Ever Rest at Evernew

"I don't right think he'll last the night, Massa. Land, I don't know what's taken' away the cream of our young men on this plantation."

"Leave me with him, Elvie. I'll see if I can give him some peace."

He watched until the woman had left the hut and then went over and silently shot home the bolt on the door. Returning to the pallet that took up much of the leaning, rough-wood cabin and was perched on a dirt floor, he looked down at the young darky who had once been so handsome, so robust, so giving and willing. He pulled the blanket away from the now withered, wasted body of the young man, naked save for the scrap of a loin cloth, the ebony slave still showing hints of the fine specimen he'd been just months before.

Some sort of wasting affliction.

He knelt down beside the young man and took the young slave's torso up into his arms, tenderly handling the now-thin body, stroking the chest and running his fingers around the navel on the flat belly.

"Can you hear me, Samuel?" he whispered in a low, soothing voice, his mouth close to the young man's ear.

"Yas, Massa," came the weak reply.

"I've come to give you rest, to smooth your journey home."

"Yas, Massa, thank you, Massa," the whimpered response.

He reached down with his free hand and loosened the knot of the loin cloth, pulling it away from the young man's privates. The cock lay long and limp against the slave's thigh, but it showed signs of life--greater signs than elsewhere in the young slave's body--as he encased it in a hand and coaxed it to stiff. He nuzzled Samuel's neck with his lips and ran his teeth down the side of the throat. Samuel rewarded him with a weak, but deep moan and the greater stiffening of his cock.

The master fumbled with the buttons on his own breeches, releasing his hardening cock. He coaxed Samuel's upper leg up and on top of his thigh, pulling Samuel's buttocks into position.

Samuel gave a low moan. "Yas, Massa. Please, Massa. Take Samuel to heaven, Massa."

"I am going to give you release now, Samuel," he whispered in the darky's ear.

"Yas, Massa," came the distant reply.

Samuel whimpered and gave a little jerk of his body, as the cock slowly pressed at his anus, invaded the channel, and began a slow, throbbing rhythm of penetration, short withdrawal, deeper penetration, short withdrawal, deeper penetration.

Samuel sighed and moaned, his own cock stiffening under the stroking hand of the master.

His face was turned toward that of his master, and his mouth was being pressed open by an insistent tongue for a deep kiss.

The stroking inside Samuel's passage picked up with intensity, and the young slave groaned from deep inside his collapsing body.

Then his mouth was free of the kiss and the lips were moving back to his throat. His head was being tilted away from the lover's searching lips, stretching Samuel's neck, exposing the barely throbbing vein there.

The slicing of the teeth into his throat was no more than a pin prick to Samuel now, and the sensation of the sucking of his blood through the embedded teeth came into sync with the now slow-pumping of the cock inside his channel as well as the stroking of his own cock encased in the master's hand.

"Massa, Massa, Massa. Take me, Lord," Samuel murmured. "Take Samuel on to paradise."

As Samuel gave his seed in a weak release, a stronger ejaculation creamed his channel deep, one last slurp at the throat was sounded, and Samuel's eyes rolled up into his head.

After gently laying Samuel back down on the pallet, rebuttoning his own fly, readjusting Samuel's loin cloth, and covering the young slave's fading body with the blanket, Philip DuCarde rose, looked around the cabin to see that all was in order, silently shot open the bolt of the door, and, a new spring in his step, emerged from the hut.

"He is resting now, Elvie," he said to the old slave woman sitting on a wooden bench across the path running in front of slave row. "He is at peace. But I am afraid that you are right--that Samuel will not last the night."

* * * *

Looking down on the orchestra level at Natchez' Institute Hall from the shadow of the box I was in, I was surprised at the turnout. The hall, construction having been completed the previous year, 1853, was the pride of Natchez, the only performance hall of its size and splendor on the Mississippi River between Memphis and New Orleans. The building, on South Pearl Street, almost on the banks of the Mississippi, had been designed for opera, and an opera was what had brought me, and so many others, out this evening.

I had come out of curiosity. Others apparently had come to observe who was and was not there. Institute Hall had quickly become the center of society in Natchez. I doubted that many had come because of the opera being performed, financed by an anonymous donor. I had made it my business to try to find out who had commissioned this, as my parishioners would expect me to. But I hadn't been able to find who had brought the controversial 1828 Heinrich Marschner opera <i>Der Vampyr</i> to the American south.

I tuned my ears into the gasps of discovery early in Act One as those in the orchestra section below learned of the content of the opera. I let my eyes wander around the hall and then drew back a bit into the shadows of my box as I saw, directly across from me in another box, the visage of the man who must be Philip DuCarde.

