by Heidi Belleau;Ally Blue;Kari Gregg;Peter Hansen;Laylah Hunter;Brien Michaels;Sam Schooler
They’d kissed.
Tobias had always initiated the kisses, hadn’t he? Where had he learned to do such a thing?
And lo, from sin and grief and shame . . .
He didn’t know. Good God, he didn’t know. Only that when he saw David, that was the first thing he thought of. And the last. David’s soft mouth, so pretty, so pink, like the petals of an easily bruised flower. It wasn’t fair, that he had such a mouth. Why had God designed him that way? A born tempter fallen into his natural trade. Irresistible. If he weren’t so attractive, then maybe his power to call men to sin would be tempered. God had known his path, had known what sort of man he would come to be, and yet had still bestowed him with that devastating beauty.
Was it a test?
If so, then every punter who’d put a shilling in David’s hand had failed it.
And so had Tobias.
Failed as a youth, and failed now, too, to be sitting in the house of God and thinking of David pressed up against a brick wall, arse thrust out with a man rutting behind him as he made all those sweet sounds Tobias still remembered from their youth. But huskier now, the noises of a man, not a boy.
Tobias was failing now because the thought of it was making him harden.
He was failing especially because it wasn’t just lust. Had never been just lust. Lust was what David had taught Tobias.
But love had been what Tobias had sought to teach David.
“I hide me.” Tobias curled his hands on his knees, fighting his body. Fighting his mind and its treachery. “I hide me, Jesus, in thy name . . .”
Pray for me. Don’t let me fall like he has.
He couldn’t stop seeing it, now that he had allowed himself a glimpse: the man from the bar holding David against the brick, touching his cool cheek, sliding fingers into his mouth as he rocked David forward with powerful, punishing thrusts of his hips. And David loved it; David made noise for him, too—cried out, his knees buckling, when the man whispered in his ear. Tobias didn’t want to hear what he was saying. Tobias didn’t want to imagine this.
But he was imagining it. Except now it wasn’t the man from the pub pressed against David. It was Tobias. Tobias’s rigid prick stuffed inside David’s cleft, pounding away furiously. Tobias’s hands pinning David’s to the wall . . . No, Tobias’s hands covering David’s, their fingers sweetly interlaced. And then David would turn his head on a moan and Tobias would teach him a kiss—a passionate, eager kiss, loving but determined, pressed on his mouth from over his shoulder and jolted by the frantic movements of their bodies.
Tobias was drunk. That was how he rationalised it when he let one hand slide up his thigh, when he undid his trousers and pushed that hand inside to wrap around the hot length of his prick. It was good, instantly good. The ruin of him was between his fingers and he bent forward over it, bracing his hand on the pew. He could practically feel the lingering rhythm of his and David’s imaginary lovemaking, and he struggled to follow it, his bottom lip seized hard between his teeth.
No, no, no, this was wrong, this made him only slightly better than David. Maybe it even made him worse than David, who at least had the decency to carry out his business in squalid back alleys. Here Tobias was, in a church, reveling in his own sin of thought.
God help him.
From over his shoulder, a silky voice said, “God hears your prayers, boy, but he won’t help you.”
“Blasphemy!” Tobias shouted, momentarily forgetting that he had a hand around his cock.
“Yes,” the voice said, amused. “Quite.”
Tobias came back to himself and whirled in the pew, yanking his hand from his trousers. The man who sat behind him was thin but tall; his legs hardly fit comfortably in the pew, bent as they were. He peered at Tobias with keen, dark eyes. His face was smooth and young. One arm rested along the back of the pew, extended to the tips of his slim fingers. He wore no gloves to ward off the November bite.
“You—” Tobias hurried to put himself back in order. He could feel his face flushing red and found himself hoping that the man could smell the stout that was no doubt still present on Tobias’s breath.
At least then Tobias might have an excuse.
“What are you doing here?” he managed at last, when the stranger’s only reaction was a slight tilt of his head. He hadn’t heard the man come in, and nor had he heard him take a seat behind him.
