Erotic short. A priest takes a hands-on approach to addressing a worshiper’s poor working habits.
11k, cis M/M, rated E! Tiernan, a manipulative workaholic who only ever relaxes during Mass services, is taken aside by Father Mullen when it all gets to be a bit too much. D/s, BDSM-approach to enforcing self-care, spanking, painplay, bit of a priest kink but it doesn’t go into that aspect too much, faith. Also some anal.
Note that by definition consent’s an issue here because this is the very definition of religious abuse, especially because Tiernan is a CSA survivor and references past CSA by another priest. Content warnings for the religious abuse and references to the CSA throughout, as well as dubious consent in other sexual situations. For all that, though, the tone is generally light-hearted and is more dark humour than dark drama.
Definitely let me know what you think of this one because I’m thinking about delving more into the control issues and religion, because they’re pretty light in this compared to what I envisage them evolving into. In the meantime, enjoy!
It was so late at night it was now early in the morning, and Tiernan was flagging.
He’d been on the train at six this morning, had been in the actual office building before seven, because due to a scheduling error he had to plan the whole of a two-day conference event in twenty-four hours instead of four weeks, and there was a painful, seething acid vibrating under his skin.
His eyes hurt, throbbing and itching with how dry they were, and his hands twitched as he stood in the centre of the office for a moment, not quite able to grasp hold of his thoughts and put them in sequence. He needed sleep — he needed more than sleep, he needed a month off and pills that would make him sleep, and someone to cook all his meals for him, and to enable all that, he needed to win the lottery or become suddenly aware of a rich deceased relative.
“Good morning, Tiernan,” said Mr Du Maurier, and Tiernan didn’t turn around immediately, picking up a stack of papers and beginning to set them in front of each of the table settings.
This was the last of the conference rooms to be put in order, the others all arranged — the digitised documents were arranged in folders, those folders mapped for easy browsing on the back leaf of the welcome pack; the welcome pack itself was finished, and with proper graphics too; the online meetings were all scheduled, and he’d set up fail safes in case anyone fucked up their login, made sure there were spare laptops in each room, each with not just USB drives but also SD card readers and adaptors for every kind of phone he could think of, half a dozen fucking spare HDMI cables in every room; hand sanitiser everywhere; still water and sparkling water and half a dozen other mineral waters on stock that didn’t have certain allergens or whatever —
“Tiernan,” said Mr Du Maurier, and Tiernan turned to look at him. “Have you not gone home yet?”
Mr Du Maurier had gone home at a little after eight last night — a little early for him, in fact. He was very used to advising Tiernan not to worry about conferences like this one, but the fact of the matter was that the reason he didn’t have to worry was because Tiernan did all the worrying for him, not to mention the vital organisation, consolidation of data, communication…
“Not yet, sir,” said Tiernan. “Our network went down at about ten o’clock, and wasn’t up again until two, and three attendance packets were only dispatched to us at about that time. The deadline was Friday at six, but it’s better late than never, I suppose.”
Mr Du Maurier was looking at him with disapproval — there was concern in it, but it was the sort of parody of concern that came from a place of deep insincerity. Tiernan was very used to that particular parody of concern, remembered it very vividly from his childhood, from other people’s well-meaning and invested mothers, from certain educators who had opinions about what sort of student ought attend Holy Vincent’s, from nurses, from all manner of people.
It was the sort of concern that came from a place of worrying as to appearances, or what would come of this investment if it didn’t pay off. Tiernan, with his crumpled shirt and unkempt hair and deep, dark circles under his eyes, not to mention his stubble-shadowed cheeks and chapped lips, did not currently look like a particularly worthwhile investment, and his appearance was not especially marketable.
“Oh, Tiernan,” said Mr Du Maurier, pressing his lips together and pouting them out slightly, his head tilting slightly to the side as he considered the matter. He was taking off his expensive leather gloves as a precursor to shrugging off his expensive camel coat and removing his expensive scarf. “Perhaps you ought to go home.”
“I can stay, sir, if you need me,” said Tiernan reflexively, and Mr Du Maurier demurred, shaking his head.
“No, no, I’m sure we’ve all got it well in hand,” said Du Maurier — there was a pinched note to his expression that well-communicated, although he doubted this particular communication was intentional, that he would have liked to have asked him to stay.
Tiernan had finished everything that required his personal oversight at approximately five o’clock — it was seven now. He’d stayed on until now on purpose to ensure that Du Maurier saw him, that he looked at Tiernan and thought he looked unwell, that he looked unkempt. It wasn’t about whether Tiernan felt tired or whether he’d put in too many hours — there wasn’t really such a thing, in Du Maurier’s eyes, as too many hours.
But if Tiernan looked messy, if he looked exhausted, that was a matter of appearances, and he wouldn’t want Tiernan about.
Sunday was his day off — so was Saturday, but he never expected to actually have a Saturday to enjoy, typically took it as a welcome surprise in the event he got to enjoy a Saturday off after all. Sundays, on the other hand, were sacred, and he wasn’t above a little manipulation to ensure they remained sanctified.
“Thank you, Mr Du Maurier,” said Tiernan quietly. “I’ll be just a few more minutes, and then I’ll go, and see you on Monday.”
“You’re very good, Tiernan,” said Du Maurier.
I am, Tiernan didn’t say. I’m very good. In two more years, I’ll actually be your boss, but luckily for the both of us that’s just not something you’re capable of imagining.
“It’s kind of you to say, Mr Du Maurier,” said Tiernan. “But with management as strong as the sort here, even all-nighters are worthwhile.”
Management here was a fucking mess — Du Maurier walked long hours and was exceedingly good at appearances, but this department was a fucking mess once you delved beneath that, and half of his crucial paperwork was deferred to Tiernan, with the rest going utterly neglected. Twice already, Mr Haas had commented quietly on seeing Tiernan’s handwriting on certain dispatch forms, each time with a wry little smile and a meeting of eyes with Tiernan.
Both times, of course, Tiernan had looked demurely down and murmured that Du Maurier was such a busy man and under such a tremendous amount of stress, and that Tiernan was only doing what he should do, stepping up to what was needed from him by the department.
It helped that Haas fucking hated Du Maurier.
Haas hating Du Maurier was the reason Tiernan had applied to be Du Maurier’s assistant in the first place, despite virtually everyone in the secretarial pool saying he was a nightmare to work with. Haas had started off at the company as a legal secretary while he was still finishing his degree, and he had a keen eye for anyone who worked in administration and showed their value over the more… bloated areas of management.
Two years — a year and a half, if he was lucky. Less than that, if he was very lucky, and Du Maurier graduated from occasionally uncomfortably rubbing his upper arm and patting his own chest to actually having a heart attack.
“See you on Monday,” said Du Maurier as Tiernan pulled on his coat, stepping over the threshold and into the elevator as he pulled on his gloves, wrapped his long scarf around and around his neck. It was raining hard, and he wrestled slightly with the umbrella as he moved down the street, grateful that it wasn’t yet eight.
It was starting to get busy, people coming into work, into school, but it wasn’t yet as busy at it would be. The train was crowded, but not cramped — he had to struggle through getting off because so many people were getting on at the platform, and he felt nauseous as he finally went away from the station.
It was just seven-thirty when he stepped into the atrium of Mary Immaculate, shaking out his umbrella on the step and putting it in the bucket with the other umbrellas. Everyone was already seated in the pews and Father Mullen was talking at the podium, but he hated to sit at the back. He liked to be in the very front, if he could, liked to be able to hear perfectly, liked to be able to see a priest’s face during Mass.
