by Julia Talbot
“It's okay Father,” Vanni called in a laughing voice as he turned and ran. “I like a little rough stuff now and again.”
If anyone deserved to be smacked in the face, it was Vanni Miggliozzi. Jacob refused to feel guilty. Or at least he tried to. But the mocking emphasis on the word Father when Vanni used it hadn't escaped him. How long had it been since anyone else in this house had called him that besides the servants. Yes, he'd asked them to call him Jacob. But there was a familiarity among them now that was as unexpected as it was distressing. As a priest, Jacob had gotten used to being removed from personal relationships. You had a sacred one with God, and that was as close as anyone got. Colleagues, parishioners, fellow scholars; all of them hid behind formalities such as collars and titles. The Rossis were under his skin. And he wasn't sure what to do about it.
Prayer and contemplation. He was ripe for them. So he pulled out his notebook and wrote down all of the information he'd learned tonight instead. Especially the parts about Alicia Rossi. He made notes about research he wanted to do, and questions he wanted answered. He studiously ignored the little voice of his conscience as it knocked at the back of his head. Vanni deserved it. His tantrum in the salon after dinner was justified. He was going crazy. Giving up on the work, Jacob rolled the kinks out of his neck and checked the time. It was still early enough for a walk. Although every time he ventured out for one of those in this house, something dreadful happened. Maybe if he just went straight to his workroom, he'd be okay.
His workroom was dark and silent and it taunted him with memories of his visions. He tried to make notes on the last Venetti he had pulled out of the collection to study, but it kept raising the hair on the back of his neck. Walking over to the portrait, he fingered the drop cloth that covered it, but turned away. Flipping through his reference books caused the same restless reaction. Even though he'd slept most of the day away, Jacob gave it up, and decided to go to bed.
Without any conscious thought on his part, Jacob wandered the halls to his room. Or so he thought until he looked up when he reached the door. Which was not his. It wasn't his old room in the guest quarters either. He was in the family wing. But he was at least one hall over from where he needed to be. And he was positive he'd never been in this room before. He wondered if this was another on of his crazy new “intuitions". What was in there that he needed to know about? Or maybe he was just so sleepy that he went to the right door on the wrong hall. He stood there, not wanting to knock, but unable to just leave. What was wrong with him? He was becoming a raving nutter.
The door opened just as he was turning to leave, and Damien's head poked out. Damien looked surprised, the pleased. He should have known. Jacob held up a hand before Damien could speak. “Good night, Damien. I'm going back to my room now.”
Solemn, Damien nodded. “Si. Of course. But now you know where we are. If you should need us.”
“Yeah. Now I know
Chapter 7
It seemed to Jacob for the next two or three days all he did was go through the motions. He slept a lot, but thankfully his dreams were quiet. He didn't go out of his way to avoid anyone but Vanni, but he made no real effort to do his work, or do anything at all really. He would go to his workroom and sit, and stare at one Venetti or another, but it just seemed like he was there under false pretenses, and he'd lost his enthusiasm for the project. Jacob could tell that the twins, and Terri of all people, were worried about him, but he didn't know how to reassure them. He didn't know how to reassure himself.
When Sunday rolled around it came as a complete surprise. Surprise, because when Cristina asked him to good to church with her, once again warm and flirtatious, he realized that he hadn't thought of church in days. Whatever happened to all of his fine protestations that his soul was his and no one else's and that he could resist temptation? He was ashamed to admit that he didn't want to go, especially not to see Father Bertolli. He was about to plead illness when Terri stuck her head in the door and interrupted.
“There you are, Jacob. Cristina, your mother is waiting for you to go to Mass. You should hurry or you'll make her late.”
Cristina flounced out of the room with an ugly pout on her face, and Terri rolled her eyes. “The family would like for you to attend Mass at their chapel this morning, Jacob. Will you come?”
