Exodus 20: 3

By Freydis Moon

Religious eroticism and queer emancipation meet in a claustrophobic monster-romance about divinity, sexuality, and freedom...

When Deigo López is guilted by his mother into taking a lowkey construction job in New Mexico, he doesn't expect to be

• Language: English
• Publisher: Freydís Moon Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781087989341

Book preview

Exodus 20:3

Freydís Moon

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Copyright © 2023 by Freydís Moon

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. No segment, excerpt, or sample may be introduced to any company, application, or program using artificial intelligence.

Cover Illustration by M.E. Morgan

Praise for Freydís ☽

Exodus 20:3 is a triple Indie Ink Award Winner—

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Best Latinx Representation '22

Best LGBTQ+ Representation '22

Most Optimistic Book of '22

Freydís masterfully combines the divine and mundane… Reading this feels like being anointed in something holy.

—Aveda Vice author of Feed

"Eerie as a haunting, biting as the midwinter night, and as tender as the ache of new love, Heart, Haunt, Havoc lingers long past the last page."

—K. M. Enright author of Mistress of Lies

"I proudly hail this short story as one of the most authentic and immersive examples of [Southwest Gothic] and the experience of finding faith in places others would not dare to look. This tale means so much to me. I felt seen and heard and understood, but above all, I felt welcome. I invite everyone to witness the miracle enclosed in Exodus 20:3."

—R.M. Virtues author of Drag Me Up

"Freydís has created something truly exquisite. Their writing is lush, building the atmosphere into something both familiar and magical. Reading Exodus 20:3 feels like a religious experience, leaving you in awe by the end, wishing for more but also entirely satisfied."

—Harley Laroux author of Her Soul to Take

It’s the kind of sensual, punk, queer-celebrating, poverty-alleviating, social-justice Catholicism I feel blessed to catch glimpses of now and again. […] it challenges us to look with clear eyes at the world and love it anyway, even as we try to fix what’s broken.

—Olivia Waite on Exodus 20:3 for The New York Times

"With A Vengeance is a dark, visceral exploration of queerness, eroticism, trauma, racism, and recovery that sinks its teeth in early and doesn't let go even after the last page. The way Moon handles 'taboo' topics and all their thorny parts is realistic, relatable, and tackled brilliantly through a main character who is neither perfect nor irredeemable… A truly stunning and poignant work of dark erotica from an author you won't forget anytime soon."

—Kellen Graves author of Prince of the Sorrows

Content Note

This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. Please be mindful: mention of transphobia, mention of drug use, light dubious consent (clarified via stream of thought), sexualization of religion

thou shalt have no other gods before me

Chapter One

Y ou have the address. Go.

Diego López gnawed his lip as he leaned against the rusted tailgate on his father’s busted Chevy.

He tried to focus on his mother’s voice, exhausted and cold, rasping through the speaker. The gas station was quiet—nearly abandoned—but his attention darted to an oasis floating above the highway and a napkin tumbling across the empty lot. He pitched his shoulder upward to steady his phone and smacked a pack of Lucky Strikes against the heel of his palm.

I can find a way to pay you back, he said and pulled a cigarette free with his teeth. "I don’t need another handout, and I definitely don’t need to play carpenter at some bullshit church to—"

Cállate, his mother snapped. "You listen to me, mijo. You get in that truck, you drive to that church, and you make this right. No one put you behind the wheel of that car—my car—and no one put the… the drugs in your wallet, and no one—"

"I know." He sucked smoke into his lungs and switched his phone from one ear to the other.

"This isn’t about the money. This is about honor—familia. You go, understand? Go, work, get paid, come home. Do your community service and fix your life. This man, this Ariel, he’s giving you a chance. Take it before he changes his mind and hires someone else."

Yeah, because every able-bodied worker in town is trippin’ over themselves to go rebuild a church in the middle of the desert, Mamá. Sure.

"You made your choice. Go."

He angled his mouth toward the sky. She wasn’t talking about his fourteen-hour stint in jail or the cash-bail she’d worked double shifts at the diner to pay for. She was talking about the sickle-shaped scars beneath his shirt, the choice he’d made three years ago—eighteen and able to say, yes, do it.

Same vague guilt trip, same acquiescence.

You’re like a coyote, she’d said to him once. Halfway to a wolf but still something else. He thought about that as she breathed on the other end of the line and imagined her sitting in the recliner in his childhood home, rolling a slender joint, watching fútbol while a pork shoulder braised in the crockpot. Sometimes she tripped over his name, her tongue unused to making the sound, but when she’d met him at the door after he’d been released from El Paso Detention Center, she’d said Diego with her full voice. Cracked every syllable like a bone.

Yeah, okay. He sighed. Do you want me to call?

She huffed. Eres mi sangre.

He shook his head and finished his cigarette, then crushed it beneath his boot. Sé.

Tomorrow, then. You’ll tell me about the church?

Sure, yeah. Tomorrow.

Drive safe, she said.

Diego ended the call without saying goodbye. He stood with his thumbs tucked through his belt loops. Endured the heat. Watched the road. Pictured himself elsewhere, across the state, settling in Austin. He’d bartend to make ends meet. He’d never touch narcotics again. He’d rent a studio apartment, and fill it with houseplants, and learn how to cook. He’d send money to his abuela, and he’d visit her more, and he’d grow the fuck up. Becoming another disappointment on the López family tree wasn’t an option anymore.

It never had been, but stealing the car, crashing the car, getting caught…

Yeah, that changed everything.

Early summer rippled through the dry air. He scanned his phone again, reading and rereading the address his mother had sent him—coordinates, actually—before he hoisted into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. According to Google, Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe was located in Luna County, New Mexico. He pulled his lip between his teeth again. Seven grand to help rebuild a decrepit church in the middle of the desert? Camming paid more. He’d found that out after getting hit with top-surgery bills. But now that his mother knew about