He took the third pew, sitting on the edge beside a put-together family — the mother gave him a slightly scornful look, her gaze on his unshaven face, but then it flitted up to his eyes, and something changed in them.
“Mrs Penn,” he whispered, not turning his head to look at her.
Father Mullen was animated this morning, as he always was when the topic was charity. His voice was resonant and came from deep in his chest, and the sound of it filled the room, came up to meet the rafters and bounce off the arches in the ceiling, bounced off the stone floors. Tiernan could feel it in his chest, lose himself in it.
“Mr Borel,” she whispered back, and didn’t say anything else, thank God.
Father Mullen was a man of fifty, medium height. His shoulders were broad, but rounded at their edges instead of square, and he was plump in that particular way a lot of middle-aged men came to be, with softness at his chest and at his belly — Tiernan knew that in his very core, even though the square shape of his vestments disguised it. He had dark eyes and dark hair with silver just beginning to show at his temples — the grey showed more when he forgot himself and let it grow out a little, or when the stubble grew around his face.
Tiernan thought about touching him, not irregularly — he thought about what it might be like to sink to his knees in front of him and lay his head on the plush cushion of the father’s thighs, feel his hands rest on his shoulders or touch through his hair; he thought that his lap would likely be comfortable to sit back on too, to lean into his chest.
He had been thinner, in youth — Tiernan had seen photographs of him here and there as a young man, when he still played lacrosse, when he’d been slim and hadn’t quite grown into the breadth of his body, so that he looked strangely square and unfinished. His hands had never taken on quite the plumpness his body had: there was a little more meat around his wrists and forearms, but his hands still seemed strangely bony compared to the rest of him.
His fingers were long, square, graceful; his thumbs were strong; he played guitar, and Tiernan knew that there were callouses on his palms and on his fingers, dug in deep.
It didn’t really do to think lustful thoughts about one’s priest, but the sad thing about it was that it wasn’t lustful, or wasn’t only lustful. It was a skin-hunger, a desire not to be lonely and a desire for familiar touch, but it wasn’t just sexual — it was a deeper desire before it was that.
“Is it not our duty, as children, to emulate the best of our fathers?” Mullen was saying, his hands resting on the edges of the podium he was standing at, his gaze flitting around the room. “And is our lord God not our father, instructing us as kindly as a father does? His commandments are set for our guidance and our improvement — they are the guiding rules of a loving father who seeks to cultivate in His children discipline, compassion, care, goodness, but to follow these commandments is not enough.
“He leads us also in His example, and that of our Lord Jesus Christ — and what is the very first example. He has set for us, the very first lesson we might take from His leadership?”
Father Mullen’s eyes met Tiernan’s, and Tiernan met his gaze, didn’t break away. It felt curiously intimate, made his mouth dry, this lock of stares.
He let the question linger on the air, rhetorical, and Tiernan felt a slight flush creep up the back of his neck, his cheeks. Mullen had no way of knowing that secret communication with the parish priest was something with which Tiernan was historically familiar, let alone that that familiarity was… intimate.
“To rest,” he mouthed, doing his best to look put-upon as mildly embarrassed as he was, and Mullen’s smile was warm, paternal, his eyes sparkling with good humour. He did not suspect, Tiernan supposed, that Tiernan would wank about this later, and he mused on what it might be like to imply it in confession.
He never did things like that, although the thoughts often arose.
“To rest,” said Father Mullen.
Tiernan closed his eyes, and let the rest of the sermon wash over him, welcoming its rhythm, taking hold of every word and absorbing them as best he could, imagining every single one was being written on his skin, the ink sinking into him.
For the first time in the course of a week, he actually relaxed.
* * *
“The body of Christ,” said Marshall, looking down at Tiernan Borel on his knees, his hands clasped in front of his chest.
“Amen.”
There was something obscene about it, the way that he looked kneeling, perfectly poised and used to the position, his head coming up from the bow, the eucharist coming to rest on his tongue. Marshall’s fingers wanted to twitch, like they so often did where Tiernan was concerned, with the urge to touch his lips, even brush his tongue.
He didn’t, obviously. He wouldn’t — never would.
He kept his expression blank as Tiernan stood and stepped aside to drink from the chalice — he always knelt to take communion, and he’d mentioned in an offhand way before that part of the reason he came to this church in particular was because there were other members of the congregation that did kneel, that it was the norm.
“You’ve been stopped from kneeling before?” he’d asked at the time.
“I wouldn’t kneel if no one else was kneeling,” he’d replied, almost seeming surprised by the question. “Intentional or not, that’d just be vanity, wouldn’t it?”
Tiernan Borel was a very… efficient Catholic.
That was the word that most often came to mind, although Marshall didn’t think he’d ever say it out loud, not to anybody. It would be taken too negatively, would be perceived as his saying that he wasn’t devout, or wasn’t invested in his worship, but that wasn’t true.
On the contrary, Tiernan was probably one of the most pious people he’d ever met.
He managed to sidestep certain familiar people once the service was over, encouraging Tiernan to come to stand beside him, which he did — he wouldn’t give confession today, only confessed every one or two months, which always made a sort of anticipant thrill gather, week-by-week, under his skin as he waited.
He liked to think he was a good priest, and certainly liked to try to be: it was difficult to retain that intention, when Tiernan Borel was in front of him.
“You haven’t slept,” Marshall observed.
“No, Father,” said Tiernan quietly. “I might have accused you of picking out that topic purely to punish me, were it not for the fact that I was late again.”
“It wasn’t a personal punishment, it was a general one,” said Marshall, and Tiernan laughed, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. There were shadows underneath his eyes, and he hadn’t shaved — he looked pale. “You’ve been losing weight,” added Marshall. “You should eat something before you go to bed.”
“Is that my penance?”
“This isn’t penance,” Marshall chided him, and he made his gaze stern as he looked sideways at Tiernan, met his gaze, which Tiernan didn’t break. “I mean it. There’s no sense in working all those hours you do if you starve yourself in between. You’re not taking cocaine, are you?”
Tiernan laughed again.
“Tiernan — ”
“I’m not,” he said. When Marshall looked at him, he shook his head, and he touched Marshall’s forearm for a moment — it wasn’t much, just a slight squeeze of his hand over Marshall’s forearm. He’d taken off his gloves, and even through the fabric of his robes, Marshall could feel the warmth of his palm. “If I was taking cocaine, Father, I can assure you, I wouldn’t look this exhausted.”
“You worked Saturday again.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to take another day to replace it.”
“It’s more holiday hours accumulated, I suppose.”
“Mm,” hummed Marshall, unable to keep back his disapproval and not bothering to try. “And when do you plan to take those?”
Tiernan looked down at the floor, his hands behind his back. “It won’t be like this forever, Father,” he said quietly, although he actually seemed abashed in one way or another. “I do what I do for a purpose, I promise.”
He’d been coming to Saint Sebastian’s for four years now, and when he’d first joined the congregation, Marshall had thought he worked too many hours, that he didn’t allow himself enough rest. That had been his first estimation, but looking back, he barely worked at all four years ago in contrast to now — then, he actually took his weekends off, and his evenings, too.
