A Priest Walks into a Bar

By Pappy Wolf

Beckham restlessly paced the sidewalk in front of the club as Killian, his latest benefactor, laid into him on the phone. Killian had let Beckham crash on his couch since Thanksgiving. But now it was over. Now, two days before Christmas, here in Nebraska, for fuck’s sake, with snow on the ground and an icy, howling wind petrifying the trees like a gorgon. Beckham stammered an apology. Killian ended the call in the middle of it.

The snowflakes in the air had been delicate and powdery, but now they gave way to fat, wet clumps that fell heavily onto his bare head. A few feet away, a pair of drag queens squealed and hurried past him into the club. If they had deigned to glance at him, what would they have seen? He wondered. Just a lanky street kid, probably, with a thrift store sort of punk style, a menagerie of piercings, a scrubby beard and a choppy, homemade auburn mullet with only a few inches of faded blue at the tips from last summer’s dye job. In other words, a loser.

His stomach, often empty, felt hollow now. Hands trembling, he treated himself to another cigarette and steeled himself to go back inside. He needed to flirt his way into a new living situation, and fast.

“I just need a place to stay until I can figure some things out,” he explained to the well-dressed, thirty-something blonde sitting next to him at the bar. “You know, I’m actually bi, so I guess I could hit up ladies for a place to crash. But you know how women are...! Gay dudes like you are bound to be way more sympathetic. Not to mention, sluttier. I mean, not all of you. Not you in particular. I don’t know… maybe it’s just something about being a man, with a man’s sex drive. Gotta work that junk every day or else it falls off, you know?”

The blonde looked over and smiled benignly. “I’m sorry, were you talking to me? I couldn’t hear you over the music.”

“I know,” Beckham laughed. It sounded only a little rueful to his ears. “Never mind. It was mostly just me thinking out loud.”

Before he could say another word, the blonde took a glowing phone from his jacket pocket. The next instant, he hopped off his stool and walked away. Beckham exhaled. It was a ragged sound, phlegmy and enervated. His fingers, bony and chapped and tipped with cracked black nail polish, probed the holes in his jacket. A quick check of his phone warned him a blizzard was on the way. Focus, he told himself. Focus, you stupid, sketchy piece of shit.

Male bodies swayed on the dance floor a few yards away. He stared at the dancers, sizing them up, desperately searching for one who might succumb to his grungy charms. The colored lights strobed, red-yellow-green-blue, red-yellow-green-blue. It was hypnotic and made him feel oddly sleepy and content. The lights shifted from blue to red. Under the red lights, the crowd vanished. Only one shadowy shape occupied the dance floor. Some sort of animal, about the size of a medium dog. It padded lazily in his direction, swishing its bushy tail. The lights shifted to yellow, and the thing was swallowed up by the reappearing crowd of revelers. Beckham rubbed his eyes. He’d been up for days after scoring an eightball. That’s why Killian had kicked him out. The drugs. Fuck him, he thought. He doesn’t know what it’s like, having to live this way. Sometimes, you take the only escape that’s offered to you.

But yes, maybe that’s why he was so sleepy. Maybe he was finally crashing. When the lights turned red again, the dancers disappeared once more. Now, a tall, broad-shouldered humanoid shape carrying a long, crooked staff was striding toward him, looking solid black against the glare. It was draped in a shaggy cloak and wore a flat-brimmed hat. As the lights turned yellow, the dancers reasserted themselves in his vision. Beckham braced himself for another baffling figure when the lights transitioned to red. But the crowd stayed where it was.

A sudden voice next to him made him jump. He looked over to where the blonde had been sitting. A towering muscle bear in a short-sleeved priest outfit occupied the stool. The nod to Catholicism made him wince, but he had to admit, the guy was working it. The bear seemed to be in his early twenties and was damned handsome, with glossy, wavy black hair slicked back to show off a widow’s peak. His square-jawed, angular face was adorned by a dense, jutting goatee sans mustache and two bushy mutton chop sideburns. Beckham suppressed a chuckle. It was rockabilly piety, the style of a square old man who wanted to be relatable to “the young people.”

In a glorious bass-baritone, the bear boomed, “I said, is this seat occupied?”