“Basking in the presence.” The stranger shrugged and looked up, candlelight catching in his eyes. They were . . . eerie, as though they swallowed colour and light, absorbed within them but not made use of. He smiled slightly when he looked back at Tobias. His many teeth were very white. “What are you doing here?”
“Praying for an acquaintance. An unfortunate I knew in my past.”
“Do you usually pray to God with one hand in your trousers?”
Tobias flushed darker. Why had he admitted what he was doing so freely? “N-no, but I don’t usually, I mean, he, it’s his—”
The stranger’s smile stretched abruptly wider. Tobias had the sense that it wasn’t a friendly expression, even if it seemed genuine. “Your friend has troubles?” His eyes rose to the ceiling again. “So you came to God on his behalf. How generous of you.”
“It’s all I can do.” Tobias smoothed down his clothing, grateful that his erection was gone, and stood. He had come to pray, and he’d prayed. His duty was done. This man had no right to patronise him. “Have a good evening.” He paused when he exited the pew and turned to bow to the altar. His three candles winked at him.
He was nearly to the door when the man said, “Is that all you can do?” His deep voice had a slight rasp when it was raised. Tobias glanced back; the man was still facing the front of the church, but his head was turned. He was looking at Tobias over his shoulder. “Tell me your name,” he said.
Tobias squared himself. The haze of beer was starting to leave him, and he was steady on his feet. “Why?”
“Because it’s polite.”
It infuriated Tobias that the man had trapped him that way. It also infuriated him that the man clearly knew he’d trapped him. Knew, and gained a sense of superiority from it.
Played. Like an instrument.
“Tobias,” he said on a haughty exhale.
“Tobias what?”
“Sinnet. Is there anything else you want to extort from me, or may I take my leave?”
The man flicked the slender fingers of his extended hand. “By all means. If you truly don’t care to save your friend, I mean.”
Tobias was caught again. He clenched his hands at his sides, holding his anger between clenched teeth. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” What could this man have to offer David? The French disease was incurable—everyone knew that. David ought to have been bedridden by now. He ought to have been taking care of himself, instead of wandering out at night to seek patrons.
To seek Tobias.
Tobias’s help.
“I beg to differ,” the stranger said. He did turn around then, and from his place thirty paces away, he held Tobias’s gaze. “Don’t you want to know my name?” His voice held an uncomfortable coolness that touched the base of Tobias’s spine, and behind him Tobias’s three candles flickered and nearly guttered out, even though Tobias hadn’t felt a draft.
Just like— No. No. Impossible. This was a church; there would be no dark magic here.
“I need to leave.” Tobias tried and failed to look away from those eyes. “My business here is done.”
“Is it?” the stranger said loftily. “I saw no conclusion.”
How crude. Tobias sneered and at last broke their stare. “Whatever you think you can offer me, it won’t help my friend.”
He realised then: he had called David an “acquaintance” at first, and now “friend” came so much more easily. That hadn’t been his doing—the stranger had assumed, and Tobias had simply followed his lead.
Tobias knew how dangerous following someone’s lead could be.
<
br /> He drew his cloak tighter around him, determined this time to go.
Until the stranger said, “I can heal David.”
Tobias froze.
“Yes,” the man said. He was smiling that thin, odd cut of a smile again. “Completely. No trace of the disease will remain. Isn’t that a much better solution than sending up your pleading to a God who will never answer you?”
“God does answer,” Tobias said, grasping at the opportunity to make a real reply. “He is merciful, and He—”
“He’s leaving you to roll in shit,” the stranger said coolly. “While He sits on His golden throne. If you want help for your friend, I can offer it.”
Tobias found himself suddenly weak, and he fumbled to the closest pew to sit.
It had been easy to say David deserved his fate and should submit to it back when a cure was impossible. But now? Did he really hold David’s life in his hands? And could he truly stand by his moral resolution when there was an alternative?
As dubious as that alternative seemed?
Although increasingly not as dubious as it ought to seem.
