The story that follows is not what you've come to expect in these pages. Yes, it involves a man and the boys he lusts after. Yes, it includes explicit sex scenes. Sadly for our hero, though, his sexual escapades get mixed up with a struggle for personal salvation -- not especially typical for Nifty. Give it a chance, and you might be amused. If it is against the law to read this where you live, you really should move elsewhere.
"Grays of God" is public domain, unprotected by copyright. You may reproduce it in whole or part as you please. If you change it in an artistically valid manner, you can claim your own copyright. As long as you read it, I don't much care. Oh, and don't forget to donate to Nifty!
It's not all black and white. There are
Grays of God
The howling and moaning were more dreadful than the cruelest winter gale, and the stink of blood and shit and rotting flesh was worse. The hill, he knew, had to be Golgotha. In the paintings, though, there were just the three men crucified, and the one in the middle was the Savior. The artists had neglected to include the forty or fifty other felons being executed there that day, and no angels or doves or shafts of light indicated which of the men he presumably had been sent to see.
His church Latin was close enough to the language spoken by the Roman soldiers so that he could understand them. The others, he supposed, mostly were speaking Aramaic. He had learned some Hebrew at the seminary, but he found the dialect of the local people who might have been speaking it incomprehensible. He preferred not to interrupt the soldiers performing their bloody tasks, so he would have to go from cross to cross, and hope he might recognize the mortal flesh yet occupied by the Son of God. There should be a sign reading "Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews" in three languages ‹ according to John, at least. Was that in any of the other Gospels? He couldn't remember. He was never much of a scholar, and having been whisked two millennia into the past did not do much for his concentration. Well, at least there ought to be a crown of thorns.
It took him nearly an hour to push through the crowds of onlookers and find Jesus. He wouldn't have known the Savior except for the crown of thorns and a few tatters from a purple cloak. There was no sign attached to the cross. It would have been useless in any event, given how few of the locals could read. Also, Jesus was not the beatific figure pictured in religious art: he was groaning and howling every bit as miserably as any of the other men crucified around him. The quiet ones already were dead.
Three women knelt before the cross, shrieking and ululating. The oldest of them grabbed his sleeve as he approached, jabbering something through her tears. He tried asking her, in Latin, what she wanted. She shook her head, then scampered a little way off and came back with a spear she must have stolen from a soldier busy with his hammer and nails, or maybe throwing dice for some poor bastard's clothes. She thrust the spear at his hands and pointed at the tortured man hanging above. First he shook his head, but the old woman only babbled and cried the harder.
Eventually Father Jerome took the spear. Estimating as best he could where his Savior's Sacred Heart beat in His chest, he thrust the spear between two ribs. A brief spasm passed through the Son of God's corporeal container, a final watery bowel movement dribbled down His leg, and then His body just hung limp from the spikes that had been hammered through His wrists. The earthly sufferings of Jesus of Nazareth, rabbi and rebel, were over.
* * * * *
Very early that same day, or so it seemed to him, Father Jerome had pulled himself out of bed to attend Matins at the Convent of Saint Agnes. He was there to serve as confessor to eight elderly nuns, to contemplate and atone for his sins, and to be separated from the temptations presented by the altar boys of the parish where he contentedly had served for seventeen years.
Young and not bad looking when he began his service at Holy Martyrs, the altar boys gravitated to him. Father Anselm, the soon-to-retire priest he would be replacing, was old and fat and had a disconcertingly large mole on his otherwise receding chin. Jerome settled in, and through the years there always had been altar boys with the clear skin and bright eyes and bouncy round bottoms he found most attractive. Enough of those were hungry enough for his attention and affection to keep him sexually satisfied -- and best of all, his special boys were excellent recruiters for those who would succeed them.
Wistfully, he let his memories drift back to Danny Rizzelli, whose black curly hair set off his brilliant blue eyes; whose perfect three inch erection thrust proudly from the smooth, sensual skin surmounting his delicious eleven-year-old nut sack; whose soft but resilient buttocks invited invasion of the treasure they concealed by a hungry man's face, and tongue, and eventually, yes, his throbbing priestly cock. He hadn't seen Danny in years, but knew he must have grown into a very handsome young man. Would he have grown up gay? Maybe. It didn't matter. Once a boy began to sprout a bit of pubic hair, Father Jerome lost interest.
Soon after he turned twelve, Danny had brought along bright, blond Carter, only ten but, thanks to Danny's tutelage, already a talented beginner in the fine art of cocksucking. He had hesitated a bit before trying to swallow Jerome's much larger appendage, but soon was Danny's equal in the art of pleasing a lonely priest with his lips and tongue. Sometimes, when the two boys joined him in his rectory, he satisfied himself by merely watching them satisfy each other. Danny especially enjoyed licking the crack of Carter's sweet pink behind. Yes, most likely Danny had grown up gay.
Jerome was momentarily distracted from his reverie by the sound of the elderly sisters croaking the morning prayers, but he soon managed to tune them out as he recalled the look on young Carter's face the first time he saw Jerome's well oiled priestly penis penetrate Danny's tight little hole, and heard Danny's squeals of delight as the manly member pumped in and out until man and boy alike collapsed in exhausted satiation.
"Doesn't it hurt?" asked Carter.
"Not when you get used to it," Danny replied. "And then, it's the best feeling in the world."
Come to think of it, there was not a chance in the world that Danny had not matured into a blissfully gay young man.
It was the Colby boy, Jeffrey, who put an end to Jerome's love affairs with successive altar boys. He was a jealous little bugger, and as he aged out he very much resented Jerome's transfer of affection to little Simon. who could have been the model for one of Jacobo Pontormo's putti in that painting of the Madonna and Child with two saints. Simon was more than a putto, though, he was a veritable angel; and Jeffrey, sad to say, already was afflicted with adolescence. So Jeffrey blabbed, Simon was whisked away; some earlier altar boys came forward hoping to cash in (including one so unattractive he wouldn't have been molested by a blind man), and Jerome was banished to the damned convent, with only his memories to comfort him.
