Chapter 1: The Long Route to Salvation

James J. Gillis, now the Reverend James J. Gillis felt an unwilled stirring in his groin as he watched his eighteen year old niece Cindy turn to say goodbye before she went out on her Friday evening date. Damn, she was a delectable, young piece he thought, even if she's my niece.

"G'night Uncle Jim. Don't wait up for me."

"Remember... home by eleven. That's the rule your mother left for you."

"Yeah, all right. I guess so. But it seems to me that I'm old enough to stay out until midnight," the pretty girl replied somewhat sullenly.

"Your mother knows best, Cindy. And I'll likely still be up watching the news when you get home so you can tell me all about your evening."

"OK Uncle Jim. I guess I can't blame you." I wonder if he thinks of girls since Aunt Sherry left him. I don't know why she'd pick someone else. He's so nice... and he's a hunk.

Cindy had been ten years old when Jim had married her Aunt Sherry and she'd been instantly in love with her new uncle. She'd been fourteen years old when things suddenly became stressful and there was a lot of whispering and when she came close enough to hear everybody stopped talking. But bit by bit since then she'd picked up on the story. Aunt Sherry had run away with another schoolteacher and left Uncle Jim all alone. Cindy's outwardly religious parents Marilyn and Robert Ramsay had condemned Sherry for her adulterous behaviour and had retained a close relationship with their jilted brother in law. When Jim decided he was called to be one of God's chosen ambassadors and went back to school to get his Master of Divinity degree he confirmed the high opinion her parents had of the upright, religious and honest man that he was.

When the door closed behind his niece's back Jim went upstairs and showered. His sister and her husband were away for the weekend on a church retreat. They'd invited him to attend but since he was scheduled to replace the current minister, Reverend Tyler next week he decided he should give the retiring pastor the chance to lead his last official function.

His ex-wife's sister Marilyn seemed to have spent the last four years trying to make amends for her sister's adulterous actions. Jim had been briefly distraught at the betrayal although if the truth be told it was mainly the shame of being cuckolded that had disturbed him. After he'd sought relief in religion and discovered that it was his calling he accepted his sister in law's kindness an generosity although he felt some guilt because her buxom body with her humungous breasts and soft, full-lipped mouth made him think irreligiously erotic thoughts about her. And now he was about to take over the church that the Ramsay family attended. Robert, Marilyn's husband was in fact a Deacon and while Jim waited for the Parsonage to be readied for his occupancy he was staying with his in laws.

The Parsonage was not a separate building. For economic and other reasons the founders of the church had included a residence wing that was a two story apartment with three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a big kitchen, a living room and a study. This would be mainly empty since the minister had no family but some of the women were already hoping to line up their sisters or daughters or nieces with this big, handsome preacher.

The Church of Redemption, often abbreviated to CoR was somewhat fundamentalist but not extremely so. It had no firm hierarchy like the Catholics or Congregationalists but there were District and Regional Coordinators and an overall Master Coordinator who was elected by the lesser Coordinators through a convoluted process. But they had borrowed one special rite from the Roman church... Confession.

Confession in the CoR was however more practical that in the Roman Catholic Church. The Pastor, like the Priest, was shielded from the penitent in the confession cubicle. And atonement for confessed sins was not the saying of prayers but rather the performing of specific acts that were, in the Pastor's judgment, relevant to the sin. Adultery would, for example, likely require the sinner to spend a period of time in slavelike submission to the injured spouse. Theft would perhaps require return of double the amount stolen but each case was treated as a specific sin-atonement pair and always the Pastor had to make sure the atonement would not inadvertently reveal the sin to anyone else.

Jim or JJ as he'd been known when he was still a school teacher was ambitious. But the status ceiling for a schoolteacher was not very high. The CoR however offered a much better opportunity. He had figured out their system and, possessed of a superior intellect, he was sure he could become the Master Coordinator and enjoy the privileges the position carried.

JJ's in-laws were pillars of the church, conspicuously pious and observant and full of righteousness. Marilyn had been only seventeen and four months married when Cindy was born but she and her similarly teenaged husband had become born again Christians. They opposed abortion and homosexuality and all of the other sinful actions of modern man that fundamentalists perceived. Robert Ramsay attended church twice on Sunday as well as prayer breakfasts twice a week and a Thursday prayer meeting. Marilyn was equally observant. Good Christians, or at least that was the image they portrayed...

Refreshed from the shower JJ sprawled naked on the sheets of his bed. He had a semi-erection and almost absent mindedly he reached down to grasp his penis. Ever since he had his first hard on he had worried about his size. If he tried hard enough he could measure almost seven inches and that never seemed enough. His wife's departure reinforced his view that he was too small but there was nothing he could do about it. And it was really longer than it looked because it was so fat, as big around as a girl's wrist. But Sherry always wanted more and now, almost thirty years old, she was the only woman he'd made love to except for Sally and she didn't really count.

Sally was a buxom prostitute and JJ had first used her services six months after Sherry's departure. After that they coupled once a month, a rather boring release of his pent-up lust that he rationalized as God's way of keeping him from illicit relationships. It was also educational for Sally taught him what women like and showed him how. And didn't Jesus befriend a prostitute? Surely He would understand.