“You’re considering,” the stranger said. He stood for the first time, revealing a body that was lanky under his long cloak. His pale throat was bare, no cravat to be seen, and he walked with a sleek golden cane fitted to the palm of his left hand, moving gracefully despite the limp in his left leg. He was silent until he was seated in the pew in front of Tobias. Then he looked shrewdly at him. “Aren’t you.”
“You knew David’s name,” Tobias said. He smelled . . . smoke? A queer smoke, clinging to the stranger’s skin.
“I did.” The man offered his hand. “Tobias Sinnet, my name is Mr. Ashmedai.”
A Jew? Well, they were in Whitechapel. But why was he in a Christian church, then?
Tobias eyed his hand, then took it. Mr. Ashmedai’s grip was firm, his hands soft like David’s. “Are you an acquaintance of David’s, then?” Tobias asked. “To know his . . . situation?” An acquaintance or . . . what else? Tobias’s skin seemed to cool with Mr. Ashmedai’s touch, and doubt bloomed at the back of Tobias’s mind.
Mr. Ashmedai shrugged. “Aren’t we all acquaintances? The truth is, I heard your prayer. Before.”
Had Tobias spoken so much aloud? He must have. “You eavesdropped on me?” As soon as he’d said the words, though, he realised he’d been mistaken. Which left— “My prayers were between myself and God.” Between myself and God, and I swear I did not say a word of them aloud. More impossible things.
“One must always be cautious how loudly he prays.” Mr. Ashmedai’s smile widened, as if he’d heard Tobias’s inward insistence as well and thought it quaint. He traced the top of the pew with his middle finger. “But in your case, it seems to have paid off. Have I caught your interest, then, Tobias?”
“Are you a doctor of medicine?” Tobias asked in return. Hoping. Desperately hoping.
“I think by now you know I am not.”
Tobias wet his lips. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Of course he knew. The candles, the smoke, the mind reading. Of course Mr. Ashmedai’s claims had no scientific basis; and nor did the man himself. He swallowed through a parched throat and licked his dry lips. “What are you, then?”
“Does it matter, just so long as I bring the desired results?” Mr. Ashmedai tilted his head, watching Tobias from under his lashes in a way that Tobias almost thought of as coy. It made him think of David. “You want David to be healed, do you not?”
“I’m not sure that I do,” Tobias admitted. Not if it means making a dark deal with the likes of you, but also . . . “If he were well again, he would just return to his trade. I would be responsible for his future sin by proxy. Is it morally correct to save a life at the price of your own soul?”
Mr. Ashmedai’s smile reached his eyes. “I’m hardly asking for your soul, Tobias. And really, what kind of cruel, pitiless God would punish you for having mercy and charity for your fellow man? And would you really worship such a God?”
“Even if my charity enables him to sin?” Tobias wasn’t going to address his other points. Blasphemy, more blasphemy. And in God’s house, no less. He couldn’t yet bring himself to tell the man off, to send him away once and for all. He knew he should, but he couldn’t. Perhaps that weak, impressionable boy still held some sway inside him.
“Are you so certain he would sin? David has a necessary profession, as you have a necessary profession. If his situation were to improve through your intervention, surely that would be a little less sin in the world. We are all sinners, after all. We all have capacity to change.”
Tobias shook his head. “What if he doesn’t want to change? He’s had so many chances to be . . . different, to be normal and to return to God’s good graces.” Chances that I took. Ultimately.
“You,” Mr. Ashmedai said, his voice blank, “are lucky, to be able to own your moral ground and look down on him.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it. Hard work. Discipline. Good Christian values, which David rejected.”
“And yet you love him just the same.”
Tobias’s face flared with heat. “Wh-what makes you say that? I barely know the man. We were boys together. Nothing more.”
“Together,” Mr. Ashmedai echoed delicately. “I see.” He drew his right hand back and tapped his fingertips against those of his left hand. “Well, say I believe you. Isn’t mercy a Christian virtue? Can you, in good conscience, stand idle when a man’s life is at stake?”
Cornered again. “What’s your price?” Tobias rasped.
