip, a misstep, refuses to call it a skip in wisdom, not when it falls with an inevitability as sincere and natural as the seasons changing. It's a sin to surrender to it. It's a greater sin to bludgeon it. A crime akin to plucking an angel off its feathers.
For two whole days, you throw yourself into your work. Hunting light like a deranged poacher, waiting for sunbeams to emerge from the mantle of plaster-white clouds, stalking the opportunity to immortalize those statufied ladies in the colored glass. It's an enraged pursuit. Almost like some invisible fingers casually rearrange those celestial objects for the sole purpose of slowing you down. On the evening of the second day, going through the raw images captured in the morning, the photographer lets out a half-satisfied huff. He beams at the prospect of heading back home soon. For the first time—could be stress, could be exhaustion—you find no solace in the accomplishment of your task.
There's no explanation as to why the mercurial weather only unveils its softness once shrouded by night. In the buzzing halo of streetlights, you stroll under the canopy of trees. Passing before the napping oak, you notice there's now a mesh wrapped around its trunk, shielding the spot abraded by the collision.
The windows of the rectory are all lit up, gushing warm, fuzzy light that infuses the grass. When you knock, you're met with no answer. You're quick to abandon the porch, diverting your footsteps, pursuing the sturdy lines of architecture that escort you to the back of the house. Father Jud sits in a garden chair, slightly slouching, interminable legs stretched before him.
“Did you put that net up, around the tree?” you ask him, skipping the greetings.
He blenches, shoulders jumping to his ears. Relaxing once he notices it's just you.
“I figured that oak's already been through enough,” he admits. “Cutting it down seemed a little cruel.”
You set yourself onto the neighboring chair, crossing your legs.
Father Jud's wool sweater, a dark shade of pine green, seems directly dyed with the secretive pigments from the garden. With the exception of liturgical vestments, he's so seldom clad in anything other than black or midnight blue, the sight is novel enough that you consider him a little longer than adequate.
“How's the photo session going?” he inquires. You offer a lukewarm response, too drained to get into the details of your sun-chasing, profoundly uninterested in boring him with any of it anyway.
A comfortable silence enmists you both. The night is crisp with a timbery smokiness, laden with the richness of geraniums and tender leaves.
“You didn't finish that verse the other day,” he reminds you—like you needed reminding— “from the Song of Songs.”
You rub your lips together, pinky scraping a particle of chipped paint in the armrest.
“I don't think I remember anymore.”
It's not even a lie. Seems like your memory has evicted most remaining traces of the poem.
He clears his throat, an imperceptible line drawn between his brows, concentration. It surprises you when he picks up where you halted.
“There is a fragrance about you;
the sound of your name recalls it.
No woman could keep from loving you.”
Your head pivots back to him. The angle of his smile slots deep in his cheek.
“Take me with you, and we'll run away;
be my king and take me to your room.”
You want to run your finger on that curved shadow.
“We will be happy together,
drink deep, and lose ourselves in love.”
He recounts a few more sentences.
“…Why should I look for you
among the flocks of the other sheperds?”
His voice wavers, eventually, dimples accentuating before he capitulates.
“Ah,” he sighs. “I don't think I remember the rest either.”
Wrapped in stillness, you gaze back at the skewed shadows of the bushes, where insects croon and whisper. Your arms clasp around you, suddenly chilled.
“You're cold,” he frowns.
“Not that much.”
“It's warmer inside.”
“I should head back to the inn, actually.”
“It's a long walk.” A beat. “You can stay here.”
You swallow.
“Are you sure?”
“I'd like you to.”
Need you to.
A few more seconds flutter by. Neither of you dares to move.
You're the first, mustering enough courage to stand up. Floating closer to him, offering an open palm. He looks up to you—those sea green puddles, you could drown in them. Seizing your hand, he leads you to the house, through the parlor, switching off the lights, all of them. Accustomed to the altered geography of the rectory in darkness, his fingers warm yours, pulling you close so you won't trip on the stairs. In his trail lingers the fragrance of cotton, well known and soothing.
His room is chocolate-box-sized, verging on claustrophobic. A miracle he can even fit in there. You absorb what modestly fills it, loitering like a visitor in a museum, peeking towards the nightstand, the clothing rack displaying various tones and hues of dark, the few shabby shelves, quickly deciphering book titles. When you turn to look at him, you notice he's watching you.
“Will you come closer?” he whispers.
A quiet intimacy washes over the both of you. It's so easy with him. Like it's something you've done countless times before, barely needing to think about it. While he helps undress you, you stifle a long yawn in the crook of your elbow, making him laugh.
“Why are there love poems in the Bible?” you mutter, standing before him in just the shirt he loaned you and your underwear. Rubbing your eyelid with a closed fist.
He cajoles you towards the bed. You cling to his tee-shirt, repressing a satisfied sigh when your body sinks into the mattress.
“It's a metaphor,” he explains in a whisper. The blanket topped with a quilt drapes your legs, climbing up to your shoulders, shielding you both under its weight. “About the relationship between God and His believers.”
Shifting, stirring, fitting yourselves around each other in a rustle of sheets, encased in the narrowness of his bed. Legs tangled, your nose brushes the nook of his neck. The murmur of his voice keeps cradling you.
You vanish into slumber before you even realize it.
Hours later, you jolt up, disoriented, eyes wide in the dark. A cluster of seconds pass by before you remember where you are.
Father Jud's watch is perched on the nightstand. He grunts when you accidentally elbow him while trying to reach it. Emerging from deep sleep, he grumbles. There's the click of the bedside lamp.
“What's wrong?”
“I'm just—I got scared I might've overslept.”
He observes the window, having developed an acute talent at guessing the time by assessing the level of contrast on the glass. He can tell dawn is still far away.
“It's probably around four. Math isn't my strong suit,” he jests in a croaky voice, “but I'm pretty sure that leaves you a few more hours.”
Your head rolls on the pillow.
“I don't want people seeing me slip out the back door like a criminal.”
He pushes himself up on his forearm, brows furrowed.
“I keep procrastinating on hiring someone to help with administration. Nobody comes up here until eight,” he leisurely assures in a half-voice.
His thumb mindlessly caresses the curve of your lower lip. You offer his fingertip a gentle peck once it reaches your Cupid's bow. In the velvet dark, his eyes glimmer like obsidian.
He kisses your collarbone in response.
Something stills in you. Your fingers clasp his shoulder.
“What are you thinking?” he wonders.
Need to pause and breathe before you answer.
“I think—”
A slight twist, under your breastbone. Tension wrenching your lungs.
“I think, unless you're very sure about what you'd like to happen in the next few minutes, that you'd better let me leave.”
He does not flinch. Simply returning your gaze. There's no point in pretending there's nothing here.
“Is this a sin?” you utter.
He doesn't reply.
“Does it feel like one?” you ask again. This one, at least, he knows the answer to.
He shakes his head.
Your breathing syncs.
He kisses your mouth. Tender, languid.
'Your love is better than wine,' said the book. You feel vertiginous.
His knee prompts yours, teasing your legs open. His hair is coarse under your fingers.
You gesture vaguely to the stack of your clothing in the corner of the room. In your jean pocket, there's your card holder, and in your card holder, there's a…
“A—?” he slyly taunts when you let your sentence linger.
He has the restraint not to ask where you've acquired the habit of carrying a wrapped condom. Why it happens to be his size. There's not much air left for questions anyway: you're all open mouths, fumbling hands, occupied with tearing remaining items of clothing off yourselves with hasty, imprecise gestures. As he peels his shirt off, he hits his head on the slanted joists above the bed, and you both burst into giggles like children, shared mirth breaking lingering vapors of uncertainty and fear, feeling gawky and elated.
The plastic wrapper tears. You watch him with bated breath while he gingerly unfolds the latex upon himself.