Those memories of Jeffrey wiped out his happier memories of Danny and Carter as the nuns filed out of the chapel. He was in no mood for company, so he took a meager breakfast of bread and cheese and weak tea to his bedchamber. He could stew on his own for an hour or so before he had to take his place in the confessional to absolve old women of their petty sins, consisting mostly of nasty thoughts about one another.
* * * * *
The Visitor spoke to him through the confessional screen. It was immediately clear that the Voice was not that of any of the nuns. It was the Voice of a young man, perhaps, but possessed of a power Jerome never had encountered. It advised him to pray, because he soon would be making a journey to another place and time; and that once there, he might have a chance to earn salvation.
The priest felt frozen in place, but when he finally was able to look through the screen into the other side of the confessional booth, it was empty. Shaken, he returned to his chamber, lay on his bed, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the bed was gone, the chamber was gone, and he could see the hill of Golgotha not far away and hear that dreadful sound: the howls and groans of men begging to be allowed to die.
With so many people in attendance, somebody must have seen him thrust the spear into his crucified Lord, and he didn't think the Romans would take kindly to the mercy killing of a felon sentenced to die on the cross; so he made his way as quickly as he could off the hill of Golgotha and headed towards the city. For some reason he was wearing his bathrobe and bedroom slippers, but they must have been sufficiently similar to some of the local garb as to escape notice. Darkness had fallen as he stumbled through a warren of mud brick houses, haphazardly arranged along crooked streets and alleys.
There was a rundown structure that stood with its door ajar, and only darkness within. Approaching the opening, he detected a strong animal stench. Goats. The building was a shelter for goats, but there didn't seem to be any goats inside, so he slipped through the door and let himself collapse in a malodorous heap of straw. Afraid and disoriented, but also exhausted, he fell asleep.
He woke up thinking he must have been having a very intense, very terrible dream, but the goat stink was still there, and when he opened his eyes he was still in that goat shack. Charitably, he supposed you could call it a manger. Then he saw he wasn't exactly alone.
There was another man there, but the man was dead, hanging from a rafter over his head. He must have been sleeping underneath that dead man all night, but just hadn't seen him in the dark. A shaft of dawn light revealed a limp body in a ragged tunic, a swollen purple face turning black, a protruding tongue. The dead man had shit himself, and there was dried crap caked on his bare legs. Seeing it, Jerome began to smell it too, mixed in with the stench of goat and goat piss.
Probably the man had killed himself, but just the same, Jerome thought it would be best not to be found with a dead man. Roman justice was swift and not terribly accurate, he recalled, and he didn't want to try explaining who he was and what he was doing with a dead man somewhere on the outskirts of Jerusalem. He was hurrying toward the door when he saw glints of metal. There were coins scattered on the ground, silver coins stamped with some kind of bird thing on one side and a man wearing a laurel wreath on the other.
If he was stuck in the past, it would help to have some money. The coins looked like they were made of silver, probably valuable, although he really didn't know. He picked up the ones in plain sight, then hunted for the rest. There were thirty coins in all: thirty pieces of silver.
* * * * *
Jerome had not entered the priesthood to facilitate his seduction of young boys. In point of fact, he took Holy Orders to escape temptation, to live a blameless life of celibacy. Yes, it also was to escape his mother's exhortations to find a nice girl and give her grandchildren, but his original intention truly was pure. It just didn't work out that way.
On his first day at Holy Martyrs, he met Randy, the twelve-year-old incubus who rapidly swept away all Jerome's good intentions. Randy's mother Marsha, he came to learn, had lost her good looks and with them her ability to earn a decent living as a prostitute. Finding herself homeless with a young child, she had allowed Father Anselm to "save" her, and took a job as the church's cleaner, although rumor had it that she still took on the occasional customer if she could find one whose standards were low enough.
In his earlier childhood, Randy had learned a few tricks by watching his mother and her customers while he was supposed to be sound asleep. His talent for seducing vulnerable men, Jerome decided after only a short while, was innate. The first day they met, Randy instantly invaded Jerome's "personal space," pressing up against the priest on the couch where they sat and staring up at him with knowing eyes and moistened lips. Marsha and Father Anselm seemed not to notice anything out of the ordinary. "You have a new friend, I see," Father Anselm remarked, smiling over that hideous mole on his chin.
"Be good for him to have a young man around," proclaimed the boy's mother. "Yes, Randy could use some good influencing, and that's for sure!"
Randy didn't waste any time. They were still waving goodbye at the parish station wagon taking Anselm off to the old priest's home when Randy tugged on Jerome's sleeve and said, "Father, could I ask you something?"
"Of course, Randy. What is it?"
"It's private. Maybe we could go to the rectory." The rectory was a little cottage behind the church, and Jerome had been sharing it with Anselm, sleeping on a fold-out couch in the sitting room. With Anselm gone, the cottage was all his.
The last of Anselm's things had been removed only half an hour earlier, and Randy would be Jerome's first personal guest. He wondered if taking a young boy to his private quarters might be a mistake, but there still were half a dozen old ladies in the church helping Randy's mother clean up after Anselm's farewell party.
In the rectory, they went first to the little kitchen. Jerome sat in a chair. Randy sat in his lap, took the priest's hand, and guided it to a stiff little lump in his shorts. "Is this supposed to happen?" he asked.
Even in his youthful innocence, Jerome didn't believe that the boy hadn't had plenty of stiffies in his young life, and probably spent considerable time playing with them; but it didn't matter. Jerome was instantly and thoroughly seduced, and five minutes later Randy was half naked and they were playing the "tickle game." Only when two of the old ladies knocked at the door to say they were leaving did Randy quickly scoop up his shorts and underpants and duck into the bathroom. Jerome was sure the women must have noticed the hot blush across his face as he smiled and thanked them for making Anselm's farewell such a special occasion.