“Certainly.” And in truth, he was relieved. He could do his duty by the Church and not have to leave the house. Or more accurately, face up to confession to Bertolli or someone else like him. The service was traditional, in Latin. They took communion. It surprised him for some reason. Maybe he had expected some weird Satanic rite. Maybe a Dionysian orgy? It was just a regular Mass, given by a regular little priest who was about fifty years old and had a soft, pudgy look about him. He greeted Jacob warmly as a fellow man of the cloth, and it was positively excruciating. He went to confession (yes they even had their own confessional in the house chapel) and did exactly what he had accused Cecilia of. Lied by omission. He said nothing at all about any of it. Except for his anger towards Vanni. That seemed safe. And if the priest laughed a little and agreed that Vanni begged for it, who was to know?
On his way out, Jacob stopped to light a candle. It was something he usually only did for remembrance, and he was a little unsure why he did it now. Guilt maybe. Or maybe it was for Matteo Venetti. Jacob was convinced that Venetti went insane due to his association with Alicia Rossi, and that was why he started painting Hell. Scholarly theory it was not, but it sounded good. Petty, but good. He carefully touched the burning match to a fat beeswax candle and grinned, thinking how it was obvious that this was a private chapel in a rich house, to have such expensive candles. It lit easily, and fluttered to smoky, orange life, and he bent his head to offer a small prayer.
He had to pray for forgiveness, for his unnatural lust for the lady of the house. She teased him whenever his master wasn't there, calling him a pretty boy, telling him how innocent he seemed. She wore that dress for her sittings, the one that was modest, but still made him think things. She would sit there, hand on her breast, and finger that enormous lion necklace and he would get excited. It was wrong of him to desire a married woman. And so he went to the chapel and lit a candle and thought about what his strict father would say about his obsession. Or how his master would react if he caught him touching himself in the dark.
Blinking, Jacob came back from his vision into the present. There was no shift sideways this time, no disorientation. It had been seamless. It terrified him. Jacob stood there, frozen, until someone walked up behind him and put a hand on the small of his back.
“Jacob?”
It was Gianni, and Jacob snapped out of his trance and turned to Gianni gratefully. “I'm okay. Just thinking.”
Looking abashed, Gianni asked, “I'm sorry. Did I interrupt your prayer?”
Without even thinking, Jacob took Gianni's outstretched hand in his. “No. I was just wool gathering. Did you want something?”
“Damien told me that you talked,” Gianni replied. He peered at Jacob tentatively. “He says that everything is good, that you are not angry. Is that true?”
“Not at the two of you, no. And certainly not about, well, that. Did he also tell you that it can't happen again? That I won't stay if you try?”
“Si.” Gianni paused, thinking about his words, and Jacob almost smiled. But he didn't want to seem like he was laughing at Gianni, so he kept a straight face. “But I want to make sure you won't take it the wrong way if we touch you, or try to make you feel better.” Like he was doing now, Jacob supposed. Gianni was absently petting Jacob's hand with his thumb, a soothing back and forth glide.
“No. I won't take it the wrong way.”
“Good.” Gianni gave him one of those blinding smiles his family was gifted with, and pulled Jacob into a hug. Jacob didn't try to resist, just folded in and let himself be held, and it was warm. He was cold. Gianni kissed him lightly on the forehead and let him go. “Will you come out with us today? Damien and I w
ant out of the house. We thought dinner, maybe.”
Shaking his head, Jacob wrapped his hands around his upper arms and rubbed. “No. Thank you, Gianni, but I really don't feel well. I think I'll just go to bed.”
Nodding, Gianni left him, but with obvious reluctance. Jacob had no doubt that soon he would have droves of people dropping by his room and asking if he was ill. He wasn't really. He just felt cold and tired and wrung out. Bed sounded very good at the moment. That's where he went, too. He stripped and slid between the smooth sheets on his bed, and was out before his head even hit the pillow.
Swimming back to the surface of a deep sleep, Jacob realized two things. He was no longer cold. He was hot, so hot he was sweating. And second, he was having the most amazing dream. Not a horror movie slideshow like he'd had recently, but a warm, sensual dream. Greedy hands skated over his body, lingering at the sensitive places. His nipples, belly and thighs were stroked and licked and nibbled. He undulated under the attention, and decided that his dream lover would be Cecilia. Or was it Alicia? He decided not to think too hard about it. It distracted him form the wet glide of the mouth on his hipbones, from the hands that moved to bracket his hips.
