Author: Tiffany Reisz

But where was Søren?

Kingsley moved back into the dormitory and took the bed next to the one Søren had occupied last school year. Glancing there, Kingsley was troubled to see none of Søren’s things—his Bible written in some Scandinavian language; his shoes, two sizes larger than Kingsley’s and always polished to a perfect shine—on the floor next to his trunk. Even the large wooden trunk with the brass lock was gone.

“Your friend Stearns graduated,” Christian said, noticing Kingsley’s stares at Søren’s bed.

“What?” Kingsley gazed aghast at him.

“Yeah. Graduated. He’s moved out of the dorms and into the priests’ quarters now. Thank God, right? That guy is fucking terrifying. I was always scared I’d trip in the night on the way to take a piss, and he’d kill me. The Fathers get to walk on eggshells now.”

“So he is still here? He didn’t leave the school.” Kingsley nearly collapsed with relief.

“Teaching now. Foreign languages. None of the Fathers are fluent in much of anything but Latin, Greek and Hebrew. They’ve got Stearns teaching French, Spanish and German. Don’t know why. You should be the one teaching French.”

“Perhaps I could be his teaching assistant.” Kingsley smiled at the thought, but Christian only stared at him, wide-eyed. “It was a joke, Christian.”

“Better be. Jesus, can you imagine his poor students? Well, they’ll learn the language at least. They’ll be too scared not to.”

“I don’t think he’s as terrifying as you think he is.”

Christian slapped him playfully on the arm as he headed out of the dorm. “You’re a braver man than I am, then. Or just fucking crazy.”

Alone once more, Kingsley picked up his things and moved them to Søren’s old bed. He didn’t know if they’d ever be able to sleep together now—at least not in the same room. But Kingsley could sleep in Søren’s bed. It might be enough.

That night in the dining hall, Kingsley barely ate. The need, the eagerness to see Søren superseded all other hungers. But Søren didn’t show—not for dinner, not for Vespers, not for lights out.

That night Kingsley lay in bed and studied the ceiling as, one by one, the twelve other boys in the room dropped off to sleep. Their heavy, rhythmic breaths and soft snores filled the room. Kingsley turned over in bed and gazed at the light from the hallway creeping in from under the door. The light flickered as something blocked it. Something…someone.

Kingsley threw back the covers and raced as silently as he could to the door. Holding his breath, he turned the knob and opened it, praying if he moved slowly enough, it wouldn’t make its usual loud squeak. His prayer was answered. Kingsley slipped into the hall, shut the door behind him and found himself immediately against the wall, his face pressed to the cool stone.

The warmth of a body burned against his back. He’d gone to bed wearing nothing but a pair of black boxer shorts that Susan had given him. So against his skin he felt buttons from an oxford shirt, the silk of a tie, the cold metal of a belt buckle. Inhaling deep, Kingsley smelled winter.

“I missed you,” he whispered in French.

Søren said nothing, merely leaned in harder against him. The second he’d seen the strip of light under the door darken, Kingsley had grown aroused. He wanted to feel Søren’s arousal, too, wanted it against his back, against him and inside him.

Kingsley braced himself against the wall with his hands. Søren grasped his wrists with an easy grip.

“You came back,” Søren said against Kingsley’s hair.

“You told me to.” In those four words, Kingsley felt a kind of deep truth he’d never experienced before about himself. You told me to. Kingsley would do anything, absolutely anything, for Søren.

“I hurt you. Badly.” Søren said the words simply, without a trace of guilt or shame.

“Oui.”

“You liked it.” It wasn’t a question.

“Oui. Mais…” Kingsley didn’t know quite how to broach the subject. He stopped speaking and let his one word of objection hang in the air.

“I’ll find a way to be more careful,” Søren pledged. He rested his hand on the flat of Kingsley’s stomach, and Kingsley inhaled sharply. The presence of Søren’s hand on his skin sent pleasure spiking through him.

“I have something with me that should help,” Kingsley said.

“Good.” Søren kissed the back of his bare shoulder.

“Now?”

He felt Søren shaking his head.

“Not tonight. Not here. But soon.”

Kingsley nodded. He would have been disappointed, but he’d hardly expected this to happen the moment he returned to school.

“Go back to bed,” Søren ordered. “Go to sleep.”

“Oui, monsieur,” Kingsley said, grinning against the wall.

Søren’s low laugh raised goose bumps that ran down the center of Kingsley’s spine. Søren pushed away from him slowly and he immediately missed the heat on his cool skin.

Turning around, he faced Søren. God…he’d grown even more beautiful over the summer. His hair looked to be about an inch longer, his eyes even grayer. Søren had abandoned the school uniform for a real suit that made him look like the man he’d become.

“I’m yours,” Kingsley whispered. He laid both palms on Søren’s chest. “You know that.”

Søren looked down at his hands.

“I know. I…” he began, and paused for a breath. “I didn’t mean to hurt you as much as I did.”

Kingsley smiled. “I liked that you hurt me.”

“Good. I have to hurt you.”

