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The first time he kissed Jesus was after he’d played a set in the small club downtown where Judas wasted most of his evenings. Judas had been hanging around at the bar, nursing a beer, feeling out of sorts with himself. He knew the barkeeper, who’d warned him earlier that the boss had booked some pretty boy with a guitar to play on the tiny stage in a corner of the club.
“Thinks he’s a future rock star, looks like he belongs in a boy band. Don’t know what the boss was thinking.”
Judas had smiled wryly. “He wants us to drown our headaches in your shitty beer,” he’d said, and the barkeeper had laughed.
Then Jesus took to the stage, as pretty and young and naive-looking as he’d promised, and Judas had scoffed and turned away—only to turn back around, cut to the heart when Pretty Boy opened his mouth.
Later, Judas could never figure out how long Jesus sang. The boss usually wouldn’t allow a newcomer more than three or four songs. And maybe Judas remembered wrong. Maybe it was only three songs, only fifteen minutes.
But in those fifteen minutes, something took hold of him, the songs slicing him open right to the core.
By the end of the boy’s set, Judas was glad of the club’s darkness, his throat aching. He had to turn his head for a moment to wipe in shocked disbelief at his eyes and the tears that wouldn’t stop.
When the boy came up to the bar, Judas felt a moment of panic. Something inside him was shaking with an instinctive need to flee. Instead, staring helplessly at the boy with his damp, dark hair and shining eyes, Judas held out his hand to the barkeeper, and when he pressed a cold bottle into Judas’ hand, took it and held it out to the boy in invitation.
The boy stopped, his eyes lighting up when he saw the bottle.
“Thanks, man,” he said and raised it gratefully to his forehead. The bottle was cold, drops of water clinging to it, and he sighed. Then he sank onto the barstool next to Judas and raised it to his lips, drinking deeply before he wiped his mouth.
“I’m Jesus.”
“Judas,” he said in response, unable to tear his eyes away.
Jesus wasn’t as much of a boy as he’d thought when he’d seen him up there on the stage that was really just a handful of old crates. He’d wondered if the boy was even eighteen; now, close up, he could see that Jesus had to be in his twenties.
Didn’t make a difference, he thought, even as he stared at the drop of perspiration that ran down Jesus’ throat into the opening of his wide, grey shirt, skin glistening like warm gold. Boy or not, Jesus was beautiful, young, and full of a strange, charismatic charm. Innocence, perhaps, even though the mere thought of that word made him want to laugh bitterly.
And here Judas was, forty to the boy’s twenty, the first gray hairs appearing in his beard where Jesus blazed with youthful energy. Even if the boy liked men, there was no way he’d want Judas for anything other than a shared beer after a gig.
“So you liked it?”
There was no shyness in Jesus even then, just an infectious joy, as if it didn’t matter whether he played for ten or ten thousand people, as long as someone—as long as Judas—had been there to hear him.
Judas nodded, mostly because he didn’t trust his voice. He couldn’t look away from Jesus: the sweat glistening at his throat, his full lips around the neck of the bottle, the beard that looked as if it would be soft against Judas’ face.
Jesus smiled again and just like that reached out to clasp his arm. “Appreciate it.”
His eyes lit up with warmth, and Judas still couldn’t look away, like a moth transfixed by a flame. It wasn’t naivety after all, he realized then. It was something genuine, something deep and true that blazed in Jesus’ eyes and seemed to reach out and slide its hooks right into Judas’ soul.
He could feel his heart stutter in his chest. He had to look away. It was ridiculous. What had come over him?
Maybe this was what made other men go out and buy a new car, or leave their wife and children to run off with someone half their age.
Judas smiled wryly, even though he wanted to bury his face in his hands and weep. That was exactly what this was, wasn’t it?
He’d fallen for a boy half his age, just because he had a pretty voice and youthful charm. There was no fucking way Jesus would ever look at him, Judas—forty years old and all of his youthful dreams long since dead—and want him, want him with the same searing, near-destructive force that had hooked its claws into Judas’ heart and pulled him towards Jesus as helplessly as a magnet attracted iron.
There were more people coming up to the bar to chat to Jesus, some shy, some bold, all of them smiling with something close to awe when Jesus turned that charm on them. And as Jesus laughed and gestured, the bar’s dim light somehow glistening inexplicably in his damp, dark hair, Judas could see him on a stage, all alone facing a large arena,. He’d be smiling like that, raising his guitar with same confidence, and below him, thousands of people would cheer and scream his name...
When the handful of people finally moved on, Jesus was, to Judas’ great surprise, still sitting there next to him. He could have walked off with any of them. Pretty girls. Boys his own age.
Instead, Jesus smiled as he turned back around to Judas, resting his hand on his arm—just like that, as if they were old friends. And just like that, Judas’ cock went hard as if he were as young and easily excitable as Jesus’ new fans who’d only just left.
Judas looked down at Jesus’ hand, his heart beating so quickly that he could barely catch a breath. It still made no sense. Why now? Why him?
Jesus tilted his head at him and smiled, that sweet, intimate smile that made his eyes light up as the corners of his mouth rose.
Judas ached to lean forward and bury his hands in that soft, dark hair. He ached to press his mouth to Jesus’ and kiss him until he was breathless, kiss him until he’d tasted all Jesus had to give, fucking his mouth with his tongue right here in the bar—and at the same time he wanted to fall to his knees and beg for he knew not what.
Love me.
