by James, Ella
“You’re so awkward.” She giggles.
“Pot.”
“I know. I’m totally the pot, you’re the kettle.”
All that gee-golly-feel-good stuff where Pearl tells Ansley and Rufus about her new job descriptor buys me a good ten more minutes.
I take deep breaths and hold them when I think no one is looking at my face, trying to slow my pounding pulse. For a while, I shoot the breeze with Rufus, who explains the strategy behind our plan to work with our friends in the Senate. We’ll indicate our potential financial support of both their re-election campaigns in exchange for their focus on a short but pointed list of humanitarian issues.
Shauna comes back on the speaker, telling us we’re getting near the turbulence, so we all buckle in. Ansley remains in the seat beside mine, and we fall into a conversation about several other senators we need to meet with individually—mostly so we can wear them down. Pearl sits cross-legged in a chair across the aisle, bouncing slightly as she murmurs into her phone. She’s probably triple-checking all our reservations.
One of her cousins lives in D.C., and she’ll be taking the day after tomorrow off to see the girl while I visit a think tank and then have dinner with some college friends. Tomorrow, it’s brunch at the White House, and I know Pearl is stoked for that. She’ll be even more stoked when she sees her name tag. I told them about her job title update last week, so no one talks down to her when she’s with me.
If I’m honest, Pearl has been a godsend. In addition to being very good at her job, she’s like the little sister I never had. Lots of days, she makes me feel a lot less lonely.
Something blunt and heavy aches in my chest. I shut my eyes at the surprise sensation. Ansley nudges my arm, and I open them.
She smiles kindly. “What do you think, Pastor?”
My throat feels too full as I try to swallow. I give an answer, and it sounds like me. My voice, the things I say, sound wholly normal. I feel…off, though—like an automaton version of myself. Like I’ve slipped into a slightly altered universe. I can’t shake the feeling even as we talk.
I keep my voice steady because I’m good at that. I’m very good on stage. No matter what happens, I never fail to keep my body in stasis. So it’s alarming to feel sweat pop out along my forehead, on my back. A dull ache settles at the base of my throat, as if an invisible blade is being pressed there.
No one will ever know, I tell myself. I can keep it so no one finds out.
I excuse myself and move toward the men’s room.
* * *
Vance
Hey, hey!
I prop my feet up on the railing and lean back in my deck chair, cheesin’ like a fool.
He saw it. Took him four damn hours, but he finally watched the video I posted to my Instagram stories. I watch it again, checking out my back and chest—on display because I pulled my shirt off for the video. Looking pretty good, if I do say so. I’ve been hitting the gym more, motivated by him. In the vid, I’m painting the base layer of the ocean where his yacht will float, but he can’t see that yet. What he mostly sees is my flexed bicep as I move the brush.
Whacha think about it, preacher man?
My cheeks hurt from the stupid smile I can’t get rid of as I click to his page. Nothing new. The last post was a shot of construction on his church’s sprawling campus. That was three days ago. I click to the page of pictures other people tagged him in. Just one new shot of him looking A-list good behind a podium.
Since he started watching my stories out of the blue a couple weeks ago—and I started stalking him back—he’s been to Portland, Dallas, St. Louis, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Colorado Springs as part of a tour to promote his new book, which released in July. For a few nights, people posted multiple pictures from each event, making it possible for me to follow along.
Good ole Pastor Luke. He’s got a blue-check mark and 16 million followers.
I scroll to an older image on his page, situated two rows below the construction one. It’s a shot of him making a wide-eyed face on a radio show. He looks loose and happy. Relaxed. Like he’s in his element, I guess. I scroll to another picture I’ve mentally bookmarked—this one of him shirtless, covered in pie, sitting in that little chair above a dunk tank.
My dick stiffens at the sight of his nipple ringed by goopy pie topping. I zoom in on his pants—they’re black athletic pants—and I swear I can see his bulge. I press a palm over my own.
Fuck me.
