Lessons in Sin

I stayed in there for at least twenty minutes. Maybe longer. While the water ran from red to clear, I obsessively smelled his soap and shampoo, savoring the cedar scent. Then I rubbed the body wash everywhere, scrubbing away the blood and taking extra time to clean between my legs.

The steam cleared my head, and the aroma of his soap soothed my soul.

I think I have a crush on him.

Was it a crush? Or something else?

I think it’s more.

This went beyond a physical attraction. He’d held me the night I thought Jaden and Willow were dead. He was at my side every step of tonight, during and after my horrific display at the dance. He’d even been there when I pissed on the floor. He hadn’t treated me with disgust. Hadn’t hit me when I was down. He’d lent me his quiet strength without judgment.

I’d never been drawn to a person the way I was drawn to him. Even when he was cruel and terrifying. Even when I despised him. Even when he made me sit in his classroom after school and read the scriptures out loud for hours. Even then, I wanted him in a way I’d never wanted anyone else.

The night I’d met him, he told me that ninety percent of this was how I reacted to it. The other ten percent was happening whether I liked it or not.

I figured my feelings for him, this inexplicable attraction, was the ten percent I couldn’t stop. That meant the rest depended on how I reacted to these feelings.

Turning off the shower, I peeked around the curtain to look for a towel. The first thing I noticed—the dress was gone. The second thing—I wasn’t alone.

I slowly pulled the curtain back, keeping my nudity covered, and froze at the sight of Magnus bent over the vanity. With one hand gripping the edge of the basin, the other held my bloody panties.

“What the fresh hell?” Shame coursed through me.

But there was something else, something twisted and curious about his fascination with my dirty underwear. It filled me with dark delight.

“Come here.” He ran his thumb through the blood with a look of deep and solemn respect in his eyes.

I shivered and heated at once. Snatching a towel off the shelf, I knotted it around my body and joined him at the sink.

“I sometimes forget you’re only eighteen.” He turned on the faucet, falling quiet, seemingly mesmerized as the red-tinged water swirled down the drain.

“Why do you say that?”

“Your reactions to things, to me, are so self-contained and levelheaded. When you get upset, it’s over something important. Something that matters. You have a mature handle on everything around you. Despite the obscenities that come out of your mouth.” His lips twitched. “You’re an old soul.”

“Does blood turn you on?”

“Yours does. Does that scare you?”

“Depends.” My voice quivered. With alarm. With desire. “Do you want to make me bleed?”

“No. I would never cut you or wish to see you bleed in pain. I hated your pain tonight.” His hand fisted in the stream of water. “I loathed it. I don’t want to ever see you hurting like that again. But this?” He uncurled his fingers and dragged his thumb along the bloodstained gusset of the panties. “There’s nothing shameful or dirty about this. It came from you, from such a beautiful, intimate part of you. It represents life. Your life.”

My breath stilled.

Maybe I was crazy, but I loved that. I loved that he wasn’t grossed out by period blood. That was the difference between a boy and a real man.

But with Magnus, it was more complicated than that.

“A month ago…” I sat on the lid of the toilet, marveling at the ease and care with which he washed my underwear. “When I called you a sadist, you said you got help, that you came here, became a priest, and abstained for nine years. I have a lot of questions with regard to that. I’ve been afraid to ask them. Afraid you won’t answer them. Or maybe, I’m afraid you will answer them.”

“Ask them.”

“Do you need to inflict pain to get off?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you not know?”

“It’s not a simple answer. Not anymore.”

He reached for a bottle of liquid laundry soap and worked a small drop into the lace. Then he plugged the basin and filled it with water to let the panties soak.

“Stand up.” He cleaned his hands and turned to me.

My chin jerked back, but I did as he ordered.

“Remove the towel.” He kept his voice low in a smooth dare that I knew, deep in my gut, would strip me physically and emotionally.

“You don’t want to cross that line.” My pulse accelerated. “You said you would never sin for me.”

“This is your choice, Tinsley. Leave the towel on, and I’ll return your dress and escort you back to the residence hall. There will be no punishment for your decision. We’ll go back to the way things have been for the past three months.”