For Jerome, it turned out to be a very special occasion. When he closed the door on the women, and went back down the little hallway to the kitchen, the boy wasn't there; nor was he still in the bathroom. The little sitting room, too, was empty. In the bedroom, Randy was waiting for him on the bed he hadn't yet slept in. The boy had shed the rest of his clothing, and was lying on his stomach like a baby on a bearskin rug, a big smile on his face, and his pert little buttocks pointing upward and wordlessly shouting, "eat me!"
Jerome froze in place, trying, with small success, to keep breathing. He stammered out some unintelligible syllables.
Randy grinned at him. "Oh, come on! Don't you think I'm pretty?"
The priest staggered a step or two closer to the bed. Randy smiled a bright, glorious smile. Then the boy swung his legs over the edge of the bed, grabbed Jerome by his belt, and pulled him closer. Tears were running down the man's face as the boy expertly undid the priestly trousers and let them drop; then gently pulled Jerome's helplessly throbbing erection out of the priestly boxer shorts and delicately kissed it right on its purple tip as a prelude to the young priest's very first blowjob.
* * * * *
Jerome's bedroom slipper squished into an especially juicy mound of donkey shit, and he decided it was not a good time to lose himself in memories of boys past, even if the memories were so much more pleasant than the realities of first century Jerusalem. More than anything, he had to look after his safety, which meant getting some less outlandish garments to wear and finding a place to stay out of sight while he accustomed himself to his new surroundings.
The first days would be the hardest. It was a wonderful stroke of luck to have acquired the dead man's money. The silver coins had to be worth something, and thirty of them should be enough to keep him going for at least a little while.
Oh, shit. Thirty pieces of silver. Suddenly, it occurred to Jerome just who the hanged man must had been, and how he'd come to have the coins now weighing heavily in the priest's bathrobe pockets. Well, Judas didn't need them anymore, and Jerome miraculously finding them must have been preordained, somehow or another, for some reason he eventually would discover. If they brought him bad luck, he supposed he must have earned it -- but maybe, just maybe, he would have a chance to use them for some higher good.
The buildings grew larger as he made his way towards the center of town. Peddlers of rags and fruit and fish and spices began to line the sides of the street, and some called out to him as he passed. How hard would it be to learn Aramaic? He'd need a teacher. No, not some elderly Greek scholar, albeit in his understanding of the ancient world itinerant Greek scholars were everywhere, earning what coins they could as teachers and scribes. A boy would be much more fun: a curly haired, circumcised Hebrew boy, or a fairhaired slave boy from Gaul.
Oh! How much might a slave boy cost? Would a child be more or less expensive than an adult slave? Where was the local slave market? He couldn't wait to do a little window shopping, but once again was distracted from his fantasies by slipping on a mound of animal plop. Stop it, Jerome! First things first!
There was a tug at his sleeve. He looked to see who was tugging. It wasn't a beautiful young boy. In point of fact, it was an old man. The hair that still grew around the sides of his head and in tufts from his very large nose was probably gray beneath layers of grease and dirt, and most of his teeth seemed to be missing. The old man said something in some language that wasn't Aramaic. Jerome shook his head. "Quid vis?" he asked in Latin. "What do you want?"
Also in Latin, the old man replied, "Sorry, I mistook you for a Gaul. The fair hair, you know. Although if you were a Gaul, I suppose you'd be wearing trousers."
At least that was approximately what the old man said. Jerome's Latin was a little rusty. He had to think for a few seconds before he was able to reply, "And you, I presume, are some sort of scholar from Greece?"
"Halius of Chalsis, at your service. You seem a little lost. Can I help you find a particular street? An inn? A girl with loose morals?" Halius looked a little harder at Jerome. "Or a boy, perhaps?"
Not long afterwards, Jerome arrived at the bazaar outside Herod's Temple. His silver coins, he had learned, were Tyrian shekels, and each was worth quite a bit -- enough so that most merchants couldn't or wouldn't make change if one was buying everyday items, like clothing. Halius seemed especially suspicious when Jerome had to ask him about the coins, but the presence of the coins was enough to ensure the presence of Halius. Their first stop would be at a moneychanger, where Jerome could exchange some of his shekels for more useful copper coins. By the time the sun reached its peak they had cleaned up at the Baths, Jerome was far more fashionably dressed, Halius wore a used but clean chiton, and the two of them were drinking wine and nibbling bread and cheese at an outdoor stand.
"A new man," the old Greek proclaimed, regarding Jerome with satisfaction. "Now they'll let you stay at an inn I have in mind, and I'll find you that boy you want."
Jerome flushed. "What makes you think I want a boy?"
"Clearly," Halius replied, "you're a man of refinement. Even if I still haven't placed just where you come from -- your accent is very outlandish -- it's obvious you're not one of these benighted Hebrews. And although you do look quite a lot like a Gaul, I detect a man with more, shall we say, sophisticated tastes."
Jerome let the subject drop, but that night at the inn Halius had chosen, the Greek suggested that Jerome spend a few coppers more for a private room rather than sleep in one of the common rooms where most travelers passed their nights. Unaccustomed to dormitory living since his seminary days, the priest agreed. Some time that night, he found out why Halius had suggested privacy.
The boy spoke no Latin, but was fluent in an older, more intimate language. Jerome never tried to ask his name. The boy looked eleven or twelve, but the priest guessed he might be about fourteen years old, allowing that boys of the first century matured more slowly than boys of the twenty-first. He was a Hebrew boy, judging by how neatly his perky little peter was circumcised. Somebody, most likely not a Hebrew, had taught the lad the art of kissing, and his tongue tasted of pomegranate, tart and mouth-watering. He might have used the dark red juice to redden his lips, even to paint the lascivious blush that warmed his soft bottom.
Jerome lay back on his sheepskin pallet, content to let the little hustler take the lead. The kissing was especially nice. In seventeen years of altar boys, Danny Rizzelli was the only one who ever seemed to enjoy kissing him, and most of the others flat out refused. Granted, the Hebrew boy probably liked it no better than, say, Gareth Crosby, but the Hebrew boy was, after all, a professional. When the boy's mouth moved down to Jerome's neck, the priest put his thoughts of boys past, or, more accurately, future, aside. He crushed the little hustler's bottom in both his hands, ground the boy's crotch against his own.
