The Right Hand Of The Father

Chapter 36

He stalked the streets of New Orleans and tried to get his

bearings. He'd gone to the Palais Hotel first and, before he'd

reached the door, his stomach had lurched. It was where he'd

taken Alexander to spoil him. The hotel suite he'd stayed in the

night before he'd gone to retrieve the boy from the docks. The

place he'd brought Alexander to celebrate the boy giving himself

to him.

A honeymoon of a sorts he'd called it when he'd told

Alexander they were going to New Orleans that morning. A big,

soft bed and every luxury at their fingertips. A place where

they could be alone and revel in their love.

His chest hurt thinking about those few brief days when he

was certain that their lives would be better— that his own life

would be better.

He had a boy to love him and he would wake up each morning

to warm brown eyes and a willing body next to him. A boy to kiss

him and love him and that he could spoil. A boy who would be

with him until the last time he closed his eyes and went to his

maker.

Then he had found that it wasn't just an illusion of

happiness, he had somehow opened a door to his own hell. His boy

was not a boy but his son and the love he had for Alexander? Not

only was that love a sin, but it would destroy them both.

He had become a monster that the George Washington of

Virginia would refuse to associate with. A man he would cross

the street to avoid. Who he would give the cut direct to.

He'd spent all those years in Virginia afraid that someone

would find out what he was. His sins. The way he craved male

flesh the same as he did female. The way his eyes lingered. Even

though he never touched it was like a brand on his skin. Pull

his clothes away and everyone would be able to see it, there on

his chest, Sodomite.

He'd gone to Williamsburg for business or to sit in the

House of Burgess and he'd see those pretty boys and he'd know

what they were about. Know that they weren't just in taverns to

play cards and drink. That their jests held something deeper.

And his eyes would linger. His eyes would linger and his mind

would race with fantasies of what those boys would be like under

his hands. How they would taste against his tongue. The sounds

they would make as he pushed inside them and stroked his hands

along their body. And he would escape. Go back to the small home

he kept in Williamsburg and take himself in hand and think about