A/N: This story contains sacrilegious and blasphemous themes. If triggering to you, I recommend skipping this one.
Merciful Father, I confess to You all my sins and justly deserve Your punishment now and forever, Amen.
Christine Daae is a sinner, and the guilt shows plainly upon her veiled face as she enters the tiny opera chapel. Her hands shake and her face burns hotly as she dabs from the font of salty-wet water, which had only hours ago been blessed by the hands of the man she is about to see. She looks low to the ground as she moves her fingers to her forehead, chest, and either shoulder in the name of the Lord. The water is tepid now, having sat in the chilled chapel air for long enough to become stagnant, yet the moisture against her forehead and fingertips comes pleasant to her frayed senses.
She makes her way through the aisle and to the first pew by the altar, bowing down in respect to the Almighty before she slides inward and falls to her knees in a reverent prayer. She is not alone in the chapel, this she knows for fact. The spirit of the Lord was always present within her soul, yet another man too is lingering.
She comes to Church to confess her sins, her terrible, awful, mortal sins, and to erase the guilt that burdens her soul and tears her from God.
Christine closes her eyes as she prays, then looks upward to the crucifix that hangs tall and imposing at the back of the chapel. What would He think of her, she wonders, the Man who sacrificed His life to save her? She had always been a good, pious girl, one who deserved Heaven; never once had she broken a commandment, and she was always charitable and pure, just as the Lord would have wanted. She gave alms and attended mass every Sunday, and made sure to pray each night before bed and before meals, even though some of the less-honorable ballerinas teased her for it.
Still, the cross above her breast hangs heavy and burns at her veins; the devil had tricked the poor, little Daae.
She sits back in the pew while she waits for her turn at the confessional, waiting for the door to be propped open and for the priest to call upon her.
He is a new priest, transferred from a larger church from the northernmost part of the diocese following the untimely and tragic death of the last father. Father Erik, as he is called, is the closest thing to an angel Christine has ever known. He is thoughtful, wise, and insightful; she had been wary at first, for she had loved the honorable late father Michael, but only a single sermon from the man had resulted in profound revelations and a deep, spiritual awakening that Christine had never experienced before. It was if had single-handedly granted her salvation through song and psalm.
The creek of the door signals a free confessional, though Christine forces herself to wait a moment, if only to hear the man's sacred voice. She has to still herself to her seat, thumbing anxiously across the intersection of the cross that hangs loosely about her breast.
"My child?" His words, spoken in a low voice pulls her to her feet, and on a cloud of trepidation, her feet float to the doorway.
There is a latticework curtain between them, and yet even in the darkness she can make out his golden eyes and porcelain-white nose. She wonders if he knows it is her on the other side of the screen.
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been five days since my last confession." Her practiced speech comes slowly, though her words are familiar. Twice now, she has come to see him as an anonymous penitent, professing her venial wrong-doings, not once ready to admit the burden that cursed her soul. Tonight, she has built the courage to repent.
"I have been a very naughty soul, my Father." Christine clasps her hands together at her knees, which shake up and down in anticipation. "I have sinned again."
The priest sighs to her, his breath warm and heavy through the screen. Christine breaths it in and closes her eyes at the taste. "We are all sinners, my child. Only through penance will God forgive."
Christine lifts her hand to the screen, feeling its clover-leaf grills against the swirling pad of her fingertips. She traces the shadow of the man, letting her finger drift up and down his perfect nose and tracing the dip of his philtrum, daring to go lower to the slight curve of mouth. She yearns to hear him speak again, to trace against the shadow of his open mouth and tongue.
"Would you like to hear my sins, Father?"
The priest turns to her then, facing her fully through the screen and looking at her through golden eyes. "To what do you wish to confess?"
A stale sigh of air passes hotly through the booth, trapping Christine in a sweet sick stench, thick with an acidic odor of decaying stone. She inhales selfishly, taking it all in for herself.
"Lust, Father." Her heart thumps against her corset, taking the necklace with it. "I have been wanting for a man I cannot have."
The priest clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, intrigued. "To a married man?"
"To a man of God." Christine says, admitting her sin at last, and she can almost hear the clicking of gears within the priest's head. He knows her meaning, he knows her sin.
Father Erik is silent, though his eyes tell a story through the screen. She cannot see him, but the light of his eyes and the gleam of white at his cheekbone show he is staring directly at her, deciphering and pulling the anonymous voice from a sea of congregants. She does not speak, for the tension is thick and heavy, yet her body screams in the silence.
"Christine Daae," he says at last, his voice whispering a prayer. A bead of sweat falls from her temple as his voice echoes in the chamber. Another breath and the room is filled with his scent, the foul and repulsive taste she longs to run her tongue over. The hand on her knee inches northwards, trembling upon her thigh.
Adultery is a sin, she hears his sermon from the night before, and recalls the way his eyes fell directly upon hers, as if he knew her unspoken crimes, Yet even Christ was tempted.
She lifts her hand to the screen and pulls it back with a force that neatly tears the fabric from its seams, yet she does not care. Vandalism and desecration are low on her list of sins.
His eyes do not betray any shock as he meets her face to face, both darkened in shadow by the confessional booth, yet the growl in his throat points to a primal, visceral longing that mirrors the filthy sin she has only just admitted to.
