Yes But Another Happy Ending

The man walked down the Reeperbahn, a wide boulevard deep in the waterfront district of Hamburg, Germany, famed for the St Pauli Girl Brewery. And, presumably, for St Pauli Girls. He walked past sex shops and video stores, with a smattering of trashy lingerie stores that fronted for very inexpensive hookers - usually of the immigrant variety - thrown in for good measure. Though it was late on an August night, the sun was just barely down, the sky was light purple with an orange tinge off to the west; such are summer nights at high latitudes.

He walked past a drab video store, a two-story "sex-kino" store, the type of video arcade-live sex emporium notorious throughout Germany as home to just about any style or type of debauchery the human mind can think up. And, the man had heard, if it hadn't been thought of before, you could find a willing partner their to help you cross the line. A very gay looking platinum blond man stood by the entrance, this guy was wearing a sport coat with no shirt on underneath. Mr Platinum Head had chest hair that was, or rather had been, dyed platinum blond as well, so that as he turned in the gaudy neon lights of the very high-class establishments that lined the Reeperbahn, he had the visual characteristics, the man thought, of nuclear waste. As the man passed Mr Platinum - or Plutonium as the case may be - he watched with detachment as the glowing man blew him a kiss, puckered his lips, and made a sucking sound. Class.

When the man came to the next "sex-kino" shop, after a long walk of perhaps ten meters, he stopped in front of it, looked at his watch, and turned to go into the store. There was - let's be charitable here - a rather large man sitting behind the glass display case; behind this rather portly fellow, hanging from hooks on the walls, were implements of every shape and size, designed to plug or wiggle inside just about any orifice the human body has, or can have, if the partners are so inclined. On the far side of the room there was a turnstile. Taped with utmost care to this turnstile was a lime green cardboard sign that simply said 10 Dm. Yes, I know, I'm dating the story for those of you who never went to Europe before the advent of the euro. But I digress.

The man walked over to the, well,O.K., to the fat-assed three-toed sloth behind the counter, and put down a 10 Dm note on the counter. With infinite grace, the fat-assed three-toed sloth motioned the man to proceed through the turnstile.

The man walked through a door on the other side of the stile, and then up a very long, very straight flight of stairs. At top of the stairway was a huge room painted black and lighted with purple neon lights. There was a large projection television screen on one wall, and several small sofas sat haphazardly arrayed around the room. On one side of the room were several "cabines", or private rooms, each with its own video apparatus and room for a small orgy. The man could see, as his eyes adjusted to the light, several men sitting on the sofas in the main room, each attended by another kneeling man who was seriously engrossed with the first man's cock. One fellow was on his knees between two men, alternately sucking and jacking first one and then the other; this fellow seemed rather content by the look on his face. He was worshiping on the alter of his need, the man sneered as he thought of the debasement in this room. Praise be to, what, cock?

On the video-screen was a very amusing bit of family entertainment. There was a chap - for the most part clothed in an interesting ensemble of steel-studded black leather - chained to a cross. The man chuckled at the somewhat ironic symbolism of the scene. A woman - who seemed rather cross, or who was having vicious cramps - sat behind the chained man. There was a very large open can of Crisco between her legs, and a fair amount of this stuff on her arm, which the man gathered was there when he could see her arm when it wasn't well up the chained-up chaps asshole.

The man walked over to one of the "cabines" and looked inside. In this room, one man was leaning over the back of a sofa; another man stood behind him. Apparently they were friends, or at least very close to one another, the man thought, judging from their activities. They were watching a video as well, rather, they both seemed engrossed in a video showing a woman wearing a black plastic penis around her waist, and who was doing a rather thorough job of fucking a man in his ass.

Hmmm. There seemed to be a common theme to the activities! What fun!