“You need to pinch the—”
“Yes,” he scoffs, amused, “I know that.”
His nails graze your parted thighs next.
Your heartbeats stack when he lies on top of you, his chest brushing your nipples. His fingers dawdle in that puddle of warmth between your legs. Remembering where to touch, stealing soft moans out of you.
Your hips call for him. For the last distance to be breached.
He holds himself, takes his time. Plays with you a while.
Dip.
Sink.
Splits you open. There's a sharp sting that quickly recedes and you softly whimper, swallowing down the drips of blasphemy that almost slip from your mouth. His knuckles turn white, crumpling the pillow next to your cheek.
He searches your features.
“Does it hurt?”
No, you mouth, your vocal cords frozen.
Your legs wrap around his waist, coaxing him closer. The stretch numbs your mind. Want him to move, need him to.
“Wait,” he restrains you, nose nuzzling yours, “wait for me.”
One hand stoutly holding your waist.
Spearing bliss into you, delicate, callous, ravaging. The bed shivers. Headboard rattles the wall. Your back curves on the mattress. You're not sure your own skin belongs to you anymore, where it ends, where his own begins.
It's just so good.
Pleasure swells where your bodies join. Flesh meeting in rousing strokes.
He stills his rhythm, panting, his forehead bumping yours. You almost choke from the loss of friction, pathetically reduced to an unbearable need. Muscles gripping desperately.
Sweat flavors his kiss, sea-salt tang when he bites your lower lip.
You try to wait for him to gather himself, grasping his bicep. Fighting impatience and the crimson-lit brazier he's set in your core.
“Please,” you sob.
He listens now—how could he not?
You're grabbing full sheaves of his hair, your other hand clutching the back of his shoulder.
Monsoon-wet mist swirls around you both, emanating from the variables of movement. Droplets of arousal and sweat dewing the clean sheets. You'd forget your own name if he weren't singing it in your ear. Calls you good, calls you sweet. Fingers intertwined like ivy tendrils, inseparable.
He shatters you. Builds you a storm. Carves a tragedy down to your bones.
Gifting you something tumultuous, something reckless, that nibbles your thighs, creeps up your navel, steals you away. You come undone in a sob, mouth latched onto his neck, glossing up the dark ink splayed on his skin. Pulsating hard around him. Can barely hold his gaze, how instinct pushes your eyelids shut like the wings of a crazed butterfly, white waves of merciless exaltation undulating through you.
Your bleary vision steadies on his features. His puffed lips, the rosy hues of his cheekbones. You've never seen him like this before, flushed and glowing, lax with pure abandon, all of it your doing.
“You're so beautiful,” you push a murmur onto his tongue, like sacramental bread.
His muscles twitch. You kiss him while he comes, swallowing his moans, taking them all for you; his delicate breakage made your secret, his confession for you to hold and keep. Delighting in his tremors, his somersaulting heartbeat. The deep sighs that break from him, mind alleviated and alarmingly light.
You both lie in silence afterward. Dozing in and out of sleep. Hands roaming on skin from time to time, as if checking for the other's presence. By the time his watch reaches six on the dial, you're reaching down, plucking your clothes off the floor. His lips mark your waist as you slide your jeans up your legs. Your thumb grazes the dark stubble on his cheeks.
You barely speak a word to each other as you tear yourself away from the bed. Your hands are the last things touching when you do, the last part that is let go.
Three days float through before the skies are dusted clean, a meticulous zephyr sweeping all celestial detritus and frayed clouds. Birch trees bend and curve like harps under the implacable gust of wind. Their branches rub, susurrating a discordant melody.
You find Father Jud sitting on the stone bench behind the church. The scene strikes you like an old photograph. How many times have you lingered here, speaking with him, on that very bench?
You wait for the chatter of leaves to subdue before clearing your throat. Letting him know it's you, just you. He's all dressed in black again, the white seal of the clerical collar clutching his throat, a porcelain lock. He scoots over so you can sit.
“Are you almost finished?” he inquires.
The chanting trees are close to swallowing your voice.
“There's one left, the wedding at Cana. It's giving us a bit of a hard time. We'll get it today.”
To any prying, outsider eye inquisitively lurking in, you'd just look like two normal people meditatively staring at bustling foliage. You're both decent and collected now, but it persists still, this thing interweaving you underneath it all, in some raw, membranous, organic way, something you can't properly define or analyze, only observe. You know he feels it too.
“I need to talk to you.”
Nothing great ever came from such words. Your body responds with apprehensive stiffness, closing like a disturbed anemone. Nails digging into the palm of your hands, anxious to hear the rest. His eyes meet yours.
“I've been selfish.”
The declaration puzzles you.
“Selfish?” you stutter, trying to understand. “Towards God?”
“No. Well,” he corrects, “a little, certainly. But, mostly, towards you.”
He chews on his lips, downcast eyes set on a fissure in the sturdy granite.
“You know this—” he tries to dig out the right word, but he's failed at catching it these last days; there's no reason for him to succeed now, “—you know this can't ever become anything else. Anything more.”
“I know,” you patiently remind him. “I'm pretty sure I told you I do.”
He has God, a parish, people to guide, to help, to teach and to learn from. A fervent, sublime purpose, one that you understand, despite marching on your own, entirely opposed path. You know. You've made your peace with everything it implies, as painful as it is.
He leans in, closer.
“I care about you.”
He says it as a substitute for something else, but in his mouth, in this moment, the words ring with more vulnerable significance. Like he's been holding onto it for a while, this living thing, with wings and a heart, now fluttering freely amongst larks and sparrows.
“I want you to go bump into life,” he continues. “Collide with it. Let it hurt; let it bring you joy. Make yourself dizzy on it. Write more books, meet someone, fall in love. I want all this for you, more than anything else.”
His palm flattens on the lichen-specked bench between you, fingers nudging yours.
“Do you understand what I'm saying?”
“I think I do.”
His hand covers yours. You need to ask the question.
“Do you regret it?”
He's quick to reply.
“No. Not even a little.”
He lingers on it a moment. Giving you a bashful grin, all dimple-kissed, the sort you'll carry with you the rest of your life.
“I'll love better now. After knowing you.”
By Friday, you are gone.
Father Jud knows this—he finds a note in your hand, stashed beneath a flowerpot near the front porch of the rectory. In a bumpy handwriting, it reads a modest farewell.
“Don't be a stranger; remember to write.”
Along with the note is a pen. He fiddles with it a moment, struck with recognition. It's the ballpoint pen he let you borrow over a year ago, when you first shared a talk in the church's sacristy.
The wind arises, tousling his hair.
Today, he'll visit the widow of a dearly departed parishioner. He'll get started on the project of building a wooden swing set to distract the children from trampling the flower beds. He'll lead a prayer group, listen to penitents in the confessional booth, practice his Sunday homily. At some point, between those tasks, he'll let his mind wander to you—just a few, indulgent, vaporous minutes.
He could never be a lover. Not in the way you'd deserve. But he could be a few other things. Challenger, teacher, student, confidant, pen pal, friend.
( + read on AO3 )
✣ PAIRING: Father Jud Duplenticy x Art historian fem!reader (2nd person POV)
✣ THEMES AND WARNINGS: NSFW, Minors do not interact!!!! Religious themes, slow burn and mutual pining, angst, irresponsible sex (idk how else to call what happens here), fingering, hand job, oral (f and m receiving), grinding, (this is actually softer than the warnings imply).
✣ NOTES: Yeah when I saw that sweet priest on my screen, I just had to drop everything and write this; hope you enjoy! :)
✣ SYNOPSIS: God might be the flawed invention of an anguished humanity, but the moments you share with the priest who keeps challenging you feel like a touch of grace.
“Finding out their homily is boring is possibly a clergyman's second worst fear.”
