The Hot Priest Ch. 03

CHAPTER 3

Bishop Moretti sat in his study. He hadn't touched the photographs inside the envelope locked away in the bottom drawer of his desk since he'd printed them. But they were still there. Six of them. Glossy. Cruel. Perfect.

Gianluca, coming out of the sea. Naked.

Some solitary beach, probably in the south. The water, turquoise, the sky blue, the beach white with heat. And Gianluca, obviously unaware, simply walking out of the waves, water streaming down his body, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, his skin glowing.

The photographs were taken from a distance, but every detail was visible: the breadth of his shoulders, the narrowness of his waist, the curve of his back, the way his buttocks tightened as he walked, the... member between his legs. Moretti had stared far longer than a man of God should. He'd studied it with shameful fascination, trying to come to a conclusion about whether the young priest was erect. He must have been, he'd thought. It didn't make sense otherwise. Yet, just out of the cold water... He couldn't be. It was just his natural size.

Moretti had crossed himself before looking away.

He had deleted the anonymous email containing the photographs, along with its ominous subject line: "your hot priest of Rome." But not before he'd printed two sets of them. The first, he'd kept in his drawer. He'd placed the second in a manila envelope and sent it to Naples by courier, express.

To Monsignor Ettore Ricci.

Less than seven hours later, the phone rang.

"Ettore."

"Buonasera Angelo. I have received the envelope."

Ricci's voice was as calm as ever.

"What do we do?" Moretti asked.

"Nothing. These were taken without his consent. He was alone. He went for a swim. There is nothing in them that violates Church teaching."

"He's naked, Ettore."

"He's a man. Men swim naked. Especially in the south."

"Not priests."

"Don't they?"

"That's not the issue."

"Then what is the issue?"

"His cock, God forgive me. Visible."

"That's God's work."

"Please, Ettore. Don't pretend you don't understand."

"I understand perfectly, Angelo. He's already made enemies. But he's simply as God made him. And he's alone on a remote beach where no one was supposed to be watching."

"Yet, someone was."

"And I'm going to find out who."

"What if this leaks before you do?"

"It won't. It would be all over the internet already if that someone wanted it public."

"Yes. I thought about that too. He probably wants to threaten us."

"He, or she, sent them to you, Angelo. Not me."

"Are you serious? Like you are not involved?"

"Stop panicking, Angelo. Have faith. They're only probing. There is no threat, at least for now. They want us to react. That's exactly why we'll do nothing. Destroy the evidence. This never happened."

Moretti exhaled. That was Ricci's gift: the ability to absorb panic and return certainty.

"Should we inform Gianluca?"

"No. There's no need to distract him."

"Distract him? From swimming naked in the sea?"

"He's doing important work even now, Angelo. His church is full. People are returning. People go there for the first time in their lives."

"Not out of piety."

"They go. That is what matters. Piety will come."

"He needs to be more careful. I will speak to him."

"If you believe that's what you have to do. But Angelo..."

"Tell me."

"Pray for him. He's special. You know that as well as I do."

Moretti closed his eyes.

"I do."

"Then let me handle it my way."

And the line went dead.

Ricci exhaled, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He had bought enough time to deal with this. Yet, sounding calm and reassuring on the phone was one thing. Knowing the implications of what had just happened was another. The photographs in his hands meant someone was watching. Searching for something, probably.

Of course, his secret was safe. There were only two people in the world who knew the truth, and he was one of them. His wife was the second. And she was many things, but crazy wasn't among them.

Yet, seek and you shall find, Jesus had said. Ricci just had to seek out the seeker first. The photographer would be a good start, he thought, looking at the pictures spread on his desk.

Gianluca.

God's messenger.

His chest, his stomach, his legs, his arm raised to push his hair back from his face. A pagan god, like the ones the Church had spent two thousand years killing, wearing a collar and hearing confessions. Healing. As he had healed Magdalena, his wife.

She'd been in a coma for more than two years, and one day she just opened her eyes and said "Ettore?" while he was crying next to her bed. And less than a year after that she gave birth to their only child, their daughter, the little angel that brought light back into their lives.

All thanks to that little pagan god, chosen by God Himself to do His bidding on earth.

Monsignor Ricci had taken him under his wing ever since. He took him into his house, financed his education, arranged his acceptance into the seminary, introduced him to the right people. He did everything that needed to be done. Young Gianluca had the face, the zeal, the charisma. And more than everything he had love: he didn't only love God. He loved His children, with all their ugliness and imperfections. All of them. He had that particular quality of making people feel seen, heard, understood. He lit up dark places simply by being there.

