Forgiving Rome

by Clay Ferrill

  There’s a very real ache there though. His absence is causing it. I’m sure of it. Having daydreamed and stopped my mixing of my day’s egg paints for the lower portion of panels in the Signatura, section 27A again because it still isn’t right. The older scholar artist studied me too closely as I’d described Father Cole. Maybe to figure out why I was so keenly interested in the “beautiful” - having spoken that very fucking word at least five times already by the time it dawned on me to just shut the fuck up. The very tall blonde priest. Not wishing to cast disparaging thoughts or acknowledge his own homosexuality openly, he had simply scoffed and commented that I would find Father Cole if it was God’s will. That phrase is a cop-out. A common response from a feeble mind and very unlike him to have said it because he knows it pisses me off. Everyone that works inside this house of God hears that way too frequently. “If it is God’s will …” his tone in the statement had indicated he was finished talking about it. So I shut the fuck up.

  Returning to the non-privacy of my room rather than knock on his apartment door yet again, my heart sinks when he doesn’t answer and the ache doubles. My knocking last time, I recognize now as ‘desperation knocking’, repetitive and closer now to downright unbearable now that I think about it. It’s made my knuckles sore. My head lowered looking at my feet as I made the turn around the corner, my long damp brown curls warmed again and waived in the breeze. I cut across the main sanctuary floor and reached my door. I took a deep breath and let it out. I went inside silently, pressing the door slowly closed so I wouldn’t wake the three other men that share this small bunk room apartment with me inside the Vatican. I get to go home on weekends if I want, and I want. Badly.

  I tip-toed to the bathroom and closed the door as silently as I could. I almost couldn’t contain the sound of bursting into tears at not being able to find him again. I have got to get this under control. I learned from Junita, a good conversationalist that loves Raphael paintings too and loves to hear me speak of them and the artist himself. She works in Human Resources. She tells me that Father Cole is a scientist and works in the Sciences building under the white flag of the Italian government, whatever that means, in the large blue glass building within walking distance of The Vatican in Rome proper. I am worried though. I mean, how could I not be? I rushed back here because I had lost track of the time as I stared into the work of my muse, thinking of Cole again. Fucking scatter-brained the way I’m acting. This is just getting fucking downright stupid. I have got to get control of this obsession with him, but the pulling of thoughts back to him is just relentless.

  No one’s even awake yet. Looking in the mirror I dried my eyes with my fingertips and pulled my damp hair and brushed my scalp smooth as Master Fellow has insisted I wear it if I am to keep wearing my hair this long. He disapproves. He smiles more at me when he sees me with it loose so I’m not really sure why he insists I “tie it or cut it” as he likes to say.

  I knot the ponytail and tuck it half through again and secure the rubber band to hold it for the day. Opening my own carry-cabinet, each of us has one because there are no storage cabinets in here. Personal hygiene and grooming items. I put the drops in my eyes and tilt my head back, feeling their slight burn. I clear my thoughts now of him deliberately, my erection again tenting the thin fabric of a cassock that’s too light for the season. Plus, if I’m going to spring wood so often, I really need to start wearing underwear and avoid going commando anymore. At least this cassock’s clean and free of paint smudges, which is more than I can say for any other item of clothing I own. Socks, t-shirts, jeans - all of it. Paint splattered.

  I unbutton it and shirk it from my shoulders, allowing it to drop around my ankles. Reaching my left hand up to my right nipple, I close my eyes and fondle it and then pinch it as I study my reflection when the pain forces my eyes open. My other hand, pulling on my junk and in my too-vivid memory, imagine Cole’s lips and mouth there again.

  Moving my body closer to the sink and standing on tip-toe, holding my breath, I silently grunt and spill my thick seed into the basin, slippery now in my hand as I enjoy the last spasms. I’d imagined him inside of me again in those last seconds before the rush moved through every fiber of my being as it had when I erupted with his mass pulsing deep inside of me. Every single fucking time I think of him now I think of that happening. It happened. I am no longer a virgin, in a matter of speaking anyway. I have been taken body and soul. I think I’m in love and love the feeling that brings me. Now if I could just find him to see if he feels anything close the same way about me.