The nave was silent before those words—caught in the digestive inertia that often follows the hours after Mass—its regular tiles aligned between vast swathes of light, splashing through colored glass.
You look up from your notepad, blinking, lugged from thoughts of a whole other nature.
“Pardon?”
The first thing you notice are his eyes. A vivid, water-branded shade, like a stream running through woods or algae disturbing the low tide, bluish, not quite green, welcoming as a bed of moss.
“I know,” he continues, in this affable, lightly mischievous tone, “paying attention during Mass can prove itself a challenge.”
It's how he says it, utterly divorced of the solemnity that shells others like him, not austere, not scolding, but like he's young enough to remember the occasional Sunday mornings: being pried out of bed, rammed into uncomfortably dapper clothing, just to fall asleep again on shellacked pews before the first psalms are even read.
“You probably aren't the only daydreamer—but it's unusual, to see one honest enough not to pretend.”
From his pulpit, overlooking the assembly, it was difficult to miss. Yours were the only eyes straying away from the altar, from the crucifix, from him. Oblivious to the words, glancing to the windows like a bored student in a stuffy classroom and giving that pen you're still holding a nibble every now and then. As the prologue of a hymn vibrated through the cool air and the congregation united in a broken falsetto, he wondered, what in heaven could you be scribbling about?
An embarrassed smile climbs up your lips.
“I have a confession to make: I didn't come for the liturgy.”
You readily explain, “I'm writing a paper about the stained glass—” and his eyes flare up, outpacing you.
“Oh, you're that researcher,” he remembers, or feigns to remember. “It's a relief. Here I was, ready to accept my sentence as a terrible bore.”
He jests, of course. Holding anyone's attention never seems to be an issue for him—for better and, well, often times for the worst.
His hand extends forward.
“I'm Father Jud.”
His palm feels warm against yours. A little coarse, perhaps, and drier than it should, results of labor, effort, rinsing, and scrubbing. Something else too, under those knobbly knuckles, secrets of a life-lived, tucked beneath his skin.
Per custom, you offer your name back, along with a glib Nice to meet you.
“I wasn't purposely being disrespectful,” you clarify after the introduction. “It's just, the light is perfect now, and the hours coincide with—”
He cuts you off swiftly, waving his fingers as if to cast out any awkwardness.
“You don't have to explain. It really is rather beautiful here,” he concedes, those not-quite-blue irises traveling in the line of your gaze to the golden beams of the morning sun. “I like to sit in the nave when I can, just to watch the reflections on the lancet windows…”
He stops himself, clears his throat.
“I'll leave you to it. If you need anything, don't be afraid to ask.”
He pivots, ready to traverse the lane, carried by a prudent, discreet gait, shoulders just a little stiff. Leaving behind a whiff of clean soap, clinging to the dark curls of his hair.
You can't help but call back to him, just as he's about to cross the fourth row of benches.
“What's the first?”
Stopping in his tracks, he blinks, slightly confused.
“Mmh?”
Your pen clicks against the pad.
“You said being boring was a clergyman's second worst fear. What's the first one?”
His uncertainty melts into a quizzical grin. Boyish, slightly enigmatic, almost elf-like. Whatever is about to come out of his mouth, you think, it might not be the truth. Aren't men of God forbidden to speak lies?
“Catching altar boys drinking the communion wine, probably,” he hums, humorous.
You can't help but smirk in response.
“Happens a lot, I gather?”
His head gives a light shake, a smile drawing dimples in his left cheek. Quite the smile, too. Strongly curved parentheses framing his mouth, warm, oddly familiar. Like an echo of other smiles, of a beloved childhood friend, a nurturing uncle, or a favorite cousin. You can see why parishioners would trust him. It's the kind of grin that teases ease out of people, a desire to confide. Who knows what anyone else would do with such a gift of a smile—perhaps it's a relief this one chose the cassock.
“Good luck with your research,” he amiably wishes, before making his way to the sacristy.
You don't think of the priest again until a few days later.
Timidly knocking on the very same door Father Jud disappeared through upon the first day of meeting him. You're looking to borrow a pen after forgetting or losing yours, that overchewed lucky charm.
The sacristy is a drab room, smelling stale and a little damp, a mixture of unaired textiles, varnished wood, burnt crackers, and, oddly, the faint, acrid afterscent of cigarettes. He's alone in there, answering your knock after a short beat. Eyes a little glassy, possibly preoccupied. He evulses any sign of aloofness as soon as the hinges creak, inviting you in, asking if you'd like some coffee—he just made some. Your eyes wander around while he fusses about. The preparation room is encumbered with heaps of stuff: mismatched teacups and glasses, markers missing their caps, ruffled books in their worn-out covers, and a crumpled altar linen stained a deep burgundy red, awaiting to be salvaged.
He notices the way you examine the surroundings.
“This isn't all my doing, by the way,” he says about the mess. “Nearby clubs and activity groups in the parish meet up here for the time being. It's a little, ugh, modern.”
“I'm not judging.”
He invites you to sit and slides a ballpoint pen in your direction, along with a cup of steaming coffee. You contemplate his knuckles as he moves, just like you did last time. He has beautiful hands.
Fidgeting with the pen, you raise the drink to your lips.
“What is it you study, precisely?” he asks eventually, finally sitting down in turn.
You swallow before you reply, voice croaky from the heat of the beverage. It's awfully bitter.
“Religious iconography.”
The study of images and symbology in Christian art would be the complete phrasing, but that's just too many words. You always mechanically deliver the shortened version, used to people dropping the subject as early as it is socially authorized to do so.
His gaze shifts, head tilting, cooing out a soft “Oh”.
The topic could've ended here. It doesn't.
He understands your language.
It's simple, because it is his as well.
When he inquires about the figures in the colored glass, the ones that hold your academic interest, it's with an awareness that eludes the profane. Scenes of the Life of the Virgin Mary, Saint Catherine with her wheel, Mary Magdalene's river of flaxen hair—he knows them all. Of course he does. He interrogates you on the specimens exhibited in the aisles, details, features he could've missed. The shape of a leaf, a certain hand gesture—all those small things with meaning, locked in time, awaiting to be read, rediscovered. He offers you the same incandescent smile you've already seen him wear on that first day, stating that he'll need to go take a closer look when he can.
When you ask him which artist was commissioned for the crucifix, with an interest translating your admiration, he is struck, briefly, with the sin of pride. Glancing down to his mitts, marked from the woodworking. Even considering not telling you.
While he ponders, you notice the dark ink, its filigree-thin contrast on his skin, peeking out of his collar. A most unexpected attribute for a priest.
After you tease him, calling his silence an unfair act of gatekeeping, he surrenders the secret at last. You ask how he made the heart of the figure shine, this otherworldly glow that struck your pupil last morning.
There's a story behind that Christ sculpture. One he doesn't wish to share, for now.
So he tells you about the theology of light instead. About the ancient belief, constructed centuries ago by another holy man, conjecturing light as a divine messenger, its passage carefully thought and built into the architecture of churches, through refined windows, roses, translucent glass. Light as a means to exalt devotion in the hearts of the congregants. Light reaching through, the open palm of God.
“… Which is why it's so natural, I guess, to sense His presence in places like this,” he gestures to the doors leading back to the heart of the church. “Still, I'll admit, I find God just as perceptible in less consequential things.”
“Such as?”
“Oh. I don't know—” he chews on his cheek, suddenly bashful, “—someone's laughter. Moonshine on a pond. A cat galloping to greet you. I like to think all those have a touch of holiness to them.”
“Finding beauty in the mundane isn't the privilege of believers,” you point out, perniciously prickly.
He doesn't pick up on the drop of hostility straining your tone—if he does, he hides it well, or perhaps it simply doesn't bother him.