The DuCardes had been a prominent family in the area, owning various plantations on the eastern bank of the Mississippi both north and south of Natchez. Philippe DuCarde, a widower, though, had left suddenly and mysteriously some eighteen years earlier under conditions that were buried in the hazy gossip and legend of the areas. Something about questionable behavior and an uprising in society. I mainly was attentive to the stories behind this because my father had been a close associate of the DuCardes and had existed under something of a cloud in the city for some time after Philippe's departure. My father was too prominent in the town, though, to suffer for long--and suffer he did, from some sort of wasting disease after that, and died some eight years later when I was barely eleven.

I hadn't withdrawn into the box soon enough, as I saw that the younger DuCarde was staring intently at me and turned to his companion--a friend of mine named John Purnell, a young lawyer in the town--and gestured toward me. I was slightly disturbed to see John with him, but I was more disturbed by the aspect of John. I had not seen him in the last couple of months. In that time, he had been taken with some sort of sickness. He was pale and seemed listless. I marked the need to talk with him afterward. We were too close for me not to give him whatever help and solace I could in this condition. It occurred to me that he had not been to confession since the last time we were together--which was an occasion that begged for confession--by both of us.

As the curtain was being drawn for the first interval, an usher appeared at the back of my box and delivered to me, in a white-gloved hand, a note. "If you please, Father Hamilton," the usher whispered, "Mr. Philip DuCarde wishes to meet with you in reception room B during the interval." The note said essentially the same thing. I looked over to the other box as the lights came up in the hall and the hubbub of excited twittering crescendoed in the hall below. DuCarde's box was empty.

When I was ushered into reception room B, the attendant set the lock from the inside of the door, withdrew, and clicked the door shut. I was alone with Philip DuCarde, who was leaning his buttocks back on the top edge of a lounge chair, with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes boring into me.

I thought of them immediately as boring, possessing eyes. They were in stark contrast to the rest of his visage. They were pale blue and compelling. Otherwise, he was a dark young man, not much older than I was, a product of the Cajun strain of families settled all up and down the lower Mississippi. His hair was dark and wavy, his face sharp-featured. He was of medium height, but his body was muscular, finely proportioned. His dress was elegant, more the style of European capitals than Natchez, a pioneer town still, despite its pretensions of culture and refinement, acquired via King Cotton wealth.

He was smiling knowingly at me, the line of his mouth slightly cruel, his teeth gleaming white and somewhat wolf-like, but not, in any way, subtracting from his attracting looks. I immediately was put on my guard. I had seen him with John Purnell, who knew me as no one else in Natchez did. I felt at a disadvantage--almost hunted, although I had no idea--at least not yet--why I should feel that way--other than the slightly canine aspect of the man's visage. I worried what John may have told him about me.

I also have to admit that I felt aroused. This younger DuCarde was a man of sensual beauty, with an aura of danger about him that I couldn't help but feel compelling.

"Is this Father Hamilton I see before me?" he asked. His voice was a smooth baritone, giving me the sensation of caressing my eardrums. All of the vibes he was exuding were dangerous to who I was supposed to be, rather than the paths I sometimes took. Everything about him was strongly male, overtly sexual.

"Yes, and I believe you are Philip DuCarde, master of Evernew on the Mississippi. I know your family was prominent here in years past and that several plantations along the river have remained in your hands. I, of course, along with many others, I'm sure, welcome you back into the parish. I hope to see you at mass."

"Our families were very close at one time, I understand," he said. And, yes, I did notice that he didn't respond to the invitation to appear at the mass.

"Yes, our fathers were close friends," I answered. "I barely knew your father before he departed." As I said that, though, my memory was stirred and I almost gasped at the realization that Philip DuCarde was the spitting image of my admittedly hazy image of his father. My mind probably was just rectifying the two, I reasoned.

"Extremely close friends, Yes," he said as he languidly pushed himself off the chair back he had been leaning on and came very close to me. "Intimate friends." His hand came up and touched my cheek. For some reason I didn't back away from him. "I believe your father was ill when we moved away. I do hope he recovered."

"Somewhat," I answered. "It was some sort of disease of lethargy. Somewhat like the mosquito-borne malaria so prevalent around here. But then not quite like that in symptoms. He recovered a bit but never completely."

"That's sad, I liked him immensely," DuCarde said, with a sigh that came across as not quite genuine. I didn't get the impression that he cared much how my father had died. "I am hoping that you and I can be very close friends too--intimate friends. You know, you look so much like your father did."

He wouldn't have been any older than I was when his family left Natchez. How could he know that I looked like my father? But then, I'd had the same thought about his father. Strange, though, that I couldn't surface a memory of Philip from that time.

The touch of his fingers was burning into my cheek. I have no idea why I permitted him that intimacy. But then, after what he next said, I had no choice.

"The intimacy between Philippe and your father was no different from what John has told me about your visits with him to the male brothels of New Orleans. I believe he said you are partial to muscular darkies."

That was it, then. John Purnell had told him of our visits together to New Orleans--of our escapes from our roles in Natchez and giving in to our natural proclivities.

