“Fine. If you want me to leave, I will.” He started for the door, but Ethan caught his arm. He knew Bart was testing him, knew he should let him go. But he was too aware of how much he needed his new lover.
“Stop it,” he said. “You’re overreacting. You know how I feel about you.”
“And how is that, Ethan? I’ve declared myself to you, but you haven’t declared yourself to me. You take what I have to give, you enjoy it, and then you ask for more. Why don’t you try giving something in return?”
“Like what?”
Bart grabbed his face. “Kiss me. Kiss me like you want me, like you’re in love with me.”
Ethan could allow Bart to pleasure him, but he couldn’t reciprocate, couldn’t make a commitment to homosexuality.
Jerking out of his grasp, he turned back to the window. “Not now.”
“Why not? Are you too good to be g*y, Ethan?”
“I’m not g*y. I like sleeping with women and you know it.”
“Quit lying to yourself. You’re just as g*y as I am. You’re in love with me but you’re too cowardly to face it, to act on it, to embrace it.”
The scorn in Bart’s voice made Ethan cringe. How had an argument over Rachel veered so far off course? “Stop it! We’re not fighting about us.”
“But that’s at the root of it. I want to know when you’re going to grow up and accept yourself for who and what you are.”
“I like women!” he insisted.
“You like to degrade women. That’s not the same thing. You use them for rituals. You drug them and tie them up and share them with as many men as possible. You want to like women, but you don’t. You hold them in contempt merely for expecting you to want them.”
Bart’s words evoked a strange fear, one that left a metallic taste at the back of Ethan’s throat. He couldn’t be g*y, not really. He enjoyed experimenting because he liked knowing his father would writhe in embarrassment if he ever found out. A lot of people tried making love with someone of their own sex at some point or other. His secret relationship with Bart didn’t mean anything; even Bart had agreed that their sexual interludes wouldn’t preclude Ethan’s normal activities. But to actually embrace an alternative lifestyle? To commit himself to another man as a man might commit himself to a woman? Regardless of how secretive they tried to be, that would eventually lead to public awareness, and Ethan couldn’t have that. He was excited that Rachel had returned; he wanted her, not Bart.
“I’ve told everyone she’s the Vessel, Bart. And now she’s here and willing to be baptized. She’s left her husband. The situation’s too perfect not to take advantage of it. This will show our followers that God has provided the perfect woman to bear my child, just as I’ve promised. There are too many who are beginning to wonder, who are growing doubtful because of Martha and Courtney. This will bring them back. They’ll forget their doubts and their questions and once again be in rapture with me, with what I can do.”
“Another mercy session would do the same thing. Let me gather those who are ill or otherwise afflicted and you can call down the powers of heaven to heal them.”
He didn’t want to go to all the effort of making people sick—using just the right poison—so he could “heal” them. He was too afraid he’d get caught. As powerful as mercy sessions could be, they were risky.
“That only works in the presence of great faith, and I just told you their faith is weak.”
“But her husband won’t let her stay. We’ve talked about this. You saw how possessive he is. He hit her out of jealousy! That proves he won’t give her up. I bet he’ll be banging on our gates before nightfall.”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a child. There’s nothing he can do if she wants to stay. We’ll make sure she’s happy here, well taken care of. She’ll be the one to tell him to go, not us.”
“Which means…what? We put off the mating ceremony everyone’s expecting? Or do you plan to keep her drugged from her baptism on?”
“We’ll wait as long as we need to, until you’re comfortable with proceeding.”
This concession seemed to mollify him. But the stiffness of his posture told Ethan that Bart wasn’t ready to yield completely. “Then we should kill Martha and Sarah and be done with them.”
“Fine. We’ll kill them. In a few days. Until then we’ll enjoy what they have to offer while I’m courting Rachel. It’ll keep us occupied and happy in case we get impatient. And it’ll be a good distraction for the Guides, who might watch us too closely otherwise.”
“Too closely for what?”
“Too closely not to realize something’s changed.”
“You’re talking about us.”
“Of course I’m talking about us!”
Bart pivoted and began to pace. “Sometimes I wonder why that would be so terrible. Maybe there’s some way we could get them to accept it.”
“You know what it says in the Bible. You know what I’ve taught.”
“We might lose some followers. But we could rebuild our numbers. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to love each other. No reason you shouldn’t be able to accept me as an equal before the whole world.”
This was getting out of hand. “Someday, perhaps. But the timing isn’t right. We’ve worked too hard to build what we have. We can’t let a single person turn on us, not now.”
“Ethan—”
Whirling, Ethan took two long strides toward Bart and grabbed his hands, the hands that had touched him so intimately only hours before. Although he didn’t want to acknowledge it, even now the contact made his heart race. “Listen, we have to focus on the here and now and save everything else for later. And the here and now is this—I’ve already promised the Guides Sarah and Martha. We can’t take that away from them. Not yet. We’ll let the eleven of them play until they’re bored. Meanwhile, we’ll invite Rachel to a few ceremonies but escort her to bed before anything happens that she might object to. She’ll slowly become one of us and, as time passes, her husband will move on, the rest of the world will forget about her, and we’ll have the freedom to do as we please.”
“You have to have the Vessel now? With so much else going on?”