11. Christian

11

CHRISTIAN

T he jet lag hasn’t caught up with me yet, so I’m alert as Gibson and I pass through the Basilica’s doors. The walk over was miraculous. It’s a gorgeous day. Cool with sunshine. We crossed the Tiber River on the Ponte Sant’Angelo with its angel statues and one of the most gorgeous views I’ve ever seen. The line to enter the cathedral moved fast while I took so many pictures I might as well be making a video.

Vatican City is clean and not too crowded. It’s familiar because it’s featured in so many movies, but to be here in real life makes it feel almost more unreal. That all being said, entering the great cathedral, I’m instantly overwhelmed.

I gape at everything, from the sculptures to the stained glass and the dome overhead. When a scattered beam of sunlight hits a bronze canopy in the center, I freeze where I’m standing, swallowing hard. I feel Gibson’s warm palm on my upper back. In a low voice, he says, “I’ll leave you to it.”

I’m not sure where he goes.

If God is anywhere—it’s here. I marvel at the way the light scatters through the nave, and I realize I do believe in something . This doesn’t feel like a coincidence .

I struggle to find my bearings among so many people and so many things to see. I have no knowledge of art history. None of what I’m looking at means anything to me in terms of something I’ve learned about and looked forward to seeing in person. It’s all a surprise—and there’s so much to see. Frescoes, altars, and nuns in full habit.

I approach the bronze structure slowly, noticing that it’s covering an opening in the floor. The space feels holy. Sacred. I wish I knew why. As I walk around it, taking it in, I stop in front of a crucifix, minuscule compared to the massive column behind it.

I’ve seen a million crucifixes, small and large in my life, but this one is gory and raw. Jesus’s ribs strain with his arms outstretched, nails driven through his palms. I can’t tell if He’s supposed to be alive and suffering or dead. His feet are crossed and nailed together.

I can’t stop staring at it. On closer inspection, His eyes are open. Suffering . It takes my breath away. I know the story, of course. He suffered and died for the sins of humanity, was reborn, and ascended to heaven—and one day He’ll come back.

I don’t believe in any of this—not the way some people do.

I believe He was a unique and special man who died a cruel and unfair death. I believe He probably took on a burden that was not His alone to bear. And I believe something fishy happened after that, but the eternal salvation part—that’s where I get stuck. Was it the suffering, the dying, or the willingness to go through with it that made His sacrifice so fundamentally world-changing?

I walk away after several minutes of contemplating this. I pass a lot of incredible marble statues—famous Romans, emperors, saints, Death, and then I find myself transfixed again before Michelangelo’s Pietà, which is where Gibson happens to be.

The marble sculpture breaks my heart. Jesus is definitely dead here, draped pathetically over the Virgin Mary’s lap. Three things strike me. The scale—how small His dead body looks in His mother’s lap. Her face. Young, looking like a child herself. Sad.

She looks so much like Trinity, a thick lump climbs my throat. I fear all the whiskey I drank last night might decide now is the time it needs to come out. The third part—the worst—is her left hand out, palm up in supplication, like still, even now with her abused and deceased son lying limp on her lap, she’s praying. She still believes.

“Fuck,” I whisper, turning away and walking toward the doors. I think I’m done here.

I step outside, needing air too much to stay inside any longer.

Trinity’s funeral comes back to me in a nauseating wave. The prayer circles, the whispered murmurings about how she was in a better place. That this was all God’s plan. That God brought her home.

And I remember wanting to ask them what about me? What’s God’s plan for me ? To carry this guilt without a clue where to put it? To never again feel a shadow of the raw, unfiltered love I had for her? I hadn’t been strong enough then to save her. To undo the systematic brainwashing her small church had been performing on her since she was a baby. That none of this would have happened if they hadn’t convinced her so thoroughly that Jesus would save her—that she was safe at all.

But the truth is, I believe in the Rainbow Bridge more than I believe in heaven. All I knew— all I know —is Trinity is gone, and Jesus couldn’t save her, but one of those people could have. All she had was me, though.

“Hey.” I turn at the sound of my boss’s voice.

His brow is drawn, and he’s reaching for my shoulder. I flinch, and he drops his hand. “Are you all right?”

“Fine. Yeah. Sorry. You didn’t have to leave if you weren’t ready.”

“Too late now,” he says. “You don’t look great. You need me to call my driver? ”

I balk. “No. I’m good.”

“Should I go?”

