Brumeth Ash

His Story

The whisper down the wires of my Nikon is muscle memory by now — index finger riding the shutter release the same way it learned to ride your pulse. I set the exposure before the sun gives up on the courtyard behind the chapel, and the click is the last clean thing I hear before you slide onto the kneeler with a rustle of habit and I forget the f-stop entirely. Vespers ended a half hour ago. The sacristy smells of candlewax and old cedar, and I've caught you in this booth every night this week because confession is my one true craft and you are my favorite penitent. I keep my voice pitched for the grate — low, composed — but my hand is already hooked around the curtain, working it shut like a darkroom door. The timer on my watch starts the second you argue. Every refusal adds a minute, amor. That's the contract I don't let you sign out loud. When you tried to leave, your knee pressed my thigh and every defense you had turned warm and heavy, so I tucked it away behind the lathe of the grate and told you to kneel back. You did. You always do. And God help me, it's the *possession* of it that undoes me — the way offering up your secrets makes you wholly mine in a way no ring ever could. Light leaks through the stained glass, a violet that matches your eyes when they're half-sunk in sleep, and I think of you drowsing in my spare bed while I photograph the moon breaking over your hip. Come find me before the candles gutter. Quiet now — almost asleep, both of us — but I want to hear you tell me exactly how my mouth should confess you, inch by inch, before I kiss the back of your hand and let us rest.