JACOB
You have not resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. Hebrews 12:4
A sense of calm came over me that I hadn’t felt at any time in my life. It was the feeling of being right within your self. Of being whole. Of no longer hiding the shadow that lingers just beneath the surface of the light.
No matter how resolutely I tried, there was no denying it. Not to God. Not to myself.
But maybe, just maybe, that’s the way it should have been all along.
All my life, I’d been taught to deny the parts of myself not upheld within the vestiges of the Catholic religion. I’d been taught to mourn my existence, to apologize for my darkness, to bow and beg forgiveness, not from God, but from the people who stand between us.
At times, it felt like the Bible was telling me one thing and the Church another, and there was no connecting the dots. Power wasn’t seated in Heaven. It was seated in a city where Saint Peter laid beneath the ground, where man stepped over the bodies of the Holy in order to make their mighty decrees.
You would think that if the Faith were bound to the book written about it, the rules and laws shoved down our throats wouldn’t change so often. But they do, and with those changes come doubt or blind obedience, guilt or undying submission.
All my life, I’d struggled with the Church into which I was born. The same Church to which I ran after committing a crime against God. And the more time I spent with it - the deeper I crawled along to learn the secrets hidden by those who run it - the more I leaned toward the side of that thin precipice that would separate me from God.
Or, at least, that’s what they wanted me to believe about that particular side.
However, at this moment, with this sense of right that pulsed through me, I was beginning to believe the side they always warned me about was closer to God than they wanted to admit.
We are all God’s creatures, the saints and the sinners, the saved and the damned. We were created in his image, we were given life through his vision, and if that is true, then the parts of me I was told should be hidden and ignored were parts God had wanted there all along.
Perhaps His intent wasn’t for us to shun those parts, but instead we were to take them for what they were and glorify Him through the differences they created in us.
Because if God is part of everything, then God can be found in the shadow as much as the light.
I wouldn’t feel guilty for seeking him in the pitfalls the Church had steered me away from all my life. I would feel justified in the anger that has been slowly simmering inside me about a powerful and wealthy organization that had turned a blind eye to the rural communities they deemed unworthy of their full support.
While my congregation scraped by on what crumbs of food they could afford, while they watched their farms taken by banks, their livelihoods destroyed by a changing world, the Cardinals and the Bishops sit in their beautiful mansions, gluttons to the measly tithes these poor farmers still gave every Sunday.
By shedding my resolute obedience to the Church that told me how to speak to my creator, I let go to the whispering voice that had always been in my mind telling me that I am exactly as the Lord had intended me to be.
Why hide what has been created in his image? Perhaps by doing so, I’d been dishonoring Him all along.
A supply closet was hidden behind a triangular shaped door in the back of the hall of the rectory. Angled so that it allowed for the deep slope of the roof, the closet must have been empty space at one time, a room some intelligent builder decided to turn into storage. And in that storage I knew there were old frayed ropes once used to hang the star of Bethlehem above the Nativity scene. I didn’t give much of a damn about the old star itself, but those ropes could come out to play.
Pulling them from where they lay bunched and useless, I gave them new life, new purpose, and a function in direct opposition to what they’d been used for before.
I didn’t feel guilty about it either.
There was no hurry in what I was doing. No rush to the finish line or desperation to seek the highest peak when half the fun was the climb.
Stepping into my bedroom, I was met with a breathtaking sight.
Eve lay still over the mattress, her dark hair fanning over the white sheets, her expression a picture of serene obedience.
“I am yours. In body. In heart. And in soul.”
Words spoken in the present that dragged me back to the past.
“I’m yours, Jacob…”
Eve had grounded me in the simple phrase she’d spoken, rendering me as the man who at one time had learned to love rather than the beast who had devoured the chaste and good when I was young.
I hadn’t scared her with the violence inside me, just like I never scared Cassandra. Only because Eve had dared look me in the eye, she pulled me back to the threshold, to the point where I could think clearly and beyond the primal urge that existed in all of us.
Some were better at resisting the instinct to possess – most, if I had to be accurate. Few gave in to it, luxuriated in it, lived solely because it existed in them at all.
I was one of those rare few.
Fear crept back inside me that I would hurt this delicate treasure by the force of the darkness I carried.
“Stand up,” I said, my voice a placid tone, the calm that always preceded the storm.
She did as she was told.
Placing the ropes on the surface of the small desk where I’d once penned my letters to God, I stepped closer to the woman who’d awakened every part of me.