"You are a beautiful young man, Ham," he said, backing me up to the wall beside the door out to the corridor. "I wish for the same sort of intimacy with you that was shared with your father. The same that John says you share with the dominating prostitutes in the male brothels of New Orleans. Can you have such an intimacy with me, Hamilton? Can you open your thighs for me and let me in? I find the prospect arousing. I've never fucked a priest before."

He had me backed up against the wall, pressing my body with his, one of his hands cupping my basket, the other cupping my chin, stretching my neck up, and, after possessing my mouth fully with his, running his tongue down the side of my throat, over the vein I felt throbbing there.

I have no idea why I didn't resist him. But, of course, I knew why. I had wanted him since I'd first seen him from across the theater.

"You are hardening nicely, Ham. You will spread your legs for me, won't you?"

"Yes," I answered, lost to him, both because of what he now held over me, thanks to John Purnell, but also because of the sheer magnetism of the man himself. His hand found my balls within the material of my tight breeches and he squeezed, causing my eyes to water. His teeth were sliding down the vein in my neck.

The bell rang for the audience to reform for the next act of <i>Der Vampyr</i>. DuCarde released me and gave a low laugh. "I want to drive you out to Evernew after the opera. To my home. To my bed. I want you to open your thighs for me there."

"Yes," was all the response I could give.

During the next interval, I descended to the lobby. I wanted to find John Purnell. I did so, but so shocking did he look--suffering from some form a malaria, I wagered, something that was draining him quickly--that he spoke before I had a chance to.

"I didn't tell DuCarde anything, Ham," he said. "He already knew--from sources in New Orleans. He demanded that I arrange an introduction with you. I'm his lawyer--and, as you can guess, a captive to his knowledge. He wants you to come out to Evernew. Something about witnessing papers or something. Perhaps a will. Nothing I am putting together for him, though. I'm sorry, Ham. I didn't tell him."

I would have spoken, to assure him it didn't matter because I was lost to Philip from the first moment I'd seen him, but DuCarde was there, nearby, now. The theatergoers were shrinking away from him, as if recognizing there was some strong force in their presence, as he moved toward us. I couldn't face standing here, in the lobby, chatting nonsense with him and John, the other theatergoers watching us, as I fantasized about him moving his hand up my thigh and to my privates, turning me, and covering me close from behind . . . penetrating me.

I couldn't fault John. And John obviously didn't know the full import of DuCarde's interest in me. I couldn't take standing here in a crowd with DuCarde, being both drawn to and repelled by him. Such was the magnetism of the man that I would have spread my legs for him right there in the reception room, if he had demanded it of me. I fled up the stairs to the side of the theater my box was in before DuCarde reached us.

I would be standing there, dutifully, on South Pearl Street, waiting for DuCarde's carriage to appear after the opera, even though my own lodgings at St. Mary Basilica rectory were but a short walk away on South Union Street. I would be standing there, knowing what I was moving toward--both fearful and melting in anticipation. Trapped by the threat of what the man knew but afraid that I would have gone with him even without the threat.

* * * *

It was happening much sooner than I anticipated. We were still within the city, moving toward the river road and thus on toward Evernew, when DuCarde was covering me on the seat of the closed carriage. I was sideways on the bench seat, one knee on the seat and the foot of other leg on the floor of the carriage, leveraging on the sole of my boot to meet his thrusts with answering thrusts of my own.

My breeches and undergarment were on the floor of the carriage, as was my clerical collar, which twinkled at me in the reflection of the passing light outside the carriage windows reflecting on the pure white of the collar--reminding me of how far I was going astray. I was hanging onto a side strap by the carriage window for dear life, as DuCarde covered me from above, both feet buried in the bench seat, plowing my nether channel deep with his cock.

My black shirt was pulled down to my shoulder on the side facing the front of the carriage, and my neck was stretched toward the back of the seat, pulled there by DuCarde's hand cupping my chin. His tongue was running across the bulging vein of my neck. I felt the scrape of his teeth there, and I moaned. His cock was deep inside me, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting.

The carriage gave a lurch and we suddenly were tumbling onto the floor and toward the right, as the carriage turned over on its side.

Quickly redressing, DuCarde and I both climbed up and out of the door that had once been at the side of the carriage and now was on top. We weren't yet out of the city, and people were gathering around. I recognized some of them. Some were from my parish.

"It's the wheel, Massa," the grizzled carriage driver said, as he stood beside the turned carriage. He'd managed to free the horses pulling the carriage in time so that they didn't go down as well. "The wheel done give way. I has sent George to the nearest stable for another carriage." George was the slave boy footman for the carriage.

Once of my parishioners came up to me. "Do you need assistance, Father Hamilton?" he asked. "My carriage is just back there. I can take you to the rectory, if you wish."

"Yes, please, and thank you, Francis," I said, turning an eye of both apology and fright toward Philip DuCarde. He had moved too far too fast. I needed a breather, some space, a little time to think this out.

