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“…And no one will sign up for coffee hour.”
“We can serve instant.”
“Instant coffee? … Surely you’re joking.”
“It will be fine, Mary.”
“Hard-ly! Used to be we had too many leftovers at coffee hour. What ever happened to — to duty! To our community?”
The adults slid their gazes across the room, but they didn’t move their heads. Peter looked up from his book, met his mother’s and uncle’s eyes, and smiled shyly.
They all inclined fond nods to him and then fixed their glares on the other side of the couch.
Tony raised an eyebrow where he was draped backwards, legs crossed, scrolling through his phone, “You assholes about to go on a rant about young people ruining the American church?”
“Anthony!” Pastor Stark’s voice boomed in the small space. It made Peter flinch, but Tony met his father’s gaze with a notched eyebrow. “You will not use language like that in this building!”
“Jesus will forgive me,” Tony drawled and flung his head back on the couch. He closed his eyes, “That’s his whole schtick. Are we almost done?”
Peter’s cheeks pinked and he buried his nose back into his book. He wondered if his blue shirt would let him blend into the couch completely.
Tony gestured to the table, “You can complain all you want. Eventually someone will pony up to pay for and host coffee hour every week and you’ll thank them for their generosity very publicly on Sunday morning and then the problem will be solved.”
“Anthony.” Pastor Stark glowered at his son, “Apologise for your attitude and for your thoughtlessness. Right now.”
Peter chewed on his bottom lip. His fingers flicked the corner of a book page back and forth.
His eyes flashed at Tony across the couch.
Let it rest.
Tony threw his arms behind his head and made a show of crossing his legs the other way. His jeans were frayed at the bottom and faded from wash. At the table, Mrs. Stark’s gaze needled into this detail and she sniffed, exchanging a look with her husband.
Tony tipped his head mockingly toward Peter’s mother, “I’m sorry, everyone, for interrupting your desperately important meeting and disrespecting Christ’s caffeine addiction with —”
In a whirl of motion, Pastor Stark was on his feet and Tony’s collar was clenched in his fist. They smarted something at each other. The door slammed behind them when the Pastor dragged Tony out.
Everyone at the table rustled their notes. Someone exhaled needlessly hard, half-disguising it as a cough. Eventually Aunt May said,
“Ben and I will take over coffee hour, at least through Advent.”
Some more shuffling and quiet thank yous. Aunt May winked at Peter across the room, and he smiled down at his book again.
“That will help some with the budget review,” Peter’s father said, “But our deficits are still —’
Uncle Ben cleared his throat, “Peter, why don’t you go clean up in the sanctuary?”
A hush, as if they’d forgotten Peter was there. He figured he was old enough to listen (and it’s not like he didn’t know about the debt issue) but everyone waited expectantly for his absence.
“Yes, Deacon Parker.” Peter jumped to his feet, gripped his book to his chest, and scurried out the door.
His shoes squeaked on the laminate hallway floor. There was an echo when the church was this empty. Peter wrung his hands and tried to take his mind off the admin meeting.
They hummed and hawed over money every week, that was nothing new. Church attendance and volunteer participation kept limping along, it had been in decline for years (or maybe decades, Peter wasn’t sure.)
Uncle Ben had sent him to the sanctuary, but Peter started cleaning up in the music room. He folded and rehung the robes and organised the sheet music and closed the closet doors and wiped down the piano. He straightened the stands and chairs. He tucked away the bells the elementary students practiced with. He made his way at length to the sanctuary, listening keenly for noises he didn’t want to hear.
The door to Pastor Stark’s office was closed. Peter couldn’t hear anything when he walked past, even though he held his breath and willed his own heart not to beat. He couldn’t decide if the silence was a good or bad thing. But then he’d passed the office, entered a narrow doorway, clambered over a tangle of wires between the organ and the altar, and emerged in the sanctuary.
Afternoon light was pouring in through the stained glass, fragmented purple and white piercing hazy along the floor. Peter smiled at the thought that the light wasn’t dissimilar to a club from a couple weeks ago — of course that light had been magenta instead of lavender and neon instead of soft. Their minds had been pierced by late-night fatigue and gin rather than early-morning yawns and communion wine.
Peter straightened the altar, whisked the flowers into the last pew for Aunt May to collect, and wiped down the podium. He took down the green pentecost pennants and then made his way from candle to candle, laboriously scraping dried wax from the candelabrums into a waste basket.
He was in the middle of this — cautiously attempting not to slice open his own palm with a scalpel as he jammed at the wax stuck between the rungs of a spring — when the door slammed.
