Pull yourself together, I admonish myself. You are His son, you can do this, surely. You’ve done far more difficult things.
“Judas, please be careful,” I end up saying at last. “I don’t wish to see you hurt.” Wow, now I sound like his mother. Or an over-protective nanny. Smooth move there. Quick, change the subject.
“Did you have any trouble with the local officials? All the permits are in order, yes? No sense in being taken down for some minor technicality, after all. We’re too close to the end now.” Yes, talk business, nothing personal.
He brushes aside my questions even as he brushes back the fair hair that overhangs his temple, easily and casually. Why do his movements fill me with an inner fire such as I’ve never felt before? Concentrate, please, concentrate. On his words. Not his body. “You’re the one he wants, not me,” Judas is saying, “He’s just fucking with me because it amuses him. And he hates the idea I won’t fawn over him, or give in to his laughable attempts at seduction by fucking him.” I wince involuntarily. I don’t know if it’s from the words themselves, or the image they involuntarily conjure. I do know what Lucifer is capable of, after all—I should by now. Been doing this for two thousand years plus.
“Have faith, I won’t give in to his temptations,” I vow. Even to myself, my words sound lame.
It’s time I want, time that I need—and time I don’t have. Why does it seem to be kaleidoscoping about us so, blurring everything, giving it all a distorted sense of reality, making it hard to know what truly is, what has been, and what will be?
Why does everything seem to be assuming a breathtaking speed, just when I wish to slow it down? What is it I’m so afraid of?
“Watch out for Kaplan,” he’s saying. Why is he looking at me that way? What is he thinking? And what did I miss?
“Kaplan?” I try to place the name.
“Local dick. The kind that likes to remind you that being gay is still a crime in a lot of places.”
Why are my cheeks burning? Is there no safe topic of conversation? “It’s the Kaplans of the world that we fight,” I remind him, struggling to focus, “fight against, that is…against just such ridiculous prejudices my Father does not wish to continue to flourish. Any longer.”
He takes a step closer. Breathing seems to be becoming optional. “Jesus…” I raise my hand to his pale cheek, cup it softly. A soft shiver runs through his frame. What is he thinking? What am I thinking? Am I thinking? Father, please, tell me what is this I feel, what must I do…
“Master!”
The spell is broken. I can feel Judas’ disappointment in me, once again, as he swears under his breath and moves away from me, leaving my hand flopping in space. I pull myself together as best I can, turn to face the newcomer. “Simon,” I greet him with a smile. “Is all well?”
“Yes, but it’s almost time,” he says, grinning at me most ingenuously. Like the child he is sometimes. “Mary M sent me to find you. She said she thought you were here.”
This only produces a longer string of oaths from Judas. Kyrie eleison, I sigh to myself. Oh my little firecracker, how easily he’s set off—but mostly he is noise and smoke. He means no harm, and yet he manages to hide the best part of himself from everyone else. Don’t ask me why. I do not claim to understand that man. My life would be so much easier if he and Mary would get along. As well as he and the other apostles.
“Thank you, Simon, I’m coming.” He envelops me in a great bearlike hug, before returning to the building behind us. I can’t afford to linger now, and perhaps it’s wisest that I don’t.
I have to go in now. Yes, I truly do. Now. Go. In.
But before I do…I move toward my irritable Judas without pausing to think about what I’m doing, impelled by something I don’t truly understand. Something inside of me is urging me, and I find I cannot do other than obey…I put my hands on either side of his lovely face, pull him toward me and…
…and I lock our lips together in a kiss. Not just any kiss, but the kiss to end all kisses. Not that I’ve not kissed Judas before, I have, and others as well. But this is different and I very well know it. My lips are afire from this kiss, and I suspect his are as well. He’s trembling in my grasp.
And as quickly as I began it, I end it. And coward that I am, I draw back from him, noting the very confused expression in his beautiful eyes. “I have to go,” I whisper, and before he has a chance to react, I’m safe within the confines of the tent once more, trying to hide the fact I’m trembling from head to foot.