Chapter2: The Scent of Sin
1147 Words
Layla
“You came back.”
His voice was soft, but it reached into my chest like a hook. I didn’t even flinch this time. It seems like I was used to it already. So fast.
Father Adrian stood by the side door of the church, his black cassock flowing like a shadow against the candlelit stone. The same unsettling calm in his eyes… but this time, something else sat there.
It was recognition.
“You left me a note,” I said, keeping my voice light. “I figured that was an invitation.”
“I leave many notes,” he replied, stepping closer. “Most go unread.”
“But not that one.”
He paused for too long. “Some desires are sacred. That was just scripture.”
“No,” I said, holding his gaze. “That was you.”
He didn’t deny it.
Instead, he said, “What are you seeking, Layla?”
I opened my mouth to talk, but closed it instead. The truth felt too sharp on my tongue.
“Peace,” I offered. “Maybe… forgiveness.”
“For what exactly?”
I hesitated, then looked past him, toward the stained-glass that bathed the pews in fractured colors.
“For wanting something I shouldn’t.”
“And you think the church can cleanse that?”
“Can you?”
His lips parted...just barely. But he didn’t answer.
Instead, he looked away, like looking at me would implicate him.
Coward.
Or maybe he already knew the answer.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I began coming to the church more often after that.
Three times that week. Twice the next. Always with the same excuse: checking on my father’s memorial plaque, helping Deacon Harris catalog old choir books, occasionally offering to wipe down the pews. No one questioned it...except Sister Felicity.
She watched me like a bird guarding its nest.
She was small and soft-spoken, always clutching her rosary like it might float away. She approached me one afternoon in the hallway behind the altar.
“You’ve been around a lot lately,” she said with a polite smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“I’ve always loved this place,” I replied, smiling back with more bite than sweetness.
“It’s good to see young people return to the faith.”
Was that a jab?
“Thank you, Sister.”
But she didn’t walk away. Her gaze lingered, flicking toward the hallway where Adrian had just passed minutes before.
And at that moment, I realized something dangerous:
She wasn’t watching church.
She was watching him.
After the encounter with sister Felicity, I went for confession.
Another hour behind that screen where our words wrestled and hesitated.
“I’ve been having dreams,” I confessed, my voice hushed and raw.
“What kind of dreams?”
His voice was lower than usual. Too velvet and gravel to comprehend.
“I… can’t describe them.”
“You can.”
“Not without… sinning.”
“That’s why you’re here.”
I closed my eyes, trying to distract myself a little.
“In them, I’m in the chapel. But all alone. On my knees. But I’m not praying. I feel hands on me. I can’t see the face, but I know the voice. And... It’s....yours. And you’re whispering… absolution.”
I could hear his breath catch...so soft, most people would miss it.
But I heard it anyway.
He said nothing for nearly a full minute. I thought maybe he had walked out.
“Do you feel guilt when you wake up?”
“No,” I whispered almost immediately.
“Do you feel ashamed?”
“Only when I stopped touching myself.”
There was a thunderous heartbeat.
“Layla…” he said to my name like it hurt to say. “You must know where this path leads.”
“To hell?”
He didn’t answer, and had no intention of answering.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
That night, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his voice had cracked while talking to me.
I didn’t even wait until I was home.
I locked the door to my room, stripped off my jeans, and lay down on the floor. The tile was cold against my back. I closed my eyes as I reflected on many things.
Some desires are sacred.
I imagined his voice in my ear. His breath in my throat. His hands...not priestly, not pious...but possessive, rough.
You want to sin, right? Then sin for me.
My fingers moved between my thighs. Slow, trembling and tempting
“Father…” I gasped into the dark.
When I came, it wasn’t a release.
It was a tether.
To him.
To hunger.
To the things growing wild between us.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Friday afternoon brought choir practice. Sister Felicity had been pushing me to join. I declined the offer to sing but agreed to help with the music.
“Take the piano then,” she said, already moving to the back row.
The keys were dusty, slightly out of tune. But my fingers remembered what my body had forgotten...how to feel something.
I played softly. “Ave Maria,” then “Pie Jesu.” Then something that wasn’t sacred at all. A slow, haunting melody I couldn’t name.
That was when I felt it.
A familiar presence.
It was behind me and keenly watching my every move.
My spine became very stiff on sensing who was behind me, but I didn’t turn.
I knew who it was, but I kept playing.
And he kept standing there.
Silently, without moving an inch close.
Listening like a man at confession.
The music obeyed smoothly under my fingers.
And suddenly, he was at my side, his voice low.
“Where did you learn that piece?”
“I didn’t learn it. I just played what I felt.”
He stared down at the keys. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s a sin,” I whispered.
He looked at me, but not like a priest.
Not even as a man.
But as something else entirely.
His gaze burned like fire sealed in glass on me, making me lose control.
It was caged and controlled.
At least, for now.
He opened his mouth to say something...but was cut off.
“Sister Felicity is looking for you, Father.”
It was Marianne.
Perfect timing, perfect lipstick.
Adrian took a step back from me, like I was made of poison.
But I didn’t move.
I just met Marianne’s eyes and smiled.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
That night, I found another note.
Tucked inside my hymn book.
There was no name on it. But I know his handwriting now.
'I can’t stop listening.'
That was all he wrote.
No explanation attached to it.
But I knew within me that it wasn’t a compliment.
It was rather a confession.
And now I had to ask myself:
What would he do… if I stopped being quiet?
- Writer
