Page 17 of The Secret Shape of Worship
Mina found that part interesting since, apart from their few sexual encounters, Anubis didn’t go out of his way to touch Mina. It had only recently started to bother him, and more and more lately, he’d considered asking Anubis about it. Still, the scenes filled Mina’s heart. A few times, he had to stop himself from humming a song to himself while he watched Anubis work. He trusted Anubis not to judge him, but there was something deep down that tugged at his voice whenever it tried to come out.
So he kept it hidden. Deep. Next to that forbidden feeling.
Mina stood now warminghimself by the emerald fire in their bedroom. “A symbol of transformation and an image of the afterlife,” Anubis had said one day when Mina had asked about it, a distant longing in the god’s eyes. “Fields of Malachite.”
There was still so much he didn’t know about Anubis. Some vastness within him that was always out of reach. Whenever he would try to ask about his past or their future, the god would become quiet. Or change the subject. Or lower his eyes and drop hisshendyt.Mina could never help but go along with the distraction.
Mina walked toward the red velvet couch that Anubis had brought before the fireplace weeks earlier. He threw himself along the length of it, turning to his back and lifting his arms to cradle his head in his hands. He thought about how he wanted to get closer to Anubis. To know more. To feel more.
The warm, forbidden feeling pressed against his stomach, and Mina closed his eyes, trying to will it away. Eventually, sensing that he was no longer alone with his thoughts, Mina looked up to see Anubis looking down at him.
“What are you thinking, son of man?”
“Seems like a silly question for you to be asking. Can’t you dig around in here and see for yourself?” Mina drummed his fingers against the side of his head.
“Now is not a moment of teaching. It would be unfair of me to go where I am not welcome in your body.”
Mina relaxed the worried part of his mind.Thank god.“I was thinking that I want to touch you.”
“You have touched very much of me,” the god said with a flick of his ear, an adorable little expression Mina had come to recognize as amusement.
“Not like that.” Up until that point, everything they had done together had been about Mina’s pleasure. The focus on driving every ounce of ecstasy from his body as possible. They hadn’t had proper sex. Mina wasn’t even sure if that was something he would physically be able to do. It had only been oral, guided self-pleasure, and more episodes with the flail than Mina cared to admit. And yet he craved more.
“I want to really touch you. Your face. Your absurdly hunky chest. I want to run my hands up your thighs and make you feel good. But more than any of that…” Mina sat up, rising to his knees in the center of the sofa. He hesitated. Even to admit this to himself was edging dangerously close to that secret feeling, but it bubbled to the surface, out of his control. “More than any of that, I want to kiss you.”
The god looked away. “That would serve no purpose. This time is for you to learn. And to heal. I do not matter. Only you matter in this.”
“I’ve been here for probably a month now, Anubis. But it’s felt like a lifetime to me. You’ve given me every possible pleasure. Why would you deny me this one?” Mina felt a small twinge of guilt at turning the god’s own words back on him.
“I deny you nothing that I feel will aid you on your journey.”
“This will.”
“It won’t.”
Mina stood up from the sofa and walked toward Anubis. The green firelight flickered across his jet black skin, a dusting of emeralds across velvet fur.
“And if I insisted,” Mina said, standing inches from Anubis, the top of his head coming only to the god’s chest so that he hadto look sharply up. Mina scrunched his nose and furrowed his brow, trying to be as irresistibly adorable as he could manage.
The god looked down, unmoved. “I would insist back.”
“And if I did this…” Mina raised his hand and pressed it lightly to Anubis’s chest. He could have sworn he felt the god’s breath hitch.
“I would ask that you only pursue those things which help you discover yourself. I am of no consequence.”
“You are to me.”
“To what end?”
“To whatever end.”
This time, Mina was certain he felt the breath beneath the god’s massive chest quicken.
“Sit with me,” Mina said. “Please.” Without waiting for a response, Mina lowered his hand and threaded his fingers through Anubis's, pulling them toward the sofa. He sat in the middle, facing one end, and pulled Anubis down with him. The god’s hulking frame barely fit on the couch, and Mina thought he heard it crack and chuckled to himself.
“What is humorous?” Anubis asked, his head cocked like a curious dog.
“Well, first, when you do that with your head, it’s fucking adorable. And second, you’re enormous and you look like a giant trying to sit on doll furniture.”
