Chapter 7: Wine and Confession
Jud woke to a low, grey light seeping through the curtains. The space beside him on the narrow rectory bed was empty, the sheets cool. Paul had slipped away before dawn, as he always did. A hollow ache, familiar and deep, throbbed in Jud’s chest. He rolled onto his back, the movement causing a strange, dragging sensitivity against his nightshirt.
He frowned. The fabric, soft as it was, felt abrasive. There was a weight, a fullness that hadn’t been there the night before. Tentatively, he brought a hand up, pressing his palm to his chest.
A sharp, electric gasp tore from his lips. The sensation was immediate, shocking in its intensity. It wasn’t pain. It was a deep, resonant thrum of pleasure that radiated from his nipple, now unmistakably larger, thicker, a pronounced bud that strained against the cotton. He fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, his fingers clumsy with sleep and dread.
In the weak morning light, he saw. His nipples, always prominent, had transformed. They were undeniably longer, fleshy and flushed a deep rose, standing proud and swollen from his aureoles. They looked ripe. Juicy. The word came to him, unbidden, and a hot wave of shame followed it. He prodded one gently.
A whimper, high and helpless, echoed in the quiet room. The touch sent a jolt straight to his core, a warm, pooling liquid heat between his legs. He shoved the heel of his hand against his mouth to stifle the sound.
Dressing was an ordeal. His binder, which usually flattened and concealed, now seemed like a primitive instrument of torture. The process of maneuvering each sensitive, swollen peak into the constricting fabric was a slow, excruciating cascade of sensation. Every brush, every compression, built a coil of tension low in his belly. When he finally got the binder fastened, he was sweating, panting softly, the material doing little to hide the two distinct, button-like points that now tented his shirt. A final, shuddering climax rippled through him, leaving him weak-kneed and breathless, leaning against the dresser.
Downstairs, Paul was making tea. He turned as Jud entered the kitchen, a gentle greeting on his lips. It died there. His dark eyes swept over Jud, cataloging the tremor in his hands, the flush on his neck, and finally, the undeniable proof pressing against the grey clerical shirt.
A deep, vivid blush crept up Paul’s pale throat. His nostrils flared slightly, as if catching a new scent. But he said nothing. He simply turned back to the kettle, his knuckles white where he gripped the counter. The silence was a living thing, thick with the things they could not name.
They didn’t speak of it. For two weeks, they navigated around it. Jud moved more carefully, aware of every brush of fabric. Paul’s gaze would catch, then skitter away, a muscle jumping in his jaw. The unspoken change hummed between them, another layer of impossible truth.
It came to a head on a blustery Tuesday morning outside the post office. Bev Keane, her smile as thin and sharp as a letter opener, looked Jud up and down. Her eyes lingered on his chest.
“My, my, Father Duplenticy,” she said, her voice syrup-sweet and poisonous. “Something’s come up, hasn’t it? You’ll be coming to serve Mass in lingerie at this rate. Might keep the congregation awake, I suppose. They do say a loose whore draws a crowd.”
Jud felt the old panic, cold and slick, flood his veins. He stammered, his hands fluttering uselessly. “I’m—I’m sorry, Bev, I can’t… they just…”
Paul was there then, materializing from the mist as if summoned by the humiliation itself. He didn’t raise his voice. It was lower, smoother, and all the more dangerous for it. “Beverly,” he said. Her name sounded like a verdict. “Your judgement is distasteful. And transparent. You’d do well to lie better. Being, as you so often remind us, a dedicated child of God.”
She gaped at him, the color draining from her face before rushing back in an angry blotch. She snorted, a horrid, unladylike sound, and stalked off, her heels clicking like gunshots on the pavement.
That evening, the rectory felt like a fortress against the world. Paul produced a bottle of rich, Spanish red. Jud, still vibrating from the morning's shame, drank his first glass too fast. The wine unspooled something in him, loosening the knots of anxiety.
They ended up on the living room floor, an old rock playlist Jud had made crackling from a portable speaker. The wine bottle was half-empty.
“And then she snorted,” Jud slurred, giggling into his glass. He imitated Bev, puffing out his cheeks and making a wet, snuffling sound. “Like a disgruntled bulldog. A holy, disgruntled bulldog.”