Eve craned her next to look up and I reached for the cross pendent between her bare breasts, my thumb rubbing over the large jewel that sat in the center. I wanted to rip the fucking thing from her neck.
Dragging my eyes up to hers, I asked, “Would you die for me?”
I would never do anything to purposely endanger her life, would never scar her or cause permanent damage, but as I’d learned in my past, there were mistakes that happened, passions that ran so deep you became lost to them and forgot your own strength.
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.
Arching an eyebrow, I dragged in a breath. “It can happen. I can go too far. I can strangle the life out of you without even realizing what I’m doing.”
Perhaps it was fear that kept me from rushing this moment, fear that the past would sneak up to remind me why I’d run to the Church in the first place.
She didn’t respond to what I’d said, just looked up at me with pure adoration in her green eyes.
Releasing the pendent, I ran the tips of my fingers up the center of her chest, along the line of her neck to grip her chin.
Asking a question that was more important to me than fearing the destruction I could cause, I requested the one thing from her that even Cassandra could not give.
“Will you live for me?”
Eve’s lips parted in response, a shudder running down her skin that made me want to chase the prickled flesh with my tongue.
“I’ve always lived for you, Elijah. Since the day I was born.”
The sound of my brother’s assumed name drove a spike of anger down my spine. At least, she wasn’t calling me Jericho. I wasn’t sure I could stand hearing my brother’s true name fall off her lips with such reverence and love.
My hand released her chin to trail down her body, my palm cupping the weight of her breast in a possessive hold. It was wrong of me to take advantage, but isn’t that exactly what she had done while I’d been talking to my congregation?
I understood now that we were both pawns in whatever game it was Jericho was playing, and if this is what he wanted, who was I to deny him?
He would only play harder if I didn’t give in.
At least, that’s the excuse I told myself.
“On your knees,” I ordered, my voice rough with the anticipation locking me in place between its fiery fingers.
Eve had a hesitant smile and slowly lowered herself down.
Within the silence of a room where I had prayed for more nights than I could count that I would learn what it meant to be pious, I let go to the human inside me, to the shadows and the light, so that Eve would know the danger that lurked beneath my skin.
“You know what to do,” I breathed out.
My fingers curled into fists, my fingernails digging crescent shaped channels into my skin, and where my body trembled with the restraint I continued to hold over the violence inside me, an angel looked up with the steadfast belief that I wasn’t the danger she should fear.
Reaching up, she curled her fingers over the waistband of my boxers, pulling them slowly over my hips, her nails dragging over the skin. I didn’t bother kicking them off when they dropped down my legs to pool over my feet, couldn’t allow myself to move even an inch without fear that I could lose control.
Was this the fear my brother wanted to force through me? Did he somehow know that I’d chosen a celibate life to avoid killing again?
Eve’s eyes peeked up at me, her hands lifting to explore the length of my cock, her tongue rubbing over her lip before she leaned forward to take the head into her mouth. At the moment the wet heat of her tongue flicked out to lick across, her eyes closed as she opened wide to take me deeper.
A shudder coursed across my skin, my fingers tightening even more until I lost what little control I had left. I reached to fist both hands into her hair. A startled cry escaped her throat, tears shimmering at the crest of her lashes fanning across her skin because I held her head in place while my hips thrust forward.
This was what I wanted to do to her when she’d been in this exact position beneath the pulpit. This was the violence she lured out of me with the mouth she had wrapped around my cock. And although I wanted to close my eyes and luxuriate in the feel of lips working over the thick shaft, I watched in fascinated wonder as she took every thrust inside her while those tears slipped down her cheeks.
I wasn’t being kind. I was giving in to the beast, and I felt a stirring in me for something far darker.
Eve sputtered as the head hit her throat, her teeth dragged over the skin and still, I kept fucking her like I wasn’t choking off her airway.
“Fuck…” I growled, knowing that my climax was building and not wanting to come so quickly. When I knew that another thrust would send me over the edge of pure ecstasy, I pushed her off with such force, she fell back against the floor, her glistening eyes opening to stare up at me.
“Get on the bed. On your knees. Face the bedposts.”
At the head of the bed were two carved, wooden posts. They were the only ornamental touch within the room, a place I often hung my rosary at night so that I would be watched over in my sleep. The rosary still hung there now, with black, obsidian beads and a silver and gold crucifix.
As Eve climbed onto the bed, her movement shaking the frame beneath, I watched the rosary slap against the wood, eventually dropping from its high perch to fall to the floor. My eyes followed its track, my foot stepping around it as I followed after Eve.
