Vow of Obedience

by judejuggs

Summary:

Brother Adam, a closeted trans monk, has become addicted to t4t sex with Brother Francis. Prior Michael, a much older man who has helped Adam hide his condition for years, fears that Adam’s affair with Francis will lead to his ruin. He offers an alternative— Adam can return to monastic obedience though sexual obedience under Michael’s (not so) steady hand. Adam quickly finds himself in a game of tug of war between his two lovers, and has to choose between fraternal camaraderie and paternal devotion before sexual scandal destroys him entirely.

Chapter 1: Renwal of Vows

The scriptorium is even quieter than usual. When all the other brothers were summoned to vespers service Adam did not budge from his desk. He had too much to do. When the sun's light slipped away from his half finished illumination, he lit another candle.

It was easier to concentrate like this. No shuffling of papers, no sniffles and coughs as monks flipped though dusty manuscripts, and no Francis. He was a constant distraction, whispering, passing notes, or just getting up and leaning over Adam's shoulder to watch him paint. The librarian had already moved Francis's desk away-- like they were schoolboys who could not focus when together-- but the minute they were unsupervised, Francis would make his way over to bother Adam again.

It would be different if Adam could blame Francis for everything, but his own mind was just as culpable. He easily-- even eagerly-- succumbed to Francis's antics. Passing notes back, providing silly marginal doodles to Francis's personal writings, and worst of all, fantasizing about what they might do together next.

Even now he crosses himself and chides his mind for wandering back to the belltower.

As a novice, Adam always woke hours before his brothers. What started as paranoia at discovery became habit, and when the monk in charge of watching the hours though the night realized Adam was getting up like clockwork, he happily passed on the task of ringing the morning bells.

This early waking allowed him the privilege of handling his morning hygiene alone. Washing himself and cleaning away any... unpleasantness, from his monthly bleeding.

But he no longer washed alone. At least, not when Francis managed to drag himself out of bed. It was a fifty/fifty chance each morning whether he would respond to Adam's prodding or simply roll over and go back to sleep until someone flipped his mattress.

It was nice to have company, but lately Francis was much more motivated to get out of bed. Once they had cleaned up, the pair of them would race to the top of the belltower, where they fell on each other like animals until it was time for Adam to ring the bell for lauds.

It's gotten so bad that Adam's once industrious pace is lagging. An illumination that should have only taken him a month has dragged on nearly to two. He flexes his fingers, growing stiff in the evening cold. He must do better.

The silence is broken by the scrape of the heavy oak door pushing straw across the floor. Adam looks up to see Prior Michael strolling into the scriptorium.

He acts as if he does not see Adam, weaving though the room and checking the progress of people's work. He tsks quietly at the disorganized pile of legal documents on Francis's desk. He picks up a book from another monk's lectern with a scowl, carrying it over to the librarians table and dropping it among the books to be re-shelved.

Adam shifts nervously in his seat. The Prior is not a big man. Scarcely taller than Adam himself, but Adam has always found him imposing.

"What does Saint Benedict say about obedience, brother?"

His voice is not loud, but carries clearly across the room to pierce Adam's already nervous heart. He fumbles his paintbrush. The Rule has quite a lot to say on the subject. Surely the Prior does not want him to recite the entire chapter. He chooses to paraphrase.

"To be obedient to your superiors is to be obedient to God, as such it is the humblest form of worship, one that we build our order upon. Brother Prior."

"That's right. Do you, little brother, believe it is obedient to break the rules lain down by our founder?"

Adam's blood runs cold. "No brother Prior."

"As soon as any order has been given by a superior, as being the same as if the order were divinely given, they can brook no delay in carrying it out." The Prior says, reciting the rule as he approaches Adam's desk. "And yet little brother. You are delayed."

Adam bites back fear as the Prior taps his fingers on the top of his desk.

"Why?"

It would be better to lie. He should lie. His behavior with Francis is enough to have him excommunicated. But from the look in the Prior's eye, he already knows the answer. To lie would only compound Adam's sin.

"I've been with Francis." Adam mumbles.

"Speak up boy."

His face beats with shame, blood pulsing though his cheeks. "I have been with brother Francis."

Michael gives him a long look. Adam glues his eyes to his illumination, but the illustration of a tortured soul looks back up at him with recrimination. Whatever punishment awaits him in hell is far from his mind as his body quivers in fear of the punishment that awaits him now.

Michael speaks in a loud voice, as if he is giving a sermon. "Sneaking around with your brother like a pair of novices. Stumbling into lauds with the evidence of your sinful acts still on your breath. Yesterday morning I went to the cathedral early to pray, and I could hear you two from the crypt!"

Adam buries his head in his hands, burning as if the fires of hell were already upon him. What had gotten into him? Why had he become so reckless?

Michael continues his lecture without reprieve. "You break the Rule, you sin without confession, and now your work suffers. You are choosing your own carnal satisfaction over your responsibilities to the Abbey. Over God."

Tears prick at the edges of his eyes. Years of fears come crashing down upon him. He will be beaten and expelled. He will never paint again.

Words spill from his mouth senselessly. "I'm sorry brother Prior! You are right! I have sinned! I have sinned horribly! I lay myself at your mercy! Punish me however you will but please don't make me leave! I have nowhere else! My manuscripts are my life! I beg you--"

Michael raises a hand, silencing him. "I know you were a lonely boy Adam. I am glad that you have found a friend in Francis. But this is not how a man behaves. If you are going to act like a child, I must treat you like one."

Adam shakes with fear, confused by the Prior's gentler tone.

"Pack up your work."

"But--" His words catch in his throat as Michael raises an eyebrow at him.

"Children do not speak unless asked to. It is too dark in here, you are better to start tomorrow. Pack it up."

"Yes brother Prior." Adam's voice comes out in a choke as bends to clean his brushes.

Fear for the Prior's punishment mingles with Adam's anxiety to please, his heart pounds, his palms sweat, and his crotch throbs-- Oh. That's new.

His face blooms red again, but this time it is not shame that fills his cheeks. He always felt a certain physical satisfaction for his obedience, he thought it was the pleasure of submitting to the glory of God. But in this moment, it feels much more base than that.

As he fiddles with his brushes, he becomes increasingly aware of the Prior's presence. He smells of incense. His weathered hands are square, the backs of them sporting brown curls of hair.

"Up until recently Adam, you have been an exemplary young man. You stood out from your unruly cohort. Quiet. Hardworking. Obedient. On your knees."

Adam had just closed the box of his paints. He drops instantly at the Prior's feet. It does not help with the arousal situation, and he struggles to keep his eyes trained on the floor instead of the body in front of him.

"We should not have allowed you to take your vows so young. Clearly you did not yet know enough about sin to be capable of renouncing it. Do you remember the words?"

"Of course, brother Prior."

"Swear them to me again, now."

It is strange to say the words here, in the darkening scriptorium, instead of surrounded by his brothers in the church. Though he is making the promise to God, it feels as if he is speaking only to the Prior.

“I, Adam of Guissex, promise stability in a life of prayer, fidelity to the monastic way of life, and obedience to the will of God according to the Rule of our holy father Benedict. I swear this before God and all the saints. Amen.”

"Amen. Do you vow to stop allowing your friendship with Francis to interfere with your duty as a man of this abbey?"

"Yes brother Prior."

"Good. Do not confuse yourself with him, Adam. Francis is a rich man playing pretend, someday he will leave here to return to his palaces and idleness. You are a member of this community until they day God takes you. You are beholden to its rules. If you get caught, I will not hesitate to strip you bare and beat you like I would any of your brothers."

"If-?" Adam chokes out. He was certain his punishment was still on its way.

The Prior puts a rough hand on his cheek, his expression softening. Adam's heart-rate jumps. "You're a good boy Adam. I'd hate to see you leave us." His hand slides up Adam's face to ruffle his hair. "Also, if you get found out, who is going to illuminate all of the Abbot's accursed commissions?"

Adam presses his head into Michael's hand without thought. Of course Michael would protect him, even now. He has always done his utmost to guard the truth of Adam's body. Granting him the opportunities that would have been his to take if he had been born a man.

When Michael pulls his hand away, Adam feels its absence like a house missing a wall.

He speaks with almost an air of regret. "I tried my best Adam, to help raise you into a man, but I must admit, there are gaps in your education. Every boy finds himself enthralled by a woman at some point. But, when you want to learn how to fuck like a man--"

Adam's eyes go wide as saucers as the Prior pauses. He's never heard the Prior speak so roughly.

Michael drops a heavy iron key at Adam's feet.

"Come see me in my office."

The Prior whisks out of the room. Adam stares at the key in a shocked daze.

Chapter 2: A Lesson

Summary:

Adam gets fucked in the ass :)

Adam paces around the courtyard anxiously, repeatedly glancing at the candlelit window of the Prior's house. The building is a late addition, tucked between the chapter house and the stables, it became necessary when the population grew to more than could be managed by the Abbot alone.

He had expected a reprimand. What he got instead still sent his heart racing. Francis had once cryptically mentioned that the Prior was "into freak shit," but refused to elaborate. Adam did not know what his brother had meant, but he could not imagine the Prior, who cared so deeply for his flock, would do anything cruel to him.

With each step closer to the Prior's door, Adam's anxiety entreats him to run. He had been absolved. He could return to his work and no more would come of this. But he could not forget the way his blood boiled when the Prior reprimanded him.

When he finally draws the courage to enter, the Prior does not look up from his desk. His hair is still mostly the brown it was when Adam was a child, but gray wires sparkle in the candlelight as he peers down at his papers. His eyes, always squinting, crinkle at the edges, as if in amusement, and he says.

"Good evening brother. I'm just finishing some work. Take a seat."

Adam sits on the only other chair in the small room, a bench by the door. He presses his fingers together and looks around.

He has never been in the Prior's home before. It is tidy, despite the shelves laden with books and ledgers. A quaint fireplace is enough to provide warmth to the tight space, which is dominated by a large oak desk. Tucked in the back is the Prior's bed, dressed as plainly as all the beds in the monastery.

"A neighboring Abbey was struck by lightning. Our Abbot offered to house the poor displaced monks while repairs were made to the roof, which is of course, a generous and Christian thing to do-- but he could have given me some more notice! Eighteen men will be arriving the day after tomorrow, and I must find a way to feed and and house all of them!"

The Prior returns to his papers without a word, scrawling something in a hurried hand. Adam fingers his prayer beads, silently mouthing the penitent's prayer. A habit he had taken up to quiet his mind, which always seemed to be running.

So he jumps when Michael speaks again. "Go get the wooden chest tucked next to the bookshelf, and place it on the bench."

Adam rushes to comply, eager to have something to occupy his hands. The chest is small enough to lift, and not too heavy. Like everything in here, it is simple. No adornments besides the metal lock clasp that holds it shut. He turns to Michael, wondering if he is meant to open it, but the Prior has returned to flipping through a ledger.

The young man's mind runs wild trying to divine what could be inside. When he was a boy,his brothers whispered that the Prior had cruel tastes. That he kept strange torture devices with which to punish errant novices. One boy claimed that the Prior had dug needles under his fingernails for the minor sin of speaking at the supper table.

Adam had thought himself past believing his brothers' fictitious tales, but apprehension still pressed against the interior of his ribs. It was becoming clear to him that the Prior had an interior life that Adam did not know anything about.

His attention is turned to a soft jingling. The Prior holds his key ring out, shaking it lightly, even as his nose is pressed to a document. "Open it."

Adam tries not to appear too hasty as he rises to take the ring. It is cold and heavy in his hands. He didn't know the Abbey had so many locks. As he fumbles for one that might be small enough to fit the chest, he feels the Prior's eyes upon him. His face flushes, and he flips through the keys more quickly.

After four attempts, the lock pops open. Adam sighs in relief, then gasps in surprise.

After their heist on the convent, Francis had bemoaned having to throw his collection of sex toys in a bush. But it appeared that they were not languishing in the mud at all.

He gawks at the collection of illicit goods, neatly organized into compartments. He recognizes the dildos, Francis had tucked a few in his shirt before they got caught, but the array of leather and metal devices confound him. He looks from Michael to the crate with wide eyes, and Michael responds with only an upward quirk of the side of his mustache before turning to shuffle some papers.

Is he? Playing with him? Adam struggles to reconcile this new dimension of Michael with the strict Prior that oversaw his youth. Michael, who had lectured so often on obedience and self control, seemed to be utterly indulgent in his own desires. Has he always been like this? Would Adam have ever found out, had he not fallen in with Francis?

Ever since they met, Adam’s world has been unfolding at a rapid rate. He is starting to worry that it is growing too quickly, and he may have been better off when his world started and ended within the confines of his role as a monk.

“The glass one, greenish, kind of conical.”

The toy catches his eye immediately. It’s not shaped like the ones Francis seems to prefer. It resembles a horn more than a man’s member, straight and tapered, with a wide flat base. He picks it out gingerly, not sure if its weirder to grasp it along its length or hold it cupped in his hands like a baby bird. So he kind of does both.

The toy makes him nervous. Francis had been mindful, if not necessarily respectful, of Adam’s request for him to keep his hands on the outside. Something about being penetrated felt too much like a forfeiture of the manhood he had built for himself.

Perhaps Michael intended Adam to wield the rod. No. He knows that much at least. He could not imagine the Prior as anything other than in complete control.

So it is meant for him.

“Put it on my desk.”

He feels silly walking over, flush creeping up his face as he gets closer to the Prior. He places it upright, the green glass reflecting the candlelight.

“I uh—“

Michael shushes him with a raised finger, and continues to organize papers, sealing some into envelopes and sliding everything away in a nook by his feet. He puts a lid on his inkwell, cleans the nib of his stylus, and blots up ink splatters from the varnish with a painstaking fastidiousness. When the desk is empty of everything but the candle and the glass rod, he turns in his seat and smiles at Adam.

“What can I do for you brother?”

Adam’s mouth goes dry and his mind blank. He doesn’t know what he’s here for. The Prior invited him so he came. His eyes flick to the sparkling glass between them. Well. He has some ideas. Michael smiles at him serenely, the edges of his eyes crinkling with mirth.

He has long learned he cannot out-wait the Prior, so he fumbles for something to say. “Well, Prior you—“

“Call me Michael here.”

Another barrier broken, Adam’s heart is pounding in his ears. “Michael, you said you had a lesson to teach me...?”

He hopes that will be enough for Michael to take the lead, but the Prior has never allowed indirect answers. “Yes?”

Its hard not to feel like a child under the older man’s steady gaze, but Adam pushes down his childhood anxieties. He was invited here as an equal. Michael is recognizing him as an adult. To buckle now would be to remain a boy in his eyes. He clears his throat.

“I want you to fuck me like a man.”

Michael’s eyebrows shoot up. “Language, brother.” But the quirked corners of his bushy mustache belie his stern tone. He sits back in his chair, chewing his lip in thought.

“No.”

Adam’s confidence melts like a candle, the wax pooling heavily in his throat and stomach. He sounds as small as he feels when he creaks out, “But you said—“

“I said I would teach you how.”

Adam bites his tongue to hold back from rambling in embarrassment. Had he completely misread Michael’s intentions? Of course the Prior wouldn’t see him like that—

Michael gestures to his desk. “Bend over.”

Adam is grateful for the opportunity to turn his shame red face away. He braces himself on his forearms and tries to prepare for the oncoming beating for his audacious transgressions.

When he is instead met with soft touch, Adam holds his breath. Behind him, Michael lifts up the skirts of his robe, his knuckles grazing Adam’s bare thighs as he folds the layers of fabric up to his hips. Michael gives then string holding his undergarments up a sharp tug, and Adam’s linen shorts drop to his ankles.

He does not comment on the thin leather straps wrapped around Adam's thighs, or the wooden dildo tucked securely into place against his hip. A gift from Francis. Adam was too afraid to lose it, so he wore it always, despite the chafing it could cause.

“One minute. Forgot something.”

Only when Michael steps away does Adam dare to breathe again. With his bare ass in the air, Adam feels like a little boy about to be spanked. Its embarrassing, but what’s even more embarrassing is how much that thought turns him on. He presses his red face into his hands and tries not to think about the wetness already seeping between his legs.

The Prior digs around in boxes deeper in his office. Clay jars clink in his hands. The hair on the back of Adam’s neck rises as he feels Michael return. Does he see? Part of Adam wants him to see. To comment on how depraved he is for finding so much pleasure in being made small.

But he takes no interest in the glistening cunt.

Adam flinches as Michael presses a finger to his asshole. It puckers, recoiling from the cool oil being massaged into it. Michael makes an amused snorting sound.

“Recite psalm 119.”

Right now?? When he is fooling around with Francis, Adam usually does his best to put God out of his mind— something best worried about later when he’s in bed alone, quietly spiraling into despair at his own sins.

But the words come tumbling out automatically, even as Michael’s finger probes at him. The psalm concerns obedience, reminding him he is doing as he is told, nothing more. The familiar rhythm of the long prayer relaxes him, and soon he feels the strange pressure of a finger sliding into his ass.

“There you go,” Michael says, quiet, as if coaxing a spooked animal. He gives Adam a pat on the thigh before pulling his finger back out. “You can stop there.” Adam didn’t think it felt like much, but he misses its absence immediately.

The Prior walks around to the front of the desk, where the glass toy has been staring at Adam from the corner of his eye. Michael places a hand along the length, smearing streaks of oil on the pristine surface.

“You will get what you asked for when you have learned to take this entire horn.”

The thought of an 8 inch rod up his ass makes Adam gulp. It would split him in two! And what did Michael mean? What did he ask for? Is this not being fucked?

The question is answered by the conspicuous bump below Michael’s belt, eye level with Adam as his weight bears into the desk. His face flushes red with understanding. Michael would not fuck him. Yet. But if he learned…

“Can you do that, Adam?”

“Yes,” he says breathlessly.

Michael smiles down at him. “Good boy.”

A wave of arousal shoots through him, so he presses his reddening face to the desk. Michael plucks the dildo into the air and slowly strolls back to his place behind Adam.

He flinches again when the cold glass meets his asshole.

"You were on line 131, brother."

Adam obeys. The sensation of a foreign body slowly entering him is strange, but not really pleasurable. It is easy to recite the psalm:

"I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands. Turn to me and have mercy--oh-OH"

Michael pumps the rod, shallowly, but quickly. Memory fails Adam, and his voice acts on its own accord. Heat and pleasure build. With each plunge, Michael ventures a bit deeper, so that Adam feels the sting of being stretched farther and farther. It feels so good. He hears his own voice grunting in rhythm to the strokes, as if he were somewhere far away.

It stops. Michael pulls out suddenly, and says in a stern voice. "Why, Adam, you're supposed to have all the psalms memorized. Don't tell me you've forgotten the words?"

Adam had recited every prayer perfectly on the day he earned his habit, they were engraved in his mind deeper than his own thoughts. And yet, at that moment he can not summon a single word.

He struggles to remember what he had been saying, but all his thoughts are at the blood pounding in his asshole, and the warm feeling of lube weeping out of him. With a pant, he mumbles. "Forgive me, brother Michael, what psalm was it again?"

"One nineteen. Line 132." He punctuates this with a sudden jab, penetrating deeper than he had before. Adam bleats like a squeezed lamb.

