CHAPTER TWO
DESECRATION
“These hieroglyphics and paintings depict Osiris and Anubis. Many scholars consider Anubis to have been the son of Osiris and responsible for seeing souls safely on their journey to the afterlife, where they would travel through the various layers of the underworld, also known as the Duat.”
The professor pointed left and right to the art painted along the stone face of the narrow corridor as the group ambled in the rough semblance of a straight line into the structure. Warm light from a single rope light tacked along the ceiling bathed everything in shades of amber and gold.
“The departed would then face all manner of trials and terrible creatures before finally arriving, if they survived, to the Temple of Osiris at the heart of the underworld city. There, Anubis would preside over the measuring of their hearts and, ultimately, decide their fate—paradise or abyss.”
At some point, Mina began to tune out the professor's droning, lost in the beautiful artwork and intricate scenes.
At first, he admired the striking blues, reds, and golds, amazed at how vivid the colors were even after thousands of years.
But soon, as they always seemed to do, his eyes wandered, lured by the chiseled bodies of the men in their skirt-like garments and lavish jewelry.
If there had been any doubt before entering the temple that Mina had let his mind wander too far, there was certainly none now.
His imagination ran wild, and his erotic excitement refused to subside.
He looked down, uselessly adjusting himself, turning his attention to his shoes to distract himself as they navigated the tunnels on autopilot, carefully avoiding the cracks and breaks in the rock.
“Do you make it a point to always be the lone man out?”
Devon’s voice behind him made him jump and almost trip over a rough break in the dimly lit path. Mina shoved his hands in his pockets to hide the situation still going on in his pants as Devon bounced up beside him.
“No, Devon, I’m just short. I don’t walk as fast.”
Mina felt the other boy’s eyes wander over him as if taking in his diminutive frame for the first time.
“So.” Devon cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I’m looking at the art.”
Devon snorted. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Ok, what do you mean?”
“I mean here. On this trip. At seminary.”
Mina’s stomach twisted. They’ll know you don’t belong.
“You haven’t been to a chapel service in weeks, even though it’s a class requirement.
And as for…” Devon trailed off. “Look, I don’t believe every rumor that comes around.
But just so you know, some people do. And some people aren’t afraid to make their suspicions known.
So just…” Devon trailed off again, looking away, his face blooming noticeably red, even in the dim light.
“Just be careful.” He cleared his throat again.
“And please keep up,” he said, resuming his long-legged pace.
“Professor Cornelius asked me to make sure no one gets turned around and lost.”
“Yes, sir,” Mina whispered, scrunching his nose and jutting his tongue between his teeth as Devon picked up his pace to catch up with the others.
So what if everyone guessed Mina was attracted to guys?
He’d never actually done anything about it.
So no one could prove anything. All Mina really needed to worry about was passing his classes and graduating.
And hopefully, somewhere along the way, God would start to change him.
Or at least start to answer his prayers so he didn’t feel so goddam alone all the time.
Mina shook his head, mentally chastising himself for the swear.
Despite (or possibly because of) Devon’s warning, Mina trailed even farther behind. He could just barely decipher the waning echoes of Dr. Cornelius’s inane lecture as the group pulled ahead.
“The ancient Egyptians had rejected the truth of the Hebrew God in favor of their own polytheistic, heathen idolatry. In fact, as the…”
Heat rose up in Mina’s cheeks. The irony and hypocrisy and audacity of this man coming to this place and belittling an entire culture of people for their belief in their gods when he literally handed out doctoral diplomas to students after teaching them the hermeneutics and exegesis of passages depicting magical talking serpents and animals walking two by two into a big boat.
Mina slowed his pace even more, kicking a loose piece of limestone and letting the group disappear into the dark distance, leaving behind a deep, almost thrumming quiet.
The kind of quiet you can’t find almost anywhere else.
No voices, cars, nothing electric or motorized. Just the deep, cold silence of stones.
