Chapter One-1
Chapter One
“I know this is church, but I feel like I’m in hell.”
Austin gave a minimal nod of agreement at Darren’s whispered words. In addition to having spent the last ninety minutes listening to three presentations of his senior group classmates, the room itself was unbearably warm.
Upstairs, where the Sunday sermon was being given, the AC was cranking to the point Austin’s mother had asked him to run out to the car and grab her sweater during one of the hymns.
Down in the large basement which was divided into a main section and three small classrooms for the younger age groups, it was the total opposite. The two rickety old ceiling fans and the one standup fan in each room served to only blow around the hot air.
Not as much hot air as there was blowing upstairs based on how, even downstairs, they could faintly hear Reverend Ashton’s booming voice railing away about damnation and how pretty much everyone not sitting there were going to burn in hell.
Austin didn’t believe that. Truth was he didn’t believe in much when it came to church. Other than a basic belief in God, and if there was god there had to be a devil, Austin didn’t buy into all the preachy self-righteous ‘do it this way of be damned’ mantra.
After all, the bible was written by men claiming divine inspiration, and Austin was pretty sure that inspiration was based partly on self-interest, the rest whatever mushrooms they were eating or what they rolled and smoked back in the day.
Give him enough bud and he could tell some tall tales himself, and the one time he was dumb enough to try acid he could see how John, and the other ‘prophets’ could see visions of greats beasts with lots of heads and horns along with a lake of fire.
Despite his disinterest in hell and damnation, he’d been going regularly to Sunday morning service since his parents had discovered Truth Tabernacle back when he was fourteen.
The Tabernacle, run by Tom Ashton and his wife, Hanna, was a Pentecostal holy roller denomination that seemed to think just about everything short of breathing was some form of sin.
They took the bible literally to the point some of the women no longer cut their hair, didn’t wear makeup, and always wore knee length or longer skirts and nothing that showed off…well anything.
The men were always clean shaven, Austin laughed at that because back when Jesus was around men hardly shaved, not like they had Gillette razors, back then they did it with damn knife blades.
The ‘brothers and sisters’ of the church didn’t lie, didn’t swear, many of them didn’t even watch TV because it was all sin. Fortunately, his parents weren’t that zealous. They enjoyed the basic message, but his mother wore slacks and although she’d let her hair get longer, still cut it periodically.
She always wore makeup, bristling at the archaic idea only ‘harlots’ wore it, and there was no way she was giving up Netflix or any other streaming service. In general, Dad was more into it, always reading his bible, rarely watched TV, had stopped going to the Casino because gambling-like everything else- was a sin.
Other than when Austin had broken the taillight of dad’s car by backing into a pole, he couldn’t remember the last time his father had dropped an F-bomb. He also went to the Wednesday night bible study and Sunday evening service whereas, like Austin, Mom only went on Sunday mornings.
He felt Mom went more to make Dad happy than she was into the whole shtick, but she had made a lot of friends there and enjoyed helping with some of the fund raising events.
Fortunately, neither of them pushed it at him. In the beginning they asked him to come to some services to see if he liked it. He didn’t care much for the message, but the music was lively and they had a band which included both electric and acoustic guitar, a bass player, an organ, and drums.
The youth Sunday school class wasn’t much more exciting, but he’d made a good friend in Tom and Hannah’s son, Noah, who was the same age as him. And of course, there was Hannah herself who unknowingly inspired him in a very different way.
The combination of wanting to do something to make his parents happy, seeing a friend, a feeling of belonging to something, and the not so pure indulging in pervy thoughts of his youth group leader, he’d gone mostly every Sunday for the first three years.
Most of the last year, however, saw his attendance drop to once a month. Between his part time job at Anthony’s Deli, studying, and playing Lacrosse, both of which had earned him a scholarship from University of Miami, and dating Jasmine, something had to give. That something wasn’t going to be getting into the college of his choice, earning money, or his girlfriend.
Well, as of three months ago, his former girlfriend. And since the breakup, and after his high school graduation, he’d been attending church just about every week again. Using it, along with work, and anything else he could think of to forget the face it was more of him being dumped than a mutual break up.
Dumped because Jasmine wanted to see other people, and she’d been seeing so many of them Austin found it hard not to think about whether she’d waited to officially kick him to the curb before seeing anyone else.
That suspicion continued to grow after Darren told him he spotted Jasmine with her fourth “other person” in the short time they broke up. Between those guys she seemed to be somewhat dating and rumors he’d heard of her going home with random guys she met at clubs, it was becoming increasingly possible Austin had been getting sloppy seconds.
The fact Jasmine was slutting it up wasn’t just upsetting because it could have been happening their last few months together, but frustrating because she’d led him on for a long time with a good girl routine.
Austin had been shy with girls, but not because he lacked anything they would be interested in. He’d always been tall and had a rugged build from playing hockey and lacrosse in middle school into high school and would continue as a Miami Hurricane.
