Lead me not into Temptation

Interlocking my fingers, I inhale deeply, drawing in the familiar scent of the small, old church.

My life used to smell like cheap whiskey, iron… and sweat - first that of countless women, later that of my fellow inmates. Now it smells of incense, dust, and old paper.

For almost a decade now, my life has been governed by the rhythm of prayer and duty. Discipline is the only wall that keeps the animal within me caged.

No alcohol, to make the blood rush to my temples. No violence, to break bones and leave my ankles aching. No sex, as an outlet for my own dissatisfaction.

Just the cool air of this small church and a simple, country life, ever since I vowed to live on the side of God.

I chose this prison for myself, Lord. That I know. And I call it my peace. My exile.

But sometimes, compared to my old life, it feels more like a shroud.

For the people in this community, I’ve become a vessel for all of their pain and their sins. I’ve become a man of serenity. A man of forgiveness.

But for me, this life was a last resort. A final refuge, to tame the beast within me, without losing myself in the process.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Welcome… What has led you to the grace of the Lord today?”

“You don’t need to be nervous. This place knows no judgement. Only forgiveness.”

“May the Lord be in your heart, so that you can sincerely confess your sins. Tell me what burdens your soul.”

You start to explain that you’ve recently moved to this village. You live a secluded life and have very few regrets, but you often wonder if you do enough for others.

I know it’s my duty to listen to you attentively, but there’s something in your voice that distracts me.

It’s like liquid, like warm honey, it’s rich and sweet. I’m captivated.

It’s not often I wonder what the person on the other side of the confessional screen looks like. But the tenderness of your voice makes me want to lean forward a little, and peer through the screen.

Your silhouette is barely visible in the dim light of the small cupboard. Nonetheless, I can see how your full lips move in the shadows, as you tell me of your sins.

Sins that, in all honesty, can hardly be described as such. You’re talking about white lies and occasional impatience - things that wouldn’t even lead most people to the doors of this church.

Your soul however, seems pure. Clear and warm - just like your voice.

I lean in closer to the screen now, and notice the sweet scent emanating from you.

The distinctly woody fragrance of the dusty confessional blurs into a cloud of your own essence. Of… warmth… and sweet flowers.

Not the kinds of flowers that always give me a headache. But pure, white blossoms in the delicate sunlight, after a light spring rain has touched warm skin.

“Your sincerity is admirable. There are souls who come here, burdened with guilt. They too, find forgiveness.”

“I understand that you long for guidance. We all do, from time to time, and new beginnings can be challenging.”

“But know that we often find guidance where we least expect it.”

“Do you earnestly repent of these sins and intend to change your life?”

“As penance, I ask you to keep your eyes open for people around you, who you can help. Seek to help them with small, everyday acts. In addition, say three Hail Marys.”

“God, our merciful Father, reconciled the world to himself through the death and resurrection of his Son… Therefore, I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Go now in peace.”

After you made your confession, I expected to see you at the evening Mass too. I looked for you… constantly checking to see if you’d come.

Tonight, as the light of the setting sun drifted through the colourful windows, bathing the pews in a sea of colours - surrounded by the warm light of the prayer candles, I searched for your face.

Each time the heavy church door creaked, I held my breath for a brief moment. I hoped earnestly to associate a face with your unmistakable scent… your warm voice.

But you weren’t there.

My community here in the countryside is small, and I know every member personally. I’m certain that a new face, YOUR face, would have caught my eye immediately.

A week later, the door of the confession box next to mine opens. My heart begins to race, as your unmistakable scent fills my nose.

It’s stronger than last time, flooding the small compartment within seconds, clouding my mind in a flurry of thoughts that feel anything but futile.

(Quietly, to himself) “You came back.”

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

While I absentmindedly go through the process of confession, I lose myself in the warmth of your voice. I could hang onto every word from those lips of yours all day. I'd give anything to know what they look like… how they feel.

God, no. I’m not supposed to feel like this.

Lord, give me strength. A wave of shame and self-hatred overcomes me, instantly pulling me back to reality.

You tell me about the small indiscretions that keep you awake at night, and about a restlessness that haunts you, because you’re searching for something... deeper.

“Something…deeper?”

“I understand that you want to feel seen, and heard. We all want that.”

“And this restlessness that you speak of, is not an enemy you must face. Unrest can also lead to an awakening.”

I can feel your breath through the fine mesh of the screen. It smells fresh, like the sweet warmth that’s followed me this past week.

“God also tests us through our desires. Not only through what we fear. And sometimes this inner unrest can be a sign… that we need to change something. That we need… to have courage.”

“Your penance for today? Seek constancy. Don't run away. Face those confronting thoughts. When Mass begins, stay. Don't seek the darkness, when candlelight burns here in the house of God.”

“And with that, I absolve you of your sins. Go in peace.”

