Exodus 20:3

by Freydís Moon

You’re like a coyote, she’d said to him once. Halfway to a wolf but still something else.

The what if, the potential threat, the worrisome undercurrent of being self-built.

For the most part, Diego got a good read on people. Like his own version of animal instinct—prey drive, primal understanding, wild perception—he usually dug to the root of someone within the first two interactions. Good, bad, somewhere in-between. Good enough to stick around and find out more, bad enough to turn and run, somewhere in the middle: hackles raised, teeth bared, standing his ground. Ariel gave him nothing though. Diego had no sense of who he might be or might’ve been.

The urge to shrink came and went, replaced by fervent defiance. To be seen, to be touched—these were desires he rarely entertained.

his weakest, he’d prayed; at his strongest, he’d prayed, too, but no one had ever made themself known. Not a devil, not a goddess, not the God. Diego had spent his life filling the silence with his own voice, rasping his vocal cords with cayenne and tequila and hormones until he finally recognized the sound.

Faith was prescriptive, a placebo. Something brandished like a weapon in one breath and offered like a blanket in the next.

Against the wall, sunlight pulled Ariel’s shadow upright. The dark patch spread outward, winglike and beastly, and when Ariel lifted his arm, raking his hand through damp hair, Diego swore the shadow bent, quivering like a nightmare.

Diego feared him like a night terror, something he knew he could wake from if he tried.

Desire had never knocked him the fuck out before, but he found himself apprehended—by Ariel, faith, belief in something, in anything. And he wanted—a stranger, a God, to believe.

“That’s what we come here for. Land of milk and honey, no?” Amber eyes flicked around his face. “No,” Ariel whispered, shaking his head. “Just the land someone took.

“I doubt God would take issue with what you do or don’t do with your body. The Bible was written by men—torn limb from limb and poorly sutured by the kings of Mysia. As much as I cherish the Gospel, it isn’t exactly godly anymore. Holy, yes. Important, yes. Inspirational, yes. But it’s the Bible that condemns promiscuity. Not God.”

“Uh-huh. And rebuilding this church is your idea? Restoring faith?” “Yes, and providing access.” Diego finished his beer. “To God?” “To faith. People don’t lose faith, Diego. They’re forced away from it. Ostracized from the very fabric of it.

Young, maybe. But he’d fought against the world, against himself, to live long enough to become Diego López. Surviving a traitorous body, an unstable mind, and an unenthusiastic family made his quaint two decades feel a lot longer. He gave a curt nod and averted his eyes, scanning the

It was a frightening thing, being in the middle of nowhere with someone who paid attention. Who saw him. Who listened.

Diego understood cloaking and masking in his depths, knew the range and restraint it took to perform as something palatable, something redeemable.

Head spinning, heart running, he kissed greedily, like it was his last meal, like he’d been teased with something worth taking. Swallowed raspy, encouraging moans sent into his mouth on hard-won breath, exhaled like a blessing.

But Ariel looked at him. Shifted his eyes toward Diego like a wolf watching a deer, like a hunter watching the hunted. Like Diego was a twenty-point buck, and the wolf was weighing his options. Like Diego was something sharp, and the hunter was counting his bullets. It made him feel extraordinarily powerful to be looked at like that by someone like Ariel.

Hope was dangerous, so he’d never given himself the chance to dream. He’d taken what he’d needed, done what he had to, made mistakes along the way. What he’d designed for himself, how he’d clawed out of an ill-fitting suit and restitched his skin in the likeness he’d always seen, always wanted, had been enough until right then. Until he gave himself permission to imagine adventure, to indulge in a fantasy.

“You are blessed,” Ariel murmured, his voice amplified. He dunked his hand into the holy water and stroked Diego’s face from forehead to chin, sinking two wet digits into his mouth.

“I’ve come to pray,” Ariel said, and his knees thumped the floor. “Through you,” he added, breath gusting over Diego’s cunt. “Into you.”