Page 13 of Hell and Its Pleasures

“Then repent, Alessandro. Ask to be saved.”

I jolted. I looked up at him in shock. What he asked of me felt like a greater sin than what I was doing now. He wanted me to speak to him like we were in confession. To ask God to forgive a sin I was in the middle of committing.

I glanced away—he moved quickly, knocking his cane against my face to drag me back to him.

“Do you need help remembering how to begin?”

I hesitated, swallowed, and shook my head. Against my cock, my movement slowed. Shame and fear threatened my erection—or so I expected. In truth, I only seemed to get harder. The humiliation made me dizzy.

I cleared my throat. “Contrition,” I said, and nothing else. I didn’t have to; the word carried a weight to it. To confess truly and be absolved, I had to be overcome by remorse for my sins. I looked up at the bishop. I recalled how I felt before Asmodeus. Very slowly, I shook my head. “I don’t. . .”

I don’t regret a thing.

“Ah, but you must,” the bishop said. “Or I cannot absolve you of this sin, Alessandro.”

I swallowed. I added the lie to the ever-growing list of my sins. I was lying to myself, to this bishop, to God by omission. Emboldened, further aroused somehow by the deception, my cock twitched in my hand. I squeezed it again, grunting.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I said. I tried to closemy eyes, but the bishop’s cane tapped beneath my chin. Flushing, I opened and stared up at him. “It has been months since my last confession. I accuse myself of the following sins. I have had lustful thoughts too many times to count.”

“Mm.”

My breath shuddered as a whisper of pleasure shot through me. “I have. . .summoned the demon Asmodeus. Twice. I have let it sodomise me. I have welcomed it. I enjoyed it. I have murdered your holy servant Bishop Fazio. I have let the promise of mortal pleasure lead me. I have let Bishop Jonah do this to me?—”

“Fucking tart!” The bishop spat at my face and I flinched away. “You’re the one who has tempted me.”

Christ. Fuck.It shouldn’t—I should not have been so affected, and yet, there I was, grinding up into my hand with increasing fervour, near delirious with how fast my heart was racing and the sweat that was beading at my forehead and dripping down into my eyes. “Yes, yes, I’m sorry. I have tempted Bishop Jonah and led him to sin!”

“Good boy,” the bishop barked out a laugh and touched himself in earnest, eyes never straying from me.

With my pride dissolved, I arched my back and let the bishop see all of me in my naked glory.

“For these I ask pardon of God. I ask for penance and absolution.”

“I will give you penance,” the bishop said. “Act of Contrition. Say it now.”

In stilted Latin, each word punctured by my rapid breath, I said it:

Deus meus, ex toto corde pænitet me omnium meorum peccatorum,

eaque detestor, quia peccando,

non solum pœnas a te iuste statutas promeritus sum,

sed præsertim quia offendi te,

summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris.

Ideo firmiter propono,

adiuvante gratia tua,

de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum.

Amen.

O My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee,

and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell,

---