Sweat prickles on his brow as he struggles to remember the next line. The Prior is testing him, he knows it. Adam had sworn obedience, and Michael would have it, even now.

He grits his teeth and continues to pray, fighting to stay focused when Michael returns to pounding into him.

"Turn to me and have mercy on me, as you always do those who love your name. Direct my footsteps according to your word..."

It becomes trance-like. Adam's mind directs his mouth, but his body sweats and writhes under Michael's hand. His breaths come in great heaves, and his hips rock, seeking more, always more. The heat in his ass is rivaled only by the throbbing of his cunt, as arousal pushes more and more blood into his swollen and neglected pussy.

Michael slows to a stop. "Very good Adam. You are halfway there."

Only half?! It feels as if he is being torn asunder!

"Don't let that fall out." Michael says, releasing his hold on the rod. It tilts down and there is an odd pressure as it cantilevers in Adam's ass. He has no idea how he is meant to hold a piece of slippery glass inside his body, so he tries to stay very still.

Michael steps away from him, taking a seat on his bed, such that Adam has to crane his neck to see what is happening.

"Pardon me Adam, I have to-- ah-- deal with this before temptation brings me to break my own rules."

Adam cannot peel his eyes away as the Prior lifts his own robes to expose his erect member. He watches with equal parts lust and envy, licking his lips.

Michael is not quite so long as the glass toy hanging from Adam's ass, but Adam now understands why he is not ready. His girth exceeds the widest part of the rod, nearly three fingers wide. Adams face flushes at the thought of being opened wide by Michael.

He had seen his fair share of flaccid dicks growing up at the monastery. Men washing themselves, changing, stripped naked for beatings, but he had never seen one like this. The tip, usually ensconced in its fleshy sheath, protrudes like a red mushroom, wet and glistening. Michael rubs his thumb across it, and it weeps a milky fluid.

The shaft, bulging with veins, curves up towards the heavens. Adam watches it twitch as Michael's hand gives it a series of quick jerks. He shifts his own legs subconsciously, pressing his thighs together to create pressure. Then he yelps as the rod begins to slide out, whipping his arm around to catch it, and hold it awkwardly in place.

Adam bites his lips at the sweet sound of Michael's grunts and moans. His hand does not remain, completely still, subtly rocking the toy into himself. It is so intimate to hear the Prior like this. Adam takes some pride knowing it was he that brought the older man to this state, yet he wishes he were doing more than watching.

With a strained sigh, the Prior releases. Opalescent fluid shoots from his erection, far more than Adam would have thought. Then, he takes a towel from his bedside, wipes up his emission, and rises to rejoin Adam.

His hand, warm and still moist from the fluid that had just covered it, covers Adam's. "Thats a good boy. Now where were we?"

The question was obviously not meant to be answered. Michael goes right back to the quick pace from before his interruption. Even quicker this time. He does not ask Adam to speak. He simply pounds into him with a speed and force that pushes the air from his lungs.

His body redoubles its sweating. His legs twitch and his back curves to take more. Heat builds and builds and builds with no relief, just an increasingly unbearable intensity. His breath becomes quick and ragged, too quick.

His chest tightens and he begins to wheeze. Panic wells up inside him, only tightening his chest further. Short sharp jabs of breath tear through his throat as if by force.

Michael stops, pulling out the rod and taking Adam by the shoulders. He barely understands as he is guided to the bed, black spots dotting his vision.

"Breathe brother. Big breaths."

Michael's hand is on his chest, concern in his eyes. Adam struggles to control his lungs, big sighs punctuated by hiccuping gasps. Michael is sitting beside him, he pulls Adam close to his chest. Adam counts his breaths to the steady heartbeat against his head until his body is finally stilled.

He isn't used to being held like this. The monk in charge of raising the boys was a kind man, but withheld physical affection. The most he had received from his paternal figures as a youth was pats on the back, the occasional ruffling of hair. Once he left the novitiate, taking his vows, he was not touched again.

So he curls into Michael's lap, clinging to the older man's scapular like a child. Sexual gratification gives way for exhaustion. Michael's arm wraps around his back, holding him secure, while his other hand rubs Adam's chest.

"Are you well brother? I did not hurt you?"

Adam nods his head, nuzzling further into Michael's chest. "It was good."

Michael chuckles softly, his chest vibrating against Adam's face. "Good. You scared me for a moment there. But you did well Adam."

"Thank you, brother Pr-- Michael."

In the Prior's strong arms, Adam wonders how he could have ever believed the foolish things his brothers had said about the man. He may be stern, but he is human as well. His sinful hungers no different than any man. He twists the fabric of Michael's robes in his hands.

"What are you thinking, little brother?"

Adam's cheeks bloom with embarrassment, but he speaks. "When I was a boy... I was terrified of you. My brothers... they said such horrible things about you..."

Michael's chest rumbles with another soft laugh. "Boys always say such things of their masters. I do not worry about the stories children spin."

Adam allows himself a small relieved smile, but his memory catches on a particular story, one that darkened his perception of the Prior. "One time we were taken from the chapter house, I was too young to understand why. The older boys told me you nearly beat a man to death."

This time, his chest does not rumble. He feels Michael's body tense beneath him.

"I did."

He should pull away in fear, but he curls tighter, seeking reassurance. "Why?"

He fears it was not his place to ask, for the Prior is quiet for a long while. When he speaks, it is hesitantly. "You are learning, Adam, what it is to be ruled by passion. Passion paves the way for selfishness, jealously, anger. I allowed my emotions to guide my hand. I hurt that man not for God or the community, but for myself."

Adam thinks of his own passions. The black eye he gave Francis, fighting over a woman like a pair of rutting stags. How quickly jealousy had overturned his gentle nature. He nods his head. "I think I understand."

Michael rubs his arm. "Then I am sorry. It is a hard way to live."

"Why do you do it then?"

"How can I not?"

Adam cannot refute this, curled in the man's arms, his body aching from his touch. But if someone as pious and controlled as Michael cannot resist his passions, then is there any hope for Adam at all? It feels as if he is careening towards the fires of hell.

"And what of God?"

"He made us, with all our flaws. I can only hope that my devotion to Him, and this Abbey, will be enough to absolve me of my weakness. I have no other choice."

He gives Adam a squeeze. "You are not the only sinner Adam, but you mustn't forget that the stakes are higher for you than your brothers. Please be more careful."

"Yes, brother Michael."

"And visit me again soon."

"I will."

Notes:

The guy Michael almost beat to death is a reference to Michael's last affair with an obsessive twink:
Penance Through Pain

Chapter 3: Slumber Party!!!

Summary:

Adam sneaks into Michael's home in the dead of night, but is too anxious to wake the man.

It took weeks before Adam summoned up the courage to darken Michael’s door again.

At first, while the excitement was fresh, he was held back by the throbbing ache in his ass. Every shift in his wooden seat a pleasantly painful reminder, that both excited and chastised him. Once the pain faded, it seemed the reality of what had passed between them did too.

The Prior’s gaze did not linger on Adam. He did not brush closer to him when he walked past in the halls of the cloister. The only acknowledgment was a nod of approval as Adam arrived at lauds on time for the first time in weeks.

Francis, on the other hand, bemoaned Adam’s renewed dedication. Adam felt a pang of guilt for leaving his brother to deal with his sexual frustrations alone-- especially when he had the key to the Prior's house still heavy in his pocket. But he focused much better with Francis giving him the cold shoulder, and quickly caught up on his work.

With his illumination finally complete, Adam felt he had earned the right to see Michael again.

This time, he did not pace nervously outside the door. It was late, and he stole through the courtyard in the dark. No candle burned inside, only the faint glow of a dying fire lit the Prior's house.

He opens the door slowly and quietly. The old hinges squeak. He pauses. He does not know why he assumed the older man would be awake. Perhaps wishful thinking, that Michael was as eager as he.

He creeps up to the Prior's bed, hoping his soft footsteps will be enough to wake him. But he is fast asleep. Adam blushes to recognize in the dim light that he is undressed. The blanket is twisted around his legs, leaving his torso exposed, glowing orange from the firelight.

His skin is rough, pockmarked with freckles and pores. A mat of curled brown hairs that Adam has only glimpsed sneaking out along the backs of his hands, wraps around his arms, chest, and stomach.

Without thinking, Adam runs a hand along his own arm. He himself only has fine blond hairs, invisible to anyone who is not looking for them. The pang of jealousy only deepens as his eyes travel up the curve of Michael's neck, tracing his sharp jaw, scouring his bristling mustache, and landing on his softly parted lips.

Adam is overcome. He drops to his knees at the bedside, pressing his forehead to his clasped hands. Everything about this is wrong. He has gotten everything he wanted. He is allowed to live as a man. Must he still covet a body that is not his? Is he so ungrateful?

Or is what he feels for Michael only lust? It is impossible to untangle the heat of his desire from the envy that burns in his chest. Does it matter? Is one less sinful than the other? Either way he is here, knelt at the Prior of his Abbey's bedside.

What is his plan? Will he really wake the Prior? What will he say? "Michael, I stopped sleeping with Francis like you asked, and now I'm so so horny please help." His face reddens and he presses it harder into his hands. Idiot. Selfish. Childish. Who does he think he is to ask this? Prideful. Vain.

He is too guilty, too sinful, to deserve pleasure this night. He presses his forehead to the earthen floor of the Prior's house, and prays.

 

Nature calls. Michael groans. As he ages, he cannot even sleep fully through the short hours between compline and matins without having to piss. He sits up slowly, swinging his feet off the bed with a sigh.

They brush against something warm and soft. Did he push his blankets to the floor again? His fire has gone out completely, so he investigates the dark beneath him with only his feet. He feels the chest of a living body. An animal? Did one of the abbey dogs sneak its way into his house?

Still groggy, he leans down to touch the intruder. No, not an animal. A man. Asleep on his floor. He runs his hand up an arm, a neck, a soft face. As his fingers lace into the short silken hair, realization finally dawns on him.
Adam.

He stifles an amused chuckle. The boy had been working tirelessly to finish his commission, finally showing it to the Abbot that afternoon. He must have come for his reward, and, too shy to wake him, dozed off waiting.

The change that has come over him in the past months was baffling to Michael. Ever since he was a child, Adam had been incredibly quiet and reserved. Despite his timidness, he lived with a determination of purpose that few postulants could match. He was fastidious in his studies, and when other boys ran to play, he snuck into the scriptorium to watch the older monks work. By fifteen, he was the best scribe the Abbey had, and an easy choice when the old illuminator sought a successor. A perfect monk.

Then Francis arrived.

Michael had never seen Adam so smitten. The day Michael introduced the noble brat to the scriptorium, he watched Adam glance up from his work no less than twenty times in an hour. Nonetheless, it was still quite a surprise when he trailed behind Francis on her silly venture back into the convent.

He had let it slide, happy to see his young brother finally connect with someone. But lord have mercy! The two became inseparable. Adam began to act erratically. Rumors of their relationship spun through the abbey. If Michael hadn't intervened, Francis would have chewed Adam up and spit him out.

Michael has known his fair share of entitled nobles, but Francis was by far the worst. Made untouchable by her uncle's protection, she runs rampant through the abbey. She thinks of no one but herself, risking Adam's life for her own pleasure. The Abbot is too indebted to her uncle to punish her for what she does behind closed doors, but if Adam were to be caught in flagrante delicto, there would be no saving him.

But Michael has known Adam since he was a child. He would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. So if what Adam wanted now was an outlet for his sexual frustration... That was something Michael could provide.

Not that it was an inconvenience for him. He had a weakness for lovely young men. Especially ones that knew how to do as they were told. He liked the way Adam blushed when he took orders. He wanted to see just how red he could get.

But it would be a crime to wake him now, and Michael is too drowsy to play games. He considers lifting the boy into his bed, but he is not too prideful to admit that he does not have the strength to scoop a grown man from the floor.

Instead, he pulls his blanket from his bed and lays it over Adam's sleeping form. There will be plenty of time tomorrow.

Chapter 4: I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands

Summary:

Good little monk boys get butt-plugged.

Adam wakes, stiff on the dirt floor, to a hand shaking his shoulders. Silhouetted by candlelight, the prior leans over him, once again fully dressed. "It is nearly matins Adam, go back to the dormitory before they find you missing."

Disoriented, he struggles to his feet. He does not remember falling asleep, and is embarrassed--and a little disappointed that he did not wake while Michael dressed himself. Michael hurriedly brushes clouds of dirt from Adam's back.

"I'm sorry brother Michael. I didn't mean to-"

"No matter brother, hurry off now."

His fog clears enough to understand the Prior's concern. "Oh. Yes. Of course!"

He rushes to the door. As he opens it Michael's voice follows after him. "And come right back after!"

A smile splits across Adam's face and he gambols across the courtyard, ducking into the dormitories. It is fruitless to pretend he is asleep, for his heart pounds with excitement. He is barely under his blanket when the monk in charge of the late watch enters with a lantern and chants loudly to wake his brothers.

In the procession through the halls, Adam tries to focus on the meaning of their antiphon. To look towards heaven instead of inward. But he chants mechanically, his mind lost in anticipating what Michael might have in store for him. Perhaps tonight, he will manage to take the entire rod. Perhaps the Prior will let him touch him.

Heat pulses to his crotch, his blood pounding in rhythm with the cantor's voice. He has to resist sprinting to the Prior the minute the service ends. Instead he follows his brothers back to bed, and rolls fitfully until they are settled enough that he can sneak out once again.

This time, a candle is lit.

Michael sits at his desk, reading a small worn devotional. Adam recognizes the clay jar of lubricant beside him, but not the strange egg shaped stone. When he does not see the glass horn, his disappointment and confusion wear plainly on his face.

"Are we not-?"

Michael shushes him with a gesture, and beckons him to come closer.

"You are already missing sleep little brother, I would prefer if you were not spent by nones."

Adam nods. He is right. Their last evening together had completely exhausted him, and he would have slept in for the first time in years had not Francis pestered him awake. Even so, he would have liked to prove to Michael that he was ready. His eyes flick to the instruments on the table.

Michael chuckles. It brings a smile to Adam. The truth of Michael's nature was clearly written on his face, deep lines bracket his mouth and crows feet dance from his eyes, but Adam had never heard the Prior laugh so much. It makes his chest feel warm to know he is allowed to see it.

"Do not worry, you will still get what you came here for. But not like that. Take off your clothes."

Anxiety dulls Adam's eagerness. The Prior knew that he was not as he said he was, but that was different from seeing it. What if he saw Adam's soft and hairless body, and changed his mind?

Michael must sense his trepidation, for he turns away, crouching to fiddle with the small fire that warms the room. Adam peels off his layers with nervous reluctance, removing cowl, scapular, habit, shift, and finally, with sweating fingers, untying the twine that holds up his braes.

He begins to fuss with the buckle of the leather harness on his hips when Michael turns and raises a hand. "Not that." he gives him a smile. "Keep that one on."

Adam blushes and keeps his eyes to the floor as Michael rises. Goosebumps race up Adam's body as the older man places his hand gently on the small of Adam's back, guiding him with a touch to the desk.

He picks up the strange stone and places it in Adam's hand. It is heavy and cool. Closer now, he can see it resembles an egg on a pedestal. It is white marble, speckled with gray, surely too expensive not to be one of Francis's recovered toys.

"What is it?"

Michael shrugs. "You're imagination works just as well as mine... but I have some guesses."

Adam closes his hand around the stone. It's small flared base would not fit in the harness on his hips, and it is much too stout to bring any pleasure to a woman's cunt. The tapered top seems perfect to push something open... Adam has a guess of his own. His face flushes red with understanding.

"Well, what do you think brother? Where should we put it?"

Doing sinful actions and speaking them aloud are two different things. Especially speaking to his Prior. "Well... uhm." His mouth goes dry. "I believe it goes," he cringes at the high pitch of his voice as he strains out the words, "in a man's backside?"

Michael taps his chin in mock thought. "Now that is a theory. Would you like to test it?"

"Yes." He says, far too quickly.

Michael gives him a light laugh and plucks the stone from his hand. His other hand brushes along Adam's shoulders, and he understands instantly, leaning forward to place his body atop the desk once again.

Heat rushes though his body as the Prior caresses Adam's side, sliding his hand across his bare back to gently squeeze his ass. "Oh if only all monks were as obedient as you little brother." He gives him a pinch that makes Adam jump. "Though I suppose then I would be out of a job."

Adam says nothing. It's still unclear to him whether or when he is allowed to speak freely. Not that he minds, speaking to the Prior in such a casual manner feels foreign and uncomfortable. He prefers to keep his place, quiet and obedient as he has always been. It's safer like that. Trusting his superiors over his own foolish heart.

Thus, he swallows his impatience while Michael's fingers tease him. Lightly running along tender skin between Adam's legs, dancing around his most sensitive parts. He resists the urge to push up against them, instead closing his eyes and relishing in the gentle touch.

He doesn't flinch this time, when Michael finally probes an oiled finger against his ass. His body remembers how good it can feel, twitching in anticipation. He is not asked to pray, but the words rattle through his mind. "I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands"

How clever the Prior is. How blasphemous. To tie sex and worship. After all, its much easier to worship a man. Though he listens for him every day, God has never spoken to him. Never touched him. He can only understand the Lord's will through his masters. Through Michael.

With a gasp he presses his forehead to the wooden surface. Shocked both by his own wicked thoughts and the cool pressure behind him.

"Relax little brother, you can take it."

The reassurance steels him. Of course he can take it. He must. For he was asked to.

He takes a deep breath. The stone is not thin like the rod, and he can feel the blunt tip forcing him open. The pressure almost hurts-- then suddenly, it is through. His body closes around the shaft of it. The weight is comfortable inside him.

"Good boy."

His ass clenches around the stone at Michael's words. He huffs with satisfaction, forgetting his blasphemous thoughts.

"How does it feel?"

"G-good."

"Good. Can you stand with it in?"

Adam pushes himself up off the desk, and nearly whimpers at the shifting sensation in his ass. "Yes brother Michael."

Michael taps at it from behind and Adam yelps when the sensation shivers up his spine. Michael smiles. "We'll have you ready in no time."

Adam blushes. Is Michael excited to fuck him? He clenches in anticipation and is gratified by another shiver of pleasure.

His cunt flexes with arousal when Michael takes the strap at his hip and turns Adam to face him. "A gift from your brother Francis?"

He is gesturing to the wooden dildo pressed against Adam's thigh. Adam nods, feeling a bit silly for bringing it here.

Michael seems to be investigating it with curiosity. "Show me how it works."

Flustered, Adam wiggles the toy loose. It slides easily into the leather ring secured before his crotch. He looks up at Michael expectantly.

The older man's eyes twinkle and he makes an amused grunt. "Aren't women clever... Do you know how to use it?"

Adam stammers. "Well I--uhm-I've used it only a few times-- so yes-- Francis has been teaching me--"

"What has your brother been teaching you?"

Adam's cunt throbs, and he swallows hard. He does not want to repeat the things he has done with Francis aloud to the Prior. How he has greedily lapped up every inch of his brother's body, how he has let Francis touch him until his legs quake, how he has been used like a senseless doll for his brother's satisfaction.

"H-how to please a woman." Is all he can say, for if Francis does speak when they join, it is only ever to lecture Adam on how best to bring a woman pleasure.