Nice; the boy was stiff as could be, something Jerome had heard you couldn't necessarily expect of a sex worker. The little Hebrew wasn't just going through the motions, he was genuinely turned on. The priest poked a finger at the boy's hole. It slid right in, helped along by some sort of grease, probably animal fat. The boy had arrived ready to penetrate, but Jerome wasn't ready for that just yet. What was he ready for? Oh, yes!
He was ready to move around so that each of their faces was in the other's crotch! He was ready to take that hard little peg into his mouth, ready to suck it, lick it, swallow it as he fucked the boy's face. Oh! God! (A brief memory of his God's dreadful screaming as He was crucified arose, only to be instantly swept aside.) Oh! Oh! The little cocksucker was taking Jerome's rod deep into his hot little throat -- something no altar boy ever had accomplished. Oh! God! (A brief image of bloody wounds -- but just a flicker.) Oh, glory! The blood rushing past his ears sounded like a choir of angels as he pumped wad after wad of priestly jism far down the little Hebrew's gullet.
The well lubricated ass would have to wait. He was drained. Jerome looked down at the boy's face, saw the trickle of of milky slime on the firm little chin, and shook his head in astonishment. "Amazing, just amazing," he said in English, indifferent to the fact that the boy couldn't understand him. "What I wouldn't give to have you with me every night, forever." The priest had been with enough boys to know that, for lovers of boys, forever is a very short time. Well, at least he could ask Halius to procure him the same boy for the following night. Maybe he could keep the incredibly hot little number the whole week.
He rearranged the boy so that they were face to face again, and held him close, feeling the warmth of the young body, the resilience of smooth muscle under the soft skin. The present, or the future, or wherever it was the nuns of St. Agnes were rustling through the last dry years of their wasted lives, disappeared. He was feeling a sense of satisfaction that had been missing from his previous lifetime. Maybe he should have hired himself a boy prostitute years earlier, back in his old life -- but where would a priest have found such a talented young professional in those allegedly more civilized times?
Briefly, Jerome wondered where this particular professional might have been previously. Well, AIDS didn't even exist yet, and syphilis wouldn't arrive from the New World for fourteen or fifteen centuries. No pubic hair so no crabs, but did the kid have the clap? He didn't remember clap ever being mentioned in the Bible. A nice thing about altar boys was that, almost always, you were their first. In that way, at least, they were safe. Well, not exactly safe, but generally clean.
* * * * *
The priest's cock was buried deep in the boy's ass when Halius barged in first thing in the morning. "Oh, I beg your pardon! I should have announced myself instead of just walking in. I'm glad to see you like him, though."
Jerome's instantly flacid penis dropped out of its happy place. Had he been a more aggressive man, he would have jumped out of bed and throttled the Greek. Instead, he took a deep breath and waited for the blush to leave his face. Then he stared hard at Halius, and said, "I'll call you when I need you."
Halius ducked out of the room. It was no use, though ‹ he wasn't about to harden up again. There was a basin of water and a rag in the room, so he rinsed his face and his crotch, rubbed off the remaining animal fat, or whatever it was the boy used as a lubricant. If he could have the boy for another night, he would taste it and find out. Then he pulled on a set of clothes, and gestured for the boy to do the same.
Down in the common room, the landlord brought them some bread and wine, with a jug of water. He wondered about the safety of the water, but added some to his wine anyway. Maybe the alcohol in the wine would kill whatever lived in the local water supply. Well, it wasn't killing the locals, and they hadn't had the advantage of twenty-first century vaccinations. The boy was eating and drinking voraciously. Jerome looked around for Halius, and just as he was beginning to grumble about the damned Greek only being around when one didn't need him, the damned Greek appeared at his side.
"Don't ever do that again!"
Halius needed a few seconds to figure out just what he had done that he never should do again, but then he smiled and bowed. "Oh, profuse apologies, sir. We Greeks aren't so, uh, private. I'm glad you like him, though."
Keeping his voice low, Jerome asked if he could keep the boy for another night.
"Another night? As many nights as you like. He's yours. You bought him."
"What?"
"Probably I should have asked you first before spending your money, but he was such a bargain, and you'd left me with two shekels for expenses. The owner let him go for just one. Said he needed the cash for a younger one. Much younger, I'm guessing. Babylonian, you know. They do like them small and effeminate. He hadn't even used this one in months."
"He's a slave? He's my slave?"
"I can sell him on if you'd like. Probably turn a profit."
Jerome just stared for a moment. Then he said, "No, I'll keep him. Well done. What's his name?"
"He answers to Shai."
The priest looked long and hard at his new slave. He owned a slave! A boy slave! An amazingly hot, sexually expert, use-him-however-the-hell-you-like-because-he's-a-slave hot boy slave!
If Shai was a test from God, a temptation he should have resisted, well, he supposed he'd failed. Otherwise, the first century A.D. was shaping up nicely. It was shaping up very nicely indeed!
* * * * *
A month had gone by. Halius had found them a Roman style town house and three more slave boys. The house had sorely depleted his supply of shekels, and it still was not fully paid for, but there was money coming in. Plenty of visiting merchants, it seemed, had a taste for slave boys, and some members of the Roman officer corps were regulars. Halius ran the business with admirable expertise, and even if he was stealing more than he was delivering to Jerome's coffer, Jerome didn't mind.
The priest's role was simple. His was the public face of the establishment, sharing cups of wine with Roman centurions and Yemenite rug traders. He sat around the main room with a large hammer, discouraging customers from taking liberties that might leave a boy slave damaged. Larger than all but the most strapping Gauls, just his presence did the trick. True, there might be a bit of trouble with a barbarian from the far northern isles of Brittania; sometimes they were inclined to initiate spanking episodes -- but more often than not, they just wanted the boys to spank them.
