The world didn’t feel so far away.
“There you are,” Ezra murmured as I finally shifted in his arms.
I nodded, not yet trusting my voice. My throat felt raw, evidence of sounds I couldn't remember making. The vibrator had been removed at some point, though I couldn't recall when. My body felt simultaneously hollow and full, emptied and replenished.
"Water?" he asked, reaching for a glass on the nightstand I hadn't noticed before.
I took small sips, the cool liquid soothing my throat. With each swallow, I felt more tethered to reality, my consciousness slowly knitting itself back together. The emotional storm had passed, leaving me strangely calm in its wake, like the eerie stillness after a hurricane.
"How do you feel?" Ezra asked, studying my face.
"Like... someone else," I managed, my voice hoarse. "But also more myself than I've ever been."
His smile warmed something in my chest. "That's how rebirth feels."
We lay together in comfortable silence, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my skin. After some time, he pressed a kiss to my forehead.
"What happened between us just now," he said softly, "was sacred in a way no church service ever could be." His eyes held mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. "Your grandmother taught you to fear your body, to see pleasure as corruption. But you've just experienced the truth. The divine lives in our bodies, not despite them."
That was it. He'd just named what I'd always felt but never had language for. The sense of connection I'd just experienced had indeed felt holy, consecrated in a way all those years of Sunday sermons never achieved.
He reached for something on the nightstand and placed it in my palm. A small, silver key.
"What's this?" I asked, examining it.
"Freedom," he replied. "For when you need sanctuary. A place where comfort isn't punishment."
"You want me to come back."
"I want you to have the choice," he corrected. "To decide when you're ready for more."
***
Later, as I leftEzra's house, key in my pocket and moth plushie tucked under my arm, I already knew I'd return that night. The question wasn't if, but how soon I could make an excuse to use the key he'd given me.
The world beyond his door suddenly seemed flat, colorless in comparison. The autumn leaves that should have been vibrant appeared dull, as if someone had desaturated reality while I was inside Ezra's domain. His house, his presence, had become the only place where I felt fully alive, fully myself.
As I drove back toward campus, I caught myself smiling. My body ached pleasantly, reminders of Ezra's touch lingering in tender places. For the first time in my life, I wasn't fighting against my nature. I wasn't trying to exorcise the darkness that lived inside me. I was becoming something new.
Something honest.
Something beautiful.
Ezra
The click of thefront door lock broke the silence. My hands stilled, scalpel suspended above the tissue sample I'd been transforming into pigment. I listened, savoring the anticipation like the pause before a symphony’s crescendo. Micah had returned, using the key I'd given him mere hours ago.
The hunger in him ran deeper than I'd thought. I set my instruments down and peeled off my gloves. My journal lay open, filled with notes about Micah's transformation.
He was evolving exactly as I'd designed, yet with unexpected flourishes of his own. Where previous subjects had been passive canvases, Micah actively participated in his transformation. Just as he had taken a blade to his paintings, slashing through the saint's face to reveal the void beneath, he now turned that same destructive creation toward himself. What I hadn't anticipated was the strange warmth that bloomed in my chest when heappeared at my door. I savored his smiles for their warmth, not just their form.
I closed the journal and locked it away with my collection of rare materials. Then I washed my hands in the sink, watching pink water spiral down the drain like watercolor on wet paper. Everything was ready. The cabrito had roasted for hours, its skull intact. The wine had breathed. The bedroom awaited our arrival.
I left the workshop, closing the heavy wooden door behind me. The house was dark, moonlight casting dramatic shadows across the marble floors. Micah stood just inside the entrance, fingers still wrapped around the door handle as if poised between staying and fleeing. A perfect moment of suspension, like a brushstroke caught between artist and canvas.
When he saw me, his body responded in a beautiful composition of release. His shoulders softened and breath deepened. The moth toy glowed against his chest, casting his face in gentle light from below. Chiaroscuro made flesh.
"I didn't know if you'd be home," he said, voice hushed in the vastness of the foyer. "I should have called first."