Michael shakes his head, his thick hair sparkling in the firelight. Adam fears he has said something disappointing, until Michael reaches down and unties his own corded belt. "Well you are a man Adam. Shouldn't you know how a man is pleased?"

Chapter 5: Please

Summary:

Michael finds himself melting.

Notes:

Had to reupload this one because I rushed the ending. Its better now :)

Adam’s arousal burned on his face like a farrier’s iron as Michael undressed himself. He forced himself to curb his own throbbing sense of urgency, if only to prolong the young man's eager panting.

He was not quite erect yet, though blood pounded through his member. In his own impatience, he would have happily thrust himself into Adam's mouth, hanging limply open while the boy gawked at him with bald desire. How satisfying it would be to watch Adam's bright round eyes fill with tears, and how valiantly Adam would struggle to drink down every drop he was given.

Instead, he folded his garments into a small square, reached around Adam's frozen body, allowing the hairs on his arm graze his soft back, and placed them as a cushion on his desk.

"Take a seat."

His eyes did not leave Adam as he shuffled onto the high desk with some difficulty. He was intrigued by how the stone plug would affect him, observing how Adam shifted his hips. The small gasp as he lowered his weight onto the cushion fully was enough to raise Michael's dick another inch.

He did not need to be told to spread his legs, and his thighs brushed up against Michael's hips as he stepped close to him. Michael wrapped a hand gently around the shaft of Adam's wooden member.

"Start like this."

Adam sighed, but did not reach to touch where Michael's own cock pressed into his pale inner thigh. He looked up at Michael with pleading eyes, begging for permission, no, begging to be told.

“Prior?"

The affection that swelled in his chest was only matched by the a swelling between his legs that nearly made him dizzy. He could not understand what he had done to earn this implicit trust. He was a sinner. He abused his position within the abbey to satiate his appetites. Adam had been right as a child to fear him, for Michael held his life in his hands. Even now he was so delicate in his arms, waiting for what would come next.

He kissed him.

The act surprised both of them. Adam recoiled at first, then pushed back into Michael. His pliant lips became ferocious, kissing deep and hard. The delicate artist’s hands clawed at his back, his broad legs wrapped around him, pinning his dildo and Michael’s erection between their stomachs. Michael suddenly found that he was no longer in control.

And then, heaven above, he began to grind on him. Michael grunted into Adam’s open mouth. Friction and pleasure built between them. He had planned— he could hardly recall now what he had dreamed up pacing and waiting for Adam to return. His hands wrapped around Adam’s ass, pulling him closer. He had teased the boy too long. He had teased himself too long.

Their teeth clicked together as both tried to enter the other’s mouth at once. Michael’s spine tingled as his tongue slipped into Adam’s hot mouth. Their breaths came out in moans and sighs. One of Adam’s hands reached between them, taking hold of Michael’s cock.

He had been presumptuous, perhaps, to imagine Adam a doe eyed boy who did not know what to do. Obedient, sure. Shy even. But not passive.

Fire burned in Michael’s belly. Adam’s hand squeezed him hard, aided by the friction of his frantic grinding. The boy had skirted away from his mouth, now taking bites out of Michael’s neck that made his head spin. It was all he could do to hold onto Adam as he ravaged him.

In the haze of wild pleasure, he came without warning. Sticky seed spilled between them, lubricating their stomachs. Adam hummed with satisfaction, softening his grip and massaging Michael’s softening dick.

He pushed Adam away with a laugh. The boy was a mess. His cheeks were pink. His eyes were glazed. Cum coated his stomach. When he sat back, moaning again to put his weight on the plug in his ass, Michael saw what looked like a slug’s trail streaked across his folded clothes.

He meant his tone to be chiding, but could not contain his exhilarated smile. “Is that all you wanted brother?”

Michael had finished, but Adam’s mind was still clouded in a heightened state of lust. His mouth worked senselessly for a response. To save him the trouble, Michael wrapped his fingers around Adam’s wood, now well lubricated with Michael’s emission.

Adam groaned, watching his hand slide up and down with a hypnotized stare. Michael suspected this wouldn’t be enough, but felt uncomfortable touching the foreign parts of the boy. It felt like an intrusion. An admission that he knew what Adam was not.

“I would hate for you to be this distracted all day, Adam.” He took one of Adam’s soft hands and led it between his legs. “Help me finish you.”

He nodded, slipping his hand beneath the dildo to press into the warm flesh below. With one hand on his shoulder, Michael stroked Adam’s dick. Adam watched with half lidded eyes, emitting small pants and moans. He carefully listened to the changes in the cadence of his breathing, increasing his activity as Adam seemed to climb towards climax.

“Please please please” became the boy’s frantic prayer.

Michael suddenly felt useless. Adam’s hips jerked and his hand flicked from side to side between his legs. The boy seemed in the throes of agony, and all he was doing was rubbing his hand along a length of wood.

He wrapped his arm around Adam’s shoulders, pressing his writhing body tight to his chest. Adam’s free hand gripped him tightly. His nails dug into Michael’s side.

“Please! Please!”

He stilled in his arms.

They were quiet. Adam panted softly into Michael’s chest.

Oh lord. Michael thought. It was happening again. How quickly he was swept away by eager young men. He had promised Paul that this time he would be careful. That he would keep a firm distance.

“Adam?”

“Yes?”

Michael rubbed Adam’s back, sticky from exertion. “I do not want to mislead you. We cannot do this again. I’m sorry.”

Adam sighed softly. “I know.” He pushed himself from Michael’s chest, rubbing his face. “I need to focus on my work.” His words were garbled by a long yawn.

He couldn’t restrain a chuckle. “No, you need to sleep in your own bed. I’m the one who needs to stay focused.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am Prior of this abbey Adam. I have power over your life. It is not fair to you.”

“Oh,” he looked a bit crestfallen. “I understand.”

Michael cupped Adam’s cheek and lifted him to look at him. “If you want, I would still like you to come visit me, but we cannot be more than master and student. You must only do as you are told. And I must not kiss you.”

Adam’s eyes flickered across Michael’s face, considering his offer. “I would like that.”

He moved instinctively to give Adam a kiss on the forehead, but pulled himself away. Instead he distracted himself gathering up Adam’s garments. “And next time, please for the love of God, just wake me up. We are not ascetics here. You don’t need to sleep on the floor.”

Adam blushed when Michael handed him his clothes. He held them to his chest, not moving from his perch on the desk.

“Is there something else brother?”

Adam’s face went from pink to red as he spread his legs to show Michael the stone plug still embedded in his ass. What a moron. In his worry, Michael had completely forgotten. He was half tempted to tell Adam to keep it in all day, but he knew that he spent most of his time sitting on a hard wooden bench.

The groan Adam made when Michael pulled it from him was nearly enough to rile him up again, but dawn was filtering in through his windows.

After Adam scampered off across the courtyard to the cloister, Michael made his way to the church. He wasn’t sure if any saint had the power to guard a man’s heart from love, so he prayed to them all.

Chapter 6: What are we?

Summary:

His time with Michael inspires Adam to talk about his feelings. Francis does not like that.

Adam found himself shaken by how things ended Michael. Not that anything had gone wrong. When he was finally awake enough to think clearly, he realized what happened. He had overstepped a boundary. One that the Prior had put in place to protect him.

He spoke as if he was concerned for Adam's well being, rightfully worried for what could happen if their relationship soured. But he sensed that Michael was more concerned with protecting his heart, and Adam's.

It was the first time Adam had considered his heart as something that needed protection. His relationship with Agatha was lovely, but they both understood it could never be more than lover letters and the occasional fling. His relationship with Francis... well. He didn't know where his heart lie there.

He cared for Francis, absolutely. They spent every minute they could together. But Francis could be aloof, selfish, cold. They fought just as often as they fucked, and the only apology Francis ever offered was an uncertain look.

He thought about Michael's warnings. That Francis was only playing a part until he was allowed to return to Italy. Anxieties swirled in his stomach. He needed to talk to him.

These thoughts kept him from falling back to sleep, and he jumped from bed the minute the sun was high enough for him to begin his day. He prodded Francis awake as he had done dozens of mornings before.

He followed Adam to the lavatorium, smiling from ear to ear. "Good morning! Are you finally done 'focusing on your work?' What are we doing today? Me on you? You on me? Both at once?"

"Shh! Quiet down. We'll talk when we get up there."

"Oooh a surprise." Francis whispered. They washed themselves in silence, Francis rushing through his morning grooming even as Adam dragged his out.

When they were done, Adam trudged after Francis, who sprinted up the spiral stairs, chattering the whole time. "I'm glad you've come to your senses, my hand was starting to hurt from jerking off alone so often. There's only so many ways I can imagine getting fucked before I get bored."

At the top, Francis grabbed Adam's rope belt and pulled him close. "So what's the plan?"

Adam's body reacted to Francis's instantly, but he pushed down his own excitement."I just want to talk."

Francis's mouth was already on Adam's neck. "We can talk and fuck at the same time."

Adam pulled his head away, "Please, Francis be serious for a minute."

"I am serious." He mumbled, pressing his face to Adam's shoulder and curling his hands around his waist. "It's been weeks. I missed you."

He couldn't deny that cutting Francis off had been difficult. When the fervor of Michael's attention wore off, Adam had had a hard time keeping his eyes from wandering over to Francis in the scriptorium. "I missed you too, but-"

Francis reached around and began to undo the knot around Adam's waist.

"But Francis, what are we doing?"

"We're fucking." Francis smiled at him, but there was a stubbornness to his tone.

He put his hands on Francis', halting his progress. "Is that it?"

"I don't know." His hands slipped from Adam's, moving to untie his own belt. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, do you care about me?"

"Of course I care about you."

The fact that the words were accompanied by Francis trying to get at Adam's belt again dulled their impact a bit.

"Do you though? If you had other options, would you still want me?"

"I don't know." He gave a sharp tug to Adam's belt, pulling it off. "Does it matter? We don't have other options."

"I have other options, Francis."

Francis froze for a moment, then continued his downward trajectory to kneel at Adam's feet. "So that's where you've been?" He spoke in an even tone, Adam couldn't tell if he had upset him. He wondered if he wanted him to be upset. Jealous? Hurt? Something other than relentlessly horny.

No. That wasn't fair. He wasn't trying to hurt Francis. He just wanted to understand what Francis felt for him. "No! Like I told you, I needed to finish that piece. I've mostly been working!"

"Mostly?" Francis slid his hands under Adam's hems, tracing up his calves.

Adam did not reject the intrusion. At least Francis was paying attention now, and his cold hands felt nice on Adam's bare legs. "Well there was an evening when Michael-" He blushed. Then yelped.

Francis had dug his nails into the tender skin on the back of Adam's thighs. "So you're on first name basis with the Prior now?"

"He... he wanted to make sure I stayed focused."

Francis finally pulled away from Adam. "He hates me! You could have fucked any other man in the abbey and you chose my worst enemy??"

"Enemy? He just wants you to follow the rules."

Flopped down on the ground, Francis glared at the bells hanging from the rafters. "I bet he's trying to take you away from me. Trying to sabotage the only good thing I have."

It was reassuring to hear Francis speak like that. Maybe he was jealous. But hey. "Do you think he only wants me because it bothers you??"

"No no I'm sure that pervert loves seducing men half his age."

Adam felt his face heating with frustration. "He's not-" Well he was much older, but he had done very little to seduce Adam, allowing him to initiate only when he wanted to. His every word demonstrated an acute awareness of the danger he posed to Adam's heart. "He cares about me more than you do."

Silence hung in the air between them. It suffocated Adam that Francis did not jump to deny it.

At last Francis cut through the silence with knifed words. "What do you want me to say? That I love you? That I'd marry you? Do you think we are Heloise and Abelard? We aren't."

Taking a seat on the floor beside him, Adam sighed. "I know." He had never heard Francis utter the word love before. It weighed on him. He felt love. For Francis, Agatha, Michael. Each a different sort, but he couldn't deny that a part of him belonged to them.

"I would. I think."

"Would what?"

"Still want you. If I had someone else." He picked at the fraying hem of his sleeve. "I won't though. Find someone else. You're the only one who's ever put up with me this long."

That's because you're a huge asshole. Adam thought ruefully. If Francis wasn't the only person in the abbey that he could speak freely to, he's not sure he would have stuck around either. Especially after the stunt with Agatha in the forest. He had given Francis the cold shoulder for a month, but then the silence beat out his resentment.

"Will you?"

He interrupted Adam's thoughts. "Will I what?"

"Still want me? Once you've found someone better?"

Adam couldn't imagine ever meeting someone like Francis again. What he was in Adam's life was irreplaceable. He would not give that up for anyone. "Of course."

Francis smiled, rolling over to nudge Adam with his shoulder. "Well we're all good then. Still horny?"

"God yes."

He dove onto Francis, kissing him deeply. Their hands found their places naturally. By now Francis could finger Adam into climax in minutes. The pair of them grunted and moaned as they fought to finish the other, wriggling like a pair of worms on the floor.

It was exhilarating, playing games with the Prior, but sometimes a boy just needs to cum.

Chapter 7: Its a monk thing you wouldn't get it

Summary:

Adam fumbles TWO bad bitches.
Michael struggles to cope.

Adam and Francis were curled up beside each other on the floor. Neither wanted to break contact after so long apart. Francis rubbed Adam's bush absentmindedly, while Adam pressed his lips to his brother's forehead.

"What did you do with him?"

Anxiety tumbled back in to dull the afterglow of their union. Was Francis mad at him? He must be. They had never made any promises to be faithful to one another, but then again he supposed, neither of them had expected that to be an issue.

"It was only two nights."

"Where?"

"His house."

"You know, some monasteries give every brother his own cell, if we lived somewhere like that, we could fuck in a bed for once instead of on the floor." Francis pulled his head away from Adam's shoulder, giving him a roguish smile. "What'd you do? Did you suck him off?"

Adam shook his head, feeling his cheeks glow. He didn't understand why this was so hard to talk about with Francis, of all people.

"Did he tie you up? Gag you? Spank you?"

"No!" He turned his head away sheepishly. "He made me pray..." Francis scoffed in his ear. "While he. Put things in my ass."

"Things? Like weird things? A crucifix?"

"What! No Francis thats sacrilegious!" Adam suddenly remembered that Francis did not know that the Prior had his collection. Adam didn't want to be the one to tell him. Not when things were finally going back to normal.

"Then what?" Francis asked.

"Just his fingers!" That didn't sound very plausible. "And my dildo..."

"You shouldn't use a wooden dildo in your ass Adam." He sat up and brushed some dirt from his shoulder. "I don't want that thing back inside me if you got shit on it."

Adam cringed. A stupid lie. He would correct it later when Francis was in a better mood.

With a woeful sigh, Francis reached for his clothes, strewn haphazardly around the floor. "You didn't even do anything hot."

"Is that all you care about? If you can jerk off to it later?" He was surprised by the indignation in his own voice, but he couldn't stop himself. Maybe he wanted Francis to be angry. Then he could at least understand how he was feeling. "I've been avoiding you to sleep with a man you hate! Are you mad at me or not!?"

Francis spoke in a snippy voice. "I don't care who you whore yourself out to. We don't belong to each other."

"It kind of seems like you do."

"I just think if you're going to leave me to myself for weeks it should at least be for something worthwhile. If you wanted me to plow your ass, you could have just asked."

Adam, snatched at his own clothes and began to hastily dress himself. He wanted this conversation to be over. Francis was just being crass to upset him. His speech was stilted as he pulled on his layers. "Its not just— sex Francis. He makes— me feel—" he jerked his cowl over his head.

The words, "like a real monk," died on his lips.

It was no use. Francis didn't spend every day of his life trying and failing to submit himself to God. He wasn't raised an imposter among men. He couldn't understand just how much this meant to Adam.

And with the way he was acting, Adam didn't think Francis deserved an explanation.

"Feel what?"

Adam stood up and stomped towards the staircase. The sound of voices chanting rose up to meet him. They were very late to lauds.

"We're late."

It felt good to leave Francis like that. And bad. But both feelings would have to wait as he sped down the stairs. It was already too late though, the morning procession had entered the church and everyone saw Adam sneak from the alcove to his place among his brothers.

Francis stomped on his foot as he passed. Adam cringed and bit back a curse. He WAS mad.

Three psalms later he finally gathered the courage to look to Prior Michael, only long enough to receive a glare that withered him like a flower tossed in a fire.

///

Michael had been praying silently at the altar, entreating to the lord to guide him through the swelling of emotion that Adam stirred in him, when Adam and Francis stole through the empty church.

How no one had caught them yet was a miracle in itself. Francis's voice echoed down the stairwell and into the empty stone church like a trumpet. "I'm so glad you've come to your senses." He said, the rest of his words becoming garbled as the pair of them disappeared into the tower.

Michael wrung his prayer beads so hard that they left indentations in his knuckles. Not even an hour later, Adam was back to sneaking around with Francis. Did he truly pay no heed to Michael's warnings?

Those two had no idea the lengths Michael went to to protect them. How often he feigned ignorance when a concerned brother implied that there was something untoward going on between them. It made him look like an idiot. Complicit in the abbot's shoddy scheme to hide a woman in the monastery's walls. Complicit in allowing that woman to corrupt one of the abbey's brightest young monks.

Even as he put his reputation on the line, as he allowed Adam a safe outlet for his youthful desires, the boy still chose to cavort with Francis.

He had stopped praying. Hot anger pooled into his chest. How he wished he could treat Francis like any other monk who disobeyed the rule. The brat deserved to be stripped down and whipped. Then it would all stop and Adam—

He loosened his grip on his beads. He was jealous. The realization was so surprising he almost laughed at himself. A man his age. Simmering with jealousy that a boy of 25 years would prefer another youth to him.

Even still, understanding did not beget peace. Only clarity. He was becoming too attached to Adam. Though he was disappointed that Adam was still behaving so recklessly, it was Michael who needed a reprimand.

///

"Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession."

The weak voice of Abbot Guibert rattled back through the screen that separated them. "Welcome my son. What sins have you to confess today?"

Michael shifted his knees on the hard wooden bench. Though he knew that the abbot was aware of his... proclivities... it was always difficult to confess. "Forgive me father. You know I am weak. My heart runs errant of my mind. Physical desire guides my hand once more. I have grown attached to one of my brothers."

"Who, my son?"

"You know I will not tell you father."

"And you know I do not believe your insistence on keeping men's secrets is beneficial to our community, Michael."

"Yes father. Forgive me. I believe every man has the right to make his own confession."

The abbot sighed, "Well, is he of age?"

"Yes, father."

"Did you commit sodomy with this man?"

"No, father."

"Do you want to?"

"Yes, father."

"Do you want to hurt him?"

He took a deep breath. He had seen Adam cry from nothing more than a slap across the knuckles at the dinner table. Adam had himself admitted to being afraid of Michael. He did not want him to be afraid of him.

"No father."

"Then what is the sin, my son?"

"I have met with him in secret. I have touched him and allowed him to touch me. I desire... I desire to possess him, and when I cannot, it makes me angry."

"Wrath is not appropriate for a monk."

"I know, father."

"You did well in telling me, my son. I know these urges plague you every few years. It will pass, as it always does. Did you meet with him in the night?"

"Yes, father."

"Give me your house key. I shall lock you in at compline, and fetch you before lauds. You will recite the night offices on your own. Before you lie down to sleep each night, chastise yourself twenty times. Pain will dull the desire."