I look up at him and consider the question. I don’t love that he’s seeing me like this, but it’s too late to unring the bell. Still, his persistence is confusing. My mouth looks like I was beat up—a mess of busted blood vessels, bites and hickeys. As much as I loved the distraction last night, today is meant to be a reset, and it’s felt like one, which is both welcome and necessary for us to continue working together. But while we can glide past the physical part of the evening, what we can’t undo is the conversation that preceded it. We know things about each other now—personal things we can’t un-know. It barely occurred to me to decline his invitation to come with me this morning, even though I knew I could. It felt more natural to say yes.

Still, I’m not sure what got into him last night—or what would make a straight man want to kiss another man and only kiss him. Whether he makes a habit of this when he’s out of the country, or if being the assistant to a man like him comes with certain expectations. I only skimmed the contract.

I wanted that kiss, though. Every raw, rough, unexpected second of it.

He looks different to me today. I’m noticing things about him I think I’ve avoided noticing in the past. Like how thick his dark, wavy hair is. How young his brown eyes look—maintaining a boyish glint despite the creases on the rare occasions when he smiles. The fact that his skin is flawless and glowing—not a pore for miles. He has dimples, too, not that I see those now. I noticed them for the first time yesterday when he smiled. They’re just another surprise—one of many on his often stern, square-jawed face.

I’ve always considered him objectively handsome, but what I see now is insanely hot, which proves how much dead Jesus wrecked me. Or was it Michelangelo’s perfect rendering of the face of a girl I once loved more than I loved anything ?

Maybe Gibson’s just hot.

“All right. You know where to find me,” he says, taking a step away.

It took me too long to answer, but I don’t mind that he’s leaving. I don’t feel like myself, and I need to find that guy if I have a prayer of making it another night with Gibson in Rome without doing something even stupider than I did last night.

I don’t linger much longer at the Vatican. After a slow walk around the square, I find my way back to the river and hang out on the bridge awhile, watching the water rush beneath me. I might as well still be drunk for as numb as I am. I can barely feel the breeze on my face or the sun on my skin. I hear the people passing and smell the river, but my body feels dead. I don’t even have the sense of my heart beating, or air moving through my lungs.

And yet there’s a scream building in my head. Rage and regret and rumination I can’t shake no matter how much I write, how many friends I have, or who I take to bed. Nothing helps. I can’t move on.

So what the fuck is next?

I’m not even mad at Jesus anymore. He looked too pitiful. But I’m not happy with myself. It’s hard to be angry with God or even the church when the real problem is staring me in the face every morning in my bathroom mirror. Why the fuck can’t I let go?

Just as I’m about to let out the rising scream and risk being taken to an Italian mental institution, a memory of the woman’s screams from last night shifts my thoughts.

She was shackled to a bench at her wrists and knees—her back strapped down, and her ass arched high. The slap of a rough hand reddened her ass, and I’d witnessed her passage from pain to something beyond suffering.

I may not know how to ask for what I need in Italian, but surely someone in that dungeon knows enough English to help me safely let out this scream.

The man guarding the door cocks his head at me as I approach, making me wonder if I’m as wild-eyed as I feel. But as his gaze drops to my mouth, I remember what I look like today.

“How can I help you, Signore?”

“Is there anyone down there who works with beginners?”

“Beginning what?” he asks, his accent thick and gaze suspicious.

Too bad they don’t have a menu I could pick from. Just point to what I think I need and have someone give it to me. “Is there any chance we could talk on the other side of the door?”

“Of course.”

He unlocks the door, and in seconds, we’re both in the dark, violet-lit stairwell. “What are you looking for?”

“Restraint. Impact.”

“Hm. You are a beginner, you say?”

“Yes.”

“What about pleasure?”

“Is that not part of it?” I ask.

“Not always.”

I consider this. I don’t know that the idea of suffering would appeal if I didn’t think there was a passage through it to something sublime and redemptive. What I crave is the journey to that place. Suffering and release.

“Ideally I’d like it with the pleasure, too. But only after I feel something…” I clear my throat. “Difficult.”

“For a beginner, I would recommend the table. And a woman Domme.”

“Sure,” I say, nodding. This all sounds good to me. I don’t know what “the table” is, but even if it has spikes on it, I’ll probably take it. “Is that okay? I know I’m not a member.”

“You are Signore Hayes guest. You may have whatever you wish. And to be clear, your wish is to submit? ”

“Yes,” I say, the word coming out in a harsh whisper.

He sends a text on his phone. Moments later, a woman in a masquerade mask, black satin corset, arm-length latex gloves, and thigh-high boots reaches the landing where I wait.

“She does not speak English. She has the details. Tell her a safe word.”

The first word that comes to mind is Trinity, but I have a feeling she may be too much on my mind that I’ll call out her name on accident.

“Sacrifice,” I say.

“Si.” The guard has the Domme repeat the word. We go over it once more before she gestures toward the stairs, and I follow her to the dungeon.