the men and women who owned the city. And yet the only person in the entire borough who meant anything to him sat on his sofa in the music room and didn’t have a cent to his name. Søren once had a cent to his name. A few billion cents to his name. And he’d given every last one of them to Kingsley.
“Why are you here?” Kingsley finally asked the question of the night.
“You might regret asking that.”
“I do already. I’m guessing this is more than a friendly reunion? And I’m guessing you aren’t here to pick things up where we left off?”
“Would you really want to?”
“Yes.” Kingsley answered without hesitation. It didn’t seem to be the answer Søren expected.
“Kingsley…” Søren stood and joined him by the window. Dawn had come to Manhattan. If dawn knew what she was doing, she’d take the next bus back out of town.
“Don’t say my name like that, like I’m a child who said something foolish. I’m allowed to want you. Still. Always.”
“I thought you would hate me.”
“I did. I do hate you. But I don’t… How can I truly hate the one person who knows me?” Kingsley studied Søren out of the corner of his eye and ached to touch Søren’s face, his lips. Not even the collar could stem the tide of Kingsley’s desire. Not even all the pain and the years between them.
“Do you remember that night we were in the hermitage and—”
“I remember all our nights,” Kingsley whispered. Søren closed his eyes as if Kingsley’s words hurt him. Kingsley hoped they had.
“It was a night we talked about others. We were wondering if there were others like us out there somewhere.”
“I remember,” Kingsley said. And as soon as Søren conjured the memory, Kingsley was a teenager again. He stretched out on the cot on his back, naked, the sheets pulled to his stomach. Søren lay next to him. Kingsley could feel the heat of Søren’s skin against his. No matter how many times they touched, it always surprised him how warm Søren was. He expected his skin to be cold, as cold as his heart. Kingsley’s thighs burned. Søren had whipped him with a leather belt, then they’d made love on the cot. He knew it was teenage romantic foolishness to consider the sort of sex they had “making love,” but he needed to believe that’s what it had been—to both of them. He needed to think it had been more than mere fucking.
“Do you remember what you said to me?” Søren asked. “You said you would find all of our kind and lay them at my feet.”
“And you said you didn’t need hundreds. But…” Kingsley raised both hands as if he could conjure the memory between his palms and look into it like a crystal ball. “One girl.”
“‘A girl would be nice,’ I said.”
Kingsley laughed. “We were trapped in an all-boys’ school. ‘A girl would be nice’ might have been a radical underestimation of how much we wanted to fuck a girl for a change.”
“I didn’t want you to think you weren’t enough for me. You know I’m—”
“I know,” Kingsley said.
Kingsley knew Søren wasn’t like him. For Kingsley, sex was sex, and he had it when he wanted with whomever he wanted. Male or female or anything in between was simply a question of strategy. Søren had told him once he considered himself straight, that Kingsley was the sole exception to the rule. “That girl we dreamed of—I wanted black hair and green eyes. But you wanted green hair and black eyes? I assume you mean the irises would be black, not that you planned on punching her in the face.”
“I’m not that much of a sadist.” Søren smiled, and the world turned to morning from the force of that smile. Had Kingsley ever seen him smile like that? “And this girl of ours, she would be wilder than both of us together.”
“We dreamed beautiful dreams, didn’t we? But a girl like that? Impossible dream.”
Kingsley had once dreamed he and Søren would spend their lives together. They’d travel the world, see it all, wake up together, sleep together and fuck on every continent.
“Nothing is impossible,” Søren said.
“What do you mean?”
Søren turned his eyes from the sun and gazed directly at Kingsley.
“Kingsley,” Søren began and paused. Whatever words would come next, Kingsley felt certain his world would never be the same again once they were spoken.
“What is it?”
“I found her.”
5
KINGSLEY COULDN’T SPEAK AT FIRST. WHAT WAS there to say to that? What do you say to an otherwise reasonable person who suddenly looks at you and says he saw a unicorn on the side of the road or met Saint Peter while out for a walk?
