Art of the Priest

"No, I will have them with me," Monsignor Roman Scarlotti almost bleated as he held the parcels closer to his chest. And then, realizing that the driver was only trying to be helpful, he added in a calmer voice, "Thank you, my son, but these I must keep close to me."

The driver shrugged and opened the back door of the all-terrain vehicle that had seen its best days. The monsignor hesitated to enter the backseat of vehicle, a maneuver that was made difficult by the bundles he carried in his arm but would not let anyone else hold.

Waiting for the monsignor to struggle into the vehicle, I looked up the cliff face above the small Swiss town of Flüelen, nestled on the shore of Lake Lucerne between the water and a towering cliff that rose to the alps behind. The driver had said that our destination, the Ettal Monastery, was up at the top of the cliff somewhere and had waved his hand in that direction. He said it could be seen from here, but I couldn't discern the monastery's stone walls from the cliff rocks. I suspect that this had been the plan when the monastery was first built in the sixteenth century—that many a plundering enemy had just not seen it and had passed it by. I was sure that you had to know what you were looking for to pick the form of the monastery out from here.

"Here, let me hold them while you get in, Monsignor, and I will hand them to you." I tried to sound soothing. He'd been holding onto my forearm tight with his free hand. "I'll be right here with them," I added.

Looking relieved, he said, "Thank you, Father John," but he still gave the parcels a nervous look after he'd handed them to me, gathered his cassock about him, and folded himself in the seat. I was probably the only one Scarlotti would trust in this way, and I could sympathize with that. He was the assistant art curator of the Vatican, and I was his assistant. The parcels he clutched were four art works that either were priceless or forgeries. He suspected forgeries, but that wasn't his call, and so the two works claimed to be by Hieronymus Bosch and those of Pieter Bruegel and Fra Angelico had to be given full respect and protection until they were shown not to be worth it.

Scarlotti was usually a man who was fully in command of himself and of those around him. He was tall, slim, handsome, and aristocratic, having descended from the counts of Lombardy. Age—he was in his early fifties—had only added to his dignity. At the same time he was a secretive, remote man, considered to be cold as ice. I worked closely and amicably enough with him, though, to know that he was holding himself in reserve—that he was a man of deep emotion and passion who, because of his obligations, had to continually hold himself in check. I was quite sure that I had been chosen as his assistant because he wanted me near him—that he wanted to touch me; that, in fact, he wanted to fuck me.

I knew, intimately, what he had to hold himself in check from, because I could see his need and desires in his eyes. It was the same look that other priests at the Vatican gave me and that some of them had built on. If they were important enough and could advance me, I opened my legs to them. Scarlotti was an important figure in the Vatican. Any time he wanted, I would let him fuck me.

The paintings, as well wrapped as they were, were not unmanageably large, and, when Scarlotti held the bottom edges of them on his lap, they extended outward almost to his knees but didn't rise as far as his chin. As the vehicle lurched off for what was going to be an unseemingly steep incline drive up the road to the top of the cliff, one of Scarlotti's arms embraced the paintings but his other hand rested again on my forearm. He had been wearing gloves, but he had stripped the glove of that hand off and had pushed the sleeve of my cassock up so that he was laying flesh on flesh. He'd never had the courage to do that before, although I knew that he wanted that and more, but he was so concerned with the situation that I don't think he was aware of the connection. But maybe he was and was exhibiting that strength of reserve he was notable for.

The connection was electric, though. I could feel him trembling, and I felt the sensuality of the long, slim fingers kneading the flesh of my forearm. The driver was in the front seat of the vehicle, with a glass window separating the passenger compartment from him. He wouldn't know if I unbuttoned my cassock at the crotch and moved Scarlotti's hand to where I knew he longed to put it. But I wouldn't do that. Scarlotti would have to make the first move. It wasn't a case where I would be unwilling or had not done it before. I would not have made my way to the Vatican and within the walls of the Vatican as young as I was, not yet twenty-five, if I had not lain under priests who could advance my standing. And I knew from the moment that Scarlotti had asked for me to be made his assistant that he wanted more than a secretary. But he had made no move—at least not yet.

