“The longer I watched you the more I became interested in you, Benedict, rather than the business side of my plan,” Sebastian admitted as he met my gaze. “You fascinate me. You are humble, benevolent, exceptionally intelligent, and dare I say it, rather easy on the eye for a man of your years. And yet, I do not understand why, in all the time I watched you I never saw you with a companion.”
“That is… my personal choice and no one else’s business.” I bumbled. I had not expected the conversation to become so personal and it made me deeply uncomfortable.
“I enjoyed playing Josiah. When in character I can watch people as they really are and they don’t see me, because who pays any mind to an old beggar? I watched you… saw how you looked at comely men who passed you in the street, forbidden men. You looked with such unquenched longing. It near broke my heart to know exactly what you were going through—you wanted and believed you could never have it.”
My throat closed up and my chest felt tight. Cavell gazed at me as if he could see into my very soul, blackened with the sin of my lust. That look made me naked.
“I know you believe your desire to be a sinful affliction. I used to think that too about my own desire. But having a heart is not a sin, Benedict. Falling in love is not a sin. Would a benevolent God really give us the capacity to love our fellow man and then bar us from expressing that love?”
We both fell silent and listened to the blizzard swirling outside. My mind was swirling too with trying to balance the teachings of the Church with my personal needs. I had denied myself for so very long that these feelings thundering inside me made me feel unstable as if the ground I’d spent these last thirty years walking upon was cracking beneath my feet. What did this man want from me? I was torn. I was a nothing, a nobody, and yet Sebastian was in my room speaking in terms that made me equally ache with longing and recoil with disgust. Then Sebastian said,
“You are a religious man?”
“I am.”
“And yet you covert The Staff of Asklepios. Is that not problematic for you?”
I stared at him, non-plussed.
“Christianity is a religion that expresses sexual control through guilt and denial. You deny yourself the attention of a lover, do you not?”
I was very uncomfortable with this line of questioning. “That is none of your damn business.”
“I would like to make it my business.”
Those words stopped my anger in its tracks. The atmosphere between us sizzled and I fought for breath.
I spoke on with the utmost care. “If what I seek was…discovered… made public… it would see me barred from my Church…from polite society. I would be abandoned, left out in the cold. Do you think any would do business with a man such as I if they knew of my indecent thoughts and deeds?”
Cavell continued unfazed. “You want to own a phallic artifact that has been used in sexual rites over hundreds of years.”
“You have it, don’t you? You stole it from Euan’s bedchamber after setting the chimney in the Great Hall alight.” I accused.
“The fire was nothing to do with me, dear heart. That is all on Euan for not paying the chimney sweep! It was an excellent distraction though!” Sebastian mused.
“Did you know there was a scroll in the box? It was written in Greek. There appears to be a ritual and an incantation for using the Staff as a cure-all through sex. But as I said, you are a celibate, religious man so I am confused as to why you want it so badly.”
I pursed my lips. I could not explain why I wanted the Staff. It was far too personal and would not trust Cavell with my deepest secrets. It riled me, the way he made my blood boil at times, and he seemed to take pleasure from it. Cavell had stolen the Staff anyway and would return it to whoever he believed was its rightful owner. While it was flattering that Cavell had seen fit to seek me out I was exhausted by the whole sordid affair of Lord Ardmillan’s ill-gotten gains, and it was time Mr. Cavell got dressed in his own clothes and left my room.
The Gift
I stood abruptly and walked towards the bathroom to retrieve his garments. I heard Cavell follow me.
“I do find I am magnetized by secret things,” He said, “And you, dear heart, seem so tightly stitched up. I wonder, did your valet sew you into your undergarments to prevent you from taking pleasure from your own flesh?”
Who did this young whipper-snapper think he was to address me so? I turned to face him, and to my astonishment, Cavell backed me up against the bathroom door.
“So buttoned up, so restrained, Benedict.” He purred, “Makes it much more interesting when a man like you comes undone”, he said cupping me with his long-fingered hand. He was touching me in my most intimate place and my whole body was aflame. I did not want to meet his hazel eyes, and yet I could not look away.
“This is between you and me, dear heart. No one knows I’m here, the door is locked, and we are safe. Let me give you the pleasure you deny yourself.”
The warm pressure of his touch and his words made my cock stiffen. I licked my lips. The right thing to do was to step away and give this cur a shiner, but I found my feet were glued to the floor and I could not move from the
