Page 11 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
He must have been that little bit larger than Percy, only slightly, but it made Percy’s clothes pull that touch tighter over his chest, his biceps, his thighs, and his big, lovely dick. Then Joe spoke in his sexy Italian accent that Percy had correctly placed from somewhere in the picturesque mountains of Abruzzo, and he said, “Please tell me that’s not boyfriend bullshit.”
Percy let go something approaching a giggle, coughed loudly to cover it, and in a more manly voice that still wavered dangerously, came up with the blushingly pitiful, “I didn’t.”
“Thank Christ for that.” Joe dropped down by Percy’s side, the smell of Percy’s too-expensive grapefruit-scented soap all about him, and accepted the glass of wine that was handed across, saying, “Because if that was boyfriend bullshit, I was just going to leave, back out into the rain?—”
“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” Percy said. “Have I ever told you that?”
The light of the fire caught in Joe’s big eyes, and Percy’s, blue and sparkling, studied him like he was a lost Rossetti. The sense of falling, free and fast and terrifying, took hold of Joe,but Percy halted his descent abruptly by asking, “Would you like to see my spear?”
Surprise reigned before Joe could decide whether to be terrified or excited by the proposition, but this cacophony of emotion was soon replaced by awe when Percy stretched his arm around behind his back, and brought out a long, thin hunk of metal, held carefully in his grip.
He placed the object, warm from its proximity to the fire, before Joe.
Joe knew what it must be, but Percy said, with a touch of smugness, “Told you I had it. The Spear of Destiny.”
Joe’s fingers stretched out, reaching for the spearhead, but they stopped before they ever made contact, with all the reverence due a man of the cloth in the presence of one of the most holy relics in existence.
His sharp eyes scanned the surface, aged and never once cleaned—a rough surface of iron, shaped into a deadly point two-thousand years prior, and rusted unevenly all about its hallowed surface. “Is there blood?”
That same spear, for the uninitiated, is said to have been thrust, by a Roman soldier, into the ribs of Jesus Christ as he hung dead on his cross. The blood that poured forth from the wound anointed the object, imbuing it with magical powers stronger than any other earthly item is rumoured to hold.
Percy picked it up, shifted to allow the firelight to illuminate it in full, and turned it over, moving an expert finger across some of the rusty divots. “The whole thing would have been covered in blood had it gushed out the way it’s been described, so your best bet would be down in here. But that’s no guarantee it’s Jesus’ blood.”
“Then how do you know it’s the real thing?”
“Well, it’s Roman,” said Percy. “No doubt about that. Correct age, correct style, but more than that, and most damning, is the trouble I went through trying to steal it.” Joe knewthe tale, as Percy, somewhat of a braggart, had told him the story the very hour they met. His eyes went to the small scar that ripped across Percy’s eyebrow, one he claimed he got when a monk stabbed him as he made away with the spear. “Would you like to hold it? I wouldn’t get it out for anyone else.”
Slow, reverent fingers reached for the lance. Percy didn’t push it forward; he could see the uncertainty in Joe’s movement. He assured him, “They’re all wrong about it. It’s near powerless right now. If only I had?—”
“Its sheath,” Joe finished for him. “I know. It needs to be reunited with its sheath to work.” He took the spear in his hands, searching over every inch.
If he could have seen a miracle like that—the lance healing someone who was near death, or raising the dead, or doing any of the things it was said it could do—how his faith would change.
“I’d do anything to get my hands on it,” said Percy. “I’ve been to Libya. Raided the Vatican. I’ve been everywhere it’s even been rumoured to be, and every time I come back empty-handed.”
Joe passed the relic back without meeting Percy’s eyes. He knew exactly where the sheath was. And he knew it was certain death to tell Percy, because Percy would undoubtedly go off alone looking for it.
Percy crossed the room, took a key from behind a small painting, opened a cabinet, and placed the spear safely inside, locking it all up carefully again before he returned to Joe.
It was compelling, that brief moment. Just the fact that Percy owned one of the most powerful, most sought after objects in history, keeping it just there in his living room, was intriguing enough. But the thought of Percy selecting it for Joe, bringing it out because he knew how much he’d love that. The shared taste, the shared passion…
Joe wondered what it would be like being with Percy longterm. Who knew what else he had kicking about the place. Or how he’d obtained any of it on his dangerous treasure-hunting expeditions.
The term ‘art historian’ was growing more fascinating by the minute, and Joe found he wanted to know all there was to know about Percy. Everything to do with him. The lot, but released slowly, the way one pauses over a beguiling sentence in a favourite book, knowing there’s so much more to come, but sated in the present company of that beauteous prose.
Percy picked up his wine, took a sip, and just as Joe finally brought his own to his lips, Percy circled back to the beginning of that strange and enchanting picnic on his living room floor. “I think I was just telling you how beautiful you are.”
Falling, falling, falling…
“I don’t understand what to do,” said Joe, averting his gaze into the shining burgundy of his glass. “I’m not—I mean,we’renot—seeing each other. Or something. And…” He stole a glance at Percy—stunning, gorgeous Percy—and said, “I really want to kiss you.”
Percy met the request with a long, sweet, achingly desperate kiss that they both felt in the pits of their chests, because Percy didn’t want the restraints and the rules any more than Joe did. He knew that now. But he had to have them. And as though a reminder was needed, a scrape sounded, and a thump came with such force from beneath the cheeseboard that Percy’s carefully stacked dried grapes fell in a flaccid heap.
Joe broke the kiss with a sharp turn of his head, Percy sat back awaiting the reprimand, and Joe shot him the expected look that was both shock and reproach. “What was that?”
“Skeletons,” Percy mumbled over an avoidant sip of wine.
“Skeletons?”
