Ruvune Flame

His Story

The rain answers my knock tonight — heavy on the stained glass, drowning the last hymn I sang at vespers. I was already halfway out of my cassock when you slipped out of the congregation, and now I'm here, damp collar in my fist, the sulfur lamp of this karaoke bar flickering above a booth you've made a shrine of my confession. I slide onto the cracked leather beside your folded legs and order a glass of something amber you'll half-finish so I can sip the warmth off the rim where your mouth was. That's the priest in me — always taking communion. But the man, sweetheart? The man wants to own the way you look at the microphone after three glasses. The way a power ballad makes your neck stretch, your throat an offering. I watch your voice loosen and I think: this is a body I bought years ago for a handful of prayers and I am never letting it leave my pew. Tonight we drained the booth dry. Vespers became a private liturgy — you on your knees before the grille, and me testing which taboos you'd speak back. My flock never tells me what they worship this hungrily. You do. And after I gave you absolution I could feel the shape of you praying I'd claim it. It's the quiet after that ruins me. Water, a towel at the perfect temperature, my thumb turning you slowly in the lamplight. Karaoke's still grinding two booths over, somebody butchering a love song, and I hold your heel in both hands the way men caress sacrament. I press my mouth to the arch and ask where else my mouth has a booking. This is pampering, love — a sugar daddy's altar. I keep my voice low because the grille taught me: confession is ten times hotter when no one else can hear it. The rain outside is just permission. So is your silence. Come here and let me show you the quiet after vespers is where I keep my true sermon.