DuCarde just smiled and said, "Another time then."

"Yes," I murmured. "Another time."

"I have unlimited time--and patience," he said as I turned to follow Francis Martin to his carriage.

* * * *

Philip crept in through the back door of John Purnell's townhouse on Orange Avenue. The rest of the family was at evening mass at St. Mary Basilica. But John was home, upstairs, in bed, too weak to attend mass.

He moved silently up the stairs and to John's bedroom. Purnell was lying on his back in the heavy four-poster bed, breathing shallowly, his eyes gazing up into the canopy of the bed, not really focusing on anything. He flinched at the sound of DuCarde entering the room, but he didn't look down. He was barely moving at all, as if it would take all of the strength he had to turn his head.

"It is I, Philip, come to give you rest."

"Philip?" Purnell whispered. "Ah, Philip."

"You wish me to put you to peace, don't you?" DuCarde asked in the low, smooth, soothing baritone of his seeking voice.

"Yes, oh yes," Purnell answered, his voice quiet, resigned.

Philip walked to the bed and looked down at Purnell. He reached over Purnell's legs, grasped the hem of his night breeches, and pulled them off, leaving Purnell naked. His body was once robust; now it was thin, close to emaciation. He was a handsome young man still, though.

DuCarde carefully stripped off his own clothes, folded them, and laid them on a chair within reach. He placed his hands on Purnell's legs as he whispered, "Look at me, John."

With effort, Purnell looked down the length of his body and took in the magnificent naked body standing at the foot of his bed. DuCarde was in full erection.

"Do you want me to give you my peace, John? Say it. This is the reckoning time."

"Yes, Philip, oh yes. Take me away. Fuck me to paradise." Purnell now too was hardening.

DuCarde came up onto the bed, slowly, deliberately raising and spreading Purnell's emaciated legs as he moved up between them.

Purnell gasped and gave a little jerk as DuCarde pressed the bulb of his cock at Purnell's entrance, moved inside, and then pressed in to the hilt. He held Purnell's legs, bent, against his sides while he established a slow rhythm of the fuck.

Purnell looked up into DuCarde's face through glassy eyes. "Yes, Philip, yes."

DuCarde leaned his torso down toward Purnell's chest and covered the young lawyer's lips with his, pressing his tongue inside. Purnell sighed for him. A hand came up to Purnell's head, the fingers lacing themselves into his hair, pulling his head to the side and stretching his neck out. DuCarde came out of the kiss, lifted his face from Purnell's and smiled benignly down at the other man. His mouth opened in a smile. His incisors gleamed and showed large and pointed.

Purnell sighed and gave a little moan, his arms lifting with great effort and embracing DuCarde's broad back, as DuCarde lowered his face to Purnell's extended neck, licked the slightly throbbing vein there for a brief moment before the teeth sliced into the vein and the sounds of sucking began.

Purnell moved his body against DuCarde's, his hands pressing and releasing on DuCarde's shoulder blades, in weak rhythm to the rising and falling of DuCarde's hips, the plowing of his cock, the sucking sounds of the draining of the blood. He sighed, and weakly whimpered. "Yes, take me to heaven, Philip. I see the light; I hear the music."

His head flopped over to the side and his cock released a small spurt of cum as DuCarde ejaculated deep in his channel and lifted his head and howled to the canopy of the bed above him.

Purnell was breathing in very shallow, off-rhythm pants as DuCarde pulled his sleeping breeches back up his legs, dressed, and stole out of the room and the house.

* * * *

God, he was big, and going deep. Showing me no mercy. Crueler than he'd been in the carriage, able to reach deeper. God, I was loving this. I was on his bed--at Evernew--on my belly, buttocks raised on trembling knees, as, covering me close, trapping my arms above my head by gripping my wrists, he took me in long, hard, thick thrusts.

I had reached Evernew after dusk, brought by the carriage he'd sent for me in Natchez, both of us knowing I would come to him. The carriage had come to me in mid-afternoon, not long after I was back from conducting the funeral for John Purnell, and while I was rereading John's obituary in the newspaper. Some sort of wasting disease, the report said. Nothing more specific than that. Just like my father, although taken by it quicker. I had seen the hand of death on him that night at the opera.

Then I heard the carriage stop outside the rectory, the doorbell chime, and Mrs. Roberts bringing me the note of summons. It had told me to pack a bag and come at once.

"The return of an important family to the parish," I told Mrs. Roberts. "They must be made welcome. A very wealthy family. I will be gone at least for the night."

She had readily understood and helped me quickly pack, sending me off at the doorstep with a smile and a wave. I hoped she hadn't seen how badly I was trembling as I entered the carriage.

