Page 16 of The Secret Shape of Worship
Soon, Mina couldn’t stand it any longer as the orgasm began to force its way through.
Don’t stop,Mina thought, his mind a cacophony of incomprehensible affirmations. A gluttonous garble ofyesandpleaseandharderandtake me as I am.
And so Anubis obliged, harder and faster than Mina would have thought he could take. Mina could sense that Anubis was close. Could feel the shudder of it in his own mind. Mina ground his hips with wild abandon into the cotton wrappings. Ironically, Mina had never felt so free, so unbound. There was no divine condemnation. No tally marks racking up against him in a holy book of judgment. No dead relatives sitting on clouds watching and weeping. There was only his skin. The sizzling nerves. The unfathomable attention of a deity who was slowly unwinding the knotted up tangle of Mina’s carefully constructed disguise, who saw the questions and curiosities and carefully entombed longings of his heart, pounding them into oblivion. The hungry thing in Mina’s gut convulsed, every nerve in his skin detonating as his cock exploded huge bursts of hot come onto himself. He felt it pump and pump and pump, and despite the tightness of the cotton fabric, it soaked as far up as his throat. The wrappings around his entire torso were soaked through with the hot warmth of his release.
Slowly, Anubis removed himself from Mina’s throat, and Mina gasped for air, spitting out the thick saliva still lubricating his throat.
What about you? I want to taste you.
Patience, boy.Came the god’s reply.Patience.
Still, Mina was hard. And the feeling of his own come soaking through the cotton wrappings and the memory of the bulging jackal god fucking the shit out of his face made him shiverwith pleasure all over again. Out of nowhere, Mina felt another orgasm rise to the surface. He knew that Anubis was watching, and so he ground himself against the fabric. Within seconds, he was coming again. Not as much as before, but still, he shot again and again a fresh, warm load, a pool of warm come collecting at his back. His eyes rolled with exhaustion and pleasure. And something else.
It wasn’t just lust. Or reverence. A different kind of warmth spread across his chest. A remembered hymn came in answer.Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down; Darkness be over me, my rest a stone; Yet in my dreams I'd be; Nearer, my God, to thee.
The feeling was foreign and forbidden. He fought it off, unwilling to give it room to breathe or space to ask for more, as sleep rolled over his body like a fog.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HUMAN
Days passed.
Then weeks.
Eventually, Mina lost track.
When he’d asked Anubis early on why no one had found them yet, the god replied simply, “Because I have not allowed them to.”
“But won’t other people come searching for me? My parents?”
Occasionally, Mina would remember his parents with a pang of sadness. Torn between this strange new life and the one he’d left. The one that was beginning to feel more and more like a dream.
The god had looked at Mina, seeming to decide between leaving his explanation at that or saying more. He eventually went on.
“Gods have many useful abilities. One of which is to manipulate time. You and I are in a liminal space where time moves differently. Where we can experience more. Where your soul is free to explore. From your friends’ perspective and therest of the world, it is possible that only a few hours have passed.”
“How long can this go on?”
“For as long as I wish.” The god shifted, looked away. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you wish to leave now?”
“No.” Mina had stepped closer, pressing a hand to the god’s chest, hooking a finger around the chain that held a golden scarab. “No, I don’t.”
Every once in a while,that forbidden feeling came back to punch Mina in the stomach. And each time he told it,no. He fought it back with words likeimpulsiveandchildishandlust.But Anubis and Mina’s time together had become about so much more than that.
After the experience on the mummification table, Anubis had carefully unwrapped Mina’s limp and shivering body and carried him outside into the warm Egyptian sun. Brought him to the river and cradled him under the current as the brown water washed him clean.
And it was then, outside of the temple, with the afternoon sun dusting his black fur like gold, that the reality of the moment hit Mina. Looking up at Anubis, held tight in the god’s arms in the cool flow of the Nile, he realized Anubis was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen and that maybe this really was the answer to his prayers.
The shine of the gold and gem-studded jewelry punched through his long, pointed ears and the glittering chains aroundhis neck. The long, strong line of his jaw. Despite all of the inhuman physical things about him, there was something so indescribably human in the quirk of his mouth when Mina said something cheeky. The shine of his eyes that always seemed to search for Mina’s. The way this unfathomably powerful creature cared so softly and tenderly for him.
After that, trips to the river had become a daily ritual. Walking the sun-drenched bank, swimming in the cool water. Anubis showed Mina how to set basket traps for catching perch, tilapia, and mullet. How to salt and dry them in the sun so that they would last longer in the damp temple.
But mostly, their days were spent indoors. Mina learned that the half-finished murals on the walls were Anubis’s. And so he watched with dizzying swells of admiration as the god painted scene after scene. Eventually, he noticed that Anubis had started painting a new figure into his scenes. A pale-skinned human with golden curls in a whiteshendytnext to his own hulking form. Walking. Fishing. Swimming. And in each scene, Anubis’s figure was connected in some small way to his. A finger on his shoulder, a palm on his head, a foot subtly resting on Mina’s as they stood side by side.
