Biting the apple

The weeks after the incident with Stacey X had made him turn himself into a ghost in the mansion. Fleeing any possible interaction with Logan, shame driving him deep into himself. His sin, his weakness. When he went to Mass, he couldn’t bring himself to speak of it. No absolution for it, his conscience soothed and salved by words from a priest. Gott im Himmel, what, how...there was no way he could think of to state it. To explain it. The priest would denounce him for it.

And confession required contrition. Sincere repentance of the wrong done, the sin, and a desire to put it from one’s self. He could not lie to God, to the man who represented His ear in that dark and cloistered box. The smoke of incense and candles coated his tongue, thickening his voice and making him despair as he confessed instead to a multitude of minor sins. Impatience, unforgiveness, greed, anger, all those small human sins. Venial sins, nothing that the Church considered unforgivable. But this – but this -

Always that memory of the moment of bliss, before the blackness

He could not forget it.

Fasting made him lightheaded, let him distance himself from his body that had betrayed him so terribly. He regretted the sin, but not in the way he knew was required. Needed. In order to show the proper humility before God, the almighty and awesome Father. The skin on his back sung to him of scars to be written, carved on dark blue skin in an agonized act of penitence. Perhaps the skin on his thighs. Most of the front of his body was already taken up by angelic writings, he thought to himself as he stroked his hands along his body, mouth moving in prayer.

The scarring was rough against the palm of his hands. In sudden self-consciousness, he pulled his hands away. Denying the thrill at the thought of the blade, the rough ache of the healing wound. Rubbed clean with powdered willow ash. The scars a clean design against his skin. He had thought that he had already written lust out of his soul. It disturbed him to find it once again in his heart, and lingering in his mind. The smell of cigar smoke made him weak kneed in a fit of sensory memory, and it made him endeavor never to enter a room that Logan had passed through recently. Avoidance was the only clear plan he had.

His fingers clicked their way through the Rosary. Seeming endless, the repetition contained his mind, his thoughts. The face of the Mother Mary, endless in compassion and love swam before his eyes as he murmured the words of her prayers. But even she seemed unreachable, untouchable for one such as he. Sunk in his own private despair, he retreated. And retreated. Never directly rebuffing a show of concern, just...slipping away.

The Rosary he always finished with the Memorare now. Gedenke, gütigste Jungfrau Maria, noch nie ist einer, der zu dir seine Zuflucht nahm, der zu dir um Hilfe rief, der um deine Fürsprache bat, von dir verlassen worden*… Oh, he could only hope that the prayer was truth, for he could not seem to help himself. Stumbling lost and wanting again, that perfect moment. For that was the truth of it, now his eyes had seen it bare and without any veils to hide what he knew from himself. That sweet taste of the apple, the taste Eve offered to Adam once the Serpent had seduced her.

Memory of red, a perfect scarlet.

The fact that Logan tracked him down eventually amazed him. He would have thought the man would have wanted to forget what happened just as much as he did. Even though he certainly found it impossible, the bittersweet ache of longing and regret a tang that he couldn’t bear to remove from his thoughts. Why, oh why? Cornered in a small courtyard of the gardens, a solitary spot that was removed from the usual paths and play places of die Kinder, watched over by an angel pouring water from a bowl in its hands. The quiet green space soothed his soul, stilled his fears enough so that he could weep. Pray. Fast. Try in some small way to make up for his transgressions.

Eyes closed as he muttered a Gloria, fingers letting the beads of his Rosary slip through in their circle, he had no chance to flee in a cloud of gray smoke. Or even to jump the leafy wall of hedge that closeted the small courtyard from the eyes of others. Logan was more earthbound then he, but a hand closing around his wrist closed off any avenue of escape so simply.

“Nein…” he moaned almost under his breath, caught up in the horror of the moment. Transfixed by winter pale eyes, solid grip around his wrist preventing him from moving. If he could have moved, with Logan watching him with eyes like a wolf. Focused and clear. And felt himself fall from a precipice of hard fought for morality, a terrifying descent. A flare of heat, desire. Hopelessly lost in it, the feel of the hand holding onto him, the suddenly puzzled expression on Logan’s face.

