A brief silence.
"And in your body?"
I shift, discomfort blooming. My palms are damp. "I—I don’t know."
"Think," he urges. "Did you feel warmth?"
I hesitate for a second before I nod.
"Did you want him to cease?"
"Yes," I press. "I told him."
"But before you told him," Popa Vasile continues, almost gentle, "what did you feel?"
The silence deepens. It presses in from the stone walls, from the altar, from the carved body above us.
I search for the right words, the honest ones.
"Confused," they come at last. "My thoughts weren’t clear."
"And your body?" he asks again.
My face burns now. It feels wrong to answer—though I cannot say why. Something in me pulls back, small and uncertain.
But this is confession, and he is God’s voice. Discomfort is part of penance.
"I felt… heat."
The admission leaves me exposed, as if my thoughts have been laid bare along with my words.
Another pause, before he exhales slowly. "You see," he murmurs, "how easily the flesh leads us astray. Even when the mind resists."
I nod, relief slipping in despite everything, grateful to have the meaning taken from me—shaped into something clearer. Safer.
"You did well to come," he continues. "To speak fully. God cannot cleanse what is hidden."
He tells me to kneel.
I lower myself to the cold floor at his feet, skirts pooling around my knees, my head bowing of its own accord. His presence looms above me—the weight of his shadow falling over my hands, my shoulders, my lowered gaze. For a moment, there is only my breathing and the faint creak of the church settling around us.
Then, I feel them.
Two fingers, lightly slipping beneath my chin. They tilt my face upward, forcing my gaze to rise.
I go still.
His eyes hold mine, fixed with an intensity that makes it difficult to breathe. My heart stumbles, then quickens.
"There are forces," he says calmly, "that seek to corrupt what is pure. They prey on innocence. On youth. On flesh that has begun to awaken."
His thumb presses slightly at my jaw, steadying. "You are not wicked," he continues. "But you are vulnerable."
"Yes, Father," I whisper.
"If you wish to keep these forces away," he says, "you must discipline your body. You must humble it."
He releases me at last, but the warmth of his touch lingers on my skin.