“Have to?” Kingsley met Søren’s eyes. The look in them…Kingsley didn’t understand it. What was it he saw there? Regret? No. Not shame. Not fear.

“I’m different.” Søren turned his head and stared down the dimly lit hallway. Shadows lurked in the corners. But was Søren looking at the shadows or something in them?

“No. Not different. Better,” Kingsley assured him. Søren smiled slightly and tore his gaze from the darkness at the edge of the corridor.

“I am. I can’t…”

Kingsley gasped as Søren suddenly slipped his hand down Kingsley’s boxers and wrapped his fingers around him.

“This,” Søren whispered, putting his mouth to Kingsley’s ear. “Unless I hurt you, unless I cause you pain, I can’t…”

And Kingsley understood. Søren couldn’t get aroused unless he inflicted pain. Everything made sense now. Søren’s remoteness, the wall of self-protection he built around himself, his aloofness that kept the other boys far away from him—all done on purpose to protect anyone who would get close to him. For to get close to Søren meant walking through fire, stepping on glass, crawling through hell.

Kingsley flexed his hips, pushing himself into Søren’s hand. He nearly came from that one movement alone. “Je comprende.”

Søren slowly released Kingsley and pulled his hand back, his eyes widened slightly as if in surprise. “You understand me,” he said. “But I don’t understand you. You aren’t afraid of this?”

Kingsley shrugged. “I told you, I’m French. Ever read the Marquis de Sade?” He grinned ear to ear and Søren’s smile widened.

“Sometimes I think I am him. I’ve read Machiavelli, too. The Prince. It is better to be feared than loved.”

Kingsley heard the sorrow in Søren’s voice, the longing for something he thought he couldn’t have.

“And…” Søren continued, “it’s safer to be feared than loved. At least where I’m concerned.” He smiled almost shyly and Kingsley suddenly understood it all—why Søren was so cold, so remote, why he could and did instill such fear in the hearts of everyone who came near him. He did it on purpose. He did it to keep them safe.

Reaching up, Kingsley laid his hands on Søren’s chest and felt his heart beating slowly, steadily.

“I don’t want to be safe,” Kingsley whispered.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Kingsley.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying. You think you are broken. Non, you are perfect.” He said the words in French. So much easier to speak the truth in his native tongue.

“Would you choose to be like me, if you had the choice?”

“I do choose it. You regret what you are only because you think you must keep others away from you. It will not keep me away.”

“Always…” Søren glanced away again, glanced upward and sighed. “I’ve always wanted to believe God made me this way for a reason.”

“Je suis la raison.”

I am the reason.

Søren exhaled slowly. He ran a hand up Kingsley’s arm to his shoulder. Cupping the side of his neck, he brought his mouth down to Kingsley’s. Kingsley opened himself to the kiss and let Søren’s tongue touch his. Such a gentle kiss, so intimate yet careful.

“Ma raison d’être,” Søren whispered, and Kingsley shivered with need.

“You’re holding back. I can feel it.” Kingsley said the words into Søren’s lips.

“I have to hold back. Now at least. Or I’ll break you apart again.”

“I want that. I want you.”

Søren dropped another quick kiss on Kingsley’s lips. “Soon. I’ll find a way for us to be together. But I will hurt you again. I’m certain of it. You’ll have to help me keep from going too far.”

Kingsley gripped Søren’s shirt in both hands and tried to pull him closer. Two and a half months apart had left him in an agony of need. He couldn’t let Søren go. Not yet.

“I begged you to stop that night. I said ‘stop’ and ‘please’ and ‘no’ and you kept on. I didn’t want you to stop, but I don’t know what to do to make you stop if saying stop doesn’t work.”

“It didn’t work because I knew you didn’t want me to stop.”

“Someday I might.”

“Then say…” Søren paused and glanced around the hallway. The cold stone walls stood unadorned but for a few pictures of various saints and popes. “…mercy.”

Kingsley laughed. “Mercy? Really?”

Søren nodded. But he didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile.

“Mercy…” Kingsley repeated in English. “It sounds like merci, you know.”

Mercy. In English it meant an act of pardon, compassion. Merci was French for “thank you.”

“I know.” Søren gave him a smile that nearly felled him.

“Who are you?” The question came out before Kingsley could stop it.

Søren only looked at him.

“I mean…your name, Søren. Where does it come from? They say your name is Marcus Stearns. But I know it’s not.”

Søren said nothing for a moment and Kingsley prayed he would tell him, that he would answer. The need for answers from Søren outweighed even his desire for sex.

“Marcus is my father’s name,” Søren said simply, without emotion. “He raped my mother, and I was born. He named me after himself. But she gave me another name, her father’s name. No one calls me Marcus but my father.”

“Who calls you Søren? At the school, I mean.”

Søren lightly touched Kingsley’s lips.

“Only you.”

“And why me?” That was the question that had plagued him for ten weeks, since the night of the rape on the forest floor. Of all the boys at the school…why him? Why Kingsley? Why did Søren choose him to tell his secrets to, to share his body with?