Beckham shook his head. “Loving the costume,” he said. “I bet you’ll nail a lot of former altar boys in that ensemble.”

The bear smiled warmly. “I suppose I would, if that’s what I was looking for. But no, I just enjoy socializing.”

Beckham wasn’t sure how that changed anything, but he kept quiet on that matter. A dozen smart-ass remarks jostled against one another in his mind, eager to be spoken aloud. He tried to restrain himself. But his lips were already parting. They rarely obeyed his brain, anyway. Trying to keep his tone affable, he asked, “Why are you here, Father? Out to save some souls?”

“Can’t say that I am,” the man grinned. “I do think it’s good for a man in my position to socialize now and then. How can I possibly understand my flock if I don’t move among it?”

He couldn’t imagine there were many hardcore Catholics among the club patrons. He managed to blurt out, “I guess,” and left it at that. He took a last swig of beer from his plastic cup and let his gaze linger on the foamy detritus. He could feel the man’s amber eyes drilling into him, merry and unblinking. It was unnerving. He had never imagined a Catholic priest could affect him like this, not these days. But it felt like he was a boy again, attending mass with his family, awed by the palatial cathedral and the stern manner of the priests, who all seemed to be about twelve feet tall. Like then, the emotion was more terror than awe. At the same time, there was something strangely compelling about the priest’s aura. If he even was a priest, at all.

He startled, realizing that the priest’s hairy hand was on his face, wiping away a bit of salty moisture that lingered on his cheeks. “My dear, sweet child,” the bear purred. “You’re crying.”

Was he? He dimly noted a different song was playing, even though the last one hadn’t been close to finished. Had he gotten drowsy again? He touched his damp whiskers and felt a bit dizzy. He was at sea, he knew that, and there was only this Grindr parody of a holy man to tell his troubles to.

Now the bear’s paw was on the small of his back, gently rubbing it in a circle. “Would you like to talk about it? I saw an empty corner booth… maybe we could go there, where it’s quieter.”

They were walking. Beckham couldn’t recall agreeing to go anywhere with the priest, but they were walking toward a booth that emptied as they approached it. The priest used a cane, he saw now, and he limped slightly. Beckham walked behind him, where he belonged, he supposed. And he held the priest’s free hand. As they slipped into the booth, a sense of calm settled over him. The raucous music and conversation faded. Even the bustling mob seemed to grow indistinct, like he was viewing it from behind a veil of smoke. Everything felt off tonight. But he was tired, he reminded himself.

“This is better, kind of,” he admitted. A dopey, self-conscious smile formed beneath his scraggly mustache.

The priest’s hand was atop his thigh. It was very warm. “Just let it all out, boy. Unburden yourself.”

The hairy priest’s youth made his constant use of the word “boy” a little irritating, but Beckham knew it was a silly reason to resent the man. Hesitantly, Beckham began to talk about the guilt he felt about his protracted stay at rock bottom. He hadn’t planned on living this way. But a combination of bad luck, limited life experience and a lack of self-control had driven him from one poor decision to another. After losing so much, he had nothing else to offer the world except his body. He only was fit for warehouse work, furniture moving and the like. But he kept getting fired, and the longer he was unemployed, the harder it was to find a job. And so, he taught himself to hustle his way through the world, selling the possibility of romance to bounce from couch to couch. He hated himself for it, and he tried to soothe himself with cigs and beer and now drugs, which only made things worse.

As he spoke, the priest beamed at him, his mouth slightly open, his tongue surreptitiously darting out to lick his lips. “That was splendid, lad,” he said at last. “How do you feel?”

Beckham wasn’t sure how to answer the question. He had a sense of being absolved of something, but when he thought about it, it wasn’t sin. It was guilt. He felt disconnected from his own body, like he wasn’t himself anymore, or maybe more himself than ever. Suddenly, the grimy life he led and the backhanded, manipulative things he’d said and done felt natural. And correct. He took a deep breath. His congestion had vanished. He took another one and then several more, feeling his lungs expand and his chest with it. A peculiar crawling sensation beneath his skin heralded new growth in his muscles and bones, building up his ravaged frame. Shucking off his heavy tweed coat, he marveled at the sudden tautness of his Misfits tee and the newly dense growth of auburn hair on his forearms. His hand floated to his chin, encountering a dense, furry beard in place of the old wispy growth.