He had worked so hard to avoid this next moment of truth. How foolish of him to think that it would be indefinitely postponed.

“You...” Logan seemed almost lost for words, nostrils flared as Kurt tried to cower into the leaves at his back and the stone he was seated on. Knowing that the man could smell that guilty desire that no amount of fasting seemed to drive from his body, no amount of prayer and mediation seemed to take the place of in his mind. “I’ve been wanting to talk to ya since that bitch - I thought -”

“Verzeih mir, bitte,” he moaned, before repeating himself in English. Always, his grasp of the language fled when he needed it the most. “Forgive me, please...bitte, please.”

“Forgive you?” The rough man seemed genuinely taken aback by Kurt’s pleadings. As if he did not understand. Kurt could not believe that what had happened had been anything except his fault. The way it awakened things in him he’d have rather not let stir was assuredly his fault. So now he apologized and sought forgiveness for daring to find the man attractive. For wanting him in a way that was...not appropriate for a man to want another man. Despite how empty it made him feel to deny it, as hard as he could. As much as he could. He’d thought he was getting better, and now, and now – “What the hell for? Why are you beating yourself up over this? What happened wasn’t your fucking fault.”

“Es tut mir Leid,” Kurt murmured, trying to pull his hand away from where Logan was tightly holding to his wrist. Wanted distance. Needed to get away from this, from this situation that he had been trying so hard to avoid. “I have had...impure thoughts after, about you, I apologize, I did not want to embarrass you, I can not seem to -”

Stop.

The confession was cut short by the contact of Logan’s mouth to his. Raw and demanding, a question bluntly asked and answered by the rapid whipcurl of Kurt’s tail around his ankle as he reached for the man with his free hand. Need, sudden and desperate cutting through the recriminations and false contrition.

“Idiot,” Logan breathed against his ear, and Kurt closed his eyes. The maddening feeling underneath his skin warmed his heart and closed his eyes to the face of the Virgin, her compassion seeming as endless and unseen as eternity. He could not face her, nor God. Not when he, in all truth, felt no shame for this. Only that he knew he should feel shame, and felt shame for the fact that he did not. Unacceptable. “You think I didn’t know long before that?”

Another kiss cut short questions. Logan had known? Before he knew himself? The rough scrape of stone against his back as Logan shifted them both to lie down on the broad bench brought him back out of that wondering amazement, cold at his back warming in response to his body warmth as Logan pressed down onto him. Shifted and gasped into Logan’s mouth as certain parts of his body reacted to the dominating pressure with delight.

“We should not...”

“Why?”

Again, that mouth cut him off when he would have offered reasons, the dogma of the Church resounding in his mind. This was wrong, it was not acceptable. A sin. Terrible, soulconsuming sin and Logan’s teeth were on his neck, oh Gott -

But it felt so good.

“Nein!” he protested, dragging the air into his lungs to do so somehow. Pushed at Logan’s shoulders weakly, when in truth he longed to pull him down. The fire, the terrible all consuming fire racing through his veins, it made it so hard to think. It drowned thought and reason and morals in a seething tide of red, red, scarlet glowing like roses in the sun. A fascinating passionate shade of carmine glowing just at the edges of the petals, when the sun shone through the frail flowers at just the right angle. Velvet scent, heavy and luxurious.

Oh, sin. So tempting. Such a sweet way of surrender to what was wrong in the eyes of God.

“We can’t, must not,” gasped denial into Logan’s ear as the pure strength of him burned against his body. “O Gott, es tut mir unendlich leid, Dich zu kraenken**...” Kurt murmured, almost hiccupping with the hurried breaths that melded passion and fear together in a heady wine. The words of Contrition came so easy to his mouth, a lie, a lie, a honeysweet lie. His hands pulled at the cloth of Logan’s shirt, as he mouthed the words of the prayer, as if they could save him as his treacherous body betrayed him yet again.

Felt, with nothing to blunt or distract him, the need that the body had for the touch of another body. His need, for Logan. And not just his body, but for his company. That quiet, solid presence that had waited with him sometimes, before silently going on its way. Like a rock, grounding him to this world. Drawing him back from the edges of despair...until that had happened and driven him from that sometime refuge. There were so few people who didn’t care what he looked like, how he mangled English in his need to be understood, and no one else who would just stand quietly nearby while he prayed so that he was not alone.