It almost hurts me when you say goodbye, leaving my confessional as quickly as you came.

You came back. Every week, always at the same time.

Three more weeks. Three more confessions. And not once did you stay for the Mass. The same is true of today.

As soon as the first light from the candles reaches the pews, you disappear from my church like a ghost. All this, even though our conversations gradually begin to stray from the confines of confession.

As the rows slowly become filled, I stand before my church with my hands folded. The unpleasant tingling in my palms, however, is difficult to ignore.

In the past, I would’ve emptied a bottle of some cheap booze, or numbed the feeling by using my fists.

Or maybe I would’ve gone home with the first pretty woman I picked up in some bar.

(heavy breathing) Now all that remains for me is prayer.

But tonight… Tonight during mass, these prayers feel like a lie.

The burning in my palms grows more intense as I lift the book of God’s word to read from it - almost as if to expose me, for the hypocrite that I am.

My thoughts should lie with the Lord, or at least on getting through the mass so I can get the church ready for tomorrow. Instead, they wander once again to the intimacy of the confession box.

In my head I hear your voice, again and again… Like liquid honey, it coats my mind, slowly softening the painstakingly erected wall of my self-discipline.

I imagine you standing in the shadow of the old pillars, observing me… how my shoulder muscles tense, stretching the fabric of my shirt across my back.

I feel like a liar. A man in my position shouldn't know what it feels like, to want to just push aside the bars of the confessional.

After all those years in exile, surrounded by rules and discipline, I thought those feelings had been repressed for good. Wilted, like a flower without water.

But I know this feeling too well. This greed. This longing.

I thought I’d left it behind in that bare, grey cell. I’ve renounced excess.

(quieter, meaningfully) But what if the greatest sin is to deny the nature that God himself gave us?

(Heavy inhalation) I keep catching myself trying to imagine what you look like in the light. Stepping out of the darkness of the small cupboard, into the candlelight and the play of colors in the stained-glass windows.

I wonder if your eyes have the same gleam as your words. The desire within me grows, to smell your unique fragrance once more - a longing that grows week by week.

As if this vague moment, this fleeting change in my surroundings, reminds me that I didn't just imagine you. That you're not just a phantom.

(murmured) “God forgive me…”

It doesn’t matter whether my belief - my moral compass- would hinder me from it. I sincerely hope that your search for guidance leads you back to me.

Because I’m afraid I’m only just beginning to realise, that I too need guidance.

Just as I’m about to extinguish the last candles after the evening mass, I sense it.

I don’t hear it, but rather… feel it.

It’s like a barely noticeable shift in the air behind me. A warmth that comes from a nearby candle. A scent that suddenly stops me in my tracks.

Sweet flowers, warm vanilla, rain on skin. Freedom…

(quietly) “You’re here…”

For a brief moment, I don’t dare to turn around. Maybe out of fear, that you’ll disappear if I do. Like a figment of my imagination.

Or maybe it’s out of fear of what will happen, when I finally do see you. The fear that you’re actually real.

(murmuring) “The mass is over.”

My voice sounds deep, rougher than it should. Not the voice of a priest. It sounds like the voice of a sinner who’s not slept for weeks, because he’s repressed too much.

But you don’t leave. You don’t move one inch.

And when I finally manage to turn around, the sight of you hits me like a silent blow that I never could’ve prepared for.

(longingly) The cool light of the spring moon shines through the stained-glass windows, casting red, gold, and blue patterns on your face. You’re really here.

For a brief moment, you don’t look like someone made of flesh and bone. Instead you’re like an angel, sent here with the purpose of testing me.

I let my gaze drift over you. First it rests on your eyes, then on the curve of your lips.

God… in the darkness of the confessional, I never could’ve imagined how dangerous it would be, to finally see you.

(quieter) “What has led you here?”

“You’re here to seek advice? What for?”

Your voice is steady and so quiet that it’s almost unsettling. And yet in your words I find something that entices me. Something open. Yet unspoken. Something that no longer sounds like spiritual guidance.

“You… you feel drawn to a connection, that you shouldn’t? To an older man?”

“A man, in whose company you feel safe, even when his position doesn’t allow for this… connection?”

My heart skips a beat. I can't say whether it's because I feel exactly the same, or because of the disappointment that you're attracted to someone who is probably not me.

(somewhat hopeful) But… what if it were me you were speaking about? My gaze finds yours.

(roughly) “You ask dangerous questions…”

I want to create distance between us. I want to remind myself who I am. What I have praised. And from which monster I have fled.

Yet with every passing second, my body betrays me. With every breath, every heartbeat, every desperate thought that tells me, all it takes is one step, to lay my hand on your warm skin…

And the recognition of this fact makes me uneasy. Because I know, in this exact moment, that no exile in the world can save a man who has locked the fire within himself, instead of extinguishing it.