Now that he was alone, Mina allowed his eyes to break their concentration on the cracks in the floor and drift back toward the art that lined the walls. Chiseled bodies adorned in beautiful shades of emerald and lapis and gold.
As he reached a fork in the path, Mina stopped, unsure which way to go.
He inspected the path to the left. It was wider, and the limestone dust on the ground seemed to have been recently disturbed.
Whereas the path on the right was smaller, more dimly lit, and covered in a soft carpet of dust and tiny fragments of rock.
But just as Mina was about to turn left, an illustration on the wall to his right caught his eye.
A huge form, bigger than any he’d come across yet, loomed over the other figures that surrounded it.
Skin dark as a starless night. A thickly muscled figure with the head of a jackal.
Fingers that stretched long and pointed and feet that haunched, angled and canine.
While most Egyptian depictions of the male form tended to be simple, special attention had been paid to this illustration to emphasize the size and power of this god.
Anubis. Son of Osiris and shepherd of souls to the underworld.
In the scene before him, the god stood before a set of giant scales—one side holding a feather and the other holding the heart of a man, weighing it to determine how the man would spend his afterlife.
Paradise or abyss. Visions of lakes of fire from the passages he studied in church since he was a child filled Mina’s mind.
The eternal damnation that he’d been taught to fear since he first learned that one day he would die.
Mina shook his head to jostle the thought loose and instead took in the hulking form of the jackal god, a different kind of chill rippling across his skin.
He wet his lips and let his eyes linger on the wide chest that tapered down to a slim waist and sharp V lines ending in a black, skirt-like covering.
Peering down the narrow fork that veered right, Mina saw more depictions of the dark god continuing down the passage. Something bloomed in his belly.
A blackhole.
A hungry, needful thing.
A warm draft brushed his face and nudged a thick, blond ringlet across his forehead. In the air, a scent of clove and wood smoke made him feel heady, and his eyes fluttered.
Without knowing why or that he’d even decided to do so, Mina turned right.
Scene after scene along the darkening corridor depicted Anubis in various aspects of his duties.
Weighing the hearts of men. Casting them into the abyss or ushering them safely to the underworld.
In one, he seemed to be showing a group of mortal men, half his size, the art of mummification.
In the next, a man knelt before him, prostrate, head and hands flat on the ground in total supplication.
Memories of growing up in his father’s congregation flashed through his mind.
Rows and rows of sheep following one another, hands in the air and heads dipped low in painful piety, eyes squeezed shut to hold in the faintly conjured wisps of Holy Ghost. Mina watched it all like an unrehearsed circus performance.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to worship, but the mechanics of it felt so strange and foreign.
Like a language he’d never learned. And the couple times he had closed his eyes and sang or prayed aloud or raised his hands with the others, his cheeks had caught fire, and he quickly stuffed his hands back into his pockets.
Like God could see his doubt and might send down a holy fire to ignite only him.
And yet…
There was something different in these depictions.
In every scene, Anubis had a hand on the men before him.
On their shoulder. On their face. Anubis the helper.
The guide. The god that Mina studied and sometimes pretended to worship had never reached out for him like that.
He’d never heard an answered prayer or gotten any sign when asking for help or comfort in his darkest moments.
Never felt anything. Mina wondered what it would be like to experience a higher power that reached out to touch him.
As the scenes continued, the figures of Anubis grew larger and more numerous.
Men bowing before the powerful deity, arms spread, faces low, the giant god looming above them with blazing eyes and huge muscles.
But always a gentle hand. Mina wondered what it would be like to be in the presence of such power.
To feel that hand on the back of his head.
The stiffness in his pants began to return.
Mina wondered if gods felt sexual desire.
And if so, did they fulfill that desire with fellow gods?
With mortals? Certainly not with mortals.
The size difference alone would be enough to send a mortal to the afterlife. Mina throbbed at the thought.
“Jesus,” he said again, and grabbed at the silver cross around his neck, a half-hearted gift from his father upon learning Mina would be entering the seminary. He tucked the silver chain into his shirt with one hand, and with the other, he reached into his pants.