Had it been kindness? Or was it another symptom of this carnal fever that gripped them both?

“Bitte,” he sighed, feeling as lost in love and despair as he ever had. Need pulsed along his skin as he willingly lifted his hips to help Logan remove his pants, those loose checker patterned trousers he had still from his time in the circus, hissing between his fangs as his bare skin met stone. Hotter, warmer skin slid along his, tail twisting to disentangle itself from the rough cloth of his pants. Gasped at the shock of feeling Logan’s erection pulsing against his skin, against his own. It hadn’t been like this the last time. It had not all been so clear.

“Tell me you want this, you really want this,” Logan murmured against his ear, the man so astoundingly real that Kurt couldn’t believe he was truly there. But the time of lying was past, this was not Jimaine, in her soft sweetness. Her comfortable familiarity, love for her as well worn as a favorite shirt. This was Logan, hard muscle and nipping teeth a bright spark of pain against the molten pleasure of the thrust of his hips against Kurt’s hard cock. New and wonderfully strange, despite what had happened before. Heavy musk, and coarse hair, and rough large hands. Holding him still for this. Forcing him to see what he wanted, to feel his teeth sink into the apple. Taste the juice of it, so sweet and clear. Forbidden, and all the more precious so. “I can smell it, but I need ya to say it –“

“Ja, ja, yes, Ich will dich,” he cried out, feeling Logan settle that much closer as he tilted his hips up, striving to get closer still as he wrapped his arms around the man’s neck. Kissed him, almost swooned with the taste of Logan’s mouth filling his. “I want you. Bitte, bitte...”

And in his mind, the flames were calling his name. The Word of God was like a bell in his thoughts, deepthroated and brass tongued. Sending his thoughts scattering with each brazen peal. Sin. Lust. Desire. Obsession. Perdition, flames and fury, oh Gott. Gasped a prayer with each hurried intake of breath, each thrust against the skin of his belly likea benediction.

Logan made no effort to do more then what they were doing, which puzzled him somewhat, the memories of fullness from that red hazed moment coming to the fore for a brief instant. Just thrust and push, and grind and rock. It was enough – more then enough – his breath stuttered, caught in his throat as he arched, white teeth nipping and biting at blue skin. Devouring mouth that swallowed every sound he made, the moans and shocked gasps.

How, why was he doing this? So far fallen, so weak that he could not resist the chance to take this, have this closeness, this rough sweetness. Wretched sinner –

The tight hot feeling in his stomach squeezed even tighter for an instant, before his orgasm hit him and dragging him down into something that was like the scarlet-tinged fever that the golden-scaled woman had given him. Red, where his thoughts fled him, where God ceased to exist. To matter. Where thoughts of sin touched him not, for the moment was so perfect in itself with no room for anything that might taint it. His fingers dug into the broad muscle of Logan’s shoulders, toes curling hard as he cried out in release. Wordless, like a beast.

Logan grunted, those large hands holding onto him tighter as well for a moment. Kurt stared sightlessly into the sky, glimpses he could catch behind the shape of Logan’s head, his shoulder, the wild blackness of his hair. Blue skies. There was a rush of liquid heat against his thigh and stomach, and Logan’s mouth caught his in a much gentler kiss then the ones they’d shared while they’d rutted on the stone bench.

“Ich bin dein, von heute an,***” he murmured, making a promise that was for himself. He needed it, needed to say it, even if Logan didn’t understand him. Kissed Logan again, and sighed, licking his lips lightly to taste that faint taste of the forbidden. Lingering on his mouth.

Eve had regretted in the end, what she’d done. Humanity had gone forth into the wilderness, where life was toil and pain from a beautiful garden. Would he? Or was this – heretic, blasphemous thought – his taste of heaven at the end of the world? Since his life recently had read more like the wanderings after Eden.

Whatever this was, he didn’t want to leave this moment.

*Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided.

**O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee

***I am yours, from this day onward.