Their tongues pressed into each other’s mouths with measured strides. Sebastian reached along Casey’s slick chest and abdomen and grasped him. His large hands massaged Casey’s shaft, inched along the planes of his belly, fingering his ribcage, halting behind his nape, where he pulled him in tighter to meet his watering mouth.
They kissed deeper, Sebastian covering his face and neck. Casey roved his head, taking in more of Sebastian’s kisses. Steamed with dizziness, he traced his fingers down Sebastian’s bare back. His hands stiffened in a moment of incredulity when they found the astonishing mound of flesh.
Casey squeezed hard, rolled his head back and forth, allowed Sebastian’s lips and tongue to move across his mouth, neck, chest. Pulling Sebastian onto him, he brought his knees to Sebastian’s sides.
Already lubricated (had he come prepared to make love to Casey?), Sebastian lifted Casey’s pelvis and rubbed against him. Eyes focused on Casey’s expression, Sebastian slowly inserted himself.
Unused to anyone entering him—especially of Sebastian’s size—Casey flinched. Sebastian held back, waited. Casey sucked in his breath, smiled, and indicated with a blink of his eyes and a soft release of breath for him to continue.
Sebastian pushed in farther, gauging Casey’s face for pain or pleasure. Both let out a mutual dull moan. Casey breathed in Sebastian’s musky scent. Sebastian held onto his long shaft, letting go only when Casey exhaled. Then, in that phenomenal split second when unbridled pain transposed into pure bliss, Casey surrendered himself, and he drew in Sebastian completely.
Sebastian responded to Casey’s unremitting tremors and dared to push harder and more deliberately. Casey dug his fingers into the flesh on Sebastian’s back and buttocks, spreading his legs wider to communicate his consent. Sebastian wrapped his arms around him and, with their mouths fixed on each other, gave him the totality of his arousal, moving on top of him in a rhythmic rush.
Sebastian lifted Casey’s torso and leaned into him with his complete power. Casey spread wider, needing Sebastian to take him. Time leaped into a blur of passion. Some kind of medal, a religious icon, the same he’d noticed in the shower stall, hung from Sebastian’s neck and brushed Casey’s chest, setting his flesh aflame.
The medal swept over Casey’s face. He let the cold chain brush his lips, bit the icon as it fell into his mouth. It was all Sebastian, all of him. And Casey wanted him fully.
Sebastian pushed Casey’s knees to his chest and sat on his haunches, never missing the potency of his driving force. Casey flung his arms above his head, gripped the headboard, melded with the motion of Sebastian’s pushing into him.
He sensed Sebastian getting closer. His thrusts grew faster and harder. Casey squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the final, burning release. Sebastian leaned into him, and his weight shifted to his hands by Casey’s head. Casey bit into Sebastian’s forearms and nipples, his head dizzy with wanting and disbelief.
Then Sebastian stopped. Casey opened his eyes, puzzled.
He pulled out of Casey, causing Casey to stiffen, and forced Casey’s legs closed and straight. He spit into his palm and lubricated Casey, massaging the entirety of Casey’s erection. Next he straddled him, allowing Casey to enter him without pause. Casey twisted and squirmed, mesmerized by the unanticipated turn. Casey, smaller than Sebastian, had no trouble penetrating him completely.
Casey grasped Sebastian’s sinewy hips, feeling the muscles flex and the veins throb with each upward drive. He could still feel Sebastian inside him, a shadow of pain and pleasure. The combined sensation compelled Casey to move up to meet Sebastian’s downward motions with even more potent thrusts.
Sebastian rode and rode until the medal slid to his side and he tossed his head back and squeezed his eyes heavenward. Uttering a guttural sigh, he spilled on Casey’s belly, some striking Casey’s face. Casey licked his lips. The saltiness made him dizzy. He filled Sebastian almost simultaneously, while looking into Sebastian’s blue irises, which reflected the shifting moonlight.
Sebastian collapsed on top of him. He held Casey like he was rescuing him, like he had with JC when he’d carried him into the abbey from the snowstorm, and afterward when he’d laid him naked on the infirmary’s bed.
