“It’s not that bad, Christian.” Kingsley smiled and yawned, and Christian only stared.

“You look…how are you even alive?”

“By the grace of God, mon ami.”

“Who did this to you? Tell me so I can go kill him and bring you back his heart to eat.”

Christian’s allegiance to him, his friendship and fury…Kingsley wanted to pat him on the head like a loyal dog. Good boy.

“I’m fine, Christian.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Kingsley turned and smiled at the handsome young Christian, who now seemed like a friend he’d said goodbye to long ago.

“I have never felt more fine in my life.” The words were not a lie.

The peace he’d felt lasted until he returned to his grandparents’ house in Portland, and the reality of Søren’s absence surrounded him. After they’d consummated whatever it was they had, Søren had walked away and left him there on the ground. Kingsley hadn’t minded. It was exactly what he’d wanted, to be left alone with his wounds, with his love. He loved that Søren broke him, but he didn’t want Søren to see him broken. Alone, he’d gathered his tattered clothes. Alone, he half coughed, half vomited his dinner and blood on the ground. Alone, he’d cried as he tried to stand up, and landed hard on his knees. He gave up on walking after the third try and crawled through the woods, back to the school, and collapsed on the front steps of the chapel. Father Henry found him there and, with every ounce of the old priest’s strength, lifted him off the ground and carried him to the infirmary.

“Are you all right, son?” Father Henry had asked. “Son? Kingsley…are you laughing?”

But now, at home, with Søren hours away, still at school, Kingsley felt doubt begin to set in, fear. Had it really happened? Yes, and he had the healing wounds to prove it. But would it happen again when he went back? What had happened?

Sex. That had happened. He’d never had sex like that before, and if they were going to do it again, they really needed to find a way to do it without tearing Kingsley open. The pain he cherished, but he wanted to live to be f**ked again and again. But the sex…that had been the least of what had happened.

Søren…Kingsley had started a habit of writing the name down on scraps of paper. He’d light a match then and smile as the name burned. The ritual comforted him. He’d seen Søren light little candles outside the chapel, pause and bow his head. That’s what burning Søren’s name felt like—prayer.

Søren…learning the name seemed far more meaningful, more significant than even the sex had. Everyone at the school called him Stearns, apart from the priests, who called him Mr. Stearns. His first name was Marcus. Everyone knew that, although no one dared utter it. But Søren was his name. Kingsley didn’t know how or know why. And he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but seeing Søren again.

The days of summer passed and Kingsley did everything in his power to prove to his grandparents that he was well, that whatever had befallen him had done him no permanent damage. He returned to his rakish ways, taking up with all his old girlfriends. During the summer he easily avoided the boyfriends and brothers who’d been the bane of his existence during his time in his Portland high school. He’d let his lovely ladies pick him up, and they’d skip the movies, skip dinner, skip everything but parking the car in the middle of nowhere and letting anything and everything happen in the backseat. But only the backseat. Susan had wanted to lay out a blanket on the ground and have sex under the stars. Kingsley refused. Such a thing he’d reserve only for Søren. He’d told Susan a lie…something about poison ivy, and the girl had surrendered to his superior wisdom and spread her legs gainfully against the leather interior of her father’s Cadillac.

By the last week of July, Kingsley had nearly gone mad with longing for Søren, but he knew of no way to hasten the days or contact Søren. He feared sending him a letter. The priests sorted the mail and delivered it. Kingsley had refused to explain his injuries. No one ever spoke to Søren unless necessary. That Kingsley would be the lone student to send him a letter over the summer…no, too great a risk.

He couldn’t call, couldn’t write…so he waited and he prayed. And the days passed and the nights passed and his body healed completely. So completely that he finally felt comfortable taking all his clothes off again. In late July he and Jackie, the quarterback’s bookish but beautiful redheaded sister, holed up in her bedroom one Wednesday night when her parents were out celebrating their anniversary. That night had been unremarkable, really. Unremarkable but for one thing, one act that had come as an answer to his unspoken prayers.

Jackie kissed her way from his hip to his neck.

“Can we do something different?” she’d whispered as she nibbled on his earlobe.

“Anything, ma chérie. Anything you desire…” He exaggerated his French accent with his American girls. Most boys he knew plied their girlfriends with beer to get them to open their shapely thighs. Kingsley needed only a few words of French.

“I want to do something you’ve never done with anyone else.”

Kingsley smiled at the ceiling.

Rolling over, he pinned Jackie onto her back and pressed her legs open with his knees. He let the tip of his erection lightly caress her swollen clitoris. She gasped and laughed in the back of her throat.