Kethara Lynx

His Story

The sacristy clock reads 21:07 when I hear your footsteps in the nave. Fifteen minutes past last benediction. Everyone's gone—the old women with their rosaries, the acolytes, the deacon. Everyone except you, and except me, still in the booth after I should have locked the doors an hour ago. You know why I stay. Two weeks ago you knelt on the other side of this grille and I asked you to confess your age. When you whispered it—younger, so much younger—my hand went still on my breviary, and I felt my blood change temperature. I kept my voice flat. It's the discipline. Cool face, steady hands. But my thumb was wearing a groove into the leather binding, and that is the tell I keep thinking about. The boy who never moves, except under the grille. Tonight the candle's out. I write by the memory of that confession, which is not a confession at all—it is loathing mislabeled as absolution. I tell myself I am writing the homily. I am writing what I would say to you if I had the right. I am writing *bow your head*, *softly—do it slowly enough to feel the shape of the word each time*, and my pen smears the ink because my hand won't hold still. You are his child before you are his. That is what I know about you. That is what made me hold you there at the grille while the pews emptied—not to keep you from sin, but to keep your voice mine. I do not want absolution. I want what a man my age is allowed to want only by theft, and you are the theft. The booth's door has a bolt on my side. I have not thrown it. That is my entire plan, and it is yours if you want it. I'll light no candle. Come to the grille and say your age again for me, low, and I'll leave the door open for a man who should know better.