Chapter 8
8
T he abbey smelled as I remembered it: altar candles, amber, frankincense, the aged books, and the sweet summer air of Italy. A cloying and inescapable mix. I used to think I was breathing in God with every breath.
It happened like this: Dantalion spoke in some infernal language I could never hope to understand, and when I next opened my eyes, I was standing in the nude in one of the abbey’s many halls.
To return was jarring. I’d been deposited in a thankfully empty hallway. The windows to my right, a simple paned glass, showed me it was night time—a swathe of black shadow hid everything. I could see nothing much inside, either: no candles were lit in the wall sconces this evening. It was past the time that many priests entered their silent hours, where they wouldn’t speak again until morn.
I didn’t know what I was doing, but I felt anxious. Not frightened, but certainly surprised at myself for going through with this. In a way, it all felt like a dream—the consequences I would face would always end in my inevitable return to Hell. But I would still have to face the look of disgust on my brethren’s faces.
When I oriented myself, I decided first to visit Oliviero’s room. This involved feeling along the walls and letting my eyes adjust, though I found I had much better sight in the dark than I had when I was alive. When I found his door, I rapped my knuckles softly against the wood and waited tensely to be admitted.
My knocking was not answered.
Reluctantly, I pulled away from the door and began to walk towards the main chapel. My feet touched the cold stone. Breathing felt difficult, like I hadn’t truly done it in months.
How long had I been gone?
Unabashed at my nakedness, I continued toward the chapel. I turned corners, and slowly but surely, more light began to filter in as dozens of candles had been lit and seemed to guide me onwards.
It took little for me to recognise this layout. I had been wrong in my initial assessment: the silence was not because many monks and priests were in silent hours but because all of them were attending a vigil.
“Quod autem vobis dico omnibus dico vigilate.” Secundum S. Marcum
“What I say to you, I say to all: keep watch.” Gospel according to St. Mark
Vigils—a period of watchfulness, a night spent in prayer, community, and reflection. I pressed my body to the cold stone wall and peered around the bend, where the doors to the chapel were shut. Candles dotted the floor and cast a sunset glow over the double doors. From within, I could hear the murmurings of communal prayer; the voice of a single man and the occasional answer from his gathered flock.
I understood what Dantalion meant by torture. This was not as simple as a confession to one man. This was humiliation drawn out. All of them would know me for what I was. All of them.
A swarm of negative emotions swamped me, and I threw myself back against the stone, pressing close and breathing as slowly as I could manage. My breathing came shallowly, and I pressed my hands against my ribs, feeling the flare of the bone as it dug into my palm.
I closed my eyes. All I had to do was turn the corner and wrench open the doors. I would find Oliviero and confess my desires, and he would shun me, as they all would. I would at least be free of the shackles of my shame: I would be true to my nature.
In my head, I heard the rumbling of Lord Asmodeus’ voice.
My little lamb of a priest. Know that I am here with you, always. What do you fear from their judgement?
I opened my eyes, and my breathing slowed. “I fear the judgement itself, not the effect. God cannot touch me now. But my shame can. It has its hand around my throat.”
Replace that hand with mine. Let me squeeze the life from your shame. Prove to me you know yourself and show these priests what kind of man they worshipped with for decades.
I took a deep, centring breath and propelled myself around the corridor, barrelling toward the closed doors with ferocity. Against the wood, I splayed both my hands and felt nothing from the wood: no force of magic, none of God’s presence, nothing but the threat of a splinter against my fingers.
I pushed.
The doors gave way with a deep whine. They opened onto a stage of candles and holy light. I saw at the altar at the end of the aisle and before it the abbot, head bowed, murmuring a prayer. The pews were filled with novices, monks, and ordained priests joining him. My arrival sparked no interest—I could have been a priest late to the vigil; they did not even glance up—and so I closed the doors and slunk to the side behind one of the pillars to spy upon my cohort a little longer.
The doors opened again suddenly, and in filed two novices carrying a large vessel between them. Towels of cream linen were draped over their shoulders.
As they moved up the aisle, the abbot stood to greet them. It was then I saw he was—new.
Not the abbot who had served when I was here, though, without a doubt, I had visited this chapel many times. Again, the fear rose in me that I had been out of time and that the Earth had continued to spin without my presence. How long had it been?
