IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER

I watched him with contempt as he crossed from post to post on the beautifully decorated altar, his gait almost as gracious – if not more – as that of the officiating priest. His regalia, an ash-colored robe, swayed with magnificence as he moved with calculated precision, either a chalice in hand or the incense burner.

He seemed happy, contented.

And I was seething, furious.

The thoughts of his strong limbs well hidden underneath his attire, his toned body flexing with each movement, caused me inexplicable pain, more pain than when he had taken me right there at that same altar only two weeks ago.

***

Chidubem was a looker. No, I don’t mean that he was blessed with good looks. He liked to stare – the attribute that usually earned one the sniggering nickname called “Lukmon” when I was a kid.

My parents were devout Catholics and always made it a habit of getting to church at least ten minutes before the beginning of Mass. This afforded us the opportunity to choose a good space to sit, and it was usually in one of the front pews. I was the middle child, and at 19, I was already acquiring the gradual reputation of the black sheep of the family, but my growing rebellion hadn’t yet furnished me with the courage it’d take to defy my parents and not sit at the front of the church with them every Sunday. Besides, when it comes to any issues regarding church – or really, regarding anything – my siblings were well-practiced in the art of sycophancy, always the best behaved in the presence of our parents and the worst when our parents weren’t looking. This constant flipflop had long since ensured that they were never my allies whenever it came to a clash with mommy and daddy.

And so it was that on that Sunday, we were seated, all ironed clothes and pious solemnity, the perfect Christian family, when I first encountered Chidubem.

He had been staring, staring at me with such intensity, I felt the stare causing me discomfort where I sat as though it was physically doing that.

At 5’10, with a slim build and a piquant features preciously inherited from my mother, I’d been made aware at an early age that I was an attractive young man. I’d been, on several occasions, called beautiful, and even though I took exception to the feminine undertone, I’d learned to live with it. I wasn’t immodest with my awareness of my looks; I simply owned them as another fact of life.

And because of that, I was used to being stared at. However, these circumstances were unique. This was a servant of God and we were in church! He didn’t even seem mindful of the fact that he was losing his focus on whatever he was doing to prepare for the Holy Mass.

And that stare was primal. I felt the force of it leave his body and slam into me with near physical intensity. The audacity of its sinfulness in the house of God stirred something in me, made my groin tighten underneath my Sunday wear.

He must have noticed the effect he’d had on me because at some point, he nodded, as though to himself, and peeled his eyes off me to carry on with his duties.

That evening, as I walked home from church with my younger brother, who happens to be a junior altar servant, the young man from the altar accosted us.

The exchange was brief. He introduced himself as Chidubem and I told him I was Jidenna. He said he had to be back in church to run an errand for the priest and asked me for my number so he could call me later. I was too surprised and too intrigued to think twice about giving a total stranger my number, and when he hurried off in the direction of the church with my digits now saved on his phone, I knew he had me.

He was nice on WhatsApp, sweet over phone calls and never minced words on how he felt about me.  After the initial awkwardness that characterized the establishment of my interest in boys, he became very clear about his desire of me, his intent to have sex with me. But he wasn’t forceful; he took care to let me know that our intimacy, whenever it happened, would be up to me. I felt flattered, appreciated, by this consideration.

Although he was just three years my senior, he was obviously a lot more experienced than his age would let on. He was wild, exposed, had a certain charm that broke through my naiveté, and mad eme ready to be with him the day I went to meet him where he was, alone in the church, exactly six days after our first encounter after that Sunday mass.

He was standing right in the centre of the altar wearing black baggy shorts and turquoise-coloured, close-fitting top that accentuated the contours of his body. His pecs, always hidden in that robe they wore to serve mass, were well-defined now. His arms had just the right amount of muscle with his biceps flexing in tandem with the slightest stimulus.

I swallowed hard as I approached him, not sure why I was so anxious. He was smiling.

I was breathing heavily. I’d never done what he wanted us to do with anyone before. I was a virgin. And even though I’d agreed to meet him in church, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get deflowered at the altar, the same place where I’d heard the gospel preached from countless times, where I’d kneeled to receive the Eucharist since I could remember.

I didn’t want my first time to be on such a significant place.

But when Chidubem reached out to me, pulled me close so that I was breathing in his masculine scents, and bent his head to claim my lips in a searing kiss, I forgot all about how we were on holy ground.

What happened next were moments I was sure I would treasure for the rest of my life. Chidubem was the perfect lover – predatory, slow, intense, fiery, passionate, skillful and manipulative.

Jidenna, don’t do this here! See the Crucifix looking down on you two! Jesus is definitely not pleased with how you’re about to defile his holiness. What if God strikes you both with fire, so that your burned bodies are left here to be discovered by everybody?