Nowadays he mostly took off his Sundays, although sometimes even on days like today, Marshall would see him dip in for Mass having woken early in the morning, and then depart to go back to work. That would be enough, but Marshall knew that even though he was almost never present for committee meetings, he did a lot of work for the church and the school too, that it was him who arranged a lot of the spreadsheets and schedules, not only formatting them or sending over document templates, but often reformatting data or rearranging them once someone asked him to look over their work.
It was good work, too: he was diligent and focused and never said no if someone asked him to get something done. Marshall had considered more than once, in the past year or so, advising the committee chairwoman that no one should ask him for anything for a while, or saying something similar to the lay-sisters that did the school events, but something stopped him.
It would be an overreach, like as not, and overly paternalistic — it wasn’t as if Tiernan was a young man, after all. He was in his thirties, and closer to forty than thirty.
“Is he alright?” asked Bernard — he taught mathematics in the school, but he helped in Mass services not irregularly — as Tiernan came up the stairs to start preparing for the next service in a little under an hour. “Tiernan?”
“He’s the same as ever,” said Marshall, rubbing at his brow. “Overworked, doesn’t rest, doesn’t eat.”
“But he comes to Mass,” said Bernard, shrugging. “He relaxes when he’s here, doesn’t he?”
“What’s that, two hours a week, counting confession into the matter?”
“Is he relaxing during confession?”
“More so than he is at work, I imagine,” Marshall replied, and Bernard gave him a small, amused smile. There was no real implication in it — sometimes people did make that sort of implication, suspected (not inaccurately) that he found Tiernan particularly attractive or desirable.
The implication here was not a salacious one, only Bernard noticing a natural distaste Marshall had for seeing someone — particularly one of his own flock — work himself to death.
“I expect he was always like this,” said Bernard idly, shrugging his shoulders as he pushed a cup of tea toward Marshall, and Marshall took it, taking a sip. “I have students that are much the same, students that work all hours of the day, never rest, can’t relax.”
“Where do they end up?”
“Where do you think? They become monks, like I did,” said Bernard, and Marshall laughed without meaning to, shaking his head.
The idea of Tiernan Borel as a monk wasn’t an unattractive one — Marshall kept close quarters with them, and had had quick, hurried encounters with them before, in corridors, in niches, in his own rooms when it could be managed. He thought about it for a second, Tiernan with his hands flat against the wall, robes ruched up around his waist, Marshall fucking between his thighs or even fucking his arse, watching him muffle his moans into his sleeves.
He doubted he was going to transition to a cloistered life any time soon.
“A chilling indictment of us both,” said Marshall, and Bernard chuckled, shaking his head and going back to work.
* * *
It was probably a month later that Tiernan had stayed late on a Friday, and he was alone in the office with Mr Du Maurier, finishing up the last of some calendar appointments and a handful of reports. Tiernan knew already that he’d be going back over these reports in private, that he’d remove certain things and add others.
Mr Du Maurier had already expressed irritation at certain aspects taking too long but insisted on the going over them together. Perhaps it would be better not to correct them himself in perfect privacy, but to use one of the offices near Mr Haas’, so that he saw that Tiernan was working and inquired as to on what, and why.
He’d learned already what tones to employ, how exactly it was best to talk to Mr Haas when he was correcting Du Maurier’s mistakes.
“There,” said Du Maurier. “All finished.”
He’d been more irritating than usual, asking that Tiernan stay, asking that he stay in particular, and it was grating on his nerves, but Du Maurier was away this week at some godawful fucking golfing thing, taking his wife and his daughters with him, and that at least meant that Tiernan would actually have the weekend to himself, not that he intended to do much with it.
He had some organisation to do for the school fete, writing up the email that was going to go out to parents — not the basic notification one, but the one with the sign-up sheets, because he’d arranged it so that it could be directly filled out online and all the data went into a spreadsheet. It was better than what they’d done for ages with the PDFs, basically having to hand-type everything even though it was sent by email in the first place, but they just needed hand-holding to begin with.
He didn’t mind doing it — it was a relief, actually, to work on something that was so low-stakes, something that wouldn’t have a large broader impact, and he liked talking with the teachers in the school, and liked even more talking to some of the parents, who were always surprised he wasn’t employed by the school, that he was a volunteer, the same as them.
Now and then people would try to set him up with some nice young woman, someone’s sister or cousin or friend from work, and he always found it very funny. They thought he said no because he worked so much, and he never bothered correcting them.
“Would you come here a moment, Tiernan?”
“Yes, sir,” Tiernan said distractedly, coming over and standing at the side of Mr Du Maurier’s computer to see what it was he needed, but it was on the desktop, his email client closed down, his browser minimised. “Mr — ”
Du Maurier’s hand was sliding over his arse, and Tiernan looked back at him, feeling his breath catch in his throat. Du Maurier was looking up at him with a focused gaze even as his palm slipped around to grip at the side of Tiernan’s waist, fingers pushing his shirt up so that he could touch bare skin.
Tiernan shivered, but didn’t pull away, and Du Maurier laughed.
“You are, aren’t you?” he asked, his voice quiet and husky. “I thought you were. Every time you bend over in front of me, I can’t help but wonder what you’re inviting me to do to you.”
“Sir, I just — Ah,” Tiernan grunted as Du Maurier’s other hand slid up between his thighs, gripping his cock, squeezing. It was good, felt good, and Tiernan was so starved of sex — fuck, how long had it been? Not since last year, at least, probably not since the year before last — that his cock was already half-hard, thrilling to attention.
This was not part of the plan.
He didn’t say anything as Du Maurier unbuckled his belt and undid his trousers so hurriedly that he felt the thread on one of the buttons loosen, but he didn’t protest, didn’t cry out.
(The instinct to protest verbally when he didn’t like something during sex was not one he was still in possession of, not unless he was truly at risk, and a torn button didn’t seem to merit the effort.)
Words wouldn’t come to him, instinct taking over; his elbows rested on the desk surface and he moved his arse forward so that as Du Maurier dragged down his trousers, nothing else would tear. He was staring forward, trying to figure out if there were clues to this he’d previously missed — if Du Maurier had previously fucked his assistants or any other employers, he’s certain he would have heard about it.
He’d cultivated a reputation for himself over the years, and people liked to confide things in him, liked to know that if they told him things he wouldn’t spread the information around, which he never did, but that telling him might lead to a solution — he might suggest someone else they could swap shifts with, or he might know a guy who could help with their unexpected problem, or he might be able to fix it for them himself.
People told him things, and most of all, they told Tiernan gossip, told him who was fucking whom — other gay guys in the office, Theodore and Carlo particularly, told him stuff, knew that he was gay even if no one else really clocked it, and they talked, naturally. Theodore had been sucking Mr Haas off at the Christmas party for years, such that it was basically a holiday tradition — if Du Maurier was fucking anyone, he’d have heard about it, word would have spread.
There were words about his affairs, and Tiernan himself had arranged for discreet hotel rooms for him in the past, no particular deal made about them, but no attention drawn to them either. He’d never been so blatant as to ask for Tiernan to book a girl or a boy for him, but he never talked about his extracurricular extramarital activities, did he?
“I knew you would be,” purred Du Maurier, and Tiernan put his head down on the desk, breathing in as his underwear was pulled down around his knees and Du Maurier slid two fingers between his cheeks, pressing dry against his arse, making him hiss.
He hadn’t been fucked in a year or two, no, but he kept himself busy at home — what the fuck else was he supposed to do, when he was never had time to go out anywhere? Du Maurier’s hands were confident in what they were doing, thumbing around the ring of muscle, playing over the puckered skin — even if he didn’t usually have sex with men, he was used to anal.