"Yes father. Thank you." Michael's conscience was only partially absolved. He knew Adam had the spare key. He knew he was not going to take it from him.

Chapter 8: Penance

Summary:

Adam and Michael repent for what they have done.

Adam’s stomach churned when he walked into chapter later that day. He had done exactly what the Prior had warned against. He had allowed Francis to distract him. He had stumbled into the divine offices late and disheveled. He had never been caught so flagrantly violating the rule, but he knew what was expected of him. When the Abbot asked the men if they had any faults to confess, Adam stepped forward. His quiet voice wavered into less than a whisper.

“What was that? Speak up, brother.” The abbot leaned forward, his washed out eyes boring into Adam.

“I confess to being late to lauds offices this morning.” His voice echoing around the hall was unfamiliar to his ears. He was sure half of his brother’s had never even heard him speak. He hoped they would take the high register of his voice only as a show of fear, for he certainly was afraid.

“Why?”

Sweat prickled on his forehead. He could not lie to his abbot’s face. To do so would be to lie to God. But oh how he feared what would come next.

“I,” his voice caught in his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he registered Francis staring at him. His brother in sin would surely face no consequences for whatever he said next, only Adam would suffer. “I did not come to the chapel after I had rung the bells. Instead I.” He took a deep breath. If God willed this to be his last day as a monk, it must be so. “I was distracted, committing sexual sin with brother Francis. I am truly sorry for these sins. I pray that God forgives me.”

The room seemed to let out a collective breath. A secret they had all known finally in the open, monks began to whisper to each other. Adam’s gaze flitted from the Abbot’s sour face to Michael’s impassive expression. What did he think? That Adam deserved it? That he had protected him all these years for nothing?

“Brother Francis, please come forward.”

Francis strolled up alongside Adam, his casual posture a flagrant insult to the Abbot’s authority. Without thinking, Adam took a step away from him.

“What manner of sin did you two commit this morning?”

Francis picked at something in his teeth. “I sucked Adam’s dick.”

Adam’s face flashed hot red as if he had been dunked in scalding water. More whispers. Francis lied so callously, so easily. Adam was grateful for the way his brother seemed to draw all the attention in the room to himself.

The Abbot straightened himself. “Brother Francis, you will spend the next week fasting in solitary confinement. Brother Adam, you must not succumb to such base pleasures again. Strip yourself, you will receive three lashes. May they remind you of the three vows you have taken.”

Adam’s hands quaked as he slowly peeled off his cowl. This was it. They would see him bared and know the truth.

Before him, the Abbot gestured for Michael to take up his flail. Michael seemed to hesitate. A look passed between the Abbot and the Prior that Adam could not discern. The Abbot turned back to Adam. “I have changed my mind. In light of the fact that this is your first transgression, you will fast three weeks.”

Adam dropped to his knees. “Thank you father. Thank you.”

Francis groaned beside him. “What? You don’t even have to go to the dungeon?” He crossed his arms. “Send Adam to the dungeon too!”

The Abbot waved his hand dismissively. “You know full well there is only one cell, brother Francis. Return to your places.”

Adam was shaking and distracted the rest of the meeting. He ran his fingers along his prayer beads and traced his mouth along the penitents prayer, but his eyes were darting from face to face, to see what his brothers thought of him after his sinful admission. He caught some glancing at him with disdain, curiosity, even lechery. He shrunk under their gazes. The Prior did not look at him again.

The Prior’s disapproval stung more than anything else. Throughout the day, Adam watched desperately for an opportunity to speak with him alone. He needed to apologize for his recklessness. He needed his brother’s forgiveness. Strangely, one of the more venerable monks, Brother Lupont, who usually spent all his time reading or in prayer, seemed to be following the Prior like a shadow.

Left to moil in his own thoughts, Adam worried himself sick. Even if he had not been told to fast, he would not have been able to eat his supper. The abbot may have spared him this time, but there would be no more overlooking his behavior with Francis. He would have to stop seeing him completely. Like the Prior had told him. Oh the prior had warned him so many times and he did not listen. He was so foolish. So sinful. He had wasted the Prior’s goodwill.

In bed that night, he could not sleep. He tossed and turned, guilt gnawing at his empty stomach. He couldn’t live like this. He needed the Prior’s benediction.

So he sinned again. He slipped from his bed, and stole barefoot to the Prior’s house. A light glowed in the window, and two voices came from inside. His heart caught in his chest. One was the Abbot.

The two voices canted the words of a penitents prayer, each line followed by the thwap of leather hitting bare flesh.

Adam shuddered and pressed his back to the wall beside the door. In nearly 20 years at the abbey, he had never seen the Prior punished. He was the one who punished. He was the Rule. He was infallible.

But of course that wasn't the truth. No man was above God's justice. Of course the Abbot would deliver penance in private, so that the brothers would not see their Prior weak.

Adam did not want to see him weak.

His legs shook beneath him at the weight of his fear, and he pressed himself firmly against the waddle and daub wall to stabilize his body.

Inside, the prayer ended, and the Abbot spoke.

"You endanger his soul by allowing him to go unpunished. I will see to his penance myself."

Michael's voice was quick and fearful. "Please Father, leave it to me, it was I who-"

"No Brother Michael. You are not to lay another finger on him. We will not have a repeat of the Sebastian affair. I will handle it.”

“But Father this is different, I wouldn’t—“

“Do not argue, Brother Prior. I protect you from yourself, and you protect my flock. This is what you have asked of me, is it not?"

He was quiet, chagrined. "Yes Father Abbot. But Adam—"

"Will get hurt if I allow this to continue without correction. It is better he learns his lesson now, before you steer him to far greater sins."

"Yes father."

"Goodnight Brother Prior. God bless you."

"God bless you Father."

Adam could not move as the door opened, his heart quaking. The abbot knew.

The elderly man was mere feet away from Adam as he locked the heavy door to the Prior's house. Adam thanked the lord for the moonless night and the Abbot's poor vision. He would have crumbled to be caught now.

He stayed there, his back against the wall, watching the shadow of the abbot disappear into the dark. It was quiet. The only noise was Adam's own blood pounding through his head.

His shame was redoubled. Had the Prior exposed himself when he hesitated to punish Adam in chapter? Was it Adam's fault that he met the Abbot's ire? It was surely for Adam that he was repenting. It was surely Adam he was trying to protect. And how he repaid him! He could not stand to have things like this. He needed Michael to know how sorry he was.

His hand gripped the heavy iron key hidden under his scapular.

Chapter 9: Sexy Penance

Summary:

Adam apologizes the the Prior, and the Michael makes sure that Adam won't be running to Francis anytime soon. (Via fucking him in the ass so hard he cant walk)

He unlocked what the Abbot had sealed. There was Michael, seated on a low stool before his fire, warming his hands in the dim light. He turned to Adam, his eyebrows knitting and his mouth turning down. He moved to speak, but Adam did not allow him the opportunity.

He was already on the earthen floor at the man's feet, pressing his face into the dirt and clasping his hands above his head.

"I'm sorry Brother Prior! You warned me and I didn't listen! I had only meant to speak with Francis-- but we got carried away and I allowed him to drag me back into his arms and then I was so late! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to disappoint you! I truly wanted to obey your strictures!"

He gasped for breath, his words tumbling out in a senseless cascade. "And now the Abbot knows about this and its all my fault and he beat you and he will beat me! I should have listened to you! I was so stupid! You're right! Francis is dangerous! He will ruin me! But I can't stay away from him! I need you to help me! I need you to control me, because I cannot do it myself!"

He had no more words to say, but the ones he had given felt insufficient. He turned to prayer, echoing the penance he had heard Michael recite only minutes before. "O My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins because of thy just punishment! Most of all because they offend thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of my love!"

He couldn't bring himself to finish the prayer, for it would be a lie to say that he resolved to sin no more. He knew he would sin again. Instead he repeated, frantically and out of breath "O my God, I am heartily sorry--"

"Brother Adam."

He clamped his mouth shut, pressing his forehead harder to the ground.

"Did you eavesdrop on the Abbot and I?"

"Yes Brother Prior."

Michael sighed heavily. "It was I who confessed to our Holy Father. He knows it was you because I was weak and hesitated to punish you."

He stood up slowly, pushing himself up form his knees. "We will remedy that mistake tonight."

Adam's mouth went dry and his eyes returned to the floor beneath him. He knew he deserved it, but that did not stop fear from welling up in his chest.

The Prior walked away, his steps kicking up dust that stung Adam's eyes. "I'd forgotten how insatiable young men can be. That was my error. This time, I will be sure to wear you out."

This time? Was the Prior really going to honor him with his touch again? In spite of his disobedience? Adam didn't deserve it. He dared to tilt his head to follow the Prior's feet as he walked to his bookshelf and opened the small locked chest where he kept his collection.

He plucked something that jingled from the box and returned to let is feet rest inches from Adam's face.

"I forgive you, Brother Adam, for your youthful foolishness, but we must not let it happen again. Sit up and give me your belt."

Adam complied as quickly as he could, his sweating hands fumbling to yank the length of cord from his body. Grateful that Michael forgave him, that he would take him under his hand once again. Michael was older, he was wiser, he was better than Adam. He knew better what to do with Adam's body than he did himself. All he had to do was obey.

On his knees, he held the belt up to Michael like a supplicant. Only as Michael took the cord from him did he look up to see what the Prior had brought over. A sort of small leather belt, with a ring in the middle. It reminded him of the harness he wore now, but it certainly wouldn't fit around a man's waist.

Atop the spotless desk, a black stone dildo pointed towards the ceiling. It was narrow and short, with a slight curve. Firelight danced on its polished surface, and Adam's body tensed with eagerness.

"Undress."

Adam was not shy this time, the Prior had seen him in his nakedness and still judged him worthy to be treated as a man. He husked himself of his heavy garments, tossing them beside him on the floor. Grit dug into bare his knees, but the Prior had not bidden him to rise, so he kept himself planted in front of the small fireplace.

"Give me your hands."

With his hands in the air, Michael looped Adam's corded belt around his wrists, securing them in a tight, but comfortable knot. Adam received only the barest grazing of Michael's fingers as he maneuvered the cord around his hands. That morning, he had touched the Prior without permission, and now, he was barred from touching him at all.

He was surprised, when the older man knelt beside him, dildo and strange belt in hand.

"Rise." He ordered, accompanying the word with a fingers brush on his back.

Adam lifted himself to a raised kneel, his weight no longer distributed along his shins, the ground bit hard into his knees. He held back his quiet wince of pain, distracted by the hands around his ankles.

He would not turn his head without the Prior's permission. He tried to understand as cool leather straps wrapped around his ankles, then pulled tight and cinched his feet together.

"Spread your legs."

It was awkward, with his ankles bound, but he opened his knees, allowing the warm dry air of the room to touch his most vulnerable parts. Even warmer, was Michael's rough hand, which slid along Adam's asscheek.

"If you truly can't control yourself, Brother Adam, I will have to exhaust you so that you do not have the energy to disobey again. But I am no match for a man your age. You will have to fuck yourself tonight."

As he spoke, he massaged cool oil into Adam's asshole. Adam's back arched, eager to take more. With his mind distracted, he spoke out of turn

"H-how? You have bound my hands."

There was a soft chuckle from the warm body behind him, and two hands guided his hips back down to his ankles. He let out a soft gasp as he felt the dildo press into him. The Prior had attached it to the belt on his legs, so that when he knelt, it was perfectly positioned to enter him.

His body gave easily to the intrusion. He did not know if it was from being opened earlier that day or from the narrowness of the rod, but it was easy to follow the gentle guiding of Michael's hands and take the entire length into his body.

"Thats a good boy," Michael whispered, and Adam's mind fizzled. That was all he wanted. To be good for the Prior. To be good. He would do anything to be good. As often as he prayed, God never answered Adam directly. He feared that God was silent out of anger at Adam's desecration of the body the lord had given him, at the way he sinned and lied to keep himself hidden.

But Michael spoke to Adam. He commanded him with God's authority, handed down to him by the Abbot. He was the closest thing a man like Adam could get to God's voice. Goosebumps prickled up his bare back as Michael stood up, leaving Adam knelt beneath him.

He walked away without a word.

If this was a test, he would not fail. Adam held so still it made the muscles in his stomach quiver. The stone inside him warmed with his body. His cunt, hot and throbbing, dampened the skin where it pressed against his calves.

Eight steps away, Michael seated himself on his bed. He groaned quietly as he bent over and pulled his worn leather shoes from his feet. Then he removed his socks, and hung them from a small rack on his wall. How far would the older man would undress? How much would Adam be permitted to see? The bulky wooden cross he wore around his neck joined the socks on the wall, his cowl and scapular were folded up neatly and placed on the floor beneath his bed.

In only his robes, Michael pulled his feet up onto his bed and produced a small devotional from under his pillow. He opened it up as if to begin reading, then crooked an eyebrow at Adam.

"Is it warm?"

"Yes Brother Prior."

"Michael."

"Yes Brother Michael."

"Then start fucking yourself."

Adam nodded, and tentatively lifted himself from his ankles, feeling the toy slide easily from his body. He did not go all the way, for he feared if it popped out it would be difficult and embarrassing to get it back in. Then, he lowered himself, groaning softly at the friction it produced.

But he could not go limp and succumb to the pleasure, for he had to lift his ass again. After only a few pumps up and down, he realized this was going to be exhausting.

He tried instead, rocking his hips while remaining seated, it was pleasurable enough, but Michael's voice cut him short. "Don't be lazy Adam. I want to see the light hit the stone with every stroke."

He nearly gasped in exasperation, but bit his tongue. He could do this. The Prior was right.

He tilted his torso forward, bouncing up and down. The friction began to build into true pleasure, and it became difficult to move at a steady pace. His skin prickled as he broke into a full sweat. He felt heat in his cheeks and his cunt.

Looking to Michael for encouragement, he found none. The Prior seemed entirely preoccupied with reading the small book in his hands. His lips moved slightly, silently mouthing the words. His legs were crossed, and he reclined against the wall. Without his outer layers, the wide neck of his habit allowed a tantalizing view of his collar bones and a glimpse of the mat of brown curls that adorned his chest.

As he stared at his Prior, Adam imagined that the hard cock pumping into his ass was Michael's. His hands still remembered how it throbbed and pulsed against his palms, a pulsing to match the one between his own legs.

Oh how desperately he wished he were with him instead of bouncing and moaning on his floor! How he lusted for and envied Michael's comfortable, masculine body. He wanted to wrap himself around him, touching and kissing every inch of his rough skin.

With a flick of Michael's eyes, Adam returned his own to the floor. That was not right of him to think. He was not here for sexual satisfaction. He was here because he could not control his own lust. Michael was helping him master his sinful body.

Sweat dripped down his nose as Adam redoubled his efforts to fuck himself to the Prior's satisfaction.

Each downward motion became more of a collapse, plunging the cock into him hard and fast. It made him huff, the breathy exhale forced out by the abrupt jolt of sensation. His thighs burned, distracting him from truly enjoying the tugging in his ass. His entire mind was preoccupied with the effort of rising and lowering.

The time it took to rise again became longer and longer. His could feel the muscles in his legs shiver, refusing to capitulate to his demands. He was out of breath and his body coated in a sheen of sweat.

Finally, blessedly, Michael spoke.

"Very good. Lie down."

Adam was grateful to flop down onto his face, his bound hands pressed to his chest. He lay still, panting hard, as Michael put away his book and returned to kneel beside him.

"Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," Michael said in a quiet, almost sing song voice.

The cool oil he applied to Adam's asshole was a relief. Now that the dildo was out, he could feel a dull throbbing ache and a burning at his entrance.

Michael was generous with the lubrication, and Adam felt the cool liquid ooze down into his wet cunt, mingling into a slime that coated his inner thighs. Did Michael see? He wanted him to see how good he made Adam feel. But in the same moment, he was ashamed at the truth of his anatomy.

The Prior stood back up, his absence a cool spot in the air beside Adam. "Sit up, brother."

Pushing his elbows to the floor, Adam forced himself back to his knees. The wet cock pressed against his lower back.

With a firm hand, Michael grasped Adam's chin and tilted his face up to look at him. "Do you know how many times you have been late to mass, Brother Adam?"

Even if he had kept count, the information would have been lost to his addled mind. His voice was a stilted moan. "I-I don't know."

"You should! Anyone else would have a lash on his back for each tardiness." Michael said, a surprisingly sharp edge in his voice."Sixteen times Adam. Sixteen times I have seen your place among your brothers empty. Sixteen times I have seen you sneak through the early morning shadows of the church when you thought no one was looking."

He walked back to his bed. "Sixteen more minutes."

He had left Adam with the stone toy still pressed against his back. Adam was forced to try to position himself to reinsert it alone, poking himself multiple times before managing to press the now cool tip back against his asshole.

His legs were leaden. The pain in his thighs overshadowed any pleasure he would have felt. After only four thrusts he looked the the Prior, unable to keep the whine out of his voice. "Please Brother, I'm so tired."

Michael didn't even look up from his book. "Obedience will only be then be acceptable to God and pleasing to man when that which is ordered be carried out neither with trepidation nor tardily and lukewarmly. Nor--?"

The Rule! He was quoting the rule of Saint Benedict while Adam had 5 inches of stone up his ass! He bowed his head, shame at his disobedience making his voice quiet and tongue heavy.

"Nor yet with murmuring and the back answer of one unwilling, for obedience yielded to superiors is an offering laid before God." He sighed. "I'm sorry Brother Prior."

"You are forgiven Brother. Perhaps a different position would be easier for you?"

Adam did not currently have the imagination to decipher what that would be, he stared dumbly at the Prior. Heavy breaths snagged on the mucus in his throat. His skin felt like it was glowing heat. His eyelids hung heavily to blur his vision.

He was relieved to see the edges of Michael's eyes crinkle, an amused turn in his voice. "You could... try on your hands and knees."

With a nod, Adam pitched himself forward while keeping his ankles tight against his ass. His bound hands could not hold him, so he bore his weight on his forearms. His knees dug harshly into the floor. It hurt. But in this way he could use new muscles to continue the task Michael had set before him.

It was much easier to move just his calves rather than his whole body. He began to fuck himself in earnest, pumping the dick in and out of his ass so quickly it pulled a deep groan from his throat.

His shoulders did not care to hold him, and he found himself pressing his face into the dirt and drooling. He fucked himself as fast as he could. Shame forgotten. Pain ignored. There was only the spasm of pleasure with every jerk of his knees. He whined and moaned like a dog. Lube seeped from his hole, teasing his swollen cunt with warm trickles.

Gasps and shuddering breaths silenced him as his body climbed towards resolution. He arched his back, seeking an angle that would release the tension that had coiled in his stomach. There! Something struck through him light lightning. The heat in his stomach poured from him, warm on his cunt and rushing down his legs.

He held himself still, panting and catching his breath. The warmth on his legs rapidly cooled and he recognized it for what it was. He had pissed himself. He felt that he should be ashamed, but his thoughts were only on the ragged way the air caught in his chest and the blurring of the firelight before him.

"Are you done Brother?" Called Michael's voice from the bed.

"Yes." Was all Adam could breathe out.

"You still have seven minutes."

