This story involves explicit homosexual sex and Satanism in a Christian community in the Southern United States. Several things to be offended by. So if you are underage or object to reading about such things, be warned. Read no further.
If you are reading further, please contact me, let me know how you like the story and make suggestions. All your mail will be answered. macoutmann@yahoo.com.
Places in this story are real, but the characters and events are totally fictional.
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Copyright 2015 by Macout Mann. All rights reserved.
SATAN'S WORK
by Macout Mann
Chapter 8
It was just before closing time. Mose had paid the clerk for his candy bar and was leaving the drugstore, when Mr. Grisham called him back.
"Son," he said, "I saw you pocket that perfume."
Mose was panic-stricken. "S-sir?" he stammered. "I j-just got a Snickers bar. I h-haven't taken anything."
"Then show me what's in your jacket pockets."
"L-like I said, I aint taken nothing. I don't have to show you anything." And Mose started to run away.
"Stop him!" Mr. Grisham yelled.
The clerk, a twenty-year-old former Polk County football player, had no trouble overtaking Mose and dragging him back into the store.
"You're the Parrish boy, right?" Grisham asked.
"Y-yes sir."
"Well I don't know what's going on--I've had a real problem with shoplifters recently--but you're from a good family, I know. If you'll come clean and pay for what you've stolen, I'll forget about it."
"I didn't steal anything!" Mose continued to protest.
"Well then, I'll have to call the sheriff. He'll see."
That threat wore down Mose's resolve. He produced the tiny bottle of perfume.
"Alright then," the druggist said, "that will be twenty-one-ninety-five plus tax."
"I don't have that much money," Mose replied. "Just take it back."
"It's not going to be that easy, son. I'll have to call your father."
"Please don't."
Mr. Grisham remained with Mose until Curtis Parrish arrived. Grisham explained what had happened, showed Mose's father the purloined merchandise, and finished by saying, "I know you wanted to know what was going on, and I'm sure you will do the right thing by your boy."
As Mr. Parrish and Mose drove away from Grisham's Drugs, both were silent. Curtis chose not to go straight home. He instead drove to an overlook at the lake. It was already getting dark. He finally spoke.
"There's no way you would ever use that bottle of perfume, Mose. So what's behind all this?"
Mose tried to avoid the whole truth. "I just wanted to see if I could get away with it, Daddy."
"That's not like you, Mose. Besides, if you were doing that, you would have taken candy or ice cream, something like that."
They sat in silence for what seemed like several minutes.
"I've got all night," Mose's father finally said.
"Well, I'm in this...uh...this club. And one of the things you gotta do to get in is to steal something you don't need."
That made sense to the elder Parrish. Curtis didn't become involved with religion until he was a young adult. While his beliefs were as rigid as anyone else in the congregation, he had lived out his adolescence in the real world. What his son had just revealed was just the sort of thing a teenaged club might require.
"So how did you get involved with this club?" Curtis asked.
"Harold is a member."
"And who else is involved?"
"There are several guys in it." Mose's mind was racing. He suddenly decided that if he mentioned the pastor's son, that would mollify his father, so he added, "Timothy Moody's the head of it."
And hearing Timothy's name, Curtis was inclined to cut his son some slack. He could see that Mose could be more easily swayed by an older boy with religious credentials. But Mose's behavior signaled that there were things he desperately wanted to keep his father from discovering.
The interrogation continued.
Finally the tension became too great for Mose and he broke into a tearful confession. "Oh Daddy," he cried, "I've sinned something awful."
He recited the whole story, beginning with his and Harold's jack-off sessions and ending with the Satanic rituals that so worried him.
That was a good bit even for the worldly Mr. Parrish to comprehend.
Knowing that Timothy was now eighteen, Curtis quizzed Mose particularly about sex between Timothy and younger boys and when it occurred. He determined that Timothy had not only committed--as had his son--the crime of engaging in homosexual acts under Tennessee Law, but was guilty of statutory rape as well.
Curtis comforted his son the best he could but told him he would have to expect to be punished. They agreed not to say anything to Mose's mother, at least for now. Mose's father did say that he felt honor bound to tell his fellow churchman, Marion Baxter, about what his son was involved in.
He didn't know what do about Timothy. Should he report him to the sheriff or just tell his father what he had done? Would Rev. Moody even believe him?
At school the next day, Mose warned Harold that his father would soon be told what had been going on. Harold was furious.
"You goddamned motherfucker! Why couldn't you keep your trap shut?"
Mr. Parrish was an insurance agent. He could be flexible. So he was waiting for Mose, when school was out. They drove to the lumber yard, where Marion Baxter worked, told his boss they needed to talk to Marion, and sought him out.
They sat on a couple of saw horses in an unused shed. "I wanted to talk to you without getting Mrs. Baxter involved," Curtis began.
"Oh?" Marion obviously was nonplused.
"Mose here was caught late yesterday stealing from Grisham's drugstore."
"I'm sure surprised to hear that, but what does that have to do with me?" Marion responded.
"When I questioned Mose, I found out he and your boy, Harold, were involved in something you need to know about. Tell him, Mose."
"Can't you do it, Daddy?" Mose knew he couldn't find polite words to express what had been going on.
"No. Tell Mr. Baxter just like you told me."
Painfully Mose retold the story. His father had to prompt him from time to time, especially about the Satanic details. Marion Baxter became more and more agitated as the details were revealed.
"This is the God's Truth?" he stammered, when Mose had finished.
"Mose?" Curtis prompted.
"So help me," Mose answered.
"I haven't decided how to deal with Timothy yet," Parrish said. "Whether to talk to his dad or to the sheriff. I'll do one or the other tomorrow."
"That pagan ought to be lynched," Baxter fumed.
Unlike Parrish, Baxter like his father before him grew up in the church, a "true believer" from birth. He found every act that had been described to him damnable in the true sense of the word. When his shift was over he stormed home to face his apostate son. His fury had become white hot.
Harold had watched Mr. Parrish pick up Mose and knew that they were probably headed to talk to his father. At home, Harold, sensing that his father would be mad as hell, was hanging in the kitchen with his mom, thinking her being there would ease his ire, when Marion burst through the door.
"I have never cursed anyone in my life," he bellowed, "but damn you to hell, boy!"
"Marion!" his wife screamed.
"This boy is an abomination!" Marion continued. "Tell your mother what you have done!"
"Wait, Daddy," Harold protested.
"You have put other gods before Our Lord. And--Heaven help you--you have had sexual intercourse with other boys! Damn you! Get out of this house right now!"
"Just a minute, Marion!" Mrs. Baxter tried to intercede.
"Don't try to take up for this sinful Devil Worshiper!" Marion yelled.
"I've always said that stuff was shit, Daddy. I aint never worshiped the devil."
"But try telling me you have not defiled your privates. You ae no longer my son. Get out now!"
Harold feared for his life. He grabbed a jean jacket from the coat rack by the door and fled.
"Harold!" Mrs. Baxter cried. "Come back!"
"I never want to see him again!" his father continued to shout.
"He'll come back," his mother wailed. "And whatever he's done, I hope you will be more charitable."