You are, aren’t you? I thought you were. I knew you would be.
Tiernan had never fucked anyone here at the office, nor at the last place he’d worked, but his first boss had fucked him regularly: Peter. Mr Ramsay. When —
Golfing. Tiernan had left Durham behind him, but Peter never had, and Du Maurier had gone up in the summer. They were both golfers, and Peter would have brought it up as soon as Du Maurier had mentioned his name, would have made the implication immediately — he’d always cherished the way that being an openly gay CEO put other men off, and wouldn’t have given a shit if it meant outing Tiernan in the process.
Du Maurier had called him when he’d been at that open, had even mentioned new friends, probably, new business connections.
“Fuck,” Tiernan gasped out as Du Maurier’s teeth grazed over his buttock, his tongue slipping between his cheeks. He wasn’t used to this, hadn’t enjoyed this particular pleasure in years, and he gasped against the desk, spread his legs wider, braced his elbows and his palms against the desk service. “Mr — Mr Du Maurier — ”
“I think you can probably call me Nick, can’t you?” Du Maurier asked, and then rendered Tiernan unable to speak, because he fell against Tiernan’s hole with his mouth open, his tongue out and sliding against the skin. Tiernan was so hard he felt like imploding, his fingernails digging into the wood underneath him. Du Maurier was good at this, was well-practised even if Tiernan wasn’t right now — he tongued around his rim, nipped at it, sucked at his perineum and made Tiernan whimper into his hands.
“You — How did you,” he gasped out, “how did you… know?”
Intentionally vague. Leading question.
“Know what?” asked Du Maurier immediately. “That you were a whore for a tongue in your arse? That you’ve wanted to fuck me since you first took the job?”
He was delusional — good to know.
“There’s all sorts of tales that go around about you, you know,” said Du Maurier, and he started kissing and nipping at his lower back, making his back arch and his body shiver, as he slid a spit-slick finger into Tiernan’s arse. It went in easy, thank fuck; the second one met a bit more friction, but it wasn’t bad, wasn’t painful, was just a little bit of a stretch and a little bit of a burn. He didn’t have lube in his desk, and Tiernan didn’t even carry condoms with him, let alone lube.
He was lying — the gays in the office fucking loved tales, and if anyone so much as said Tiernan had made eye contact with another man, they’d have questioned it about it, would have brought it up.
“Do you fuck all of your bosses?” asked Du Maurier. “Does it get you off, being fucked over a desk? I should have fucked you sooner.”
Definitely Peter’s doing.
What did this change, exactly? There was still a chance for him to get up and leave, for him to mumble out apologies and say he couldn’t, but he didn’t feel like going with the risk that came along with that. He needed to keep this job, this position, until he was ready to leave. Being fucked over a desk wasn’t particularly dignified, but nor was most of the sex he’d ever had, and Du Maurier was right, it did get him off to be pinned over it by his boss, although Du Maurier wasn’t exactly his type.
This didn’t mean Du Maurier was suspicious of him — on the contrary, in fact, this meant he was pretty assured of his command over Tiernan, his ability to take advantage. As for playing it with Haas, maybe this added a level of extra difficulty — would Haas think his desire to get ahead was just to do with sexual politics, a desire to get back at a jilted lover?
He could play it for sexual harassment, too, though, or better than that, be completely honest: say that Du Maurier had bent him over his desk on a Friday night with no warning, and he’d been so surprised he’d frozen up and just let him. Haas would disapprove of that mightily — he and Theodore had known each other for ten years before they’d started working together, and Theodore had laughed about how much negotiation Haas insisted on about the dynamic they had together, how often Haas asked if he was comfortable.
Haas was actually invested in this sort of thing, actually gave a fuck about it, so maybe this was just free ammunition.
And — most importantly, perhaps, he was already hard, and he was clenching down around Du Maurier’s fingers, and thoughts of career strategy aside, he wanted to be fucked.
“Fucking slut,” said Du Maurier, and Tiernan didn’t stiffen as a foil packet dropped onto the desk beside him — the condom smelt awful, had one of those flavoured lubes on it, banana, that clung to the air in a sort of plasticky miasma, but he tried not to focus on it, instead focusing on the fielding of Du Maurier’s cock sliding into him.
Smaller than he would have guessed. That was a shame.
“You fucking like this, hm?” demanded Du Maurier as he thrust himself in to the hilt, and Tiernan groaned a low sound of pleasure, his eyes fluttering closed. It felt good, sent pleasant electric tingles running up his spine, his breaths stuttering. “You want to be the office whore?”
No, thank you, Tiernan didn’t say. This was your idea — why am I the whore?
Du Maurier kept talking, more insults, just vague pornographic rambling, and Tiernan tuned it out, focusing on the feeling of Du Maurier’s cock in his arse, the pleasant stretch and burn, the bounce of his cock underneath him, Du Maurier’s hands on his hips.
He wasn’t even thinking about it, Tiernan didn’t think, just wanted to enjoy the sound of his own voice — fine. He reached underneath himself, wrapping a hand around himself, and he grunted at the feeling of it, his palm, the tight squeeze around himself as Du Maurier kept thrusting into him, rode him hard.
Well. Not that hard — as hard as Du Maurier was capable of, but it wasn’t his fault. He was average-looking with a below-average cock, so for what he was working with, Tiernan supposed he was doing his best.
He managed to come, his cock letting loose lazy white ropes over his hand, and the way his arse clenched must have felt good, because Du Maurier suddenly released a strangled, choked noise, and a minute later, he collapsed on top of Tiernan, his body a heavy weight.
Tiernan could feel the rapid beat of his heart against his back, even though they were both still dressed — that coronary was looking more and more likely, wasn’t it? Du Maurier was sweating like a pig, and when Tiernan glanced back at him, he could see he was a bright red, the colour blotchy on his thin, square features.
“Something to tell Johnny about, huh?” asked Du Maurier as he zipped up his own trousers, and Tiernan looked back at him, not comprehending as he slowly pulled up his pants again.
Johnny? Johnny who — John Haas?
“Sir?” he asked, breathing heavy, and Du Maurier laughed.
“He can fuck his own assistant,” he said, and Tiernan turned away, wiping his hand with a tissue.
“I’ve never… Not with Mr Haas, sir,” said Tiernan.
“Bet he wants you to, though,” said Du Maurier, dropping back into his seat as Tiernan stood up, smoothing out his shirt. “I heard him — what’s his name, Theo? — and one of the other lads talking about how he’s taking an interest in you lately. He’ll be wanting a piece of you soon enough.”
Theo hadn’t mentioned that to him — was it definitely Tiernan he was talking about?
He didn’t think Haas wanted to fuck him. He didn’t think Haas even knew he was gay, unless Theodore or someone else had mentioned it, but Haas was out and open about it, whereas Tiernan never drew attention to it, never talked about sexuality much. He’d even considered it as a bonding option, but it had never organically come up, and he didn’t want it to feel forced or orchestrated.
“Have a good weekend, Tiernan,” said Mr Du Maurier.
“You too,” said Tiernan.
“Nick,” said Du Maurier.
Fuck’s sake.
“Nick,” Tiernan smiled, and let the smile drop as soon as he turned away to grab his coat.
Hm.
Hm.