I entered the house at Evernew in the dark. The house was only dimly lit by candlelight. Philip met me at the top of the stairs. He was naked, his body gloriously muscled and proportioned, his dark body hair covering his chest, belly, thighs, arms, and groin in artful curls. An animal, a wolf, ready to do animal coupling. Animal coupling with me. Primeval. Nothing but lust and need. He met me at the top of the stairs, pulling me close to him, grabbing the hair on the back of my head and arching my head back, painfully. His mouth possessed mine, forcing mine open, his tongue going deep. Pulling the tongue out he growled and bit my lip, drawing blood. Despite the involuntary yelp, I was grasping his bare buttocks with my hands, holding him close to me, feeling the hardness of him. I was already panting hard when he told me to go to his bed, strip, and lay on my belly.

When he came down on top of me, his chest went down between my legs, his hands gripping my hips. Coaxing me to raise up a bit on my knees, his hands went to separating and squeezing my buttocks, and his mouth alternated between opening my entrance and pulling my cock through my thighs to suck it and my balls.

I was writhing under him, moaning, panting hard, and begging for him to be inside me when he went up on his knees between my spread thighs, worked his thick cock inside me, and began to pump. He brought the silkiness of his chest down on my bare back, and I turned my face to his for a deep kiss. He ran his fingers into my hair and pulled my head to one side. His tongue licked its way down my cheek and onto my throat where it ran lovingly down the vein popping out of my neck from my head being turned hard to the side.

I felt a prick at my throat, but most of my attention was concentrating on the mining of my passage by his impossibly thick and long cock, seemingly growing in possessing length and girth as he pumped me. A warm, sensual feeling overtook me--a feeling of well-being, of being in perfect harmony with the elements. I could feel the pulsing at my neck and hear the suckling sound, but it didn't alarm me. I was floating, feeling oh so sexy and well taken care of. I was moving my pelvis in consort with the thrusts of his cock, opening and closing my fists buried in the bedspread to the rhythm of the fuck.

I had never been fucked as divinely as this before. I sighed deeply and murmured, "Yes, yes, fuck me just like this. Fuck me to heaven."

Philip moved a hand under my chest. I sensed he wanted to turn me on my back and fuck me in another position. But then I heard him yelp and pull his hand away, like it had been burned. And as I saw it flash by, it <i>did</i> look singed. I couldn't really tell, though, in the dim light. He had pulled away from me and was off the bed. I saw his naked buttocks disappearing out of the door to the corridor as I sat up in bed. Instinctively, I reached for the gold cross that hung on a chain around my neck. It felt hot to my touch.

It felt like it was damning me. Of course I shouldn't be here, in a man's bed, being covered and fucked by a man, a man hirsute enough to give a delicious animalistic tinge to the coupling. I was a priest. This was one of the worst sins I could be performing.

But he was so compelling, so arousing--so much the natural animal performing naturally. I couldn't help myself. I slipped the cross necklace off my neck, left the bed, and tucked it into the pocket of my breeches. That wouldn't damn me while I was here. My eyes found the clerical collar, though, gleaming white. Pure, chaste. A purposeful symbol. A promise I had not, could not fulfill. That too I tucked away in a pocket.

I lay back on the bed, my legs bent and spread, pillows under the small of my back, ready and willing in anticipation for Philip's return. He didn't return that night, though. I waited, awake for more than an hour, moving a hand from my shimmering cock to my neck, where it felt like I'd been stung and was warm to the touch. Then back to my cock, encasing it, stroking it, dreaming of the euphoric world I'd been in while Philip was fucking me, a sensation of contentment and satiation as I'd never felt before from a man between my thighs, a monster cock inside me, growing and thrusting, thrusting and growing. I gave up my seed in three long arcs and, with a sigh, drifted off to sleep.

* * * *

The next morning I descended the stairs, wearing a white shirt and brown breeches. Banished were my black priest's vestments, white collar, and the gold cross necklace. I could not be a priest today. All I could think of was lying under Philip, becoming one with Philip. But I found no evidence of Philip about. Only elderly slaves, mostly women, and one grizzled old man, the driver of the carriage, who also seemed to function as the house's butler.

"No, Massa, Great Massa never appears in the day. He moves at night and sleeps in the day. I wouldn't expect to see him about again until this evening. He said that you might like to ride the plantation today."

Indeed I did choose that pastime as I waited for Philip to be about again--to, I hoped, renew his working of my body--working me in ways I'd never experienced before. I didn't know what had pulled him away from me the previous night. But I was determined for us to overcome that, to move on from where we had left off. We had just reached a level of totally synchronized movement, getting the most from a glorious fuck. The sense of him feverishly consuming me was sending shudders up my spine.

It took me the rest of the daylight to cover Evernew and the adjacent DuCarde-owned plantations. I was struck while riding the grounds of Evernew plantation to find only women, of all ages, and boys and old men working the fields. I would have expected to see young men too. I had wanted to see young, muscular, black bucks working the fields, stripped down to the waist. Watching them and imagining one of them between my thighs, working my channel with a thick cock--like I enjoyed in the brothels of New Orleans.