“Ah, ah, ah, that’s a delicate question, Tobias. I will say it is a price you can afford. But I’ll not tell you exactly what that is until your decision is made. Because if David’s life is worth saving, shouldn’t that be true regardless of the cost?”
All or nothing. “I . . .” Tobias stared down at his hands, conflicted. What Mr. Ashmedai said made unfortunate sense. What if David could move on from his sin once he was healed?
What if it didn’t matter whether he sinned or not, so long as Tobias’s mercy gave him the choice?
“I need time,” Tobias said at length. “Give me . . .”
“Three days,” Mr. Ashmedai said. “I do so love things in threes, don’t you? It has a sort of natural symmetry to it, the number three. Yes. Three days to come to some moral conclusion. Although somehow I suspect that the issue of morality is simply a diversion, here, so. Tobias. Three days to decide just how much David truly means to you. If his life is worth everything to you . . . or nothing.”
Tobias swallowed. “If I do decide . . .”
“Meet me here.” Mr. Ashmedai stood and left the pew, bringing his cane in close to his left leg. It was cut with a pattern, like golden scales forged together. He offered his hand again to Tobias, who took it after a moment’s pause. “The same time.” He squeezed Tobias’s hand and released it. Turned to make his way down the aisle.
Tobias moved to the doors, his heart pounding. He half wanted to believe that Mr. Ashmedai was a spectre, a figment of Tobias’s mind, fashioned by stout, but when he looked back, the man was standing before the altar. His head wasn’t bowed in deference.
Rather, he stared up.
It didn’t matter. Tobias cast one last look over his shoulder and walked out.
Thoughts of David clouded Tobias’s mind, keeping him from sleep. He had three days to decide, but knowing his time limit made him more desperate to decide, rather than letting him relax and leave the agonizing for tomorrow. If Mr. Ashmedai was to be trusted, then it was Tobias’s choice: save David or let him die.
Save David at an unknown cost, or let him die.
Tobias turned in his bed and stared at the floorboards, which were missing their usual slant of moonlight. It was early morning, close to dawn. The boys would be rousing soon and he would be expected to herd them downstairs and take morning meal and prayer with them.
He cursed, rolling the other way and yanking his blanket up ov
er his shoulder to ward off the chill creeping in from the window. Wasn’t failing to protect a human life sin in itself? David’s soul was condemned through his perversions, but . . .
But maybe not yet. Maybe he deserved a little longer to repent and to make something better of himself. He could, given new life. That was what Tobias would be trading for—a new life. New chances and new choices.
David would be grateful for it. He could use it to change.
Or perhaps . . . perhaps Tobias could offer a price of his own. Perhaps he could place the choice in David’s hands. Repent and be cured. Refuse and die.
Wasn’t that the crux of Mr. Ashmedai’s argument? That, despite his past, David could yet choose to repent if he lived?
What if Tobias gave him that choice? Let him be the master of his own fate, and then, if David chose correctly, Tobias would generously pay Mr. Ashmedai’s mysterious price.
Repent or die. Tobias found his mind eased by the shift of the burden. The decision he had been agonizing over would pass on to David. Tobias would give David his own life.
And so, for the second time in two nights, he found himself sitting at a table in the Red Cock, this time without a drink, even though it made the bartender scowl at him through the haze of smoke.
David worked out of this place; he had to come in at some point to find a buyer. All Tobias had to do was wait. Wait for David to arrive, and then approach him with his question.
Except David never did arrive. Tobias waited until he had to order a drink just to keep his seat. He sat at the table, nursing his stout, right up to closing. He left when the tender’s expression became close to murderous, and spent another hour walking down Clark Street, peering into alleyways and checking dark corners. There were prostitutes aplenty, and patrons as well, but none of them were David.
Tobias returned to the Shoe-Black house late in the night and slept uneasily. He’d made his decision, but what if David failed to show at the Red Cock the next two nights as well? Then the choice would once again be thrust on Tobias, and if he decided not to make it at all, he was certain that Mr. Ashmedai wouldn’t wait around to offer again.