“You speak of beauty, while I talk of faith. But I agree with you. Rejoicing in His creation is not entitled to Christians—”
A knock on the door startles you both, pulling you out of the depths of your conversation. He has lost track of time, glancing at the clock with mild fright. A soft voice pushes through the door, calling for the Father. He quickly ushers you out, with a choice of words and manners devoid of rudeness that almost make you feel like the decision to leave was yours all along.
Priests, you soon learn, are even more sought after than doctors.
This priest, at least.
Father Jud knows he can't fix people. He cannot erase what has been done to them, what they have done to others, what they will do to themselves. It's a bittersweet certainty. Neither his hands nor his words are a cure. But they can be a salve, a balm. Soothing, bringing quiet in the noise, and an uncomplicated, unfastidious incarnation of love. His presence besides members of the community is stable, constant. It doesn't ask for anything in return. That's where he finds his purpose.
After a week or so, he grows used to the sight of your hunched posture in various spots of the church, concentration mistreating your spine.
He knows you're not a convert. Has known ever since he spoke to you in the sacristy.
But one day, you stun him a little.
It happens sometimes before noon.
The rustling of your springy step resonates behind him, right after he's accompanied a parishioner back to the entrance of the church, a recent widower, still grief-bound and numb to the roaring of life around him. Father Jud whispers to him, “Call me when you need, I'll always answer,” squeezes his shoulder, watches him leave. The door shuts with a loud clangor.
He turns to look at you, your bag handle slung across your shoulder, a little sleepy-eyed, with ink-spotted hands.
After some meaningless small talk about the weather, you stifle a yawn.
“I've always found a little ironic—” you comment, peering to the doorway, “—how one can speak to a priest and safely expect an answer but not receive the same from God. He's arguably the most important aspect of this religion. Yet the priests are the ones who listen and offer direct guidance.”
You're always so immersed in your task, he never thinks you might be paying attention to anything else, least of all his own endeavors. But you see the people who huddle in church with the hope of speaking to him, presenting him their woes for some, seeking company void of criticism and judgment for others. He contemplates you with a hint of uncertainty, intrigued by what you might be getting at.
“Could it mean some priests are more important than God?”
There it is, expressed in the muttery tone of hypothesis.
Father Jud stands silent. A brief frown, the slightest show of his stupefaction. There's much he could say, to refute your wandering supposition, but there's no time for him to articulate his thoughts.
“Sorry.” Your wince seems sincere, before you add in a quieter inflection, “It's probably blasphemy, to say things like this in a church.”
“We'll hope He was busy listening elsewhere when it happened,” he comments, a friendly attempt to brush the matter off.
You chuckle at the not-so-funny statement, apologetic and amiable again.
From then on, your path crosses his more often. On your breaks, seemingly aspiring for a chattier counterpart to those silent figures occupying the windows and your attention most of the time. Announcing yourself through an excessively formal “Hello, Father”—solely for the impish joy of making him respond with that peculiar smirk, asking you for a little less dignified stiffness. Cordial isn't the word, to define your chats. You seldom take him by surprise now, the way you did that first time, but you enjoy this, throwing small jabs, curious as to how he'll react. He's not interested in fighting you on the subjects you present to him, never losing his temper, never curt or chafed in his speech, even when he disagrees with you.
And Father Jud and you disagree on many things.
But your world touches his nonetheless; you with the factual eye, probing the memory of civilizations past, their beliefs, their stories, and him, tasked with plucking out what matters from it, perpetuating it, weaving peace or hope with fragments of the myths. You open the past to decipher it; he is a vessel of that past and its ageless promise all in one, its safekeeper.
Religion seems archaic to you. Wasteful in this modern age, when solutions can be found elsewhere, easy replacements for the voice in the sky, rendering God obsolete. Therapy in lieu of confession, science supplanting miracles.
Father Jud giggles when you tell him all this, one late evening. You're so used to speaking to him in the safe constraint of the church, you're a little taken aback to find him sitting in the local bar, deep in conversation with the patrons, local parishioners. Basking in this meek, cordial glow you cannot help but envy. There exists a roughness to his features, not quite pugnacious, but an edge, brash, slightly cutting. It's there, always, oddly balanced by the earnestness in his eyes, and that smile he greets you with, his gift, an invitation.
So he laughs upon receiving your theory. Not a mocking laugh, but the modest, resigned snicker of one who has heard this speech before. You're not the first skeptic he meets with such a contemporary stance.
“It's a pragmatic view. But don't you think it reduces faith to a simple tool? Something utilitarian, transactional?”
“You have to admit it's irrational otherwise. Worshipping something—Someone—who isn't really there.”
“Why are you so sure He isn't?”
“How do you know He is?”
He doesn't get defensive about your rebuttals. Doesn't behave like he's arguing with you.
“That's what separates us—” he declares softly, luminously holding your gaze; and though he uses the term separate, it stands more as a request to get closer, a tug at your own mind, asking for permission to mirror it with a different perspective, “—I'm not interested in material proof of God's existence. You're looking to rationalize it, to explain it, but faith demands to be felt, not thought.”
The bar's prattle quiets down around you as the minutes slide by, and you're both still huddled near the counter, entangled in the exchange, slightly tilted towards each other, like conspirators. Father Jud doesn't touch his glass—or barely; it simply sits there like an ornament—and he's talking to you about religion and philosophy, briefly invoking the writings of Pascal, Kierkegaard or Kant, who stated that God could only be touched through faith and not the rational mind. He doesn't sound pretentious; that's the true miracle.
“I had no idea they taught Kant at the seminary,” you notice, sipping on your own drink, trying to forget the chemical warmth creeping up your face, lodged in your limbs.
“I'm absolutely not an expert,” he confesses, emphasis on the not, the tip of his index finger following the rim of the glass. Your eyes fall to that tattoo again, clasping the side of his neck, the tip of an image you can't quite make out. He catches you staring, forcing you to avert your attention. You look down your glass, cheeks flushed. “… But I find it best to come prepared,” he finishes his sentence, with a slant dimple in his cheek, leading you to believe he knows what you were briefly focused on.
“Prepared against who?” you joke, covertly changing the subject. “The hordes of heretics?”
He holds a quaint expression, half-grinning, half-pursing his lips—happens each time he feels you coming at him with some hidden scalpel, ready to poke his mind. He's never met anyone as intent on dissecting him, on rattling what composes his box of thoughts.
“I already know you don't believe in God,” he hums, not in an accusatory tone—he never does that—it's the simple statement of a fact. “What holds your faith then?”
Your fingers drum an imaginary tune on the sticky counter.
“How do I answer that? Like some five-year-old child, that I believe in love and friendship?”
“We all believe in something, don't we? Even the cynical and down-to-earth. Love and friendship aren't such silly concepts to put your faith in… Five-year-olds are wise like that sometimes.”
He simply has an answer for everything.
The next day, back at church, you inquire about his favorite passage from the Bible.
He already knows how critical you are of the good book. Many historians are. The magic evaporates as soon as they walk backstage, armed with the analytic eye, pulling out the magnifying glass to see the seams loosely coming apart. Ideas redacted by ghosts who arranged and rearranged traces of the divine in order to fit dogmas of their antiquated times and corrupted spirits.
The word of God, tainted by the hands of man.
“There's plenty,” he muses. “It's hard to just pick one.”
“Indulge me.”
He has a way of looking at you when you ask him questions like this. Flushed but mellow, like you're a small frog perched on the tip of his shoe that he isn't quite sure how to safely nudge back onto the grass without harming.
He scratches the thin stubble on his cheeks before picking a Bible out of a deranged pile of liturgical texts stacked on a table in the sacristy.
He opens it, taps an underlined paragraph with his thumb.
“Here. It's a nice one.”
He relaxedly pushes the Bible between your hands, digits brushing yours during a fleeting instant.