Who was that man?
“Thank you, brothers,” he said, voice as sweet as the scent of a rose. The two novices deposited the vessel in front of him, heads bowed in reverence. “You may sit.” They dashed into the pews without another word, and my gaze fell on the vessel.
It was made of a lightly beaten bronze, and I recognised it as something used in a certain ritual: the Mandatum, a central part in the Holy Thursday celebration.
Jesus had washed the feet of his disciples. The abbot was about to do the same.
Around me, my brothers began to sing the Ubi Caritas :
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.
Exsultemus, et in ipso jucundemur.
Where charity and love are, God is there.
Love of Christ has gathered us into one.
Let us rejoice in Him and be glad.
I watched as one from the crowd shifted. He wore not the usual clerical cassock but a much simpler garb. His feet were bare. He approached the altar and bowed to it first before he nodded to the abbot, who let him approach.
And the abbot went down onto his knees.
When the abbot looked up, hair shifting from his face and candlelight finally making his appearance known, I gasped.
I recognised him. Beautiful blond curls, grown in a soft crown around his head. Those kind eyes, those sweet lips.
It was Oliviero! Only, older .
How long had I been gone?
I watched with rapt attention as Oliviero reached out and cupped the proffered foot of the priest. He took one of the linen towels, dipped it in the water, and brought it against the man’s foot.
The holy sound of singing did nothing to dampen the eroticism of the moment. Even in supplication, or perhaps especially in supplication, Oliviero looked divine and beautiful. My stomach lurched watching him drag the wet cloth up and down the man’s leg. I watched the priest as he tensed his calf, as the hair around his ankle became sodden, as he was forced to lean on Oliviero’s shoulder for balance. I stayed watching for nearly an hour as man after man stood and offered his foot, and Oliviero took them with kindness and washed them the way Jesus washed the feet of his disciples the day before his death. And guilt rose in me, because I could look upon this and understand its significance for the men gathered here, but I could tell I was not among them in any proper way. My nature was not this: I could never have participated in this innocently. I never had. Even when the abbot washed my feet and made me shiver with fear, I would watch the way my brothers peeled away their robs from their calves. I focused on the curl of dark hair against warm skin; I thought about my mouth as the cloth, just as wet and just as thorough as it kissed those men’s feet.
When there was no further movement from the seated brothers, I took what little courage I had and made myself step out from hiding. I walked down the aisle, eyes fixed on Oliviero. As I moved, murmurs rose around me. My naked form had caused a stir. And some of my brothers must still be here, for I heard:
“Alessandro?”
“Is that Don Alessandro?”
“O, our Lord God!”
I ignored them all. My eyes were fixed on Oliviero, head down in quiet prayer. When the aisle carpet ended, the sound of my bare feet slapped against the stone, and he was pulled from his contemplation by that and the sound of his congregation.
He recognised me instantly. I saw it in his eyes, a flare of surprise and hope and fear. His mouth parted softly. I saw him as the boy he had been, the beautiful young man so full of innocence. His hands, which were clasped in front of his face, let go of one another and gripped the air as he stumbled to his feet. He reached for both my hands.
“Alessandro?”
I didn’t reply right away. His recognition of me sent the gathered priests into tense silence. The creaking of pews filled the chapel as bodies shifted, leaning forward with intense interest.
Oliviero clasped my hands. He stood half bent, as if contemplating genuflection. “I never believed—the accusations. Has God returned you to us? Does He wish us to know the truth? Forgive us, we?—”
“Oliviero,” I whispered, “How long has it been?”
“Ten years,” he said without question. “I am nearly the age you were when you left us.” His gaze went past me to where some of the brethren had risen from their places. A few were on their knees in more fervent prayer. “This is no vision? You can see him too?”
I cupped Oliviero’s face and returned his attention to me. “I must speak with you.”
“Of course. Of course —but I—the bishop must know. This is—a holy miracle! I?—”
“It is not,” I said.
I watched Oliviero’s face fall. I had to be truthful with him in order to be truthful to myself. Still touching Oliviero’s face, I turned to my gathered brethren, many of which I recognised and many I did not. I told them, “I must tell you what has happened to me and how it came about. I must do this for my own conscience, and for my future.”