The man walked to the next "cabine" and only looked in long enough to quickly identify the occupants, well, only one of the occupants, and then he walked on through the rest of the space until he found an obscure dark area well out of sight, and he waited. He could watch the door to the second "cabine" - the one whose occupant was of interest - and, unfortunately, he could as well see the main projection screen. On this screen there was a woman going to the toilet; the young man chained beneath this woman appeared to be filling in for the role of the toilet in this particular production. After she finished taking a modest shit in Mr Toiletface's open mouth, she washed it down with a rather abundant stream of - well, production costs what they are these days - it probably wasn't lemonade. This poignant vignette was followed by a series of short productions whose principal theme was that men liked being abused by women, and rather unexpectedly, that women seemed to find real enjoyment in kicking the shit out of men. In any event, everything usually worked out in the end. Sorry. Hate to stoop to puns at a time like this.

The man was sorry he'd worn such a heavy coat, as the room was rather warm. No, it was, he thought, oppressively hot. He unzipped the dark coat and with his right hand reached under the coat to the Walther P5 that sat in the soft black leather shoulder holster that hung there. He took the pistol out and screwed a short steel-colored silencer to the end of the Walther, then he tucked the pistol into his belt. He fished a toothpick out of his shirt pocket and cleaned some lunch remnants from his front teeth. He ate an antacid. He picked his nose, chewed off a ragged bit of fingernail.

My God in Heaven, what was that man

doing

in there?

There was no way to hear activity in any one room; there were so many competing animal noises from the various videos playing - not too mention the various audience members and their members who were most assuredly participating - that it sounded like the zoo in Berne. Or, judging from what was currently on the main screen, the Vienna Boy's Choir.

Finally, he saw some activity in the "cabine". The man, the target, was zipping up his pants. He was fishing some money out of his pocket; he handed some to a very, very young man, and left the "cabine". Thus satisfied, the target headed for the stairs.

The man followed his target at a discreet distance; as the target exited the store, onto the sidewalk alongside the Reeperbahn, he turned to the right. At the end of the short block he crossed the Reeperbahn, and started to walk toward an old red brick police substation. He passed up the police building and continued walking away from the busy street, down toward the Elbe River. As both men entered this more industrial district, young women darted out of building entryways and made quick business propositions to the men. Both declined.

The target continued down the hill to the waterfront. He stopped near a street light, as it was now dark out, and looked at his wrist watch. The man closed the distance to the target quickly now, but walking quietly, and as he neared the target slowly pulled out the Walther. As he passed the target, the silenced barrel rose to the back of the targets neck, right at the base of the skull, and the man quickly pulled the trigger. There was a click-f-f-t-t-t sound, and the top of the targets skull evaporated, along with most of his face, in a pink haze. Some larger fragments of bone and brain arced up into the air and came raining down onto the sidewalk. The man stopped and quickly assayed the damage, and decided to put one more round into the target: this he accomplished with little remorse, firing the second round into the targets genitalia.

The man walked further down the hill, to the river, and tossed the Walther into the water. He was glad the assignment had been carried out with very little deviation from plan, and that it had been accomplished quickly. That the target had been a priest gave him no regret; the idiot had been a pedophile. But worse still, when confronted with accusations from his diocese in Boston, Massachusetts, he had quit the church and threatened to write a tell-all book about the Vatican's well-orchestrated cover-up of clerical sex-abuse scandals dating back to the days after World War II. For good measure, the target had stated he had documentation of Vatican complicity in concealing Nazi funds from many high ranking Nazi officials who in the closing days of the war had, interestingly enough almost overnight, become priests assigned to the Vatican, and who traveled from Allied occupied Germany to the Vatican under the aegis of Vatican diplomatic passports.

This, the head of the Vatican's Secret Intelligence Service decided, would not do. So, when he was informed of the renegade priests intentions from the church hierarchy in America, he developed a small plan. A ruse had been constructed to lure the target to Hamburg to meet a publisher who had heard of the now defrocked priest's material, and who was interested in publishing the man's allegations. Large cash advances were mentioned, and the ancillary attractions of Hamburg were tactfully though explicitly detailed. The pedophile priest had decided to visit the evening attractions of Hamburg as soon as possible.