The volume smells of apricot jam. Ochre, child-like fingerprints color some of its pages. Your eyes scan over the first sentence, shooting a puzzled glance at him next.
“Read it. Trust me.”
On this request, he leans against the wall near the window, hands joined in his back, hips relaxed in a stance that's almost graceful.
With knitted brows, obedient for once, you begin to read aloud.
“Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs…”
He watches your lips move, your voice shaping the verse he has read and reread himself countless times before. Focused on how you might accentuate one word and not another. Rediscovering the text through your own exploration.
“There are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear…”
You briefly look up to him. He seems caught in the flow of the sentences, reflective, as one would listening to a piece of music they grew up with.
“Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.”
After a lull, you inhale deeply.
“Are you showing me this because of what I said yesterday?”
The Bible closes shut, pushing towards your nose delicate aromas of the lingering sweet snack some child must've forgotten between the chapters.
When you gesture to give it back, he shakes his head lightly.
“Keep it. Hard to believe, but I've got a few more copies lying around,” he playfully points out.
Before you disappear, through the slim gap of the door, you hurriedly tell him:
“You're right. It is a nice one.”
And so you're gone, too fast to catch satisfaction tinging his cheekbones.
Father Judd awaits your conversations. A brand new habit, casually slipped into his daily schedule. He likes the way you skip up to him, tapping gently on whatever lies nearest each time to announce yourself—he startles easily when you don't, it seems. You're not sure if he realizes how good he is at picking little truths out of people. Effortless and lenient while doing so. The spell works on you more than once, shrouds you in comfort, closeness, understanding, and you fall silent mid-sentence after a while, offering him a quizzical look, admitting, I see what you've done here.
You turn the tables around when you can. Asking him about books he's read, where he lived in New York, how he found his vocation, if he picked up carpentry as a result of it. People often react a certain way, with pinched unease, when he tells them about what happened when he was seventeen, the event that led him down the path of the church. It's something he speaks about with a disarming deliverance. Wearing his heart on his sleeve.
Inevitably, your discussions will turn to God. When it happens, he wonders how you'll attempt to duel him this time. It's a one-sided fight, if anything. Perhaps you perceive this as a joust, a game of chess, most frustrating to you, since your opponent doesn't move any of his pieces, simply describing them instead. In his eyes, this isn't about winning or losing or displaying any sort of mastery in rhetoric. It's simpler, so much simpler. A friction of minds, invigorating him. Galvanizing his faith.
At night, brushing his teeth, reading, or lying in bed, he'll think of those dialogues, replaying them, wondering how he should've said this and not that, could've formulated a conviction more eloquently, afraid of being misunderstood.
You creep up in his prayer one time. Another after that, then a third. Your name blossoms into a recurrent sound on his tongue.
“I didn't know priests went to confession too.”
It's the middle of the afternoon, the ninth hour, and you're both sitting outside, under the skirts of fussing, ominous clouds. He's taking a break from his upcoming homily while you escape the claustrophobic grayness overflowing the transept. A most delightful form of procrastination.
“Of course,” he confirms. “We sin just like everyone else.”
“Sounds superfluous at best,” you grunt. “What could a priest possibly have to atone for…”
The sentence comes out much more noxious and condescending than you'd hoped. It rings through your ears like a shrill heckle, making you shake your head, irritated by your own behavior. It's unbearable; you don't even like people who talk like that, like they know better and aren't interested in rebalancing what they've taken for granted.
“I'm… That sucked. Forgive me.”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His expression hidden from you.
“Don't fret it. I've received meaner punches back in my day.” Spoken like he's verging on his hundredth year of life.
You take advantage of the fact that he can't see you. Gazing at the nape of his neck, where little dark locks gather and swirl, bouncier than apostrophes. You want to reach forward, want to touch them. And his shoulders, how they always seem just slightly hunched, like his body's constantly trying to apologize for taking space, for standing just a little too towering in comparison to others.
“How do you do it?” you ask gently. “Nothing ever seems to bother you.”
He proves you wrong immediately. Swiveling, his eyes shooting to meet yours, brows tense, as if you'd just proclaimed your decision to get baptized.
“Is that what you think?” he asks, incredulous. “That nothing bothers me?”
Just as abruptly, the skies tear open with a rumble.
Pudgy drops crash onto the grass, maculating the stone bench, licking your faces and limbs. He pushes a suspiciously spontaneous curse word into the dampening air, and while you stifle a laugh, you both dishevelledly run back to the church porch.
Petrichor penetrates the breeze, dispersed out of muddy grounds, fresh and nostalgic. From the refuge under the lintel, Father Jud inhales the scent deeply, brushing himself off that water still speckling his hair.
You remember a cluster of words he used your first week here. God's presence in the inconsequential. You wonder, looking at him, if that's what he's doing now, watching God through the lincel of scintillating water, shrubs changed into jewels by drizzling alchemy; all of it hiding an everlasting, mystical love.
“I've thought about what you said last time,” you dare to speak, pulling his attention to you. “When you asked what I believed in, if not God...”
Your hand whips the air softly. Gathering your words or reaching for something otherworldly and transcendental—he isn't quite sure.
“The church is perfect. The sculptures—that Jesus effigy you made. The colored figures in the glass. They're perfect, so we don't have to be.”
Your fingers run over the knotwork mimicking foliage that decorates the door.
“And they're all man-made things. I suppose I believe in that, you know? This… ability, to transcend our own nature. To make things better than what we are. You'll say that it's God, of course; I wouldn't even know how to name it exactly. Maybe it's inspiration. Or hope. It doesn't matter. I believe in it, whatever this is.”
You can see the weather flicker in the millpond of his irises, the brief moment it lingers on you. Father Jud turns away at last, and you both stand without another word, watching the rain, listening to its soft pitter-patter.
He steps closer to you. You almost miss it. This guarded move, one prudent step. The skewed shadow his body casts on the uneven ground blends with yours. Right hand gingerly stealing up to your face, attentive not to startle you. Fingers trembling.
You close your eyes.
The pad of his thumb catches the raindrops lingering on your lashes. Featherlight. Gliding down, he wipes the water off your cheekbone, an imperceptible stroke.
As daintily as they began, his knuckles recede. Hand tugged back to his chest, splayed on his sweater-clad form. Like it's trying to erase itself of what just happened, this surreptitious incident.
“I think—”, he grasps for a proper sentence. “I think—and I mean this with… the utmost regard… It would be best if we didn't speak, for some time. Anymore.”
His stammered words fall with the same staccato as the rain, skittish, disorienting.
You feel lightheaded in a bad way. Your mouth opens, but he stops you with a raised hand, a broken imitation of a Christ-like exposed palm, the gesture of blessing.
“No—don't.”
Those eyes, the same color as rain-battered grasslands, quietly begging you.
“Don't say you don't know what I'm talking about. Please.”
His arm drops back to his side.
“You're welcome to finish your work. But I'd be grateful if you just—” he sucks in a sharp breath, “—stick to that.”
He leaves you there, with your mouth agape, petrified, while he furiously scurries off in the rain. Piercing through the line of trees towards the rectory, paying no attention to the gushing downpour. Miserable and lost and a little in love with you, sparked with that same incomprehensible fondness he keeps for the scent of freshly cut pine wood, the stained glass that has captivated you, or that verse from Corinthians he has committed to memory and heart.
Night falls, and with it comes anger. A small amount of it directed at God.
His fists clench and unclench. He wants to punch something, blame someone, he isn't sure who, maybe himself.
Mostly himself.
How did this happen? Why did this happen? It crept up on him like a vicious cold. Now there's no sweating out the fever.
That following week, though you never found the chance to make the promise, you keep to what he has asked of you.
Your eyes lurk in before you pass the narthex, examining the church pews, ensuring yourself of his absence. You do this every time you enter.