And, of course, they all agreed. That was how faith worked.
Before I spoke, I asked Oliviero to divulge what had happened to my body.
He shook his head. “We never managed to clear the entrance to the cave,” he said, quite solemnly. “Both you and Bishop Fazio could not have your bodies buried properly. There were rumours. Accusations of foul play. But please know, we did everything we could, and we prayed for your immortal soul.”
Prayers that went to waste.
It was as Dantalion had suggested. They knew nothing. It was a particular torture, knowing I would be solely responsible for destroying the image they had of me.
“We must tell the bishop!” someone called from the crowd.
“Find him a cassock. Food—we must?—”
They meant well. They were still fuelled by a peculiar kind of innocence I had never possessed.
I looked Oliviero in the eye, passed my thumb across his lip, and said, “I was in Hell.”
I said it just quietly enough for Oliviero to hear. I expected—outrage. Some cry of panic. Instead, he looked me in the eye, pursed his lips, and went down onto his knees.
He was so close to me that his breath warmed all parts of my body on the way down. My hands fell away from his face, and I watched him curiously as he took his damp cloth and began to clean my feet. It was as if he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—believe what I had said.
“God returned you to us,” he whispered, conspiratorial; he didn’t want the others to hear.
“A demon returned me,” I said—louder. The novices in the front row bristled. I watched one rise from his seat in a panic.
“Alessandro,” Oliviero chided. Still, he washed, eyes downcast. Age had not made him any less beautiful.
“Kiss my foot,” I whispered.
He froze. The praying had stopped, and so too had the cries for my return. The only sound in the abbey was the faint flutter of flame and of men breathing. In and out. In and out. Oliviero finally began to look up through his long lashes. A flush had bloomed upon his cheeks.
I do not know why he obeyed me, but ever so slowly, Oliviero leaned down without breaking eye contact and pressed his lips to my raised foot. His grip tightened around my ankle. I wobbled, forced to clutch his shoulder for support. The movement of my groin caught his eye, just briefly.
“Did you not hear me?” I asked him.
“I heard you.”
“Then?”
“Why would God have sent you to Hell? You were kind, Alessandro. You were a good man. You stand before me now—a good man.”
Guilt swarmed me. It hurt to destroy this image, but I needed him to know the truth.
I wanted him to know whose foot he had just kissed.
I pressed forward with my foot, grazing his freshly shaven chin. His mouth opened in surprise. I could have pressed my foot inside his mouth if I had wished, made him suck, defiled both him and this ritual all at once.
“I sent myself there,” I told him. “I whored myself to a demon. I made a covenant. Oliviero, can’t you see? I want to free you all from your shame, a chain whose cuffs bite your skin for all your lives. You can be free of them.”
The chapel’s blissful quiet shattered. “ Blasphemy!” someone called at the back.
“The bishop! We need to ? —”
“No demon may enter this holy place!”
“It is not Alessandro! A demon wears his ? —”
And throughout all the chaos, Oliviero still gripped my foot.
He looked up into my eyes and didn’t pull away even as the commotion increased. The doors were thrown open, and some of the novices and priests fled. It could have been deathly silent or an orchestra of screams, and I would have heard nothing but the uneven breathing of the beautiful man before me.
He surprised me by speaking first. A furrow in his brow, something in his eye. Fear had gripped his heart, but the way he clutched to me suggested he did not find me terrible.
Lowly, he said, “I dreamt of you, once. I dreamt you had me on my knees.”
In my memory, I had said, “Open,” and he had obeyed. In this second chance, I reached out, and he moved forward so slowly that I doubted he was even conscious of his movement.
Tears pricked in Oliviero’s eyes. “I desired you carnally. You defiled my mouth.”
“You wanted it,” I whispered, a low growl forming in my throat. “You begged for it.”
Oliviero’s eyebrows crashed together, and I thought: Had that been a dream? I thought it had been a fantasy of my own design. But what if I had slipped into Oliviero’s filthy concoction?
What if he really was like me?
Suddenly, Oliviero stood. Blood had made his cheeks a vibrant red, but he managed to appear calm. He clapped his hands together, and the sound echoed throughout the chapel, calming the storm of panicked voices instantly.