The head of the Vatican S.I.S. had contacted Ernst Behman, a reliable man who perhaps ironically had held a position of absolutely no importance in the Gestapo, and the Vatican intelligence chief had detailed the conceptual framework of the assignment to the man; the scope of the logistical support he would have at his disposal was also detailed. The man, Behman, had accepted the assignment and taken his Vatican support team to Hamburg to finalize locations, radio frequencies, and agents to tail the target, and finally, to bait the lure. Well, you get the picture; why bore you with details?

As Behman walked away from the hit, he took off his jacket and tossed it into a litter barrel. He walked back up the hill toward the Reeperbahn; once again working girls approached the man, but now when they saw him they backed away. More than a few said, "Good evening, Father," as he passed them. The man would reply with a very pleasant, benign smile, and say back to the girl, "Yes, it is, my child, and a good evening to you."

The rather droll part of this narrative concerns Ernst Behman's vocation; for you see, it seems that he was indeed a priest, as well. He had, during the war, accompanied Jews on their journey from the Polish countryside to the forests of Lithuania, where he and a few others had machine gunned literally tens of thousands of somewhat defenseless human beings. So, in general terms, Ernst Behman had ideal credentials for this assignment. Though he had become a priest to avoid prosecution at Nuremberg, he had taken the Church's offer of forgiveness for past sins with few regrets, and been most happy to help out the S.I.S. when special assignments needed to be carried out.

And so it was that now Ernst Behman was walking up the hill, walking on his way to the airport, to the Alitalia flight that would take him non-stop to Rome. He almost enjoyed the reactions of the whores, how they backed away from him like he was a vampire. He walked along the street until he came alongside the Getriedegasse, a short street that had both ends bricked-off. There was a narrow entrance before Father Behman, and, having heard of the street before, he decided to walk through the barrier and check out the sights.

Along this short pedestrians-only street were windows and doorways. In most of the windows a soft red light glowed; in others the curtains were drawn. He walked alone to the first window, and looked in. A very attractive red-headed woman sat in an old, worn easy chair; she was obviously a much finer looking woman than the girls working the streets - there was at work in the byways of hookerdom in Hamburg a very real pecking order. At any rate, this attractive red head was dressed in yellow lingerie, garter-belt, stockings, and yellow patent leather pumps, the heels a solid five inches high. He nodded at her, she recognized his priestly attire and just smiled. Behman walked along to the next open window, where a stunning brunette sat. She was wearing a white bra and girdle, seamed very sheer silk stocking attached directly to straps on the girdle, and black leather pumps. At the next window there was a black haired woman wearing leather lingerie and shiny black latex stockings and black patent pumps. Behman was now interested in the variety of attires, and he asked the leather-clad woman if there was any significance to the colors the various women were displaying.

"Oh, yes, father," she said, apparently very happy to talk to the priest. "Girls in white, solid white, are submissive's, you understand submissives, Father?"

He nodded his understanding; if nothing else, he thought, priests understand submission.

"Yes, well, the girls in black and white are available for plain sex. Girls dressed like me are for special sex, you know, not normal sex. Depending on the situation, we can be engaged, father, to beat you, spank you, torture your cock and balls or nipples, trample you, smother you with our vaginas, piss on you or in your mouth, fuck you in the ass with a strap-on cock, and all the while, doing any of the above, I will be most happy to beat you with a whip, or a riding crop, perhaps a paddle, or prod you with electrical devices, needles, or very sharp surgical knives.

"There are girls dressed in yellow who are engaged for sex with water-sports, including golden showers, while girls in red will arrange for another girl to join with you in a threesome. Women in blue are over thirty-five years old; girls in pink, father, are very young. And father, you should be aware that any woman in here who is wearing any outfit that is predominantly silver or gold is a woman who also has a fully functional cock."

"I see, child," said Father Behman. "I've heard of women who are engaged for not normal sex, but have no idea what is involved actually."

"Father, I'd be most happy to give you a private demonstration," the woman in leather said. Her eyes glowed at the prospect.

"Ah, well, perhaps in a few minutes. I'd like to look around further."