I shift in my deck chair, navigate to someone else’s page, but I’m back at his page literally a minute later. I scroll through dozens of pictures of my preacher guy standing behind podiums, getting onto and off jets, and shaking hands with politicians. I stop at another image I know well—one of him in trunks and a tank top in front of the Dead Sea. Again, I zoom in, smirking at my own unfounded belief that I can see the outline of his dick alongside a crease in his swimsuit.
I prop my ankle on my knee and rub myself through the denim of my dark jeans. I meld my hand around my cock until it’s throbbing. Every time I shift my hips, my dick’s head rubs the cotton of my boxer-briefs until I’m panting.
Then I walk inside on weak legs, get out a new canvas, and, with my sweaty hand, I start to paint. I remember every contour of his body. Even when I’ve wanted to forget, I haven’t been able to. Since he started showing up on my Instagram story viewers log, I’ve been hardcore perving on him, beating off to memories of his cock in my mouth, wondering if I’ll be tossed into the fiery pits for sending dick pics to a pastor…
In addition to being one of the most important spiritual leaders of our times, Luke is also a rich boy. Would he appreciate a dick pic? Maybe. Probably. But I’ve got something better: a dick painting—of his lock, thick cock and big balls.
That’s where I start, and I don’t skimp on the details. I work up from there, fleshing out his body-builder abs and pecs and shoulders. What business does a preacher man have being so fucking cut?
I record the canvas on a video and start another quick work—this one of his face as he sucks me off. I close his eyes and paint his cheekbones high. Then I do his thick throat, making sure to get his Adam’s apple in there. That’s it… I smirk. He looks like he’s choking on it. I paint my fingers, clutching his golden locks.
I take a video of this one, too, and cup my balls and stroke my cock.
I need some guidance, pastor. See, I’ve been struggling with lust.
My head feels buzzy as I watch videos again, decide I like them, and—quickly, so I can’t back out—send them to him as private Instagram stories.
He watches immediately.
I’m so amped, I lie in bed and pull my boxer-briefs off. I get out my toy and lube it up and set the camera up on my desk. As I press it into myself, as I take it all the way…the camera’s rolling. Pretty soon, my knees fall open. I can’t help but grunt and thrust my hard cock at the air. I can’t help moving my hips…clenching and thrusting. Pretty soon, I’m dripping. Leaking. Pleasure spins through me like magic.
“Gonna come,” I rasp. My dick shines as more precum drips out. I squeeze myself and come with a ragged groan, imagining it’s his thick cockhead pushing on that sweet spot deep inside me.
Then I send that, too.
“Stupid fuck,” I rasp to myself, but I’m laughing because I don’t really give a shit. I’ll be stupid for him.
He’s been stalking me for three weeks. Did he really think I was just going to let him?
Three
Luke
I stare at my phone’s screen and suck air in through my nose, pressing my back against the elevator wall. My hand goes to my chest. I exhale slowly…inhale. The doors swish open, and I’m blinking at the hotel hallway.
Get out.
With the phone’s screen tipped toward my chest, so that the cameras all along the ceiling can’t pick up the screen, I walk past the spa and gym, down to my suite’s sleek, steel door.
I punch the code in with damp fingertips and h
ead for the kitchen, where I gulp water from the faucet, still clutching the phone to my chest. I make sure the door is locked. Then I look again at what he sent me.
This is what you wanted. You broke down and decided to look him up, then started watching his Instagram stories—from your certified account. You knew he’d see you watching.
I shut my eyes, and when I open them, I play his story again. And again in the kitchen, where I rest my phone-holding arm on the counter while I work my swollen dick until cum jets between my fingers, dripping on the amaranth granite floor.
Afterward, I lumber to the shower, where I beat it again. I feel nauseated as I step out, swathed in steam. He can see that I’ve watched what he sent me. If he wanted, he could screenshot the read receipt. He could sell the thing to TMZ or tack it up on 4chan.
If I reply with anything but, “Who is this? Don’t send me something like that again,” it’s a huge risk.