He could not withhold a whimper. He was so tired. Dirt stuck to his damp skin as he lay in his own filth. His knees hurt. His asshole throbbed. He did not feel like he could even lift his legs one more time, leaden as they were.

Michael spoke again, kindly this time. "Would you like some help?"

"Please."

"Come here."

Adam crawled across the floor to his Prior's feet, an awkward and difficult task. His wrists and ankles were bound and every muscle in his body burned like the fires of hell. With a finger, Michael gestured for Adam to turn. He sighed in relief as the tight leather strap around his ankles was released.

When he turned back, the dildo was resting on Michael's bare thigh. He had pulled his robes up to expose his legs as he sat on the edge of his low bed. His calves were narrow and sinewy, coated in the same dark curls that adorned the rest of his body. Adam felt a flicker of disappointment that his dark robe hung over his crotch, allowing only a glimpse of the thin skin on his inner thigh.

He kept his face pointed towards the floor. He wanted so badly to touch the Prior. Without his superior’s restraint, he would be just as weak as he was with Francis. He ached to touch and be touched. How little control he had over his own desires.

"Buckle this for me, Brother Adam. Nice and tight."

 

It was shameful, how good it made Michael feel to watch Adam struggle on his floor. The cruel satisfaction of knowing his words alone could push the young man to a breaking point was nearly enough to bring Michael to a full erection.

It was a harsh reminder that even if he swore up and down not to lay a finger on Adam he still had the power to hurt him. That despite what he told the Abbot and himself, some part of him relished in that power. He closed his book, which he hadn't really been reading anyways —Adam had suffered enough. It was Michael's turn to be punished.

He ran his tongue along his teeth as Adam struggled to buckle the harness with his tied hands. The young man was a wreck. His cheeks were scoured red and his eyes blurry and unfocused. He stank of piss and sweat and cum, which only exasperated Michael’s own arousal.

He distracted himself by applying more lube to the dildo strapped to his thigh. Adam looked up at him with those expectant wide eyes. Not trusting his words, Michael gestured with a hand for Adam to stand up. He averted his eyes from the space where a man’s member should be.

Even before his palms made contact with Adam’s hips, he could feel the heat radiating from him. Adam was a fire of vivacity and arousal, too young to know to stop when he had reached satisfaction. He groaned softly when Michael pushed him back down onto his thigh.

From the intensity and fervor of his apologetic prayers, Michael knew that Adam needed to be punished. He had been around enough monks to know that the guilt could ravage a man’s body far worse than any penance could. Still, he could not bring himself to strike the boy. Adam feared pain too much for it to bring him any spiritual benefits. They were of the same cloth.

He shifted on the bed, the lashings the Abbot had delivered still stinging on his back. He did not bear his well earned penance with grace. It was all he could do not to wail like a novice as the flail struck him. The beating had only left him tense and anxious. There were better ways to mortify the flesh.

“Seven more minutes brother, and your penance will be paid.”

“Thank you.” Adam moaned.

But it would not be seven minutes. As soon as Michael began to bounce his leg, he was far too distracted to count the time to the cadence of Pater Nosters. Adam gasped and seized against him, his soft body falling forward to press against Michael’s chest. He huffed into his neck, whimpering and moaning with abandon.

It was torturous. To have him pressed so close. He ignored the throbbing of his own cock, even as he knew Adam was ready, and that he would eagerly and obediently take all that Michael could give him. He did not deserve that release, not when he had failed Adam so deeply. In his weakness he had told the Abbot the totality of his sins. How could he not confess?

He had told Adam this was for his own good, to keep him from exposing himself, and then turned around and brought the Lord’s eye down upon him. It was never about protecting him.

Adam panted hard against Michael’s shoulder. Michael could feel the slick from between his brother’s legs coating his thigh. His bound hands clung to the front of Michael’s robes. Michael wrapped his arms around his sweaty back, and moved his leg faster.

The moment he arrived, Adam was a blessing to the Abbey. Obedient, pious, hard working, talented, beautiful. Michael wanted to have him. He had done everything in his power to prevent the boy’s exposure as his body diverged from a man’s. He had offered him up as an apprentice to their aging illuminator, and now he had him to look at every day, toiling away in his scriptorium.

This would have— should have been enough, if it hadn’t been for the arrival of brother Francis. More than once, Michael had heard the two of them cavorting like animals in the belltower. He saw the way the other monk touched his blessing’s body, and he wanted that too.

Now he had it. His hands caressed Adam’s shaking back, his leg burned with the effort of bouncing a full grown man upon it. His cock ached to be inside of him, to take him inside and out, body and soul.

Adam collapsed into him, moaning. “P-prior, please, I can’t take anymore.”

Michael brought the thrumming of his leg to a stop and gently pushed Adam to slump onto his bed. He was spent. He leaked lube and cum, and his pale thighs were flushed with red spots where they had rubbed on Michael’s. He was beautiful. Michael caressed his bare leg.

“Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

“Amen,” Adam murmured, his face half buried in a pillow.

In almost no time at all, Adam was peacefully dozing. He had truly exhausted himself. Michael stood and went to cleaning up. He would not trust himself to lie in the same bed as Adam. He ignored how hard he was, allowing it to burn and frustrate him rather than doing anything to push it away.

When every bit of his small house was returned to order, all that was left unclean was Adam. Michael paced the seven steps of floor, debating the ethics of touching him while he lay sleeping. It was for chaste reasons. He was filthy. Evidence of their sinning was soaking into Michael’s blankets.

With a huff, he took a rag and a small bowl of water, and wiped Adam clean. The boy rolled and sighed in his sleep, and Michael once again was pulled by that strange tug of paternal affection and carnal desire. He pulled his hand away quickly.

Perhaps it would be better if he tried to sleep at his desk.

Chapter 10: The Diary of Abbot Guibert

Summary:

The Abbot bemoans the state of affairs.

c.w. corporal punishment.

O Lord O Lord it is a hard task to guide your flock. I am often in wonder that you deigned to raise someone as unworthy as I to Abbot. Though I am strong in matters of mind and faith, I am mystified by the inter-workings of my own monastery.

An oblate, whom I have known only to be stalwart and pious since the day of his admission, has become embroiled in scandal. I always say Lord, that oblates are the worst of sinners, for they believe themselves absolved from the vices of the secular world. And yet, I had not expected it of him!

Perhaps I have failed him. He has fallen in with perfidious sinners, that I have allowed to remain out of my own weakness. Ashamed as I am to admit it, o lord, a woman lives hidden among us. Bound by certain debts, I cannot expel her from my Abbey, and by Your Name, the convent will not take her back! She is surely the rotten fruit that has spread her sinful licentiousness to my oblate.

It is by consequence of my actions that such a well of sin lives within these walls, and so I had tried not to fault this oblate too harshly for drinking from it. This was clearly a mistake. For like a sickness of the blood, her lustfulness has spread to my oblate and pulled my Prior to dark habits.

O Lord forgive us. I had thought to tame my Prior’s deviant nature, but find him once again slipping from my grasp. He is ensnared by a wicked temperament, one that finds joy in the bodies of men. His weakness has led him to lay hands on my oblate, but it would be a sin to scandalize him. To lay bare his sinful nature to my flock would undermine his authority, undermine MY authority.

His weakness is exactly what makes him such an excellent Prior. It keeps him humble, so that he never seeks my position. He relies on my guidance to control his sinful nature, and in turn offers me his confidence and loyalty. Moreover, I do not have the heart to deliver the bodily penance that my monks need to guide their souls back to you lord. My Prior can deliver pain without hesitation, keeping everything in good order.

But in the case of this oblate, he is unfit to deliver the young man’s penance. I was forced to take him into my own hands. O lord O lord how the boy wept. His face streaked with tears before I had even raised my arm. I confess O lord this weakness, I had only the strength to strike him twice, so moved was I by his show of repentance. This was shameful on my part, for if he does not suffer consequence, how will he learn to fight the devil’s influence? Will your kingdom become overwrought with fornication?

I must find another way to save this oblate’s soul.

Chapter 11: Excommunicate

Summary:

Adam finally faces consequences. Sad.

EXCOMMUNICATE!!!

Adam pressed his forehead to the hard stone steps of the church, mumbling prayers to himself and trying not to weep as his brothers stepped past him to mass.

He had been so relieved that morning, when the Abbot took him aside to deliver his penance yet faltered on the third swing of his hand. He had thought it was over. God would be satisfied with the suffering his body had offered.

For how his body suffered. His legs ached more than he knew they could, and every movement was agony. His throat was still ripped raw from his haggard breathing. Pain radiated from his asshole so sharply that it had hurt to sit during morning mass. And now blue bruises from the Abbot’s cane throbbed on his shoulders.

But the Abbot was not satisfied.

During chapter he had announced that more of Adam’s sins had come to light under the seal of confession. The sinner was not named, and everyone believed it was Francis who had confessed. The Prior looked to the floor as his punishment was pronounced.

Thankfully, Adam had been too shocked to cry. He stared forward as if watching a bad dream while his brothers stripped him of his habit. He did not resist when the Sacrist took a razor to his head and shaved away his tonsure, watching in horror as the symbol of his devotion to God— his belonging— fell to his feet. Only when a pair of monks took him by the arms to drag him out of the cloister did the terror reach his body.

He wailed and fought, trying to collapse himself to the floor where he could grovel and beg for the Abbot to change his mind, but his legs were jelly from the night before, and his voice too hoarse to cry out. Blood pounded in his ears. His chest constricted. His life was over. He had nowhere to be if not here. The men who had been his brothers gripped him roughly, in a way he had never been touched before. He searched their eyes for the recognition of their brotherhood. For a promise that these past 20 years of devotion would not be forgotten.

Brother Electus, one of the novice masters, the man who had taught Adam to read, looked angry. His big hands dug into Adam’s bicep harder than they needed to, like he was trying squeeze out the sin. Brother Jack, a scribe who was always smiling, who sat not ten paces away from him in the scriptorium nearly every day for five years, would not meet his eye.

His pleas gave way to staccato breaths. He couldn’t seem to breathe. His vision swam as every inhalation punctured him like a dagger. He was being pulled. Out of the chapter hall, down the long hallway, through the same door that he had first entered the cloister. Out in the courtyard, where the laypeople worked, he was tossed to the earth. Jack finally met his eye, concern on his face, and made to say something, but Brother Electus silenced him with a firm swipe of his hand.

Adam pressed his head harder to the stone, trying to push away the swell of emotions that had ravaged him in that moment. The pain in his lungs as he fought to breath while his world collapsed around him. He had lain paralyzed in the dirt for hours, until the clear ringing of the church bells brought him back to this world.

Even if he was barred from entry, Adam would not miss the midday mass. He still believed in God. He still believed if he was sorry enough, if he suffered enough, he could be forgiven.

His cheeks grew hot with shame even as his exposed skin prickled in the cool spring air. Eddies of kicked up air swirled around him as the laypeople filed into the church. Though they were not of the abbey, they knew what he was. A disgraced monk. An excommunicate. They looked down at him with curiosity, reproach, disdain.

Inside, the voices of his brothers rose in a harmonious swell. He dared not raise his voice to sing with them, but his heart echoed their words a thousand times over. Forgive me Father. I have sinned.

Forgive me.

 

On the seventh night of Adam’s excommunication, it was too dark to sleep. Even though he knew that within the fortified walls of the abbey he was safe from outlaws, wolves, and devils, he still felt exposed in the dark. He stared with wide stinging eyes into yawning nothingness, imagining eyes looking back at him. He tugged the torn horse blanket a pitying servant had given him tighter around his shoulders, and pressed his back against the cold walls of the church. It grounded him in the otherwise empty night.

He blinked his tired eyes hard when a light sparked in the distance. The flare in the shadow took shape, the crack of the cloister door opening. The source of the light, a small candle, peeked from out of the door followed by the figure holding it.

A monk? A devil? A nightmare? Most likely the circutator doing his rounds, or a servant leaving the kitchen, but his mind could not believe the creeping figure to be a man. He gripped his prayer beads and muttered Hail Marys. The figure was coming closer, and his eyes watered at the sudden lightness.

“You awake?” Came the hoarse whisper of his brother.

Relief flooded him as the light resolved into the familiar face of Francis. Then the relief was washed away by a paralyzing fear. This wasn’t an early morning rendez-vous. Adam was cut off from the church. He didn’t have the right to speak or be spoken to by a Christian brother. Getting caught with Francis could have dire consequences for the both of them. He responded to Francis with a finger to his lips.

“Oh don’t pull that grand silence shit, its the middle of the night, who’s going to hear us out here?”

Adam jabbed his index finger emphatically towards the heavens.

“As if you’ve ever worried about that before.”

He shook his head.

Francis sighed. “Its your own fault. You didn’t have to confess to being late. No one would have said anything.”

He didn’t know if it counted as speaking, but he needed Francis to understand, so he quickly signed. "Abbot knows me and Prior. The Rule. Whipping"

The corner of Francis’s mouth turned down. He shuffled his feet briefly, and then took a seat beside Adam. He blew out the candle and they disappeared back into the night. But this time, Francis’s warm shoulder touched Adam’s.

His disembodied whisper floated to Adam’s ears. “Its not permanent. You’ll be allowed back soon. The Abbot has already been poking his nose into the scriptorium to complain about delayed commissions, but no one can do what you do. You’re too valuable to lose.”

He hoped so. He missed his life so badly. He missed singing in mass, he missed his desk, most of all his missed his bed. Yet it seemed impossible that he would be allowed to return to the fold after his sins. Even if he was allowed to return, no one would look at him the same again.

Would he become like Francis? Only tolerated for what he could provide to his brothers? A shameful secret that everyone pretended not to know? Could he ever return to what he had been? Would God believe it? The thought shook him, and his chest tightened.

Francis nudged him with his elbow. “I had a terrible time in the dungeon by the way. Not that you asked. I spent the whole week trying to scratch the mortar out around a stone so that I could hide stuff behind it. I wore my poor fingers raw and didn’t even get an inch deep. Also it was dark and cold and stinky. I know you were having a fit of conscience or something, but you didn’t need to drag me into it. You could have just said you lost track of time looking at the sunrise or something.”

Adam felt blindly across Francis’s leg, settling his hand over his brother’s. It was probably better for Francis’s soul for him to suffer some penance for all they got up to together, but he still felt guilty for being the cause of it. Francis’s fingers were bone cold as Adam squeezed them.

“The Abbot demanded my full confession. I told him that I seduced you with my evil womanly wiles and sucked your cock while you whined and moaned about it being a sin. I hope you didn’t go and do something stupid like tell him the truth.”

He shook his head, a pointless gesture in the dark. He had said little of substance when the Abbot confronted him, only breathless apologies and desperate begging. He had been so afraid. He was still so afraid. His breath quickened. Francis’s hand turned around and his fingers laced between Adam’s.

“I was exiled from the convent a few times you know. It wasn’t so bad. I knew they had to let me back in eventually. I would just wander around in the woods until I got bored. The hardest part was being alone.” He squeezed Adam’s hand.

Gratitude and grief welled in Adam’s chest. He squeezed Francis’s hand back, thankful that the dark hid the tears welling up in his eyes. Was he glad that he did not have to be alone now, even though he deserved to be? Or sorrowful that he had not been able to do the same for Francis? The feelings were linked, entangled like so much else was between them.

He pulled his hand away silently. That was the problem. He clung to Francis like a rock in the ocean, looking to his brother for comfort and understanding. He should be turning to God. It was a sin to rely on Francis, or Prior Michael, or anyone else. That was how he ended up here. Ousted from his community for forgetting his place in it.

Obedience to God. Fidelity to the monastic way of life. Stability in prayer. These were the tenements by which he should be living. He ignored the warmth of Francis’s shoulder against his, and instead leaned into the cold embrace of the stone church. Though it was harder, it would support him far better than his brother could.

Embraced by his resolution to return to God, his eyes grew heavy, and sleep took him.

Chapter 12: Absolution

Summary:

short chapter. Couldn't leave adam in the cold like that for long!!! he's ok :)

Francis was right of course. The next day, while Adam was waiting for stale bread among the poor who begged for alms at the church’s feet, the Abbot came to absolve him.

At the beckoning curl of two fingers, Adam rushed to the Abbot’s feet. He prostrated himself, pressing his entire body flat to the ground, like a worm in the soil. He clasped his palms before his head, digging his fingertips so hard into the backs of his hands that it hurt. “Mea culpa Pater. Mea maxima culpa.”

The venerable man gave him a gesture of benediction, and then spoke in his quiet, shaky voice. “I cannot hear you well down there. Stand.”

Adam rose, but he kept his head sharply bowed and his shoulders rolled forward, trying to be as small as he could. He trained his eyes on the hem of the Abbot’s robe, crisp and clean. It was black. Adam’s robe had been washed gray by the years, worn and torn. New robes were for men better than him.

“I have been told by those who come and go that you have done nothing but pray at our church’s door for these seven days and nights, seeking no comfort in rest or company.”

So no one had seen Francis hold him in the night, he let out a sigh of relief.

“They were impressed by your devotion, Adam. As am I. I know that you have strayed from your path, but it is clear to me that you are truly repentant. The other monks could learn from your austerity.”

Adam bit his tongue to douse the spark of pride that warmed his cheeks. He had only done what was expected of a man in his position. Saint Marinos waited for three years to be readmitted to his abbey, and he had been without sin. Adam had spent a week outside in comfortable spring weather. It was nothing. He should suffer much more.

“Well speak boy.”

He jumped out of his mental self-flagellation to raise his eyes to the Abbot’s. The old man had faded, watery eyes, that seemed to always be looking somewhere between here and the next life. “Father?”

“Do you think you are ready to return to the path our Lord has set for you?”

He nodded emphatically. “Yes Father. Yes. Please.” When his Abbot did not answer, Adam continued, unable to keep himself from babbling. “I should never have sinned as I did. Not only was it a betrayal to the abbey, to you, to God. It was a betrayal to myself, for I want nothing more in this life than to be a good monk, and to follow Saint Benedict’s precepts as closely as a man can. I see that now. No amount of earthly pleasure is worth more than the spiritual satisfaction of being among my brothers and God. The comfort of my body is base compared to the nourishment of my soul. I will not allow myself to be tempted by Brother Francis again.”

When the Abbot pressed his cold, bony hand into his shoulder, he flinched. “Very good my son. You must never forget this.” He leaned in, almost conspiratorially. “And… of the other man?”

Shame flooded his face, and his voice faltered. “I— he— He was trying to help me, father. I-I asked him. As you have said could happen with women, I was under Francis’s spell. I needed a distraction…” It was himself that he sought to master, but if he worded it the right way, the Abbot could believe he was speaking of Francis. “The Pr—“ He hushed his voice at a raised eyebrow. “He. He offered an alternative to wicked feminine lust.”

As those murky eyes searched his face, Adam felt the need to protect Prior Michael. “He did not. Uhm. Enter me. Father. He only guided me in how to exorcise my carnal desires.”

“You have been struggling with this for some time then? Since brother Francis arrived?”

“Yes Father.” A pit opened up in his stomach at the thought of just how much he hadn't confessed.

“I am deeply sorry that I allowed that temptress to wind her tendrils around your heart Brother Adam. I am glad you sought counsel with the Prior, but he is… unreliable in these manners. If you struggle with desire in the future, you must confess to me, or one of your most elder brothers, for whom the fires of lust have died out.”