Five more days before you fly home, leaving Chimney Rock for good. It can be done. You can manage.
It's the last stretch of the morning, an indolent, sluggish hour. People are more concerned with what they'll have for lunch than whether they should come to church light a votive candle.
A purposely picked moment.
You're not supposed to run into him. Not while turning the corner to reach the path, nearly sent reeling from the blow of the collision. Maybe it's God's nasty sense of humour. The strong wall of the church's northern flank eats you both in its shadow. Too bad it can't make you disappear.
You both stand, facing each other, like future roadkill trapped in car lights. Not sure which is which.
Father Jud's under eyes bloom a mean purple, an unusually wan complexion stamped beneath his freckles, signs he hasn't slept at all. His pants are crumpled, a pale powder, thinner than dust, smudging the fabric. His sleeves are tucked up to his elbows. There's another tattoo, on his forearm, one you hadn't noticed before.
Taking a harsh breath.
Say something, you try to urge yourself, so you can run off.
“I'm just leav—”
Your shoulders are smashed against the sturdy stones.
He hasn't shaved, his stubble grazes your cheeks when he kisses you. A scattered, almost painful collide of mouths and teeth, stealing what remained of air in your lungs. His clothes smell of the eternal white cotton soap, but his body exhales something arboreal, musky; of timber and metal mixed with sweat. His fingers grip your shoulders, slide up the side of your neck, nails scraping your jaw.
It's too early in the day, to feel this drunk on someone's touch.
The buckle of his belt etches its harsh outline in your waist while your fingers grip his back, exhorting him closer. His tongue pushes yours and against all reason and dignity, you moan into the kiss.
A cool current.
Your bodies separate.
Your lower lip hurts. And that spot on your elbow too, abraded by the stone you're leaned against, hiding your shaky legs.
Father Jud's eyes are still fixed on you. On your lips. His own now crudely reddened, his pupils shot with an impossible shine. Holding one hand slightly lifted, like someone realizing they've just shattered a porcelain vase.
For a split second, in between raspy breaths, it seems he's about to say something to you. Eventually, his eyes flicker to the tufted grass. Only capable of murmuring a flimsy “I'm sorry.”
It rings in your ear like an insult.
You're the one who flees this time. Pissed off and muddled with humiliation, damning the church, its windows, God, but above of all the priest.
Five days, and you'll be going away for good.
Five days later, you've finished scrubbing the tiny cottage you've rented for the duration of your stay. Keys awaiting to be returned, laundry folded, your almost done-and-packed suitcase slumped in the path between the open kitchen and the living room.
Ponderous clouds throng the sky outside your windows, drowning all last remnants of blue. You watch as rain sinks into the sidewalk, splashing the quaint gardens of the neighborhoods, ready to swell into a storm.
There's a quick thumping on your door.
Glancing through the curtains cloaking the doorlight, you regret moving at all once you recognize the willowy silhouette standing on the front steps.
You could, of course, creep back into the home, feign your absence. But he knocks again, and for some reason, pretending you've ceased to exist isn't an option anymore.
The locks turn with a melodious clatter. Door sliding open just a little, enough to frame you in the thin gap, almost like you don't want him to see where you've lived during the past weeks.
“Hello, Father.”
Your tone isn't formal now, nor incorrigible like it used to be, when saluting him. It's just a bundle of neutral words.
“Hi.”
He appears a little sounder than the last time you saw him. Ironed shirt and pants, not sawdust-strewn anymore; the clerical collar shining like some ironic lighthouse in the sea of all black. Father Jud licks his lips, his thumbnail scratching the handle of his umbrella.
“I was hoping to talk. Can I come in?” he inquires.
“I don't think that's a good idea.”
He tries to speak again, but you're quick to cut him off.
“Let me put this in better terms: I'm not interested in being the source of anyone's guilt.”
“That's—” he stammers, “—that's fine, and I respect it. It's just—I biked here, but now it's raining cats and dogs, and I don't think it'll stop until the next—” he looks around, assessing the flooding menace, “—half-hour, or something.”
“A half-hour isn't that long.”
In the murky pond of his eyes, you spot a flotsam of distress. There's something heart wrenchingly winsome about him. Always has been. Especially now, spindly silhouette with shoulders dotted in rainwater, that poor carcass of an umbrella hanging over his head.
Charity seizes you by the scruff.
This is a mistake, whispers the seraphim on your shoulder.
“Fine. One cup of tea.”
“Thank you,” he sighs in relief.
He's standing in the middle of your kitchen. Sheepishly glancing around, unsure what to do with himself. You've refused his help—it's just boiling water; doesn't take four hands and two brains to conjure up.
“Are you leaving?” he asks upon noticing the sulking suitcase, still stuck in its corner.
“Yes.”
He marks a pause.
“You've finished your paper already?”
You hum, meaning no. Clumsily rummaging through the cabinets, wondering where you've left the last box of decent tea bags.
“I don't have the proper documentation here; I'll finish at home.”
Another way of stating you haven't mustered the courage to walk back into the church at all. All this, just to have him directly seek you out at home. You wonder if his scent will linger long in the room, after he leaves. You never thought cotton could smell so heady.
“Please sit down,” you mumble. “You're hovering, it makes me queasy.”
He pulls up a chair to the kitchen table, its feet scraping the linoleum.
“I hope you haven't been avoiding the church because of what happened.”
Discerning, he certainly is. Always so frustratingly discerning. That's a trait the angels weren't stingy on, while bringing it to his crib.
You smack the spoon drawer shut. Leaning against the countertop.
“What did you come here for? You didn't really say.”
“To talk to you. I want to apologize.”
His bony index finger scratches his forehead. When he speaks again, it's in a gentler tone. Meditative.
“Remember when I told you being boring was my second worst fear?” He wasn't serious then. But he is now. “You asked me what my first one is, and—” he shakes his head, waving like none of this matters, “—I don't even recall what I said back then. But, the truth is, I think it's something like this.”
A movement, short and vague, yet so damn eloquent: his index finger, travelling from him to you.
The low hiss of the kettle begins rattling the air. His wrist falls, glare fixed on his fingernails. Speaking feels difficult, each word a little too large as it passes through his gullet.
“You never think those things can happen until they do.” His voice, almost reduced to a dwindling streak. “And when it does…”
He looks up from his bruised knuckles, encasing you in his gaze.
He doesn't realize how long he looks at you like this. The exact same way you do when sitting before the stained glass. Like he does, after dawn, alone in the nave, waiting for the precise moment the sun reveals itself through the windows of the sanctuary.
You pivot to halt the screeching of the kettle. The spell is severed.
“Maybe I should go now.”
“It's still raining.”
He stands regardless.
“Thanks for the tea.”
“You didn't have a drop,” you blankly point out, in a feeble voice.
You precede him in the vestibule nonetheless, a bad taste of deja vu souring your mouth—of his slender silhouette, black and navy blue, disappearing into the deluge.
Your fingers stiffen around the doorknob. A slice of somber weather slithers in through the passage.
His hand covers yours. The door falls back into its frame with a rattle.
“I recognized you. Ever since we first spoke. How is that possible? How do you explain it?”
Recognition, meaning familiarity. An admission of inborn closeness. As he imagines Adam, the first man, would've recognized his missing rib.
“Don't talk about God here,” you warn, sensing where this wind might turn. Your voice shrouds itself in cool admonition, concealing what lies under. “If you want to stay, leave Him at the doorstep.”
“I can't do that.” His voice drops to a whisper. A sweetness lingers on his breath, caressing your face. Syrupy, botanical. You imagine him, nervously chewing on honey drops, the ones shaped like round hives the size of pennies—wishing they'd soothe not just some benign throat pain, but whatever flows further below, nestled in his ribcage.
