The Book of the Blue House

When Ash had left him to remain a year in the Temple, it was only a few days before Conn decided that he would enter the Blue Order. It seemed almost like a lark, he was so light hearted about it. He knew it was exactly the thing he should do. And he had been waiting on this moment to know it. And it was not that he wanted to spend his time laying with all sorts of men. That was available to him now. He wanted to enter into the mystery that his friends were in that, no matter how close he was to it, he was only on the outside. He and Derek had talked long into the last few nights about jealousy and heartache, about the strange feelings that arrived, that neither of them knew how to handle, and Conn thought that he wanted what Derek had in those moments of peace. He wanted what the Abbot possessed. He wanted to devote himself to the Blue God who, after all was the God he would be devoted to anyway, when Akkrebeth came for him.

The first surprise he had was that the moment he made his intentions known he was quiet, shy, and embarrassed about the whole matter. He thought he would simply state it to Matteo and Derek, and to those of his friends left in the Temple, but when he said it, he felt strangely bashful. Derek enfolded him and held onto him, hugging him hard and Conn said, “I thought you didn’t want me to.”

“That was the scared me talking,” Derek said. “But it’s right. You should be one of us. It is right.” he added. “I love you, Conn.”

The second surprise Conn had was when, that same day, after lunch, he was given the light blue robe of the novice.

“It was actually sent from the Abbot,” Quinton said, draping it over Conn’s arms.

The Blues did not believe in wasting time on formalities. By the time Conn had chosen to be a novice, he had lived in the House longer than most postulants, and he had, to record, lain with four Blue priests. Derek knew of Matteo, and Conn felt no need to elaborate on the others, no matter how understanding Derek had become.

And then began the long hours of education and service in the Temple that Conn had known about, but never really seen. Again the Abbot, not believing in undo ceremony or undo stress, assigned Conn to be Derek’s atrendant as Matteo atrended Quinton. Derek had already taught him so much, but now Derek began to teach him the prayers, the rites, the long liturgies, the services of the chapel, the gestures during the service. One afternoon, Derek and Quinton, Matteo and Conn went down a long corridor on the fifth floor and entered into the great library which took up three balconied stories of the Temple and was surrounded by an arcade. In this house of books, Quinton and Derek began to educate the boys on all the history of the Order and on the sacred books, the chants and poems a priest should know. The work was harder than Conn expected, but he had never known how thirsty he was for scholarship, how much he loved jumping into the books, the lectures, the arguments.

“The work is harder because we’re training you harder,” Quinton said, simply,

Looking at Matt and Conn and sharing a glance with Derek, who nodded he said:

“You know there are different grades of priests. Some of them, and I don’t fault them, are nothing more than prostitutes,” which seemed to Conn a lot like Derek was faulting them.

“They only exist to have sex. Some are trained and then leave the temple to go back to their lives. Some are trained in arts of love, but do little actual service in the Temple. Some of us are primarily scholars and some are mystics. We are training you to be initiated as the second grade so you can rise to the third grade sooner.”

Well, yes, that was right. Brian certainly spent most of his days on his back, and though Quinton and Derek both enjoyed lovemaking and attended the Blue Rooms, they, like Gabriel, were certainly grave men who did far more than attend to the pleasures of others. Always, Conn had been on the outside of that, but now he began to understand. It was not that he did not find sex pleasant in his training, he did, but now he came to understand that as a Blue Priest, sex was not about him. Derek had always said this, but it was a thing he had to experience. These men he was with, these experiences were to pleasure others, not him, and in a way, though the supplicants were physically with him, they did not touch him, did not know him. All were kind and gracious, some even wept on occasion, but these men were not his lovers. He gave them love, truly, he gave them everything. But could love sometimes only be for the moment? And yes there was lust and even an eagerness to go to his work. Conn felt an eagerness to go to the Gorgon Rooms and learn all that went on there.