* * *
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” said Tiernan on the other side of the confessional, and Marshall smiled to himself. His body gave a thrill, knowing what was coming, wondering what precisely might come next — he always enjoyed Tiernan’s quiet, carefully described acts of sin, enjoyed even more what came of his contrition. “It’s been sixty-two days since my last confession.”
“Always with the precision count,” said Marshall, and Tiernan’s laugh was quiet and breathless.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Go on, then.”
“I’ve neglected my mother, Father. Three times she’s called over the past few months, and I always ignore the call — I answered once, said I was busy and that I’d call back, even though I knew I wouldn’t.”
“You won’t talk to her until Christmas,” said Marshall.
“No, sir,” said Tiernan. “Probably not.”
“Call her when you get home today,” said Marshall. “Set a timer if you’re really worried you’ll be lost in the call, but she’s your mother, and it’s your duty to look after her. I know you struggle with her, but she’s old, and she loves you.”
“Yes, Father,” said Tiernan.
“Muse on her in your prayers, too, and your duties as a son. Six hail Marys.”
“Yes, Father.”
“What else?”
“I’ve harboured lustful thoughts, Father, for other men,” said Tiernan, and Marshall took this in. “I’ve touched myself to these thoughts, and brought myself satisfaction. To — To thoughts of men who would not be pleased to be thought of in this way, Father.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m gay?”
Marshall clucked his tongue, disapproving, and it said something for Tiernan’s state of mind that his laugh was nervous. “Why men who would not be pleased? It brings you satisfaction to debase them in your mind’s eye, when they don’t know it?”
Fuck, but the thought made him thrill, the idea of Tiernan enjoying that, fantasising over straight men, masculine men, men who’d be furious at the very idea — did he touch himself to that particularly, the idea of a man debasing him, fucking him while hating him, fucking him brutally? He was a thin man, delicate: a big man could all but take him to pieces.
“Yes, Father,” whispered Tiernan. “I expect that’s it.”
“Abstain,” said Marshall. “For a week, at least — whenever you would ordinarily pleasure yourself, I want you to pray instead. Reflect on the poor intentions of your fantasies. It’s the position of the Church that all such fantasies are poorly intended, but here in the confessional box, I will say that I think you know the difference in something to please yourself and something that it thrills you to muse on because you would like it to upset someone else.”
“Yes, Father,” mumbled Tiernan. He sounded like he was smiling.
“Not just for harm to them,” added Marshall. “You do yourself no credit either.”
“Yes, Father.”
“That’s everything?”
“I… No,” said Tiernan.
He was on uncertain ground here, and Marshall’s skin suddenly felt tight in anticipation, his heart beating just the slightest bit faster. Had he gone out at the weekend, let some man take him home? Done more than think and play with his toys?
He made sure his voice was gentle as he said, “Go on.”
“I have…. I tempted a man to adultery.”
“Tempted him?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Silence, and something about the silence bothered him, made something catch in his chest as he turned his head to the closed grate and curtain of the confessional box, his lips pressing together.
“I, um,” said Tiernan. “I don’t know.” He sounded like he really didn’t. “I, maybe I didn’t tempt him, Father, but I don’t know what else to call it. He’s a married man, and I let him… Over his desk.”
“You wanted this?”
“Well,” Tiernan stumbled, and Marshall felt sudden alarm.
This was not the same as anything that had come before: this wasn’t a hurried tumble with a man in a club bathroom, or a leisurely fuck in a bathhouse, or even the orgy he’d stumbled into and then participated eagerly in, the one that Marshall still thought about every other evening.
“If this didn’t happen with your consent — ”
“No, no, it did, I just didn’t plan for it,” said Tiernan hurriedly. “Father, it’s difficult to explain, I’m sorry, I’m not concentrating on the Sacrament: I’m distracted. But he’d already pulled down my, there wasn’t enough time exactly for me to… I enjoyed it, is the point. I enjoyed it, and he’s a married man. And I may or may not benefit further from it.”
“Benefit?” Marshall repeated.
“Father,” said Tiernan. “There’s other people waiting, I’ve already taken a long time.”
The real and genuine concern in Marshall’s chest didn’t fade away — this whole thing bothered him, caught at him in a way he didn’t like, didn’t want to linger with, and he pulled back the grate and the curtain in one movement.
Tiernan stared at him, his lips parted.
“I think we should discuss this further,” Marshall said quietly. “With your consent, I would hear the whole of the debacle.”
“Yes, Father,” Tiernan mumbled.
“Confession finishes at twelve — can you wait for me in my office?”
“You knew I was going to ask,” said Tiernan. “For more guidance.”
“Mm,” hummed Marshall: he hadn’t.
* * *
He’d been in Father Mullen’s office before, of course. He’d been in here for committee meetings, and he’d been in here to discuss things with Father Mullen one-on-one — he’d talked to him before after he’d had a little breakdown a few years ago, where during a service he’d just broken down and started crying.
That one had been about shame, naturally.
Father Mullen was a modern priest — or at the very least, he was quite modern with Tiernan, and didn’t bother, as some priests did, to argue with him about being gay, or even that much about having sex. It was still a sin, of course, but…
But.
Being alone in a priest’s office, waiting for him to come back, this was a very familiar feeling, even if he was anticipating something different to what he would have anticipated as a boy. Nonetheless, he felt warm all over, did his best to push down shame because it was the most inconvenient — pushing down shame, of course, meant arousal came up to the top like the froth on beer.
He liked to be fucked over a desk, but he liked even more to sit back in a man’s lap, an older man’s lap — a priest’s lap, that was nice.
He wondered what Father Mullen would say if he said that in the confessional box.
“How are we feeling?” asked Father Mullen as he came inside, and Tiernan unfolded from where he’d been curled up in the armchair across from his desk, but Mullen waved him off, gesturing for him to stay in place. Tiernan folded back up — he’d slipped off his Chelsea boots, and his feet were folded underneath him.
“I’m sorry,” said Tiernan, trying to wrestle with the swirling ball of feeling weighting down his chest. He’d actually managed to sleep quite well Friday night and Saturday — but whenever he wasn’t asleep, he was constantly thinking, his head whirring with thoughts about Monday, and after Monday, whatever came next when Mr Du Maurier came back.
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I should probably be penitent.”
“You can leave penitence aside for the moment,” said Father Mullen, pouring tea from a kettle. “Let me look after that. What you’ve mentioned thus far seems to be a more extensive matter than the confessional is made for. Sugar?”
“No, thanks. No milk, either.”
“This is why I almost never set you deprivation as penance,” muttered Mullen, and Tiernan laughed breathlessly as he took the mug. He’d told him to abstain from masturbation in the past, and he had done it — not just for having sexual thoughts, but when he’d confessed to a harmful fantasy before.
He still got off to it, it just made him feel like his brain was turned inside out and being filled with pins, too. Mullen didn’t tell him not to touch himself to really deprive him, not like…
Well.
“Do you know what my job is?” asked Tiernan.
“You manage a department,” said Mullen. “At a company that is involved in… Industry and mechanics? Trade in large drills and things? And the department is, erm, legal… things.”
“I do manage the department, de facto,” said Tiernan, “but I’m not the manager. I’m his personal assistant. It’s actually the communications department, but I have a background in secretarial work, and I’ve done a lot of different kinds of administration.”
“Right,” said Mullen, furrowing his brow.
“I’m about to lower your opinion of me, Father,” said Tiernan.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Mullen, sinking back against his desk. He shifted his legs slightly apart as he did it, and Tiernan thought about kneeling on the rug that dominated the office, pushing up the skirt of Mullen’s robe and pulling down his trousers, swallowing his cock down his throat. Had Mullen ever had his cock sucked? Tiernan’s fingers twitched — he hoped the answer was no. “You’ve been there… four years.”