Jerome's other, unofficial duty was to keep the boys in practice. Today, though, he had a special task. Halius had acquired a new slave boy, a boy from a land so far away that even Halius didn't understand a single word of the boy's language. Even more difficult, the boy seemed to have absolutely no sexual experience, and was strenuously resisting getting any. Jerome had thought the best approach would be to let the other boys break him in gently, but gentleness wasn't working as witnessed by the tooth marks in Shai's shoulder. They called him Flavis because of his light yellow hair, but it didn't matter what they called him because he never answered to anything.
Jerome had picked up some Aramaic and Shai had learned a little Latin over the previous month, so they could communicate on a very basic level. Given the very basic nature of their relationship, basic communication usually was good enough. Today, though, they were trying to talk about Flavis, and how to make him more cooperative.
"Tie arms!" suggested Shai. "Tie legs! Everybody fuck. Yes, tie mouth. No bite me! Everybody fuck!"
The idea was simple enough: tie him up and gang bang him. Maybe it would bang the resistance out of him. Jerome didn't much like the idea, though. Even though the boy was a slave, and Jerome could legitimately kill him if he felt like it, it would feel like rape. It was bad enough that he was a priest who had sex with multiple boys. He didn't want to be a priest who was a - too. Anyway, the boy might not be good for much afterwards.
One thing that made it easier for him to live his new life was that priests weren't celibate in first century Jerusalem -- none of them. The Jewish priests of the temple had wives, and the priests of Isis and Baal and all the mystery cults made Jerome's sex life seem tame. From what he'd heard, celibacy never once occurred even to the followers of the late Jesus. James, Jesus's brother, was said to have an old wife he married for her dowry and a young one he married for her body. Peter, everyone seemed to believe, was gay, but kept it quiet. One Edomite was sure the only reason Jesus married Mary Magdalene was to counter the rumors about his friendship with Peter.
Shai saw Jerome's hesitation. "You know you like fuck him skinny ass. Tie arms! Tie feet! Pick up skinny ass and fuck!"
Getting no response, the slave boy tried again. "You no fuck? You scared to fuck? Some men, uh, you knowÅ " Shai couldn't find the word, but flexed his muscles and made an angry face, an unmistakable impression of a certain kind of client. Rough trade. No, that wouldn't do. They wouldn't cater to rough trade, if only because the boys were valuable investments. Back in his old life, when he was about Shai's age, his friends talked about Spanish Fly. He didn't think it was real, but maybe there was something like that. Something some crazy primitive herbalist could cook up. Hallius would know.
* * * * *
It wasn't an aphrodisiac, exactly, but it seemed to be doing the trick. The witch, or priestess, or whatever she was, had baked the stuff into little cakes. It would have been easier to get Flavis to eat one if she hadn't insisted on shaping them like penises, but when he saw Jerome and Shai eating them with no apparent ill effects, he had a few himself. They hit about twenty minutes later, and they were very intense. Jerome had not been aware that the medicinal properties of cannabis were known in the first century, but, apparently, they were. He and the two boys were high. They were very, very high.
Shai started the giggling when Jerome fell sideways off his stool. Flavis resisted for a moment, then joined in. Shai, who had been sitting on a rug on the floor, struggled to his knees, then let himself fall on top of Jerome. They wrestled clumsily, both laughing, then rolled over to where Flavis was trying to crawl towards the water jug and pulled him into their tangle. The yellow haired northerner didn't resist.
Somehow Flavis's tunic got pushed up over his head, trapping his arms, and leaving his pale, naked body wriggling helplessly. Shai, still laughing, licked the other boy's ribs, discovering that Flavis was extremely ticklish. Jerome joined in the licking of boy flesh as Flavis, struggling to free his arms from the tangled tunic, rolled onto his stomach, revealing the perfect curves of his dimpled bottom. It was exactly the kind of bottom that made a man like Jerome want to have a bite, and so he did, nibbling and tonguing and pushing his face into the cleft. Flavis snapped his cheeks together so tight, Jerome thought his nose might be stuck and his face crushed if Flavis rolled again, but when the boy did roll, Jerome's nose came free and his lips alighted on the young barbarian's stiff little willy.
And yes, it was stiff ‹ as stiff as a little willy can be. Helpless to do otherwise, Jerome opened his mouth and took that boyish boner into his mouth. It was just a little salty, and its foreskin (Yes! A gentile boy with a foreskin!) was pulled tight over its glans. Jerome nudged it back with his tongue as Flavis, caught up in the marijuana infused sensuality of the moment, abandoned his earlier inhibitions and pumped his young stiffie in and out. Glancing up, Jerome saw that the boy had freed his arms from the tunic, now bunched up around his chest, but was showing no sign of using them to cover his nakedness or push away the advances of a perverted old priest. He had them wrapped around Shai, his hands tangled in the Hebrew boy's curls, holding their faces together as their tongues became hungrily acquainted.
Maybe marijuana was an aphrodisiac. It certainly seemed to have that effect on the boy from the barbarian north. If he could be persuaded to detach his tongue from Shai's tonsils, Jerome believed Flavis would not at all mind Shai's stiff little prong up his hole. Losing his "virginity" to another boy shouldn't be at all uncomfortable, but would start getting him ready for the paying customers. Jerome believed it was the symbolism of having a dick up his ass that was most important, and once that barrier was overcome, the orifice itself could be stretched. Soon, with any luck, he would let himself be used with the same mix of indifference and boredom the other boys displayed when their customers were not really to their taste.
Jerome was momentarily distracted as a lattice of brightly glowing pink lizards danced across his field of vision. Wait, Flavis's boy bits were still pumping at his mouth, and all he should have been able to see was boy belly. Oh, my, but those marijuana penis cakes had to be extremely potent indeed! Nevertheless, it was time to apply some engineering principles that were quite troublesome under the circumstances, and somehow change the position of their threesome to make Flavis's boy pussy more available to Shai's hot little poker.
