Page 1 of Altar of Flesh

PROLOGUE

“BUT EVERY MAN IS TEMPTED, WHEN HE IS DRAWN AWAY OF HIS OWN LUST, AND ENTICED.”

James 1:14

“HE THAT HATH NO RULE OVER HIS OWN SPIRIT IS LIKE A CITY THAT IS BROKEN DOWN, AND WITHOUT WALLS.”

Proverbs 25:28

Vulnerable like a city without walls, waiting for a conquering.

If my holiness at any point could be akin to godliness, if my faith at any point might bestow sanctity upon my body, I was at that moment Jerusalem with its broken walls, opento evil. Perhaps what separated me from Nehemiah and his great distress over Jerusalem’s defencelessness was the love I possessed for my weakness.

I was delectably susceptible. A willing, stupid man who had abandoned God so completely that I no longer heard even the slightest tug of his call. Lying in the ejaculate of demons, with my hole spent and leaking, I could think of nothing else exceptholy, holy, holy.

The way God led Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem’s wall or Ezra to the temple, I felt like He had led me to this.

Fear not. I still possessed an ear for blasphemy. I knew at once that my feelings were human and ridiculous, that under no circumstance would God have allowed this—even as a means of returning me to His flock. Yet a kind of peace had taken root in me, orgasmic in its pervasiveness. It was as if every fuck encouraged another sprouting branch, another knotted root system that fed me euphoria, joy, desire, lust. I had no use for shame any longer.

Not after I had found my purpose.

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CHAPTER ONE

The two untamed demons left me in a mess of our combined fluids. I do not recall how much time passed. Something as ephemeral as time and how it slipped by felt impossible to comprehend in a place like Hell; things happened, or they didn’t, and I did not grow hungry or particularly tired. The exhaustion that did come was less physical than mental, and even that came in waves. But I found I could not sleep, as if my stamina revitalised itself over time without me needing to do anything.

In this sense, it became difficult to do much except think and, in thinking, fantasise. I recall after a bout of languid, far-away dreaming, where I dreamed in earnest about the demons that had violated me, I finally came back to myself and my body.

Around me, there was only desolation. The mirage of a church in which I had been so thoroughly destroyed had peeled away. The only evidence of what had happened to me was the fluids I laid in and the wounds in my hands and feet—though even these were already beginning to heal. Stickiness clung to my skin, and warmth pooled throughout my body and organs. Never before had such euphoria filled me. It was as if everythingin me had come together: no longer was I a lost lamb but a man imbued with purpose.

My body ached in a pleasant way, and distantly, I recall feeling glad I could still feel things such as pain and discomfort, not only during sex but afterwards. Pleasure became all the more beautiful for it.

I looked down at the open wounds in my palms, the stigmata, and pressed my thumbs into the puckered wounds. Stinging pain hissed through my palm, and I pulled my finger away. I tried not to think about Christ. I tried not to compare myself to Him and his holiness, especially when my insides grew hot; this arousal towards pain was a new development.

It was my ego. My ego had poisoned my own well. Something about knowing I could never quite die had encouraged this perverse arousal. I could be pushed to my mortal limits, tested and encouraged along to my breaking point, and it made the promise of pain alluring.

Reborn as I was, having been baptised in milky unholiness, and with Asmodeus on my mind, I pushed myself up. I staggered away from the mess the three of us had made and walked for a long while. Once again, Hell became a nothingness, a desert of structure and direction. But I let my heart lead me, holding my purpose out like a beacon. To be Asmodeus’ pet, its hole to use. A once-priest so enamoured with its sexual power that he had abandoned everything, even his immortal soul, for the promise of Asmodeus’ touch.

I walked with my eyes closed. My bare feet pushed through the sand, my toes parting in the warmth. I opened my mind the same way I had once opened myself during prayer. Before, I’d hoped to be blessed with God’s favour, but now I longed to be spoken to by another. I wanted Asmodeus to choose me, to see my plight as I offered my body to everything in my path. I hoped this would be enough to lead my way.

