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Paul knelt on the cold stone floor. His eyes fixated upon the cross of the man who had garish stab wounds on his sides between his ribs. The wind outside rustled and rattled the leaves. Wisteria and jasmine scents waltzed outside. The wooden man's bones seemed to be twisting in his inhuman flesh. Paul's fingers touched the cold, unyielding, painted wood. His stomach convulsed in pangs of dull hunger from his fast of bread and water. It was all sweetness this turmoil of suffering. The voices of his saints surrounded him like wild animals calling in the night. Confiding to Paul secrets about the after life. How devils who had not fallen far from heaven were made to be as white as snow on Sundays. It was the privilege of these devils to sing the morning sun in. Swaying and rocking his body, Paul was captured in the throes of spiritual rapture. His blond head was bent low on his chest as if his neck had been broken. His back rigid and straight.
He felt a pair of warm lips kissing the sweaty moistness of his bent neck.
"Jamie," Paul whispered, both frightened, dizzy, and desirous to be kissed again. To experience the carnality of such a kiss along with the spiritual ravishing of his soul
Jamie's burnished brown hair brushed against his. His poignant lips pressed against the flesh of his neck then formed into another breathless kiss.
"Paul," Jamie whispered huskily, "Should I stop?"
"Please," Paul said, all most a faint. The hunger to be held, the curiosity of it all, banished from Paul's mind all other hungers.
Gently, Jamie took hold of each button one at a time till finally he parted Paul's shirt to reveal Paul's slender chest. Paul smelled of unwashed flesh, Jamie could taste Paul's scent before he even licked at the pinkness of his small nipple. Slowly, Jamie pulled down Paul's britches.
"I can't, I can't," Paul whispered his teeth chattering. Through it was hot Paul's exposed thighs and cock felt cold. He shivered under the moist hands touching and caressing his erection. All the saints' voices went still.
Jamie pulled back the foreskin, stroking it up and down against the head of Paul's cock which was already tearing with pre cum. Jamie slid it into his mouth.
"Don't," Paul whispered, meaning it this time. Pulling himself away, Paul tried to leave, instead Paul fell on top of Jamie, kissing Jamie's rose leaf red lips. Paul savored the feel of Jamie's tongue inside of him. Sliding his naked skin against Jamie's home spun cheap clothing, Paul helped Jamie to undress till Jamie was equally naked. The two boys rocked against each other. Each as virgin as the other. Jamie was considered to be bad luck, a bad omen by the other slaves. He had very few friends, none of them lovers.
Gasping at the feel of Jamie's inexperienced hands, running up and down his spine, playing and cupping the curves of his ass, Paul shuddered against him ejaculating on Jamie's brown thigh.
"I can't love you. I cannot love any man," Paul whispered in shame.
"You can't?" Jamie asked, his eye lids hiding the sorrow in his eyes.
"Kneel with me," Paul begged, "Kneel with me at the altar and take my hand."
"Father," Paul said solemnly to the crucifix as they knelt together, "I love you and only you, I have not loved another man. As you marked the race of Cain for the murder of his brother Abel, you marked such men to be inferior. I didn't sin against you," Paul said humbly, "You sent my servant to console me."
"What consoling did you need? You seem perfectly happy to me," Jamie said angrily, standing up.
"Non," Paul said, reaching for Jamie's hand, "Oui, I am happy in all ways spiritual. Dead to the physical. Perhaps this is God's reproach to me. Everything happens for a reason," he said solemnly to Jamie, "You are an innocent. Your soul and mind, the condition of it, cannot take in the significance of the act we committed together. In this you are a child and only capable of wrongful acts while as for me."
"This is in act of sin for you," Jamie said, believing it, "Is this the only way your magic can work for you. To be cloistered? For you to punish yourself by depriving yourself of food, sleep, and companionship? Is that why you are a being of magic?"