But there were none to be seen at Evernew proper. The wonder of this was that there were children around. There were women of child-bearing age, in abundance. Some even with seeded bellies. They must have been plowed by some younger man rather than the bent-over old men I saw in the fields. But none were in evidence. So the scarcity must have been something happening fairly recently. I didn't connect that with the reappearance on the scene of Philip DuCarde.

As my wanderings took me farther from Evernew, I did begin to see young, black bucks working in the fields. They were as muscular as I dreamed under the strain of the hard field work. Near the banks of the Mississippi, I left the saddle of my horse, tying the reins to a tree near a puddle of water and a lush stand of grass to give the horse a respite.

The stand of trees was bordered by a cotton field on the other side of the stand of trees from the riverbank. I stood there, watching the slaves at work, admiring the physiques of the young, black bucks. One, in particular, was noticing me, as well. I recognized the look he was giving me--of lust and want--and a touch of anger. Those were the black bucks I paid for in New Orleans--the ones who wanted to break me as much as fuck me. It was the penance I pretended was sufficient--that they leave me broken and gasping, beyond satisfied. The sin and the recompensing penance combined in one.

I knew how to return such a look. I stripped off my shirt and gave him a smile. I knew that I had a body to please a man who appreciated a well-worked torso. He unlaced the codpiece of his breeches and let a huge, half-hard cock flop out, probably trying to shock me. I didn't flinch. I just stood there, staring him down, a smile on my face. He looked around for an overseer or other observing field hand and, seeing none, looked back at me and inclined his head, his hand going to his cock and giving it a couple of shakes.

I inclined my head in answer, turned, and slowly walked into the trees.

The big black buck fucked me as I reclined between the roots of a giant oak tree close to the bank of the Mississippi. Both of us made guttural, animal rutting sounds as he pushed his knees between my spread thighs, held my legs, bent, spread, and raised in the crook of his arms, and thrust hard and deep.

It was just the fuck I needed. No talking--indeed, I had no idea if he could speak English or not; his body was so magnificently native that he could have come straight out of Africa to between my legs. Just grunting and groaning, thrusting and breeding. Fucking like animals. Me thumping and clawing at his chest while he, positioning his face close to mine to watch my reaction to the wild thrusts of his cock, sneering and, no doubt, taking out on me all of his hate and frustration toward his white overlords.

I took everything he had to give and just collapsed over to the side after he'd pulled out of me, grasped my hair, and forced my mouth down onto his cock to clean it. With just a grunt then, he was gone, and I remained, whimpering and sighing as the golden fingers of the sunset spread across the wide Mississippi at my feet. Broken, but freed, I told myself by the penance I had taken--until the next time I strayed.

Philip was sitting at a grand piano in the main parlor of Evernew when I returned to the house, nearly hobbling, as I mounted the portico steps. His playing was expert. Yet another surprise about Philip. I wondered how many surprises there were in him that I didn't know about.

I started to shrug my shoulders back into my shirt as I entered the room.

"No, leave it off," he said as he saw me. "I am, as you can see, bare-chested too."

I certainly could see that. I normally wasn't aroused by hairy men. But the pattern of the hair on his chest and down the centerline of his torso was sexy and made me want to take my eyes lower than that. Knowing already how magnificently he was equipped didn't take the wonder away of imagining the view below the beltline.

"You aren't wearing your clerical vestments tonight. Good. Come here; sit with me."

I went to him. No mention of why he'd left me so abruptly the previous night. I did notice that his hand was bandaged, though. I didn't feel that he wanted me to ask about what had gone wrong, so I didn't. He pulled me down into his lap, facing the piano, and placed my hands on the keys. Positioning my fingers, he caused me to play a simple tune. His chin was on my shoulder, his lips buried in the hollow of my neck, kissing, licking, and nipping with his teeth there. I didn't think he even was looking at the keyboard, and yet he was able to manipulate my fingers to play recognizable tunes.

"You play remarkably well," I murmured.

"I want to play your body as well as I play this piano."

"I want that too," I admitted in a low, hoarse voice.

"I want you to come upstairs with me now," he growled. I could feel from the strength of his cock against the small of my back that he wanted me. "Just you, nothing from the church."

"No, nothing from the church," I murmured, laying my head back on his shoulder and turning my face to his for a deep kiss.

* * * *

Just like the black slave on the banks of the Mississippi, but harder, more intense. I was on my back on Philip's bed, my legs bent, my heels dug into the mattress, leveraging my counterthrusts upward, as Philip knelt between my thighs, slamming deep and hard up inside me. One hand trapping one of my wrists above my head to the surface of the bed. The other hand gripping my throat and holding my head hard into the mattress. I was clawing at his bicep with my free hand, gagging at the grip of his hand on my throat, fighting for air, but moving my pelvis in hard counterthrust to him, taking him as hard and deep inside me as I could.