The words raged in my head furiously, but began to diminish fast as Chidubem spread me on my front on the carpeted floor and moved his head down into the nub of flesh hidden between the cheeks of my buttocks. He opened me up with his tongue and fingers to get me ready for his hardened member, whose strength I could feel jabbing at my legs. I was caught between apprehension and delirious pleasure as he lathered my ass hole with spit and loving. And then, he was entering me from behind, cutting right to the chase with an energy that alternated between forceful and gentle. My delirium had reached fever pitch and I was bouncing back hard, meeting his thrusts with the fury of one who couldn’t believe he waited all this while to experience pleasure such as this.

I knew it the very moment he was done.

He bucked hard against me, his stifled breathing exploding harshly on my back. He lay still for a moment, and then he suddenly pushed away from me. I turned with my erection, hopeful for his assistance in my own release. But he was already picking up his clothes silently. His ejaculation had been just as quiet, about as quiet as the entire duration of our sex. He wasn’t a moaner, never once let out an expletive or a grunt above a whisper. I’d thought he was reining in expressions of his desire because he didn’t want us to draw the attention of anyone passing by the church building. I had seen some pornographic films; not everyone moaned. But I wasn’t like them. Caught up in my pleasure, I’d once began panting and whimpering, sounds that Chidubem quickly put a stop to when he clamped a hand, slick with sweat, over my mouth and snuffed them back in.

The sex was my first and it was good. But the entire business felt dissatisfactory.

And now, as I watched him buckle his belt over his black baggy shorts while I pulled on my own clothes, I sensed something was wrong. I looked around reflexively to be sure we were still the only ones in the church.

We were.

I looked back at him. Our eyes met briefly before he looked away again, concentrating on righting his clothes. But even in that brief moment, I’d seen it. In his eyes, the need I saw that day in church, that I saw just minutes ago when he drew me into his arms and first kissed me – it was gone.

It was replaced by something else. Something I didn’t quite understand. Regret?

I moved closer to him and reached out my hand to touch him. He reared back the second my hand made contact with his arm. The reaction hit me with a force. He’d pulled back from me like I was a leper!

Then he opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something, but shut it as though the words had escaped his recollection.

What is going on? I thought, feeling the pinpricks of hurt winnow away the waves of pleasure I’d minutes ago felt.

“Dubem, what is wrong?” I was now close to tears.

What had I done? This was my first time. Was there something I should have done that I hadn’t? was my inexperience really that bad? Had I not satisfied him?

The realization that my naiveté as a lover might have ruined this one beautiful thing I shared with this man began to wound me. I silently cussed my virginity. I silently cussed at myself for all those times in the past that I had stayed pure, a determination that was driven partly out of my fear of the unknown and partly because of the rigid Christian values I’d been brought up with that made sex out to be something evil and gay sex even worse.

And then I silently cussed at Chidubem for his apparent repulsion of me. Had I not just now given him my all, my integrity and love in the most honest way one could ever give another? Why did he have to be this callous in the aftermath?

Angry and frustrated, I advanced closer to him with renewed determination, and before I could grab purchase of his arm again, he pulled away again. And this time, he turned to face me, his face a contortion of grief.

I was so astonished, I felt my anger dissipate as I stopped and stared.

“Please…” he stammered, his voice wavering like he was about to cry. “Please, Jide, just stay there…”

“What is wrong?”

“This!” he exploded in a harsh whisper. “This is wrong. We are wrong. This should never have happened. I’m so sorry, Jide. I’m so…”

He never completed that statement as he whirled around and took off into the Sacristi where the altar servants usually resided during mass. He fled from me without once looking back at the devastation he had caused.

And as reality hit me, as soon as it dawned on me that I had just been used by the worst kind of person ever to live, I fell to my knees and began to cry like Christ did after his crucifixion. Only in this situation, my Pilate was an altar servant.

***

The memories brought with them renewed pain. Anger. Frustration. I loathed him. As I sat there in church amidst my perfect Christian family, I felt myself filled with the desire to go up to that altar where he was moving about like a white monk, a chaste being, like he hadn’t fucked me right there, and in one breath, tell him to go to Hell, before raking his eyes out with my long, manicured nails. He didn’t deserve to see his way into Hell.

I wanted to scream at him from where I was seated, flanked by my mother on one side and my elder sister on the other.

In that moment, in my moment of internal torture and emotional trauma, as though he knew I was looking at him, as though he felt my loathing strike at him with the same physicalness that his desire had hit me days ago, he turned around.

And our eyes met.

And then, my rage shifted to be replaced with something else. A something else that was alien. A something else that gnawed at me – primal, raw, powerful.

In that very moment, I knew I wasn’t done with Chidubem. This time, I had him.

Written by Delle