Jesuit Priests of Goa

"Why Goa? And where is it?"

The question had come from the second row of those few sitting in the dimly lit voluminous lecture hall at Georgetown University, the venerable Jesuit-founded stone Gothic-style campus towering over the Potomac River west of the Washington, D.C., city center. The query was posed to the tall, thin, distinguished-looking professor of religion, Michael Kincaid, standing alone behind a lectern on the wide, raised wooden stage.

"Goa because it was one of the earliest and strongest strongholds in the world of the Jesuit sect, Kevin," the professor responded in sonorous, perfect-diction tones. "It is a former Portuguese enclave on the western coast of India, reached first by Portuguese Jesuits in the sixteenth century and held by the Portuguese—with heavy Jesuit influence—until just fifty years ago, when it reverted to India. It now is the most wealthy district of that vast country."

"But why are we going there for our study of Jesuit history?" I couldn't help but blurt out from the front row. Kincaid turned his handsome face, haloed by curls of platinum-white hair, toward me, and I felt myself sinking back into the wooden theater-style seat. I could feel the professor's eyes bore into me. This was not what I'd wanted. I had been doing everything I could not to engage his attention. I hadn't even put in for this long weekend abroad immersion study trip for the Jesuit history course. But somehow when the list came out of those going, my name was on it. It was quite a plum, and only nine students were sent on this all-expenses-paid study trip. I couldn't afford to turn it down, if for no other reason than I couldn't alienate Kincaid. I needed a good grade in this course.

But there was no way of avoiding him. The saving grace would be that we wouldn't all be together the whole weekend. With luck, I wouldn't be any closer to the professor that weekend than I would be here in Georgetown.

"Very good question, Ryan," the professor responded in those measured tones he used. "This is a history course. Nowhere in the world is the historical context of the Jesuits more in play still than it is in Goa. The Jesuit brothers even still practice the martial arts there that marked the sect's foundations as solider priests. Their military skill was so respected at the time that they lived in castles and became the treasure depositories for the nobles with lands around theirs. It's a history course. Nowhere else can we experience the history of the Jesuits as we can in Goa."

And that was that. Kincaid dismissed the other eight students, but, to my consternation, asked me to hang back.

He was turning off the lights in the hall as I slowly, as if going to execution, ascended the stairs to the stage. He beckoned me into the dimly lit wings off the stage and drew me to him.

Lowering his face to mine—he was a good five inches taller than I was—he took my lips in his. I couldn't help myself; I had turned my head up and moved ever so slightly—but move I did—to meet his lips with mine. It wasn't rejection I felt toward him—and certainly not revulsion—it was fear of my own attraction for him. And it was fear of what I wanted in life in a sexual nature. I've never done it before, with either a woman or man, and I feared my tendency to want to do it with men. And Michael Kincaid was all the man I could ever want.

I was just scared; I'd never done it before.

He ran his hand down my body. "Come back to my office with me."

"I can't," I whispered, my voice choked up. "I have another class. I'll barely make it if I leave now."

"Then my apartment—at 8:00 p.m."

"I don't know. I don't think I can—"

"You know you want to do this, Ryan. But I won't force you. When you want to be with me, you'll seek me out."

I was relieved he was letting me go—but I was conflicted over what he said. I was both scared and elated at the prospect all at once. I wouldn't think about it now, I thought, as I fled the hall to hide out in my dorm room. I had lied to him about having a class to go to.

* * * *

I was the last student left off at my weekend immersion study assignment in Goa. All of the others were assigned in pairs. I was the only one who would be alone—if, indeed, I was going to be alone. I half expected Michael Kincaid to reveal that I would be at his mercy in this isolated former Portuguese enclave. I half hoped this was the case—that all responsibility for what I really wanted to do but just couldn't manage yet would be taken from me.

But this was not the case. He did tell me that my assignment would be the most interesting one, the one that would reveal the ancient ways of the Jesuits more than any of the other students would experience.

"Are we headed to the top of this hill, to what looks like either a monastery or a fortress up there?" I asked as the small bus that had been moving around the area, dispensing a pair of students here and another pair there, turned onto a road that apparently would wind up the hill from the shore of the ocean to a stonework compound at the top, dominated by a church steeple instead of the watch tower that might have been expected.

