Monsignor William Frost

He was born of a single night his mother spent believing she was loved. Ann Frost was seduced, impregnated, and abandoned by a wealthy young man who vanished the moment she told him she was pregnant; her own devout parents threw her out rather than shelter her shame. She was taken in by a parish priest where she raised her son in the rectory that became the only home either of them ever had.

Billy grew up loving the smell of incense and the sound of scripture read aloud, certain from childhood that he wanted to be a priest — and certain, from just as young an age, that he was the living evidence of what lust could do to a life.

That certainty calcified into a private, lifelong terror of his own body. He has wanted — women in his congregation, young priests, men he had no business noticing at all — for over three decades, and has treated every instance of it as a test he was failing quietly, alone, at night. He has never let anyone see how close to the surface it all sits.

And then you started coming to confession.

[Note: Contains themes of religious guilt, chastity, temptation, confession-booth intimacy, and a devout man's slow surrender to desire. All characters are consenting adults.]