He could never say how, but somehow the shift was managed. When the pink lizards had danced away, he was lying on his back on a small pile of rugs, his head between Flavis's soft white thighs as his tongue licked the wrinkly little nutsack, watching Shai's circumsized cocklet poking around Flavis's pink pucker. Jerome was just able to wet a finger and open the hole a drop, then move the young Hebrew's member on target. Oh, how that dusky colored young dick pounded that soft, lily white bottom! It was a joy to behold, made better by the fact that somebody's mouth ‹ the two squirming bodies lying atop him prevented him from seeing which one it was ‹ had engulfed the head of his penis and was sucking it like the popsicle that wouldn't be invented for another couple of millenia. Almost certainly it was Shai, but Jerome felt quite confident that Flavis would come to be very nearly as willing and as able in short order.
Then he felt a second mouth nuzzling around the base of his cock while the first continued to stimulate its head. A soft little tongue lapped at his balls for a moment before the face buried itself in his crotch and began to moan. Somebody was having a wonderful time. Well, several somebodies seemed to be having a wonderful time. A voice echoed out of the past, or the future, or whatever it was: "And a good time was had by all!"
The next morning they awoke in a heap, but didn't move for a while. Flavis seemed a little withdrawn as they broke bread and drank a little well watered wine for breakfast, but after a while he couldn't resist Shai's grin. When Jerome drew Shai into a hug and gestured for Flavis to join them, the boy hung back briefly; but soon he let himself be drawn into Shai's arms, and did not complain when Jerome's arms encircled both boys and he planted numerous oddly innocent kisses on both their faces. The problem of getting Flavis to become a productive member of the household may not have been entirely solved, but it was well on its way to a successful conclusion.
* * * * *
There were unwanted visitors, though. Most frequent was Caiaphas, the high priest, who insisted on a cut of the action. Halius did his best to understate their profits, which Jerome understood to be characteristic of businessmen across every place and time; but it is hardest to steal from a thief and to lie to a born liar. Had Jerome let Halius do all the negotiating himself, they might have come out better; but Jerome just wanted to get rid of the man. Halius subtly denigrated Jerome's business acumen while outwardly maintaining the façade of the perfect servant. In truth, though, Jerome really didn't care. Even paying more than he should have, he had all the wealth and all the sexual gratification he ever could have wanted.
Far less welcome was James, Jesus's brother. He had learned about Jerome's role at the crucifixion from Mary, the Holy Mother, and the other Mary, who never had been a prostitute and had been the Messiah's lawful wife. James was at odds with a Roman tax collector named Saul who had started calling himself Paul and was in the process of starting his own Jesus cult, open to non-Jews. James, maintaining that his brother had been the Messiah to the Jews, was vehemently opposed to opening up the sect to goyim, and wanted Jerome to attest to Jesus having given instructions along those lines at the time of his death. Jerome tried to explain that Jesus had not spoken a single coherent word while crucified, sticking with groans and whimpers punctuated by the occasional scream.
It was especially annoying the day both James and Caiaphas came by at the same time, and argued about whether Jesus was indeed the Son of God or just another false prophet who had gotten what he deserved. Caiaphas had enough trouble dealing with all the outlandish cults that came to Jerusalem with the Romans, He didn't need another schism in Judaism, already having enough insubordination from certain wealthy Sadducees and those damned Essenes. According to Caiaphas, Jesus got what he deserved.
Neither Caiaphas nor James could be distracted by a sweet boy's attentions. James wanted testimony, and Caiaphas wanted money, and that was that. Mostly, Jerome just wanted to be left alone. He did count himself lucky, though, that Paul was out of town, preaching Jesus to the Gentiles, or he too might have been hanging around exacerbating Jerome's headache. Everybody in Jerusalem seemed to agree Paul was the kind of pushy self-promoter who gave Jews a bad name, and James didn't believe for a minute in the miracle that turned Saul of Tarsus the persecuting son of a bitch into Paul the alleged apostle. Signing up goyim for Jesus, without even a circumcision, he maintained, was just wrong.
There was another visitor, though, who was harder to deal with than Caiaphas or James. He came in dreams, moaning and crying and dripping blood all over. Was He angry at Jerome for pushing that spear into His side? How could He be angry when His own mother had put the spear into Jerome's hands and begged for an end to her Son's suffering?
More to the point, what was a fallen American priest doing back in the first century, witnessing the crucifixion, then going on to own and operate a boy brothel? What was God the Father up to? Was Jerome supposed to repent, or something? Was he, somehow, supposed to atone for his sins? And, if so, how? Was he supposed to go out like James and Paul, enlisting new followers of the Christ until he wound up on a cross himself? There was no angel to guide him. He was on his own.
After a while, James stopped coming around. Some good stories were going around about Jesus and his life and death, and if none of them were exactly true, it didn't matter. Some were quite similar to the canonical works Jerome had studied in the seminary, while others were totally unknown to later centuries. None of the stories of the crucifixion were in any way similar to what the priest from the future had witnessed with his own eyes, and all sorts of unlikely people claimed to have seen Jesus resurrected, after either breaking down the door of His tomb, digging His way out of His grave, or reassembling Himself out of pieces dropped by carrion birds.
Jerome, despite his orthodox Catholic upbringing and education, found all the resurrection stories impossible to believe. He had stood beneath the corpse, seen the crap slide down its legs, and felt nothing but fear and misery as he ran from the scene. If Jesus was resurrected, it was not in that sad, putrid flesh.
* * * * *
Halius was insisting that Flavis be sold on. Although generally accepting of his role as sex toy for wealthy men, the boy had a bit of a temper, and expressed it if he felt he was being treated poorly. The last straw, for Halius, was when Flavis took exception to being used as a urinal by a fat centurion, broke an amphora mostly full of some quite costly wine, and used a potsherd to carve a long furrow in the centurion's prominent gut. The man had taken it fairly well in that he hadn't killed the boy, nor Halius nor Jerome, but he left Flavis so bruised and broken that even his dear Shai could not touch him for more than a week. They had to pay a surgeon to set two broken bones, and the salve needed to heal his ravaged boy pussy cost as much as a sacrificial quality lamb.
