Page 18 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
All was silent and empty.
He flung his silk robe on and stalked into the living room.
Cold and empty.
The kitchen, the bathroom, the whole small church bereft of the presence that had made his being sing.
And that was a good thing.
Percy ate alone and decided that was as it should be. Percy lay in his golden bathtub for hours, staring at his ceiling, reflecting on all the hateful complications that come with relationships. Therewere too many to name. It simply wasn’t for him, all that claustrophobic clinginess, asking each other what was for dinner, checking whether it was okay to travel, or even go out for god’s sake. All that repeated sex, over and over, on tap, with the same person…
He let out a sigh that ricocheted across the tiles, and he sank a little deeper into the water, right up to his chin.
Sex with Joe… over and over… on tap…
The problem—or one of the problems, anyway—was that Percy hadn’t lied. He’d been caught up in the moment, he’d wanted Joe to feel good about what they’d done, but in fact… Maybe itwasthe best sex he’d ever had.
Percy, deliberately, was not in the habit of comparing lovers. He’d had far too many to begin to rate for a start. And sex was sex. Every interaction was unique and, therefore, incomparable in its very essence.
Percy knew how handsome he was. And having been brought up amongst the cruelty associated with being the poorest kid in a private boys’ boarding school, he’d learned how to deploy the art of charm with a cynical coldness of heart that, in combination with his looks, almost invariably got him whatever he wanted.
He’d enjoyed or endured every variety of sex—hate sex, fun sex, revenge sex, guilt sex, paid sex, ex-sex, friend sex, bored sex, curiosity sex, threesomes, orgies, any and all sex, but… Joe sex…
It wasn’t the fact that he had been a virgin until that very morning—that Percy, in all the world, was his chosen one—though that was undoubtedly sexy. It wasn’t that he was a priest, though admittedly the very thought of it sent that all-too-familiar ache back to his cock. And the beauty. Christ, that spectacular beauty. Joe should have been a statue. He was a walking, breathing artistic perfection, in every turn of his head, every flex of his limbs, every smile…
That was it.
It was somewhere in that smile. The ease of it. The trust. The natural simplicity of Joe.
He wanted Percy, so he told him, and there were no games. No expectations. There was just Joe. A purity to his artless approach to Percy and to sex. His desire was so honest, and so open and…trusting.
The complete faith he’d put in Percy every step of the way to his door. When he’d kissed him like that, all passion, and not hiding an ounce of it. The intensity when he fucked him. The way he’d ripped that belt off his wrists and curled his very being into Percy’s arms, like he needed Percy, and like he knew Percy would take a hold in return. The way he’d etched himself into Percy’s skin, into hisbones, until nothing else would ever fit quite the same again.
Fucking hell.
Percy sat bolt upright in his tub.
He wanted Joe back. Wanted to hold him. Desperately. Wanted that honesty, that trust. Needed that genuine, open something. That…
The idea smashed Percy across the head like a bottle of thirty-year-old wine, and he was up and out of his bath, cold and dripping, frantic with his need to escape.
He couldn’t have a boyfriend. No relationship, no Joe. This needed to be sex. Just like all the other casual sex, just like they’d both agreed to. Joe needed to be only one of god-knew-how-many sexual liaisons and nothing more. It was for his own good.
The trauma Percy was dealing with, the stupid mess he’d got himself into because of it, the very thing that had set in motion the events that brought Joe to his home the night before may, at this juncture, be best and most briefly retold via the medium of graphic art. And it all starts on the night Percykilled his brother Evelyn, right in front of Anna,when he became…
And that, in a nutshell, is why Percy kissed Anna. It had felt like the obvious thing to do at the time, as attached as he was to the pair of them. Joe hadn’t wanted him, as far as he knew, and, well… it was just sex after all. Like all the other sex.
But this, of course, is a rather fast and flippant retelling of the horror that Percy had been muddling his way through for months. The fact was, the murder of Evelyn chased Percy through every waking hour. When Joe had asked the night before how he was doing, all Percy saw was blood. Blood on Evelyn’s face, blood on his own hands, blood on the walls and ceilings and floors, and all of it because he had been stupid enough to let himself get possessed.
Demons are cruel and wily beings by nature, relentless and smart, and one can never, ever, not for a second, let their guard down around such creatures. That was what he did, and he would never forgive himself for it. One slip and it had ended in catastrophe.
He got his brother back, but only thanks to Anna, who he almost killed that night too. And for that, she had earned prime position in his heart, gilded and unable to be toppled from her throne no matter what. His very best friend, and one of his favourite people in existence.
Who Joe hated.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have kissed her after all. That had been… Well, not a mistake exactly. It had brought Joe to his door, hadn’t it? And had he known that was the likely outcome of the action, he’d have done it months earlier.
But that, of course, wasn’t his intention at the time.