Ricci had only needed to point him in the right direction and step back: even a conservative like Moretti could tell that Gianluca was destined for greatness.

What Moretti still couldn't tell, however, was if the young priest was hard or not in that photo. That's what he was thinking as he walked toward Santa Maria della Pietà in the afternoon heat, his collar damp, his mind where it had no business being.

As if Rome in July at three p.m. wasn't already its own kind of punishment. As if the turquoise water and the white beach and Gianluca walking out of the sea weren't enough. No. He had to be naked. And he had to be gifted. Beyond gifted. Truly loved by God to be given that thing between his legs...

He stopped that thought as he walked through the small church's side entrance. Thank God, it was cooler than the outside. And empty, as Moretti had expected for a Wednesday afternoon with no confessions scheduled and no tourists crazy enough to defy the heat.

Good. What he had to say to the young priest couldn't be overheard.

Moretti stood in the nave and waited, his eyes on the altar. The gold leaf. The baroque ceiling. The confessional standing dark in the corner.

Then he heard the water running and walked toward it.

"Nico?" was heard from the door in the sacristy's far wall, slightly ajar.

Moretti said nothing, gathering his thoughts.

Then the door swung open and Gianluca sprang out, water still tracing lines down his chest and stomach, moving the way you move when you think you've heard someone where no one should be.

He stopped dead when he saw his bishop standing right there. The two men looked at each other, head to toe. And Moretti got his answer. Definitively and irrevocably.

Santo Cristo.

He wasn't. It was just his natural size, indeed.

"Your Excellency," Gianluca said, his hand moving to cover himself. "Forgive me. I thought it was my sacristan."

"And if it were, you'd receive him like this?" Moretti asked back, trying to take his eyes away from what he was seeing.

"Excellency... I wasn't expecting you."

"That's not what I asked," Moretti insisted in his firmest voice. Yet the speech he'd prepared on the walk over had dissolved completely. He'd decided to make it general, careful, about public perception and the responsibilities that came with visibility. Now, it was gone.

"Give me a moment," Gianluca said, reaching back through the shower's door for a towel. "I'll get dressed."

"That won't be necessary. It's actually better that I have found you like... this. This is exactly what I came to talk to you about."

Gianluca stared at Moretti's face, genuinely bewildered.

"This... Nakedness."

"Excellency?"

"Photographs have surfaced. You. Naked on a beach."

"What?"

"You realize that we can't tolerate a nudist priest. Especially if he's named the 'hot priest of Rome' by the public."

"I was just taking a shower..."

"I'm not talking about now."

"Of course. Well, sometimes I swim naked. It makes me feel... God's embrace. His presence. But only at secluded beaches. With no one around. Does that concern the Church?"

"Everything concerns the Church when it comes to you, figlio. Other priest aren't called 'landmarks of Rome' by gay magazines. Nor do they reside in private apartments in the heart of the city."

Gianluca said nothing. He just stood there, face flushed, towel in hand, water still running down his chest. He draped his towel over his shoulder and crossed his arms over his chest. Moretti's eyes moved downward, involuntarily, before moving back up.

"You seem troubled, Excellency," Gianluca said, calmer now.

"I am, my son. Someone is after you. You're stirring too much attention. You don't want that any more than we do."

"Our Lord works in mysterious ways, Excellency."

"The Lord is usually too busy, my son. We can only be careful about what we do. We don't need to provoke Him."

"Provoke? Gianluca said, taking one step toward his bishop. "Do you find male bodies provoking, Excellency?"

Moretti took a step back. Then another.

"I came here to warn you," he said, his voice thinner than he wanted it to be.

"Then I am grateful," Gianluca said, taking another step, the towel still hanging on his shoulder, everything below it bare. He was close enough now that Moretti could almost smell the young priest.

"Just be more careful," Moretti managed. "Is that too hard?"

Gianluca smiled, taking a look downward, before facing Moretti again.

"No, it's not," he shrugged.

Moretti's mouth opened. And closed.

If that wasn't an innuendo, then nothing was. Yet, it'd been so subtle that Moretti couldn't openly confront Gianluca about it.

"Good... Then, that will be all. Go in peace," Moretti said, dismissing the young priest.

But Gianluca didn't move.

"I am careful, Excellency," he said, sounding strangely determined. "Someone took those pictures without my permission. It wasn't my fault."

"I told you I came here to warn you, my son. Offer you my advice. Not to accuse you. Or judge you."

"Judge not, lest ye be judged," Gianluca said, crossing himself. Just as naked as before.

"We are the Church, figlio. We are always being judged."

