Page 13 of The Secret Shape of Worship
But there was never an answer.
And now, here was a god.
Who heard and saw. Who promised to save. Who promised change.
Here was an answer.
Mina fell, knees cracking hard on stone.
The quake began to subside. The fiery glow in the great god’s eyes dulled. Anubis became his smaller (though still much larger than Mina) size again.
“Please,” Mina cried. “Please, please.” What he was begging for, he couldn’t even be sure.
Mina couldn’t stanch the flow of childish sounds pouring out of him. The dark and needful thing in his gut writhed in panic and want.My god, my god, don’t forsake me. Don’t leave me,all of the desperation he felt trying to find its way out of his mouth in the language of scripture—a familiar, meaningless tongue.
All of the authority in his life thus far had felt like a shell—the thin skin of a cheap costume—compared to the power that pulsed through his body in Anubis's presence. It filled him up. It made him want to bow, to worship, to please. It made him want to find the broken pieces of himself and put them back together. It made him want to deny the god nothing. Deny himselfnothing. To be full and complete and happy, for the first time in his life.
Mina no longer wanted to be found.
He’d been found.
And it terrified him.
“I want to trust you. But this will change so much.”
Anubis, too, knelt before him. His chest glistened magnificently. His massive, powerful arms bulged, even as with a delicate hand he held Mina’s small, quivering chin. “This will change everything.”
The god cocked his head. His eyes fluttered and softened—the fire there warm and welcoming.
“I am never wrong about the measure of a man’s heart. You, Mina, are pure as gold. Lighter than a feather. But you are shattered. You are broken into all the parts of yourself you’ve torn with your own hands in an attempt to hide. They are not shameful or sinful. You are a beautiful, decadent, ravenously lustful creature. I am here to help you put those pieces back together so that you may see them. Taste them. Feel them on your tongue. Press them against your beautiful body and experience the fullness of your wants and desires so that you might build yourself back up new and perfect.”
Mina pressed his eyes hard, pushing out the blurry remnants of his terror so that he could see the god more clearly. He wanted to reach out and touch Anubis. He found himself wanting to feel his hard body against his soft one. He wanted to feel the god’s strength pouring into his own weakness. But he still had so much fear. The shape of true worship was still foreign to his bones.
“Yes,” rumbled Anubis, voice like cracking stones. “I can smell it. Your fear. Your reluctance to give over full control to your wants and desires. It is sour, spoiling everything. Perhaps…”
Anubis looked at the wall to his right.
Through stinging eyes, Mina followed his gaze to a painted scene. Of the god himself standing over a figure lying prostrate on a long wooden table and being wrapped in cotton cloth, mummified.
The god turned back to Mina, a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Perhaps if control were taken from you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
BOUND
Mina was bound and naked on a worn wooden table in the middle of an otherwise empty room. An impossible emerald-colored fire blazed in a simple stone hearth cut into the wall beside him, deep golden streaks occasionally ripping through the green tongues flicking and dancing wildly. There was no chimney that Mina could see, and yet no smoke filled the room. Recent events considered, Mina didn’t really linger too long on the strangeness of the fire.
Thick leather straps dug almost painfully across Mina’s arms, chest, and legs. A glimmer of sweat shone across his skin. He’d gone willingly, let the thick-muscled god scoop him off the cold floor and carry him from the bedroom into an adjoining room. He’d wanted to press his nose between the hard mounds of the god’s chest. To breathe him in. To mumble apologies, promises, prayers. But a thick and nameless shame still wrenched itself across his throat. And when Anubis had set him on the table, stretching his limbs and winding the straps across his body, a hymn, like a smell from a forgotten memory, stung behind his eyes.Behold me, Savior, at thy feet; Deal with me as thou seestmeet; Thy work begin, thy work complete; But take me as I am.Mina bit it back before it could vibrate itself into existence.
Anubis stood at the head of the table so that Mina couldn’t see him but could still sense him in every other way. The clove and wood smoke that carried on his breath. The canine musk that clung to his velveteen skin. The warmth radiating from every inch of him.
Mina remembered Sunday school stories of how only the high priest was allowed into the holy of holies in the ancient temple to experience the full presence of God, the smoke of sacrifices and incense tendrilling through the air. Mina shuddered, feeling exposed in a holy place. Unworthy of the moment.Take me as I am.And then,am I even enough?
“Where are we?” His voice was small, breakable.
“Mummification chamber. This is where all souls begin their journeys.”
“Mummif…are you…wait…” Like smoke in a strong wind, the reverent moment vanished, and suddenly Mina saw his situation in a cold, new light. Immobile in a dark room far below ground with an ancient god. Lost, exposed, vulnerable as a lamb lying on an altar. He’d read enough books to know what happened next—brains scrambled with hot pokers and pulled out of noses. Was Anubis not as noble as he’d been trying to appear? Was all of this a game to get Mina to lower his defenses, become weak and malleable? Mina pulled against his restraints, but they only creaked weakly, giving nothing.