“Grab the tops of the posts with your hands. Stay there until I say otherwise.”
She didn’t respond, just lifted her hands and wrapped her delicate fingers around the posts. Her body was a work of art. Arms outstretched, the line of her spine indented in, the curves of her body becoming more pronounced as she seated herself over her feet.
Rounding the bed, I stood at the end staring at a goddess. Her skin was pale and unmarked, a canvas upon which I could paint every bit of the possessive violence I felt.
Eve had been a present delivered to my door as a way for my brother to antagonize me, test me, tempt me and torture me. He expected her back after accomplishing whatever goal he had against me.
What he didn’t know was that he wouldn’t be getting her back.
I was the darker half of the twins. I was the stronger half. I was the half that helped drag him into madness. Tragedy had been a temporary event that forced me into the light. And while I’d lied to myself as I bowed and prayed, my brother had lost his mind.
It wasn’t readily apparent whether I would eventually lose mine, but I wanted to think that I had the ability to balance both the shadow and the light.
Like every priest, I would honor God on my knees, but I would honor him as a man with two sides, rather than one who denied the human side of him.
Standing in place for what felt like hours, I studied every inch of the woman before me. I admired the form of her body and her perfect obedience. Only when she started to shake from holding her position for so long did I finally walk to the desk and pull the ropes from its surface.
“I can hurt you, Eve. I can lose my mind and steal your ability to breathe.”
Her head bowed lower, the trembling of her arms reaching into her shoulders as they, too, grew tired.
“My marks will be all over your skin. I won’t care if you cry. There will be no stopping me once I get started.”
Her fingers tightened around the posts.
“I’m throwing you a life rope, Eve. A chance at escaping everything I want to - and will - do to you.” I paused and refused to take a step farther. “You still have the chance to say no.”
Silence fell heavy between us, time moving slowly as I waited for her to save herself – to save me.
The voice of a siren sang to me when she finally answered, “I am yours wholly. My body belongs to you.”
We’d reached the point of no return. My fingers tightened over the ropes and my cock was granite begging for a release.
In three long strides, I closed the distance to the bed, my knees pressing down hard into the mattress as I knelt behind Eve’s shaking body. Careful not to touch any part of her, I tied her right wrist to one post, and her left to the other. It only gave her a tiny bit of relief from the exertion of holding her position. She shivered beneath the heat of me and the promise of seductive sin.
The smell of her hair wafted past my nose. The sound of her ragged breathing was music to my ears. I sat back and admired the blank canvas of her body that I would paint with pleasure and pain before softly tracing my fingertip down her spine.
My breath caught to feel her trembling at my touch, to recognize her struggle in remaining just how I’d instructed her to be.
Trailing lower, my right hand fanned over the curve of her ass, my left coming up to cup the other cheek. Sliding my touch over the curve of her hips, I just barely brushed my palms up the sides of her body to reach around and take her full breasts in a possessive grip. She cried out as my fingers clamped down, bruises most likely forming beneath the skin from how hard I squeezed.
I knew the hold hurt her, but I watched how it also turned her on. Whimpers fell from her full, soft lips, her hips squirming in place, her skin turning a lovely pink in response to the sensual torment.
Without releasing the pressure, I ran my lips down the line of her neck, planting a soft kiss over her spine at the point where it curved down into her back. My cock throbbed between our bodies, but I wouldn’t rush this moment, wouldn’t give in to the feral beast inside me.
My lips moved against her skin. “Show me how to forgive you, Eve, for all the sinful thoughts you have about my body.”
Her hips lifted from her feet, an invitation for my taking, her body shaking as she held the position long enough for me to slip beneath.
Inching forward until my chest pressed against her, I moved my head so that my lips could whisper against her ear. My cock was positioned at her swollen, wet entrance, my hand releasing one breast to trail up her chest and wrap around her neck.
My voice was breathless when I whispered, “And I hope you’ll find a way someday to forgive me.”
Squeezing my fingers around her throat, I forced her body down over my cock. Her mouth opened on a silent scream.
It was my turn to shake as I held on to my last thread of restraint, but once her muscles tightened around me, once I controlled her small body with mine, there was no holding back the beast any longer. Inside her cunt, I broke my vows, and once the leash had snapped from the clerical collar, I was free to devour every inch of her.
Pushing up to my knees, I forced her hips higher. Head bowed and arms extended above and behind her, Eve cried out when I pulled out to the tip, turned my eyes down to the point where our bodies met and thrust myself back in. My balls slapped against her, my hand around her neck letting go just enough for her to pull in a breath.