Casey suspected Sebastian had fallen asleep. His breathing came heavy and steady. Suddenly he raised his head, leaped from the bed, and dressed in a rush. Without a glance back, he scurried from the cell.
Casey lay staring at the door, wondering.
Had it all been a dream?
Chapter Twenty-One
AN HOUR before Brother George’s signature rap on the doors for Rise, Sebastian awoke alone in the early morning darkness of his cell, like so many times past, hardly believing what had transpired overnight. Had he dreamt it? No, it had happened. The stickiness left on his body, along with the familiar dull ache inside him, proved it was so. He brought his hand out from beneath his tunic and wiggled his fingertips under his nose. Still smelled of Casey. The lingering taste of Casey’s kisses sweetened his lips too.
His cheeks pushed upward into a grin.
For the moment, Father Paolo’s onerous and devious plan to conceal JC’s murder dissipated. Sebastian relished his exhausted body.
He and Casey Galvan had made love. Deep, penetrating love. He’d finally given in to his desires. The mounting craving had built up inside him until he had needed but one release. A discharge he’d fantasized about since Casey’s arrival at Mt. Ouray.
The past week, he’d foreseen it coming. Growing beyond his control. He’d stood outside Casey’s cell door late at night on a few occasions already, listening and waiting in his bare feet so no one would hear him stomp about. Trying to muster enough nerve to knock. Then that time Casey had unexpectedly opened his door, he’d run off like a truant schoolboy spotted by cops.
He’d tried to return to his cell, but Casey had trailed after him, and he’d had no choice but to scurry toward the kitchen. Casey was a rambunctious man. Probably had wanted to impress Sebastian with catching the murderer. Bolstered by longing, Sebastian had decided to follow after Casey. But he’d shut himself in the sacristy. He’d hated frightening Casey and wanted to console him. Delores had spoiled everything. Or maybe it had been best that he’d returned to his cell and left Casey unaware.
None of that mattered now.
Last night he’d gone to Casey’s cell, lured by the melody of his flute (and lubricated with globs of his spit), and waited outside his door. Then the flute playing had ceased. Almost without forethought, he’d reached for the doorknob.
The moment he’d shut the door to Casey’s cell, Sebastian had understood the true motives for his coming to him. The crumpled garments and belt hadn’t spurred him on. Before knowing Casey lay naked under his bedcovers, he had already decided what he was to do, even if it had meant tearing Casey’s tunic off his body.
A fiery lust had ignited inside his breast. He had grown dizzy, faint with longing. Strange buzzing in his ears had shut out any surrounding noise—and semblance of reason. Burning need had swept aside caution.
And then, depleted, he’d cried.
With the exception of that one unwanted encounter with Brother Micah, he’d gone without for nearly six years. The feeling of abandoning self-control for passion had left him a mere mass of quivering flesh. Casey might’ve supposed Sebastian had rushed from him in shame after their lovemaking. No, his humiliation came with his wetted cheeks. He’d wanted to hide his tears in the privacy of his cell, where he had sobbed himself to sleep.
Now, his own cell stood cold and empty. In the darkness, the statue of the Virgin sat on the wall shelf, gazing out with white eyes. He eyed it a good while, catching the glint from the moon setting beyond the western peaks that cut between the blinds. Was it normal for anyone to experience such simultaneous joy and misery?
Brother George’s rap came. Sebastian rose from bed and dressed for the day as if it were any other. But it wasn’t. A major change had taken place. Nothing at Mt.
Ouray would be the same again. In more ways than one.
He could still smell Casey’s scent rising from under his cowl on the way to Vigils. Would the others detect it too? They might wonder, “Why does he smell like Brother Casey today and not himself?” Sebastian wouldn’t mind if they did.
Inside the chapel, Casey sat next to him the way he had hundreds of times before. Sebastian refrained from making direct eye contact. He watched him from his peripheral vision. Casey kept his head downturned, his eyes concealed by his hood. Sebastian gripped his psalmody all the tighter to resist clutching Casey’s hand while they chanted their ancient prayers.