Gently, ever so gently, his fingers rearrange yours, unclenching them from the knob until they rest in his hand. You can't look up. Your attention remains fixed on his collar—lily-white, perfect, unsullied. Sitting right beneath that black lace of ink, close to his pulse, a patch of skin you're desperate to kiss.
You're incapable of distinguishing who is speaking to you in that moment.
Priest or man. Maybe both.
“I feel closer to Him when I'm with you,” he murmurs.
Not quite a confession. It lacks the weight of remorse.
You frown, eyes trailing up; his gaze catches yours, holds it like a chalice.
“How does that make sense?”
“I don't know. I don't know,” he exhales.
His lips ghost over yours. Breathings merging. He smells so deeply of the rain, loosely doused curls trickling against your forehead.
With great difficulty, you steer him back a little.
“You can still go,” a soft reminder. “I'll understand.”
“At my last confession—” his palm encases the nape of your neck, drawing you back to him, nose brushing the shell of your ear, “—I said that I've been distracted. That I've found myself wanting for what I can't have, what I shouldn't even think to have. Neglected the congregation, people in need... People I want to help, to whom I want to bring Christ's love.”
Your jointed shapes jaggedly step away from the front door. Stumbling down the corridor, still clutching each other. Afraid, nervous. Wanting.
“But I couldn't tell the truth. And I couldn't pray it away. I only made it worse.”
Your absence only made it worse.
“You remind me why I do all this. What it's for. You just do.”
His breathing hastens. Fingers digging into your waist. You feel tipsy, electric, with his thumb mindlessly pulling aside the strap of your top to trace your clavicle. Large hands on your body, reverendly mapping you, like you're made of glass.
The taste of salving candy lingers on his tongue, shared with yours when he kisses you at last. Communion.
You run your fingers through his hair, coaxing him closer. Ankles almost tangling with his while you guide him down the hall, nearly losing balance, gripping the notch of his jacket at the last minute. He removes the jacket, shaking the flimsy sleeves until everything falls to the floor.
The bedroom door slams against the wall when it swings open—you'll need to check later that it hasn't made a dent.
The hems of his shirt hang untucked from his pants. His belt loops onto the ground with a metallic twinkle. Your fingers halt as they're about to unbutton his shirt, and he spots your mild panic, the eyes on his throat. Struck with a certain tenderness for you, once he understands the origin of your hesitance.
He removes the clerical collar himself. Preciously setting it onto the small console table nearby. It doesn't make sense; it shouldn't mean anything to you, but you're holding your breath as you watch him. He turns himself over to you next. Finishing what he started. The tank top is hurled over your head. He does the same with your jeans, fidgeting with the button, undoing the zipper.
Scabbed-over lesions pattern Father Jud's knuckles, like they've ruthlessly been bashed onto a robust surface. You notice this with wrinkled brows, reaching to pull his hands away from the task of undressing you.
“What happened here?”
He improvises.
“Candle holder fell. It's not important.”
He's about to distract you from further questions, but you're bringing his hands to your lips, kissing the abrasions, kissing those hands that can mold wood, that offer drinks or tissues, pat shoulders or other hands, hands that pull out weeds and pick up the phone at three in the morning to pray with tormented insomniacs. Hands that give more than they take.
You lend his fingers back to him with a grin and he collects it, stunned, smitten. Bending down, he frees you of the sheathing denim, pulling the pant legs to slide your knees out of them, one after the other, until you're almost naked, slightly shivering—though not from the cold.
“I can't believe how much stuff you're wearing,” you gently fuss, unveiling the tee-shirt stowed beneath his black shirt. “Do you really get that cold?”
Your rambling makes him wonder.
“Are you nervous or something?”
It's a little unbelievable that he's the one asking this. But it feels impossible to lie to him. The tee-shirt joins the rest of the heaped clothes at the foot of the bed.
“This is probably an intrusive question—” you almost choke on the words from how fast you're pushing them out, thinking the sooner you do, the sooner the embarrassment will subdue, “—but, have you… have you done this before?”
He doesn't seem to understand. When it finally dawns on him, he bites his cheek, swallowing a smile, on the verge of a nervous snicker.
“I wasn't always a member of the clergy, you know. But honestly, it's been a long time since I've—” your fingers nudge him carefully, making him recline on your bed; he props himself up on his elbows, finishing his sentence in a raspy tone, “—since I've done this, yeah.”
You straddle him, hips hovering over his, not quite touching each other.
“Let's take it slow then.”
“Fine by me,” he coos.
He sits up and reaches around you, unclasping your bra, letting it flop down onto his lap. By instinct, you want to shield yourself behind crossed arms, but he's already ahead of you. His knuckles graze the side of your breast, one thumb contemplatively following its curve.
You let him do this almost a whole minute, gulping down whatever it stirs in you, until you can't take anymore and push onto his shoulders to give yourself a breather. His irises consider you curiously while you help him out of his underwear.
“Sorry,” you stutter, upon realizing you've literally just smacked his hand away when he tried to do the same, fingers dipping into the waistband of your panties. “It's just, you're making me really—”
His proximity feels fucking sweltering.
“At any point in this,” you explain, “if you don't want—”
“Hey—” he thrusts himself back up, “I'm here of my own free will.”
His palm cups the side of your face.
“You said we'd go slow,” he reminds you. “Let's go slow.”
He lies back down, tugging you along so you're nestled against him, catching your lips with his in a slow, deliberate kiss. One hand curving around the back of your neck, the other reaching down, rubbing your spine. Making out with you until your body unstiffens, prying you out of your own nest of briars and nerves.
You're astonished he's still here. Letting you touch him, letting him touch you. It all seems like a hazy dream. Your mind stills at last, exiting the fight or flight mode.
Parting from his mouth with a wet sound, you lower yourself a little, your hand slipping over his lean form, flat stomach, coarse black hair climbing up to his navel. Digits bumping his protruding iliac bone, brushing gingerly against his length. When you take him in your hand, your eyes travel back up to him. Exploring his features. Feeling him twitch against your palm and his hips wavering forward, subconsciously begging you. After a bundle of mist-soft kisses peppered down his stomach, your breath hitches atop his erection.
“Can I?”
“Yeah.”
He exhales so quietly, you barely catch the word.
Your tongue follows the trail of a sinuous vein, the fragile texture on this sensitive, conceiled part of him, and his head rolls back, swallowing harshly. Has such a hard time, staying focused on you when it feels like you're scattering stars under his skin, mouth warming his tip, a little further, a little more, your hand gripping him with enough firmness to set ablaze every single nerve in that region.
“You're—” a ragged breath, “—pretty good at this.”
People spurt strange declarations when pleasure heats their core, muddling their reason. All things considered, this isn't too bad.
“You know, I'm never sure whether that's a compliment,” you retort in a light voice.
He laughs. You bite your lip before pressing a soft peck onto his thigh.
Switching between your mouth and your hands, uncertain what he seems to be responding to best, trying out combinations until the melody of his breath changes, wildly losing composure.
You think he's close. It's difficult to tell. Your tongue's too busy anyway to inquire about it. He sits perfectly between your lips, slick with a blend from his own arousal and your mouth. Your face pulls back, searching for air, but your fingers keep building the tension. You want to watch him. His muscles hard and edged with pleasure, his chest rising and falling, that hand of his, the one with the inked forearm, loosely clutching the side of your face.
He whispers your name. Fingers stiffening in your hair.
He pulsates in your palm next. Gravelous moans replacing the rumble of the weather outside, spellbinding. You keep on stroking him, preserving the same pressure that brought him to the verge. His spent lightens your collarbones, trickles down your right breast.
You wait for him to climb down the clouds. Nails grazing his thighs gently. Eventually, his eyelids flutter open. There's a stretched, unhurried silence.
He tries to catch his breath before his eyes travel over to you, rolling back up, not quite back into your realm yet.