The priest looped his arm around Beckham’s wait and pulled him into a cuddle. “It feels good, doesn’t it? Knowing who you are and why you’re here?” A spicy animal musk wafted into Beckham’s nostrils. He wasn’t sure if it was coming from the priest or himself. He peered at the grinning bear. The man’s tightly controlled facial hair looked longer and shaggier than he’d recalled, the Elvis sideburns flaring out and spreading to meet the goatee, framing his visage in a werewolf’s ruff. His widow’s peak was slowly sinking downward toward his eyebrows, which were wild thatches casting shadows over his eyes. But then the amber of his irises intensified into the glowing, pulsing orange of fireplace embers. They flashed rhythmically at Beckham the way the dance floor lights had. He could not tear his gaze away from the priest’s strange countenance — not even when the tip of the Father’s nose darkened, and his canines doubled in length.

The priest slipped his hand beneath Beckham’s shirt. Sharp nails teased and tickled his flesh as the hand crawled higher. A long, lush pelt caressed his skin. The priest’s arm, naturally, turning as feral, as untamed, as his gorgeous face.

He had never seen such beauty before. The priest was the ultimate man, he realized, because he was gorgeous and bestial all at once, his model-perfect face tempered by the untamed features of a wild predator. The contrast captivated him and made him envious. He longed to look that way, even if it marked him as inhuman.

“But you can look like me, boy,” the priest whispered in his ear. “I’ll help you.” The pounding music had obediently silenced itself. The boys on the dance floor writhed erotically and idiotically to nothing. The priest tipped his hairy chin at them. “Look at those fools. They don’t deserve you. Forget about them.”

The words fizzed in his brain. He felt more lighthearted than he had in years, and it made him dizzy. “That’s… that’s pretty harsh, Father,” he giggled. “I thought they were your flock.”

The priest playfully tousled his hair. It seemed longer and denser than it should have been. “Silly child…! Your heart is too big. I must diminish it for you. No, you are part of my flock. And everyone like you. The unlucky. The unloved. But never them. They deserve only what we give them.” The dark sideburns fanned out into a vulpine scruff, hiding his ears. But then new ears, furry and pointed, emerged from the top of his head. With a sudden motion, the priest kicked at the table, knocking it over. It sank into the floor, which rippled as it swallowed the thing, The priest was barefoot, Beckham saw, and his feet were covered in the same lovely ebony fur as the rest of his body, with long, razor-sharp talons. The sight sent a thrill through Beckham’s growing body, making his cock heave upward. In instant, the priest’s claws were at his crotch, tearing through the denim and seizing his member with leathery fingers. His breath was hot and smelled of copper. “Now, then… tell me all the so-called bad things you’ve done, my lad. Every single one. Confess.”

Beckham’s eyes roved about the bar as he let a wave of pleasure wash over him. How was no one seeing this? And did he care? He wasn’t sure he did. His head fell back against the padded seat as the words bubbled from his lips. He confessed to unpaid debts, unkind words, deceit, petty theft, youthful indiscretions like carelessness and procrastination. He’d hit a parked car when he was seventeen and had fled, fearing the consequences. He’d thrown rocks at a cat when he was eleven. He’d stolen five dollars from his mom’s pocketbook when he was six. He’d blamed a grape juice stain on the carpet on his baby sister when he was four. All of it, everything, and as he spoke the words, his guilt sprouted the pure white wings of doves and lifted from his soul in a whirring, murmuring mass. And as he spoke, the priest slowly and roughly stroked him, pulling and kneading his member, making it longer and somehow fatter than ever, extending it to thirteen inches, fifteen, nineteen, and then well past two feet. The priest’s other hand was on his balls, tickling them, cupping them, coaxing them to grow larger as well, until they were as large as coconuts and covered in a musky shaggy pelt. The hand flew to his ears, causing fur to sprout and working the tips until they were pointed, like a cat’s. The claws shredded the tight t-shirt over his sprawling, muscular chest. As the fingers caressed the modest patch of hair between his pillowy pecs, it bloomed into a silken pelt that spread like wildfire over his torso and then around to his back, up on his shoulders and down his arms. Through his bleary, addled vision, he could see the fur was multi-colored, a ravishing coat striped like a tiger’s, peacock blue and emerald, royal purple and hot pink, darkening to an iridescent black on his shoulders and chest. His legs bulked up, bursting from the confines of his jeans and his boots, his bones and muscles reshaping themselves to give him the powerful limbs of a jungle cat, but far shaggier and ending in the massive hooves of a draft horse.

