Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 1 - Chapitre 10

I had spent all morning burning in my bed, my skin sweating under the rough cotton of my slip as I ran the same filthy, ugly pictures through my head. If he finally cracked—if he stopped hiding behind that clean parish smile and let me get my teeth into him—I wouldn't give a damn about a quiet, sneaky fumble behind the vestry door. I wanted to chew him up until he couldn't even remember the hymns he taught. I wanted him flat on his back on this nasty classroom carpet, his church clothes ruined, begging me to stop looking at him while I made him admit he was just as dirty and desperate as I was. I’d spent four whole hours getting ready, smoothing my dress, practicing my calm church face in the mirror until it looked like nothing at all was going on behind it. The second the basement door clicked open and Alex walked in carrying his stack of attendance sheets, something in my chest pulled tight anyway. He smelled like laundry soap and the faint sweat of someone who’d been moving fast i

The morning sun had barely begun to spill across the bedroom floor when I opened my eyes. I checked the digital clock on my bedside table: 6:00 AM. My pulse fluttered with a sudden, anxious excitement, but I forced myself to stay still, pulling the blankets back up to my chin. If I got up too early, my parents would know something was up; they would see right through my excitement about going over to Brother Alex’s house. So I forced myself to lie there in the quiet room, staring at the ceiling and waiting, watching the gray light slowly turn into a brighter Saturday morning. By half-past eight, I couldn’t wait another second. I slipped out of bed, grabbed my towel, and hurried to the shower. The hot water woke my skin up, washing away the restless heat of the night before. Back in my bedroom, I stood in front of my wardrobe with a deliberate, calculated look in my eyes. I bypassed my usual modest church dresses entirely. Instead, I pulled on a pair of tight, short bum shorts and a

For a second, the heavy reality of what I was courting pressed down on my chest, making my breath catch. I wondered, with a sickening lurch of doubt, if I had completely misread him. Maybe he wasn’t fighting desire. Maybe he was just disgusted. I could turn around. I could walk out the front door right now. Instead, I followed him. The low heels of my shoes clicked against the tiled floor, each step sounding entirely too loud in the quiet apartment. Inside the bedroom, Alex sat down heavily on the edge of his unmade bed. He didn’t look up when I stepped into the doorway. He rubbed both hands over his face, his fingers pressing hard into his eyes. Alex sat on the edge of the mattress, staring at the floorboards between his feet with his hands braced on his knees. His shoulders were slumped, the rigid posture he carried around church nowhere to be seen. He looked worn down, like someone who had finally run out of ways to hold himself together. “Pat, you need to go home,” he muttere

The first rays of sunlight slipped through the curtains of my bedroom, but sleep had barely visited me. I lay on my back staring at the ceiling with a small, quiet smile, my heart feeling strangely light, almost as though I had been carrying a weight for years and had finally set it down. For so long, Brother Alex had existed only in my imagination. But now, whenever I thought of him, those memories felt real instead of distant fantasies. I rolled onto my side and hugged my pillow tightly while my mind kept replaying every conversation we had shared over the years, wondering if there had been signs I had missed until a knock on my bedroom door interrupted my thoughts. “Pat,” my mother’s voice called gently, “Are you awake? You’ll be late for church.” “I’m awake, Mum,” I replied, sitting up quickly and suddenly remembering it was Sunday. For the first time since I had started attending church as a little girl, I wasn’t excited just because I would see Brother Alex. I was wondering ho

The classroom felt suffocatingly loud, yet to me, the world had gone completely quiet as Monday dragged on. The lecturer at the front droned on about coursework, but my mind remained trapped inside Alex’s apartment, thinking of nothing but him. I simply couldn’t wait, wishing I could skip the hours and run straight to his place. The slow crawl of the clock held me captive while my friends leaned over to chat between lectures, laughing and exchanging stories that I barely heard. I nodded absentmindedly a few times, my attention never leaving the memories replaying endlessly in my mind. The hours dragged by with agonizing slowness until, at last, the final bell rang. I didn’t waste a second, snatching up my bag, hurrying out of the building, and making my way home. I had already lied to my dad, telling him that Brother Alex had requested me and some of the other teenagers to come help him arrange some things in his bookshelf. It was a convenient, innocent-sounding lie, and my father