Page 95 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
It was a rare occasion that Percy Ashdown was lost for words, but his lips only parted and closed again as he tried to navigate the treacherous path laid for him.
Joe came to his rescue. “I wanted you to love me.”
“I do love you,” said Percy.
“I know.” Joe smiled with contented eyes behind his long lashes, so Percy smiled, and all the tension slipped away soeasily. “I only say it because that’s when I fell for you. That exact second when I saw how much you could care about someone, and how good you really are.” Percy shrank from the word ‘good,’ as there was still so much Joe had no idea about, but he let him carry on without interruption. “After that, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You remember that evening we stayed up all night drinking together? You were so funny, and your stories…”
Percy gave a self-deprecatory shrug. “I was doing my best to seduce you.”
“It worked.” Percy kissed Joe’s big toe and chuckled with deep satisfaction as Joe went on, “The next morning, I had to go to church. I was so drunk, and I had to give this whole sermon, and it went on forever and…” He trailed off with a laugh and blush.
“What?” Percy said, already on tenterhooks.
“No. I can’t. You’ll laugh at me.”
“I’m already laughing at you. Tell me anyway.”
“There’s this…” He hid his face in his beautiful hand. “Oh, god…”
“No, tell me.” Percy kicked the hand away. “I have to know now.”
Joe sighed to prepare himself. “At my church, there’s this… You can only see it from the pulpit, but it’s a…” Joe hid his eyes again and forced out, “It’s a sexy Jesus.”
“God damn,” Percy breathed.
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not,” said Percy. “One of those with the really low-slung loin cloth?”
“Yes!” Joe gasped. “Yes! Why do they make them so low like that?”
Percy nodded his vehement agreement. “And you can see his belly, and it’s so nice and so firm.”
“Yes! Oh, I thought I was going insane.”
“No, it’s not just you. It’s deliberate. All those sculptors, those painters, they knew a beautiful male body. You’ll never convince me it wasn’t done on purpose. It’s enough to make almost anyone turn Christian. Is that why you became a priest?”
Joe’s foot gave Percy a shove. “No, it’s not. I felt so guilty for years finding dying Jesus on a cross sexy like that.”
“Having an eye for beauty is nothing to feel guilty about.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Joe half laughed, wincing inside at his very impure, very… uncatholic thoughts. Or were they? It was a kind of worship, after all…
“Sexy Jesus,” Percy prompted.
“I’m really beginning to wish I hadn’t told you.”
“I’ll be good, I promise.”
Although the twice raised eyebrows led Joe to believe otherwise, he continued his story. “So there I was, up in the pulpit, drunk, trying not to slur my words, all eyes on me, and my eyes fell on this sexy Jesus.”
“Mmhmm,” Percy encouraged.
“And I had this vision and…” His eyes flitted to Percy and away again. “It was you. All I could see was you. You with your shirt off, you in my bed… you… strung up. And my… I… my body…”
Percy’s eyes danced with both good humour and lust. “I’ve just had a lovely idea for a date.”
Joe laughed softly. “I was… maddened with the thought of you from that time. I couldn’t even stand to be near you, but all I wanted was to be near you, and I know…” He trailed off and they both knew what he wasn’t saying, but still he forced out her name. “I went to Anna that same night, and I told her how I felt about you. I told her I didn’t want to live with my celibacy anymore, and that I couldn’t get you out of my head, and she said she’d talk to you for me.”