“You found her. You’re certain?”
“I have never been more certain of anything in my life. And that includes my call to the priesthood. It’s her. Black hair and green eyes. Green hair and black eyes.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Her eyes change color in the light. Green to black and back again. When I first saw her, she had streaked green dye through her black hair. She’s violent and foul-mouthed, and she told me I was an idiot. Not only did she say that to me, it was the first thing she said to me.”
“Wild, is she?”
“I’d go so far as to use the word feral.”
“Feral. A wild cat, then. With claws?”
“Sharp ones. Sharp mind, too. Very intelligent. Cunning. Quick and clever. Almost fearless.”
“My type of girl. Where did you meet her?”
“I was sent to pastor at a small parish in a town called Wakefield in Connecticut. She’s in my congregation. I recognized her the second I saw her. You would have, too.”
“What’s she like?”
“Dangerous. She doesn’t even know how dangerous.”
“How dangerous?”
“She…” Søren stopped and laughed. “She made me make her a promise.”
“Made you? No one makes you do anything.”
“She did. I needed her to agree to something, and instead of being cowed like every other person I’ve ever attempted to terrorize before, she refused to accept my terms. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“I promised to break my vows with her.”
“Is that so? Which vows? Poverty? Obedience? Will she make you buy expensive things and tell the pope to go fuck himself?”
“She wants us to be lovers.”
“Are you?”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet?” Kingsley repeated. “So you plan to?”
“She made me promise I would.”
“So, why haven’t you?” Kingsley asked. He tried to keep his voice light, airy, amused. But he’d never had a more serious conversation in his life. If this girl was real, if she was the one he and Søren had dreamed of, and Søren had found her, that meant something. What it meant, he didn’t know. But something. Something that terrified him and aroused him all at once.
“Because,” Søren said, “I’m a priest. And she’s a virgin.”
“A dangerous virgin? I didn’t think such a being could exist.”
“You’ll believe it when you meet her. But that’s not all you should know about her.”
“What else?”
“She’s f ifteen.”
Kingsley inhaled sharply.
“Fifteen. Are you insane? Do you know what they do with priests who—”
“Which is why I haven’t done it. As much as I’d like to.”
“Beautiful, is she?”
“Kingsley, you have no idea…”
Kingsley heard pure aching need in Søren’s voice. He hadn’t heard desire like that since the last night they’d spent together.
I own you…you are mine…your body is mine, your heart is mine, your soul is mine… Søren had whispered that in Kingsley’s ear as they’d fucked on the cold hard f loor by the small hermitage fireplace. You want me? Kingsley had asked, taking every inch of Søren into him. So much, Søren had said. You have no idea how much.
“I should meet our little princess,” Kingsley said.
“Not a princess, a queen.”
“Take me to her, then.” Kingsley didn’t actually want to meet her. He felt sick again at the thought of it. This was a dare. You saw a unicorn? Prove it, then. You say you’re Christ back from the dead? Show me the wounds.
“I can’t,” Søren said.
“Why not?”
“She’s in police custody.”
Kingsley laughed.
“Now I know why you’re here. Your Virgin Queen has gotten herself into trouble. You expect me to help her?”
“I’m asking you to. Begging you to if I must.”
“Even when you’re begging, it sounds like an order.”
“Would you rather I ordered you to help her?” Søren asked, stepping away from the window. “I can still play the game.”
“It was never a game to me.”
Søren turned and faced him, his eyes cold and steely. “No. It was never a game to me, either.”
Kingsley sat down on the black-and-white sofa. He crossed his ankle over his knee and leaned his head back against the fabric. He rubbed his temples with his fingertips. God, what a night.
“Do I want to know what she’s in police custody for?”
“She stole five cars. Her father apparently owns something called a chop shop.”
“They steal cars, chop them up and sell the parts. Good money in it.”
“He made her steal for him. The police caught her in the act. Her father ran for it.”