If I don’t reply…
My head feels dazed and heavy as I pull a robe on and step onto the balcony. It’s like an atrium, with glass walls that can slide into the floor with the press of a button, plus a giant, oval hot tub and a blue infinity pool.
I let the longest glass wall down and step over to the iron railing. I’ve got a White House view. It looks kind of smeared because my eyes are dry.
I shut them and think impassively of throwing one leg over this rail. Hanging off it. How long could my arms hold me before they gave out?
Such a shock. Horror.
I would be the last one anyone suspected.
Crushing. That’s what it would be. It would be devastation. Disbelief. It would be abdication.
I open my eyes again and run my fingertips over the cool rail.
“The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.”
I walk back across the deck, sink into the hot tub, and turn on my phone’s camera.
* * *
Vance
I get his story just after I pull the duvet up to my chest. My bedroom lights are out. Light from the street slants in through the curtains, laying a block of light across my bedspread—except for when cars pass by. Then the light moves, gliding across my wall and ceiling before jumping back to place on my bed.
When the notification lights up my phone screen, I look that way—to the window—before casting my gaze to the bright phone.
Pastor Luke official …sent a message.
Plants. It’s steam, overlaying plants and…lounge chairs. I use my thumb to pause the vid and notice water shimmering in the bottom right corner of the screen, and smeary lights winking through the rails beyond the lounge chairs.
So he’s on a balcony. Maybe in a hot tub.
I click again, and the vertical frame is filled with— I think that’s the White House at night. In the upper left corner, he’s geo-tagged it WASHINGTON D.C.
My head roars as my whole body flushes.
D.C.
What is that…four hours away?
I tap the screen again, and there’s a view like he’s lying on his back on a bed. I see a vaulted ceiling punched with gleaming skylights and an ornate, dark wood footboard. I tap again, and his bare legs are stretched over the mattress toward that footboard.
Fuuuuck.
I flip through the story again, lingering on the last shot—on those sinewy, hair-dusted legs. He fucking went and did it. I laugh my shock into the dark room.
Then I pull up my story screen, pick a red background. A slow grin spreads across my face as I type, Hi, you
A minute later, and I’ve got a read receipt. Hells yeah. I grab a deep breath, hold it in my lungs, release it slowly. If he doesn’t reply—
You made me wait.
My head spins like I’ve had too much to drink. I made him wait.
I reply: You’re in DC
Time spreads out between us like a rug unfurling, pressing me into the pillows. I can feel my heart pound in my eyes. He might ghost, I warn myself.
I am, he says.
I type, Wasn’t sure you’d hit me back
Almost didn’t
LUKE! ;)
I pace my room while waiting for his reply.
Did you find out on stories? It takes me a second to realize he doesn’t know how I found out his identity. He thinks maybe I didn’t know until I saw him in my stories viewed log.
I bite my lower lip as I type: Heard you talking on a plane, on someone’s ipad
When was that?
I blow a breath out my nose. Late May
When I got home, I read everything I could about him, looked through every photo essay.
Luke McDowell, dimpled, blond-haired son of blue-blood Pastor Arthur McDowell—four-times-great grandson of the steel titan James Yancy McDowell.
Luke McDowell, sports-car-driving member of Yale’s Skull and Bones.
Luke McDowell, off-the-radar, early-20s-aged UNICEF employee.
Luke McDowell, almost-hostage at a humanitarian aid site.
Luke McDowell, San Francisco bachelor, sitting on the boards of charities and hosting political galas, working at the church and looking fuck hot in a picture for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Luke McDowell, social media magnate—who has one of the most-followed YouTube channels in existence, who is talking and laughing on like five podcasts a week and updating his Insta like a teenager on a trip, but can’t travel without a body guard. Luke who’s only ever dated women and who never, ever talks about the rainbow from the pulpit of his legendary megachurch—or anywhere else.
Luke who I met on a yacht. Who shook me up and sent me away.
