The King

  raw pain. Unshed tears scalded his eyes, and his fingers held on to a pillow with a death grip.

  “You should be a sadist,” Kingsley said between gritted teeth. “I think getting shot hurt less.”

  Anita paused and wiped sweat from his forehead. Her touch was welcome and motherly, which made him feel a little guilty about his massive erection hidden under the blanket.

  “You’ll feel like a new man when I’m done with you, I promise. Do you need to stop for the day?”

  Kingsley shook his head.

  “No,” he said, panting. “You said you’ll make me feel like a new man. Then, make me feel like a new man.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you have a very high tolerance for pain?” Anita asked.

  “Yes. A priest I used to date,” he said. Anita gave him the exact look he expected her to give him.

  Anita returned to her work, and Kingsley mentally fired Sam in ten different ways for talking him into this. But he’d come home from Rome yesterday with a stiff back and tightness in his chest so severe he couldn’t take a full breath. Sam had called Anita, the massaging miracle worker, and gotten him an emergency appointment.

  Not even getting fucked raw by Søren had hurt this badly. He could come any second now.

  “Breathe,” Anita ordered, and Kingsley did as commanded. He breathed, she massaged, and every nerve in his body screamed.

  The pain suffused him. He was awash in pain, bathing in pain, drinking in pain, breathing in pain. The pain from candle wax-play was something like this sort of steady persistent agony. When was the last time he’d felt the wax? With Søren, of course. They’d gotten wrought-iron candleholders out of storage at the school and brought them to the hermitage for extra light to play and read by. One cold quiet night, Søren had ordered Kingsley on to his stomach on the cot and tied his wrists and ankles to each bed leg. For hours Søren had sat at his hip and dripped the wax on him, burning him one drop at a time. No matter how Kingsley had panted, how he groaned, how he gasped and winced, Søren never let up. As Søren had scalded him with the wax, he’d asked Kingsley questions.

  What do you want to do with your life?

  Where do you want to go?

  What do you dream about?

  What do you love?

  What do you hate?

  And he’d answered the questions all truthfully. I want to spend my life with you.

  I want to go where you go.

  I dream of you.

  I love sex.

  I love pain.

  I love you.

  I hate the nights I spend without you.

  How small his world was back then. It had been the size of that hermitage. What if his sister, Marie-Laure, had never come to St. Ignatius? Would Kingsley’s world still be that small? He would have willingly, joyfully and blindly devoted himself to Søren. He would have gone where Søren had gone, done what Søren had ordered, slept where Søren told him to sleep, eaten what Søren told him to eat and died by his own hand if Søren had decreed it. Was it possible that it was for the best Kingsley had gotten away from Søren for a few years? Was it possible leaving and going out on his own had been the right thing to do? Søren certainly seemed happier now than he did in high school. Maybe being apart from him had been good for Søren, too, although it rankled to entertain the very idea that Søren had been better off without him. Kingsley wondered…what would he answer now if asked those same questions?

  I want to build a kingdom for our kind and keep us all safe.

  I want to go to the Caribbean. I haven’t been there yet. Trinidad, Dominican Republic, Haiti.

  At night I dream about being choked, being shot. But during the day, when I’m awake, I dream about finding someone to share my life with and my kingdom with.

  I love sex. I love women. I love men. I love this city. I love music. I love my house. I love Søren still. Always.

  I hate…

  What did he hate these days? Oh, he knew.

  I hate people like Fuller, which is why I’m taking his church from him.

  Very different answers from when he was a teenager. Better answers.

  Kingsley would never know for certain what would have happened if they’d stayed together. The past was a corpse. He should stop trying to dig it up and reanimate it. He’d been clinging to it for years now because he had nothing else to hold on to. But now he had a vision, a dream, a hope for the future. And no matter what happened, he would see it come to life. Whatever it took.

  Anita finished her work on his scar. He rolled on to his stomach, and she spent the next hour working the soreness out of his neck and shoulders. When she finished, she laid a gentle hand on the crown of his head.