“At the company. My manager is a man named Nick Du Maurier — he’s known to be a bit of a pr — A prat, Father. He’s not well-liked at the company, and he’s got a reputation for being workshy, for caring more about the appearance of working than the actual work done, with the broad implication that he was only hired to his current position because his father was the treasurer of the board. I got assigned to him on purpose.”
“On purpose?” asked Mullen, tilting his head to the side, and Tiernan tapped his fingers against his knees.
“John Haas is the regional officer for London,” said Tiernan. “He’s not Du Maurier’s direct boss, but he does outrank him at the company. He started out as a legal secretary, and he has a soft spot for employees that move up from the secretarial pool, and he and Du Maurier hate each other. I knew that if I got assigned to Du Maurier and took over a lot of his responsibilities, and let Haas see that that was what I was doing, he’d take notice — he’d be angry on my behalf, he’d feel more spite toward Du Maurier, and he’d eventually reward me by promoting me. I have my eye on the Communications Administrator position — I’d outrank Du Maurier in that position. I’d be his boss.”
Mullen was staring at him, and Tiernan dug his nails into his knees.
“I’ve been working toward this for years,” he muttered. “And then on Friday night, Du Maurier suddenly came onto me.”
“He suspects you’re trying to supersede him?” asked Mullen, and Tiernan wondered how many priests he’d had over the years that would so immediately grasp onto this sort of problem, actually think about it like this, like it was… strategy.
“No. I don’t think so. But he does seem to think that Mr Haas has been trying to seduce me, or that he already has — but I think that he met an old employer of mine, too, because he knew that I’d previously, um, had relations. With him, when I was his assistant. I didn’t —
“He started pulling down my trousers, Father, and I froze before I said anything.”
“You were worried you’d lose your job if you stopped him.”
“Not lose it,” said Tiernan. “But — yeah. I want to keep my position, and I want to keep Du Maurier sweet and distracted, so I took that into account. But I went with it, because I’ve been having a dry spell.”
“You shouldn’t have sex with a man you’re not fond of just because no one else has come up,” said Mullen quietly, and Tiernan shrugged his shoulders.
“He wasn’t that good,” he said, and Mullen exhaled, shaking his head like he wanted to laugh, but was trying not to. “I just don’t know what to do now. How I play it to Haas, what I tell him — this is an unexpected variable.”
Mullen did laugh now, and Tiernan stared at him.
“Nothing, nothing,” said Mullen. “Just — I’ve never had anyone in my flock quite like you, Tiernan. Talking about variables in your workplace machinations. I thought you were just a workaholic — I had no idea you were orchestrating your very own Game of Thrones all this time. Have you always been like this?”
“Going to set me penance for it?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Mullen. “Apart from the fact that it doesn’t seem like you’ve actually lied, the sort of machinations you’ve described are a long-standing tradition by some movers and shakers within the Church.”
“Movers and shakers,” repeated Tiernan, and Mullen looked down at the floor, his lips shifting into a slight smile. “And I like to have a plan and know how I’m proceeding, yeah. If I’d done this linearly and applied for promotions one by one, it’d take twelve years to get that position — this way, I could get it this year, or next. It’s quicker.”
“You were like this at your last position?”
“Yes. At school, too.”
“You went to a Catholic school?”
“Yes. Always. I went to the same school, until I was fourteen, and then I transferred to a different Catholic school.”
“Your family moved?”
Tiernan swallowed, his hands twitching. He’d never actually talked about it. He wanted to talk about it — what would Mullen say? That he was a liar? That he was sorry? To get out?
“Father Anthony had been abusing several students,” said Tiernan. “He got removed, and a lot of us were transferred.”
Mullen inhaled, looked at him seriously. “You were abused?”
“Yeah. Well. I had sex with him. I don’t think I was abused like the other boys were abused.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think they liked it.”
He said it too fast, too hard, too sharp — he wanted to see Mullen’s face twist in disgust, wanted to see his brow furrow, his nose scrunch up, his lip curl, but none of that came. Mullen’s expression barely even changed, except to soften slightly, and for some reason, that made Tiernan want to scream.
“These things are complicated,” said Mullen quietly. “I’m very sorry you experienced that, but I would assure you that you won’t have been the only victim of his or any other abuser’s to experience… mixed emotions.”
“I didn’t have any mixed emotions,” said Tiernan. “I enjoyed it when he touched me, and when he fucked me, Father, I liked it when he held me in his lap. I liked taking penance from him, over his knee or over his desk, with his palm or with a cane — I still fucking miss it. I only felt bad about it later, when I found out I wasn’t meant to.”
“Do you think you can shock me?” asked Mullen, his voice abruptly the hardest and coldest he’d ever heard it, and Tiernan glanced away from him, not meeting his gaze. “Mm, well. Unfortunately, you can’t.”
They settled for a few moments in the quiet, and when Tiernan glanced at Mullen, he saw that the priest was studying him with his lips pressed loosely together, his gaze focused on him, on his face, the way he was folded up in his seat.
“You’ve never told me that before,” said Mullen.
“Should I have?” asked Tiernan, feeling something flip in his stomach, and Mullen slowly shook his head. “It was probably my fault though, right? I mean, I was young, horny, I probably — ”
“I think,” said Mullen sharply, “we’ve discussed before your tendency to do this.”
“What am I doing?” demanded Tiernan, sitting forward even though there was a hot flush burning on the back of his neck, his shoulders, creeping up his neck and blossoming in his cheeks, but Mullen didn’t even flinch, keeping that kindly, focused expression on his face.
“Have other priests told you that directly, or is that just what you’ve heard them say about other cases?” asked Mullen mildly. “Do you want me to critique the position of the Church, or would you prefer for me to lose my temper with you and shout at you to get out?”
“Neither.”
“You were angling for one of them.”
“No,” lied Tiernan. He hadn’t mentioned the third option, in any case — that Mullen would lose his temper and not shout at him to get out, but instead bend him over the desk and fuck him sideways.
“It’s your choice if you want to lie to me, Tiernan, I know you do it often,” said Mullen, so casually and so breezily and with so much composure that the heat pooling in his cheeks rapidly flooded downward, and he leaned forward slightly, no matter that his cock wasn’t going to be visible from this position, even if he was hard. “You’re a grown man — it’s your prerogative. I’m under no obligation to pretend not to see what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?” asked Tiernan. It was meant to come out sharp and defiant — it was meant to be a child’s fucking tantrum response, but he didn’t put enough heat in it in any case, and it came out sounding honest and really quite sad. “I’m good at my job, Father.”
“You are,” Mullen agreed immediately. “You’re exceedingly good at your job, and you provide a great many services to us here, too — you’re intelligent, organised, ambitious, hardworking, in service of your employers and in service of your community.”
“But,” said Tiernan.
“But,” said Mullen, “you’re also manipulative, distant, cold. You’ve no friends within or outside of the Church. Ah, ah,” he said sharply when Tiernan opened his mouth to protest, and went on, “no, Tiernan. You never meet with the people you’re friendly with at work, nor anyone you work with here. Would I be wrong in guessing that the only person you tell anything to with any degree or frankness or honesty is me?”
Tiernan stared at his knees.
“I expect an answer,” said Mullen, and Tiernan’s cock gave a twitch, desperate to stand for attention.
