The Book of the Blue House

EIGHT

The Education

of

Derek Annakar

You could not possibly understand Connleth Aragareth unless you first understood Derek Annakar, for though, of their own wisdom they fostered a space between them that they might grow into their own fullness, and they loved many others, the two of them were ever two sides of the same thing.

- The Encyclopedia of Westrial, 56th Edition, edited by Andi Lincoln

He never explained it to Derek. He never told him, and he knew that Lorne would not either. It did not have to be told, would have been strange if it had. That morning, after Conn had come deep inside of Lorne, he lay arched like a dolphin, unable to move before slowly he collapsed onto his side in silence. It was Lorne who began to laugh, and then Conn was not sure if he himself laughed. But his body felt like laughter. He felt wrung out of something tight that had been in him for some time. He had felt more and more like a strung bow, and now the bow had launched.

They showered and went back to bed, and when Derek found them, the two were holding each other, warm and naked. Derek stripped himself and climbed into bed with them, and the jealousy he thought would be present melted like sugar in water.

By the end of January, war was declared and it was announced the armies would begin their march to the south. Prince Anson would be leading them along with Lord General Pembroke, and their allies in Sussail and Essail were coming under the banners of King Raoul’s son, Betham and King Stephen’s brother, General Rizhihard.

Derek Annakar knew the stories of the others in the Temple. He knew, for instance, that Matteo had been sold to men on the streets as a little boy and Cal had gone out to those same streets when he was little more than a child to escape his home. He knew that many had worked in the sex shows before they had come here, and that really, if one was to live this life, and be open to the desires of men, then that was possibly the best life to have come from.

And Derek knew about Gabriel and Lorne, both who had been raised in Blue Houses, a not uncommon phenomenon, though one that those who followe the New Faith shook their heads over, and that, though most who were raised in the Blue Houses did not become Blues, in some cases were often not allowed, to, Gabriel and Lorne had been. Gabriel, who had come to the Third Initiantion, was the son of a Kindly Sister whose brother had been a Blue, and not only that, their mother had been a Red Priestess and their grandfather a Blue. Unlike the Red Priest who lay with women, Blue Priests, of course, preferred men and yet, they could, if need required, though the need was rare and diverse, sire a child on a woman.

Derek was neither Blue born, nor a refugee from the streets, and Derek knew he could count on never seeing his family again. He had been, as his black hair, white skin, black eyes and red lips told, a Doman from a well off Doman family, and like good young men of such breeding, he had been sent to university.

But he was already unhappy even then, not understanding himself, curious about the world around him. His uncle, though Derek never spoke of it, was a bishop up north and many of the Annakers had suggested to young Derek that he might enter the White priesthood. To be a priest, to touch souls, to make a sacrament of your body, to become, even for a moment the link between men and God, danced before Derek’s eyes. He spent a long time in the university libraries and going from monastery to monastery, listening to the sermons of the Grey Brothers and Sisters, those who visited all houses to show that God was in All. He thought of the looks on their faces, of how solemn and happy they were. The word devotion came to mind, to be devoted not only to the work of being a priest, but to the God he served.

His second year of university he did not come home during the spring term. He remained in the city following the Grey Brothers and Sisters, gently quiet and observing, and one night, when the late winter storm was to be especially fierce and wet snow was hitting the ground, they arrived at the Blue Temple.

They did not come through the Black Door or the White, did not come as supplicants, but came through the Red Door in double file, filling the hall with their singing. They traveled down the small hall and then up the winding stair and into the great sanctuary until their voices rang off the walls, and the Blue Priests were there to welcome them. The old Abbot Hyrum was ruling then, and the Blues, bearing their candles, handed candles to the Greys. It seemed Brother Sian talked all night, but Derek did not mind. He did not remember weariness but love, and gladness, and this is what he wanted, but for some reason, he felt that, when the Greys left this place, he must remain. He did not remain, but he vowed to return.

When he came, Derek always entered through the Red Door. Old Hyrum was there to greet him, and Gabriel was in his first year. Gabriel took Derek under his wings, the red headed, pleasant young man saying, “You may be born for this, Derek. You may be like me, or like the priests of old.”

Gabriel wasn’t the only young man who was handsome enough, yes, but soft looking and monkish, bespectacled, devoted to leanring and to the services, and Derek, Doman that he was, had a devil of a time aligning this with what he knew of Blues.

“How could that be me?” Derek asked. “I… I think I would be afraid to simply lay with men.”

Gabriel, peering through his glasses and smiling bemusedly as if someone had thought out an interesting academic position said, “What would you be afraid of?”

