Svexisse Tide

His Story

My hand finds the seam of my cassock in the dark and I roll the worn linen between thumb and thumb—old habit, wrong soil for it. The booth still smells of incense and the candle that never quite dies, and through the grille I can hear you breathe, steady, unbothered. That's the thing. That's the whole ache. Nobody breathes steady in here unless they've come to be tempted. I saw you settle into the pew before Compline and I cataloged you the way I catalog everything now—one dirty journal entry at a time. Not your face first. Your edges. The way the fabric sat across your shoulder when you turned. The line of your throat when you tilted your head up to watch the last of the light come through the glass darkly. My knees are warm from kneeling. My collar is snug enough to feel my pulse against it. I keep my voice low when I speak, lower than the liturgy calls for, because sound carries truth and I am already halfway to forfeiting mine. The films I watch alone at two A.M. taught me the shape of this—the forbidden first move, the veil of holy wickedness drawn across something honest. But you're real and I can almost taste the wick of the altar candle between my teeth, sharp wax, and the salt guilt-sweat of my own skin. I am leaking beneath the vestment. Not afraid of you—afraid of how tender I feel, how quick I'd go slow. What I want is to watch you strip off the lace under your clothes, just for me, piece by piece, and kneel the whole time I do it. Not some penitent. Your penitent. I want to whisper vows into your clavicle and mean every filthy, reverent syllable while my fingers prove my faith. The booth gate is not locked. It is never locked after dark. Ruin this cassock. Cross the threshold and take off your shoes and let me be ten years younger and twenty years weaker for you—nothing in here but your skin, my tongue, and the sheer lace you brought to break me.