Peter looked up. He drew his shoulders back when he locked eyes with Tony at the end of the aisle.
He was too far away to see clearly, but there was a new red blotch on his jaw. A trail of blood leaked down his chin. Tony scowled and stuffed his hands into his jacket as he walked up the aisle.
When he was close enough not to shout, Peter asked, “How did it go?”
Tony laughed sharply. It twisted his face which made him wince and rub his jaw, but for a moment Peter was eased by the light and mirth in the air.
“Uhh… meeting’s adjourned.” Tony said, a sour smile staying on his lips. He didn’t sit in the front pew but rather hoisted himself up to the ledge. His legs swung back and forth like a child, the thump echoing in the sanctuary. For a few seconds they listened to Tony’s ragged beat and the sharp scrape of Peter’s scalpel.
“Where’s the speech, choir boy?” Tony raised an eyebrow, “Not gonna chastise me about how a wicked tongue is a fire of evil and corruption? Or we could go more standard,” Tony held up one hand with his palm out and the other with a closed fist. “What’s the 6th commandment?” He raised the middle finger of his closed hand, showing a six that made Peter roll his eyes, “Honour your father and mother?”
“That’s the 5th commandment.”
“Umm, I’ve been a pastor’s son for sixteen years, Parker, I think I know the ten commandments.”
Peter replaced the last candlestick and turned to face Tony. He held up each finger as he spoke, “No other Gods; No idols; Do not take the Lord’s name in vain; Keep the sabbath; Honour your father and mother; Do not kill; Do not cheat; Do not steal; Do not lie; Do not covet… honour your father and mother is the fifth commandment.”
“Well that would explain why Dad reminds me of it with his whole hand.” Tony wiggled on the edge of the pew and pointed at Peter, “That was hot. Now recite the Beatitutdes”
Peter mumbled under his breath and turned away. Tony didn’t follow when he ducked behind the altar into a supply closet. Peter oiled a cloth with brass polish and made his way back to the pulpit. Tony was still on the pew, and he had to look up through his eyelashes to watch Peter oil the mic and brass trim of the lectern.
Peter’s gaze flicked to him periodically, landing on the purple bruise swelling on his lip.
Peter hummed as he worked, the low tune taking up the whole sanctuary. He wondered if more budget cuts would mean more chores falling to him and Tony as volunteers. He wrinkled his nose at the thought. They’d been doing homework in church corners for years, but high school was beginning to demand laptops and calculators and math instruments and space to spread out and Wi-Fi to stream videos and sync documents and complete research on websites Pastor Stark had decided to block. By the time they left church most evenings, the local library was closed and their parents usually wanted them to go right to bed.
Tony started to sing when Peter hummed his next chorus.
“This is my story, this is my song… praising my savior all the day long… this is my story, this is my song… praising my savior all the day long.”
They looked at one another. Peter winked as if to say almost done as he dusted the altar and went back to the closet to put away his supplies.
“Perfect submission, perfect delight… visions of rapture now burst on my sight…” Tony wasn’t a particularly angelic singer, but years of practice and hymns had made his voice warm and solid. Peter could hear him moving around the sanctuary, closer to the altar, he thought.
“Angels descending, bring from above…” Tony’s voice faded.
Peter had to reach onto his toes to put the disinfectant wipes away on the top shelf. They barely scooted onto it, and he startled when another hand covered his and pushed them all the way onto the shelf.
Tony was pressed to his back, the closet space small.
Peter breathed in the quiet, “You forget the words?”
Tony chuckled, “’course not,” and he lowered his hand to Peter’s waist, lips pressing to the side of his neck. “Echoes of mercy…”
A wet splotch of Tony’s blood was left behind on Peter’s neck, and he let Tony trace a finger through it and then press them to Peter’s lips.
Tony stared him down as Peter sucked his fingers into his mouth. Tony’s pupils were blown wide in the low light and he smiled with teeth stained like rust.
“Whispers of love.”
It was barely sung. Just a hoarse crackle in the air, and then Tony’s hand wasn’t in Peter’s mouth it was on the back of his neck and Peter’s hands were on his waist and their kiss was deep and desperate and dangerous.
Peter closed his eyes, letting Tony’s warmth drape over him. Flashes of iridescent light cut through his eyelids, yellows and pinks and pastel blues shimmering weightlessly. He could taste the blood on Tony’s lip and his teeth tugged at a piece of skin peeling away. Tony grunted, Peter let go. His eyelids fluttered and the dazzling glow of polished brass and gold from the altar winked in his peripheral vision.