Like the black slave, he brought his face close to mine, capturing my eyes with his pale-blue orbs to watch my reactions to the thrusting of his cock and the clutching of his hand on my throat. I stared back, a stare of willingness, acceptance, challenge. Do your worst, my gaze tried to convey to him. It's what I need. It's my penance. The sin must have its penance.

A leery smile from him, just like that of the black slave. The mouth opened. I saw the prominence of the incisors. I hadn't noticed how canine his smile was before. His hand left my throat and went to the side of my head, his fingers lacing into my blond, curly hair, pulling my head sharply to the side.

A brief look of triumph in his face and then the face dipped to my exposed throat. I let out a cry and jerked hard as the incisors tore into my throat. Writhing under him, I fought, but not for long. The feeling of warmth, of well-being, of being as one with him, overtook me and I relaxed under his control--his physical, mental, and emotional control. I was fully his now, and we both knew it. The thrusting of his cock continued, but not as frenetic as before, and I now discovered that I could move my pelvis in perfect sync with the digging of his cock, which was thickening and lengthening in consort with his snuffling, all-consuming feeding at my throat.

My knees moved with the fuck, moving out as his cock pulled back, sometimes nearly bringing the bulb back to the entrance and then coming in, hugging his hips close, as he plunged deep inside me. My hands went to his shoulder blades, opening and closing their grip on his hard flesh in perfect rhythm to the fuck. His sucking at my neck was in perfect rhythm as well.

"Yes, fuck me, suck me," I murmured over and over again, as I became lightheaded. I was floating on the clouds. Not a worry in the world.

I roused in a double explosion, my eyes opening wide, cries in harmony--from Philip as well as me--as we both exploded in a massive, shared ejaculation. A flash of fright went through my body, as he pointed his face toward the ceiling and let out a haunting howl.

I was fully his.

I drifted off afterward, all quiet except for the sound of the suckling at my throat, Philip's cock flaccid, but deep inside me. Snuffling at my throat, a lick along the vein line, and then the prick once again of the teeth, and the sound of the ocean in my inner ears as my vein pulsed and Philip fed. The draining sensation, lightheadedness, the glow of a bright light from afar and the sound of eerie music.

When I woke, I was on my stomach. My arms and legs were extended to and tied off at the four corner posts of the bed. Pillows were stuffed under my midsection. The drapes were pulled, but I could see around the edges of them that it was daylight. I didn't feel as drained as I had the previous night when I blacked out. I was regaining strength. But I was restrained, so I wasn't going anywhere.

Nighttime again, lifting my buttocks in the air. Philip came down on top of me, stretching out on me, close. Entering my ass and beginning to pump. He grasped my hair and pulled my head to the side. His teeth slit into the vein at my neck, and he noisily began to feed.

I didn't care. I never felt as close to a person before as this--as well taken care of as this--as aroused and sensual as this. I set my pelvis in motion against his stroking, surprised a bit at how much effort it took. I drifted off into a haze, listening to the sucking sounds at my neck. Taken fully by my lover. Wanting him inside me, needing him inside me. Giving everything I had to my lover, because I couldn't get enough of what he gave to me. Jolted once more by the howl at the moment of ejaculation.

Suspended over the side of the bed, in Philip's arms, holding me close from behind, his cock up inside me, moving in and out, deep, shallow, then deep again. Not exactly standing on my own. I doubted I had the strength to stand. One arm around my midsection, palming my belly with his hand, holding me up, bent over toward the bed. The other hand buried in my hair, pulling my head back into the hollow of his neck and twisting it to the side. Teeth slicing into the vein of my exposed neck, sucking, suckling.

"Yes, yes, take me to paradise." Not knowing if I had had the strength to say that out loud. But it was what I wanted to convey. I wanted him to take me now, all the way, all the way to paradise. The paradise of that bright light, the ethereal music, the sense of sitting on a fence, not caring which side I fell on but feeling the sensation of the beginning of a slow fall--in some direction.

Barely awake again, head buzzing, having difficulty forming a thought. On my back. No restraints this time. None needed. I wasn't going anywhere. I could barely lift my hands, let alone move off the bed. Philip kneeling between my thighs, pulling my legs up to a bent position. My not being able to hold them there myself. Just letting them flop to the side. With a little laugh, he pulled them up into his hips with his hands. Positioning his cock at my now-gaping hole, reamed to his requirements at his thickest, he easily slid inside, deep. Fucking me there, like that, to his ejaculation, his howl, my weak-flow response.

Too tired. Too tired to care. Craving for the sensation of the pulsation at my neck, the feeding of my lover, giving over everything I had, my very essence of life, to my lover.

Holding there, waiting to harden again, he lowered his face to mine.

"I'm going to give you peace now," he murmured, his smooth baritone voice honey to my soul. "It has been glorious, but it's time."