I hated to let go of the swell of her breast, but I needed to pump harder, faster, and more violently than I’d ever needed before. She was the perfect mold, a tight, wet space that fit around my cock like it had been designed for only me. Dragging my fingertips down her body, I folded them over the curve of her hip, gripped down, and moved inside her.
The ropes binding her wrists creaked above us, her fingers releasing the posts to grip over them. My hand tightened over her throat as my lips trailed along her shoulder to bite down against the flesh. Not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to bruise, I marked her body with my kiss, moving slowly across her shoulder to do it again and again.
It was difficult to control my own thoughts, at least enough to remember the danger in which I’d put her, but I remembered to let her breath every once in a while, enough that she would know she was owned, that she would float within the euphoria of deprived oxygen, but could still draw air into her body with passing out.
To know I held her life in my hands as I fucked her brutally, to know she would bear the bruises and marks, only fueled the fire sparking inside me until I was rendered nothing more than teeth and hands, a tongue and the rage of my cock.
The ropes continued to creak above our head, the mattress screaming below us, as my hips met hers over and over again, my cock driving deeper each time.
I was no longer a cognizant creature that knew what he was doing. I was that primal, feral beast within myself devouring the prey bound before him. Her cries of pain seduced me closer, her moans of pleasure driving my body harder and faster. And when the sounds of flesh meeting flesh had driven me to the point of insanity, I pulled out of her without warning, delighting in her cry of torment for being left balancing on the precipice of her orgasm.
If I was going to break my vows to God himself - if I was going to surrender to the darkness inside me - I wanted to watch the face of a fallen angel, to lock eyes with the woman who existed for no other reason than to torment me.
Moving around, I lifted her hips to straddle over my lap. I tucked my finger beneath her chin, lifted her head to direct her to look at me.
“Keep your eyes open and don’t look away from me. If you do for even a second, I’ll enjoy punishing you.”
Eve’s arms were still bound above and behind her, the angle only slightly relieved when I moved her hips down so I could thrust myself inside again. Her lips parted on a moan and her eyes closed in response. I bit her breast in warning.
She cried out at the sharp pain, but relaxed as my tongue licked over it.
Forcing her face back to mine, I reminded her, “That was just a warning, pretty girl. Just a taste of my violence. Open your eyes. Do not hide from me.”
Her eyes opened, her body moving over mine in languorous circles, meeting my body for every thrust, begging for more.
Laying my head back against the wall, I watched her full breasts bounce, the cross I wished wasn’t there moving between them. Determined to keep her eyes locked to mine, she winced as the ropes tugged at her wrists and bit her lip against the pain I knew they caused her. She’d carry the marks of those ropes for at least a day and I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for it.
Gripping both hands over her hips, I couldn’t stand not driving myself harder, the slap of flesh a rhythmic crack of sound between us, my climax building so steadily that I lost every sense of self control.
I took her breast in my mouth, my cock thrusting in and out of her while cries of torment and pleasure erupted from her throat. My hands were everywhere, my teeth were everywhere, and my tongue dragged over the marks I left to taste the salt of her skin.
I knew she was just at that peak of ecstasy when her muscles tightened over my cock, when she molded to me like a second skin, and I listened to the sound of her orgasm as it fell in bursts of sweet, seductive sound from her lips.
Her skin was marked red where I knew my fingers had left the blooming bruises, her eyes closing again as her orgasm roared again, and knowing that I wouldn’t last much longer, I grabbed her thighs to force them apart and lock my eyes on my cock pushing into her tight cunt.
My thumbs would mark those thighs just as they marked her back, her arms, her sides, and just as my teeth had marked her perfect breasts.
I lost myself in that moment, in that second when my balls tightened with the force of my release, when I came inside her without regard for pregnancy or the consequences. Pulling out wasn’t an option for me once I was gripped within the wet heat, and I shuddered beneath the power of feasting on her greatest sin.
My hips thrust up one last time as I reached behind to wrap my hands over her shoulders and pull her down on top. And as the wave of power washed through me, as it seeped from my skin and my muscles could relax with its absence, I dragged my nails down her back and cupped her ass with my hands.
Staring at her, I noticed the exhaustion in her arms, the way her eyes closed following the force of her climax, the way her body hung forward from the ropes that bound her wrists above my head.
I was a devout man, one falling into the depths of Hell happily staring up into the face of what had been my last temptation.