“Why would she worry? Were you not a good boy growing up?”
“I think she’s just very sensitive.” Adam gave a short laugh. “She doesn’t want me to be here, because she and dad had some poisonous mushrooms while on vacation in these mountains, and now she believes the devil resides here.”
Emil bit back a grin. “Maybe she just met me.”
Adam kept his laughter low. “You think she’d be afraid of a cute little boy?”
“You think I’m cute?”
“All children are cute,” Adam said but didn’t chastise Emil or try to change the topic.
“Is that really something a priest should say in today’s political climate?” Emil snorted when Adam’s eyes widened in panic.
“That’s not what I meant. Obviously,” Adam said, making the most adorably flustered expression.
Emil didn’t even care that he’d leave the church with an imprint of the criss-crossed lattice on the cheek. The shadows and silence created a sense of intimacy he wasn’t willing to let go of. “You never know what sins people have committed, Father. Me for example,” he sighed theatrically, “stone cold sinner.”
“Do you think this comes as a surprise?” Adam asked with a snort and rolled his face over the wood, their skin so close Emil could sense Adam’s citrusy aftershave.
“I haven’t yet said what sins I’ve committed, and you already judge me?”
“If this is to be a confession, let’s do it right. When’s the last time you’ve done this?” Adam asked softly.
Emil swallowed, both taken aback and drawn in by the lasso Adam had tightened around his heart. “At my confirmation. With Father Marek actually. I was so embarrassed.”
“It’s been a while, then. What sins do you remember committing since? Start with the most pressing ones,” Adam said, resting his ear against the grate, as if he wanted to drink up each of Emil’s words.
Emil smirked to himself at all the delicious sins he remembered. There should be no devil in a church, yet one was definitely whispering into his ear and enticing him into mischief. He craved to get under Adam’s skin just to see what could happen and the confessional setting was the perfect opportunity.
“Last month, I had a man over at my house. The things we did, Father… Endless sins. His fault really, he was such juicy temptation that after we showered, I just had to eat his freckled ass.”
“So you’ve had sex with a man,” Adam said, glancing at Emil with innocent eyes. He had no idea what kind of activity Emil just described, did he?
“I left kisses all over his naked body first, and when he was ready, I pulled his buttocks apart and kissed him there too. You would have had to see him, Father. He squirmed and moaned as I drilled my tongue into him. He spread his legs wide and asked for my cock inside his tight ass.”
Adam’s breath got louder and faster, but he remained silent, ear and cheek pressed to the divider and so ripe Emil wanted to push his tongue through the small openings in the wood and lick the sweaty flesh.
“I wouldn’t give it to him, though.” Emil smiled at the memory he’d embellished for Adam’s pleasure. “I made him suck my dick first. Had him take it all the way into his throat, and he loved it. But when I wanted more, I pushed his damp face into the pillow and went balls-deep into his ass. He squealed, and writhed, and loved it even more when I rode him.”
Adam gave a raspy exhale. “There’s no need for such details. Anything else?”
“But how will you know what penance to give me if I don’t confess what precisely happened?” Emil asked innocently, hoping that the cassock was tenting already, but he couldn’t see Adam’s body in the dark. If he were sure he didn’t end up rejected, he would have entered Adam’s side of the confessional, crawled under the lush folds of black fabric, and given him the greatest head. “Another sin is that I didn’t come inside him, but drizzled my spunk all over his buttocks. I know that’s a sin for a married couple, but what about us gays?”
Adam pulled back, facing Emil through the lattice, and while shadows made his face hard to read, there was no denying the tension in his body. “This is a sacrament. You need to honestly regret the sins you’re confessing—”
Emil cocked his head. “Is it even a sin if I don’t regret it?”
Adam shook his head. “Unbelievable. I offer you my friendship, and you mock me like this? I don’t think you want to change your behavior at all.”
“No, wait. Please, I can do better,” Emil said quickly when Adam started getting up.
Despite Adam being a few years younger, he still shot Emil a stern look. “One last chance.”
This time, Emil couldn’t help himself. When Adam leaned in, he pressed his lips to the wood. “I loved every last second of it,” he whispered and slipped his tongue through the grate to lick along the tip of Adam’s ear.
A broken whimper left Adam’s lips and echoed through the confessional. Adam flinched before bursting out of his chair and away from Emil. “Get out.”
Emil laughed and got up, feeling as if the giant weight he’d been carrying since yesterday finally dropped. He much preferred to be despised than pitied. He could still sense the sparks of electricity on his tongue. “Don’t worry, Adam. It’s not a sin if you didn’t agree to the touch.” He followed the priest out into the open space of the empty church, but Adam only briefly looked back, already halfway to the altar.
His face was the color of raspberry cream, so sweet and delicious Emil already wanted another taste. “This is over. Go to your house and rot in sin, for all I care!”
Emil spread his arms. “You have to admit my storytelling skills are excellent, though?”
Adam stormed behind the altar, and for a brief moment Emil wasn’t sure what he saw.
The shadow Adam cast had horns.
It had to be an ironic trick of light, because no other answer made sense. Emil didn’t get to mention it, because Adam shut the hidden door behind him so loudly its bang echoed throughout the single nave. Emil was alone again.
The statues of Adam and Eve judged him in silence. He was rotten. Just like everyone said. If he couldn’t prove anyone wrong, what was the point in trying? People suspected him of sicking crows on an old lady, of devil worship, and Mrs. Golonko once even accused him of stealing from her store when she’d hired him to repair the pavement in front of it.
He exhaled, standing on the steps to the altar, both glad and regretful over chasing Adam away. If Adam hated him, he wouldn’t be tempted into Emil’s clutches. But… if Adam hated him, he wouldn’t be tempted into Emil’s clutches. Whatever plans he might have had, they were all ruined now.
Emil didn’t belong in Dybukowo, and he most certainly didn’t belong with Adam. Radek was right. He needed to get out of here, but with no money for the move, with nowhere to stable Jinx, he was powerless against a life that kept tossing stones at him.
A hollow, metallic thud made him look up, and his gaze settled on the tabernacle, the memory of the expensive monstrance inside resurfacing in Emil’s mind. A slithering sound made Emil flinch, but when he glanced at the wooden snake, nothing had changed about its position.