"Thank you for offering to help me, Father John," he murmured. "You are such a help to me."

"You know I would do anything you wished of me," I answered. "Anything." I could feel him trembling through his hand on my forearm, but yet he didn't make the move I was sure he wanted to make.

It was quite possible, I thought, that he had arranged for me to come with him to Switzerland to declare and act on his desires. Perhaps he was intimidated by being in the Vatican and always in contention for advancement and always under scrutiny. I could have told him that fucking young priests wouldn't be counted against him in the Vatican—oh how I could speak to that—but perhaps being an Italian from an old noble family had been holding him in check in Italy. Perhaps here in Switzerland, away from the center of the church . . .

I wasn't especially anxious to get his cock inside me—other than after that had happened, I will have gained control over him—but I was getting anxious to have it done and his name added to my list of supporters in the Vatican.

* * * *

The Ettal Monastery was bleak and foreboding, not a place where I would normally have thought that one of the world's leading experts in medieval church art would reside. But Brother Otto Kepler wasn't the usual sort of art expert. He wasn't even the usual sort of monk.

The cold, stone edifice was like a medieval fortress, complete with moat on the side away from the edge of the cliff, where the lower stories of the monastery cascaded down, and the only entry I saw was by way of a wooden drawbridge and under a nasty-looking, spike-bottomed portcullis. It seemed more a bastion or a prison to keep the monks in and separate from the world than the residence of a major light of the art world.

We were taken to Brother Kepler in silence by a young monk who was fully as young, blond, and fair of visage as I was myself but who kept his face looking at his bare feet in his sandals and his eyes cast down. Kepler wasn't the abbot, nor did he hold any other office in the monastery, but, as a valuable resource of the Vatican itself, he had a commodious office that was well appointed and, in keeping with his avocation, that overrode his monkhood, the walls of the chamber were hung with priceless art. Both the monsignor and I sucked in our breath as we entered the room, as it was a shock to come from the passages of austere and cold stone and enter into such beauty.

The appointments other than the art work were also sumptuous. The monk obviously was a man who appreciated and was accustomed to having the finer comforts of life.

The man himself, though, looked the part of a monk, of one whose function in the monastery was more the crude peasant role of hard labor working in the fields and with animal husbandry. He was big and robust, more muscular than fat. He was bald and bullet headed with a thick neck. The man had steel-blue eyes that bored into whoever he was giving attention to and a cruel-looking mouth. He was coarse looking, almost like a thug, which, as I knew his background, was in keeping with what he'd been before he had taken the vows. Even the prison-like atmosphere of the monastery was in keeping with what Otto Kepler once had been, and it was likely that the man felt comfortable here in this fortress that gave the feeling of being locked in—as much protected from as separated from the outside world—but that still gave him every personal luxury he coveted.

Kepler's reputation as a specialist in medieval church art stemmed from the fact that he had been a major and highly successful art thief, stealing only the best and having become an expert in what was the best to steal. He specialized in medieval church art depicting sin, damnation, and hell. The four pieces of art Monsignor Scarlotti was bringing to him here—the presumed Bosches, the Bruegel, and the Fra Angelico—for examination and authentication were just such works of art—views from the church of sin, damnation, and hell.

"This is my assistant, Father John Sands. He comes to the Vatican from the United States," the monsignor said to Kepler as he stared, with mixed concern and interest, at the young monk Kepler had given the paintings over to when Scarlotti had reluctantly handed them to Kepler, and who was expertly unwrapping them. As he did so, though, the young monk gave me a shy smile of comradery—both of us being seconded to a much more exalted and demanding man. I wondered what Kepler demanded of this young monk.

I knew what Kepler had once demanded of me—and gotten.

"Father Sands and I have already met," Kepler said, giving me a curt, cold look, "in the Vatican last summer when I spoke at the art consortium."

And indeed we had met. I shuddered at the thought of that meeting and the power, danger, brutality—yet sensuality—that the man exuded. He was not a man to cross. He was best avoided altogether if you didn't want to experience the effects of that hell he was such an expert in assessing.