  Cointrin International Airport, Geneva, Switzerland

  The tighter “tactical gear” pants hanging with my cassock are nice! Warm on my legs as I descended the stairs to the waiting car. Whoa. It is really cold here. It smells so clean. Had I not been wearing these pants under my cassock and naked as I usually am, that would have been some very cold wind on bare skin. The car is an Audi A8 semi-stretch. Assures a large, private and very comfortable ride for the many hours we’ll be spending on the road to Prague. Over 600 miles from Geneva where we landed. I had been assured that it is the closest to Prague we dared to land the Vatican jet and we’re avoiding “commercial” as he put it. While word would spread quickly and these days digitally, he had explained that His Eminence had demanded of him the utmost care be taken with my security. OK. Have you seen the size of this guy? He’s small.

  But he is firmly resolved that we make the long drive because it was by far the safest way to approach the target. In stealth and on the ground. And in luxury because, wow, is this car ever comfortable. I nodded my agreement, not wishing to argue with the guy. He’s helping me. Here to help. I smiled at thinking of Luigi and how wonderful he was. I pushed him from my mind for a minute. He has no idea that I’ve even left the country, let alone the city of Rome. I miss him. But more in my heart more than in my mind. I’ve been distracted. I still roll those images over in my mind.

  The secrecy and extremes people of strong religious faith go to just baffles me. I don’t really understand why. The only thing that glares out to me as obvious when I ponder this question is that some believe their belief is superior to anyone else’s. Righteousness. A bad word that describes so much happening now so accurately. Actual wars that at their base, the cause of them is religious righteousness.

  It makes me sad though to think that I may be causing Luigi anguish of any kind at all. If there is one thing I feel motivated to do in my soul, it is to wrap him in protection. Guard him and the feelings I have that just keep growing. I probably am flattering myself though. He is, after all, a very attractive man. He may even have other lovers. I don’t care about any of that though. He is to be cherished and adored. That’s what I feel when I think of him. I don’t want anything changing how I feel when I think of him. Quite fond of him, I am. Something bordering more on the inexplicable feeling of love. A word you see written all the time, but it lacks a clear definition. Very subjective. It simply means different things to different people. But it’s more than just lust or even like.

  A true friend in the purest sense of that word. That’s it what I feel when I think of him. True friend. I trust these feelings of him thoroughly and completely. Call it instinct. To me, these thoughts I have of him are a sign from God because they bring me such peace and satisfaction. And sensual arousal. I can’t leave that out. The human part.

  I rested my head back against the cushion of the glove-soft headrest and stared out the window at the beautiful countryside once we were outside of Geneva city limits, aimed at the distant mountains. In my mind I’m drawing parallel lines that drop back in a timeline of sorts. The future is unknown so the lines only go so far. I can trace back only into the past. I often think this way. Somehow the information I learn forms a pattern. My mind struggles with it until it fits pieces together and forms correlations. When I press that again in my mind to flatten it, the data forms into lines. Lines that I can actually see in my mind.

  I love the m
usic the driver is playing. Such a beautiful male voice and so slow and warming. It relaxes that sense for me. I close my eyes and first image, Luigi is turning his head toward me. He’s again lying on that burlap wooden thing, it looks horribly uncomfortable. His head is turned toward me over his naked back and butt. His hair is in long curls covering his face. But I can see his eyes. Luigi’s eyes. Our lines are moving together now, perfectly matched and only my line and his line are rising above the current time into the future. There is a reason I am being shown this. I close my eyes and whisper a thank you prayer to God.

  The stars all show so brightly here. Looks cold out there and where my forehead is touching the glass of the window is now actually hurting. I snuggled the thick overcoat firmly closed and held it with my fist, closing my eyes, sitting next to the young priest who was busy communicating with some unknown people on my iPad. He tapped my outstretched leg just as I was drifting into sleep. I looked over at him expressionless.

  Smiling, he held the iPad up vertically to enlarge the headline picture. Apparently, the bodies of the King and Prince had been placed inside of a limousine and then it was horrifically exploded in a public place and in plain sight. The news wires worldwide were all reporting the death of the King and his sole heir, his only son, the Crown Prince, likely an assassination. I thought then of the beautiful young Princess, carrying my child in her womb now. Guaranteed. An obligation of my creation. To propagate. No doubt she would be a happier soul and woman now that those two men are out of her life.