“You’re not wrong, Father,” said Tiernan. “But I’m just focusing for now on my — ”
“On your work, and on your ambition,” interrupted Mullen. “After which you’d begin focusing on a new ambition, and proceeding in precisely the same manner.”
“Are you my priest or my therapist?”
“I’m your priest,” said Mullen immediately. “A therapist wouldn’t be so direct in challenging you, and certainly wouldn’t tell you what to do.”
“You’re telling me what to do?” demanded Tiernan, looking up at him and itching to stand to his feet. “What, you’re giving me orders now?”
“Come here,” said Mullen coolly.
He wasn’t smiling. His expression didn’t hold any particular cruelty in it, but his eyes had a distance to them that made Tiernan’s body thrill with anticipation, because that particular expression was not an unfamiliar one. It was the sort of face that preceded a beating, twenty years ago.
His mouth was dry as he stood to his feet, quickly smoothing down his trousers, and came to stand in front of Mullen, who didn’t get up from where he was leaning back against the desk, although he delicately put down his mug. He was a little shorter than Tiernan was, but Tiernan was thin and delicately built even though he jogged and exercised as much as he could where Mullen was heavier. Even the young Mullen in the lacrosse photos would have been bigger than Tiernan was, would have easily been able to overpower him.
“I’m going to give you a bit of advice now,” said Mullen in a quiet, deliberate voice, reaching up and adjusting Tiernan’s collar, and Tiernan shivered at the touch against the side of his neck, ticklish. “How long have we known each other, Tiernan?”
“Four years.”
“Have I ever lost my temper with you?”
“No, Father.”
“Have you ever seen me lose my temper with anybody?”
“No, Father.”
“Wrath was my biggest vice, when I was a boy,” said Mullen. “I had a terrible temper, and subsequently, it is the weakness in myself I’m most vigilant of. Your talent for provocation will not win out against my composure, Tiernan. I can assure you of that.”
He smoothed his fingers down Tiernan’s chest, and Tiernan shivered again, letting out a breathless exhalation, his fingers twitching at his sides. His skin was hot, and he was trying desperately not to sweat, unsuccessfully.
“I do my best to be a diligent spiritual advisor, Tiernan, but I suspect that I wouldn’t be able to advise you in how to approach your work. I do think you could probably rest now and then, perhaps take up a hobby or two. Make some friends.”
Tiernan didn’t say anything, and he stiffened this time when Mullen touched his chest again, touching his fingers against his sternum through the fabric of his shirt. There was a sense of being on a precipice, and he desperately wanted to dive off, but didn’t want to break the moment, didn’t want to ruin it.
Mullen’s expression revealed absolutely nothing, but he was never so blank and cool with Tiernan, not ever, never had been before. His hand was on Tiernan’s chest, still, his fingers warm and solid.
“Do you know how?” asked Mullen.
“Father?”
“Do you know how to make friends? How to maintain friendships?”
He felt like he’d been dipped in cold water, and he started to step back, but Mullen grabbed him hard by the shoulder, gathering some of his shirt up in his fist, and Tiernan took in a sharp intake of breath.
“That’s a no, I suppose?”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry? What ever are you sorry for?”
“I don’t — I don’t know, just — ”
“Tiernan.”
Tiernan set his jaw, and Mullen looked up at him, his fingers trailing again down Tiernan’s chest as he loosened his grip on his shirt. “Are you going to fuck me, Father?” he asked, and something in him thrummed with heat, with embarrassment, with need, at the way that Mullen actually laughed.
“Is that what you want?” asked Mullen. “For me to fuck you?”
He’d never heard him say fuck before. He’d made a game of it when he’d first started coming to Saint Sebastian’s, playing with his phrasing in the confessional to see what Mullen would say and what he wouldn’t — he liked to do it, to see what priests or monks would say certain words, certain phrases. The ones that used metaphors or implications were easy, but some did occasionally copy him if he used curse words or profanity — Mullen was extraordinarily liberal, even for a priest that wasn’t of a habit of feeling up a congregant’s chest. He said sex, and he said it without much emotion in the word.
“I wouldn’t say no,” said Tiernan.
“That hardly means anything,” said Mullen. “To hear you say it, you’d never say no to anybody if they approached you with enough intention.”
“Fuck,” whispered Tiernan, and his hands twitched with the urge to adjust his trousers. His cock really was half-hard now, pressing up against the fabric of his briefs, and Mullen raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t… mean it like that. I’d want — you.”
“I think,” said Mullen, “that you could, with sufficient work, earn that privilege.”
Tiernan’s mind felt blank, all flames and sweat and lust. He tried to condense all that sensibly into words, but what came out of his mouth was: “Hrrugh?”
“You miss physical discipline?”
“Yes,” said Tiernan immediately, not hesitating for a moment.
“I can’t advise you as to this business with Mr Du Maurier or Haas,” said Mullen again. “I could tell you you shouldn’t have sex with him if you don’t want to, that adultery is a sin, as much as fornication, and it shows a certain disregard to your body to exchange it for petty pieces of wealth. I imagine saying something like that will fall on deaf ears, given that you see your body as a tool, just like you see everything and everybody as a tool.”
“That’s not true.”
Mullen pinched his chest through the shirt, and Tiernan gasped in a breath, leaning into the touch. “Ow,” he said after a moment.
“I can tell you — and I will tell you — that you need to make time for yourself outside of your career.”
“Yes.”
“To have friends, enjoy yourself. Have sex, even.”
“You’re encouraging me to a mortal sin.”
“I’m about to bend you over my desk and beat you with your own belt,” said Mullen. “Dou want to argue with me over a sin you and I both know you’re going to pursue, or do you want me to proceed?”
“Proceed,” Tiernan blurted out, and Mullen smirked at him. Tiernan’s knees felt weak.
“I thought so,” he said mildly. “Assume the position, then. I expect you’re well-familiar with it.”
Tiernan moaned low in his throat as he rapidly unbuckled his belt, hurrying to do so, and he looked back at Mullen as he moved across the room and turned the key in the lock of his office door.
“Is this happening right now?” he asked as he handed his belt over, leaning and bracing his forearms on the other man’s desk.
“It’s happening,” said Mullen evenly, taking the belt and folding it over, feeling its weight in his palm. “Why, do you want it not to?”
“No, please,” said Tiernan immediately, and when he looked back at Mullen’s face, he saw his lips were shifted into a smirk, his gaze focused on Tiernan, roving over his arse and his thighs, the bend of his back. He swallowed hard, unable to look away as Mullen shifted his grip on the belt, making sure the buckle wouldn’t hit him as he came to stand at Tiernan’s side. “Have you done this bef — ore — !”
The sound that came out of him as the belt landed against his arse was strangled and choked, and he immediately dipped his head toward his forearms, burying his face in his hands to muffle the sound. First there was just the cracking sound of leather against leather and skin, and then came the pain, a splendid burst of burning heat, and he didn’t even have time to catch his breath before the second blow came down precisely where the first had landed.
Yes. Categorically, the answer was yes: Father Mullen had done this before.
The belt came down again and again, landing in one hard line across his arse before after five blows he moved up by an inch and started a new line of striping. He was gasping and whining into his arms, couldn’t stop even if he wanted to, and his cock was hard and bouncing underneath him, wet at the head and dripping onto the rug. He kept arching his back even though he tried not to fidget on his feet, and there were tears on his cheeks as Mullen brought the belt down in one crack after another.