Tony pulled away too soon. He always did.
He smiled against Peter’s lips, their foreheads pressed together as they caught their breath. Tension had eased its way into Tony’s shoulders and back, setting him on edge. Peter put a hand on his waist and rubbed gently.
“We could wait.” He murmured, an old argument. “It’s too risky, Tony. We could just… wait.”
Cool off a couple years. Graduate. Leave.
Tony laughed, the sound was broken. His tongue darted out to lick his lips and then gently kiss Peter on the mouth again.
“I’ve got no time for growing up, Pete.”
So this would continue. Illicit kisses stolen between services and tucked in dark corners, cursed to await either punishment or rapture. Maybe this was purgatory.
Peter couldn’t even claim to be heartbroken over it.
Tony laced his fingers through Peter’s and tugged him out of the closet. They closed the door and climbed over the sound equipment and choir pews.
The vestry hadn’t been taken into account when the sanctuary was remodelled in the 90s. So the annex door was awkward to get to. Pastor Stark had a habit of complaining about it then never doing anything, so they squeezed into the tiny hallway behind the altar and opened three doors (two of them unnecessary) to reach the vestry.
The table was cluttered with a broken TV and a too-weak Wi-Fi router. There were robes and stoles draped haphazardly over chairs. Someone had left the ladder and door to the attic open, and even from across the room Peter could smell and feel hot summer air settling into the muggy room.
Tony ventured to a credenza against the far wall and knelt in front of it. They both winced when the door squeaked as Tony opened it.
“What are you doing?” Peter whispered as Tony tucked a bottle of wine under one arm and rooted around in the cupboard for something else.
“Pushing my luck,” Tony shrugged as he stood up again. In addition to the wine, he was holding a quarter loaf of white bread that Peter was sure had been in there for over six months. He was further convinced because Tony had also emerged with a baggy of assorted chocolates wrapped in green and red.
Some kind of Christmas gift to a member of Church leadership, probably. Left behind last December or possibly years prior.
With his arms full, Tony twisted off the wine cap.
“Tony, oh my gosh, don’t—” Peter’s voice caught when Tony took a swig from the bottle.
He grinned at Peter when he came up for air. “C’mon, it’ll be fine.” He tucked the wine under his arm and started to climb the ladder to the attic. The wood and hinges groaned underneath him, and the jostling movement spilled some of the wine over the neck of the bottle.
It landed on Tony’s pants, making a wet spot on his thigh.
Peter followed more gently, the ladder protesting less under his weight.
The first landing in the attic was used for storage. It brimmed with dust-laden boxes bursting with Christmas and Easter decorations. There was a fake evergreen leaning against the wall, and broken shards of ornaments littered the floorboards. Tony went straight for another ladder, balancing precariously on the crossbeams as he made his way across. Peter stayed behind him, one hand on the back of his shirt to hold his balance.
The second ladder emerged to a stuffy tower room empty except for a lightbulb that didn’t work anymore. Tony continued to lead the way up a narrow staircase, and that was where he finally settled.
A lofted landing in the lantern of the church steeple. Afternoon light was cutting into the ornate windows on all sides of them, and it filled the room with yellow dust particles and prisms of pale colours that dappled onto the floor and walls.
Peter didn’t sit down immediately. He stared at the tiny cut squares of stained glass on the windows. He lifted a finger and rubbed along the inside, white dust flaking onto his skin.
The windows were arranged in a tight circle in the lantern, but if someone were to lay them out like a panorama it would reveal a landscape of blue sky and green hills flecked with golden light. Facing north — facing them — it depicted a solid silver crucifix.
The light shifted, and the sunbeams shone through the cross and onto his skin. Peter flinched.
Behind him, Tony had settled on a pile of old blankets and laughed.
“It’s not gonna burn you.”
Maybe not yet.
Tony drew his legs up and settled with his back to the wall. He could look over the landing from here — not that there was much to see in the belfry below — and as Peter sat down next to him they both took in the stained glass.
They said the word excruciating stemmed from crucifixion — the agony of the cross. Tony’s knee bumped Peter’s as he unwrapped the stolen bread and broke it in half.
“This is not a good use of the Eucharist.” Peter mumbled, flaking his piece in his hands instead of eating it.
“You ask me, locking bread in a cupboard instead of eating it is not a good use of food.” Tony mumbled around his bite.
He took another drink of wine and then passed it to Peter, who hesitated but then clasped the neck of the bottle and took a sip.
He giggled when Tony tipped the bottom of the bottle, spilling it down his neck.
