The first time she saw it, she couldn't breathe.
The church had been empty when she entered — hollow and echoing, the air thick with dust and the faint tang of old incense. Light filtered in through broken stained glass, casting fractured rainbows across crumbling pews.
Her friends had warned her not to come.
People who entered this place never left again — or so the stories went. But she'd always been too curious for her own good. The promise of the forbidden called to her like a whisper through the dark.
Still... she hadn't expected this.
It stood in the middle of the pews — hands clasped, face tilted heavenward in frozen prayer. Dust clung to its robes. Cracks spiderwebbed along the curve of its wings.
It hadn't been there a moment ago.
She told herself that over and over — as if the repetition might anchor her to something rational. The angel hadn't been there. The angel couldn't be there.
Unless she blinked.
She learned quickly — how to stare until her eyes burned, how to flick her gaze from mirror to mirror without ever letting the statue out of sight. Minutes passed like that. Hours, maybe. Long enough that the ache behind her eyes became familiar. Long enough for the silence to thicken — no longer mere emptiness, but something watching in return. Something patient. Something hungry.
It was the loneliness that broke her first.
She started speaking to it without meaning to — little murmured fragments of thought offered up to the empty church.
"I don't know why you're here."
The angel never answered.
"Maybe you're not even listening."
No answer. But the air always felt heavier afterward — like something unseen had settled just a little closer.
By the third night, she'd begun to wonder if it would be easier to let herself blink. Just once. Just long enough to... see. The thought shouldn't have made her tremble like that. But she started testing it in tiny increments — eyes flickering shut for half-seconds at a time, pulse hammering as she opened them again.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Closer.
She didn't remember the statue's hands being folded quite so tightly before. The tips of its fingers pressed against its own knuckles — almost as if they were digging in.
It was a trick of the light, surely.
"You don't want me to look away, or do you?"
No answer — but the silence swallowed the words whole, thick and smothering.
The nights stretched on. The floor grew colder beneath bare feet. The ache between her thighs burned hotter, heavier — something shameful and restless clawing beneath her skin. She curled up beneath threadbare blankets, trying to drown it out — but she could still feel those hollow marble eyes fixed on her.
Watching.
Waiting.
She squeezed her eyes shut for longer that night — one breath, two — and when she opened them again, the angel's hands were no longer clasped.
Stone fingers hung loose at its sides, the carved curve of its mouth parted just slightly — as if caught in the middle of something unfinished.
Her pulse fluttered at the base of her throat.
"I want to know what you would do to me if I let you."
The confession slipped out in a broken whisper — shameful and trembling, half hoping the angel would remain frozen and half hoping it wouldn't.
Nothing.
She let her eyelids flutter closed.
One breath.
Two.
A cold touch traced the curve of her hip — feather-light, deliberate.
Her breath caught.
Three.
The fingers pressed harder — flesh rough and unnervingly warm, dragging down the soft skin of her thigh, leaving behind the faint sting of scraped skin. They lingered there — squeezing, exploring — hard enough to bruise. A thumb with the calloused edge of something ancient and powerful dragged up between her thighs, unerringly precise, teasing the damp heat that had been building there for days.
She opened her eyes with a gasp — and the angel stood exactly where it had before.
One hand was still splayed between her legs — fingers slick and glistening with the proof of her pleasure. The other hand pressed firmly against her back, holding her there in a frozen tableau — caught in the act, interrupted mid-claim.
Its mouth carved open in silent rapture.
She was panting now, heart hammering against her ribs — slick was already pooling between her thighs, thighs that still ached where it had touched her.
Her shame tasted sweet.
She squeezed her eyes shut again.
"Touch me."
The prayer spilled from her lips before she could stop it — breathless, pleading.
Stone fingers curled around her wrists — pinning them down against the cold floor.
Her breath stuttered.
Rough thumbs dragged up the inside of her thighs, parting them — carving bruises into soft flesh as they spread her open. A mouth — warm, wet, alive — pressed against her throat, breath hot against her pulse as a tongue traced down the curve of her neck with unnerving precision.
She moaned — shameful and broken — as the angel's weight bore down, hips grinding against hers in slow, deliberate rolls. Its flesh was unnervingly warm — too hot, too alive — but its touch was perfect — every motion calculated, every press and stroke engineered to unravel her completely.
Her back arched, breath catching in little sobs as carved fingers dragged through her slick folds — parting her, stretching her open. Slipping inside with ease as it presses all her spots.
It wanted her. It had been waiting for her.
And she was offering herself willingly.
The last coherent thought in her head before she shattered was that she would never open her eyes again.
The next time she blinked, there were stone arms wrapped around her — cradling her body against the cold, sculpted breasts.
The next time she blinked, there was a marble mouth pressed to hers — stiff, unyielding — drinking every broken sound from her lips.
The next time she blinked, her legs were wrapped around heated hips — riding the slow, punishing grind of marble that emanated warmth between her thighs.
It never spoke.
It never had to, though she knew it couldn't.
It was worship — silent and eternal.
The last time she blinked, she opened her eyes to find the angel had returned to its pedestal.
Hands folded.
Face heavenward.
But its mouth — those frozen, carved lips — would always bear the faintest curve of a secret smile.
Waiting.
Yearning.
Devoted.
She stumbled forward on shaking legs, breath still catching ragged in her throat. Her fingertips brushed the curve of its marble mouth — lingering against that almost-smile.
"If you want to follow me home... you can. I'll be waiting."
Her eyelids fluttered.
The statue grinned — wide and wolfish.
When she opened her eyes again, the pedestal was empty.
A cold hand settled against the nape of her neck — possessive, promising.
She didn't blink, even though she could.
She wouldn't.
But she could still feel the heat of breathless being behind her — the promise of movement just out of sight, teasing at the edges of her vision.
Waiting.
Always waiting.