In addition to his physical attributes, Austin possessed a pair of enticing ocean blue eyes, thick naturally wavy hair and was one of those kids who by sixteen could manage a decent beard and currently, and much to the dismay of some of the hardcore church members, sported a thin neatly trimmed one along his jawline.
The beard, like his hair, was a sandy brown, and accentuated by soft, borderline pretty features, he used the beard to cover up, and a big disarming boy next door kind of smile.
But when he hit the age and stage where he began to suffer from s*x on the brain, and even though physically, and looks wise, he had nothing to be ashamed of, he found he had difficulty speaking with girls.
Not entirely true, he could talk to them if it was as friends, but as soon as he realized he was seeing that girl in a s****l manner, it’s like his mind, and mouth, went on strike and he could never get anywhere.
Even when the girls would be flirty and give him a signal they were interested he locked up. When Cassie from his algebra class gave him her phone number and asked him to call her and he didn’t get up the nerve to, she started a rumor he was gay.
It never gained any traction but didn’t make him any more confident. Looking back, and while listening to Emily drone on about sin, sin and hey, look, more sin. He wondered if the church did have something to do with it.
Always talking about s*x as a sin, ‘scared straight’ stories from traveling youth ministers about young men his age getting girls pregnant and affecting their future. The wait for the right one message, sprinkled with a dose of no fun until the wedding night.
Austin didn’t believe pre-marital s*x was bad, but now that he was older, he knew he used that teaching as an excuse to not chase the girls the way most of his other friends were.
The situation resolved itself when he met Jasmine just before his seventeenth birthday. She was pretty, sweet, and even though he still had no experience, he’d had enough fantasies and seen enough p**n to know she had a nice body.
Big doe eyes, long dark hair, on the taller side and slender. Not much on top, but long legs and an amazing ass to compensate. She asked him out, and when he stammered a nervous no the first time, asked again. This time he said yes and they’d been dating up until the breakup. But Jasmine, although she wasn’t a church girl, may as well have been.
Like him, she was a virgin, and had parents who had instilled in her the importance of s*x being with someone you care about. But after six months of building up with painful slowness from kissing to a little touching to more touching to the glorious-at the time-night she slipped her hand into his shorts in his car and jerked him off, they finally did have s*x.
Once the ice was broken, Austin figured they’d be off to the races, but Jasmine seemed to think it shouldn’t be an all the time thing-as opposed to now, he thought bitterly.
They would go out, but s*x wise each date was a crap shoot, either her or his parents were home and they had nowhere to go, or on occasions someone wasn’t home, she’d still end the date with a kiss goodbye.
When they did have s*x it was good, or he assumed it was with nothing to compare it to, but Jasmine would get on top or on all fours for him. Unfortunately, her ‘head game’ as Darren so eloquently put it left a little to be desired.
She didn’t care much for it but would do it occasionally. In the several months they were active she had only given him three start to finish blow jobs, and each time she told him to tell her when he was coming because she didn’t want it in her mouth.
More often than not she’d give him a few sucks and that would be it. She always claimed at least she was fair because she had some hang ups with him going down on her and didn’t let him do it anywhere near as often as he wanted to.
She liked his fingers down there, but other than that their s*x was pretty much s*x. Even though he knew nothing good could come of it, he kept thinking Jasmine had no problem sucking and getting sucked with the guys now.
Meanwhile, he’d been moping around, jacking off more than he had since he first learned he could do it, and sitting here in church listening to how he shouldn’t want any of that nasty sinful s*x anyway.
As his day dreaming took him down an annoyingly familiar path of late, Austin reigned in his focus and turned his attention outward to where Emily Ross, no, it was always ‘Sister Emily” in church, was wrapping up her presentation on sin and repentance.
Emily was Austin’s age meaning, like him, it was her last year in Sunday school and soon she’d be upstairs listening to the hellfire and brimstone of the regular sermons and would probably be fine with it.
Emily’s father was a deacon of the church and her Mom the treasurer, and she had been born and raised in the faith. She was tall and on the thin side, and even though he’d known her for several years, Austin still had no idea what kind of body she had.
Her skirts weren’t just long, but loose fitting as were her tops. Even at picnics or the annual car wash or any field trips the T-shirts she wore seemed two sized too big. She was a pretty girl with bright blue eyes, and a sweet smile.
Her honey blonde hair was beautiful, but even that she always had up in a bun or pinned up, both looks were way too old for her. On the rare occasion he’d seen her in a ponytail, it made her look her actual age and much cuter.
While he listened to her talk about sin, he idly wondered if she’d ever committed one. Not one of the ten commandment sins, but some good old fashioned f*********n. As he had with the small handful of other girls or young women close to his age in the church, Austin tried to imagine if they might not be the good girls they acted like.