  The Princess will live richly and lavishly for the rest of her life, I know, so vast is their monetary wealth. The house and its name are right now in her charge, but with that fucked up slanted way of valuing the minds of women, a man will step in to fuck it all up. Regardless, they will see to her care and needs, pampering her to console her through her temporary grief while carrying an unborn child in her belly. The child will ascend the throne though, eventually. Maybe not. Doesn’t matter.

  If she isn’t already happily dancing, she will be soon. A smile paints my face as I again closed my eyes and turned my head to the bright moon, clearly shining over the pastural setting. A low cold fog hugging the ground makes it all look so dream like. Heaven like. I fell asleep and slept for four hours straight. When I awoke, I had drool running down from the corner of my mouth and a stiffy. The young priest, still asleep but now lying uncomfortably in the seat opposite me, his legs tangled in mine. I wiped my chin with the back of my hand and swallowed hard, looking out the window as the first signs of dawn lit the morning sky. Trees are everywhere here. Large, beautiful trees.

  I genuflected and spoke a prayer aloud in a hushed whisper, of thanks, thanking God for my life and for my Luigi. The young priest stirred as the car slowed to pull into a service station to refuel. Perfect timing, because I have got to pee bad. As it glided over the dips in the pavement and slowed to a stop, I was out the door in search of the obvious bathroom sign and not finding it immediately, turned away from the car and building and pulled out my dick to pee urgently before I wet my new tactical pants. I released my bladder with shudders onto the gravel, sending up wafts of steam, quickly dissipating. My breath was puffing out in large clouds. The young priest cleared his throat in a chuckle leaning his head out into the crisp morning air. He pointed to the sign for the men’s room less than ten feet away and laughed out loud.

  The driver surfaced and for the first time I noticed, it is a young woman. Smaller stature with a boyish body and shockingly beautiful face. Her shoulders were still dancing in laughter at my public urination. I called out to her across the car to ask her name as I tucked myself back into my pants. “You may call me Siren, Father Cole. We’ll be arriving in Prague within the hour. You’ll be needing what’s in the trunk for your mission here, according to Rome.” She keyed her remote and the trunk lid drifted open soundlessly. Resting there in two thick styrofoam boxes were bricks of plastic explosives, a laser sighting device, several detonator cables with spikes for the C4, and a small remote-control device in a sealed plastic case. In the other larger styrofoam box, what appeared to be cartons of grenades, stacked four cartons deep, a dozen devices total. Highly explosive, I know, they were very large grenades.

  How I knew that I don’t know, but their size and shape tell me they are highly explosive. Call it intuition. I lifted my head above the trunk lid and smiled at her, pressing down on it until I felt the mechanism take over and watched as it closed and locked again automatically. I pointed over my shoulder to the small store and asked her “coffee?” she quickly nodded yes. Bending down quickly into the open car door I asked the young priest, “what is your name father? What may I call you?” He smiled up and answered. “I am Adam Morris, Father Cole. I am not a priest. I just dress like one sometimes. I have been assigned to protect you at all costs, including giving my life to save yours, Father.” Rising in shock at that declaration. I believe him.

  Bending back down I asked “well would you like a hot cup of coffee Adam, my fearsome protector?” He chuckled shaking his head yes. I took off the heavy overcoat, very warm now from the restful sleep and the crisp cold air felt good. I placed it inside on my seat and closed the car door, Adam keying away madly on my iPad again. The one I wasn’t supposed to remove from the reading room in the vaults. Proudly striding without intending too, my long wool cassock and traditional Roman collar had the old woman on the other side of the glass in the store hurrying to open the door for me. She waited until I was right there before she pulled the door open for me. A huge smile painted across her aged face.