Beckham stomped his hooves on the bar’s parquet floor as he shot his load, a geyser of cum as sparkling and as black as his unburdened soul. The booth sank down into the floor, leaving him prone, cushioned by his fur as his monstrous shaft continued to shoot, spattering the ceiling in the frothy, shimmering darkness. The priest loomed over him, obscenely aroused, naked and with the head of a fox, the color of his fur shifting from black to a burning orange in scintillating patterns. As he proudly observed his creation, he fingered his cane, which steadily extended into a crooked walking stick. Smoky darkness gathered about him to form a long cloak, which constantly shifted, producing the images of birds and bats, boars and wolves, badgers and hares, chasing and tearing at one another with beaks and fangs and claws. He wasn’t a priest, of course, Beckham had understood that for a while, even in his mesmerized state. But he was his Father. More shadows formed a spiky halo behind the Fox Father’s head, and then the halo tipped down to give the impression of a flat-brimmed hat.

Father kneeled, straddling him. He bent down and bestowed a long, deep kiss. As Beckham’s tongue entered Father’s mouth, Father caught it with his fangs and pulled, stretching it into a long, flat, forked thing that was perfect for rimming. Then, his talons were at Beckham’s temples, digging into the flesh and pulling from it a set of horns, long, ridge, curving ones, like a ram’s.

“Thank you, Father,” Beckham gasped. “I… I love you, so much. But I don’t know what I am, now.”

“Show me how much you love me, my boy,” Father answered, running his claws alongside his mammoth cock. “And I’ll tell you.”

With a mouth that was not quite a tiger’s and not quite a man’s, Beckham eagerly lapped at the warm, moist head, tasting the spicy musk of sin that dripped from it in gobs. Father’s paw was at the back of his skull, petting his leonine mane and pushing his mouth deeper onto the member.

“I made you what you were meant to be, darling Beckham,” Father purred. “A demon lover. An incubus. You may mingle with the sheep and gorge yourself on their sexual energy, their life force. They won’t see what you really are, but they will sense your feral vitality, and they will throw themselves at you. You don’t need to be without a home, ever again. Curse their houses or haunt the streets. You are safe now, no matter what.

As Beckham worked Father’s shaft, Father comforted and praised him, speaking paternally of the world as it really was. Of Magicians, Goddesses, Chaotic Voids, Fairie Courts and Low Schools. The newborn incubus wrapped his prehensile tongue about the cock and pulled it even deeper into his throat while his claws scratched at the low-hanging testes.

When Father unleashed his unholy load, Beckham swallowed every burning drop. Wounds opened on his shoulder blades, and fresh bone, muscle and flesh pushed through, gifting him with a pair of hairy, membranous wings, the hair iridescent black except for amber markings like two great eyes. Father’s eyes. Beckham fell backwards, overwhelmed, and the wings wrapped about him to cushion his fall. All he could see of Father now was a smoky cloud of darkness. And then a fox, orange-eyed and grinning, bounded from the darkness, pausing to lap at Beckham’s face as it raced past him. When Beckham glanced behind himself, Father was gone.

Drum-heavy music crashed into Beckham’s feline ears as the club reasserted itself. He clambered onto his hooves and caught his reflection in the mirrored wall behind the booth. Seen as a human, he was a stranger to himself. A brawny, painfully handsome stranger with long, lush locks, black transitioning to an electric blue, and a well-groomed beard adorned with a handlebar mustache. The stranger smiled at him, baring gleaming white teeth. The man wore black leather trench coat in place of his wings, tight leather pants with a studded codpiece, knee-high boots, and a bulldog harness over a bare and lavishly furry chest. He considered his nails, which were long and painted purple. Already, a few patrons were eyeing him. He flashed his fangs at them. Hunting season had begun.