My mouth opens.
Words come out.
"One—I am held?—"
But I'm not the one saying them.
I'm floating somewhere above my body, watching myself kneel in this sex chapel, watching my lips move, watching my fingers dig into the prayer desk?—
CRACK.
"Two—I am seen?—"
The pain is there—sharp and burning and impossible to ignore—but it's alsonotthere, like I'm experiencing it through layers of gauze, distant and muffled.
What the fuck is happening?—
CRACK.
"Three—I am forgiven?—"
My brain lights up like a fucking Christmas tree, synapses firing in patterns that don't make sense, endorphins flooding my system in waves that crash over me, pulling me under.
I'm drowning.
I'm flying.
I'm completely, utterlygone.
CRACK.
"Four—I am yours?—"
Somewhere in the back of my consciousness, a tiny voice is screaming that this is subspace, that I've dropped hard and fast, that I need to be careful?—
But I can't grab onto that thought.
It slips through my mental fingers like smoke.
CRACK.
"Five—I am held?—"
The words keep coming.
My body keeps praying.
ButI'mnot there anymore.
I'm living on some other planet where pain and pleasure blur together, where Saint Lorcan's voice is the only thing tethering me to earth, where the rhythm of strike-count-pray becomes a mantra that drowns out everything else.
CRACK.
"Six—I am seen?—"
Time stops making sense.
I lose minutes. Hours. Seconds.
