Page 87 of Saint
* * *
The next dayis no better. Prayers come early, and lectio divina is strictly observed either in one’s cell or in the library, and the squarish layout of the abbey makes it difficult to disguise where you’re going. Plus in all the silence, there’s no way to pull Elijah to the side and demand he plot a sex-heist with me.
After a breakfast of eggs and thick slabs of toast, Elijah and I are led by Father Firebeard to the master brewer, a pleasant, red-cheeked man named Oisín, and in between the nonstop trips back to the church to sing the little hours, we are given a full tour of the brewery and allowed to sample the very good beer.
“We only make two beers here,” Oisín explains as he cracks open a bottle right there next to one of the big copper kettles. “A blonde ale and a dark ale, same as they made here for centuries.”
Elijah and I each accept a small tasting glass of the blonde, and I sip the beer while Oisín explains the unique position St. Columba’s is in. The beer is extremely popular with the locals, and indeed, the majority of the abbey’s sales are to the nearby pubs and bars, but it’s growing in popularity with beer enthusiasts and there’s lots of international interest.
“But it’s hard to expand,” Oisín explains as he opens a bottle of the dark ale for us. It’s the same ale we had last night for dinner, but neither of us turn down a glass of it now, because it’s so damn good. With hints of dried fruit and chocolate, it tastes a little like Christmas. “The Trappist daily routine isn’t favorable to scaling up production, you see, and the monks here are aging faster than younger men are signing up. I’m not sure if there will even be a St. Columba’s at all in thirty years, and neither is the abbot. Which makes it hard to invest in the equipment to brew more beer.”
“But surely it would still be worth it in the short-term?” I ask. My money brain is whirring as I look down the short row of kettles and pipes. “There’s the physical space here to double production, and if demand is like you say, then I have to imagine there’s enough coming in to justify hiring two or three more laypeople as brewers. They wouldn’t be constrained by the prayer schedule, but the monks could still supervise and keep the beer a certifiable Trappist product.”
Oisín tips his glass to me. “You’re speaking my very own thoughts, Brother Patrick, and thoughts that I’ve told the abbot many times. But I think he worries about sinking too much into the future when the present already looks uncertain. But I think if there were a young monk like you here to help, to push the abbey into the future, then perhaps he might change his mind.”
* * *
Elijahand I once again go to bed without having kissed or even spoken privately, and when I wake up Wednesday with a swollen cock and an aching chest, I know I won’t be able to last another day. I don’t care if we fuck or not—okay, well, I care alittle—but I just need to be alone with him. To hold his hand and kiss him.
After breakfast, I follow Father Finbarr to the library, where he works as the abbey librarian, mostly shipping off books borrowed through interlibrary loans and receiving loans which are coming back to the library.
“If you don’t have any plans for me this morning, I wondered if I might explore a little? Maybe poke around the graveyard or take the paths along the cliffs?”
Father Finbarr blinks behind his glasses, as if it truly hadn’t occurred to him that I would want to see the outdoors, but then he smiles the first smile I’ve seen on him yet. “Oh yes, you should do that. God’s glory is present in all of his creation, but especially here at St. Columba’s, I think. In fact, our most recent postulant applied precisely because of this location. But terce...”
I am prepared for this. I hold up my breviary. “I’ll pray on my own, of course, if the circumstance arises.”
“Wonderful!” he says, like he’s never heard of such ingenuity, and then with another smile, he turns back to his pile of returned books. “We shall see you at lunch then?”
Trying to hide my excitement, I agree and promise to be back for lunch, and then I go to find Elijah.
It’s only a few hours that I’ve stolen for us, but they are our hours, and I plan to make very good use of them.
46
“And the scapular?”Elijah asks. He’s sitting against the trunk of one of the few trees at the abbey, and the only tree that looks like an actual tree and not a wind-gnarled bush older than God. It’s sunny today—or sunny-ish—and warm enough that we’ve taken off our shoes to feel the soft graveyard grass on our toes.
The yew we’re sitting underneath is tucked behind a sharp slope inside the graveyard—sharp enough that there are old, lichen-covered stairs set into the earth in order to navigate it. Here the graveyard levels off for a bit and then ends with a low stone fence. The fence is broken by gate posts which no longer have a gate.
Because the best views are from the cliffs, I’ve made the gamble that we’d have some privacy from visitors, and it was a good gamble. We haven’t seen another soul since we came down here, and since we’re tucked against the far side of the tree and also against the slope, we can’t be seen unless someone literally climbs down the stone steps and circles the corded trunk we’re sitting by.
We are in our own little world, and I’ve already pounced on Elijah once, not even waiting for him to sit before I fell to my knees and tore his pants open to take him in my mouth. And now he’s sitting with hooded eyes and a smiling mouth, his pants still unbuttoned and his feet bare and his long fingers curled loosely around his notebook.
“You really want to ask me about the particulars of my habit now?” I say as I stroke the smooth knot of his ankle below the hem of his trousers.
He gives a short laugh, low and rich. “Shouldn’t I at least pretend to be working while we’re out here?”
I lean down to kiss his ankle. “As you wish,” I murmur against his skin. “What do you want to know?”
“Are they like the brown ones we were given as kids?”
“Sort of,” I say, trailing my fingertips under the cuff of his trousers and stroking his calf. “The monastic scapular came first—it started as a sort of work apron for brothers and sisters and then eventually became part of the habit. Over time, oblates and tertiaries began wearing smaller versions of the scapular to signal their devotion to the orders they were pledged to, and thenthosescapulars turned into the devotional scapulars laypeople wear today.”
He shivers as I gently scrape my fingernails down his leg and then meet their progress with my mouth. “Wasn’t there something about wearing them? The devotional scapulars?” he asks. “Like if you died wearing one, you wouldn’t go to hell?”
“Wearing one of the devotional scapulars is an act of faith,” I say, settling up on my knees and sizing up the man in front of me. An unsatisfied erection makes an obscene tent in the front of my own scapular right now. “The act itself is worship, is devotion, and it’s that continuing act of worship that sanctifies the wearer of the scapular. But that’s a promise specific to the Brown Scapular, and not necessarily the case with the monastic apron. Mine more so is a reminder of my obedience, both to my order and to God.” I smile at Elijah. “I like to steal a little of the devotional scapular theology for myself though. I like to imagine that it’s a way for me to feel my devotion in front of me and behind me.” I take his hand, the one holding his pen, and press it to my chest. “To feel it on either side of my heart.”
The ocean is quieter here, more shush than roar, and so I can hear the catch in his breath as my heart pounds against his palm. And then he’s reaching for me, and somehow we end up tangled together on the ground, him on top and yanking up my habit, and me on the bottom, trying to kiss him and wrap my legs around his waist.