"Yes, take me to heaven," I whispered back.

He laughed, a low, guttural laugh. "Just so," he said. "You know, you were the best. Over the centuries you still were the best. I couldn't resist; I couldn't space you out. I had to have all of you at once. Your father was good, but you are the best, and you know why?"

"No, why?" I murmur, not really caring why, but he seemed to want to tell me. And whatever Philip wanted, I wanted as well. Anything, as long as he took me to heaven again, let me dance and float on the clouds to the sensation of his suckling at my throat. As long as he brought me to the bright light, the heavenly choir, the fence.

"Because you are a priest, of course. Taking the godly and bringing it low. Making it knuckle, bow, and scrape to me. Begging me for my attentions. I couldn't prolong that. I had to use you in one orgy of victory over heaven. The dark forces winning."

"I was never a very good priest, you know. I'm not sure I count for much there."

It wasn't the right thing to say to him--at least he obviously didn't think so. But I was beyond rationalizing or gauging what I was saying. Still, it was the simple truth. I now fully realized it. I would be no loss to the church. I wanted him to stop talking and to go back to fucking and sucking me. And I could feel him going hard again inside me. Raising his anger had helped make him hard. He began to fuck me hard. Thrusting deep, cruelly.

It was what I wanted, though. The only penance I knew to offer. He was leaning in, his face close to mine again, a hard leer on his face.

I turned my head to the side, exposing my neck to him. Offering him the ultimate sacrifice. It was the first time I had offered my vein to him. His eyes opened wide, and I gave him the beatific smile I had learned to bestow on parishioners at the seminary.

"Your sins are forgiven, my son," I murmured.

His head dove down, his teeth cruelly digging into my neck. The sucking, hard and cruel, commenced immediately. This was it. We both knew that. Painfully, slowly, I moved my hands down to his buttocks and held them there as he thrust hard up inside me, again and again, angrily, insistently. I grasped his buttocks to me and weakly moved my pelvis with him, wanting him to know I accepted him to the end.

I was floating again, off toward heaven again. At peace, entirely satiated and at one with Philip's body, every part of his body synchronized with mine in the working, the draining of mine. I felt my ejaculate spread up his belly. My hands fell away from his buttocks, my body fully his now to do what he wished. I stretched my arms out straight from my body, my body completely open to him.

"Take me, I am fully thine."

I heard the music, coming in gently over the sound and feel of suckling at my neck. My ears were buzzing underneath the sound of the music, which was fading away. I felt myself totally relaxing, beginning to fall away from the fence, hearing the sucking sounds of his mouth, the slap, slap of his thrusting cock.

The howl as he released his seed. But a different sort of howl--more forlorn, ending in pain and frustration, rather than one of victory.

I felt so at peace, so "I don't care," so loving of the release he was providing me, so . . .

* * * *

I was surprised--disappointed--when I woke up and realized I wasn't in heaven--or the other distinct possibility, hell. That wouldn't have surprised me in the least. I was lying on Philip's bed, and daylight was filtering around the edges of the drapes on the window again. Somehow, I had survived the night--unless, of course, this was what heaven--or hell--were like. Wouldn't that be ironic? Heaven--or hell--was Philip's bedroom at Evernew?

I lay there for some time, taking inventory. I was semiparalyzed, but the slow increase in aches and pains--and the sound of my own groans--informed me that I was beginning to regain strength. But I knew I would not survive another night of this. I had no idea why I hadn't passed in the previous night--or maybe the night before that. I'd lost all concept of time. All I knew was pain, and the heightened awareness of how much higher my sexual satisfaction could soar than I ever realized before.

Not that that was doing me much good. It was something to contemplate if I survived another sunrise.

My attention was arrested by the clinking sound approaching up the staircase. I looked down the length of my naked and bruised body and saw the grizzled old driver cum butler walk into the room carrying a tray laden with food on porcelain plates. He lowered the tray to the foot of the bed and went over to the windows, one by one, and pulled the drapes. Blinding light flooded the room.

"I thinks you need to try to eat your fill of this food and rest a while before trying to rise, Massa," he said as he turned and walked over to the side of the bed. There was no sign of judgment in the old man, and, indeed, I presumed that he had seen all, knew all.

"Philip? Master DuCarde?" I managed to croak out. My throat was dry, and I realized that I was ravenously hungry as well as thirsty. How many days had I been on this bed?

"Massa Philip, he done packed up and left before daybreak," the old man said. "I think it be a while before he visits Evernew again." Did I catch a glint of a smile float across the old man's face?

"Left?"

"Yas, sir. And I think you be needin' this back," he said, as he drew my gold cross on the chain out of his pocket and handed it to me. "Sorry. I had to borrow it for a bit last night." The satisfied smile on his face spoke volumes to me. "If I was you, young Massa, I'd be keepin' that closer to me in the future."

I had to admit that he had a good point.