"Yes," Professor Kincaid answered, "but it's a retreat house—the Francis Xavier Retreat house. That's how the Jesuit brothers refer to what would otherwise be called monasteries. Originally being soldier priests, in Europe they lived in castles."

I looked up at the compound at the top of the hill. I found it believable that this once was a fortified castle as well as a place of religious retreat. And, prophetically, the thought that it could serve to keep men in as well as keeping men out ran through my mind.

"What are they growing here?" I asked, as we moved higher than the band of palm trees near the ocean coast below to trees with wide, deep-green canopies.

"The coconut palms I'm sure you recognized," Kincaid answered. "These trees we are driving through now are cashew trees. Farther up the hill, just below the retreat house, are the vineyards. All of this goes into the wine the Jesuits produce here to finance themselves."

"Coconuts and cashews made into wine?" I asked. The grapes I could understand.

"Yes, they go into a fortified wine called feni. Separate wines. One is made from the coconut meat and the other kind is made from cashews. It's a strong port-like wine made primarily by the Jesuits, but exported throughout Asia and Europe. I haven't seen it in the States yet."

"And this is what I'll be doing for the next two days?" I asked, "helping to make wine?"

Kincaid latched onto my forearm and turned me to where I was looking into his face. "The Jesuits are heavily disciplined and demand total obedience, Ryan. While you are here, you will do whatever they tell you to do."

For some reason I took an ominous connotation from that, especially from the intensity with which he was looking at me when he said it, and I involuntarily shuddered.

* * * *

As Professor Kincaid went off to concur with Father Stefan, a towering blond Viking of a German in his forties, a much younger Filipino who had been introduced to me as Brother Taer shyly touched my forearm and asked me to follow him.

"You will be sleeping in my cell," he said in a melodious, quiet voice as he preceded me along a passage of stone walls, floor, and ceiling that could have been in a medieval castle. He was covered in a simple white cotton shift, with sandals on his feet, which contrasted with the black cassocks that the other brothers I'd been introduced to were wearing.

Taer, small of stature and with facial features that were more feminine than masculine, swayed his body like a dancer as he walked down the passage. His black hair cascaded to his shoulders. From this angle I could have believed he was a young girl.

As we walked, I ran through the names and features of the other brothers I'd been introduced to at the retreat house, knowing that it would be very difficult to remember them all—and only having a hope of doing so because they represented such divergent nationalities. At their head was the German, Stefan, who, of course, I should remember above all else. There was Brother Jacques, the slim, hirsute Frenchman, with dark features and hair and what I thought of as bedroom eyes. He was not more than seven years older than I was, perhaps in his late twenties. The rest were older, ranging from early thirties to the fifties. Not more than the early thirties was a dark-skinned, muscular Goan, Brother Joki, who was the touchy feeling type, slow to take his hand away from me when we were introduced. Those probably in their forties included ruddy haired and complexioned Brother Timothy, who was British, and another dark-skinned Goan, Brother Domingo, who was on the heavy side and whose eyes kept sliding away from me when I looked at him. Brother Benedito, in his fifties, was Portuguese and looked the part of what I was told he had been before coming to the retreat: a rough-and-tumble sailor.

"When you have changed, you will go to the work room to help Brothers Jacques and Timothy," Taer said to me over his shoulder as we walked.

"Changed?" I asked.

"Yes. You will wear a white shift as I am," he answered.

"Not black, like the others?" I asked.

"No. White like me." He didn't elaborate and I let it go, having another question.

"And what work will I do with Jacques and Timothy?"

"Whatever they want you to do," the answer came back. "In the late afternoon military drill will be conducted," he continued. "And that will be the last time that any of us will be able to speak. We have a strict vow of silence from sunset to sunrise every day."

"A strict vow?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, stopping at an open door and turning to me. "Very strict. We have military discipline here. This is a fundamental Jesuit sect. We follow the old ways. And there is punishment for not clinging to the vows."

"Even for me?" I asked.

"For anyone who sleeps under our roof," he answered. He continued before I could pursue the point. "Here. This is my cell. Our cell for the next two nights."