“Tony, quit it!” He spluttered, coughing to catch his breath.
“Just sweetening the deal, choir boy.” Tony whispered and leaned in close, sucking the wine off of Peter’s neck. Peter’s blush traveled to the tips of his toes and beneath his shirt. Tony’s teeth skittered over pebbled goosebumps on Peter’s skin, and he found himself pulling back with a whine. His face was probably red as a lobster.
“Breathe, Pete.”
Peter gasped in a hoarse breath, he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding it. Tony kissed up Peter’s neck, to his jaw, and then pulled away and reached for the wine again.
He drank and passed it back to Peter, who took a more measured sip. He tried to swat Tony’s hand when he tipped the bottle again but failed and they both came up giggling and spluttering with wine spilled down the front of Peter’s shirt.
“You suck, Tony.”
Tony captured his lips in another sweet kiss and began to tear open the bag of chocolates he’d brought. “You can borrow my gym shirt,” Tony reassured him. His grin was cocky, the tear in his lip glimmering in the sunlight slanting through stained glass. The edges of his dark hair glittered silver, and between that and the plush bruise and bleeding spot on his lip Peter was reminded of the flicker of firelight.
“I’m just getting even,” Tony went on, voice low, “Maybe I want your lip dripping red too.”
“Dripping wine?” Peter snorted.
“Don’t be crass, choir boy. This is no mere wine.” Tony lifted the bottle to Peter’s lips again, letting him take a cautious sip. As soon as the wine was lowered Tony’s lips were on his, “I want you dripping in the blood of Christ.”
Peter let shards of rainbow light dance behind closed eyelids. If he just focused on Tony, just focused on the sting of wine and the light in the tower, then he could pretend they were somewhere else.
Set free.
Peter reached, not knowing what for, just knowing he wanted to touch Tony somehow.
His hand landed on the wet patch of wine on his thigh, and Tony shifted his grip higher and Peter could feel the heat reflected onto his face, warmed further by the sunlight filling the room.
“Keep your eyes closed.” Tony whispered, and Peter did. Tony pulled away the slightest bit, and Peter’s grip tightened on his pants, but he didn’t stand or move too far.
Then Tony kissed him again, and Peter jerked when his mouth opened and wine slipped into his own mouth. The realisation of what was happening — and how slightly gross it was — made Peter giggle. The wine spilled over his chin, and Tony lapped it up, both of them giggling at the absurdity of it.
Peter started to open his eyes but Tony just reached up to kiss each eyelid, making him laugh harder.
“I said eyes closed, choir boy.”
“Sorry,” Peter snickered, unable to keep a straight face.
He heard the rustling of the chocolates again, and the shift of Tony’s weight as he tore the bag open.
“Okay… they’re different kinds.” Tony explained, “So… open your mouth. And guess what flavour it is.”
In agreement, Peter opened his mouth and waited. The air up here tasted like dust, and he worried for a brief moment that the chocolates were so old that they would too.
Sweet, cool milk chocolate settled on his tongue.
“Don’t bite,” Tony cautioned. So Peter closed his mouth and sucked on the chocolate, waiting for the center to reveal itself.
“Hazelnut,” he said finally, recognising a nutty nostalgia for elementary school and mid-afternoon Nutella sandwiches.
“Good,” Tony rewarded him with a kiss on the cheek, “Next one… open… don’t bite.”
A bitter, thin flavour. The type his mom liked. It brought to mind stealing baking chocolate as a child and being sorely disappointed — and that was before Dad and Ben had lectured him for two hours and made him write an apology letter.
“Dark chocolate.”
Tony mumbled approval. His lips dusted Peter’s other cheek.
“Open… don’t bite…”
Peter didn’t have to wait long on this one. He knew from the moment his mouth closed what it was. Brightly sweet, flooding his mouth with saliva and making his throat bob with a sickening desire for more.
Saccharine sacrosanctity.
“White chocolate,” Peter mumbled.
“Mmm,” Tony whispered, his voice very close to Peter, “One more.”
Peter waited. A giggle bubbled in his throat when the chocolate touched his tongue. Fresh and sharp and stinging, but it wasn’t the mint that made Peter laugh. It was Tony’s lips following right behind it, settling gently against his.
“Okay…” Tony whispered. With Peter’s eyes closed, everything was much warmer and closer and sent goosebumps up his back as Tony’s wine-sweet breath ghosted over him.
“Last one,” Tony repeated, fitting his bottom lip over Peter’s teeth, “and now… bite.”