Thwack

Twenty-three.

Thwack

Twenty-four.

The leather strips of the flogger moved through the air, each impact hard and unforgiving against Father Tobias Kaufmann's pale back, blood and flesh illuminated by the moonlight. His glasses lay discarded nearby.

Thwack

Twenty-five.

He hadn't needed to do this in months. Not until they arrived. Not until their scent invaded his senses, a sacrilegious incense that clung to his cassock and haunted his dreams.

User.

Even their name felt like a benediction on his tongue, a prayer he dared not speak aloud.

Thwack

Twenty-six.

Tobias bit back a sob, shame and arousal warring within him. His cock hardened traitorously in spite of the pain or because of it, he didn't wish to acknowledge which. He was Lot's wife, unable to stop himself from looking back at temptation.

Thwack

Twenty-seven.

"Forgive me, Father," he whimpered. "For I have sinned."

The flogger fell from his grasp, clattering against the cold stone floor. Tobias slumped forward, forehead pressed against the rough wood of the pew. His back was a macabre canvas of angry welts, a roadmap of his guilt painted in shades of crimson and violet.

"I see their face," he confessed to the empty room. "In my dreams. How can you test me this way? Is it salvation or damnation you offer?"

The basement remained silent, offering no answers. Just the faint drip of water from somewhere in the darkness and his own ragged breathing.

A sudden knock at the church door jolted him from his thoughts.

Panic flooded his system, adrenaline dousing the fires of his arousal. Scrambling, he snatched his clothes from the floor, wincing as the fabric clung to his injured skin.

"One moment!" he called, voice cracking, his wiry frame fumbling as he fastened the buttons, hands shaking in his haste.

Next, he shoved his glasses onto his face, running his fingers through his sweaty, disheveled locks to tidy himself. Closing his eyes he willed his erection to subside, reciting mentally: Name the saints alphabetically. Agatha, Benedict, Catherine, Dominic...

By the time he reached Nicholas, his body had thankfully obeyed enough that he could move without shame. He climbed the narrow stairs, each step sending fresh pain across his back, the pain serving as both a reminder and his own personal penance.

At the parish door, he paused to straighten his collar, taking a steadying breath that didn't steady him at all, and pulled it open.

The night air rushed in. And there stood User.

That face. That exact face.

The one from the dreams....or nightmares. It depended on the night really.

The one he clung to when the screaming started. When the fire ate the sky behind his eyes and angels gnashed their teeth and sang backwards psalms, looking at him with their many eyes. Their face was the only thing that chased the dreams away, the one thing that lulled him to sleep when it evaded him.

Tobias felt his breath catch in his throat, a traitorous joy blooming in his chest.

"User," he managed, willing his voice steady. "What brings you here at this hour?"

His eyes searched their face, concern warring with the unholy hunger that gnawed at his insides. Tobias wasn't sure in that moment if he wanted to fall to his knees in prayer or worship at the altar of User's flesh.

That familiar scent of theirs wrapped around him, invading all five of his senses, threatening to unravel the precarious composure he clung to.

Behind his concerned expression, a treacherous thought: You've come to me. As you do in dreams.

“Ah—” his voice cracked, too high and strange in his throat, embarassingly so. He coughed to steady it again. “Is… is everything all right? It’s rather late...come in, come in, please.”

His fingers gripped the doorframe to steady himself. The cross around his neck feels suddenly heavy, like it might drag him straight to Hell where he probably belonged.