  My smile widened at this as she opened the door, waving me inside with a quick sweeping motion of her arm, her old sweater in tatters at the elbows and cuffs. “Buna dimineata?!” saying good morning to her in Romanian. She smiled so broadly at the surprise of my accuracy. My looks, I think, she had likely expected me to speak English, Swedish or German. Unsure exactly how I know Romanian? It had been a simple thought really, an instinct. Natural. Nothing I actually thought about first. I sensed somehow that she was perhaps Romanian. Lucky guess. “Cafea fierbinte?” No initial response from her and a quick quizzical look, then it dawned on her what I meant. I had mispronounced it.

  She nodded happily “da tata, da tata” waving me inside because we’re letting all her heat out. Cold place. She closed the old door with the loud bell sounding off in the distance. I look around and realize I’m standing inside a house that she uses part of as a store. She rushed past me to prepare my coffee from a large, scarred metal urn with a burning lamp under it.

  “Trei?” I spoke, asking for 3. She nodded “da tata” as she took down two more large paper cups and filled them all with freshly brewed coffee. It smelled so rich and wonderful in the air. I was jonesing for it and didn’t even know why, having never tasted coffee before. It just smells so fucking good. I had held a hot cup of it in my hands and smelled its richness, but I set it down untasted and had fallen asleep and it was gone when I woke up. Without asking, she retrieved a small glass bottle of farm-fresh heavy cream and poured in equal generous amounts with a practiced pour. She fixed lids on them and pushed them snuggly into a cardboard travel tray and turned to hand them to me.

  I realized then that I had no means to pay her, and holding up my index finger in the universally understood “wait just a second please” I walked to the door to call out to Adam. I bellowed out the door perhaps too loudly for the quietness of this place “Adam! Money!” He came quickly, chuckling in his kind way, peeling off a banknote and walked in happily, handing it to her as he took the tray of hot coffees and walked back outside, closing the door, careful not to slam it because it looks like it may fall apart at any second. Siren was already back behind the wheel and waiting, the car running and sending up clouds of steamy exhaust. He walked around and handed her a cup through her open window. The old woman scurried around to the cash register and keyed in the coffees and the total appeared. 5.19. She looked down at the bill he handed her for the first
time, looking then into her meager change drawer as I stared out at the beautiful mountains and forests here.

  I sensed her distress and turned to face her, her eyes imploring. “Pastreaza rog” telling her to please keep the change. I held up my hand flatly, smiling, anticipating her objection to keeping the change from the one-hundred-euro banknote and broadened my smile, beaming it at her in its bright whiteness, my smile begging her to accept the gift. I may not understand the fixation on material wealth like money and accumulating money, but I can do the fucking math. I’m a scientist. It was very generous. She smiled, bowed her head slightly in thanks and spoke “Bless tu fiu” which thanked me and blessed. Common languages are not all that easily understood, but speaking to someone in their native tongue shows them instantly that you respect them enough as a fellow human being to speak to them in the familiarity of their own tongue. It really is that simple. They are human, too.

  Stepping back from the counter I opened my arms to her. Also, a custom in Romania is hugging priests of the church. She scurried around the counter and very slowly embraced me. So tender and fragile. I kissed the scarf on her head and rubbed her shoulder. “Bless tu sora” I murmured against her head, blessing my sister in faith in return for her blessing me. I turned and left the small store and strode back to the car and climbed in. My hot coffee was in the cupholder in the armrest. I held it in my hands, enjoying its urgent heat on my skin. The car sped out of the small gas station and headed north into the sunshine, into this, my fourth day of life. The first sip burned my mouth and I set it into the cupholder never picking it up again. Adam drank it. Fucking molten lava.

  Siren lowered the divider and passed back a tactical map to Adam. He showed it to me. The facility, our target, is the reason for all the boom-boom in the trunk as Adam put it. We are plant bombs around it. It was circled from a satellite image in yellow wax pencil. Red X’s marked the optimum placement of the explosives by type. I looked at Adam and handed him the map with a question expression on my face. He retrieved eyeglasses from his coat pocket, still wrapped up tight against the cold of the morning, and peered closely at the map. He pointed to the first set of red X’s. “You will place these Father. We will prepare the six bombs on support struts, one on each side here, here and here” he flipped the map to the next page, attached. A closer satellite image showed foundation pillars and a large power plant that supplied fresh HVAC and filtered, oxygenated water to the facility.