"My religion is not a thing of magic," Paul said tempering his annoyance, "My religion is not directed to spirits but to the flesh and the soul. The bread and wine, the corporal and spiritual You make me sound as if I am some kind of witch. Witches have power. I have no power. My God doesn't serve me like a witch's god does. I serve Him. Listen to me Jamie, when I was five years old I had a visitation from an angel, he read to me of Saint Frances' deeds, his ministry. The angel told me he believed in me, dear Jamie I'm here a hermit waiting for my destiny to reveal it self."
"I should leave you to your angel then," Jamie said, dropping Paul's hand.
"Non, please visit with me. Tomorrow night. My body has been mortified by yours. Let me prove each and every night with you my devotion to another. By my refusing the temptation you bring with you is but another thorn I will bear for love."
Jamie left Paul to his nest of an eagle's berth where no sinner could ever hope to leap off of to fly into Paul's spiritual world.
Once alone Paul cried, taking a small riding crop to his body, he raised his arm, slashing his chest till bits and pieces of flesh split open and the red stripes bled. Paul could no longer raise his whip because of shamed exhaustion. "I love you," he whispered to the cold wooden man, knowing Christ's wounds had been harsher than his.
With sensitive hands Paul touched the blood on his body, licking the moisture from his hands, imagining himself to be in a chalice. His blood ready for any clean soul's consumption.
Every night here after Jamie would come to Paul. Loneliness, love, and wonder driving Paul to come and hear his words, and bear witness to Paul's worshipping silences when Paul was listening to his voices.
And every night his hands would strip the God's slave. For Jamie deduced from Paul's bloody infected wounds God must come nightly into the room after he left to whip his servant. Slave to slave he adored Paul showing his adoration with his soothing touch. Taking a sponge warm with water Jamie cleaned Paul's crusted wounds.
"Why does your God hurt you so?" Jamie asked one night.
"Because He loves me," Paul said, "He does it to discipline me. That is why bad things happen to good people Jamie, to make them strong." Wearily, Paul fell into Jamie's arm, cuddling with him.
"I love you," Paul whispered, "Non, not you, but your sympathy."
"You once sympathized with me when I was a child, and I had welts on my back. Was that why your father beat me? To make me strong?" Jamie asked as he swabbed the sponge against Paul's slender flesh. Paul's skin was encroaching too closely into the hollow spaces of his bones
Jamie dared not tell Paul anything of how he really felt. About his desire for freedom. It would be misconstrued as a betrayal. And it was. Every night Jamie said Louis' words to Paul imploring him he should go outside, he should be a help to his brother Louis, advising Paul to eat more and pray less. These words only made Paul cringe in rebellious guilt. Finally, Jamie stopped all together repeating the words Louis told him to say to Paul.
Jamie didn't understand the white man's religion other than knowing for a fact Paul had angel wings pressed tightly beneath the skin of his back, wings ready to burst forth wide open to fly out into the sky with.
He had his own mysteries. Voodoo ones. Jamie's acts of service to his Gods were done through free will kindly done acts to other slaves. How can an act to a master, even a freely given act of sympathy be considered an act of devout serve to Legbra, the god who joined the seen world and the unseen world together? Or to any other God? Ague, the sea god, Ogoun of fire and war, Erzulie of love. His love for Paul he knew was not considered to be pure by his Gods because his love had its roots in slavery, the control of his will, and his lack of freedom to choose.
What would I do if I were free? Jamie thought while Paul laid in his arms. Paul's voice fell into religious whispers, rising to joyous, fervid shouts. Paul was talking in tongues. The supernatural talking through him. Paul didn't make any sense, his words were gibberish. What if I were free never to be your servant? Jamie thought.
Drawing his hand across Paul's chest, his mouth mingled with Paul's, taking the earthen dusty flavor of Paul's lips made dry from thirst. Jamie made Paul's lips moist. Jamie stripped himself of his clothes and helped Paul to disrobe. The ritual of their prayer begun.