  “Kingsley, can you take a deep breath for me?” Anita asked, her words penetrating his thoughts.

  He rolled on to his back, arched his shoulders and inhaled.

  “Again?”

  He breathed in again. His lungs expanded, his chest swelled and he took the deepest breath of his life.

  And it didn’t hurt.

  “Dieu, merci…” He sighed and smiled.

  “You feel better?” Anita asked.

  “Like a new man.”

  Anita left him alone to dress. He said he would have Sam call and set up another appointment. Anita hugged him— hugged him?—goodbye and told him to enjoy the day, go for a walk, breathe fresh air.

  He found a pay phone and dialed a number.

  “Test results?” Søren asked as soon as Kingsley spoke. “Not yet,” he said. “I find out tomorrow.”

  “Do you want me to be with you?”

  “No,” Kingsley said. “I think I need to do this alone.”

  He didn’t want to be alone, but if the results weren’t what he wanted, Søren wouldn’t have to see him fall apart.

  “I can respect that,” Søren said. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call, then?”

  “I wanted to tell you I went to Rome.”

  “So that’s where you disappeared to. Sam wouldn’t tell me when I called.”

  “She’s overprotective,” Kingsley said, smiling to himself. He liked that Sam didn’t tell Søren where he was. The woman wasn’t afraid to annoy Søren. He should give her a raise. “I met your friend Magdalena.”

  “What did you think of her?”

  “She was very mean to me,” Kingsley said, an understatement. She’d taught him types of kink he’d never known existed, lectured him on consent and safe kink practice and forced him to practice with a whip until he, too, could split a business card in half. He wished he could have stayed longer.

  “I warned you about her,” Søren said, laughing. “I’m glad you’re home.”

  “Did you miss me?”

  “I missed being mean to you.”

  “About that…” Kingsley said. “Are you busy today?”

  “Why?”

  “Do you want to beat me?”

  “Kingsley, haven’t we had this talk?”

  “Beat me in football,” he said. “I mean, do you want to play football with me again? Pardonnez-moi…soccer.” He felt unreasonably stupid right now, like a nervous teenager asking the most popular girl in school on a date. He’d never done that. He’d skipped the dating and gone right to the fucking. “You’re busy, aren’t you? And—”

  “Kingsley.”

  “Never mind. I forget you have a job.”

  “Kingsley. Focus.”

  “Quoi?”

  “Yes. Come to my church,” Søren said, and Kingsley was certain he could hear Søren smiling. “Sacred Heart in Wakefield. Be there at five.”

  “So, you do want to play with me?” Kingsley asked.

  He heard Søren softly laugh. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Still smiling, Kingsley hung up and headed back to his town house to change clothes. He hadn’t seen Sacred Heart yet. He’d been waiting for an invitation, not wanting to force himself into Søren’s world. Now he found himself unexpectedly nervous. What if
she was there? The new love? The Virgin Queen? Eleanor Louise Schreiber, thief of cars and hearts.

  “So, how was it?” Sam asked as Kingsley walked into his office. “Did Anita work her magic?”

  “I thought she was going to kill me. I’ve never been in so much pain in my life. And I’ve been shot four times.”

  “So…”

  “See if she can get me in again this week.”

  “I told you she was a miracle worker,” Sam said.

  “Speaking of miracles, I have to run. I have a date with a priest to play football.”

  “Real football or fake European football?”

  “Fake European football.”

  “Soccer,” she said, with a wink and a finger point. “Something came for you while you were out.”

  She handed him a padded envelope with his name on it and nothing else.

  “Where did this come from?” Kingsley asked.

  “Courier dropped it off. Why?”

  “No reason,” he said. He ripped the envelope open. A minicassette tape slid out into his hand.

  He looked at Sam. She shook her head in confusion. Kingsley walked around his desk, pulled out his tape player and stuck the tape in.

  When he hit Play he heard his own voice speaking.

  “Friend of a friend.”

  “You have friends who are friends with fifteen-year-old girls?”

