Celibate-ish

The itch was a living thing. Just like me. Just like you. Just like that werewolf alpha you’ll never meet but fantasize about anyway.

It started in my gut—a low, simmering burn that crawled up my chest, tightened around my lungs, and stole every breath of logic I had left. My palms were sweating, slick against the cool leather of the limo’s armrest. My vision was narrowed, the opulent interior of the vehicle blurring into streaks of muted gold and polished wood. My jaw ticked, a muscle jumping beneath my skin, a physical manifestation of the war raging inside me. My brain was consumed by a singular, desperate thought, a primal scream that drowned out everything else:

I need it.

It wasn’t just my cock that was hungry. It was everything else—my bones, my soul, the hollow space behind my ribs where most men keep their hearts. This itch, this beast, had lived inside me since the first time someone stole my choice. Since hands I trusted taught me pleasure wasn’t mine to give. Only to take. Since I learned that no didn’t always mean no—not when you were a child and powerless, trapped in a gilded cage with predators in tailored suits. It had grown, festered, a malignant tumor of memory and violation, until it became the only thing I truly understood. The only thing I could control.

Sex, not for pleasure. Not for connection.

For silence. For forgetting. For obliteration. The kind that burns until there’s nothing left but bones and sweat and silence. A means to chase control in a life where everything else was dictated by boardrooms and public image, by the cold, calculating eyes of my grandmother and the ghost of my father’s legacy. A way to silence the noise, to fill the gaping void that had been carved out of my soul years ago. And when it roared, a hungry, insatiable monster, I fed it. Hard. Rough. Without a care in the world. Because the alternative was to face the emptiness, and that was a terror far greater than any depravity.

I gripped the leather armrest of the limo like it could tether me to this world, to this moment. Outside, city lights blurred past, streaks of neon and shame as we left the studio behind—and with it, what little dignity I had left. The memory of the cameras, the blinding flashes, the hungry eyes of the public, still burned behind my eyelids. My own words, forced and hollow, still echoed in the confined space of my skull, a mocking refrain:

“I, Drew Carson, pledge to never, ever fuck anyone for a year and a half. It is done.”

Those were my words. Said out loud. Into a camera. Into a mic.

A vow of celibacy. A goddamn televised promise to lock my dick in a coffin and bury it under eighteen months of corporate penance. Five hundred and forty-six days. Thirteen thousand, one hundred and four hours. Not that I was counting. The whole world heard it. Watched me say it. Watched me sign it like some desperate cult member.

The interviewer had sneered at me when I said it. Her perfectly coiffed blonde hair, her flawless makeup, her air of detached superiority—she was everything I despised. “You’re not Henry Hart,” she’d said, her voice sharp enough to cut through concrete. “You’re a scandal waiting to happen. And you just happened. Again.”

I didn’t argue. Couldn’t.

Because she was right. The bitter truth of her words stung, not because they were untrue, but because they were so damn accurate.

This beast, it was my constant companion. It had been with me through every boardroom deal, every late-night flight, every empty bed. For me, sex wasn’t pleasure; it was obliteration. A means to chase control in a life where everything else was dictated by the Carson name, by the expectations of a legacy I never asked for. A way to silence the noise, to fill the gaping void that had been carved out of my soul years ago. And when it roared, I fed it. Hard. Rough. Without a care in the world.

Just last week, the itch had been a low hum, present but manageable. I’d been at a charity gala, a glittering affair of false smiles and forced pleasantries, surrounded by the usual parade of socialites and wannabes. The air was thick with the scent of expensive perfume and desperation. A stripper, hired for the after-party, had caught my eye. She was all long legs, gravity-defying breasts, and a come-hither pout. Her dress, a shimmer of sequins, barely contained her. She ticked all my boxes physically. Every single one. Her body was a canvas of practiced seduction, every curve designed to ignite desire. Yet, when she leaned in, her scent cloying, her invitation explicit, her breath hot against my ear, my dick stayed stubbornly, infuriatingly, soft.