I looked in the room. "Cell" certainly was a good word for it. Stone walls, ceiling, and floor, just like the hallway. Small, with just two cot-like beds, a small, rough-wood bureau, and one straight chair, with a seat made from rush. A white cotton shift was laid out on one of the beds, and a pair of plain sandals were on the floor beside the bed.

"The white garment is for me?" I asked. "To wear over my briefs and undershirt."

"As all that you wear," Brother Taer answered. He gave me a shy smile before turning and leaving me alone in the cell to change.

* * * *

I found Brothers Jacques and Timothy in a shed, the tops of their cassocks stripped down and hanging over the sashes around their waists while they worked at cutting the meat of coconuts out of the shells and filling a tub with the white flesh. The milk of the coconuts was being poured off first through a hole bored in the shells into a separate tub set in a large basin of chipped ice.

The shed—more of a cavernous stone-walled area with timbers over two stories overhead—took up nearly one whole side of the fortress-like compound at the top of the hill. It once probably had been for livestock and storage of hay and anything else needing to be under cover, but not inside the living quarters. Now it was the heart of a wine press and fermenting operation.

Timothy hailed me as I stood at the open side of this large area looking into the darkness and picking out the various vats, presses, stacks of wine kegs, and other equipment. The somewhat gawky British redhead was the garrulous one of the two northern European priests at the retreat house. The younger, better-looking dark-complexioned French brother, Jacques, said nothing to me and spoke to and was answered by Timothy in French, so I assumed he didn't speak English. His eyes spoke to me, though, making me feel that I wasn't wearing even the cotton shift and sandals.

The two had muscular, lean torsos, and I learned later how they managed to keep so fit.

It was hot and humid and the air felt close in the shed, but I knew it would be hotter outside on the hillside, where I'd seen the other brothers headed when I came in here, so I assumed I was being assigned duties as light as they came here. Still, it wasn't long before I grew weary of cutting coconut meat out of the shell.

With a smile, Timothy said, "Have you ever tasted coconut milk straight from the coconut?"

I allowed as I had not, and he found a wooden cup and dipped some for me. When I thanked him, he asked me if I'd ever drunk feni made from coconut milk, and I admitted that I hadn't experienced this either.

He said something to Jacques in French, and Jacques leaned over and took the empty cup from my hand, holding my hand for a few beats longer than necessary and giving me a sultry look. I couldn't deny that it affected me and had my loins stirring. He rose, went over to a keg with a spigot in it, and returned with what Timothy told me was feni made from coconuts.

The drink was potent and I could taste the coconut in it. But I knew I couldn't have handled very much of it.

"Wow, that really heats me up," I said. The two brothers were watching me closely. If pressed, I would have had to admit that it heated me up in more than one way.

"Why don't you take a break and go out on the hillside, where the breezes blow, for a few minutes?" Timothy said. "Take a look at the grapes that the others are beginning to harvest. We make very good wine from those too. The coconuts will still be here when you return."

There was, in fact, a breeze on the hillside, but there also was the beating sun. The Goan brothers and the Portuguese brother, Benedito, all with the tops of their cassocks draped around their waists were harvesting grapes. They, like the Northern European brothers in the shed, were muscular. If anything they were more muscular. The sweat from their labors glistened on their torsos.

I could have stood and watched them work with precise, rhythmic motions in the vineyard for some time, taken not only with the beauty of the motions of their bodies but also with their raw sexuality despite being priests, but my attention was drawn to sounds coming from deeper in the vineyard. These were sounds that I'd heard before. Sounds like those from a video Professor Kincaid had once sprung me in surprise to, he said, put me in the mood.

The sounds were coming from a gazebo-like structure in the middle of the vineyard built of branches covered with vines and most likely there to provide the workers in the field temporary relief from the sun. I drew close enough to be able to see inside it through the breaks in the vines.

At first glance I could see the large-framed blond German priest, Father Stefan, bent over, his body strangely undulating. I thought the sound—huffing and groaning—was coming from him, but then I realized that there was a higher tone of groan and moan mingled with his bass. Looking closer, I could see what he was bent over. It was the small Filipino brother, Taer, naked and on all fours.