  The other voice on the tape belonged to Robert Dixon. The tape continued.

  “I have interesting friends.”

  “I didn’t know you had any friends, Edge.”

  “Kingsley? What is this?” Sam asked. He raised his hand to silence her.

  “I put my job on the line helping a fifteen-year-old girl get out of going to juvie for stealing cars, I want to know the story.”

  “Fine. Old friend of mine is a Catholic priest now. Her priest. He asked me to help her. I owe him a big favor. This is the favor.”

  “You’re friends with a priest?”

  “Trust me, no one is more shocked by that than I am.”

  “Is he fucking her? The priest?”

  “What?”

  “It’s all over the papers,” Dixon said. “Every damn day there’s a new story about a Catholic priest fucking some kid. Boston’s exploding. Phillie, Detroit, Chicago… I get caught helping a priest with the underage girl he’s fucking and—”

  “He’s not fucking her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m fucking her.”

  Kingsley shut off the tape.

  Sam stared at him.

  “I’m not fucking a fifteen-year-old girl, Sam,” he said. “But—”

  “That was a lie. I had to lie.”

  “Who is that on the tape with you?”

  “A DA. I was bribing him to help someone.”

  “He recorded you. He’s going to have copies of that.” Kingsley tapped the envelope. “Many copies.” “King, you’re confessing to committing statutory rape.” “And bribing a public official, too. Don’t forget that.” “Did you fuck her?”

  “No, of course not. I’ve never met her.”

  “Then why did you confess—”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’ve pissed someone off.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s a long list of suspects.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing tonight,” he said. “I’ll have a talk with Mr. Dixon tomorrow.”

  “Why’s he threatening you?”

  Kingsley shook his head.

  “No idea. I know enough about him to ruin his career and his marriage. It might not be him.”

  “Then who—”

  “I don’t know. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m worried,” she said, looking stricken.

  Kingsley walked up to her, put his hands on her face and stared into her eyes.

  “Sam, listen to me. You think this is the first time something like this has happened to me? This is nothing compared to what I’ve handled before. This is what I do. This is the job.”

  Sam met his eyes. He saw fear in them, real fear.

  “You really didn’t have sex with a fifteen-year-old, did you?” Sam asked.

  “I didn’t even fuck fifteen-year-old girls when I was fifteen. Sixteen—bare minimum.”

  Sam laughed, and Kingsley tapped her under the chin.

  “Okay,” she said. “I trust you.”

  “I have to go. No worrying.”

  He kissed her on the forehead and left her in his office. He locked up the tape, changed clothes and by five o’clock he’d pulled into the parking lot of Sacred Heart. Kingsley Edge at a Catholic Church. He wasn’t sure God existed, but if He did, He had a fucking sick sense of humor.

  Since March, Søren’s life as a priest had been something only theoretical to Kingsley. He’d seen the collar, the clerics, but had never seen him at work. Every Sunday he thought of Søren saying Mass in this little town. Did they have any idea who their pastor was? What he was? What he’d given up so he could say Mass in this little town to these little people who had no inkling their priest had walked away from wealth and power to serve them? Of course not, and that’s how Søren wanted it. His money was tainted by his father. Power was too easily abused, and Søren’s father was proof of that. As Kingsley stared at the church, a Romanesque pile of stone and stained glass, Kingsley had to wonder…

  Had Søren become a priest because he loved God, the Father?

  Or had he become a priest because he hated his own father?

  Or both?

  “Good. You’re here,” Søren said. He had emerged from a side door of the church into the parking lot and was striding toward Kingsley. He had on black track pants and a black T-shirt. “We’re going to be late.”

  “Late for football?”

  “Late for practice.”

  “Practice?” Kingsley asked as they headed down a side street. “I thought we were playing. Just you and I.”

  “You’re too good. You need to be on a team.” Søren pointed ahead of them to a soccer field behind a small school. He saw about twenty-five people milling about on the field, kicking balls back and forth. Most of them looked to be teenagers— boys and a few