Sebastian spent his meditation period alone in his cell, staring out the window, where snow blew from barreling gusts off the San Juan Mountains. The sky, however, was a brutal blue. He craved another retreat outdoors, if only for a half hour. If the wind ever settled, he’d slip on the old snowshoes or cross-country skis and go for another hike. Yes, that was the medicine. Fresh air and sunshine. To clear his head. But spring brought two pending threats: either Casey’s leaving or the probable cover-up of JC’s murder. He’d rather live forever imprisoned by winter than face either.
He carried his toiletry bag to the bathroom, eyeballing Casey’s cell along the way. He could not see him there, and his shoulders slumped when he wasn’t in the showers either. He brushed his teeth using slow strokes, waiting, hoping. Even during his shower, Casey failed to show. He was half-glad. Now that they had crossed that physical barrier, how would he keep from grabbing him, right then and there, naked and wet in the shower stalls?
He ate his breakfast at his usual spot by the cloister garden, but Casey did not follow him. He hesitated to finish, knowing what was to come. After a while, he carried his empty tray to the kitchen and rinsed his dishes. He could almost see Casey lying nude beneath him while spending the remainder of the morning replacing burned-out bulbs, giving Brother Giles’s wheelchair a tune-up, and tinkering with the faulty commode.
Before lunch, the father called for the short meeting in the chapter house that Sebastian had dreaded. They assembled around the ornate table gifted to the abbey many years before. Standing before the seated brothers, Father Paolo, absent the tiniest flinch, gave his directive as calculated. The brothers listened. Through the sheen of their eyes Sebastian detected a trace of relief. They, too, wanted to put the ordeal behind them. Who cared if they never learned the truth behind JC’s death? It stood behind them. Already relegated to a story of myths from long ago.
Only two or three brothers visibly cringed when Father Paolo stated that they would toss JC’s body into the forest to appear as if he’d died there, “for the good of the abbey and the Church.” If anyone ever discovered him, there would be no way to trace him to the abbey. “In truth, he had no connection to us here at all,” he said.
Sebastian imagined living with the guilt, the sinister secret for the remainder of his life. The idea reared itself unbearable. He’d at least have Casey to ease the darker days of his torment.
An hour later, the abbey grapevine disclosed that Brother Lucien and Brother Micah had made good the abbot’s orders. During siesta, they’d trekked to the barn, dressed JC in winter gear so it would look like he’d been hiking if anyone were to find him, and pitched his body from the side of a cliff into a tree-loaded gully. Sebastian could smell the incinerator burning the trash bags they had used to mummify JC up until Compline, along with anything else Father Paolo worried might incriminate them.
By Retire, he still had yet to reconcile the abbot’s wishes with his own moral convictions. He sat at his desk with his Bible opened to Job 11, but his attention had drifted, and he wondered how he might leave JC’s murder unsolved—and never set eyes on Casey again if he failed to submit to the abbot’s orders.
Father Paolo held a sword over his head, but Sebastian also poised one over the abbot’s. Father Paolo had assumed Sebastian and Casey would remain at Mt. Ouray for their entire lives. What if either of them chose to leave? What power would the abbot wield over them then?
Sebastian, or any of the other brothers who failed to preserve, could report the events that had transpired inside the abbey to the authorities, and then… and then…. And then what? Face another media maelstrom? Once reporters learned Sebastian’s backstory, wouldn’t they zero in on him and crucify him a second time?
The finality of JC’s death stood as Sebastian’s Via Dolorosa, his Trail of Tears. The Avenue of Suffering.
He laid his face in his cupped hands. Something tickled his chest. He pulled it out from under his tunic. The St. Michael medallion. He held it up to the light, feeling the chain pull on the hairs on the nape of his neck. He inhaled, reading the universal inscription: “Saint Michael, pray for us.” Us? The police, the victims, earthly overlords? Didn’t criminals and tyrants seek God’s prayers too? Seek sanctuary inside God’s house around the globe? He almost chuckled at the theatrical depiction of the angel slaying a dragon.
Sebastian had imagined himself as a fighting force seeking to destroy evil. But the world no longer wanted that. He’d come to Mt. Ouray believing prayer cut mightier than a sword. Now that idea seemed to have fizzled.