So much safer to dream it, so much less in the way of guilt. Jacob imagined the fall of long hair shielding her face, the glint of greenish-blue eyes looking up at him. A hot, rough swipe of tongue on his cock made him gasp and arch, and soon he was engulfed completely by slick, tight lips. Perfect amount of suction, a practiced hand on his balls, rolling them lightly, and Jacob was lost. He rode the sensations as his body rose and fell, and the thought of pouring himself into that beautiful mouth pushed him over into orgasm. He wasn't exactly sure which name he cried out, but he thought it was Cecilia.
Sticky, sated, and boneless, Jacob basked in his dream reality until a derisive chuckle had his eyes snapping open. He was awake after all, and there was someone in his bed and between his legs, still holding his balls in their hand. His balls tried to crawl back into his body as a result.
“I would have thought you'd be crying out for the twins,” Vanni said. “But I suppose it doesn't surprise me that you'd be sniffing around the dear little sister-in-law. She is quite a tasty dish.”
Speechless with a mixture of surprise, fear and fury, Jacob simply sat there like an idiot and looked at Vanni. He was afraid to move while the other man still had a firm hold on him, and the unreality of the situation made it impossible for him to speak coherently. So he just sat there, even when Vanni slithered up to crouch over him, still lightly cupping his balls.
“What's the matter, Father? Cat got your tongue?”
He hated that. Hated the way Vanni called him father, like it was some sort of dirty word. He hated Vanni's naked body, obscenely beautiful with its stocky musculature and thatches of black hair. He couldn't help but notice Vanni's cock, stiff and red and accusing. Vanni leaned forward and Jacob could smell himself in Vanni's mouth, and he made a sound of violent denial.
Pressing his lips to Jacob's to silence him, Vanni settled between Jacob's spread thighs, then pushed them closed around his straining erection. Jacob struggled, but it was weak at best, overwhelmed as he was by a mixture of disgust and confusion. There's a fine line between attraction and repulsion, Jacob thought. He wasn't sure which was winning, and when Vanni pinned him to the bed and licked at his closed lips, Jacob lay passively beneath him and opened his mouth.
The taste was bitter and salty. It was him, mixed with the smoke and whiskey taste of Vanni. Jacob just didn't have enough experience at kissing to say whether Vanni was good at it or not, just that it was overwhelming. Jacob couldn't breathe, and he pushed against Vanni's shoulders, whooping for breath when they separated. Vanni ground down with his hips and bit into Jacob's neck. It hurt, and it maddened him. Jacob yanked on Vanni's hair as hard as he could, and received a feral grin in response.
Humping hard now, Vanni kissed him again, mashing their lips together violently, and Jacob bit into Vanni's lip. Blood trickled into his mouth from Vanni's split lip, the injury Jacob had given him, and Jacob gasped at the taste. His cock jolted back to awareness, over-sensitive, almost sore. Vanni moaned into his mouth. Their skin was slick and the smell was pure animal. Jacob spread himself again, pushing hard into Vanni, hooking one ankle around Vanni's calf. They were grunting and yelping now, like a pair of dogs, mindlessly reaching for completion. Their teeth clacked together, their cocks rubbed furiously, and finally Vanni cried out, splashing Jacob with his scalding come. Jacob bucked and jerked, his own release pumping from his abused body.
Their breathing was the only sound and movement in the room. Jacob's stomach rolled, and he shoved Vanni off him. Vanni, sated and uncoordinated, flopped to one side, and Jacob bolted for the bathroom. He slammed the bolt on the door home and made it to the toilet just in time to become violently ill.
Kneeling there on the bathroom floor, Jacob ignored the scratching at the door. He ignored the sing-song voice that called to him. “What's the matter, Father? Am I not good enough for you? Did I make you feel dirty? You made me feel good. Or is your problem that I made you feel good, too?”