It was then that some new territory of Hell shivered into existence. The plains of nothingness were swept up in a storm. I had to shield my eyes against the grating sand. My cheeks were whipped raw, but I persevered, pressing forward through the wild winds in the direction I was drawn towards. Time passed before the storm lessened, and as my vision returned, I saw that the desert had transformed. I had wandered onto a rocky outcrop. In the dark distance, structures carved from a black rock loomed above me. A castle-like tower blocked out much light, and like tar, it seemed to drip down to the ground in an overlapping cascade of rough, thin rock. At the base, a sea of black stone rippled with sharp edges and glistening surfaces. I stood in awe, convinced I was before the vast expanse of a city, though unlike any I had ever seen.

I felt as if I had passed through numerous levels or planes of existence; some part of me knew intrinsically I had fallen deeper into Hell and that my fate here had been sealed. If everything before now had been a simple test, then what was next? Could I even comprehend it with my mortal mind?

Human fear bloomed in my chest. I shivered, though I was not cold. Like an animal, I cast my head about, and I felt the emptiness of my flesh—I craved a warm embrace or to be filled. I wanted some creature to come forth and prove to me that I was wanted and worth having. But at that moment, I was suddenly exposed. I feared my humanness would make me akin to a delicacy. I did not know the politics of Hell beyond what I had recently learned. Plenty of lesser demons could want to use me for their own purposes and could keep me from Asmodeus for eternity. And my desire to be at Asmodeus’ side would be so obvious that, caught by the wrong conniving demon, I would be trapped here eternally, with Asmodeus just out of reach. Nothing could tell me if any of these creatures would entertainthe bargain I had made with Asmodeus, even if it was the Prince of Lust and a King of Hell.

Walk,I commanded myself.Remember your duty.

A lifelong servant’s natural inclination to order is to obey. I had been in service to the church since I was a boy, and all defiance had long ago been trained out of me. My body understood what to do by the order of my own mind, and I disengaged the human emotion, leaving it trailing behind in the sand to walk further into Hell. If I faced those pitfalls, I would deal with them as they came.

As I walked, the landscape changed ever so slightly. Everything still glowed a deep red, like the sunset had been sliced open and the very core of the sun had bled across the land. The outcrop sloped downwards, and as I slid over rock and landed on a path beneath, I realised I would be walking into the depths of this crowded onyx city. Though perhaps the word ‘city’ conjures the wrong image: there was little noise and bustle. I heard nothing in the way of animals or music. The most I could hear was an ambient drone, a sad noise dipping toward mourning. The closer I got, the less certain I became of the structures I had seen. From afar, what had appeared as a municipality made of an intricate web of stone might have merely been just that—stone without structure or meaning behind it. A random assortment or a natural occurrence. The light hitting at odd angles, or my human prejudice carving meaning out of nothing. And I believe this new world heard me, for my sight blurred, and I became so uncertain about what lay ahead of me that I had to stop walking altogether. All clarity darkened, a vignette in my eyes that tunnelled my focus. With the intensity of the black stone ahead, I suddenly could see no light.

No, I thought and stopped walking.No, I do not like this.

It was such an innocuous, human thought. It seemed smaller than the actual feeling enveloping me.I do not like this—I can almost laugh now, even though, at that moment, a great terror gripped my heart. I think what happened was this: my body became aware of its nature, its mortality, its life. It felt as if I wasn’t meant to be there, and I cast my mind back desperately to the ritual I had committed to enter here. Ihadkilled myself, had I not? I had stabbed myself with eager willingness—but perhaps what was happening was a delayed reaction. A spirit who could still feel his flesh. A spirit who was using it eagerly. I thought:well, then what is happening to me is to be expected.Despite everything, I was still human; I wanted clarity or certainty in a place that lacked either. The sudden fear that I wasn’t actually dead engulfed me, and it felt worse than believing I had truly succumbed in that Cave of the Sibyl. My body was lying in my own blood and that of Bishop Favio—and my body was also here, experiencing pleasure it had never encountered in life.

I hadn’t realised I had sat down until I heard the voices. When I peeled my head off from my knees, my location had shifted once again. Slumped in the dirt, back pressed against rock, and with only the great looming tower of black rock to orient myself, I had moved far to the east, so that the tower now sat to my left.

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