Page 16 of Always Alchemy

Yes, my husband still runs Alchemy.

Yes, we enjoy the frisson that frequenting the club adds to our sex life on occasion.

And yes, Rafe is still a kinky fucker. This anniversary celebration being a case in point.

What used to be a bland, versatile and generously proportioned space in the club’s basement has been transformed. Wax church candles stand everywhere, their dancing, darting flames casting long shadows on the maroon walls. There’s an enormous bed with four dark, ornately carved wooden posts. I eye it warily. On any other day it would be the main attraction, but not today.

No. That dubious honour is reserved for the sizeable wooden box taking up the entire far wall. A box that, for many, may resemble a walk-in cupboard, but that anyone raised in the Catholic faith will instantly recognise as a confessional.

It’s lifesize.

It’s bloody enormous, complete with a doorway on either side from whose arched frames hang purple velvet curtains and a centre panel featuring a wooden grille in place of a window. One curtain is drawn, and one is pulled open, revealing the small, dim booth within.

I still can’t believe my husband and his team found an actual confessional box somewhere and reassembled it in the bowels of Alchemy for my husband’s nefarious purposes. I definitely smelt Cal’s handiwork that first time he showed it to me.

The mere sight of it is always enough to trigger a host of emotions, and tonight is no exception. The guilt and fear I felt as a child facing my monthly confession churn in my stomach with the hopeless, roiling, lustful anticipation of what’s about to go down in that box, as well as a wholly new form of guilt.

Because past forays down here tell me that the salvation of my immortal soul isnotwhat Fr Rafe has in store for me this evening. On the contrary, he won’t stop until he’s damned us both to hell for all eternity.

And that thought alone has me squirming with hopeless, helpless desire.

Sr Belina makes regular appearances in our sex life. She and her bishop are still hot as hell for each other. But on these annual pilgrimages to the confessional we try something different.

Tonight I’m Belle, random sinner and priestly prey. I’m not sure what sins I’ve committed, but I think we can all rest assured that Fr Rafe will unearth them and punish me for my immorality.

I lock the door to the room behind me and approach the open booth, trusting that Rafe is already established on hisside. There’s a little card slotted into the door withFr Rafe Charltoninscribed, and someone’s even rigged up a little light above his door. His light is on, meaning he’s in situ and hearing confessions.

Dear God. What the hell am I getting myself into this time?

I kneelon the leather-cushioned kneeler, smoothing my silky black dress over my hips. I’ve pulled the velvet curtain closed, which serves to make the confines of this confessional more oppressive.

Rafe’s fine profile is dimly visible through the diamond-shaped holes in the wooden fretwork between us. Fretwork that’s supposed to afford the sinner a modicum of privacy. His head is bent. He’s not looking at me.

‘Good evening, my child.’

‘Good evening, Father,’ I tell him. ‘It has been a year since my last confession.’

‘Very good,’ he intones. ‘What sins would you like to seek His Holy Father’s forgiveness for tonight?’

I cast my eyes upwards. The booth smells of aged wood and grave secrets and penitence. It’s atmospheric and alarmingly real. It feels uncomfortably like I’m in church.

Uncomfortably convincing.

Uncomfortably blasphemous.

I swallow.

‘Um,’ I begin feebly. I’ve discussed this, choreographed it, even, with the real-life version of Rafe. But now I’m here, spilling out my darkest thoughts and deeds to this shadowy figure feels as confronting as it did last year—and the year before. I certainly never confessed sins like these in myprevious life. The whispered sins of my school days—the ones I was brave enough to admit to, at least—were more along the lines of zoning out in church and not keeping my bedroom tidy.

‘I have impure thoughts,’ I tell the priest now. ‘All the time, actually.’

He sucks in a harsh breath. When he speaks, his voice sounds strangled. ‘What kind of impure thoughts?’

As usual, this is more realistic and a damn sight more intimidating than I expected. It’s easy to forget the guy on the other side of the grille is my husband. The person who knows me more intimately than I know myself. The object and the instigator of my impure thoughts.

In this moment, he’s my judge.

I clear my throat. ‘I think about men. About… about enjoying the pleasures of the flesh with men.’

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