He stood, looking at the four paintings for nearly a half hour, focusing on them as if we weren't even in the room. At length, though, he turned and said, "It's nearly the dinner hour and you'll be wanting to attend the mass afterward. I must contemplate these paintings late into the night, as you have said you wish to leave again tomorrow. All arrangements for the night have been made. You will be fed in a private dining room and Brother Müeller here will show you to your rooms and will guide you to dinner and mass. I will give you my assessment in the morning. Brother Müeller will be at your complete disposal, Monsignor—to meet whatever need you have."

And that was that. We sucked in breath again as we were led out into the stone cloister by the young monk and to rooms that were not much more than cells but that had the convenience of private water closets and barely adequate beds—more iron-frame cots than beds. I found there was no electricity, though, and although candles were provided, I turned in early after the end of the mass, being weary from the plane and lurching vehicle trip from Rome to this remote monastery and not being in the mood to read the biblical theory book I had brought with me by weak light.

The truth was, though, that I wanted to be prepared in case the monsignor had brought me here with him for the opportunity to declare himself and to cover me. I knew what I owed him for taking me as his assistant, and I'm sure he was aware of how I'd shown gratitude to other pillars of the church who had shown me favoritism by lying on my back and opening my legs for them. Thus, I didn't lock my cell door and I slipped under the covers in the nude. I had no compulsion to giving Scarlotti what I knew he ached for. I had lain under many a priest in the last three years and my only complaint was that they uniformly were so timid and guilt ridden about finding release with another priest, which I thought was so much more sensible than laying with a lay person and revealing that most priests were the same as any man and had the same needs as other men.

I didn't have much more hope for the passion or domination of the monsignor as courtly and reserved as he was, but it would aid our working relations greatly if he'd just go ahead and shaft me. My one insistence, though, was that the man who wanted to put his cock inside me had to make the declaration and initiate the coupling. I was quite willing to rise in the church on the strength of sex, but I would not seduce another man to win his favor—nor would I find arousing a man too timid to declare his wishes and to take his pleasure as by right.

Most prominent priests in the Vatican had no trouble taking what they wanted as by right.

* * * *

I was asleep when he whipped the sheets off me and landed on my back. He'd brought restraints and had my wrists bound together and over my head and a gag on me before I was fully awake. He was brutal and cruel. I knew he would be. That's why I'd been keyed up and trembling all the way from Rome.

The restraints weren't necessary. I wanted him covering me. But I understood that they were necessary for Otto. He'd acquired the taste for men when he was in prison and there weren't any women available to meet a man's needs—only other men. And there were two types of men who took cock in prison—those who sought it out and those who were made to take it. Otto was turned on by the latter type of man. And, after all of the furtive, vanilla couplings I'd experienced from other priests at the Vatican, Otto's cruel, take no prisoners fucking was what turned me on too. I fought him valiantly, as I knew he expected, and he overpowered me and took what he wanted from me, as I knew he would.

It was painful, at least at the beginning, when he closed his hands around my throat, forced me up onto my knees, and mounted and covered me from above. I thrashed around, as he wanted me to, fighting for my life because he certainly showed that he would fuck me to within an inch of my life—or beyond if that was his mood. He fucked me dry and raw and until I adjusted to him and we set a rhythm, I was in agony. But he'd taken me like this in a dark corridor of the Vatican too, suddenly throwing me up against a stone wall in a dark corridor, taking the breath out of me, and choking me, lifting me off the floor with the strength of one hand on my throat, while he tore at the buttons of my cassock, pulled my briefs off my legs, hooked my knees on his hips, thrust inside me dry, and fucked me hard.

He'd made no apologies. He just said he wanted it that way—that this was how it was in prison. Little time or opportunity to scratch the burning itch. Overpower and cow the prey and fast in and fast out. Take the risk of being seen as an extra thrill of doing it. Leave the prey curled up on the ground, gasping for air, reamed well open by a massive cock.

It had been exciting then, though—nothing like the tentativeness, delicacy, and guilt plagued half-assed couplings of senior priests I was using to get ahead in the hierarchy. He'd demanded it all, taken it all, and left me sobbing and melted in a puddle at the base of the wall in the dark Vatican corridor, reamed to his specifications. He'd left me wanting it again and again.