Brother Adam! His brothers! The words swelled like balloons in Adam’s chest and his shoulders straightened a bit. He was going to be welcomed back. He was forgiven! The Abbot gave him further counsel, but he did not hear it. He nodded and said the right words as he received his benediction, his eyes on the walls of the cloister, where he would soon be safe inside again.

There was no spectacle for his return. No announcement in chapter. His habit was waiting for him, washed and folded at the foot of his cot in the dorms. It could have all been a bad dream if not for his shaven head. He could pretend that it was normal, like when lice had swept through the novices dorms and all the boys were sheared like sheep. A ritual shaving to remove a pestilence. Though what exactly had been removed, he could not say.

Chapter 13: That Stupid Fucking Bell

Summary:

Adam's back in the monastery!! And he is NOT being nice to francis!!

“So that's it?”

It was Adam’s first morning back. He had not spoken to Francis when he returned to the scirptorium, ignoring his brother’s whispered jokes. He couldn’t be seen talking to Francis again. He had told him as much with a note scribbled on a piece of scrap paper meant for cleaning clots from his pen. The next morning, Francis had taken it upon himself to wake up and wash with Adam, following him up to the belltower, where he had finally made his displeasure known.

“You’re not going to talk to me anymore?” Francis’s voice was sharp, accusatory.

Adam shook his head no, and tried not to look at his brother. He didn’t like it either, but it would be better for both of them. He couldn’t let Francis convince him otherwise. He stood at the window and trained his eyes on the gloaming horizon, trying to measure with the stars when it would be exactly an hour before dawn.

“Not even here? Come on. No one can hear us.”

The end star of the spring constellation sat above the treeline, slowly dipping down. They had only a few minutes before he had to ring the bells. He wouldn’t be late to lauds again. It was a blessing to start his day praising the Lord, and a sin to shirk it for his own pleasure.

Francis took Adam’s shoulder roughly, turning him to face him. His eyebrows were knit with frustration. “Look I know it was scary to get caught like that, but you’re fine! I told you, nothing bad is going to happen to you. Even if— if they found out what you are, it would be okay!” He smiled, giving Adam a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “I won’t let them get rid of you.”

As much as he wanted to believe him, to trust that warm smile, his brother’s words rang hollow. Something bad had already happened to him! He’d been beaten, shaved, tossed into the gutter. Francis hadn’t been able to protect him from that. What power did he really have? His privilege only extended to himself. He gingerly took Francis’s hand from his shoulder, and dropped it between them.

Out the window, Adam’s guiding star dipped behind the shadows of the trees. He walked over and gripped the thick heavy rope that hung from the bell. Francis, who usually stood at the farthest wall and covered his ears, trailed after him.

“We can be more careful if you want. Wake up earlier, meet less frequently, maybe somewhere else. I don’t want you getting in trouble either. I’ll stop talking to you when I shouldn’t, we can pretend to be reformed monks—“

The bell pealed like thunder above their heads, drowning out whatever else Francis had been trying to say. Adam felt the sound reverberate through his arms and shake his bones, like the voice of God. It shook out any doubts he had, and when the ringing stopped he gave Francis a bow of his head and walked away.

He headed down the stairs, taking his place in the chapel with a sense of renewed devotion. He tried to ignore the black pit that opened up in his chest. He prayed silently as his drowsy brothers filed in from the cloister. Monks filled in around him, making up one body, one voice, in service to God. This was where he belonged. This was who he was. A stone in the foundation of the church. Stable, humble, nondescript.

His eyes flicked to the shadowed staircase from time to time, but brother Francis did not come down from the tower.

 

If Francis was angry with him, he did not say it. He did not say anything. Which was what Adam had wanted, but it still hurt. They passed their time together as two brothers in Christ should, their only companionship the silent presence of the other. It was still better than being alone. Francis rose with him in the morning, and they washed together in silence. When Adam left for the tower, Francis went back to the dorms, presumably to catch a few more minutes of sleep before the bells broke through the night.

Francis seemed to find new diversions. He disappeared for hours, skipping services and letting unfinished work pile up in the scriptorium. One day in the courtyard, Adam overheard the novice master complaining to the Prior that he was spending his time teaching the oblates dirty Italian slang words.

As for Adam, he tried his best to return to monastic peace. He told himself that it had been a phase, a delayed adolescence to make up for his confusing teenage years. He told himself that he could move on now, settle back down into work and prayer. Yet doubt gnawed at his stomach, it dug into his hips, where he still wore the thin leather straps, clinging to the dildo Francis had given him. Where the Prior’s key still pressed against his bare skin.

He should have thrown them away. He was going to throw them away. If he truly was sincere in his devotion to the Rule, he would not carry a single thing on his person. Everything he needed, the Lord would provide, anything else was vanity.

The isolation was much harder to bear than Adam remembered. Without sharing his every thought and worry with Francis, he suddenly understood why outsiders required such a long acclimation period. The lenient lifestyle granted to novices was, he realized, stifling compared to the freedom of the outside world.

More than once, Adam caught himself rambling on to Brother Bartholomew, who still came to him for advice on his burgeoning talent in decorative illuminations. Too much of Adam would spill out between the words, and Brother Bartholomew would blush and tilt his head, eyes sparking with interest. Adam bit his tongue, and turned sharply back to his work.

Following his advice, Adam sought private confession with Abbot Guibert. He was more honest than he had been in years, telling his holy father how he had become entangled with Francis, how he had slept with a nun, corrupted one of the younger monks, bared himself to the Prior. Every week he confessed that he missed Francis, that it was so hard to sit mere feet away and not reach out and touch him. No divine lightning struck him down. He was given his penance and forgiven for his human weakness. It lifted a weight off his chest to receive his benediction.

Though he was forgiven, he did not feel understood. The Abbot seemed to believe all of the sin had originated within Francis, and that Adam had only been a poor sheltered oblate, spiritually unprepared to fight off the diabolical influence of someone like “her.”

“Her.” He called him. Though Francis wore a man’s garments and lived a man’s life, though he was publicly referred to only as a man, the Abbot seemed fixated on Francis’s femininity as the source of all this trouble. Even in the holy bonds of confession, the Abbot spoke of Francis with vitriol and disdain, believing him simultaneously to be a stupid weak animal and a conniving devious fiend. It brought back Adam’s old nagging anxieties and made him sick to his stomach.

Did Francis not provide value to the abbey? Did he not do good work in the scriptorium? Did he not pray and eat and sleep within the same walls ? Did he not make confession, and bear his punishments with dignity? What, besides Francis’s sex, made him unworthy of the forgiveness Adam now received?

Would Adam still be forgiven if the Abbot knew who he truly was?

For Adam was no better than Francis. Despite his best efforts to master his body and mind, Adam was very, very, horny.

His body directed his lust indiscriminately. Suddenly soaking himself when Francis would lick food off his fingers at the dinner table. A flush of heat when the Prior spoke to him about his commissions. The pooling of drool in his mouth when he watched brother Bartholomew shift his long legs to hide a conspicuous bulge.

When these desires were ignored, Adam’s body cast a wider net. During mass he stared at the ass of the monk before him, his mind playing in vivid detail how pleasurable it would feel to rut up against the man. When he received his monthly haircut, he imagined the sacrist’s hands traveling down from his head, his fingers playing on his neck, sliding a hand down into Adam’s shirt to squeeze and caress his chest. He hoped the older monk did not notice the goosebumps that rose up his scalp.

Still he fought with the lust. He was a monk. Chastity was a key virtue. He had been chaste before and he could be chaste again. He had to. It was that or risk losing everything. There was an ebb and flow, days where he could function as if nothing had changed, and days where he felt as if he had a devil in his cunt.

On one of these mornings, his eyes lingered on Francis’s face in the lavitorium. He pursed his mouth and plucked the thin black hairs from his upper lip, a bit of vanity that Adam found deeply endearing. In the pre-dawn light, he could just make out the dark freckles that splattered on Francis’s round cheeks. He was beautiful, and Adam couldn’t stand to be apart from him any longer.

When they finished their grooming, Adam gave a slight tug on Francis’s sleeve, and signed “bell-tower.” Francis raised an eyebrow, but followed him dutifully.

Adam was nervous to break their long silence, but Francis did not seem inclined to help him. He climbed up to perch in one of the wide stone windowsills, looking out at the gray glow of the world before dawn. His shoulders were crunched and his arms crossed tightly, a bristly stance that warded off Adam’s intentions to touch him.

He could not sign either, for Francis would not look at him. Adam sighed and paced the small floor of the tower, weighing his vow of silence against the throbbing between his legs. Finally, he mumbled.

“Could we…” His voice trailed off. He hoped Francis would fill in the blanks.

Francis picked at the hem of his robes. Adam’s face heated with frustration, was being difficult on purpose? He knew why Adam had asked him here.

“Its been so long. I miss—“

“No.”

Francis’s response was quick and harsh. He did not look away from the window. Adam was taken aback.

“But. I know you miss it too. Why can’t—“

Francis whipped his head around to shoot Adam with a glare.

“You can’t just change the rules whenever you feel like it Adam!” His loud voice reverberated around the stone tower, producing the ghost of a ring the hovered between them after the words had been spoken.

Adam bristled. “You know its not that simple Francis. I—“

“You decided I wasn’t worth the risk. I can respect that. You’re not the first person to choose security over me. But you can’t have both Adam. I’m sick of getting pushed away. Either I’m worth it, or I’m not.”

Francis looked back out the window. “Its nearly dawn. Ring your stupid fucking bell.”

“Wait, Francis—“

Francis shoved past him, the rough jab of his shoulder on Adam’s the first contact between them in months.

Adam stood in shock, Francis’s words echoing around in his head even louder than they had echoed on the stone walls. It wasn’t about Adam’s security, or if Francis was worth the risk. It was about God, about the Rule. He was trying to do the right thing. He was trying to be a good monk.

Right?

Sleeping with Francis was a sin. It was bad for both of them. It was a weakness they succumbed to until they came to their senses. Why was he acting like it was the reverse? Like it was an option for Adam to choose Francis over God? He was a monk. They were both monks! Anything between them could only ever be a distraction from their true purpose. Why couldn’t Francis understand that?

He jumped from his reverie as sunlight crept into to tower. Francis had made him late again! He tugged harshly at the rope, but the sound of the bells did not silence the din of his own tangled thoughts.

Confusion and frustration warred in his mind all day. He did not understand what Francis wanted of him. He did not understand why Francis was angry. He did not think Francis would ever say no to him. He didn’t like it.

But this fever of emotion did nothing to quell the fever of his lust. Wrapped up in his bed at compline, he felt along his thigh to pull out the wooden dildo tucked there. Instead, his fingers looped around the body warmed iron of the Prior’s key. He understood his relationship with the Prior. Master and student. Clandestine. Simple.

Chapter 14: Bildungsroman

Summary:

Adam gets horny as hell in Michael's bed.

Notes:

part two of this scene should be up so soon its almost done i prommy

The Prior’s house was empty when Adam clicked the door open, which was strange, as it was an hour past compline and he should have been in bed, but then again, so should have Adam.

Adam considered leaving. This was wrong. He had meant what he had said to the Abbot. Living as a monk was more important to him than anything else. It was stupid to risk his soul for something as frivolous as physical pleasure.

But it didn’t feel frivolous now. The ache between his legs was unyielding. He struggled to listen to the liturgy during mass, his work blurred before his eyes, and he had even snapped when poor Brother Bartholomew tried to ask him a question about a page for his devotional. His lust was making it nearly impossible to fulfill his monkly duties.

It wasn’t a question of pleasure. He needed release. The Prior understood. It was the folly of youth. He would grow out of it in time, but until then he needed guidance. He needed someone to tell him where and how he was allowed to be touched, because he could not trust himself to make these decisions himself.

He paced around the Prior’s house, impatient in the dark. A bolt of pain ripped him from his tempestuous thoughts when he stubbed his toe hard on the Prior’s desk. He grunted and fell down onto the low straw bed, which emitted a puff of odor. The heavy musk of the Prior’s body, mingled with sweat, semen, and straw. Adam took a deep breath, drinking in the smell.

It smelled like masculinity.

Adam pitched himself onto his side, burying his face in his Prior’s pillow. His other hand shot without thinking to the hungry gap between his thighs. Sometimes, if he arrived at the dormitories before his brothers, he would swap his pillow with someone else’s. Of course he had an odor of his own, an astringent, onion-like smell, but men, real men, emitted a smell that drove him wild, and it only got worse as the heat of summer crept into edges spring.

He inhaled deeply, thinking of the miasma of body odor that had clotted the air of the novice’s house in the summers of his boyhood. He had tried touching himself then, when the other oblates would whisper about the strange new sensations of their burgeoning manhoods, but found himself only upset and confused by his own. It had been foreign, inverted, shameful to even acknowledge.

Now, his fingers slipped easily between the lubricated folds of himself. It was like touching Francis. Familiar and pleasant. He liked the way his brother became wetter and wetter at his touch. He liked how wet he could be. He slid his fingers around that sensitive bead, his cock. That’s what his brother called it. The throbbing, wanting, center of his pleasure. It made his hips stutter, fucking into his own hand.

He twisted in the bed, the Prior’s blankets tangling around his legs. The wood creaked under the weight of his shifting body. He indulged in mindless rutting as he stifled groans. This was his manhood. The animal carnality of his desire overpowering all of the years of fear and restraint. Something that he could take instead of beg to have given to him.

A revelation dawned in his mind, like when upon the umpteenth reading of a psalm it suddenly took on a new meaning. It was not a need for release that brought him once again to his superior’s bed.

At that moment, Prior Michael opened the door and stepped into his house. He jumped in surprise at the sight of Adam, flushed and disheveled in his bed. He looked out the door behind him before quickly slamming it closed.

“Brother Adam! What are you doing here?”

Adam felt his face burn. His hand was still jammed firmly in his own undergarments, with his cunt oozing onto his fingers. His voice came out in a breathy stutter, besotted with the lather of arousal he had worked himself into. “Y-you never f-fucked me. Like a m-man.”

Michael looked flustered, his face nearly as red as Adam’s felt, fumbling with the ring of keys to lock the door behind him. “You still have my key?”

As he spoke he quickly closed the distance between them, pressing his warm hand to Adam’s chest. Adam took his hand and slid it to his hip, where the older man could feel the indentation of the key hidden beneath his heavy robes.

Only then did Adam wrest his hand from between his legs, freeing it to tug at the knot tied around his Prior’s waist. “And you have mine.” His hand grazed Michael’s already half hard member, reading itself to unlock the final gate of Adam’s masculinity.

Lifting himself up onto his knees, Adam wrapped his arms around his Prior’s neck, pulling him down to a rough kiss. His mouth tasted of sex, and from this angle he could see the speckled red bruises of hickeys on his Prior’s collarbone. So there was another man, who was allowed to touch him how Adam couldn’t. He pushed his thigh against the growing bulge between his legs. That didn’t matter, as long as Adam got what he came for.

“Brother Adam.” The Prior said, firmly emphasizing the word brother. His push to Adam’s chest was gentle, but Adam fell back as if had been struck with a blow, the wind leaving his lungs.

What was he thinking? What was he doing? He could not talk to the Prior like that! Embarrassment burned into his face as he quickly tried to adjust into a more subservient position. He slid off of the bed, wincing at the hard impact of his knees on the packed earth. Michael had already walked away, busying himself with lighting a candle.

“Adam. I had thought—“ The older man took a few deep breaths, washing the heightened emotion from his voice. “You would still come to me? After I stood by during your excommunication?”

Did the Prior think Adam would be angry with him? Adam had deserved what he got. “There was no reason to interfere. Father Abbot was right to punish me. The shock cleared my mind.”

“Yes. Of course.” He did not sound convinced, he returned and knelt before Adam, face to face in the dim light. “You have sought weekly confession with Father Abbot?”

“Yes. I confessed to everything I had done. With Francis. With you. I’m sorry Prior, I shouldn’t have—“

Michael cupped Adam’s cheeks. “Don’t apologize Adam. It was good to confess. You are a good monk. I would never ask you to keep secrets for me.”

Adam felt his lips tremble, “But you keep mine. I could not bring myself to confess my own secret. Its not fair that I would betray you.”

He pressed his face into those age worn hands, Michael caressed his cheekbones with his thumb. His voice was low. “Your truth is between you and God, Adam. I have never seen you as anything but a man. It would be a lie to confess to being otherwise.”

He tried to let this wash over him, to believe his Prior, but seeds of doubt still sat buried deep within his skin. He chose instead to be grateful that he believed what Adam could not. He gulped back emotion, tight in his throat. “Thank you.”

Michael pressed his lips to Adam’s forehead, a kiss of benediction. Adam sighed.

“Its been months brother. I thought perhaps you had truly mastered yourself. What brings you to my door?”

Adam remembered, with a bloom of heat in his gut, exactly why he was there. He didn’t want Michael’s reassurances. Words did nothing to quell the confused dissonance between his spirit and his body. Only when he allowed the fullness of his desire to fill him, to press up against the skin he lived inside, only then was he certain that this body was his.

His eyes flicked to the space between Michael’s legs, and when they landed back on his face, it wore that warm, playful smile. Silence strung out between them, Adam’s lustful gaze an insufficient answer.

He spoke slowly, with hesitation, afraid to cross the invisible line the Prior had drawn between them. “I have been… practicing… on my own. I want…” He reshaped his desire. “I want to show you that I have taken your lessons to heart. That I’m ready. For you.”

Michael took his hands off his face, sliding them down to rest heavily on Adam’s shoulders. “Are you sure Adam?” His deep brown eyes seemed to search Adam’s face for something. “I would not want to cause you anymore undue hardship. If the Abbott asks me about it, I can’t—“ He stopped himself, and looked away, watching the candle flicker for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. “Perhaps you were better off with Brother Francis.”

Adam allowed a sour scowl to purse his lips. “Francis and I are done. He doesn’t understand what I need.” He put his hands on Michael’s, pulling them from his shoulders to his chest. “You’ve always known what I needed. Better than I know myself. You’ve taught me what a man needs.” He squeezed his Prior’s rough, hairy hands, trying to push them into his heart. “My body is yours.”

A ghost of a sigh escaped Adam’s lips when Michael’s hands tensed against his chest. He watched Michael shift his legs, the bulge in his skirts enough to shift the long tabard of his scapular to one side. His Prior let out a short, sharp sigh, then spoke in a quiet, strained voice. “Then I shall put your education to the test.”

Chapter 15: Oops

Summary:

Michael gives Adam what he wants. (a creampie)

With this consent, Adam wanted to dive onto Michael. Rather than collide in a frenzy of desire, he restrained himself, only moving his hands to untie the rope around his waist. Michael’s hands slid under Adam’s cowl, grazing his fingers along his collarbone before pulling the thick hood over Adam’s head. As he pulled it off, Michael stood. He took gentle hold of Adam’s collar, guiding him up to join him on his feet.

Michael had never helped Adam undress, always busying himself with something else, as if it were too intimate to watch him peel away the layers of his monastic identity. A cowl for anonymity. A scapular for service. A dark shapeless robe for humility. A linen shirt for cleanliness. A pair of braes for chastity. This time, his Prior pulled each layer from Adam, running his rough hands up and down his body. He knelt, and worked the leather straps from Adam’s hips, letting his wooden cock clatter to the floor.