On the back of the medal he read: “For Sebastian, Congratulations.” His mother had given it to him as a present upon graduation from the police academy. Almost eleven years to the day. Only after deciding to travel to Mt. Ouray had he taken it off for the first time.
Unprepared to remove it again, he let the medallion fall back under his tunic, the cold chain teasing against his chest, and he flipped ahead to his favorite proverb. A few minutes later, he dragged his finger to the first verse and reread: “The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as lions.”
Perhaps Father Paolo had a point. He should abandon the already botched investigation. But never in all his years investigating homicides had he given up a hunt, regardless of its complexity. Even cold case files fused to his mind.
He pictured him and Casey again, tangled in each other’s arms, submitting to one another. The way they had kissed. So full of longing and need. Yet a haunting question remained fixed in Sebastian’s mind: Could he—or should he—continue a physical relationship with him?
Sebastian had intended to take his vows within the coming year, which would include a pledge of celibacy. With Brother Micah, he had been a postulant, but that had not made his infraction any less severe. Though he had not coveted Brother Micah, he had permitted him to follow through with the act until Sebastian had stood in shock, assuming innocence. Sebastian wanted Casey beyond physical pleasure. He imagined them in a special partnership. Like the one Brother Lucien and Father Paolo enjoyed.
Had he and Casey done anything more wrong than they?
With a deep sigh, he closed his Bible, switched off the desk lamp, and crawled into bed for another fidgety night of sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Two
BROTHER AUGUSTINE sat propped up in bed like an oversized silver Raggedy Andy doll. A string of drool connected his chin to his lap and glistened in the sun rising above the mountains, framed by his window. Brother George must have moved him off the wheelchair after he’d asked Sebastian to fix the squeak. Didn’t take much strength to lift Brother Augustine. Probably weighted less than one hundred pounds, by the look of him.
“Good morning, Brother Augustine,” Sebastian said with a cheerful voice, stepping fully inside the cell with his toolbox weighted at his side. “Brother George says you got a squeaky wheel that’s driving him crazy. I’ll try not to be too long.”
A sudden sense of failure and hopelessness struck him with the glaring sunlight oozing through the grimy window, which needed a good scrubbing. Spring cleaning perched upon them. He forced a smile, tried to garner strength from helping a fellow brother and the warmer days ahead.
Life hadn’t changed much, he realized, as he set his hefty toolbox on the floor and fumbled among the contents. Yes, he and Casey had taken their relationship to a new int
ensity, but other than that, the days inside the abbey moved ahead, one like the other.
He appreciated the jarring clank of the stainless steel tools while he looked for what he needed. Clutching a Phillips screwdriver, he squat-walked to the nearby chair. Seemed to be a lot of wheelchair trouble lately. He’d only fixed the squeak on Brother Giles’s chair two days ago. Soon, he figured with a self-effacing shake of his head as he turned the chair to its side, he’d need to maintain wheelchairs for several of the brothers, including Casey one day, perhaps.
He pulled off the rag he’d wedged under his belt and wiped the part of the chair he wanted to fix. Brother George had said the squeak came from the left wheel, near the axle. He rotated it several times and agreed. Must be a bearing problem.
Grateful for the opportunity to focus on something other than his own worries, Sebastian set to tinkering with the chair. He tightened the nuts and the axle plate and guaranteed it could withstand a few strong tugs of his hand. Brother Augustine seemed to ogle Sebastian while he toiled. His silver eyes stared in his direction, empty and eerie. Almost as if he were a full-scale monk puppet, complete with white cowl and long gray beard.
Sebastian spent fifteen minutes on the chair, and gave one final spin of the wheel to ensure he’d solved the squeaking problem. He checked the rest of the chair, including the front caster wheels and rubber tubes, and gave it a good wipe down. Standing, he brushed his hands on his scapular and smiled at Brother Augustine, who remained fixed in bed.
“All done,” he said.
Brother Augustine made a strange, guttural sound. Had he messed himself again? Sebastian neared him, expecting to wince. The brother, shaking from his Parkinson’s, tried to raise a hand from his lap. Sebastian wiped the drool from his mouth with a tissue from his bed table and sat beside him. “What is it, Brother Augustine?”
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