Author's note
As with many of my stories, not much in the way of sex. Hope you enjoy it anyway.
Talemaster
*
His Eminence was dying. He welcomed it. A life of deprivation and hardship would finally get its just reward. He felt sure he would go to Heaven. He had more than made up for that one event in his life where he had taken the wrong turn. God had forgiven him. There could be no doubt. The waxen cheeks of the old man blushed for a brief moment as the memory of this fated event welled up inside him as though it had only just occurred.
How powerful a memory can be, he thought, as the waves of shame washed over him with undiminished fury. I was only thirteen, it was a mistake, stop, please stop ... the old man muttered to himself as he was forced to relive that dreadful moment once more.
***
It had been a perfect day, his first time away from home. His parents had misgivings about sending their son to the summer camp, but finally gave in. He enjoyed the games and the camaraderie. As an only child of staid, elderly and deeply religious parents he knew little of such things.
He was lying on his bunk, wearing only a pair of underpants; exhausted, but happy. He must have dozed off. Loud laughter awoke him. There by his bunk stood Tommy, the school bully and Ned, one of his cronies.
"Look at the bastard, he's got a hard on you could crack a safe with. Bet he doesn't know what to do with it!" Tommy was pointing at the boy's erect penis, laughing so hard, tears were streaming down his face.
"Want to show him what its for," Ned screeched eagerly.
"You bet!"
Before he had a chance to defend his modesty Ned was holding him down and Tom had stripped off his pants. Tom gripped his member with one hand and his scrotum with the other.
The boy tried to struggle free but Ned was too strong. He felt a twinge of shame when he realised that Tommy's grip on his penis felt nice, very nice. A turmoil of contradictory feelings flooded him. His struggles stopped as the feeling in his groin intensified.
Tommy's practised strokes sent wave after wave of sheer pleasure through his body. Ned was no longer holding him, there was no need. His surrender was complete. He wished the experience would last forever. When he finally erupted, his seed gushing all over his abdomen and chest, Tommy screamed: "Now he knows!"
Ned scooped up some of the semen with his finger and rubbed it across the boy's lips.
"How did you like your little wank, pretty boy," he teased. Without waiting for an answer, the boys ran off, laughing loudly.
The boy lay there for a moment, spent.
Then realisation hit him. He had sinned! In the worst possible way! With horror he stared at the evidence of his depravity scattered across his body.
For hours afterwards he stood under the shower, scrubbing himself with fury, trying to come clean. It was useless. No soap could touch what he was contaminated with.
Next morning he joined the queue for breakfast, his eyes downcast, still trying to deal with the aftermath of his experience. He did not notice Ned coming up behind him.
"Like some more?" Ned's hand rubbed his buttocks as he whispered in the boy's ear. His penis responded instantly, straining the cloth of his trousers, trying to break free. He could feel his resistance melting, wishing to surrender again.
Then something inside him screamed: "No! Not again! Never again! Away from here, away from temptation before it is too late!"
Blinded by tears he ran from the dining room to the nearest phone. He told his parents he was homesick. His parents picked him up in the afternoon.
***
"Go forth my son, and sin no more," the old parish priest had said at confession.
Two Hail Mary's and three Our Father's did not seem to be a severe enough penalty for a sin of this magnitude. The boy decided on his own penance. He would dedicate his life to God and forgo all earthly desires. He would scourge himself until all evil was extinguished from his soul.
And so it went. Priest at twenty-five, bishop at forty, cardinal at sixty. A distinguished career.
He stopped flagellating himself when he became too feeble to wield the whip. He felt clean now. God had accepted his penance and absolved him from further punishment by depriving him of the strength to continue the self castigation that had been part of his life for so long.
***
"Father forgive me, for I have sinned," the old man muttered aloud.
"I have forgiven you my son," a rich baritone voice said in answer.
It took all his effort to turn his head enough to see the stranger at his bedside.
"Thank you Lord," the cardinal said. "I knew I would be forgiven for my trespass."
"I think you are mistaken. I was not talking about your trespass, I was referring to your wasted life." The stranger fluffed up a pillow and propped the old man up so he could see more of his surrounds. "Besides, I am not your Lord, nor are you dead yet."
"Who are you? What do you want of me?"
"Let us say I am here to offer you a last chance. It grieves me to see you suffer that much. Let me show you what could be yours."
With that the stranger pointed to the wall. The wall became transparent and revealed the view of a lush meadow. It was a brilliant day. People were about; laughing, drinking, picnicking and ...
"They are fornicating!" The cardinal gasped and closed his eyes in disgust.
"I know who you are! Begone Satan! You are not going to deprive me of Heaven!"
The sudden exertion had been too much for the dying man. Exhausted he sank back into his pillows.
"I am trying to save you from Heaven, you fool," Lucifer said gently. "Hear me out before you reject me."
The cardinal, his eyes still tightly closed, was too feeble to protest.
"You have suffered much, serving an abomination," Lucifer continued. "Eons ago I saw what He was and distanced myself from Him.
The millennia have not mellowed Him. If you, but for a minute, had considered the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the sacrifices and wars in His name, even the sacrifice of His only son for His own glory, you would have realised long ago which one of us is the evil one.