All that remained on his body was his small wood-carved cross, suspended by a thin strand of twine. Adam could feel his body heat radiating out into the warm air, like a cloud around him. Michael stayed kneeling at his feet, tracing his fingertips along the soft wisps of hair that coated his inner thighs.

“Well Adam,” he said, his voice low and soft. “What have you been practicing?”

Adam blushed. It had felt sinful enough to do it in private, biting his pillow to keep quiet so that his brothers would not hear him moan in the dark. He brought two fingers to his lips and slid them slowly into his mouth. His tongue readily supplied more saliva, thick and hot on his fingers.

The spit cooled quickly, chilled by the time he reached behind himself and slid it along his hole. He pressed the tip of his middle finger into the puckered entrance, hooking his hand and tugging slightly to stretch himself. He sunk easily inside.

He didn’t stifle his his voice now. He let the sound tremble up from is chest to fill the still and quiet air of Michael’s small home. He wanted Michael to hear how he enjoyed it, how much he wanted more. His hips tilted open, angling a leg out to give his Prior a better view of the wet mess between his thighs.

The warm hands left Adam’s legs. Michael took up the pile of Adam’s clothes and folded them, carrying them to place atop his desk. Adam watched him nervously. Had he done something wrong?

“Well don’t stop brother,” Michael chuckled, sparing a glance to Adam standing frozen with his finger up his ass. “I’m merely getting ready.”

Adam resumed the slow working of his finger in and out, watching Michael undress. He removed his own garments meticulously, folding each piece before taking off the next. Sparkling off his mat of body hair, a glowing fuzzy halo of candlelight danced around the edges of his silhouette.

Michael looked right at Adam as he, now fully nude, wrapped his hand around the base of his cock. Adam was mesmerized by the long, steady movements of his hand, and by how it twitched and pulsed as it rose to point towards the heavens like hands in prayer. Without thinking, he forced a second finger into his ass, eliciting from himself a breathy grunt.

Air pressed against him as Michael stepped around Adam’s body in the small dark space. He tried to remain focused, but his mind followed the sound of Michael shifting something behind him. His ears perked up at the familiar sound of a clay jar being opened. “Take your hand out.” Michael commanded, his voice close enough behind him to make the hairs on Adam’s neck stand up. Would he take him now? Bend Adam over and force himself inside whether he was ready or not? Adam’s breath shuddered in anticipation as he popped his fingers out.

A warm hand closed tight around Adam’s dampened fingers. Slick oil oozed to fill the gaps where the two men’s skin did not touch. “Using only spit Adam? That can’t be pleasant.” Michael gave him a squeeze, and let his hand go. “I hope you aren’t doing that to yourself often.”

“I use—“ Adam huffed as he pushed his two fingers back inside. “The walnut oil from the scriptorium.”

His Prior clicked his tongue. “So you have been learning. Good boy.” Adam’s asshole clenched around his fingers, dribbling warm oil. “I’ll make sure to order extra next time.” Adam’s breath shook when Michael splayed his hand between his shoulder blades. “What other monastery resources are you wasting?”

“Time.” Adam confessed. “I have wasted so much time. Time that should be devoted to God and this Abbey, instead devoted to lecherous thoughts. Hours that could be spent working bogged down with penitent prayers for the sins I can’t resist committing.”

Michael’s hand slid down Adam’s back, resting at the soft dip in his spine. He could swear he could feel the heat of his cock radiating just inches from his ass. “And now Adam, you waste my time. I’m certain if you tried harder, you could fit three fingers.”

Adam grunted.

His third finger fought its way in while his cunt throbbed and dripped down his leg. The taper this created gave him a stretch that made him arch his back. He was forced to retreat, pushing in and pulling out so that his body could take more and more. He leaned into Michael’s stable palm and moaned.

In turn, Michael applied more pressure to Adam’s lower back. Adam followed his guiding hand to stand at the edge of the bed, where Michael seated himself, sliding his hand around to Adam’s hip without breaking contact. With Michael back in front of him, Adam took him in with half lidded eyes. His lips hung slightly open, panting quietly, and his body seemed tense with anticipation. Blood pulsed through his cock. Adam could see it in the vein that throbbed along his shaft.

“Mnh.”

Adam took his three fingers to his knuckle, making a show of it. It excited him to see how he could affect his Prior. He wanted Michael to know just how excited he was. How good he was being. How ready he was for him.

As if reading his mind, Michael hooked his fingers around Adam’s arm and drew it out of him. “Very good Adam. As always, you are a dedicated student.”

This flattery made Adam blush.

Goosebumps trailed up Adam’s skin as Michael’s hands caressed his chest. “I suppose I have no choice but to grant your request. You want me to fuck you like a man Adam?”

He nodded. Michael rubbed and squeezed the fat of Adam’s stomach as if he hadn’t seen it. Adam licked his lips and forced out the words. “Yes Michael. Please.”

His hands were back on Adam’s hips. He pulled him forward, smiling slightly. “Then get over here.”

Adam straddled him, his knees digging into the straw mattress. Their thighs pressed together, Adam’s cool skin on Michael’s warm lap. His mouth began to salivate as Michael’s cock pressed into his stomach. He held his hands awkwardly at his side, until his Prior took him by the wrists and pressed them to his body.

“Go ahead brother.”

His fingers tangled into the dense mat of curls that bloomed across Michael’s chest. As he played through the wiry hair, he found one perfect ringlet, like the ones that would form in wispy circles at the base of Francis’s neck. Adam huffed and spread his fingers, mussing the offending hairs back into the chaos.

Michael touched Adam back. His coarse thumbs ran slowly over the pink tissue that formed two narrow arcs over his chest. Scars that Michael had helped put there. The surgery had done nothing to mitigate the large pink circles around his nipples, which were now puffy and sensitive with arousal. His throat made a muted whimper when Michael’s thumb-tips grazed against them.

But he paid little attention to the tender movements of his Prior’s hands. Between their bodies, his cock waited, hot and hard. At the sight of it, Adam’s stretched asshole flexed in anticipation. He was done waiting.

It was awkward, for a moment, trying to position himself on his knees to take it into him, but his Prior guided Adam’s hips with one hand and his own cock with the other. His pride, or perhaps only impatience, spurred him to lower himself fast and hard. The full, stinging sensation of forcing his body to take Michael’s entire length made him groan.

Michael groaned too. Adam smiled at look on his Prior’s face. Michael’s eyebrows were knitted. His mouth twisted in a grimace. Adam was making him feel good. He could feel it himself, by the pulsing inside him. The initial pain of the sudden stretch was already fading, and pleasure was blooming in its wake.

It filled him with a sort of pride that he could fit Michael inside him. He could use his body to pleasure his Prior and received pleasure in return. How men did. He did not care that it was considered dirtier than most fornication. It was a rite of passage for young men like him to be swept up by an older man, like Ganymede was, and to be fucked like this.

Acclimated to the girth forcing him open, Adam began to move his hips slightly, gasping at the tugging sensation from his asshole. Michael wrapped his hands around Adam’s back to brace him from falling backwards. The Prior had no more words for Adam, his eyes were blurred and his breathing was low and heavy.

Not that Adam minded, he was in himself now, relishing in the jolts of pleasure that ran up his spine with every slap of his thighs on Michael’s. He was impatient. He wanted release. He wanted to make Michael cum. He wanted to be filled with his manhood. He wanted it so dearly that tears pricked at the edges of his eyes. A culmination of desire and envy and desperate desperate need.

His voice was not his own as between breathless gasps he said, “Please Prior, make me a man! Make me a man!”

///

It was not the first time Michael had heard those words from Adam’s lips. While Michael’s dick burned with pleasure, his mind reeled back to nearly ten years ago. Adam had taken his first vows and his place in the scriptorium. His body was changing, and not even the linen bindings and the bulky fabric of his habit could cover what was happening on his chest. Michael knew he had to do something, or the boy would be found out and sent away from him forever.

“I have a friend, from my time at the University of Paris, a surgeon, who helps women that suffer from tumors in the breast. He could help you, but its dangerous.”

“I’ll do it, please, anything, just don’t send me away!”

“You could die brother.”

“I don’t care. Please Prior,” he had said, on his knees, pressing his golden head into Michael’s shins. “Make me a man.”

“Make me a man!” Adam gasped again and again, slamming himself onto Michael’s cock so hard it made his balls twitch. He huffed, trying to hold on a little longer, to give a little more pleasure to the man he had made. Like God, he had created Adam, shearing away the unwanted parts of him. Shaping him into the man they both wanted him to be.

And what a man he was. Michael could only sit there, his head spinning, as Adam wrung pleasure from him with a frenetic force. Sweat and cum and lube seeped between every point of contact between them. Adam seemed to find delight in the penetration, pulling all the way out and then forcing his tight hole back down onto Michael’s cock.

It seemed the boy was on the brink of orgasm, when he slammed down again, and something felt different. Adam made a strange sound, squeaking as his body flexed and quivered around Michael. It was the last straw, he could not hold back anymore. He made an undignified groan. His body tensed and relaxed at once, release pouring out of him and into Adam.

Adam felt it, and leaned forward, bracing himself on Michael’s shoulders. “Yes. Yes please fill me with you.”

Michael did just that, holding Adam’s hips down, tight against him, while his seed gushed out. He was his. Shaped by him and full of him. Their breaths mingling as they came down from the ecstatic high and into the comfort of skin on skin. Michael looked down to see what mess he had made of Adam’s asshole.

His whole body tensed, in a paralyzed fear, when he realized. He was not in Adam’s asshole anymore. He tried to speak but it was only a strained squeak. He cleared his throat. “Adam.”

Adam’s relaxed smile turned into a frown of confusion when he looked to Michael’s own concerned face. He looked down to the point of their union where Michael’s seed was dripping heavily from his cunt.

Like a frightened hare, Adam sprung from Michael’s lap. He staggered to his feet, staring down in disbelief as semen drooled from his body. He looked up to Michael, his eyes wide and his face pale. “What do I do?”

Michael was frozen. He had lived in an all mens commune for over forty years. He had never encountered this situation. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to help Adam. He did this. He fucked up. He was going to ruin Adam’s life.

While Michael’s mind spiraled with fear and shame, Adam spiraled in frantic pacing before him. His voice shook with terror. “What do I do!? What do I do!? What if I get pregnant? I can’t hide that! I can’t have a baby! I’m going to be found out! I’m going to die! I’ll die!”

His ward’s fear forced Michael to pull himself together, he stood, stumbling from the quick ascension so shortly after orgasm, and took Adam’s shoulders. “Get dressed. Go to brother Francis. He— if anyone knows what to do it will be him. I’ll unlock the infirmary, maybe something in there will help.

Adam looked at him, with so much trust. Always too much trust. He did not understand that with all his years, Michael was just as weak and foolish as him. “Of course. Thank you Prior.”

Michael stood still with his head still spinning, as he watched Adam run off into the night.

Chapter 16: Paging Doctor Francis

Summary:

#rip Adam he would have loved the morning after pill

As he ran down the dark hall of the cloister to where Francis slept, he felt as if his heart was going to jump from his throat. It had felt so good. He was swimming in the thick giddy fog of orgasm, thrashing in fear and floating at the same time. It didn’t feel real when he knelt beside Francis’s bed, grabbing his shoulders and shaking them roughly.

Francis did not respond, jerking his shoulder from Adam’s hand and rolling to face away from him.

“Please Francis wake up!” His whisper was so frantic, he feared he would wake everyone in the room. “I need your help.”

Francis hissed from his pillow. “Why don’t you ask the Prior for help?”

“He can’t help with this! I need you.”

With a jerk, Francis pulled his blanket over his head. “No you don’t.”

“Francis. Please. I don’t want to be pregnant!”

There was a gasp, and then a muffled laugh under the blanket. Then Francis rolled from his bed, quickly following Adam from the dormitory and down the hall to the infirmary, where Michael paced anxiously outside the door.

///

The Prior looked incredibly flustered as he unlocked the infirmary door. Francis gave him a smirk. Of course it was him. “Couldn't resist huh?”

Her gloating was cut short by Adam jerking her by the sleeve into the infirmary. “Francis!” So she followed her poor stupid monk inside. Michael tried to follow them, but Francis shut the door in his face.

“You’ve done enough.”

With the door closed, Francis dropped any pretense of smugness. As angry as she was with Adam, his life was in danger. She rushed to dig through the cabinets, while grilling Adam with questions.

“How long ago?”

“Just a few minutes ago.”

“What position were you in?”

“I was sitting up.”

“Have you washed it out yet?”

“No!? How do I do that?”

Francis swore under her breath and gestured to the table. “Just fucking get up there and pull up your skirts.”

She grabbed a rag and a basin of water that was sitting out, hoping it was clean. “I know you don’t like it but I’m gonna gonna have to shove my hand up your cunt.”

“Okay.”

Adam perched on the table, his heels hooked on the edge to make his pussy more accessible. Francis stepped between his bared legs. His cunt was swollen and dripping, with raw red marks blazing on his inner thighs where he must have been rubbing against Michael’s body.

She washed her hands in the basin and pressed three fingers to Adam’s lips. He was plush with arousal. Francis briefly felt a rush of excitement at this new frontier, followed by the pang of disappointment that her first time inside him had to be like this. But it was not the time to be sentimental.

Francis looked Adam in the face. He was uncharacteristically pale, his eyes jumping from place to place, settling on nothing.

“So, I’m going to try to scrape out any seed that’s left inside you. You don’t have to do anything. Just breathe okay?”

Adam scrunched up his eyes and nodded, bracing for Francis’s touch. She slid her three fingers into him. His (recently) virgin pussy was tight at the entrance, but open and hungry inside. Adam winced and squeaked out. “It stings.”

Francis petted his bare thigh, “I know.”

She curled her fingers and scooped at the soft tissue inside of him. They came out with a thick hot glob of white seed that made Francis huff and lick her lips. It was a shame the stuff was so troublesome, because it sure looked good coming back out.

She wiped it off on the rag, washed her hand in the basin, and forced herself inside him again. It was easier the second time, Adam’s tender flesh stretching to accommodate her intruding fingers. Very little came out on the second stroke, but she wanted to be thorough.

“Mmmph.”

As she pressed her hand inside a third time, Francis’s eyes flicked to Adam’s face. The color had returned to his cheeks and his eyelids drooped. She smiled. At least he was enjoying himself.

She scooped him clean seven times. For the seven virtues, or the seven sins, or something. God liked the number seven, so maybe that would help. Each insertion was easier than the last, and Adam’s voice was a melody of small shaky moans.

“Okay. So nothing else is coming out, but there could still be some in your womb. Do you know how to like? Squeeze it? Like how I squeeze your fingers when they’re inside me sometimes?”

Adam’s legs clenched around her, his muscles visibly shaking with effort. Then he shook his head, worry creasing his forehead. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“Hmmm.” Francis bit her lip in thought, her mind racing through all the advice and home remedies that had been whispered between the women at her favorite brothel. She knew how to make him squeeze, but this didn’t seem like the time. “Well…” She drawled. “Orgasming is basically one big squeeze, so it might help force more seed out. If you can relax enough for it.”

Adam nodded his head vigorously. “Anything Francis. Please. I don’t want to get pregnant.”

After months and months away from him, Francis did not need any more convincing. She dropped to her knees. If this was going to be any help it needed to be fast. Every second that the seed sat in Adam was another baby waiting to happen. She slid her three fingers, easily now, into Adam’s cunt, ready to scrape at his walls during the aftershocks.

Oh it was torture! His cunt was lush, hot, throbbing. She could have spent hours there, but they didn’t have hours. Instead she forced herself to focus on his clit, as erect and hard as a cock.

He had an unfamiliar taste. Michael. Francis thought to herself with a scowl. She did not like the idea of knowing what that old man’s dick tasted like. She sucked so hard her cheeks puckered. Adam gasped, raking his fingers across Francis’s scalp and tangling them in her ring of curls.

Goosebumps rushed up her neck, and Francis pressed her face and her hand deeper into Adam. Fuck she missed this. She missed gumming against Adam’s clit until her tongue hurt. She missed the pressure in her jaw as he locked his legs around her head. And oh god she missed the way he bucked into her mouth.

It was rough. Fast. Hard. Her fingers moved in and out of him in imprecise jerks. Her teeth knocked against his pubic bones. In what felt like only moments he was clenching and shaking, squeezing out whatever Michael had left in him. Francis spit it onto the floor.

She only took a moment to enjoy the afterglow. To mentally gloat at the fact that despite everything, he still needed her. She was still the one who knew his body best. She drank in the dazed look on his red face, and then she stood up and returned to the cabinets.

The abbey’s live in doctor was more of a barber than an herbalist, if they had more complex problems, they would make the hike down the hill to doctor Martin’s hut. Sot here was a poor selection of dried herbs to choose from. Francis grabbed a few fistfuls of random herbs that she knew to be of cold and wet nature and shoved them in Adam’s face.

“Chew those. If your humors are cool and wet, the seed will not stay in you.”

Adam took them and obeyed.

Francis put her hand to her mouth. Her memory of these things was fuzzy. “Or was is hot and dry so that the seed won’t quicken?”

Adam spluttered out the herbs. “Shouldn’t you know!?” There was rising panic in his voice.

“Why would I know?! You know I don’t sleep with men! Cocks aren’t worth he fucking trouble!” Her frustration and anger crackled in her voice. Stupid Michael cumming in Adam like some sort of teenage boy. Stupid Adam for going to him. Stupid Adam who had her. Who thought it was too risky, too sinful, to be with her, but would ruin his life in the arms of a nasty old man. And stupid Francis, for wanting to help him still. Stupid for never learning what to do in a moment like this.

There was a soft knock at the door. Michael poked his head in. “Can I help with anything?”

Francis’s head snapped so hard it hurt her neck. “Get the fuck out of here!” She screeched, chucking a jar of mint at his head. It exploded against the wall in a satisfying shatter. Michael closed the door.

She pulled out hot spices. Pepper. Cinnamon. Nutmeg. Cloves. Beside her, she registered the erratic breathing that Adam did when he was having one of his weird fits. That wouldn’t help. With her hands full of little jars she turned to him. “Is there a prayer for this?”

“A prayer against conception? Of course not!”

“What about a prayer for idiots!?”

Adam’s voice was high and frantic. “I don’t know!”

“Then pray to Mary! This is her domain!”

Adam nodded, his chest was still heaving, but he took his beads in hand and began to mutter out quick Ave Marias.

With that in hand, Francis got to work grinding the spices into some horrible powder. Adam wouldn’t be able to eat that. She shoved open the door, causing Michael to jump. He was praying too, his head bowed and lips moving. Useless. “Get him a cup of wine!”

The Prior ran off towards to kitchen without a word.

She turned her attention back to Adam. “Okay. I’m going to make you a spiced wine. To dry up whats left. I think it will help. And if not. Maybe it’ll calm you down.”

“Dry it up? Like the baby? Is there already a baby in me? Are we going to kill a baby?” He groaned with agony. “I’m going to hell! I am going to hell!”

“Its fine! Its not a baby yet! Women do this all the time!”

“I’m not a woman! I’m a monk!”

“All the more reason its allowed. Monks shouldn’t be getting pregnant.”