Couldn’t get my dick up.

To top it off, the bitch had the audacity to suggest my dick was broken. Her perfectly sculpted brows had furrowed, her painted lips twisted into a sneer. “Never met a man who wasn’t affected by my presence,” she’d sneered, her ego bruised, her voice laced with disbelief. She was wrong, of course. It had been perfectly fine four hours prior, raging and demanding, but she refused to believe it. She just didn’t ignite the specific kind of chaos I craved. She didn’t offer the kind of oblivion that truly silenced the beast. She didn’t scratch the itch that went deeper than skin, the one that gnawed at my very core. She was just another body, and sometimes, even that wasn’t enough.

Which brought me to that boring conference room, the air stale with stale ambition and corporate jargon. I was listening to Charles—or was it Chad?—dole out the role of our latest product in the economy. My eyes surveyed the room, looking for a hole I could sink into, a distraction, a willing body. Most of the people here were either married or in a relationship, their wedding rings glinting under the harsh fluorescent lights, their expressions smug with domesticity. I wasn’t interested in a threesome at the moment. All would be well with a quick shag and a woman who did tickle my fancy. A woman who could provide the obliteration I craved. A woman who was just as depraved as me, or at least, willing to pretend.

And that’s when I saw her.

Diane. Tall, leggy, with a predatory gleam in her eyes that matched my own. Her blonde hair, a cascade of perfectly styled waves, framed a face that was sharp, intelligent, and utterly unburdened by morality. She had just fallen out with her sixth—or was it seventh?—husband. Diane was never committed for too long, a beautiful, chaotic mess, leaving a trail of broken vows and bruised egos in her wake. And I knew right then that she was perfect for my plan. A quick, no-strings release. A temporary fix for the beast. A willing participant in my self-destruction.

A few moments later, and we were both crashing into her penthouse, the city lights a glittering backdrop to our escalating desperation. Clothes flew, discarded like inconvenient truths. My blood was hot, hands itchy, the beast roaring for release, demanding to be fed. I should have known something was up when she suggested we meet at her place, but my mind was too consumed by the craving, too desperate for the oblivion. The red flags were there, waving furiously, but I ignored them, blinded by the promise of temporary peace.

Itching for release, I entered her with one swift, brutal thrust. Diane’s mouth was open, ready to release a scream or a moan, not entirely sure, when he came in.

The door burst open, slamming against the wall with a sickening thud. A man stood there, his face contorted in a mask of disbelief and rage. And in that moment, I realized that lovely Diane was not so lovely at all. She was indeed married, and to some man, earlier that very day. The wedding band, a thick gold band, glinted on her finger, a stark, mocking contrast to my dick buried inside her. Outraged, not by the infidelity, but by the sheer inconvenience of it, I gathered my things, my dick still hard and throbbing with unspent rage, and stormed out. I sent a quick apology his way, and a hefty sum, so they’d keep it quiet. Money, after all, was supposed to stop nonsense. Money was supposed to buy silence.

Whoever said money stops nonsense lied, because it did not work in this case. Four hours later and the world knew of the sin I committed. Thanks to not-so-lovely Diane, I’d been labeled a sex addict, a philanderer, and even worse. The headlines screamed. The memes proliferated. My face, caught mid-thrust in a grainy, pixelated photo, was plastered across every gossip site, a monument to my ruin.

Carson Group stock dipped by eight percent. A direct blow to the pristine, corporate elitism my French father’s side of the family so carefully cultivated. The board was furious. My grandmother? Nuclear.

And so, here I was, sitting across from her in a limo, moments after making a public declaration of forced abstinence, while the beast inside me screamed. A vow of celibacy. A joke. A farce. A public relations stunt designed to save the Carson name, not my soul. I didn’t know who I was without the sex. Without the chaos. Without the fucking. What if there was nothing left? What if underneath it all, I really was just... empty? The thought was a cold, paralyzing fear, a whisper of the abyss I constantly tried to outrun.

