Total pages in book: 6
Estimated words: 5609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 28(@200wpm)___ 22(@250wpm)___ 19(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 5609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 28(@200wpm)___ 22(@250wpm)___ 19(@300wpm)
In the hushed confessional of his own church, a devoted priest listens as his s!ster confesses her darkest, most forbidden cravings.
For him, her br*ther, to sin with her in the confessional
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter
One
DAMIEN
The church smelled of old wood, incense, and quiet desperation.
Every Saturday afternoon, the same handful of souls shuffled into the dim nave.
Widows clutching rosaries, a recovering alcoholic who still smelled faintly of yesterday’s whiskey, and her.
Lyla.
She never came at the same time as the others. Lyla was always last, always when the light through the stained glass had turned dark and low. She’d slip into the confessional like a shadow moving under a door, her footsteps soft on the worn carpet, her presence electric even before she spoke.
I told myself it was routine. She was my younger sister. I had taken vows. I took my role as her older sibling seriously: protector, guide, and the one who shielded her from the worst parts of our fractured home.
When our parents died three years later in that rain-slicked wreck on I-71, I was twenty and already studying for the priesthood. I finished seminary, took my vows, and kept her close. She lived in the small house behind the rectory. We shared meals. We shared silence. We shared everything except the one line I’d sworn never to cross.
Until she started coming to confession.
At first it was small things. Impure thoughts about boys from her college classes. Fantasies she described in careful, halting whispers. I gave the standard absolutions, assigned Hail Marys, and reminded her of chastity. My voice stayed steady. My hands stayed folded. My body stayed obedient.
Then the confessions changed.
The boys disappeared from her stories, the fantasies sharpened, and she began to speak of a man who was forbidden. A man who wore black. A man who had taken vows.
Lyla never named me outright. Not at first, but the details were surgical in the way his hands looked when they turned the pages of the missal, and the low timbre of his voice when he said “Dominus vobiscum”.
I should have stopped her. I should have ended the charade, sent her to another priest, transferred parishes… anything. Instead I listened. I let the words coil around me like smoke. I told myself I was hearing her sins so I could absolve them. I told myself it was pastoral duty.
I lied.
Tonight the church was empty except for us. The last penitent had left twenty minutes ago. The candles were guttering, and I sat in the dim booth, stole around my neck, waiting.
I knew it was her as soon as the door on her side opened with a soft click. I exhaled slowly through my nose and waited silently..
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Her voice was velvet and sin and home all at once. My fingers tightened on the edge of the kneeler. “May the Lord be in your heart and on your lips so that you may confess all your sins well.”
A pause. A small, knowing exhale. “Well, Father… I’ve had some very inappropriate thoughts. Thoughts that would repel the Lord and cause the devil to smirk in glee.”
My throat clicked when I swallowed. “Go on, my child.” She began. And I burned.
Every word was a spark. Every description a brand. She spoke of inappropriate thoughts about someone she should never think about. Someone close. Someone who had given everything for her. Someone who served the Lord while she dreamed of dragging him into darkness.
My pulse hammered in my ears. My cassock felt suddenly too tight, the air too thick. I knew what she was doing. I knew she knew I knew. And still I said, hoarse, “Go on, my child. Tell me about all your impure thoughts.”
She did.
And then her voice dropped lower, painting pictures so vivid I could almost feel her mouth on me. She spoke of wanting to corrupt him, to make him worship her body the way he worshipped at the altar.
Lyla spoke of wetness between her thighs right then, in the booth, while she confessed.
I felt the fabric of my trousers strain. Shame and hunger twisted together until I couldn’t tell them apart. I knew I wasn't strong enough to resist, strong enough to stop from being a sinner.
And I didn't want to. I wanted to step into damnation with both feet.
Chapter
Two
LYLA
I stepped into the confessional booth like I did every week. It wasn’t because I was compelled to purge myself of my sins, but because I knew what those stories did to my brother.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Damien cleared his throat. “May the Lord be in your heart and on your lips so that you may confess all your sins well.”
“Well, Father, I’ve had some very inappropriate thoughts. Thoughts that would repel the Lord and cause the devil to smirk in glee.”
“Go on, my child,” Damien said.
“You see, I’ve had inappropriate thoughts about someone I should never think about.”
“We all have bad thoughts, child. It’s only a problem if we give in to sin. Go on, confess.”