Paul laughed, a real, free sound that seemed to startle him. He was leaning against the side of the armchair, legs stretched out, his cheeks faintly flushed. “A servant of the Lord should not make such undignified noises.”
“She called me a whore, Paul,” Jud said, the giggle fading but the wine keeping the edge off the memory. “A loose whore. Because of… these.” He gestured vaguely at his chest, the movement causing the fabric to pull. He saw Paul’s eyes track it, the mirth in them dying, replaced by something hotter, darker.
“She’s a bitter old woman who mistakes cruelty for piety,” Paul murmured, but his voice had changed. It was thicker.
The space between them evaporated. Jud wasn’t sure who moved first. Their knees were touching, then their shoulders. The music swelled, a gritty guitar riff filling the room, but Jud could only hear the pounding of his own blood. The scent of wine on Paul’s breath, the cedar-and-salt smell of his skin, it all mixed with the low, primal aroma of his own body—a scent of sweet milk and fertile earth and something metallic, like blood on the air.
Paul whined. It was a small, desperate sound from the back of his throat. His head tilted back, baring the long line of his neck, as if in pain. “Jud,” he breathed. “I can… I can smell everything.”
That was all the permission Jud needed. The last of his inhibitions, already drowned in Tempranillo, vanished. He surged forward, grasping the hem of Paul’s sweater and pulling it up. Paul helped, a frantic scramble of limbs, and then his own shirt was gone, buttons yielding with tiny pops.
Then they were chest to chest, skin to skin. Jud cried out at the contact. The feeling of Paul’s cool, smooth skin against the unbearable sensitivity of his swollen nipples was exquisite agony. Paul’s hands came up to frame his face, but his gaze was locked on Jud’s chest, his pupils swallowing the dark iris whole.
“Please,” Jud sobbed, the word ripped from him. He wasn’t even sure what he was begging for. Everything. Nothing. An end to the wanting.
Paul bowed his head, not to his mouth, but to his throat. His lips were cool, then hot, tracing the frantic pulse there before opening. He didn’t bite, not with teeth, but he suckled the skin, hard, claiming it. The bruise bloomed instantaneously, a dark flower under the vampire’s mouth. At the same time, his hips canted forward, a rough, grinding rhythm against Jud’s thigh.
Jud was dissolving. Pleasure and need were a torrent, sweeping away thought, shame, identity. He was a vessel, overflowing. He tangled his hands in Paul’s hair, pulling him closer, offering his throat, his body. “Here,” he choked out, guiding Paul’s head lower. “Please, here too.”
Paul’s mouth left his neck, a string of saliva connecting them for a blistering second before he took a nipple fully into his mouth.
The world whited out. Jud arched off the floor, a raw, shattered cry tearing from his lips. Paul suckled, then laved the long, tender bud with his tongue, and Jud felt it in his very womb, a deep, pulling ache that was both emptying and filling. He felt warm, wet heat spill between his legs, soaking his trousers.
Clothing was a blasphemy. They shed it in a frantic, silent dance—belt buckles clanging, zippers snagging, fabric tearing. Then there was nothing. Just the scratch of the wool rug on Jud’s back, the heavy weight of Paul between his thighs, and the stunning, naked slide of skin.
Paul was huge, thick and heavy, the length of him lying hot and insistent against Jud’s belly. Jud trembled, spreading his legs wider in instinctual offering, his beautiful, soft sex slick and open. Paul braced himself on his forearms, his face a mask of rapture and torment. He lowered his hips, and the broad head of his cock met Jud’s soaked, puffy folds.
The kiss was electric, intimate, and final. Jud wrapped his legs around Paul’s waist, pulling him closer, wanting the pressure, the promise, the ruin. Their eyes met. Paul’s were streaming silent tears.
“I love you,” Jud whispered, the truest confession of his life.
A sob wrecked Paul’s frame. He dropped his forehead to Jud’s, his whole body shaking with the effort of holding still, poised at the threshold. “My Jud,” he wept. “My only prayer.”
And in the dim, holy light of the rectory, they began to move.