“Calm, brethren,” he said. “I can deal with this. This demon has not come for any of you; it is a test for me. Don Alessandro was my fear friend and mentor. Calmly exit the chapel and close the doors. Go into private prayer—pray for the rest of the night! Whatever sounds you hear, do not open the doors to this chapel until I emerge. I will contact the bishop in the morning when I am victorious. Go, now. Quickly!”
His words encouraged a few pleas for his safety, but all of them fled. If everyone thought me a demon, so be it: I had told them all my true nature.
In the end, it had always been Oliviero who I wanted to know me.
It had always been Oliviero I had desired to corrupt.
When the doors finally closed, I watched him carefully. He stayed staring at those doors with his hands clasped. I could hear his breathing and smell the sweat that had started forming on his body. He glanced over his shoulder at me with a sudden gasp as if surprised I was still there.
“How,” I whispered, “do you intend to deal with me?”
He said nothing. Fear had made him suddenly small. Oliviero squeezed his hands together, pressed his lips into a thin line, and regarded me with unbridled terror—and something else. Something more.
I moved behind him. He let me approach, stiffened only slightly when I wrapped my arms around his torso. I could only feel him slightly beneath the layers of the cassock. For a moment, I just held him.
I had loved Oliviero, hadn’t I?
I held him for so long that I barely registered my own tears streaming down onto his neck.
“Alessandro?”
“I—missed you,” I whispered.
He spun around, tearing out of my grasp and clutching my face. He made me look at him and crashed our foreheads together.
“Do not cry. Whatever you say—I remember you. I remember who you were. And to me, even if my youth frustrated you or my innocence irked you, you looked upon me with a kindness.”
“I looked upon you with a lust,” I said. “I’m sorry, and yet, I am not sorry. You are beautiful. You are still so beautiful. I’ve always wanted. . .”
He pulled me close into an embrace and shushed me. His body shook. He smelled of life and incense. I breathed in the scent caught in the divot of his neck. My hands roamed over the thick robe, ghosting over his groin, where I felt only the faintest outline of a bulge, my fingertips trailing over his upper thigh.
Now, it was my breath warming his skin, the only exposed patch of it rising above the white collar of his priestly cassock, and I felt alive again.
Perhaps I hadn’t realised until that moment how badly I had wanted this. I had given in to some of my nature and not all of it: I wanted to take, I wanted to be used. I wanted affection. I wanted to meet another man in the same field of cautious yet overpowering attraction. Oliviero’s breaths came in hot and fast.
“I cannot—” he murmured. “I serve God.”
“God serves only Himself,” I said. “You are my own age, now. I know that you feel it. The disappointment. The dying hope of being His chosen. You are becoming jaded, Oliviero—you know as well as I did that you have spent your life in service to an institution that does not value you, worshipping a God who either does not care that you exist or is so wholly cruel with his creations that He does not deserve our praise.”
“Bl—blasphemy. . .”
“Oh, yes.” I licked his ear, sucking on his lobe, dragging my tongue down his neck. “As blasphemous as one can get.”
I pulled away from him to see his face, which was as red as the blood of Christ. I reached out, and he took my hand cautiously, letting me guide him up towards the altar.
We stared at it for a while. He turned to me, eyes wide.
“Why have you come?”
I took my time to answer. “I thought I had come to be rid of my shame,” I began. I reached out for his hand. He squeezed it. I thought of Paul in that town, and Romans 10. Of brethren loving each other in a different way to how I loved men. I made sure to meet his eyes when I told Oliviero the truth.
“I have lusted for you since you arrived at the abbey. I fantasised about you often. Perhaps more than that. Perhaps I. . .I believe I began to care for you. I wanted to corrupt you, and I wanted to love you the way men love women. That is my sin. That is what I gave up God for: Love of men.”
Is it such a great sin? I wanted to ask him, but I fought the urge to scrounge around for his approval. Then I cupped his face and gently brought our lips together.
He gasped, breath-stopping as our lips touched. His eyes stayed open, staring into my very soul. He pulled away first, saying, “Like Judas.”
And maybe it was like Judas; a kiss to betray the Lord God.