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“Sorry, Father,” he says. He opens the door to the booth just as I hike my pants up. “I didn’t mean to waste your time.”

The booth smells of sex and sweat and sin, but I’m too ashamed to stick around. When Leo leaves, I leave with him, head bowed, cheeks flushed, and back turned to God.

For any Christian reading, it isn’t that I’ve decided to hate the Lord. I want the embrace of the Church and the absolution that comes with prayer. But I want, too, my body. I want to use it. I want to feel something with it. And there’s nothing quite so perfect as giving myself to men; of having the beauty that is men touch me.

And I don’t think I can admit it’s a sin. Certainly not when the act is tender, but also not when it is rough, debasing. It’s all love. It’s all love for my body.

Perhaps I don’t feel guilt for what I do. Perhaps I feel guilty because it is expected.

22

LESSON TWENTY-TWO: NOLI DORMIRE DUM IN SPECULIS

I stop Leo outside the great hall; one yank against his shirt that makes him slow down.

He looks back at me and exhales, small smile on his lips. He thinks—or expects—that I want to kiss him. That after what he’s done to me, I’ll want him to take me right here.

Which I do. Of course. Of course. But I’ve decided to be angry, and that takes priority over anything else. Leo starts crowding me back towards the wall, and I know if I let him do it, I’ll lose my resolve. I’ll lose any kind of backbone if he presses into me. So I flip him. One foot hooked around his ankle, shoulder barrelling into his chest, and I ram him back against the wall.

He exhales noisily as all the air is punched from his lungs—but it’s still fun and games for him. He smiles at me, teeth glinting in the fading sunlight, and he shifts and breathes and adjusts his hips against me. Something twitches in my pants—I ignore it. God, I ignore it.

“Never do that again,” I tell him, gesturing back to the chapel. “Never.”

The glint in his eye fades, and he cocks his head, inspecting me. “You liked it,” he says.

“Yes.” I can admit that much. Crowded close to him, I can feel the heat from his groin doing things to mine. He makes me ruttish, like an animal. And I can’t afford to be like this. Not tonight, not before what comes tomorrow. What we did should have calmed me. It should have been enough to satiate me. But it didn’t.

Don’t think about it. Focus on the teras. Focus on the lion that’s going to rip you open tomorrow.

“But that—wasn’t right,” I say. “That wasn’t the kind of man I want to be. I believe in God. I pray to Him. And even if I’m not good at it, even if I want you, and will let you have me, we should not have. . .”

I sigh. I don’t know if I can get my point across when I came so hard. The filthiest thing I’ve ever done, and the least moral thing I’ve ever done, and I loved it.

“Cassius. . .”

He looks at me strangely, then. Teeth glint, lips widen. I brace myself to hear him say: “Why? I am only trying to fuck you.”

He doesn’t need to respect me, if that’s all it is.

What else would it be?

I settle my jaw and wait, but Leo raises his hands to my shoulder. “I won’t. . . tempt you like that again,” he says. “At least, not when you’re on holy ground.”

It’s fucking pennies, and I dive to snatch them up. I exhale against him, edging forward until his breath is hot on my face, my neck. I press my lips to him and somehow I can feel his intent in that kiss alone. His hands aren’t on me, there’s no tenting in his pants—but he wants me.

I pull away, trying to subdue the fluttering in my heart. How much I love being wanted.

Perhaps it’s pathetic that the smallest bit of respect makes me glad, but I will take what I can get.

“Come on,” I say, and grab his hand—before immediately letting go of it. Far too intimate. I remind myself this is nothing more than carnal comfort. We are trying our best not to die, and sex is a decent way to stay sane.

So don’t lose yourself to him. It’s only sex. Focus.

Maybe if I say that enough, it’ll get through my damn skull.

The great hall is stuffed with food and drink and light, with all our surviving cohort revelling in a feast.

Sure, they are all eating like it’s our last meal, and getting drunk to forget the slaughterhouse we walk to tomorrow. But it’s nice. It feels close to what I expected, coming here. A University with no monsters on campus. A community bound together by more than fear.