Luke McDowell the enigma.
He sends me another story—this a selfie of him smiling slightly, his head on a pillow with his hand pushed back into his hair. His greenish-hazel eyes look tired. And gorgeous.
I smile down at my phone. Looking like u need some sleep there, buddy
Not your buddy, friend.
I’m not your friend, pal
His reply takes so long, I think it won’t come at all. You’re not my friend, he writes back. The white words against the black background look bleak.
I swallow. I can be your friend…
Minutes crawl past, and I know I fucked up. You didn’t fuck up, I correct myself. He’s just skittish as hell.
For good reason. I know how his circle is—or maybe it’s his “flock.” He’s a wolf in lamb’s clothes—isn’t that the adage?—preaching love and acceptance and peace, but at a church that isn’t listed as “affirming.” Evermore has no stance on same-sex issues whatsoever, other than that the Bible isn’t clear, the church encourages everyone to consider the subject in prayerful meditation, and oh yeah, everyone is welcome.
I’m not stupid, though. I know the score—or I can guess it. That’s why I didn’t message him the first day I got back to Chelsea.
I squeeze my phone. C’mon, man… You can trust me. Hit me back.
I rub my finger on the screen, searching for another angle.
Maybe you should let it go. That’s my Jiminy Cricket talking. I shut that shit down and try again: So what’s doing in DC
I’m shocked when his reply comes right through. Work
What kind of work? Just keep it moving, Vanny, nice and easy…
Bunch of lunches and dinners. White House.
Schmancy
He sends me another story, this a photo of him giving me a brow-arched, fuck-off look.
I send a smug grin back. And he goes dark. Four…five…six…nine minutes. I blow my breath out.
Too disarming, I try. It’s okay, I get that all the time
Do you? Baited! Do you do this all the time, Vance?
Bet you’d like to know. I’m grinning like a fool again, fucking buzzing off this.
Where are you, Mr. Rayne?
I send another shot of myself, shirtless with my lower body covered by the sheets. The way I’ve got them arranged, you can see the outline of my cock if you look�
��which he does. Of course he does.
What’s under that sheet?
Do you want to find out?
Show me.
I’m so hard, it’s bliss to stroke myself. I work my cock until it’s stiff enough to throb. Then I send the video his way.
Mr. Rayne. That looks hard enough to hurt.
I send another vid of my fingers wrapped around my tip…then another of my hand squeezing my shaft, moving firmly up and down.
My mother is from Jersey, I type as I squeeze myself.
I take another video, this one with the camera on my balls as they bounce. After sending that, I write, I have a cabin there. Near Atsion Lake
I don’t wait for his reply before firing off another quick enticement: Remember what I wanted you to do to me?
I think of him pushing into me, the pressure and the shock, and my dick pressed to the mattress, oozing as I grunt and shake beneath him. I think of his hard chest, his warm, tanned skin. I picture him thrusting his cock down my throat, and I blow my load for the phone’s camera. I send the story right after.
I wait ten, then twenty, thirty minutes…forty.
Too much, too soon. Fuck! I turn over on my side, rubbing my face and my temples. The warm air in my room seems to lie on me as I tug my hair and squeeze my cock and hate myself and him.
It feels like forever that I lie there, thinking now of fucking him—the way I’d push into his tight hole and grind him to the floor. I’d make him bark and moan until his face was pushed against the carpet. I’d reach between his legs and find his cock and feel the stream of cum, the pool of cum below him.
Mine.
I roll onto my back and exhale long and slow. Stare up at the ceiling till my vision blurs.
It’s over, V.
I grab my phone and check my texts and then Twitter before I try Instagram again. I’ve had a message waiting there for nineteen minutes.
What’s the address?
* * *
Luke
It’s lust that books the car and gets me to the elevator. I look at the sleek, reflective floor as I ride down. I see mostly gray gym shorts and a soft, white Under Armour shirt. As I get the rental from valet, I think about a cap. I should have worn a ball cap, but…distracted.