Ellen Carson sat opposite me like a statue carved from salt and steel. Her bun was severe. Her stare, worse. She had that look on her face like she was planning to hang me by my ankles and beat the lust out of me with a Bible. Her American accent, usually softened by years of European living, was clipped, precise, and laced with pure venom.

“You just can’t help but disgrace me, can you?” Her voice was venom in pearls, each word a tiny, poisoned dart.

I didn’t answer. I was too busy trying to breathe through the fire under my skin. The need was alive. Gnawing. Starved. It was a physical ache, a desperate craving that overshadowed everything else.

She sniffed, a delicate, disgusted sound. “The Vatican called.”

I blinked. “What?”

“The Vatican,” she repeated, her voice flat, devoid of humor. “Apparently, your father’s side of the family is embarrassed. Deeply. Mortally.”

I let out a hollow laugh, a bitter, humorless sound. “Took them long enough.”

Her nostrils flared, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement that spoke volumes. “You’re lucky I didn’t throw you into rehab. Or exile.”

“This is exile,” I muttered, my gaze fixed on the blurring city lights.

She turned to the window. The limo was no longer heading toward my penthouse. My city. My comfort. We were headed into green. Into silence.

Into something worse.

I sat up, a prickle of unease, cold and unfamiliar, tracing its way down my spine. “Where are we going?”

She didn’t answer. Her gaze was fixed straight ahead, her profile as unyielding as granite.

The buildings thinned. The streets gave way to trees. Old, looming trees that felt like they judged you, their branches skeletal against the darkening sky. The air grew cooler, cleaner, devoid of the city’s exhaust and desperation. The scent of damp earth and pine needles replaced the familiar stench of urban decay.

“Seriously, Grandma. Where the hell are we?” My voice was sharper now, laced with a growing dread. The absurdity of it, the sheer ruralness, was jarring. This was not my world. This was the kind of place Wi-Fi feared. The kind of place a Carson didn’t belong.

Her only reply was: “Stay in the car.”

I scoffed, a desperate attempt at bravado. “What is this? Intervention? Cult recruitment? Are you planning to baptize the filth out of me in cow piss?” The words felt hollow, even to me.

But she was already stepping out. Her movements were precise, unhurried, like it was a brunch date and not a goddamn intervention. The door opened, letting in the crisp, cold air of the countryside, carrying the faint scent of damp earth and something else… something ancient, something holy.

I looked out the tinted glass.

And froze.

There, nestled between endless acres of rural nowhere, stood a massive stone structure. Gothic. Foreboding. Too clean to be abandoned. Too cold to be welcoming. Its dark silhouette rose against the twilight sky, a silent, imposing sentinel, its ancient stones seeming to absorb all light and sound.

A convent.

No. No. Fucking. Way.

A cross, stark and unyielding, leaned against the ornate iron gate, its shadow long and ominous, stretching across the gravel driveway like a judgment.

I stayed in the car. For a minute. My jaw tight, my throat dry, staring at the imposing stone walls, the towering cross. The air, even through the closed windows, felt heavy with sanctity, with rules, with everything I despised. Every fiber of my being screamed in protest. This was the antithesis of everything I was, everything I craved.

Then I opened the door.

Because the itch wouldn’t let me sit still. Because the beast inside me—starved, furious—refused to wait in silence. Because being caged in that limo felt worse than whatever sanctified hell lay ahead.

And deep down, I knew this wasn’t just exile.

It was a setup.

Something waited behind those walls.

Not salvation. Not peace.

Something that would unravel me in ways sex never could. Something colder. Hotter. Deadlier.

Whatever lived inside that convent—it didn’t just threaten my control.

It threatened to touch the parts of me I swore no one would ever reach.

And the second I crossed that threshold…

I knew I was already damned.

Let the holy games begin.