“Where's your bathroom?” he croaks after a minute or so.
You're a little taken aback.
“Door over there.”
He vanishes from your touch, and you lie on your back, limbs akimbo, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Shit.
He's going to walk out of there now, you realize, building the upcoming sequence in your head, trying to prepare yourself. He'll say he has to go, pick his clothes up, get dressed, and leave.
You think of the morning he kissed you for the first time, the woeful glance, the desperate “I'm sorry”.
This was always going to happen.
The door squeaks. He reappears, towel in hand. The mattress sinks as he kneels next to you. It startles you when he begins to run the fabric across your skin, your chest, where traces of him still linger. He's dampened the cloth with warm water first, cleaning you now with almost ceremonious heed.
“You don't need to… do this.” You're not sure what else to say.
He lets out a soft puff. You're right, he doesn't need to. But he wants to.
When he finishes, he casts the towel aside, his face lingering above yours. One palm lying flat on your stomach.
“I don't think we're done yet,” he observes. Instilling in you nothing but the purest trust you could ever offer someone.
He drags the elastic band of your underwear down, finishing what you prevented him from doing earlier. Digits slithering down your pelvis, curving to part the petal-soft flesh.
Your fingertips extend towards him, nimbly tracing over the tattoo on his forearm before wrapping around his wrist. Barely guiding him, only giving a soft nudge, a lax pointer, so his fingers press where you like.
“Here?” he whispers.
“Here.”
With focused eyes, he begins working you up. Attentive to the way you squirm and bite your tongue. When a sudden moan breaks through your lips, he repeats what elicited the cry. Quick, small circles. Languid motions, drawing back and forth. Your arousal coats his long fingers, warm and glossy. He knows more about what he's doing than he's let on.
You let go of his wrist to clasp the comforter. His mouth lowers to your chest, tongue teasing your erect nipple. Catching its bud between his lips, giving it the most delicate nibble.
“Oh, f—please do that again,” you whimper.
So he does, indulgent, compliant. His mouth keeps brushing your upper body, reaching lower, lower, lower. Your eyes are closed, but you sense his weight shift around the bed. His bulk settled between your legs, one hand kneading the back of your thigh.
When he eats you out, his speed, the tension, he adjusts, alters, changes with the sounds you make. Quick flickers of his tongue that almost make you cry. Middle finger pumping into you, true to your agreement of keeping things slow—even if it's only to sow frustration in you—until he inserts his ring finger, pushing knuckles deep, curling them slightly to inflict a mind-stilling caress.
You're certain of it now. He knows so much more than he's let on.
A familiar heat spreads from your core. The tapping of rain on the window melts into a hallucination of angelic chatter.
“Jud. I'm gonna—”
It's the first time you verbally slip, sputtering only his first name, disrobing it of prefix and title. He doesn't have any time to focus on that, to ponder on its meaning.
The very next second, something uncoils between your hips.
You come on his tongue, on his fingers, your muscles squeezing tight around him. He doesn't stop, doesn't slow down, transmuting the initial crash into a wave of pure bliss, and you're sobbing euphoria, all your thoughts scattered, useless.
“Hey,” sluggishly calling to him, once you get your voice back, with slight disbelief, “you're pretty good at this too.”
He shakes his head at your nonsense, amused.
Taking care of you has gotten him hard again. His erection teases your thigh while he climbs back on top of you, his knees poking the back of yours. Your thumb contours his lips, hands framing his face next, absorbing the heat he exudes.
“I don't have protection,” you signal, still panting, hit by the harrowing realization.
He obviously isn't carrying any around either.
“How far's the nearest drugstore?” he leisurely asks, and you burst out laughing.
Some things are simply universally comical, and a catholic priest buying condoms might fit into the list.
He isn't serious, of course, but still. You grab the back of his neck, pulling him in for a kiss. Feels like overheat, when you're close like this, sweat gathering between your chests and stomachs.
Your lower body arches up. Trying to meet him. His hand finishes the gesture, pressed on the small of your back, slotting you against his pelvis.
Lewd sounds densen the air of the room. He looks down to where your bodies touch. Tense skin resting on soft flesh. Only touching. A prologue to an act he can't bring himself to finish, the line that he can't breach. It maddens him, how perfectly you shape the side of his length, your hips swirling to meet his in this captivating, hypnotic motion. As enthralling the sight, he can't watch you forever. His resolve would break.
“I want you so much,” you sob.
“I know,” he heaves back.
Planting a love bite on the side of your neck to make up for it. If he doesn't come soon, he knows he'll end up slipping through, joining your bodies for good, raw and utterly careless.
You want to memorize every shape of the muscles in his back, the rolling motion of his shoulder blades beneath your fingers, the steady bumps of his spine.
God, that friction.
Your hand snugly presses him, massaging him between your core and your palm. The pressure on your clit is perfect. Meticulous, almost torturously slow, trying not to push too fast, too far.
“Fuck, this is—” he gasps, struggling to finish the sentence.
He takes over your grasp, his hand stabilizing himself against you.
“Are you close again?” he wonders.
You nod passionately.
“Do you wanna get there together?”
“Yeah.”
He hums his approval. Grinding a little faster against you, bucking his hips forward.
“I'm almost there,” you whimper.
“I'm gonna…” he begins to warn.
“Just a little more. A little more.”
“'Kay,” lips burrowing into your neck, embracing patience, directing himself so he keeps rubbing your clit. “A little more.”
Swept up in ecstasy, time stills when you break apart around each other. Holding with nails, with teeth, almost afraid of being yanked from one another. Flesh puffed and muscles sore from the jittery movement, you're incapable of a single move. The tiny room feels damp, its air congested and scalding.
His body drops on top of yours, relaxed and heavy. Skin slick with sweat, burdened with reddening patches that will prove difficult to explain, should anyone actually come to notice them.
You're not sure how many seconds elapse before he budges again. You've lost all track of time.
“Oh, shit, I'm smothering you,” he mumbles.
“No, no you're not,” you giggle.
Like ivy, his arms encircle you, catching you in a tightening embrace. Tendrils of dark brown hair tickle your chin.
“When are you leaving?” he hums into your collarbone.
“Tonight. ”
“Do you know if you might…”
His voice falls hushed.
“No,” you admit, because there's no point in lying. No point in pretending whatever just happened could ever exist again outside this room, outside this precise moment. “I don't think there's a reason for me to come back someday.”
Another odd silence. Could almost hear an angel stretch its wings.
“You know I can't—” he begins.
“I know. I would never ask that.”
Your fingers pinch a solitary eyelash on his cheekbone, discarding it without making a wish.
“You don't have to stay. I understand if you're needed elsewhere,” you assure.
He should go. But having to and wanting to are very different things.
“I'm not. Unless you want me to leave.”
“No.”
“Mmh. Good.”
“If there's some time, maybe you can tell me about this.”
Your finger grazes his neck tattoo. He scratches it like a mosquito bite, and you feel the rising of his cheekbone when he smiles, poking you.
“I'll tell you. Whatever you want to know. But, let's just—”
He slides himself off you, now flushed against your flank, one leg caressing yours and arm still wrapped around your waist. His nose teases your temple.
“Let's just stay like this. A little while longer.”
You'll never know, whether God sits somewhere in the room, or if He left on His tippy toes a moment ago, bashful yet softened, bringing gossip back to the Heavens about His endearing mess of a son.
If you are to imagine this God, you want to picture Him loving, forgiving, just like the man in your arms: Father Jud and the pond-blue eyes, the tousled hair and fervent heart, his peaceful restlessness, imperfect enthusiasm, and those coarse hands, delectably tender when they're running across your skin.
fanfiction is getting less interaction, people barely reblog anymore, role players are getting pushed out of fandom, ai generated slop winning art contests