He was barely listening, falling in on his own fear again. “Maybe God wants this. Its punishment for my lust. For trying to transcend the limits of a woman’s body. I need to suffer. Be punished. I must be dragged back down to what I am—“

Francis grabbed his head, sandwiching him between her palms. “Don’t be stupid. This isn’t God. Its you. You made a mistake. A mistake people make all the time. We won’t know for weeks if anything will come of it. You will just have to wait.”

Adam pulled his gaze from his worrying hands to look back at Francis, his big blue eyes filling with tears. “I’m sorry.”

Francis took her hands away quickly. Adam was always sorry for the wrong things. She pointed to the bowl of spices. “Mix that into the wine and drink it. I’m going back to bed.”

Chapter 17: Frater spiritualis

Summary:

Everyone braces for the worst, and Francis and Adam finally talk it out. Kind of.

The next day was harrowing. Adam’s every thought was consumed by grisly imaginings of what could happen to him. If the seed took, he would grow big and round, and everyone would know not only what he was, but what he had done. He would be thrown out to fend for himself. And then what? Would he miscarry? Bleeding a half formed mass from his body? Would he and the child kill each other? His body rent asunder in childbirth, his child suffocating in the gore? Or even worse, they would both live. He couldn’t abandon it, it would not be Christian. He would have to throw away his passions and ambitions to raise the thing. He could never be a monk again, and they would not even take him as a nun after the scandal. He would never draw again. He would have to find some other work, some other way to provide. What would he do? How would he—

Two fingers tapped on his desk. Like pulling a boot from mud, Adam pulled himself from his anxious reverie. Michael looked down at him, casting an eye at his completely untouched manuscript, marred only by a black spot where Adam had held his stylus frozen over the paper for an uncountable amount of time.

Michael gestured for Adam to follow him, and Adam gratefully rose from his seat. Anything to distract him from the hell in his mind. Behind him, Francis rose too. He followed Michael and Adam down the hall and into the loquarium, where they could break the grand silence to speak about urgent business.

When the door closed behind them, Michael spoke. “Go back to your work Francis, this does not concern you.”

Francis sneered and crossed his arms. “It does if its going to end with Adam running to me in the night again! I’m not leaving him alone with you again, you perverted old man.”

Though he had heard Francis speak like this many times, it still made him gasp to hear him say it to the Prior’s face.

Michael’s mustache seemed to bristle. “Brother Francis, you will not speak—“

But Francis did not let him finish, he turned to Adam. “Did you know he fucks brother Paul? Did you know he fucked MY uncle years ago? He’s probably been putting his hands on younger men since before we were born! I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s put his nasty old dick in half the monks here!”

Adam interjected, scandalized to hear Francis speak poorly of his Prior, and eager to defend him, even if Francis’s revelations were news to him. “What’s your point? The first thing you ever told me about yourself was how many women you slept with! How is he any different?”

“I’m not the Prior of a fucking abbey!”

“So?”

“So the girls I fucked could say no! Lots of them did! I may be a slut Adam, but even I know better than to fuck someone I have power over.”

He felt his face go red with indignation. “I could say no!” Francis’s accusations were patronizing. Adam wasn’t a child. These were his own choices. He was the one who sought the Prior out again and again. It was his own lust and his own sin that had brought this upon him. “I wanted it! Its my fault.”

“Are you blind Adam? You never had a choice.” Francis pointed a finger like a dagger at Michael’s face. “He decides what is and isn’t a sin worth punishing. He gets off on beating monks for the same things he has been getting away with for decades! If you said no, if you lost his favor, whats to stop him from treating you like he treats everyone else here? Treating you like he treats me!?”

Michael placed a hand coolly on Francis’s raised arm and pushed it down, speaking in a quiet but firm voice. “Keep your voice down. Do you want to get him in more trouble? Now?”

Face flashing red, Francis opened and closed his mouth. He dropped his arm and glared down at his feet, muttering, “I’m not the one who blew a load in him.”

“I understand your frustration Brother Francis,” Michael’s voice was straining at the edge of anger. “I am aware I could have comported myself more… carefully with Adam last night. No one is more aware of my faults than me, but this monastery would not function without order and discipline. Letting one man’s sins go unpunished only opens the door for more wrongdoing—“

“Unless its you.”

“I receive my stripes like everyone else Francis.” He shook his head, rattling the rising frustration from his voice, and spoke more calmly. “Your grievances with me are not important right now.”

He turned to Adam, wrapping his warm hands around Adam’s. “Brother Adam, I am sorry for what happened last night. God willing, nothing will change. But all we can do now is prepare for what may come. I have family in Tours. If it comes to it, you can stay with them until it is born. There will be plenty of time to find someone to take the child.”

Adam nodded. He did not want to be sent away to some far off city for months. He did not want to bear a child and give it away to a stranger. He did not want to bear a child at all. But Michael was the Prior. He knew how to handle these things. He always did. Like when he sent Adam away to Paris. He had been so afraid, and it had hurt so badly, but he had been right. Adam had returned to the fold, secure in his place among his brothers. Yes. The Prior knew what was best for him.

Right?

Francis pressed up against Adam’s side, fire in his voice. He seemed to read Adam’s mind, speaking his questions aloud. “What if he doesn’t want to have a baby?”

“If the Lord wills it, he will.”

“There are other ways. Medicines, herbs—”

“I will not put his life in the hands of some backcountry midwife.” Michael snipped.

“And then what? Would you claim it? Destroy your reputation to grant it a future? Or will you put another fatherless orphan into the world?”

“We will find it a good life. Donate it to some other monastery.”

“What if Adam wants to raise it?”

“He can’t. He’s a monk.”

Adam pulled on Francis’s sleeve tentatively. “He’s right Francis. I will do as he says.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Michael’s voice was firm with dismissal. “Our abbey is sworn to keep you safe here Francis. The abbot— and your uncle— would never approve of sending you to Tours.”

He crossed his arms. “What about Adam? People here already have doubts about him. How would it look if he disappeared alone for months?”

“We can say he went on a pilgrimage.”

“Send me with. Say he got me pregnant. He had to come with to tend to me as penance.”

Adam’s voice was quiet. “It would be nice if I didn’t have to go alone.”

The Prior threw his hands in the air. “Sure! I’ll just tell the cardinal that his niece got pregnant on my watch and we sent her off to Tours!”

“Perfect! Then its all settled.” Francis grabbed Adam by the sleeve and pulled him out into the hall. They walked back to the scriptorium side by side, Adam’s head reeling at everything that had been said, until Francis grabbed his arm and whispered.

“If you want it gone. Before or after. I’ll help.”

His words chilled Adam’s spine, but it was the most reassuring thing he’d heard all day.

///

“How long do I have to wait?”

“I’m not sure.”

Francis and Adam were tucked in the small courtyard behind the old chapel, made obsolete when the big church was built. They sat on their legs like little boys, whispering secrets in the dark.

“If you start menstruating, then you know you’re fine. If the seed takes, you’ll start throwing up in the mornings.”

Adam’s stomach flipped. “I’ve already been nauseous in the mornings!”

Francis waved his hands, “No no its only been a few days, you always get nauseous when you’re nervous.”

“Then how am I supposed to tell the difference?”

“I don’t know! Stop being so nervous.”

Adam shook his head. He couldn’t. There was so little he understood about this, about his own body. “What happens next?”

“I’m not sure. You feel cranky, and hungry, and get fatter. After some months, there is the quickening. Thats when it starts to move inside you. When God gives it a soul.” Francis nodded matter of factly. “If you want to get rid of it, you have to do it between the vomiting and the quickening.”

“How?”

“I don’t know the plant names in Latin. And the ones they use in Rome could be different. I’d have to go see a midwife.”

“And its not a sin?”

“Not before the quickening.”

“What if I don’t take the herbs?”

“Then you’ll get even fatter than you already are. Your back will hurt, your feet will swell, and you’ll eat more than two men. Then, if you’re lucky, you won’t die when the thing rips its way out of you.”

That was the part that terrified Adam more than anything. Francis kept talking about how many women died in child birth. Thats how his grandmother had died. Thats how girls at brothels died. It didn’t seem to make a difference whether you were pious or sinful, rich or poor, death seemed to strike at random.

His hands shook and his breath quickened at the thought, fear threatening to rip his chest apart, but suddenly Francis was there, pressing his palms to Adam’s back. “Ave, María, grátia plena, Dóminus tecum—“

“— Benedicta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.” Adam sighed and lost himself in the comforting lilt of prayer.

It was like that for weeks. Francis answered his questions, even when he asked the same ones again and again. He clung to his side, ready to quell his terror at a moment’s notice. Prior Michael kept his distance, treating Adam as he always did. It was unclear if this was his choice or a consequence of Francis looking like he would spit fire any time Michael came too close.

Adam couldn’t be more grateful. Francis was still angry with him. He could see it in set set of his jaw, the flicking of his eyes, the quick, ugly strokes of his calligraphy. He was still sharp and cold any time Adam tried to speak of other subjects. But in this one thing, he was forgiving. He made it clear with his every word and gesture, that he would support Adam though whatever he decided. Like a brother, he set aside petty squabbles for Adam’s wellbeing.

Even after Adam had pushed him away, trying to hide from himself in the arms the the church, Francis was his brother. Even after he had turned to a Michael again and again, the man that brought Francis only pain, Francis was his brother. Even though Adam had truly done nothing to deserve his help, Francis was his brother.

Frater spiritualis.

That was the point of being a monk. Unconditional love and support of his brothers, and a perpetual effort to guide each other to godliness. Obedience was only the bedrock which supported and guided fidelity and stability. Adam was ashamed of himself. He had not shown fidelity to Francis. He had not been a stable companion.

He had been fooling himself, to pretend that his relationship with Francis was purely sexual. To believe that the gaping loneliness of their separation was merely lust. Sex with Francis was more than carnal satisfaction. It was a physical consummation of their spiritual entanglement. Loving Francis made Adam love himself more, it helped him appreciate the beauty of God’s creation, even in his own sinful body.

He wanted to be a good monk. He wanted to eschew earthly pleasure and do everything in service of God. But first he had to be a good brother. He had to lift up Francis as Francis lifted him. Surely God would forgive their fornication, if it brought them closer to each other and closer to Him.

Adam looked over to Francis, tucked between two other monks in the choir as they chanted their vespers prayers. Lord even in mass, the sight of him was enough to make Adam’s cunt drip, the hot feeling of wetness soaking into his undergarments. Or wait. This was a different wetness. His heart skipped a beat, scarcely willing to believe it.

When vespers was finished, he was too impatient to run to the dormitories. He slipped into a hidden alcove beside the staircase in the church, pulled his arm into his sleeve, and shoved it between his legs. Thank God. Thank God. His fingers came out coated in the dark, viscous red of menses.

He had to tell Francis right away. When he stepped back out into the evening light of the church, Francis was there loitering by the altar, as if he had seen Adam sneak away. His first thought was to share the news in the bell-tower, their refuge these past years. But people looked for them there now. They needed somewhere private. His hand fell to the key on his hip.

He caught Francis’s eye, too nervous someone would see to run right up to him, and gestured for him to follow him. Together they wound around the halls of the abbey, through the novices quarters, and into the small courtyard where the Prior’s house was tucked away.

“What is it? What are we doing here?”

“He should still be working…” Adam pulled out his key and let himself in. Francis followed him, his eyebrows high.

“How long have you had that fucking key!?”

Adam shrugged. “A while…”

“What?!”

“Its not important. Francis, I’m bleeding.”

“Where?” His eyes widened. “Oh! Thank God!”

He wasn’t expecting Francis to hug him, slamming into his chest so hard he knocked the wind out of him. “Thank fucking Christ Adam. Never do that again.”

Adam squeezed him back, breathing in the fresh scent of Francis’s clothes. “I won’t. I won’t”

Relief bubbled up as laughter between them. Their heartbeats pressed up one another, and Adam did not want to let go. They stood there with their arms around each other for what felt like a long time, until Adam broke the silence.

“Thank you. For being there for me. For this. For my exile. Basically always.”

Francis tensed in his arms, so Adam held him tighter.

“Yeah you’re fucking welcome. You don’t deserve it.”

Now it was Adam who became tense, afraid that if he let go, Francis would slip away from him entirely. “I’m sorry. I was scared.” His mouth was dry, but he gulped and continued. He needed Francis to understand. He needed Francis to absolve him. “The Prior kept saying that you were not one of us. That this is a game to you. But you’re a good brother. You’re my brother.”

Francis squirmed from Adam’s grip. “Thanks. Are we done here? I want to snoop in Michael’s stuff.” He turned abruptly away to investigate the Prior’s meager possessions. Adam watched him flip through a pile of letters, something heavy in his chest. Was that all Francis had to say? No condemnation? No reassurance? No absolution?
Of course these were foolish to expect. Francis did not speak the finely structured language of rituals and psalms. He eschewed the world of spirit and mind for that of body and heart. He was no monk.

“Do you still want to leave?”

“Huh?” Francis grunted. He was crouched on the ground and digging through a pile of linens, making a big mess on the floor.

“If your uncle came tomorrow and offered to release you from your vows, would you leave here?”

“Of course I would.”

Adam nodded, tightness in his chest. He knew the answer.

“Its not going to happen though. My uncle’s stopped responding to my letters almost completely. He doesn’t care what happens to me out here.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Adam hated himself for being relieved. How could he be grateful for the certainty that Francis couldn’t leave him? He felt his shoulders relax a bit, and smiled at Francis bent over, fishing his arm under the Prior’s bed. “Are you looking for something?”

“He has all my fucking sex toys in here somewhere.”

“Oh!”

Adam dropped to the floor beside Francis and slid the plain wooden box from its place on the shelf. “They’re in here.”

Francis dove at the chest. “You bastard! You knew about them!?”

He felt his face heating at the memories. “More than that.”

“Well at least someone was getting some use out of them.” Francis huffed. “Do you know where the key to this is?”

“Its on Michael’s keyring…”

“Ugh. Do you think he’ll give it to you if you blow him again?”

“I never—!” Adam quashed his indignation. What he did do was much worse than blowjobs. “Actually. I was thinking… I think I’m not going to see him again.”

“Why not? One pregnancy scare was enough to scare you off forever?”

“No! Well yes that too.” Adam pressed his hands against the cool dirt floor, trying to find stability in it. “You think I shouldn’t see him, don’t you?”

“Well duh.”

“Then I won’t.”

Francis banged the box against the floor like an animal with a walnut, he wouldn’t meet Adam’s eyes. “Thats a dumb reason to do something.”

“I’d rather have you.”

Francis rested the box on the ground and peered up at Adam from under his eyebrows. “Are you saying you’d dump your old man for me?”

“I guess I am.”

Francis turned his head and crossed his arms. “And if I won’t take you back? Will you still be done with him?”

“Yes! You’re my best friend Francis! If it really bothers you that much, I swear to God, I’ll never sleep with him again.”

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“If you’re really on my side, help me trash his house.”

“Francis!”

He was already standing, ripping the wool blanket from Michael’s bed and wadding it into a ball. “Fuck you Michael!” He chucked it into the unlit fireplace, puffing ash into the room.

“We can’t—“

Francis laughed and tossed the Prior’s pillow at Adam’s face. “He could have ruined your life Adam!”

Adam caught it and held it tight to his chest.

“He got to pretend to be innocent while you were thrown to the mud!” Francis began pulling things from the Prior’s shelf and dropping them. Letters flew everywhere.
It was cathartic, somehow, watching Francis turn Michael’s organized home upside down. Blatant, but harmless disobedience that shook off his deep seated desire to please. Adam flipped over the pillow and dumped the straw and wool stuffed inside onto the floor.

Francis gave a kick to the mess at their feet. “Thats the spirit!” Then he grabbed a jar from the shelf and pressed it into Adam’s hand.

Adam removed the clay lid, inhaling the familiar smell of the oil Michael used on his body. He took two steps and overturned it on Michael’s mattress. “He made my asshole hurt for a week!”

Francis laughed, his smile contagious. He tore open the drawer in Michael’s desk and flipped documents everywhere. “He fucked your pussy before I did!”

Heat flooded Adam’s cheeks. “Is that something you care about?”

His brother shrugged, suddenly very focused on ripping a sheet of parchment into fine shreds. “I would have done a better job…”

“Well…” Adam let the jar clatter to the floor and stepped closer to Francis. “It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Maybe if you forgive me… you could show me what you would have done.”

Francis turned to him, a grin on his face. “Whore. I knew you enjoyed it when I scooped you out.”

“Maybe I did!” Adam’s voice was shrill, but he could feel a smile lifting his cheeks.

Francis’s playful smile dropped to a more serious expression. “But you can’t get caught again. We have to be more careful. We’ll have to find new spots, different times. I’ve composed a list.”

“When did you do that?”

“In my fucking months of alone time dipshit.”

“Oh… Yeah…”

“If you ever leave me cold like that again,” Francis slammed the drawer shut. “I’ll draw a huge cock on every page you’ve ever illuminated. History will remember you as the penis scribe.”

“You wouldn’t.” Adam grabbed Francis’s hands, if only to keep them from breaking the more valuable items in the Prior’s desk.

“I’m serious.” Francis said, pulling on Adam so that their bodies came close together. “We’re the only ones like us. I need,” he swallowed hard, “I need to know I’m not alone here.”

Adam laced his fingers between his brother’s. “You aren’t. You’re my brother.”

They looked around Michael’s house. Straw and parchment littered the floor. Dust swirled in the air around them. Adam’s mind spun with the memories of fear, pleasure, and pain that lived in the room.

“Do you think he’ll be mad at us?”

Francis bent over and scooped the wooden box of dildos into his arms. “Maybe he feels guilty enough that he won’t say anything. We don’t have to tell him you’re not pregnant yet. Let him sweat a couple more weeks.”

“You’re really a bad monk Francis.” Adam pulled the heavy iron key from his robes and placed it on Michael’s desk, adjusting it to lay straight with the grain of the wood. He did not need the temptation to come back here again.

“You’re no saint yourself brother.”

Chapter 18: epilogue

Summary:

fuck michael's whole shit

Michael shuffled to his house, tired and sore after a long day at his desk. He had spent two hours trying to write a letter to his sister in Tours that didn’t make him look like a total ass. If he said that Adam got pregnant from another man, there was no way his sister would agree to take him in. If he confessed it was him— after the fit his father threw about him declaring he would never sire any heirs— only to impregnate a monk out of wedlock. He’d be torn to pieces. The light had left before inspiration came to him, and he had given up for the day, leaving a completely blank sheet of parchment on his desk in the scriptorium.

He pulled out his key, grateful that the Abbot had been satisfied enough with Adam’s confessions to grant him the right to enter and leave his own fucking home at will. But his door was unlocked. Adam? Did he have good news?

It was not good news.

Picking his way through the bedlam on his floor, he stopped at his desk, where his spare key sat, warm to the touch from its place on Adam’s body. The rejection still stung. Over forty years of fucking up messy, complicated relationships, and it still stung. He dropped into his chair and picked up the key, dangling it in the dying evening light that filtered in through his open door.

Paul was going to laugh at him in the morning.

Notes:

thank you insane people for reading this story. I had so many themes i wanted to explore about monastic obedience and indoctrination and bsdm and authority and love and I don't know if I managed to do them all justice but oh well. Will just have to write another one.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 17 of The Complete History of the Abbey de Guissex