Page 1 of Hell and Its Pleasures

Prologue

‘Depart from me,you who are cursed, into the eternal fireprepared for the devil and his angels. – Matthew 25:41

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” – The character of Satan, in John Milton’sParadise Lost

For most of us sinners, Hell remains a concept out of reach; human fear that has been pulled taught and tormented or hope that is singed away by years of agonising over goodness, properness, primness. For some, a serenity is found in this quiet but painful limbo. They can live with the threat of Hell and be comforted by the promise of Heaven. Peace comes to them in waves, and they may live a life in the quiet of the Lord’s whisper, where He soothes their worries and ensures they are safe. His children.

These are the people who believe they are inherently good. Inherently righteous.

But what of those of us who stray from God’s light? What of those of us sinners who turn our backs with glee?

What about me, Alessandro, a don whose life had been given to the Lord in earnest—but whose pleasures and hopes and desires were never snuffed out by the Lord. Not once. Not once ever satiated.

What about me, who has tasted Hell on his tongue? Who would welcome it again? Who covets it; who would make a covenant with a Prince of Hell to live my days in that fiery torment?

Well, I shall tell you: there is no salvation for me except what I find in the ‘now’. If I have forsaken my eternal life at God’s side—a life of nothingness and internal peace, in exchange for the bliss of a body torn asunder by demonic desire—then there is nothing more for me here.

I knew it as soon as Asmodeus returned to its domain and left me in its wake, quaking in rapturous bliss, aware of my own mortality and the years I had wasted being good and pure. I regretted never letting myself partake in human pleasure. I regretted piety, for all it had stopped me from feeling.

I will walk into Hell with my eyes on God and let the demons take me from behind.

One

It took two weeks for the bishop to arrive.

I’d seen Bishop Fazio from afar on the day of his appointment to our little town, just hours after Bishop Jonah was buried. Since then, he had changed very little. Around him wafted an air of disapproval like incense, which clouded him in a constant haze. His resting expression had been permanently altered by the persistence of this feeling in his life, and his brows ow barely eluded his eyelashes, so low they clung to his face. Hehadaged remarkably poorly, however, which I chose to believe was down to his bitterness. He had a great size to his pot belly, but he wore it somehow gracefully, walking with an ease and a comfort I found hard to emulate. His priestly garb fitted him the way mine never had: like a second skin. Like it was meant to be there.

I disliked that I felt anything close to jealousy for him in that moment. Seeing him arrive reminded me that I wasn’t intending to stay here. Priestly duties would be nothing but a distant memory if I got what I wanted.

Yet I still felt anxious.

I was giving up the mortal plane, was I not? My body, as itwas, meant nothing to me. Here, on earth, I felt pathetic, worthless—but beneath Asmodeus’ lustful gaze, purpose burned to life in me. Worth was bestowed upon my body.

It had given me a use. What was more, I had the good fortune of feeling that purpose truly when I was touched. Pleasure and pain and every thrust had been a grounding motion, as if for years my soul had wandered above my head and now was being stuffed back inside. I felt myself as I never had before. With Asmodeus, I feltgood.

In this way, I managed to conquer my fears about Bishop Fazio’s visit fairly easily. I had burned anything that might have led to conclusions I wanted no-one to reach: anything ruined by the demon’s touch or cum had burned away the same night I replaced the summoning scroll in its restricted cabinet.

The first night, I had been anxious. He would know—Bishop Fazio would sniff me out, smell the sulphur on me, know intrinsically what I’d allowed to be done to my body. But over those two weeks of waiting for him to take the time to visit our small town, my fear became blunted.

He stood now in the abbey’s courtyard, which was little more than a beautiful strip of grass and potted plants against the sandstone exterior. The ocean moved in the distance, a faint blue ripple near the horizon. Bishop Fazio stared out at it, hands clasped around his back, and a rosary was threaded through his fingers and around his wrists like manacles. His fingers stroked over the cross solemnly, or perhaps sensually. His manservant—a miserable looking child—announced my arrival and deposited me like that, standing in the courtyard with nothing more than the Bishop’s summons to understand the situation.

Bishop Fazio did not turn around. I tried to breathe deeply and slowly, hoping the steadiness would ease the anxiety that had flared to life in my chest. The voice of Bishop Jonah, the old man who had confirmed me, whisperedthe knowledge of my blasphemy to me as the silence stretched.He knows.He knows, he knows, he knows all about you, you filthy whore. He knows how pathetic you look with a cock in your mouth, how your eyes light up when you are on your knees in worship to a demon: knows the stark contrast with which you have worshipped our Lord. You are seen and you are known and you are found filthy.

And Asmodeus’ voice in my ears, its deep chuckle resonant as it saw me, and lauded me for that same filth:Little priest, you are the most willing piece of meat I’ve ever fucked.

Bishop Fazio twitched and my mind went suddenly blank as I chased all impure thoughts away, as if he could tell what was in my head. He looked over his shoulder—but not at me. As my heartrate softened, I heard how the grass crunched underfoot, and saw the child had returned with another priest in tow.

Oliviero.

“Bishop Fazio,” Oliviero said sweetly. I realised belatedly I hadn’t acknowledged the Bishop, and certainly not given him his dues. I bowed with Oliviero now and went to kiss his ring. One after the other Oliviero and my lips skirted over a gold signet ring glinting on the Bishop’s finger. The sea breeze tousled through our hair; my mind corrupted the moment. I saw briefly Oliviero and mine own mouth pressed against the Bishop’s cock, lips parting in desperate adoration?—

Stop it.

I felt the flush consume my cheeks and bowed lower, but the Bishop caught my expression. A finger grazed beneath my chin and he raised my face upwards. If he had pressed firmly, he might have felt the last remains of the scab from Asmodeus’ more brutal touches. I noted his fingers carefully avoided the slow healing cuts across my right cheek where the demon had pressed its clawed fingers into the giving flesh; the first time it had split me open. Bishop Fazio’s eyes scanned my face. I felt exposed, in a way; worried God wouldshow him my secrets, that he would see every humiliating desire I had pulsing in my veins. But from the way the bishop looked at me—all pitying, lip-curling disgust—he thought very little of me. Certainly, I thought he had not even considered a man like me might have summoned Asmodeus to our realm.

“Don Alessandro,” Bishop Jonah said. His voice had an airy pitch to it, as if only half his lungs were in working order at any given time. A wheeze accompanied every sentence, and so he blew my name and title out in rasp that did nothing to dissuade me of the certainty I, and most priests of my station, disgusted him. He was much closer to God than I was by the church’s standards. He must have thought so, too.

“You are the Lord’s humble servant. You have reformed yourself in His light; I have heard the tale of what you encountered in the scribe’s room, and I shudder to think of that unholy presence intruding on sacred ground. But faith won out. Faith won out.”

---