“I hope they catch him and give him the chair.”
“Death is too good for him. But he’s not my concern now. She is. She’s facing serious time in juvenile detention or worse. I can’t let that happen. I found her a week ago. I can’t lose her already.”
Kingsley looked up at him through narrowed eyes.
“You…” Kingsley said. “You’re in love with her.”
Søren didn’t deny it. Kingsley respected him for that.
Honesty was its own special brand of sadism.
“I am.”
“Well, then,” Kingsley said, laying his head back again. “Maybe all hope is not lost.”
He expected Søren to laugh at that, but when he looked up he saw the steel in Søren’s eyes.
“We have to help her,” Søren said. “Please.”
“Please? You’ve learned manners in the past eleven years.”
“Will you help her? Will you help me?”
Help the girl. How? Easy. He had a few judges who owed him favors. He regularly fucked the wife of an important district attorney. He could make some phone calls. He couldn’t get the charges dropped. His contacts needed to cover their asses. But he could get her community service, probation with some luck. Nothing serious.
“What’s her name?”
“Eleanor Louise Schreiber.”
“Schreiber? German name.”
“It is.”
The corner of Kingsley’s mouth quirked in to a half smile.
“That explains the Beethoven. I suppose you don’t play Ravel anymore.”
Søren had played Ravel for him the day they met and many days after. Ravel, the greatest of all French composers. And now his heart turned to Beethoven—the greatest of all the Germans.
“I would play Ravel for you,” Søren said, his voice stiff and formal. “If that’s what it took.”
Kingsley’s eyes f lew open.
“I’m not going to make you fuck me just so I’ll help your Virgin Queen. That’s her game, not mine.”
“Is there a price for your assistance?”
“You gave me a fortune. I’m richer than God, and you think you owe me something?”
“Don’t I?”
“A favor,” Kingsley said. “One favor.”
“Anything. Name it.”
Kingsley stood up, walked across the room and stood only inches from Søren.
“All I ask of you,” Kingsley began, “all I beg of you…don’t leave me again. Please. Eleven years. I thought I’d never see you again.”
Søren grasped Kingsley by the back of the neck and pulled him into an embrace—not an embrace of lovers but, instead, of lost brothers, soldiers from enemy armies reunited at the end of a long, devastating war that no one had won.
“I thought I would die without ever seeing you again,” Kingsley said, and his eyes burned with tears. “Every day I thought that.”
“Thought or hoped?”
“Feared,” Kingsley said, clutching Søren’s forearms. “My greatest fear.”
Kingsley closed his eyes, and if he kept his eyes closed he wouldn’t have to see that white collar around Søren’s neck. If he kept his eyes closed he could pretend it was eleven years ago and they were alone in the hermitage together. Søren would beat him and take him to bed, and after he’d finished, Kingsley would throw his arm over Søren’s stomach, rest his head on Søren’s chest and fall asleep. When he woke up Søren would still be there. Søren would always be there.
“I promise you this,” Søren whispered, “I will never turn my back on you. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. As long as it’s in my power, I will be your friend, and I will be here for you whenever you need me.”
“You paid for this house. It’s your home even more than mine. Make it your home.”
“I will if that’s what you want.”
“More than anything.” He opened his eyes and looked up at Søren. “No one loves me. And I don’t love anyone here. No one trusts me and I don’t trust anyone. I need you.”
“You trust me? After what I did to you?”
“I trust you. Because of what you did to me.”
Søren took a deep breath. Kingsley felt his chest rise and fall.
Kingsley sensed Søren’s reluctance to pull away, but pull away he did.
“I’ll help your girl,” Kingsley said. “I know people. I’ll make sure she doesn’t go away.”
“Don’t hate her. You’ll want to hate her, and we both know why. But try to keep your heart open.”
“How long have you been back in the United States?” Kingsley asked.
Søren seemed taken aback by the question.
“A few months,” he said.
“You’ve been to the city before?”
“Yes.”
The King Page 5