And now, the two of us alone in my cell, I was getting it again. I was dancing on the clouds, as he fucked me hard and thick and deep. I flailed against the assault as he forced his thick, throbbing cock inside my unprepared channel. Inside me, the throbbing staff pushed past the resisting sphincter muscle, which, once breached, blossomed open in acknowledgement that I had taken many men before him, Otto held for a few moments, his strong hands on my throat restricting and regulating my breathing. I struggled against him in spurts of ineffectual action. He reared his buttocks back and then thrust forward, giving me all of his cock. I jerked in shock and screamed through the gag. Again he reared back and thrust. And then again and again. He released his chokehold on my throat and, with a gasp and a whimper, I collapsed under him.

I had fought him—without effect, but I had done so—until he had bottomed in me. And then I just went docile. I relaxed and let my channel go slack, and he gained another inch or two. I surrendered all to him, going vulnerable and totally open to his invasion. He gave a low-throated laugh and started pounding my ass in earnest as if we'd be discovered at any moment and he'd have to leave off his victory over me, my total surrender to him. Fulfilling the need he had to take a man by force as he had done in prison.

I denied him nothing. It's doubtful that I could have done so even if I wanted to. But after the furtive half-way fumblings of the old priests in the Vatican, his "take him to hell" approach to sex was intoxicating.

He held and shushed me just as pleasure was outstripping the pain and I was beginning to bang back at him with my pelvis counterpistoning to his thrusting cock. He held me fast in his embrace and stopped thrusting. We were both panting hard, but I caught that he wanted us to go silent.

I heard then what he'd heard. Shuffling outside my door. I had left it unlocked for whoever came to me that night. I had hoped it would be Otto, but I saw the way the young, blond monk looked at him, and I thought that Otto's efforts might go only in that direction. If Scarlotti had come, I would have received him, glad that he'd finally made the commitment. If no one came, I would get a good night's sleep. It wasn't a compulsion of mine—although I would have regretted not being fully fucked by the cruel art thief again. He made me feel alive.

There was enough light coming in from the cell window on the full-moon night to see the door to the cell. We both watched, in suspended fuck, as the footsteps passed back and forth and then stopped. The doorknob turned, but the door didn't open. Otto had locked it behind him when he'd silently entered the room. I wondered if he'd watched me sleeping before he attacked and overpowered me. It gave me a little thrill that he, a connoisseur of art, might do that. That's what many of the priests who had fucked me in the Vatican had said about my body—that I was a work of art worthy of Michelangelo. It would be thrilling to think that Otto thought so as well—and then ravished me anyway.

Ah, I thought, that would be true art—a two-panel painting by a master of a virginal young man, naked, lying posed on a chaise, one the painting of the young man's body before the artist had ravished him. The other afterward.

Lying there underneath him, him deep inside me and throbbing but holding steady, his arms embracing me close, aroused me almost as much as when his shaft was working me hard. All of my thinking went to the sensation of the huge cock inside me, filling me to the limit, throbbing, and I—and he too—felt the muscles of my passage begin to ripple over the hard, buried shaft. He groaned, which cause me to moan, and for him to tighten his grip over my mouth. But I knew both of us were focused on his cock, deep inside me. I knew that when the danger passed, he would nearly kill me with the frenzy of his fucking. I think he knew it too—that he would snuff out my life if he didn't hold himself in check.

I didn't want him to hold himself in check. There was no future. There only was the now—with a monster cock throbbing inside me.

The footsteps receded, and Kepler resumed fucking me hard. His thrusts were so vicious and long that both he and I were bouncing off the cot in the cell, which was groaning and the coils screeching, and I was sure it would collapse. Giving up, sure he would fuck me to death, I lay back, my mouth yawning, my hands dragging the stone floor on either side of the cot, the knuckles being bloodied by bouncing off the stone as he bounced my body in his onslaught. I didn't die, though. After the initial pounding, he regained control and took me in more methodical positions.