Story 1: Moans Before Amen pt 2

Chapter Two: The Book of Repentance.

Ciara's PoV:

The lock clicked behind me and the sound went straight through my body like a second heartbeat. I stood there in the sacristy, breath caught, staring at Father Chris.

The room wasn’t dark anymore. He had lit four tall candles on the side table, their flames dancing across the stone walls and throwing warm gold light over the heavy wooden table in the center.

A big leather-bound book lay open on it, thick pages glowing in the candlelight.

The air smelled of melting wax and the faint trace of the incense that always clung to his cassock.

“Ciara,” he said again, softer this time, but there was an edge under the gentleness. “You came.”

I nodded, throat too tight for words. My hands were shaking at my sides. What the hell was I doing here? This was the man who had given me my first communion when I was a kid.

The man who was supposed to guide me toward the convent. And now I was locked in a room with him after midnight because I’d told him I fingered myself thinking about his hands.

He moved like he had all the time in the world. He walked to a small cabinet, took out a bottle of water and a teacup, and poured steaming water from a kettle that must have been waiting.

“You look like you could use something to drink. Water? Or tea? Chamomile. It calms the nerves.”

I almost laughed. Calms the nerves? Nothing about this was calm. My panties were already damp from just the walk over and the way his eyes had darkened when he saw me. “Water,” I managed. “Please, Father.”

He handed me the bottle, our fingers brushing. That tiny touch sent electricity up my arm. He didn’t pull away immediately. Instead he watched me take a sip, his gaze steady.

“Sit for a moment if you need to,” he said, gesturing to the single chair by the table. “But I think we both know why you’re here.”

I stayed standing. “Am I… in trouble?” The question came out small. “Are you going to punish me? Tell the Mother Superior? Or…”

“No one else is involved,” he cut in quietly. “This stays between us and God. But penance is still required, Ciara. Real penance. Not just words in a booth.”

He pointed at the open book on the table. The pages were handwritten in neat, careful script. The title at the top of the visible page read *Repentance for the Sin of Lust*.

“Kneel,” he ordered.

My knees folded before my brain even caught up. The stone floor was cold through my thin dress. I knelt right in front of the table, the book inches from my face. The candle flames flickered across the words.

“Read the first chapter aloud,” he said. “Start from the top.”

I swallowed and began, voice barely above a whisper.

“I rebuke all lustful desires that have been within me more than necessary…”

“Louder,” he said sharply.

I jumped at the sudden change in his tone. It wasn’t the gentle confessor voice anymore. It was commanding, edged with something that made my stomach tighten and my thighs press together.

“I rebuke all lustful desires that have been within me more than necessary,” I repeated, louder, cheeks burning.

“I renounce every impure thought that pulls me from the path of purity. I reject the weakness of the flesh and seek only the strength of the spirit…”

The words felt ridiculous coming out of my mouth while my body was still humming from the confession.

Every line was exactly what I had been trying to tell myself for weeks, but hearing them in this room, with him standing right behind me, made them feel like a joke.

I could feel his presence at my back—tall, warm, the faint rustle of his cassock as he moved closer.

I kept reading, line after line about denying the body, about offering suffering to God, about the dangers of self-indulgence. My voice shook on the parts about “touching oneself in secret” and “fantasies that defile the soul.” By the time I reached the end of the first page I was breathing faster, nipples tight against my dress, the ache between my legs worse than it had been all day.

Father Chris stepped around the table so I could see him. He leaned down, one hand resting on the open book, the other hanging loose at his side. His eyes locked on mine.

“Why are you letting me do this?” I whispered before I could stop myself. “Why make me read it out loud if you already know what I want?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead he reached out and brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The touch was so gentle it almost hurt.

“Because words matter,” he said. “But so does the body. You came here because the ache won’t go away with prayers alone. So tell me, Ciara… where does it ache right now?”

My mouth went dry. I stared up at him, heart hammering. This didn’t feel like punishment. Or maybe it did, but the kind that made me want more.

“Between my legs,” I admitted, voice cracking. “It’s… throbbing.”

He nodded once, like he had expected exactly that answer. “Show me.”

I hesitated only a second before my hands moved on their own. I pulled the hem of my dress up just enough to expose my thighs, then higher, until the black lace of my panties was visible in the candlelight. The fabric was visibly wet.

Father Chris made a low sound in his throat. Not a groan exactly—just a controlled exhale that told me he was fighting something too. He crouched in front of me so we were eye level.

“Does it ache here?” His fingers brushed the inside of my thigh, feather-light, nowhere near where I needed him. Just a slow stroke up and down the soft skin.

“Yes,” I breathed.

He kept touching—only my thigh, only the outside edge of the ache. “And here?” His fingertips grazed higher, stopping just below the lace. The heat of his hand was maddening.

I nodded frantically. “Please…”

“Please what?” His voice had that new edge again. “This is penance, Ciara. You don’t get to beg yet. You get to feel what you’ve been doing to yourself every morning and understand why it’s wrong.”

But his fingers didn’t stop. They traced the crease where my thigh met my body, back and forth, so close to my soaked panties that I could feel the warmth of his skin through the thin fabric. Every pass made me wetter. Every pass made the guilt twist tighter in my chest even as my hips tried to tilt toward his hand.

He asked again, softer, “Where else does it ache?”

“My breasts,” I whispered, ashamed and desperate at the same time. “They feel heavy. Tight.”

Without a word he rose slightly and let his free hand rest on my chest, over the fabric of my dress. His palm covered one breast, thumb brushing across my nipple once—slow, deliberate. The thin material did nothing to hide how hard it was. He didn’t squeeze. He didn’t slip inside my dress. He just held it there, feeling the frantic beat of my heart and the way my nipple strained against his thumb.

I whimpered. Actually whimpered.

“This is what you’ve been craving,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Not just release. You want someone to see it. To know it. To control it.”

He kept one hand on my breast and the other still teasing the edge of my panties. Never pushing under the lace. Never giving me what I needed. Just touching, circling, making the ache worse with every second. The candles flickered. The big repentance book sat open between us like a witness.

I was trembling now, knees aching on the stone, thighs slick. “Father Chris… I can’t…”

“You can,” he said quietly. “And you will. Because tomorrow night you’re going to come back here and read the next chapter. And the next. Until the words stop feeling like lies and start feeling like truth.”

He pulled both hands away at the same time.

The sudden loss of his touch hit me harder than anything else tonight. I stayed on my knees, panting, dress still hiked up, body on fire and nowhere near satisfied.

He stood, towering over me again, eyes dark with something I couldn’t name—punishment, yes, but also hunger. He knew exactly what he was doing to me.

“Midnight tomorrow,” he said. “Same door. Wear the same dress. And bring your rosary.”

He reached down and closed the repentance book with a soft thud.

Then he offered me his hand to help me stand.

I took it. My legs barely held me.

As I turned toward the door, still trembling, still aching, still soaked, he spoke one last time from behind me.

“And Ciara?”

I looked back.

“Next time,” he said, voice low and certain, “the penance will go deeper.”

The candle flames danced in his eyes as I slipped out into the cold Boston night, the door locking behind me with the same final click.

I didn’t know if I was being saved or ruined.

But I already knew I’d be back tomorrow.