He was grateful he wasn’t being asked to count, didn’t think he’d be able to even if Mullen was going slower than this, and he was going fast, showed absolutely no sign of stopping as he brought his hand down solidly again and again and again.
The pain was elevating him to somewhere toward the church ceiling, up in amongst the wooden beams, and he was sobbing uncontrollably by the time Mullen actually came to a stop, riding the crescendo of sweet, burning agony, gasping, breathless.
“That was thirty-five,” said Mullen, dropping the belt onto the desk. “Stay.”
“Couldn’t move if I wanted,” whispered Tiernan, feeling his legs shake and his knees quiver underneath him with the urge to drop to his knees on the floor. His cock was so hard it actually ached, his balls half-drawn up, and he’d dribbled a lot on the floor, he knew. His arse felt like it was the fucking sun, it was radiating so much heat, and he ached to have Mullen’s fingers in him, Mullen’s cock in him, to feel the drag and burn of their hips against one another as Mullen drove into him, maybe even leave white handprints against the reddened skin from gripping at him so hard.
“Still,” Mullen said, and then touched icy cold fingertips to his arse, making him bite out a whine.
He thought it was lube at first, thought Mullen really was going to finger him, but he didn’t: he was daubing some kind of ointment on his arse cheeks, rubbing it into the raised welts up and down his arse, on the very tops of his thighs. The pain was dizzying, wholly unlike the blows of the belt itself, left a fresh peppermint tingle that made him want to squirm, and his cock didn’t even flag.
“Can I — Can I, please, Father, may I…?”
“May you?” repeated Mullen, rubbing the ointment into his arse with a calloused palm, beautifully calloused, wonderfully calloused. Tiernan wanted to suck on his fingers.
“Suck you?”
Silence.
“Fa — ”
“I heard you,” said Mullen in a low voice, for the first time sounding the slightest bit affected, his voice with a note of hoarseness in it. “What benefit will that be to your instruction?”
“Incentive,” said Tiernan. “Reward. Please, please, Father, please — ”
“On your knees,” said Mullen, and Tiernan scrambled so fast to obey he almost knocked his chin on the side of the desk.
* * *
He was descending to new lows today, and he couldn’t bring himself to feel much regret as Tiernan hurriedly loosed his belt, then unbuttoned the front of his cassock and undid it. He’d undone a cassock before, was as familiar with the garment as Marshall was himself, and the thought sent a thrill down his spine that easily defeated the vague spectre of guilt that kept attempting to make itself known.
He was on his knees, sitting up on them to spare his glowing-red arse, and as soon as he had Marshall’s boxers down he had Marshall not just in his mouth, but buried in his throat — Marshall couldn’t help the groan that came out of his throat as his hand came to rest in his hair, not gripping, not controlling, not just yet.
Tiernan swallowed him down like he’d been trained for it all his life, and when the thought came to mind that in many ways, he had been, Marshall gasped out an incoherent sound, tightening his grasp on Tiernan’s hair but not pushing his head one way or another.
Tiernan was staring up at him, tears streaking his face, expression eager, eyes wide — how often had he dreamt of this, dreamt of Marshall touching him like this, Marshall’s cock, Marshall’s hand on him?
He was trembling with want and desire, all for Marshall, and Marshall eased his hips forward, humming out a sound of pleasure at the way Tiernan moaned and swallowed around him.
Tiernan Borel truly was an enigma, he’d learned today, had depths to him Marshall hadn’t yet managed to explore, and yet Marshall’s mind was whirring with the possibilities of it, the potential. Two birds with one stone, wouldn’t it be — giving Tiernan the pleasure he wanted, the intimacy he craved, and using it to guide him toward certain better decisions, more contrition for what he oughtn’t do, more care for himself?
Tiernan was whimpering from low in his throat, and Marshall’s breath hitched in his throat as he felt him grip tighter at Marshall’s trousers, restraining himself from reaching down, touching himself.
“Are you going to come over this?” asked Marshall quietly. “My hand in your hair and my prick buried in your throat — is that going to be enough to make you — ?”
Tiernan was already letting out a strangled sound, his eyes squeezed shut, and Marshall laughed as he saw his hips shudder, felt him quake, and he began to rock his hips against Tiernan’s mouth, thrusting gently into him, feeling Tiernan moan, scramble, swallow eagerly around him for more.
His mouth was hot and wet, tight whenever he swallowed, and there was something sublime about this, something wonderful — how would Marshall ever be able to set the eucharist on this man’s tongue without thinking about how eagerly he took his cock? Why would he want to think of anything else?
When he came, Tiernan swallowed so eagerly around him one would think he craved the taste of it — or perhaps not, because he was so deep in Tiernan’s throat that he wasn’t even touching his tongue.
When he drew back, he was breathing heavily, cheeks flushed, soaked with sweat, and he looked up at Marshall with his eyes wide, leaning back on his knees and then whimpering when his arse touched his heels. Marshall thrilled with the power of it, the knowledge that he’d done that, that Tiernan would be feeling it for the week to come.
“We’ll make this a standing appointment, I think,” said Mullen quietly. “Every two weeks — not in the confessional. Here, in my office, face-to-face, or face-to-back, as the case may be.”
Tiernan’s face dropped against his thigh, and Mullen stroked through his hair as he felt him inhale, felt the way his body relaxed, melted into his legs. He hadn’t hurt him, he knew that, and he’d very much given him what he needed this evening — and he planned to take a good deal more from him.
He’d fucked members of his flock before, at other stations, but it was always the faithless young men who came to services out of obligation or to meet with familial expectations, men who didn’t really have much faith in God or the Church beyond their passing attraction to the priest — Tiernan, in stark contrast, was a real man of faith.
“Let’s talk about how you’ll make time for yourself in the meantime,” said Marshall softly. “Want to stand?”
“No,” said Tiernan, and Marshall’s cheeks actually burned at the realisation that he didn’t want to stand, that he wanted to stay… “Here, can I stay… Can I kneel, Father? Do this kneeling?”
Marshall broke away from him for a moment, sinking into the chair behind his desk, but he didn’t refuse, let Tiernan rest on his knees with his face pressed into Marshall’s thighs, Marshall’s fingers carding gently through his hair.
“You’re very good, Tiernan,” he said quietly, and Tiernan heaved in a sharp inhalation, clutching at him tightly. “Tell me you understand.”
“Yes, Father,” whispered Tiernan. “Yes, I understand.”
“Good lad,” said Marshall lowly, and stroked up and down Tiernan’s neck as he haltingly listed the items on his schedule, his intended working hours, and Marshall worked to create windows of free time in the midst of it all.
He liked to be beaten too much for it to be saved as merely a punishment, and besides, Marshall wanted to know how he responded to a bare-handed beating, how he responded to a cane, to other forms of pain — to hot wax, to denial, to having his hair pulled, to being treated roughly.
He couldn’t wait to find out more.
“Thank you, Father,” Tiernan mumbled, half-asleep after fifteen minutes of this, and Marshall didn’t have it in him, really, to push him away. He let Tiernan doze in his place, felt him really, actually relax in a way he knew he never ordinarily did, and put himself to work at his own paperwork in the meantime.
Working with Tiernan melted against his lap like a sleeping cat was an impossible luxury, a wonderful hedonism. He wondered, anticipation rippling under his skin, what further indulgences would come from this, and how much Tiernan would enjoy them as they progressed.
FIN.
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