Licking the calves of the saint's legs, Jamie found delight and solace in the salty masculine hardness of Paul's cock, delighting his mouth with the feel of it. Enjoying the sense of power over a weak youth who could order him to be killed. The taste of Paul's flesh which he could not bite with his teeth, any more than he could bite a communion wafer. Jamie could only allow Paul's hard flesh to be in his mouth, till it gushed forth with Paul's bodily wine, then dissolved into softness.
Paul quivered under the suck and torment of Jamie's tongue licking at his wounds. Letting Jamie take again his hardened organ in his mouth. His nipples were stiff under Jamie's fingers.
I love you, I love you," Jamie whispered.
Jamie's hand ran along Paul's cock, pulling, yanking the skin, the friction making, compelling, Paul to raise and rock his hips against him. To press his balls to the the hairiness of his. Jamie fingered Paul's ass, caressing it, then piercing it with his forefinger. Paul shivered against him tears in his eyes.
"Should I stop?" Jamie whispered, "Does this hurt? Tell me what to do."
"Non," Paul whispered back, crossing his legs around Jamie's bare back pressing him closer to him. He gave out a little whimpering cry, the pressure inside of him from Jamie's finger blossomed into a orgasm. He cried out again and again in Jamie's arms.
Paul wouldn't touch Jamie back. Wouldn't kiss Jamie, wouldn't look at at him, while Jamie made love to him. Jamie had to bring himself to an orgasm. This he did without resentment.
The the talk would begin. Paul told him what his voices had said, and that he was praying for the end of the world where God's chosen would be liberated from their sins.
"There would be no masters only servants on the world," Paul said, his words catching in his throat.
"Will I be there with you?" Jamie whispered, his breath caressing Paul's face.
"You are my servant now, but some day you will desert me to belong to Him. Hand in hand we will belong to no one but Him."
Equals at last, Jamie thought longingly. Then in your heaven you will be able to touch me with your hands, and perhaps even kiss me.
He knew Paul had to be a sorcerer. A better man than other men. No man devoted himself so wholly to magic and spirits. He didn't care what Paul said, the angels and the loas which drifted between the spirit world and material world were the same. Paul's saints and his angel were the loas. And his acts, their sexual acts on the floor were expressions of God. They only hurt themselves. He prayed to Erzulie sprit of love to soften Paul's God's heart towards him, for Paul's God to allow Paul to open his eyes up and to see him fully as a human being, and not a half man half beast.
After the love making sometimes Jamie was able to coax Paul to sit outside with him. Paul wouldn't go far from his sanctuary. Paul would sit on a stone bench,; Jamie on the ground. Both would look out into the garden, telling each other stories they knew about witches, and zombies, and imps. Paul timidly said one evening, "I don't like it out here."
"Why?' Jamie asked.
"Because I want you to sit up here with me on the bench," Paul said wistfully, "Or I would like to sit down there on the ground with you."
"We can't," Jamie said, "if we were caught, Paul."
"Go inside the oratory with me, please, where no one will be watching us, it's late," Paul shivered, "Please Jamie, it scares me. I'm a coward. We don't belong outside. This is no place for us. We belong inside where it is safe. I want to sit beside you. It's our only place to be together," Paul said humbly, despising himself a little, but knowing he was right.
Nightly after Jamie left, Paul lit a small fire, his hands trembling. Putting a stick to the flame he waited till it glowed. Pressing the white heat of the stick to his chest right above his left nipple Paul grimaced in pain. Repeating the ritual three times.
Taking up his whip, Paul flogged at his already burnt flesh. Wanting to dismiss what he didn't want to acknowledge to himself. That the all too real world of his father and mother was wrong, and it was getting harder and harder to accept the social mores he had to live under. Only through taking on pain did Paul feel he could make the world a kinder place, take the world's sins on himself, till the world someday would be less filled with hate and it had room for love in it. His hand dropped the whip, falling to the daisy Jamie had in all shyness brought him. The freshness of the flower pressed against Paul's face. It smelled so simple and pure, bringing fresher tears to Paul's eyes.
Every night, green eyes watched Jamie go to Paul, knowing eyes who were wrong in thinking they knew everything possible about the two.
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