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The silence between them swallows the words they crave.
One, Behemoth, is not religious, but his notions may keel for a phrase long heard but never quite understood. A Gift from God, so to speak, but what does that mean? A person? A thing? Lavished with heel-planting beauty? Supplied with life-saving luck? Bestowed with gut-clenching charm? None of those, he has come to realize, or not just one. He is not religious, see, because he has gone through the steps of life without reason to be; he has never come across an angel and certainly not a Voice. Nothing at all could sway him. Until—
The other, Numen, is also not religious, but he is a zealot, through and through. He would dig a pit into his belly to spread his ribs apart to yank away the most delicate of his organs, or so he considers it. Never yet taken, and never yet granted. It is tucked beneath vulnerability under the guise of strategy; a thing to be handed over, but not exactly, if it will bring him to an end-goal he must ruminate and finalize. He is not religious, see, because he has gone through the steps of life believing that he is to gather up the fragments to build his own religion. He has not been so successful. Until—
It is the polarization of a mutual trait that relinquishes them to a desperate and well-loved rapacity. Behemoth, warm, glances downward and inward. Oh, how he yearns to caress the human soul. Numen, cold, glances upward and outward. Oh, how he yearns to step upon his pedestal of flesh. He, Behemoth, thinks, but he does not think, think, think. Similarly, nearly, he, Numen, thinks, thinks, thinks, but he does not think.
Or, it is perfect, just perfect—their wants and needs.
Numen cradles Behemoth’s jaw with both hands as if bearing a chalice. He pulls him forth but secures the last few centimeters Himself, imbibing bliss and mirth through a gasp and groan. Service from He, Behemoth thinks. Service for Me, Numen thinks. Together, now, they walk hand-in-hand toward Paradise.
Hands wander, as they do, lest they become hopeless and without relief. Behemoth clasps over the jut of hips, slides up to the pudge of waist. He shudders when he hears what is thought of such confidence. Numen, on the contrary, appreciates the trapezius beneath His fingers before extending out to the bicep, measuring internally the impressive breadth all the while. He fluffs up when He hears what is thought of such admiration.
“You will take what I give to you,” Numen murmurs, spoken in a sonorous tone that Behemoth has not heard before. It pierces through to his brain, soft though it was, and suffuses him with a pink flame.
He cannot make himself speak. But he nods, eager, like a precursor so ignorant as to be tempted by fruit.
Numen, pleased, pulls away, much to the dismay of both, and reposes gracefully over a bed. To the less keen, it is nothing more than a mattress. To the whimsical, it is a mattress for a king and his mistress. To them, the most important thinkers in this matter, it is an altar.
“Come,” He urges, and Behemoth obliges.
“Pretty,” he mutters, and Numen flushes.
Pretty, indeed, like the prisms that refract from a church’s array of glistening panes when the sun is at its apex. Or, if he were to ask Him, pretty like an innocent man pinned to a cross and moulded as it, gawped at for unfettered cherry sap.
Pretty, pretty, pretty—and there are other pretty things, in another sense.
He, Numen, is not so inclined to use frivolous descriptors, less so when it is incorrect in the most correct way. He realizes that He does not mind, at least for now, when He repeats the word over and over and over. Behemoth is pretty, yes, kneeling below Him, crawling between His knees. Behemoth has pretty hands, yes, finding their way to the hem of His clothes, to the seams of His resolve. Behemoth has a pretty mouth, yes, bedewing Him with scorching velvet, bequeathing Him with rapture.
His hips stutter; His belly caves; His throat constricts.
How could He be so cruel as to not reward him with anointment?
To Behemoth, it is a remarkable and staggering sight, nearly beckoned to chest-crushing ruination by a bitterness on the tongue. Nearly.
Behemoth draws back, heaving, countenance as delightful as lust. Numen is no better.
“Thank you,” he squeezes out, and He is confused—should He not be the one saying that? “Thank you, thank you, thank you—” If He were any younger, with His senses better in tact, He might have heard an amen.
"Thank you."
Paradise, they realize—without the cherubs, without the harps, without the clouds. Even if Numen, sweet demiurge, does not reciprocate, Behemoth, afflicted worshipper, proves to be truly pious. And they are both content, for now, with the parallels that make them ache all over.