Jacob ignored it until it went away, resting his head against the cool porcelain of the toilet and closing his eyes. Then he crawled to the shower and scrubbed himself pink. Vanni was right. Damnably right. He enjoyed it. Oh he could shrug it off as a purely physical response, a typical reaction of the male body to stimulus. But there was more to it than that. He'd enjoyed the violence of it, the taste of Vanni's blood in his mouth. As much as it had disgusted him it had excited him.
Powerlessness shouldn't be a turn on. Not for him. Not for anyone, really. Jacob wondered if Matteo Venetti had felt as powerless in the grasp of this insane family. If the man had been as naïve as Jacob was, just as Father Bertolli had called him. If he was, it was no wonder the man killed himself.
Once he was clean, he made his way back into the bedroom cautiously. Vanni was gone. He relaxed, just a little. He looked at the bed, rumpled and stained sheets twisted in a ball, and his stomach heaved again. He turned away, and grabbing some sweats from his bag, he left the suite. He'd sleep in the library. Or something. There was no way he could stay there and see over and over the images of him arching into Vanni's body, crying out, licking blood off his lips.
The hallway stretched off to either side outside of his door, but instead of turning down toward the main house, he turned and went deeper into the family wing. He wandered, seemingly aimless, until he came to the twins’ room. Oh this was ridiculous. But he couldn't make himself leave. He stood there for what seemed like ages, fidgeting. Finally, cursing himself as all sorts of idiot, Jacob knocked. Just as he was about to turn and leave, Damien answered the door. Unashamedly nude, blinking sleep out of his eyes, he looked at Jacob with surprise. Something in Jacob's expression must have warned him not to ask, because Damien simply opened the door wider and stepped back, and Jacob went in. He followed Damien back through the suite to the bedroom and crawled into the giant bed beside Gianni. Gianni made an interrogative noise, and shifted in the warm nest of covers, sliding an arm around Jacob's waist. It felt good, comforting, and when Damien snuggled in behind him, he let it go for the night and went to sleep.
When he woke the next morning he was alone on one side of the bed and the twins were wrapped together on the other. From the looks of it, they had been awake for some time, and were considerately letting him sleep. Going back to sleep was not an option. Not with them rubbing against each other like that. They were kissing wetly, tongues moving together as their bodies did. The flex and release of muscles fascinated him, and he reached out to touch a taut thigh. It was Gianni on top, and Gianni turned to Jacob and smiled, and they opened up to him, reaching out and pulling him in. Their generous heat seared him, and they helped him strip out of his sweats and they started touching.
It was just like it had been before. There was joy in it, and care, and they touched him and each other with a kind of reverence. T
heir hands slid over him, erasing the lingering guilt and repulsion his body still carried. They kissed him, loved him, told him how beautiful he was, and there was nothing dirty about it, nothing profane. The release was astonishing, and it cleansed away the filth that Vanni had left on his skin. When they were done, together in a puppy pile on the bed, he felt like laughing. They stroked and petted him like they knew how agitated he had been and were trying to soothe him. And it worked.
Much later in the day, when he was in his workroom diligently making notes about Venetti's version of the Fall, it caught up with him. He sat there, and thought about what he had done the night before, and his hands shook. Jacob very carefully put down his pen, and held himself extremely still, like he might break if he moved. He stared fixedly at the painted representation of Lucifer, and a tiny thought scurried through his mind; it was amazing how much Venetti's Satan looked like a Rossi.
He had to get out. He had promised he wouldn't run again. And he wouldn't. Really. He just needed out of the house. He put away his things in neat order, and started out, trying to think where he might go. He almost made it. Cecilia stopped him just inside the front door, walking in as he walked out.
“Jacob.” She smiled at him and put a hand on his arm. He tried not to flinch. “Are you okay?”
“I was just going out.”
“Oh.” Cecilia looked disappointed. “I thought you could catch me up on the progress you're making.” She peered at him uncertainly. “I understand if you're still angry at me about the portrait. But I would like to hear where you are with your research.”
The portrait. He hadn't thought about it, or about the fact that Cecilia had lied to him. His own sins were piled so high that her tiny sin of lying was off the scope. Oh God. He shook her hand off his arm. “I'm sorry. I have an appointment. I'll be back later in the day. Maybe you'll be available then?”