"Yes. Of course we are. Forgive me, Padre."

And with that, Gianluca knelt before his bishop. Moretti's hand extended by reflex and Gianluca kissed his episcopal ring, as he was supposed to do. Then he kissed again, in a somewhat different way. Moretti's hand trembled. He tried to pull it back but Gianluca held it there.

"Anything else?" he asked, on his knees, looking up at Moretti.

Something inside the bishop screamed but he ignored it.

"No" he heard his voice speaking. "Go in peace. Go get dressed in peace."

He shook his head. Had he really said that?

Regardless, Gianluca rose smoothly and opened his arms. The towel slipped from his shoulder and fell to the floor. And before Moretti could protest, the young priest was embracing him. Naked. Warm. Unashamed. It was meant to be the kiss of peace between brothers in Christ, yet nothing about it felt innocent. Gianluca pressed his bare chest against the bishop's cassock, arms wrapping around him with gentle strength.

Moretti felt it all: the lingering heat of the shower on Gianluca's skin, the hard ridges of muscle, the unmistakable presence of a thick, young cock resting against his lower belly.

Gianluca kissed him once on the left cheek, then the right, slow and respectful.

Anything but respectful.

"Peace be with you, Excellency," he whispered. And he was hard.

No. Moretti must have imagined that. Gianluca just kissed him on both cheeks, the traditional way, as he was supposed to do. His whole body was simply imagining things. But Gianluca tightened his hug and Moretti felt himself hardening.

He pushed the young priest back and crossed himself.

"Don't worry, Excellency," Gianluca said. "These things happen sometimes."

"What things?"

Gianluca looked down at himself, drawing Moretti's eyes where he was looking. What hung between Gianluca's legs had hardened too. It had grown. And it had risen. It pointed upwards now, curved in a way that made Gianluca look dangerously close to a Satyr.

Moretti wished he'd never seen those obscene statues with the exaggerated erections.

"I'll pray for you, my son," he finally said, gathering what was left of his dignity.

"I pray for you every night, Excellency," Gianluca answered, not even bothering to pick up his towel from the ground. Moretti made a move to pick it up himself, and offer it to the young priest. Christ himself washed His apostle's feet, he thought. And the young priest needed to be taught some modesty.

He bent down for the damp fabric, ready to hand it over. But as he lifted it, his face came level with the young priest's hips.

And there it was.

That impossible, obscene, God-given thing, inches from his eyes. Thick and veined. Curved upward in a proud arc. Glistening and swaying slightly with Gianluca's breathing.

Moretti froze.

He could see every detail. The weight of it. The way it leaned toward him, almost inviting. The faint, maddening scent of soap, clean skin, and something darker underneath.

Lord, have mercy.

The words never left his mouth but his heart hammered violently. If Gianluca shifted even an inch, that thing would brush against his cheek.

Gianluca didn't move. He simply stood there, waiting. Probably. But he didn't move. Thank God.

This is a test, Moretti told himself.God is testing me.

He knew it was. But he couldn't stop staring. He forced himself to breathe, however. He closed his eyes. And blindly, he rose and held the towel upward.

"Take it," he said.

Gianluca did, without a word.

And Moretti fled the sacristy.

He pushed through the main doors of Santa Maria della Pietà as fast as he could and descended the sun-baked stone stairs, desperate for air. The Roman afternoon heat slammed into him like judgment, but he almost welcomed it.

But halfway down, two young women were walking up. Tourists, barely dressed, with their typical backpacks, and tiny shorts, and cropped tops, casual and carefree, laughing about something.

"Are you sure this is the right church?" one asked, in an American accent.

"Yes, I'm positive," her friend replied, checking her phone. "He must be here. It says so in the comments."

Moretti walked past them without stopping. Their excited voices followed him down the stairs.

This was what Santa Maria della Pietà was becoming under Gianluca's presence: confessions that dripped with lust, bishops on their knees inches from temptation, half-naked American girls climbing its sacred steps just to see and be seen by a man.

And what if they'd been there five minutes earlier? What if they'd entered the sacristy instead of him?

The images flooded Moretti's mind unbidden: the two girls on their knees before Gianluca, eyes wide with shock and hunger as that thick, curved cock swayed before their faces. Their mouths worshipping him, stretching around his size, tongues tracing every vein, hands touching every muscle, every plane, every ridge on his body. Gianluca taking them one after the other. Over and over. Stretching them open. Breaking them apart. Making them sob and beg and scream his name.

Moretti shook his head violently and crossed himself.

But then another thought, even more blasphemous, lit up in his mind:

If he fucked them with that thing... at least they'd start believing in God.