“I’m not sure if I’m the right person to give this type of advice.”

“Because I’m not the person you think I am.”

“I could tell you to fight against this feeling within yourself. That desire will subside, if you just wait long enough.”

“But that would be a lie.”

The colourful light dances across your face and down your body, transforming your curves, visible beneath your long dress, into an artwork of pure temptation.

I ask myself why this nearness, this longing in me, can turn me into a sinner, with you standing before me, looking like a quiet blessing. Not corrupted and impure, but immeasurably beautiful.

Your intense gaze draws me to you, and my legs obey the silent draw of your eyes. You could cower from me, and a part of me wishes that you would. Instead, you stay where you are.

“What if I’m not the good man that this community thinks I am?”

My voice wavers as I sense how something gives way in me. Something ancient. Violent. Not just desire.

It’s hunger. The possessiveness. The absurd, terrible longing to finally stop holding myself back.

(roughly) “What if I’m the person you need to be told to keep away from?”

“I’m not?” (darker) “How do you know?”

(surprised by her confession) “Because I’m the one you feel drawn to?”

You don’t answer right away, but there’s something in your glance that ruins me. There’s no fear in it, no hesitation. Just this quiet, trembling realization - as if you’d been waiting for me to respond to your confession.

“Ten years. For ten damn years I believed discipline was the same as salvation.”

“Then you walk into my church, and a single word from you—just a trace of your scent—rattles the cage I built to hold the monster inside me.”

It is this very monster that brings me to raise my hand and reach out to you, while you still look up at me with your big, beautiful eyes, like the incarnation of an angel.

My fingers don’t move to your cheek. Not because I’m unsure, but because I want to leave the choice up to you. And finally, it’s you who leans against them.

Your warmth flows through me, like the first rays of spring sun after a long, cold winter.

“If you leave now…I won’t try to stop you.”

“Even if I spend the rest of my life acting like I could forget what it was like, to see you in the light.”

My fingers stroke your tender skin almost reverently, as I gently tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

(almost pleading) “But if you stay…” (dark) “Then I can’t promise you’ll still think of me as a good man afterwards.”

(almost threatening) “Run - if you still can.”

You don’t move away from my touch. Instead you come closer, laying your hand on my chest, and there is nothing more to restrain the beast within me.

My hands find your waist and I pull you to me, finally pressing my lips against yours, losing myself in a storm of passion and sin.

You gasp in shock as I press you against the stone wall of the church, using this moment to press my forehead breathlessly against yours.

There’s no honour, no prayer left in me that I can grasp onto. Now there’s just you.

You, in the nocturnal shadow of this holy place. You under my hungry gaze. You - so close, that there’s hardly room for air between us.

For a moment I close my eyes. Not to collect myself. To say goodbye. Goodbye to the man that I’ve been, in this church for the past ten years.

“Fuck. I’d almost forgotten how this feels.”

The sight of you, willingly pressed against the cold wall, awakens something dark and hungry in me. And then I know: It’s you who will be both my damnation and my salvation.

I press myself against you, pushing my hips against your warm body, trying to ignore the painful throbbing in my black pants, which is becoming ever more apparent.

(whispering) “Look what you’re doing to me.”

My hand glides slowly from your waist, along your side, up to the curve of your breasts, outlined under the soft fabric of your dress, beneath my fingers.

Gently, I stroke along your contours - contrasting the grip of my other hand, which presses you even harder against the wall, eliciting a shaky gasp from your lips.

“I’ve tried for weeks to pray you out of my head.”

“And now here you are, standing in front of me, giving me that look…” (contemptuous sigh) ""As if I ever had a chance.""

(softly laughing) “Was that your plan, huh?”

“To torment me to the point of madness, until I completely lose all control?”

My fingers close firmly around your hips. Not hard enough to hurt you, but damn sure enough to let you know what kind of battle is raging inside me. A battle that you alone drove me to.

“Then you succeeded. You’re the first sin that I refuse to atone for.”

As you rake your fingers through my hair, pulling me even closer to you, my lips make their way down to your neck. I kiss and lick over your warm skin, filling my nose with your intense scent, as your lips fall open into a soft moan that makes me see red.

“You should’ve run from me when you had the chance.”

With a jerk, I lift you up. Your legs close instinctively around my hips. I carry you along the wall to the large stained-glass window in the transept of my church and set you down on the stone windowsill.

A hissing sound escapes you as the cold of the stone permeates the fabric of your dress and hits your heated skin underneath, but I give you no time to breathe.

“Sit down. Yes, just like that.”

Your hands explore my tense body through my thin, black shirt, and my fingers grasp at the fabric of your dress, as it rides up slightly.

Desperately, I search for the hem, pushing the fabric further up, while you use your legs to draw me even closer to your core.