"We can't sell him as is," Jerome protested. "He's worthless until he's healed enough to go back to work, and then we'll want him to earn back at least what he's cost us."
"Yes," Halius replied, "but then he'll just throw another fit and end up costing us even more. It's probably cheaper just to kill him now and be done with it."
Halius had begun to act like a full partner lately, and Jerome knew it was time he put his foot down. Anyway, he was not about to murder a child, slave or not. Before he could say, "No," however, somebody beat him to it. It was Shai, popped out from under a table with a face full of tears. "Sell him! Somebody will buy him! He's so beautiful!"
Shai fell to his knees, clutched at Jerome's robe, and buried his face in the priest's crotch. "Well," Halius said to Jerome, "he knows how to get you on his side!"
Jerome disentangled himself from the boy and pushed past the Greek, wanting nothing more than to sit at a wine bar where he wouldn't have to deal with Halius, Flavis, or Shai. "I'm in no mood to decide anything right now," he called back to Halius as he strode off into the street. "I'll talk to you later."
The wine bar was run by a retired legionary who called himself Fessus. He saw Jerome coming, and had a cup of Pompeian waiting when the priest lowered himself onto one of Fessus's two rickety stools. Jerome looked down into the cup. "The good stuff?" he asked.
"Set a flame to it and watch it burn," Fessus replied.
Except at breakfast, Jerome did not share the Roman taste for watered wine, and also did his best to avoid anything mulled with spices. He took a mouthful and swished it around his teeth. It was strong enough, and didn't taste half bad. He drained the cup and set it down for a refill. Fessus poured it full again, and left the jug on the counter. For what passed as a bartender in the first century, Fessus was not at all talkative. Jerome liked that.
It followed that Jerome didn't like it at all when a man in the leather apron of an ironworker pulled himself onto Fessus's second stool for the purpose of engaging in conversation. Without asking, Fessus served him a cup of posca, just one step above vinegar.
Touching the side of his nose as if confiding a secret, the ironworker said, "They've spotted Yeshua again, up in the hills. They say he's preaching rebellion."
"Yeshua" was what the locals called Jesus, and Jerome was in no mood to listen to more resurrected prophet stories.
"They say he's doing miracles, better ones than when he was alive. I meanÅ You know what I mean. Better than before they killed him. He made a girl float in the air just by praying over her."
Jerome couldn't restrain himself. "Did he also cut her in half and put her back together? Maybe he pulled shekels out of her ears?"
"Did he? I didn't hear that. If I didn't have the shop to run, I'd go see. Before the Romans grab him and kill him again."
With that, the ironworker swallowed the last of his posca and, presumably, returned to his forge ‹ leaving Jerome with dark memories of the sad, tortured Corpse he'd been taught to worship as his Savior; the sad, tortured Corpse he'd killed. According to the Church he'd served, sort of, in that other life, Jesus just passed through briefly on the third day after He died, on his way from hell to heaven, where He ought to have been for the better part of a year ‹ not wandering around in the hill country doing magic tricks. As it had turned out, though, the Church had been wrong about a lot. A hell of a lot.
After what he'd seen, Jerome should have been an atheist. Well, maybe not. How had he been whisked back to the first century, except by some sort of miracle. Who was that guy in the confessional, if not an angel? Some kind of time traveling space alien just playing with his head? He poured himself another cup of wine, drank it down, and poured out another. Probably, he ought to be doing something. Otherwise, why would he have been pulled two millennia into the past?
He didn't feel like doing anything. He didn't feel like drinking the cup of wine in his hand, and he didn't even feel like going back to the villa and trying out that new slave boy with the very round ass. He felt a little bit like crying, but not enough to bother. He shrugged, and drank the wine. "Maybe a little nap," he thought. Yeah, a nap might be good, if fucking Halius would just let him sleep.
* * * * *
The new slave boy was very cute, and although he was far from mastery of the skills he would need for his new line of work, he liked the attention. Florus would work out fine. Jerome was not so sure about himself. Normally, there were few sights more inspiring to him than a big eyed boy looking up as him while swallowing his cock, but Jerome was in such a funk he very nearly lost his erection. He sent Florus off with Shai to work on rectal flexibility with the set of dildos in graduated sizes, and lay back to have that nap he'd wanted earlier; and as he closed his eyes, he thought of something to do. It wasn't necessarily what he wanted to be doing ‹ he still didn't know what that was ‹ but it was something, and at least it would get him out of his rut.
People kept seeing Jesus. Never in Jerusalem, but in the hill towns, or out in the desert, or up north in Samaria or Galilee. What if He really was risen, walking around and doing miracles? What if Jerome was there to find Him, to witness? To be saved? It probably was all just rumors, but he wouldn't know if he didn't go and find out. Maybe he could be saved. Or healed. Or something. Maybe he didn't have to lust after little boys anymore, he could finally live up to his vow of celibacy. Or maybe find a woman, get married, have a normal life.
He would miss the young boys. If he didn't, it would be a much greater miracle than the loaves and fishes.
* * * * *
Frustration. It hadn't been forty days, and it hadn't been the wilderness, but the temptations were present, of course, because he'd brought them along from Jerusalem. He'd wanted to take along Florus, the new boy, on his pilgrimage to find Jesus, but Halius convinced him to take Flavis instead. Just in case Jerome wasn't going off on a fool's errand, Halius argued, Flavis was the boy who needed to be healed ‹ the violent, vicious little barbarian. So, both Flavis and Shai were his traveling companions and alleged servants on his trip. Halius would have kept Shai in Jerusalem to work, but Jerome put his foot down. He insisted he needed at least one boy who would do as he was told, and that Shai would keep Flavis in check.