"Yes, father. My name is Renata, and it would be my pleasure to attend to you."

Father Behman looked at the men walking the street watching the women, feeling the press of humanity, and looked at the curtains closing one by one.

There was a small little alley in the middle of the block, which he presently walked down. This passage was an L-shaped walkway with more windows, and the women here were decidedly even more upscale looking. He walked down to the end - the dead end - of the passage and stopped at the window of a women dresses in black and white - normal sex - and he stopped to look at her. She had blond hair, somewhat straight and not too long, and a face that was indescribably, dangerously, beautiful. Father Behman asked this woman her name; it was, predictably, Angel. Angel must have been brought up in a catholic, or at least very religious home, for when she saw Behman's attire she flinched and seemed to get embarrassed, indeed, anxious.

Angel's face was a simple prelude to the outrageous loveliness of her body. Some indescribable force tugged at the priest.

It had been decades since Ernst Behman had made love to a woman. Sure it was, he thought, not something one forgot how to do, but he had taken his vows with all of the commitment a man of his position and rank was capable of.

One more look in Angel's face decided the matter. Conclusively. Even priests need love.

Behman the man walked into the curtained room through the doorway off the little alley. He expected to see a bed, but was surprised to see another door, then a stairway. At the top of the stairs were rooms off a central hallway. The Angel took the priest to the last room on the right, to room number seven.

Soon the priest was holding his withered cock in front of the Angel's cunt, rubbing the wrinkled head over her dry petals, waiting for the warmth and the moisture from within her to open the gates to his personal hell. He rubbed his cock to seal the tormented bargain of his hatred, the twisted wreckage of his soul. Simple hypocrisy had long since denied the man release from his fate; he simply lived to perpetuate the shame and the evil of his living hell, a devil's pact complete to the last breath of his sundered soul.

As an enlisted man in the Waffen SS he had thrust his dagger into more than one pregnant belly, killed hundreds of children with the plunge of a bayonet. In his life he had killed thousands of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals, and in his dreams they called out to him. He would see them lining his pathway to the gates. He felt the flames of hell as he relived each stab of the dagger, as he felt soft skin yield to the hunger of his blade. He leaned above the Angel now and drove his cock with all the fury he could muster, split the womb of the night with the cold light of hell.

In an instant the priest and the Angel were wandering together in the darkness. She was his guide.

With each thrust of his cock, each thrust of his blade, the simple hypocrisy of his choice would yield to the unyielding bargain, to the cast of his fate.

We found each other in the dark. He heard the voice. Was it the Angel?

You have helped him deliver so much despair, the voice said, so much blood. But we all owe death a final payment. What did you think the price would be? Did you think you could pay such a cost with the coin of forgiveness?

Perhaps if you had truly believed. But what was your life a monument to.

You brought hell to earth. What could your reward possibly be?

We found each other in the dark, the voice laughed.

Gales of laughter shook the priest as he felt his orgasm build.

Echos of his laughter ran down the corridors of time. The happy laughter of children who would never grow old. The shrieking laughter of hell.

The pity of an Angel.

You owe a death; what will the final price be?

*

He walked through the jetway onto the DC 9, onto the aircraft that would carry him to Rome, to the Vatican. He was consumed with the thought that there was no heaven or hell, no afterlife.

He heard as clearly as any man ever heard any voice: you live in goodness and your life will be as heaven, but here on earth. You live a life of depravity, cast aside goodness from your heart, and hell will find you here on earth.

The last moments of your life will be your eternity, your forever. When at last your eyes close for all time, when your last breath has rattled from your lungs, you will know the truth of God's bargain. To you I say, in your last moments on earth you will find your eternity. For as you lived your life, so shall you find your eternity.

The jet thundered down the runway, rotated into the sky. He looked out on the German countryside as the plane climbed into the sky. His Germany.

He felt the sickening lurch, was aware of tumbling through the sky as flames and shards of metal dug into his flesh. He could just make out the soil of his beloved homeland as it rushed up to claim him.