In this chapter Milja is being taken by Egan to see his superior within the secretive Vidimus order, within the Vatican:
Claustrophobia and agoraphobia seemed to alternate in this place, with nothing in between. And everywhere we were surrounded by naked flesh—hugely muscled statues of ferocious-looking saints, frescoes where billowy people bumped around on clouds like pastel-colored helium balloons, and bare-bummed putti equally at home flashing pagan gods or the crucified Christ.
To top off my anxiety, as I’d fought my way out of the crush surrounding Michelangelo’s Pieta, I was pretty sure I’d spotted the Archangel Raphael. He’d been attempting to blend into a crowd of South Korean tourists, but had failed by dint of being head and shoulders taller than anyone else, and supermodel-beautiful. He’d walked away and I’d lost sight of him. If it truly had been him.
I hadn’t told Egan.
Here, at the top of the vast stairwell and through another anonymous door into a broad gallery, we were surrounded by flesh again. Vast tapestries covered the rear walls, full of unclothed Greek heroes slaughtering one other. Before these stood twin rows of white marble statues. I couldn’t tell if they were Roman originals or Renaissance homages, but almost all of them were nudes. I scrunched my face in bewilderment.
Egan knocked on the door at the end of the gallery. A wizened old priest came out briefly and they conducted a murmured conversation in Italian. The priest disappeared again and Egan shrugged. “We wait,” he said.
I strode slowly back along the lines of marble, peering at the ripped torsos and the contorted limbs, frozen in strife. Even the sedate bust of an elderly philosopher was heroically proportioned. “Is this part of the museum?” I asked.
“Yes. Not a bit open to the public though.” Unable to shove his hands into jeans pockets, Egan crossed them and tucked them into his armpits while he paced slowly about. “Father Giuseppe is a curator in the Vatican Museum, officially.”
“And unofficially?”
“He’s more important.”
“Like, the head of your order?”
“That’s not something I can discuss.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s an academic by inclination, not a crusader. Which is why he might listen to us. And he is my confessor within the order, so he knows about…us.”
“Hh.” I poked a dryad’s stone nipple. “Does your Pope know about Vidimus?”
“And that’s something else I’m not authorized to talk about.”
I sighed. “Why do you lot have all this stuff?” I asked, derision breaking into my voice. I waved my arms at the gallery and its contents. “It’s all pagan! What’s any of this got to do with the Church?”
Egan was keeping half an eye on the closed door. “You can look at pagan myths as metaphors for deeper eternal truths. I guess. Human attempts to depict the ineffable.”
“In my faith we never try to depict the divine in three dimensions, or like realistic people—it is too worldly.” I spun in a circle and laughed. “How can you keep your celibate priests clean of temptation surrounded by this stuff all day? All your nasty half-naked saints? It’s all abs and asses and heaving bosoms, it must drive you crazy!”
Egan frowned. “It’s just art.”
“It’s porn!” I crossed to a statue of a goat-legged man grasping a struggling, wide-eyed nymph and I clapped my hand against his bare butt. The statue, labelled Pan and Selene, was certainly dynamic. Pan, apart from his hairy calves and cloven hooves, was handsome in a coarse way and muscled like a wrestler, while Selene’s round breasts seemed to bounce weightlessly despite their marble. I could see the dints his fingers made in the alabaster of her thigh. “Really high-end, expensive porn, okay? And this is pretty violent stuff too. Doesn’t look consensual to me.”
I had Egan’s attention now. He uncrossed his arms and stalked toward me. “You shouldn’t touch that, Milja,” he said mildly. “It’s hundreds of years old and probably priceless.”
I wrinkled my nose at him, wanting to provoke. “I’m just trying to grasp an ineffable spiritual truth,” I told him, sliding my hand lasciviously up Pan’s thigh and tickling his heavy ball-sack.
Egan laughed, half disapproving and half amused. His response fueled the devil in me, and I caressed Selene’s bare bosom, stroking her while I watched Egan’s face. He was close enough now that I could see his pupils dilate, darkening his eyes. “Don’t,” he said softly.
Is that a dare?
I ran my fingertips sensually down the long line of the goddess’s arched torso, from erect stone nipple to the curve of her hipbone—and as I dropped my hand away I swept it out and let it graze the black fabric of his cassock. My fingers guessed accurately; there was nothing soft in the bulge they found there, and Egan caught his breath. He went terribly still. He wasn’t looking at the marble assault, he was looking down at me.
“Milja,” he whispered.
But he didn’t back away.
The knowledge of what I was doing to him was like a liquid flame running through my core. I felt like I could have sprouted horns and a tail at that moment. I could have tied his erect cock with a ribbon and dragged him away by it into the fires that never die.
What I did was let my hand drift back, and use two knuckles to slowly trace the thick, curved ridge hidden beneath his robe and trapped in his pants. It was already more turgid than it had been a moment ago.
“Ah please, Milja, why?” He pleaded like a man tied helplessly to a wall, unable to escape, unable to defend himself. All he had to do was thrust my hand away, or step out of reach, but somehow he was now closer to me instead, looming over me. Helplessly.
I stretched up until my lips were all but brushing his. “I want to make sure you have plenty for the confessional,” I murmured.
“Oh, you have no idea.”
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