He is a man of God, yet still a man, and his body betrays him.
She sees the bulge of fabric hidden between his thighs before he can try to hide it, and she climbs above and over the dividing wall between them. She lifts her skirts so not to tear them, and a flash of pink and cream peeks out from underneath them; her legs are already slick with sin. No longer does only the smell of death fill the room, for a sweet geranium wafts from between Christine's legs.
She straddles him without warning, and he is all too willing to accept her. His hands find her hips and he pulls her downward into a hellish protrusion and he groans, forcing his hands to dig in deeper.
"Is it absolution you want, my child?" He asks her, jerking his hips upward. He has vowed celibacy, yet is a sinner just as any other man.
She nods, tearing the veil from her face and throwing it to the floor. Her hair is loose, torn from pins, yet when he grabs her by her braid, it ceases to matter what she looks like. His hand forces her head closer and he captures her lips with his own. His kiss is harsh and rapturous and is everything a man deprived of touch should be. He bites down upon her lip with violent teeth and he draws blood, sucking it all into his mouth as if it is the sacrament itself. He drinks from her mouth, tasting blood and spit and a taste so uniquely Christine Daae - all so sweet that he nearly proclaims his own resurrection.
"Speak your contrition, child." He demands from her, grasping her throat and pressing down hard. Her airway constricts, yet she speaks the words he orders:
"Oh God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee-"
She only manages the first line when he throws her to the floor, and not even a rug catches her fall. He lives in a building of rock and stone, a catacombic chapel a storey below the Opera, living modestly and securely as the Lord wanted, and yet closer to hell than to heaven.
Christine cries out and tries to stand when the priest stops her again, grabbing her by her hair and ordering her to kneel in prayer at his feet. She obliges, and finds her hands to clasp them together at her breast. It is a revenant pose, one made solely for God and his angels, and so she yet again betrays and sins.
He approaches her and she finds his cassock has been removed in favor of his clerical clothing: a suit entirely of black, missing the whitecloth of his neckband. He has never worn it and never will; the white of his mask is enough to signify God's presence.
Christine's eyes are wide as the Father unbuttons his trouser front, and she uses the Lord's name in vain as she readily watches, "God, my God!"
He is large and hard and wanting, a pillar of his longing for her, and he thrusts his hips forward to smack his cock against her cheek. She imagines it as a blessing, an anointing, and all too willingly spreads her knees beneath herself and begs him for more.
She releases herself from prayer and lifts both palms to his trouser front, curling her fingers about his thin legs and anchoring herself to him. Her presses forward again and this time she takes him into her mouth.
Her tongue swallows the first pearl of his ejaculate and circles over every ridge of flesh and bump of vein. He is circumcised, as any godly man would be, and she takes the tip of his holy flesh between her teeth, letting the sharp edges entice and electrify him.
He is long and thick, and both hands raise to grip him. He is almighty and powerful in his thrusts, yet she takes all of him in, feeling the curve of cock twitching in her throat as she bobs her head deeper to take in more.
He continues to allow her to sin, praising her ministrations as he looks ahead to the single wooden crucifix that hangs lonely on the wall behind her. He slams his hand onto the wall, and the wood shakes and nearly falls, yet remains. Again, he bangs as he thrusts, and the Lord's likeness topples over and falls to the floor, forgotten and unseen.
He looks to her now, watching as she takes a hand from his shaft to travel lower and between her legs. He wants for a taste, yet is more transfixed by her mouth and hand. She will sin and sin and sin again, and he will drink from her holy water once blessed; his confessional has not seen the last of her.
Christine fingers at her clitoris as she sucks and licks, and her body blooms with a burst of desire. He does not look at her now, but she recalls each of his sermons and accepts the condemnation of her soul; she has tempted a priest and has committed a hellish sin, but the feel of her fingers and the scent of their blended desire is too consuming, too tempting to stop.
Her eyes lift up to him and she watches as he comes undone by the spell of her tongue; he is sweating and hot and his jaw is tight with lust. He is nearing his completion just as she is her own. He slams his fist again at the back wall, which nearly frightens her, yet his rage is delicious and only forces her fingers to become more fierce inside of her.
Erik groans and takes ahold of her throat again, forcing himself so deep she nearly chokes upon his thickness; he is twitching in desire and disgust, and yet is nearing his finish. Two more pumps and he is reeling, and a burst of hot warmth travels from his navel to his cock before erupting from the tip of his cockflesh and into her mouth.
"Drink from the seed of God" he says, and waits for her to swallow. Her throat constricts upon his limping cock and he pulls out at last. She is baptized by his emissions, born again into the blessings of God.
He sits back on his chair and eyes her through the cut holes of his mask as she finishes herself off with a scream of pleasure, then collapses under the weight of her sins upon the confessional floor. He thinks of her foulness, of the mortal sin that now lies upon her soul. Only God can forgive her, and he has no intention of speaking as His channel.
She is hot and sweaty and cannot meet his eyes, for she closes her own and finishes her Act of Contrition with her hands pressed to her chest.
Christine Daae has been absolved of her sin, yet he knows she will commit more and more until God can no longer forgive her.