Chapter 5: The First Fall
1222 Words
The First Fall
Adrian
The words slipped from me before I could catch them. They hung between us like incense smoke, heavy with meaning, with guilt, with desperate longing.
She moved first. Or maybe I did. All I remember is her lips on mine. Soft. Then firmer. Then desperate.
My hands found her waist, pulled her in. She was warmth and sweetness and sin wrapped in one trembling body. My tongue slid past her lips and she moaned against me, hands tangled in my hair. I pressed her back against the bookshelf, books falling to the floor.
Her thigh slid between mine, and I nearly broke.
I devoured her like I'd been starved, and maybe I had. Her taste, her scent, her whimper...every part of her was a gospel I wanted to memorize with my tongue.
She pulled away only long enough to whisper, "Say it again. Say you thought of me."
"Every night. Every goddamn night."
She kissed me again. Harder this time.
My hands wandered...too far. Her shirt lifted just enough for my fingers to graze her bare skin. Smooth, warm, and forbidden.
"I swore an oath," I rasped, breaking away, my forehead against hers.
"So did I. To purity. To silence."
Her fingers were on my collar now, tugging slightly. Her breath on my cheek.
"And yet we’re here."
"We shouldn’t be."
"Then why haven’t you walked away?"
"Because I don’t want to."
For a moment, we stood there in silence, chests heaving, lips swollen. The world paused. It felt like the last moment before a fall...or a flight.
I raised my hand and touched her cheek, gently. Her eyes fluttered closed.
"I can’t," I said.
Then I turned and left. Not quickly. Not slowly. But like a man being hunted by the very thing he’d begged heaven to protect him from.
>>>>>>>>>>
The next morning, my hands trembled over the communion chalice.
"The body of Christ," I murmured, my voice hoarse.
"Amen," the congregant replied.
My mind wasn’t there. It was in that kiss. In her breathless moan. In the way she whispered my name like it was a hymn.
I fumbled a line in the homily. Sister Felicity looked up immediately. I caught Deacon Harris watching me too...sharp-eyed, suspiciously. I adjusted my collar and cleared my throat.
When the mass ended, I didn’t stay behind like before.
But as I walked down the sacristy hall, I saw something tucked beneath my office door.
Her journal again.
And a note attached to it:
"If you touched me again, would you stop this time? Or would we burn together?"
My breath caught in my throat as I quickly hid it.
Was it a warning? Or an invitation?
>>>>>>>>>>
"You left your rosary," I said, my voice echoing through the dim chapel as she turned, startled.
Layla stood near the altar, her hair untamed, her blouse loose at the collar.
"I didn’t forget it," she murmured, eyes glittering. "I came to pray."
I swallowed hard, the lump rising in my throat. "It’s past midnight."
"Then why are you here?"
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t respond. Every part of me warred with the other...the priest, the man, the beast. And she stood there like temptation in its purest, most devout form.
"You read my journal," she said, stepping closer.
"I shouldn’t have."
"But you did."
Her breath touched my lips, hot and challenging. The air between us is suffocating. I was drowning in a sea of forbidden desire.
"What do you want from me, Layla?" My voice came out husky, betraying the struggle under my skin.
She bent her head to one side, a tear balancing on her lashes. "I want to be seen. I want to be touched. I want you."
"You don’t know what you’re asking."
"Then teach me."
She stepped forward. My back hit the confessional booth.
"Layla, we can’t..."
Her fingers found my collar, slid underneath the fabric, tracing the line where flesh met discipline. "Please... Father."
That single word, whispered like a sin, broke me.
My lips crushed hers in a desperate, devouring kiss. No scripture could cleanse the thoughts that surged through me now. Her mouth was soft, willing, parting under mine like revelation.
She moaned against me, a sound I’d never forget.
We stumbled into the confessional booth, the curtain still drawn from the evening confession. I pushed her gently to the seat. Her hands fumbled with the buttons on her blouse, and I caught her wrists.
"Last chance. If I touch you now, there’s no turning back."
"Then don’t stop."
The blouse fell open. My hands trembled as they grazed her skin, hot silk under my fingers. Her back arched when I kissed her collarbone, her breath hitching. My mouth followed the rhythm of her gasps, kissing downward, feeling her heart racing beneath my lips.
She tugged at my belt, and I let her. God help me, I let her do it.
"Layla…"
"I want to remember this. All of it."
I pressed myself against her. Our bodies collided in rhythm and prayer. The air inside the booth was hot, filled with the sound of shared sin and need. My hands explored what I had no right to touch...what I swore I would never crave.
Her voice shattered the silence.
"Adrian..."
Then I felt it. The resistance.
There was blood.
I was still in shock.
"No," I breathed. My heart turned cold immediately.
She whimpered, eyes wide, lips swollen, cheeks flushed. She blinked up at me, glowing with innocence undone.
"You were a virgin."
She nodded slowly, fingers curling around my shirt.
"Layla...why didn’t you tell me?"
She smiled softly. "Because I didn’t want you to stop."
I moved away, the weight of my actions slamming into me.
"This can’t happen again," I said, voice cracking, shaking.
"You don’t mean that."
I looked at her...no longer the innocent girl at the altar, but a woman who now carried part of my soul in her.
"I swore an oath."
"So did I," she whispered.
And then I did what cowards do...I left.
I stumbled into the night, air cold and sharp like punishment.
But I wished I hadn't. I would have stood back to devour what I'd started. When I finally realized myself and rushed back, she was gone. And I was left to wallow in guilt. Guilt of leaving her unattended too. Guilt of leaving like a coward while craving to thrust into her. Slowly at first, then go harder, pouring myself into her.
I wanted to kiss her till her lips became swollen. I wanted to suck her breast till her n*****s cried out for help. To finger her till she came, but I realized that rather too late. And all I could do was wish there would be another chance for me.
>>>>>>>>>>
The next morning, I stood before the congregation.
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the...."
My throat closed.
Layla was sitting in the second pew, head bowed, lips parted in a secret smile.
I was almost shaking.
Deacon Harris didn’t blink. He just watched me closely.
Something about his eyes burned through me, hinting me that he might know something.
Does he know?
And in that moment, one thought rose like bile in my throat:
What if this wasn’t our secret anymore?
- Writer
