#biker simon x preacher's daughter

[yeyinde]

preacher's daughter (Ethel Cain inspired) and biker Ghost would go so hard. all that corruption, religious trauma/catholic guilt, and small town gothic misery, you know?

sheltered daughter meets violence personified. the devil and the sacrificial lamb. you meet him when you wander up to the motorcycle club on the outskirts of town with a pamphlet about salvation clutched in your trembling hands. he leans his big, intimidating frame against the door jamb, and with his arms crossed over his broad chest, says must be good on your knees, aren't you, birdie?

(you answer with an earnest yes, sir, i worship on my knees everyday and pretend the heat that flares in your belly when he groans is from the too-hot sun; the first of many sins.)

later that evening, your daddy tells you that he's an honest and good man, but sometimes he prays that God strikes that vile place right down. you bite your tongue and nod, but sneak out at night and meet him there where you slip into silk lingerie and dance on stage just for him. he tells every man there that if he catches them staring at you, he'll stab them in the eyes, and you think it's the most romantic thing you'd ever heard.

it's love letters carved into the sunbleached bones of a half-submerged deer left to rot in the stagnant bog just outside of the abandoned white chapel. something watches you from the dark stained glass windows as he runs his tattooed fingers over your skin, leaving smears of gunpowder and soot.

(someone set the old man's car on fire—the who leered at you while you stood in the choir, wearing your lily white dress and sang glory be while you tried to forget what those tattooed hands felt like when they slipped under your skirt and between your thighs.

the old man was still inside—)

they call him a ghost. a demon. you call him Simon and daydream during bible study that you'll run away together. hop on the back of his old Harley and forget this place ever existed.

a daydream that quickly turns into a nightmare when your sordid relationship comes to light, and your daddy threatens to have him locked away for good. there's a gun in the safe upstairs. you think about the time Simon dragged you into the woods to shoot at cans and lose your faith under the sweltering sun when you pull the trigger.

"for us," you tell him, breathing in the dank church air ripe with sin and the stench of blood. "i did it for us."

it's leaning on the back of his Harley with your fingers threaded around his thick waist as the town grows smaller and smaller in the distance. staring up at the endless blue sky and grinning wide because you finally got your monster of a man wrapped around your finger.

(and all it took was a little deal made with the thing that lives in the abandoned church.)