“They’re safe, Conn,” Derek said in his soft voice, when he took Conn to the Gorgon, “but it doesn’t sit well with me, you being left alone here.”

The first time Conn came from those places where men did whatever they desired with whomever, where was no light and there were no faces, only hands and lips, only places to enter and be entered, Conn was silent. He said, “I don’t know how I feel about myself after doing that.”

“Yes,” Derek said. “That’s how it can be.”

“But I don’t feel like I can ever judge anybody else again.”

“I think that’s the purpose of the Gorgon,” Derek said. “Most people hold their heads up, justify what they do, judge other people, put a picture of themselves into their heads, a self that they like, or can live with. The whole time you want to hold this picture up of yourself and judge other people, you’re full of lust. You’re always burning up with all these secret fantasies, wishing to be tied up, or fuck someone who ties you up. You’re filled with a desire for all the embarrassing things: simulated rape, or pleasure because of being disgraced or… just pleasure. All of this crazy lust dominates the world. Here, everything you lusted for you can do, and when it’s done you’re left… hollow. You’re left to figure out what is real, what you really want, now that you’ve indulged your pleasures for what you thought you wanted.

“But when I came here, when I started to do the things I lusted for, or was afraid to do, I didn’t know how to think of myself. And then I thought… maybe the point of being a priest is you’re not suppoed to think of yourself. So I was freed from that. And then, after you’ve been in… well, an orgy in the dark and done things with men you don’t know and you don’t know how many of them there were, it’s hard to hold your head up and judge people for the very human things they do, the very real desires. You sort of sink down to the ground, so you can’t hold your head above others. You’re not above anything anymore. It frees you. And then you remember the old saying: God himself is as low as the earth.”

It was as the Prior said.

“Most men never do what they want. They just spend their days full of thwarted lust. Thinking about sex. Thinking about affection, thinking about pleasure and desire that will never come. You come here, as a boy, indulge everything, confront everything. Some of us do it for a little while, some of us do it for years, some of us never stop. But the desire which has been made into a monster becomes again just a thing. There are White Priests full of lust because they are celibates and can never have a man or a woman. But here, if the desire arises in you, you can turn to your brother, or you can go to the Gorgon Rooms, and the desire is healthy and a part of you, but also passing as the need for food. It does not consume you, and you know in that desire you are saying, ‘I am not above the earth. Look, I am a man, and a man lusts. A man spills seed, a man fucks, a man needs the touch of another man, or of a woman. This is what we are, these creatures of need. I am not ashamed of my need. See, here I spill my seed. Look, you can do the same. I am here for you. I am not holding myself away from you. Look. We have done this, given ourselves to each other. Now, here we are, resting and laughing in each others arms. Now that we have fucked and fucked, let us do all the other little things together. Let us pray together. Let us praise the God who made us and made pleasure and made us thus.’”

And so in the mornings, Conn in his pale robes was in the sanctuary beside Matteo and Derek and Quinton, their legs folded beneath them as the incense was burned. They folded their hands together and chanted before the Lord Adaon.

Just as a storm cannot prevail against

a bending reed,

so Desire can never overpower the man who lives

looking cleared eyed in her face,

who is controlled in his senses,

and filled with faith and holy effort.

Whoever living hypocrisy, relies on self-control

and truthfulness, should don the blue robe,

he surely is not worthy of the robe.

But whoever is emptied of hypocrisy,

By giving into his lust, and learns to be filled

with the fire of desire and truthfulness,

he indeed is worthy of the blue robe.

Thus they spoke in the morning, and in the evening they chanted in the ancient tongue

Jasarī ām̐dhībēharī caṭṭānakō

pahāḍamā jitna sakdaina,

tyasailē mārālē bām̐cnē mānisalā'ī

kahilē pani śakti prāpta garna sakdaina

aśud'dhiyōṁmā dhyāna,

jō āphnō indriyamā niyantrita cha,

ra viśvāsa ra pavitra prayāsalē

bhari'ēkō.

And so Conn learned.