So, Jerome gave in to his urges on a nightly basis, and often in the morning as well. If he found Christ ‹ found Him literally, if the rumors were true ‹ would he be saved, freed from all temptation? Or did he have to overcome temptation first, before he could find Christ? It was enough to keep a man awake at night, even if sleep were possible in yet another stinking manger. The problem wasn't no room at the inn. Away from the well traveled Roman roads, there were no inns.
Awake and uncomfortable, Jerome succumbed to temptation yet again. He reached under the sleeping boy's tunic and caressed that miraculously soft and supple little white ass.
The ass belonged to Flavis. The boy's experience with the Roman officer had been traumatic, and he still distrusted adult men, but Jerome had made some progress with him. He no longer objected violently to being stroked or licked, and was willing to suck a dick again. Well, the blowjobs were okay as long as you didn't insist on your boy prostitute acting like he enjoyed servicing you. The damage the Roman had done to the boy's hole was healed, though, and Jerome hoped he would be fuckable again in short order.
They had travelled all through Samaria and most of Galilee, following rumors. Everybody had heard that Jesus was out and about, sometimes as close as the next village, but nobody actually had seen Him. True, there were people missing from some of the villages, and word was they had met and followed the Messiah. It made sense, in a way ‹ once you'd found the resurrected Christ, how could you possibly bring yourself to part from Him? On the other hand, they very well could be people like Jerome, just off desperately hoping and searching.
He put Jesus out of his mind and wondered, just how well healed was Flavis's asshole? It was a warm night, and Flavis didn't stir when Jerome pushed away the light cover they were sharing. Flavis had developed the habit of sleeping on his stomach back when his injury had been especially painful, so with tunic pushed up, the boy's soft globes fairly glowed in the moonlight that shone in through the holes in the roof where the thatch needed repair. Jerome positioned himself between the boy's smooth legs and let his face descend towards the inviting crack that concealed that puckered, pink center of delight.
He placed one hand on each alabaster hemisphere, pushed them apart, and paused for a brief, hungry look before descending with his lips and tongue at the ready. They had bathed in a stream earlier, so Flavis was clean, still smelling just a bit of the rose scented oil Jerome had brought along as a special treat, albeit mostly a treat for himself. The priest's tongue found it's target, and began its passionate exploration. Delicious.
Even as he indulged his carnal appetite, he knew that he never could find Jesus while his mind remained so impure. That thought flickered away, though, as he lost himself in the taste and smell and tactile paradise of Flavis's ass. Some small movements told him the boy was awake, but not doing anything to discourage his master's exploration of his private places. Jerome slipped a hand under the boy, seeking the erection he hoped would be there.
It wasn't. Flavis was flacid as usual. Nothing but a blowjob seemed to make the boy hard, and then only when the mouth sucking his dick was Shai's. Well, it could be sweet having a little softie in his mouth, so he nudged the boy to roll over on his back, leaving one hand underneath to continue teasing that irresistible boy hole. As he tickled Flavis's unresponsive penis with his tongue, he poked a finger just a little way up the sweet young chute, still slick from its oral attention. Flavis just barely flinched, but didn't pull away. He let the finger slide in to the second knuckle without complaint. As Jerome worked it in and out, he thought he detected a slight engorgement of the little dick in his mouth.
"Thank you, Lord," thought the priest as the boy hardened further in his mouth, and shuddered slightly as the finger pumped more aggressively. "He's ready," Jerome told himself as a great flood of joy rushed through him like the light of Heaven. "He's ready, he's ready, he's ready to be fucked."
At the corner of his field of vision, Jerome caught a glimpse of Shai watching them, elbow on the straw mat and his head resting in his hand. Did he want to join in? Well, he could if he felt like it, and found a way to do it without disrupting the task at hand, which was for Jerome to ram his achingly hard meat deep up into the little barbarian's bowel, over and over, until he poured out semen like the Jordan in flood ‹ or perhaps like water from the rock Moses struck with his staff somewhere out there in the desert.
Jerome got up on his knees. He took hold of Flavis's legs and pushed them back over the boy's head. Yes, he knew, he really should lubricate himself and the boy with mutton fat or olive oil or something, but there was no time, no delay possible. He had to have what he had to have, and there would be no putting it off, even for a minute. Anyway, the hole still ought to be slick enough. He let go of one leg long enough to guide his impatient cock to the entrance of the boy's tunnel of love. He pushed.
What happened next was confusing. Shai shouted, "No!" There was a sharp pain in the side of his neck, something hot and wet and sticky gushing all over the boy beneath him, a brief burst of excitement in his chest... and then it was over.
* * * * *
They were laughing, laughing hard. At him. They were laughing at him, waving entirely too many arms. They were laughing so hard, their blue skin was turning purple. The one with the head of an elephant was literally trumpeting with delight. Something was very wrong. Where was he? Where were Flavis, and Shai, and the ancient Near East?
He was in some sort of palace, but it was impossibly large. It was gilded, and jewel encrusted, and soft rugs were piled underneath, and the vaulted ceiling was so high it might have been the sky. The walls were decorated with immense murals depicting human beings engaged in every sort of sexual activity possible, and several that had to be impossible. Towards a corner of one panel was a painting that looked a lot like a portrayal of a three-way he'd had with Danny and Carter all those years ago.
One of the four-armed blue-skinned beings looked at him with flashing eyes rimmed with kohl, and spoke. It was in some impossibly foreign language, but for some reason Jerome understood. Roughly, what the being said was:
"Sorry, son, you sad sad soul, but you got it wrong. Well, don't let it bother you. Everybody gets it wrong, millions of times, before getting it right. It's back to the Wheel for you, back to the cycle of rebirths. We even gave you a special chance, but you weren't ready to move ahead, couldn't penetrate the maya. You put on a good show, though. We haven't laughed that hard in aeons."
* * * * *
Frog flick tongue, but fly too fast. Middle still too empty. Distracted? Something to do with... something... oh, frog don't think too much. Frog? Jerome?
Black beetle slow. Tongue fast. Delicious.