“I look ridiculous. I can’t get used to these clothes. I’ve worn my clerical garments too long.”
“You haven’t much choice in the matter. You need to wear them for your protection.”
He sighed. “I know.”
“May we speak privately?”
Xavier frowned. When Thomas used that tone of voice, it usually meant he wanted to remonstrate him about something. Nevertheless, he agreed. “Where? One of the rooms here? We could clear it out, or go to the private quarters.”
“I’d be more comfortable at the church.”
“Let’s go,” Xavier answered hesitantly. “I suppose that you heard about this morning and that’s why you want to talk.”
“Yes, it is. Why are you nervous?”
“I’m embarrassed. I already promised Catherine and Anne that I’d watch myself more carefully. And honestly, you tend to get angry about things over which you have no control.”
Thomas said nothing for a long moment. Then, “I know, but I’d like to go over things one more time.”
“It’s not necessary. How many times are you going to say the same thing?”
Thomas scowled, but he softened his words. “Please? For me?”
Xavier sighed again. He was tired and would rather stay with Thomas and talk at the house about things other than their relationship. But he accompanied him to the church anyway because he could never resist being with him, even when they argued.
Thomas’s demeanor intensified the closer they came to the church. Thomas’s walk to the Saint-Laurent house announced that he arrived with a purpose, and his posture did not change now that they neared the church. Indeed, Thomas noticeably clenched his jaw. Xavier’s stomach knotted. Inside, they went to Xavier’s sparse room.
“Sit,” Thomas motioned toward the bed.
Xavier fell onto it and tucked his knees under his chin.
“I don’t mean to be angry,” Thomas said with an edge. “I tried to think of ways to tell you this, but it’s gotten to the point that I don’t think you listen, which infuriates me. I’ve begged and pleaded with you to take your safety seriously. I’ve told you that this is a violent revolution, no one is safe, and that they target priests. Yet you refuse to listen.” Thomas paced back and forth as Xavier clutched his legs even tighter. “Why do you do these stupid things?”
“Because,” Xavier hesitated, lost and trapped.
“Because why? Because you like defying death? Because you’ve no regard for your own life? Because it amuses you that your actions cause the people in your life to worry?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why?”
“Thomas, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Do you understand that you could be killed?”
“I realize there’s danger, that’s why I promised—”
“What good are your promises? You promised me that you’d be careful, but running out to join a riot is hardly careful, it’s ignorant and stupid.”
Xavier flinched, never having seen Thomas this furious. Thomas kicked at the furniture and raised his voice. Xavier was crushed. He had pondered what almost happened, and he more and more thought about leaving the church for Thomas, actually abandoning his faith for this man, and now look what he had done.
“Do you ever consider others when you do things?” Thomas demanded.
“What does that mean? That’s all I ever do,” Xavier said defensively, huddled up in a little ball.
“Oh, yes, I forgot. You think about the masses all of the time. And if that hurts the people closest to you, then we all must cope with whatever happens to you. Why would we rank anywhere in your grand scheme?”
“Thomas, I don’t understand. You, Catherine, Michel, Anne, I can’t name everyone I love. You’re more important than anything. I can’t believe that you don’t know that.” Damn. The tears came again. He had fought them off and grabbed his legs with the hope that this somehow captured the crying. But now they came in a sudden burst, turning Xavier’s words into sobs.
“Not this time,” Thomas shouted. “You won’t cry and make me feel bad so that we don’t address the issue. It won’t happen, do you hear me?”
“What do you want from me?”
“The truth.”
“For God’s sake Thomas, I don’t understand.”
Thomas lunged toward him, grabbed a chair, turned it around, and sat. For a brief moment, he put his head down so that his long, black hair entirely hid his face. When he looked up, Xavier still saw the lines of anger. Thomas grimaced and snarled, then he punched the top of the chair.
“You’re hiding. This business about the people, about the church, all this nonsense that you created as important in your life, it’s nothing but a ruse to keep you from giving yourself what you want because you’re terrified of what other people think. So you pour out your soul to the sorry folk in this decrepit neighborhood while those who really love you, the real you, suffer.”