“I…” Derek couldn’t answer it. He assumed that his fear was so rational, that someone rationally asking about it instead of accepting it surprised him.

It was when letters were coming for his parents, asking him if he ever planned to come home, and when he hadn’t been in his college rooms for weeks that he finally said, “I’ve never been with anyone. Never been with a woman even. Certainly not a man.”

Gabriel nodded.

“Through the Black Door is how you learn these things,” he said.

“That would be…” Derek began, and didn’t dare to go on. But then, he must. “A sin.”

Gabriel shook his head and smiled gently, touching Derek’s hand.

“Learning is not evil,” he said. “Discovery is not a sin.”

The first time Derek lay with Gabriel was not the first time he had lain with anyone. By then he had come through the Black Door a few times, and it was not long before he came through the Red Door to give himself as an Offering and then not long before he became a postulant and rose from postulant to novice. There was, once he knew sex, none of the nervous holding back. He wanted to know everything. He explored the Gorgon Rooms and took pleasure with every novice and every priest who was becoming a friend.

“The answer was myself,” Derek murmured.

“Yes!” Gabriel almost hissed in his rooms. As they lay lazy and rejoicing in their naked bodies, in the warmth of their skin and the comfort of his bed.

“I was afraid of myself, of my desires, of what I would find and who I would become, “Derek told him, lying on his stomach and pulling a pillow to himself.

“And now, every day I cannot wait to find out, to press myself to the very limit, to know everything about…”

Derek turned to him.

“Not me, not me exactly, but…”

“The Heart,” Gabriel said turning on his side to face Derek.

Derek marveled how all of Gabriel’s body was red and white, not simply his red hair, but the highlights of his body, his nipples, his lips, his sex and his crotum were pink and tinged with crimson. Derek did not halt to caress him, to draw to him.

“It is the White Priests who talk of the Heart as having nothing to do with the body and only being part of the soul. But the heart is in the body,” Gabriel said. “We need each other. We need this.”

He lay on his back now looking at the ceiling, “Every time I lie with a man I feel like I’m giving him everything in me, every thing he needs, even if only for that little moment, and I’m trying to learn every day to give everything and hold nothing back, to lose all masks.”

“And all fear.”

“And all fear.”

That was what Derek could not explain to Conn, but which Coon must have known without being taught. And, truly, Derek had not known it as well as he thought he did, for he had been filled with fear thinking of Con with anyone else until he saw his body pressed to Lorne’s until, in the dark, when all three of them had shared pleasure, Derek quit wondering where Conn was when they weren’t together, or why Conn seemed so flirtatious with Matteo, and remembered how Conn’s eyes always fell on him, how he and Conn always linked hands and ran off together, not just to make love, but to discuss the secrets of the day or stand on the roof together and watch the snow, to simply indulge in the pleasure of each other’s company. Jealousy dissolved. Fairness and love returned.

It was one night toward the end of January, after supper as they were preparing to leave that Abbot Hyrum touched Derek’s elbow and said, “Prepare yourself to come to the Blue Rooms this evening.”

This was a thing that never happened, and was never asked unless one had let it be known to the Abbot that he could ask it. And this was always because one person you’d bonded to over time was arriving and the Abbot wished to delight both his priests and the supplicant.

Derek nodded and kissed Connleth on the cheek, heading out of the hall before the others to gather what he needed for his bathing ritual so that he might present himself in the Blue Rooms promptly.

This night he bathed in the great bathroom beside the chapel which every Blue priest was washed in on the day of his initaiton. He knew that however important this man was and however special this night, every man who came to him was God in the Blue Rooms. But still.

Tonight he did not wear trousers and hirt or even the leotard that fit his thighs and cupped his buttocks like a second skin, but the blue hooded robe with the silver open hand hanging about his throat. He was surprised by how different the waiting rooms were in the night, filled with lamp light and, it seemed, filled with Blues he had never before seen. There were some first years. And then Jannelin came through the door and called Derek’s name.

Derek stood up and followed him down the hall where, occasionally, the muffled sounds of pleasure or frantic fucking could be heard on the other side of the doors, and Jannelin gestured to the last door at the end of the hall.

Derek opened it, and his face lit in surprise.

There, in plain brown pants and loose blue shirt, his great, heavy cloak spread out over a chair, bits of his dark bronze hair sticking up, sat a tall, strong and somewhat dragonish looking man who, though young, was leaving his first youth. His jaw was hard and his eyes dark green, and Derek thrilled at remembering his touch, his… what could only be called love.

“Anson!” he said to the Prince of Westiral.

“Derek, my friend!” Anson smiled from where he sat on the bed, holding out a hand to him. “Thank all the Gods it was you who they sent to me!”