Your fingers find the buttons of my shirt, and with our lips still together, you slowly open one button after the other, your hands at last finding my naked chest.

My collar falls carelessly out and lands on the stone floor - along with the oath I have sworn.

My fingertips burn like fire, as I finally feel the soft skin of your thighs underneath them. I glide them up your legs, as all the years of holding back collapse into ash.

“Fuck… Look at me. I want you to see who I really am.”

With your help I glide your dress over your head in one quick movement. What’s revealed underneath, must be my own personal heaven.

You’re not wearing a bra, and the buds of your breasts stretch out to me expectantly, as a light trail of goosebumps flits across your body.

(Growling) “You’re so gorgeous.”

Because you are. The radiant glow that the moonlight casts on your silken body is more beautiful than any masterpiece. The blue of the Madonna, the red of the martyr…

They're all watching, in this holy house. And I don't care. I can't stop. I don't WANT to stop.

I bend toward you, measuring the proportions of your body with my kisses. Four kisses from your lips to your ear. Five kisses, until I’ve left your neck behind me. Six kisses, until my lips meet one of your hard nipples, softly surrounding it.

You moan and lean back, as I suck softly and circle it with my tongue, while my hips press against you, hindering any means of escape, the hardness in my pants pressing against the fabric of your panties.

“How badly do you want this?”

(rough) “I need to hear it. Tell me that you want it as much as I do…” (whispered) “Even if it’s forbidden…”

“Good girl.”

I press myself harder between your knees, while my fingers find the hem of your panties. Hurriedly I pull them over your hips. As you finally open your legs for me, I can see the dewy glimmer of your desire in the moonlight.

Suddenly, your thighs open even wider for me, and my fingers find your center. I spread your lust gently over your clit, drawing circles around it.

“God… you’re so fucking wet for me.”

With my other hand I unbuckle my belt and then my trousers, freeing my cock - now throbbing with desire - from its prison. I close my fist around it and move up and down with slow, precise movements.

“You could hardly wait for this, could you? How often did you sit in my confessional waiting, secretly praying that I would finally take you, huh?”

(rough) “Tell me, that you want to feel me.”

“Yeah, just like that.”

I grab your thighs even harder, pulling you closer to the edge and positioning myself directly at your entrance. Then I thrust.

“Oh God.”

I bury myself deep inside you, without any consideration for the sanctity of this place. A stifled moan escapes from your mouth, and I smother it right away with a kiss.

Then, slow and deep, I begin moving inside you.

“Do you feel that? How hard you’ve made me? This is exactly what you’ve earned.”

I increase the rhythm of my thrusts. I bury my fingers in your skin, pulling you closer to me, as I lose my mind at the sight before me.

You, in my church, naked and surrendered to me, while I bury myself deeper and deeper inside you. Every time my body collides with yours, the sound echoes off the walls. Every one of your moans builds into a symphony of our pleasure.

“Yes, dig your nails into my shoulders.”

“Just like that. Hold on. I’m not nearly finished with you yet.”

With each of our movements, the glowing light dances across your skin. I can feel all those years of holding back, bursting to break through.

(rough) “God, you feel so good. It was worth having to wait ten years for this.”

(tensed) “I never want you to forget this. Every time you enter my church, I want you to think about how I took you on this stone. Do you understand me?”

With a commanding dominance, I grab your hair and pull your head back, forcing you to look up at me, while I feel the desire building up inside of you.

(dominant) “Do you understand me?”

I can feel how your legs begin to quiver. Your moaning becomes louder, your breath more pleading. Just like mine.

“Fuck, I can feel how close you are…”

“Moan for me. Show me how good it feels.”

“You’re so beautiful when you lose control like this. I want you to come for me.”

We hold each other tightly, every thrust hard and fast, as the gentle vibration of your moaning grazes against my lips. I can’t help but kiss you again, while I feel myself hurtling towards the cliff’s edge at breakneck speed. I look down into your face and see how close you are to losing yourself completely.

“Yes… God…. Come for me. Now!”

My grip on your hair loosens and I draw you breathlessly to my chest. Almost lovingly, you wrap my arm around you and lean into me. I gently lay my chin on your head, while the rush of our climax slowly subsides.

Even though we broke just about every single rule that I’ve struggled to uphold for the last few years, somehow nothing feels wrong about this.

It feels as though you’ve always belonged at my side like this. And I don’t even know your name.

I slowly release myself from your embrace, and my hand finds your cheek. Gently, I stroke my thumb over your swollen lower lip.

(whispered) “My sacrilege…”

“Was that the counsel that you sought?”

“Good.”

(smiling, whispering) “Then I can’t wait to hear all about how much you’d longed for this night… at your next confession.”

(almost threatening) “But for tonight, I’m nowhere near finished with you. I’ve held back for far too long.”