The Prince

“It didn’t work because I knew you didn’t want me to stop.”

“Someday I might.”

“Then say…” Søren paused and glanced around the hallway. The cold stone walls stood unadorned but for a few pictures of various saints and popes. “…mercy.”

Kingsley laughed. “Mercy? Really?”

Søren nodded. But he didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile.

“Mercy…” Kingsley repeated in English. “It sounds like merci, you know.”

Mercy. In English it meant an act of pardon, compassion. Merci was French for “thank you.”

“I know.” Søren gave him a smile that nearly felled him.

“Who are you?” The question came out before Kingsley could stop it.

Søren only looked at him.

“I mean…your name, Søren. Where does it come from? They say your name is Marcus Stearns. But I know it’s not.”

Søren said nothing for a moment and Kingsley prayed he would tell him, that he would answer. The need for answers from Søren outweighed even his desire for sex.

“Marcus is my father’s name,” Søren said simply, without emotion. “He raped my mother, and I was born. He named me after himself. But she gave me another name, her father’s name. No one calls me Marcus but my father.”

“Who calls you Søren? At the school, I mean.”

Søren lightly touched Kingsley’s lips.

“Only you.”

“And why me?” That was the question that had plagued him for ten weeks, since the night of the rape on the forest floor. Of all the boys at the school…why him? Why Kingsley? Why did Søren choose him to tell his secrets to, to share his body with?

“Because…” Søren dropped his hands, to hold Kingsley by the hips. He laid his forehead on Kingsley’s and took two slow breaths. “Because you aren’t afraid of me.”

With that, he pulled away and disappeared down the hallway. Kingsley stood outside the dorm room, swallowing huge gulps of air as he leaned back against the cold stone of the wall. With one hand over his eyes, he slipped his other hand into his boxers and stroked himself a few times, until he came with a shudder and a nearly audible gasp.

Wet with his own se**n, Kingsley returned to his bed, not caring enough to even bother cleaning himself off first. Søren had given him that erection and nearly given him the orgasm. He didn’t want to wash it off any more than he’d wanted to take a bath after that night in the forest. Knowing Søren had come inside him had made the entire ordeal worth all the fear and all the pain.

And soon, he’d have it again.

But how soon?

Kingsley stumbled through the next day, barely registering anything around him. He made the effort to seem aware and awake and cognizant of his surroundings. He spoke in his classes. He chatted with his classmates at lunch. During chapel he even volunteered to read one of the daily readings. But his mind existed solely for Søren. And late that afternoon, he finally caught a glimpse of him. Strolling down the second floor of the library, Kingsley heard Søren’s voice. But was that Søren? It sounded like him. But not. The voice sounded happy, encouraging and drily witty. He could still safely say that, if added up, the sum total of his conversations with Søren would equal just under one hour. And each of those conversations had been fraught with tension. He stopped in the hallway and looked into a classroom. Søren stood by the chalkboard at the front, wearing brown pants, a brown patterned vest and a white shirt with elegantly turned cuffs. Before him a dozen eleven- and twelve-year-olds mumbled the Spanish conjugation of “to talk.”

Yo hablo…tú hablas…él habla…nostros hablamos…

“Good. Very good,” Søren said as the students finished. “Now let’s try it again…but audibly this time. Talk, please. Talk? No hablas inglés?”

Nervous but genuine laughter rippled through the classroom. Søren smiled and nodded. This time with some measure of enunciation the students recited the conjugation again.

“Better. Gracias.”

In unison the class replied, “De nada.”

Kingsley covered his mouth to stifle the laugh that wanted to explode out of him. Søren, who had scared every boy in the school when he was a student, now seemed to have the complete devotion of his students.

His students?

A realization hit Kingsley at that moment, and he dropped his hand from his mouth. He felt himself tremble as he forced himself away from the classroom scene and outside again.

The risk they were taking by being together had seemed enormous enough when Søren was a student. But now…Kingsley was still a student and Søren was a teacher.

A teacher…my God, he was sleeping with one of the teachers. And to think his grandparents had sent him here to keep him away from more sexual misadventures.

Outside in the fresh air, Kingsley inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself. His heart rate slowed and his panic passed. He trusted Søren utterly and completely. If Søren felt they were safe, being together, then they were.

Yes, Søren being a teacher now was bad, awkward. They’d have to be even more careful. But it could have been so much worse.

At least he wasn’t a priest.

NORTH

The Present

Kingsley spun around and found himself face-to-face with a smiling ghost from the past.