“The people who love me know that what I do isn’t a lie.” The tears continued through his mortification that he had so angered Thomas, but Thomas’s bitter tone maddened him, too.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t appreciate your accusations. They hurt. I have never denied my love for you.”
Thomas shot out of the chair and threw it across the room, smashing it into pieces.
“Were I Christ, you’d definitely be my Peter. And you know it. What does your heart tell you? I know, I’ll say it, since it’s never been spoken before. You want me. If I kissed you right now, you’d love it. You want to make love with me. Don’t blame me for the distance that divides us. Your stupid theology created it. You hide behind nonsense. What kind of god would give you these sexual feelings and then make you suffer for a lifetime without fulfilling them? What kind of god would allow people to murder each other in the streets indiscriminately? You make me sick with your pronouncements that God disapproves of our relationship, that you can’t possibly share the love that we both feel because it’s sin. That’s ridiculous, and you know it. Especially since you admit that it’s permissible for other people. It’s some sick pleasure that you get from punishing yourself and me.”
Thomas pounded his chest, while Xavier withdrew further. He hated Thomas’s rages, hated that he felt he could never be who Thomas wanted. “Is that what you think of me?” Xavier whispered.
Thomas grabbed his own hair and yanked at it, some of it coming out in his hand. He practically ran back and forth like a caged lion ready to pounce. Next he punched his fist through the wall, then he turned his back to a motionless Xavier.
Thomas turned around, breathing heavily and crying. Xavier started at the sight. The darkness cast an odd shadow that made it appear as if streams of blood came down Thomas’s face but Thomas wiped them away before he spoke or Xavier saw them for certain.
“Xavier, forgive me. I love you. I’m just at wit’s end. I wanted to wait, to give you time and encourage you to accept yourself and not try to please everyone else. I wanted you to learn for yourself that it was possible to satisfy your personal needs. But I see that you’re so entranced by this Catholic world that it may never happen. So I’ll demand it. Come with me. Love me.”
Thomas sat next to Xavier and put his arms around the priest.
Xavier’s world spun in turmoil. Was this a test from God? Yes, once more hell visited the abbé. God was punishing him, for what else could lead to this catastrophe? Just as he contemplated a life with Thomas, the very man he loved threw an ultimatum at him.
“Xavier, do you hear me?” Thomas asked, stroking his head.
“Yes, of course, it’s just—” Xavier stopped, frozen.
“Just what?”
“I don’t know.” Xavier cried more violently than ever, his entire body heaving up and down.
“We can overcome this. Whatever bothers you, we can deal with it. Whether it’s theology, God, the church, whatever ails you.”
“You belittled my theology, and now I’m supposed to trust that you can make it better?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Thomas’s veins strained out of his neck.
“I mean that I can hardly decide anything tonight.”
“Xavier, for the love of God, I still don’t understand your problem.”
“I don’t, either. But you raging at me isn’t going to solve anything.”
“Do you care about me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love me?”
“You know I do.”
Thomas stood and pounded his chest with both fists: “Do you
want
me?”
“Yes.”
God help me, yes
.
“Then let yourself go.”
Xavier trembled. Thomas, still standing, grabbed Xavier’s arms and pulled him out of his fetal position with a violent yank. He seized Xavier by the skull and jerked his head against Thomas’s chest. Xavier yielded without moving, reduced to a whimpering mess. Then Thomas reached down and kissed the top of Xavier’s head, slowly he moved down, his tongue lunging into Xavier’s ear.
Xavier was aroused against his will. He had dreamt of this for so long, yet he had envisioned love, not this strained and forced interaction. Then what excited him? Thomas bit at him, then he clutched Xavier’s crotch.
Distraught, Xavier sniffled out a few words. “Thomas, please, I can’t.”
Thomas grabbed Xavier’s head.
“Accept me.”
“Give me the time that you promised,” Xavier said.
Without warning, and too quickly and harshly for a mortal man, Thomas picked Xavier up and threw him across the bed. Xavier almost hit the ceiling as he crashed down in total pain. He lay limply.