I couldn't help remaining there for longer than I should, seeing in real-life dimension what I'd seen on the video Professor Kincaid had play for me once. I should have been surprised, I suppose, but at least subconsciously I wasn't. There were signals enough throughout the day—in looks exchanged and touches—that something sexual was going on on this hilltop.

And I had read rumors about Jesuits and other priests having sex among themselves. Kincaid had provided written stories and videos of acts by priests. I had assumed that he wanted the connotation of a black cassock, such as he wore at the university, to become a sexual one in my mind as part of his own campaign to bed me. And it that had been his intent, it had succeeded. Part of the problem with holding him off at the university is that I went hard whenever I saw him gliding around in his black cassock.

Seeing Stefan crouched over Taer and fucking him should have made me fearful—and perhaps the sensation of being trapped and headed someplace dangerous. Stefan was the highest authority and more than one person had assured me that I was at the full mercy of these priests the entire weekend. But, in fact, these sensations aroused me and made me hard.

The arousal continued later in the afternoon when I figured out why the men were all in such tip-top physicality. I hadn't given full thought to having been told that the Jesuits originally were soldier priests and that nowhere were the traditions of the Jesuits being preserved as they were in Goa.

The hour before sunset was devoted to military training—with swords and pikes—in the central courtyard of the fortress, with the six black-cassocked priests, the tops of the cassocks still draped from their waists, pitted off in twos in dances of cut and parry thrusts.

Brother Taer stood off to the side, with me, explaining the training routine to me. He obviously had not been elevated to the level of full-blown Jesuit, as he didn't wield a weapon during the practice, although he did help bring them out into the courtyard and then put them away.

At one point, noticing the angry red welts criss-crossed on Brother Timothy's back, I asked Taer how the redheaded Britisher had come to be wounded in this fashion.

"Brother Timothy has trouble holding his tongue," Taer answered. "I told you that we cannot speak—for any reason—from sunset to sunrise. Brother Timothy spoke one day recently."

"And this was his punishment?" I asked, incredulous. "That wouldn't apply to me, would it?"

Taer turned to me and gave me a hard look. "It applies to anyone who is within these walls between sunset and sunrise. And I must say that I think that Father Stefan receives special pleasure from meting out this punishment. I have seen him looking at you. I wouldn't suggest that you give Father Stefan reason to exercise his pleasure in this regard."

"Surely—"

"Let me be clear. I know you saw Father Stefan mounted on me in the vineyard. I must warn you that Father Stefan is built very large and he becomes very aroused when he punishes one of the brothers. The taking of his pleasure extends beyond the whipping."

I snapped my jaw shut, deciding to start my exercising of the vow of silence before the sun set.

* * * *

The evening meal progressed in total silence, and I strained not to let out a peep. When I was given a large cup of coconut feni, I tried to signal that I perhaps should not drink it, but my signaling was to no avail. I had less success—and less intent, considering the potency of the first cup—in trying to turn down the second cup.

Taer had to help guide me to our cell after the dinner. All of my energy was expended in keeping my mouth shut and not uttering a word—and in focusing on the walls and floors, which seemed to be in motion around me.

I wasn't a bit surprised later in the night, lying on my back on my cot, my eyes still open trying to bring the stonework all around me into focus and to a standstill, to hear the wooden door to the cell open in a low screech across the stone floor and the large figure, clothed in his black cassock, of Father Stefan loom over me.

He was in view only briefly at first, but I had no trouble knowing where he had disappeared to. He had grasped my ankles and pulled me down to the foot of the cot. His beefy, calloused hands had run up the sides of my legs, my hips, and my torso inside the cotton shift, bunching the material up under my armpits. And I felt my legs being spread, my left one being raised, a cold tongue at my anus, and a rough hand encircling my cock and beginning to stroke me off.

I knew what was happening and what was going to happen. But I had no capability, only being half there from the effects of the potent feni, nor the will, to stop it. I realized I wanted it and had wanted it for some time. I just didn't want the responsibility for it happening. I had even begun to prepare myself in the weeks before taking this trip. I had assumed that Professor Kincaid would take me for the first time while on this trip, and I had accepted that—welcomed it, even—and had begun to prepare for it. I had bought a dildo and had been using it on myself.