The thought made him shudder. But as much as he wanted to escape from it, it was there, a terrifying truth burning like a brand in his heart, which was beating even now with painful, rapid thuds, wanting, yearning, needing.
“I should head out,” Jesus said, that sweet, sensual mouth smiling at him again. “How about you?”
Was it an invitation? Judas couldn’t say at the time. He just knew that he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the boy leave, never to return.
Silently, he nodded, and when Jesus held out his hand, he took it and allowed himself to be pulled up.
They left like that, together, Judas aware with every beat of his heart of his age, of his graying hair, of Jesus’ beauty and his youth and his—whatever it was that had Judas so unsettled, his heart racing with something that wasn’t lust, that wasn’t even infatuation but little more than blind despair.
Outside, Jesus stopped. He tilted his head up at the dark sky.
There were no stars, no moon, just light pollution and darkness, but at least the air was cool after the humidity inside.
Jesus leaned against the wall. Then he turned his head to look at Judas, his eyes wide and warm.
Judas could list a thousand reasons why he shouldn’t. It felt silly to even think it: that boy might break his heart.
He was too old for that sort of thing, damn it.
Instead, his heart beating faster and faster, he leaned in. When Jesus continued to smile at him, warm, inviting, looking as if he knew exactly what Judas hungered for so desperately and didn’t mind, Judas at last pressed his mouth to his, pushing Jesus against the dirty wall that was still warm with the remaining heat of the day’s sun.
Beneath his lips, Jesus’ mouth was soft and warm. His lips parted eagerly. Judas kissed him with that same despair, groaning as he pressed one arm against the wall, sliding his tongue hungrily past lips that tempted him with their softness to dream of unspeakable things.
A moment later, Jesus’ hand was in his hair and Judas could hear himself panting against Jesus’ mouth. Judas was so hard it hurt, his entire body gone tense with a desire so intense it scared him.
Jesus made a soft, approving sound, moaning into the kiss. When Judas slid a hand between their bodies, he found him as hard as he was.
“Let me,” Judas panted when he tore himself away, half-blind with lust, “let me, please—”
And then he was on his knees, his hands shaking with eagerness as he fought with Jesus’ jeans. A moment later, Jesus was in his mouth, his cock hot and hard and his hips bucking forward as he gasped.
Judas couldn’t think, could only slide his tongue around him, all technique forgotten as he sucked with enough fervor to perhaps make up for his lack of finesse. His heart was still racing, his pulse as loud as thunder in his ears, and every little sound Jesus made only heightened the frenzy that had taken hold of him.
Judas couldn’t stop, not even to think of what would happen if someone were to leave the club now. They hadn’t even managed to make it to a shadowed corner, and Judas, who’d never lost control over himself before, didn’t care. All he wanted was more of Jesus: the heat of his cock in his mouth, the silk of his skin, the warm smell of his arousal and sweat as Judas sucked him deep into his throat until he couldn’t breathe. And even that wasn’t enough—not until Jesus came in a sudden rush of salt and heat and Judas found himself coming as well, there in his pants without even touching himself, as if he were just an adolescent boy.
Half an hour later, he was hard again, Jesus’ skin hot and damp against his own as he fucked him in Jesus’ room. It was good—it was too good, better than anything he’d ever felt and it was over embarrassingly quickly. But Jesus’ arms were wrapped tightly around him, Jesus’ breath hot against his throat as he gasped, his release coming in a rush against Judas’ stomach.
Even as Judas collapsed against him, the hunger was already back. It wasn’t until Jesus nudged him over onto his back, his eyes bright and warm, that Judas felt it abate, at least a little.
It was still there, deep in his heart, sharp and hungry. Like something that had taken root. Like something he couldn’t rip out without losing a part of himself.
But Jesus was out of breath and radiant with it, and when he rested his head contentedly against Judas’ shoulder, Judas thought that maybe, maybe now the spell was broken and he’d be able to sleep. Tomorrow, everything would go back to normal. He’d wake up—next to a breathtakingly beautiful young man, all right, but they’d both be hung-over and it would be awkward and Jesus would see him for who he was. A tired man, almost twenty years older, with nothing to show for his life.
Instead, when Judas woke in the morning, it was to sunshine falling into the room through the window and Jesus cross-legged on the bed, lost in thoughts as he strummed his guitar. When Judas sat up, Jesus looked at him and smiled although he didn’t stop playing, his eyes wide and warm and filled with—Judas couldn’t say.
Love, perhaps.
Ridiculous.
Now was the time to go. Instead, when Judas swung his feet off the bed, Jesus stopped playing for a moment. He was still smiling, as if Judas—tired, old, lonely Judas—was exactly what he’d wanted to wake up to.
Then Jesus held out a hand.
“Stay,” he said, just like that.
Such a simple word.
Judas could see the sunshine gleaming in Jesus’ hair, glistening on the strings of his guitar. He could see where this was all going to lead—tragedy, of course, because no one so young, so beautiful, so charismatic could ever want to have this thing that was trapped inside Judas’ chest, this agonizing ball of hunger and despair that he didn’t dare to name because it was ridiculous, it was, and in a man his age.
He should go. End it quickly. It would hurt less that way.
Instead he’d stayed.
It was already too late anyway—had been too late from that first moment he’d set eyes on Jesus. The roots of this thing growing in Judas’ chest had stabbed deep into his heart. To tear this love out of himself would have been his death.
Sometimes he wondered if Jesus knew. But when Jesus looked at him, there was never anything but love, and maybe, maybe, one could learn to live like that, heart bleeding from a myriad wounds, as long as he had Jesus.