“You can’t have it all your way anymore.” Thomas turned to leave.
“Thomas, wait, please.”
Thomas stalked back and sneered. “What, do you want to break my heart again?”
“I love you,” Xavier said lamely.
“And I love you. But not enough to suffer your selfishness.”
“I’m selfish?”
Xavier did not see Thomas raise his hand but felt the blow all too well. Thomas had backhanded him. His left eye swelled shut and blood dripped out his nose as he fell back on the mattress. Xavier lay there for a long time, his head ringing and his heart numb. He could not open one eye. He wished to die, his head a flood of confusion. He even prayed that God would take his life. He was lost. He had sabotaged his dream and turned Thomas against him.
He managed to sit up after a long while, but every move ached and blood covered the room. He cried again, which made the pain worse, especially his swollen eye. He could not even touch his face to wipe tears because it hurt too much. He dressed very slowly then slumped to the ground, holding his head, weeping in misery.
Xavier yelled into the darkness: “I love you, with my entire soul I love you. But you went too far. Now we’ll never touch again.”
17 July 1791
I LOVE YOU, with my entire soul I love you. But you went too far. Now we’ll never touch again.”
Thomas perched on the ledge outside Xavier’s window and heard these words that cut deep inside his soul. He wished for death. For the first time, the man with all the confidence in the world, the vampire who loved life and always got what he wanted, the man who won every battle, that man despised himself. Thomas hated himself more than he had ever hated anything. True, he had despised his rages before, hated the insecurity that had always led to them. But he had always believed that he could control it by releasing the anger. He had been wrong. Terribly wrong. He never could control it, and now it had caused him to lose everything.
How many times had Anthony warned him? His anger. It was so tragically simple. He had waited and waited for Xavier, loving him more with each passing day. He could have waited longer but this revolution interfered when the violence exploded around them. He dreaded what they might do to his priest, which magnified his impatience. What if Xavier died? So all evening he fought for control but lost the battle because of his fear.
No, it was worse than that. The problem was deeper and had nothing to do with the outside forces that just brought the problem to the surface. Impatience and anger only masked the anguish in Thomas’s soul about being alone. He was a desperate animal. Why could he never get it under control? He was a fiend, unworthy of life, unworthy of love. Loneliness was too soft a punishment. If only Anthony would rip off his head and be done with him then and there.
The events unfolded as if surreal: the shouting, the weeping, and the anger. Each thing made it worse instead of better. A hundred times Thomas almost ran out of the room to find Anthony to calm him. But his abbé called to him, so he stayed and made things worse.
When he had first grabbed Xavier, he hoped that Xavier would yield and fall lightly into his arms. Xavier’s resistance made him angrier. Again he should have left but kept hoping that Xavier would see their love.
Instead, he threw him into the air. Then he slapped him. A mortal blow would have wounded the delicate soul, but his vampiric strength probably broke bones.
So he fled in disarray.
He tried to walk away but something pulled him back, so he climbed the church and concealed himself in the shadows. First he peeked and saw Xavier, then he waited for Xavier to wake up so that he could apologize a thousand times and even explain the vampirism.
But before he moved, Xavier had cast him out of his life forever.
It stung, but Thomas deserved it. Completely numb, he waited, quietly perched outside the window because nothing else came to him. Then Xavier left the room. It took longer than usual, but Xavier limped outside and left through the gate, violating the rule that he not travel alone because everyone left the night guard to Thomas, who followed to protect him yet remained hidden.
The blood tears flowed as Thomas reviewed again what had happened. He ached each time that Xavier stumbled, obviously in total pain and humiliation.
Xavier arrived at the Saint-Laurent home. It had taken almost two hours, and he went into an alley. Then he entered a secret door, one Thomas had never seen. Thomas slipped in behind, using his inhuman speed to conceal himself.
Xavier limped down a dimly lit hall and into a small stairwell in the basement, full of stored goods. The cellar was dark and damp but otherwise tidy. Xavier finally knocked lightly on a closed door.