Here it is, your free gift for supporting KBOO. "JEEZUS!" is a self-published book copyright 2007 by Theresa Mitchell. These posts are intended to boost KBOO Web readership.
By way of introduction: "Jeezus!" is a parody of "Left Behind." This is adult content, so be judicious. In this first chapter, a cruise ship captain encounters difficulties with his libido, as the Rapture apparently begins. Enjoy.
--Theresa
“
JEEZUS!”
“IF YOU LOVED “LEFT BEHIND,” YOU’LL DESPISE
....”JEEZUS!”
(by Theresa Mitchell. c2007. All rights reserved.)
ONE
Rod Rigidson was having sex fantasies again.
As the fifty-something Captain of the Fantasia Lines Cruise Ship Fanny Mae, he could afford to take his mind off the till-- now and then, anyway, especially when there was nothing to sail through but miles of deep blue Caribbean. His eyes rested automatically on the sun-yellow thong of his Activities Coordinator, Chrissie “Bunny” Bunderson. Her tan was downright translucent this Summer. Life can still rock sometimes, he mused, leaning back in his luxury deck chair, breathing the warm Caribbean breeze. The scent of simmering chanterelle and roasted pheasant wafted from the galley.
The sun would set in its dazzling way, the giant white ship would sail on God's glassy ocean; and as Bunny tanned her back (bra unhooked, thank the Lord), Rod could count on at least another fifteen minutes sneaking looks at her perky, pear-shaped, thong-decorated ass. In his mind's eye, the thong was tangled on one high-heeled pump.
Yess! How good was that? How had Mankind survived, Rod thought, before butt floss and lip gloss? Looking at Bunderson redlined his testosterone; she had a figure that would have stopped the Charge of the Light Brigade. Rod's lips expanded along with his fantasy.
He jumped, as the iced tea he had been drinking slipped from his loosening fingers, upended over his crotch, dropped to the deck, and shattered. A Fantasia Lines employee appeared as if from nowhere, and began cleaning it up. Bunny looked up, surprised at the racket, and turned away to hide her laugh. Rod blushed, and tried to brush the tea off his khaki shorts.
Chrissie Bunderson knew the dumb old prick (as she called him privately) would be ogling her body, and she didn't especially care. Her access to the Captain's Deck meant that, at least, only one, relatively inhibited asshole would be using her body for masturbatory fantasies. Let the others eat porn. She was going to get her tan in peace.
Of course, thought Rod, it wasn’t really right for him to lust after Bunny, when his wife was just a hundred feet away, on the shuffleboard deck. Right now Faith Seville-Rigidson was trying to convince the players that their umbrella cocktails, and sneaked pipe hits, were of the Devil. They should be exercising with her, she suggested, while listening to devotional music. They brushed her off with boozy good will, except for one geezer, who called her a "fucking school nun."
If Faith could have read Rod's mind, Rod thought, he would be--well, not even in the doghouse. He'd be under the doghouse, all the way to the flaming brimstone.
The Captain shuddered. What had gotten into Faith? It was true that her Christian exercise devotion had toned her fortyish body to a twentyish athleticism, but, well-- he got a softoff just thinking about her now-- since she had gotten religion. She wouldn’t make love with him any more, without checking a fertility chart first. It was ridiculous, considering she had never been fertile. But sex for pleasure was Ungodly—and, apparently, icky. She used to call on Jesus while in ecstasy--oh JEEzus, oh ohh!-- now she prayed to Jesus not to enjoy it too much.
He’d tried arguing: why did it feel good if God didn’t want it that way? But it never worked, because she’d launch into a tirade about the temptations of Satan, and the diligence of the Godly towards chastity and procreation. A contradiction? Oh, heavens no, a paradox. And that would be that, and they’d sleep facing apart, and she in that thick, antiseptic, pink full-length flannel night dress with the prim lace around the neck. Here she was, body hot as a pistol, and a libido gone AWOL. A crying shame.
It didn’t used to be this way, he thought, as a tern crapped impudently close to the deck chair. He had always made mad monkey love with Faith, and she had responded in kind. Nor had age dampened the fires; she had gotten a little pudgy in her thirties, sure, but aside from her insistence on Sunday church attendance, she had been loads of fun, especially after a pina colada, or three. He had rarely chastised her for her appearance—why make her sulk?—though he had always exercised every day. No, all he wanted was her familiar enthusiasm once again, and a good lubricant. I’ll trade ya, God! Sexy happy flab beats holy frigid muscles!
And Faith used to make good, springy, chocolate frosted Bundt cakes. Well, not any more; now she made “unleavened bread.” It tasted like sheetrock. As if God hated decent chow, or something.
It had all started to go wrong when she began attending Shapes, a national chain of exercise gyms that used a system of timed “stations” to encourage a vigorous workout. CHANGE YOUR SHAPE IN TWENTY MINUTES A DAY, the ads proclaimed—and it seemed a harmless fad at the time Faith tried it out. It seemed like every other gym craze: young women trying to become skeletal, and middle-aged women trying to become young. But Shapes exercisers somehow became devotees, and then devolved into religious nuts.
The exercisers somehow came away with something more than a white towel and a healthy glow—or, maybe, they came away with something missing. “Like a goddamned frontal lobe,” Rod thought. Bible verses in overwrought red antique font adorned the walls of the gyms. The music was laced with subliminal “devotional” suggestions-- Rod was sure of it. Well, pretty sure. And after a few sessions, the exercisers seemed determined to bring someone else in to exercise with them. The women would begin to wear pink lip gloss, and the men would begin to sport drab, thin, brown ties after work. It was so odd-- they would talk about the Rapture Index, and real estate, and ‘kids today,’ and the need to imprison more marijuana users.
Shapes had been OK with Rod, at first—what’s wrong with a little ‘love thy neighbor,’ y'know, with thy weight-lifting and Exer-Balls and stationary bikes? But it just didn’t stop, and now there was a black leather-clad Bible in every room in the house—so many that he could actually smell their weird holy waxiness-- and a Ten Commandments poster in the bathroom, for Pete’s sake --Thou Shalt this, and Thou Shalt Not freaking that, and, well, was God watching while he wanked to his secret porn stash? Faith wouldn’t have even agreed to go on the cruise ship this season, without a Shapes program added to the gym.
Ah, but Faith was over there, and Bunny was here. He could smell the coconut oil sun lotion that she had used on her body—and what a body. Her breasts were surely crafted by the Devil himself. Rod imagined running his fingers around and under that bra, and pulling it out from under her. He’d spied her nipples before, and knew they were magnificent--so pokey when the breeze blew—but... He just--he shouldn’t have looked while she was sunning, he knew— and how could he go to church Sundays, knowing that God knew that Rod wanted to boff Bunny? It was so sinful, it made Rod feel like a criminal. But when the sermons got boring, as they always did, he wound up thinking of those evil, heavenly curves. It was worse in the cruise liner’s chapel, which always smelled faintly of suntan lotion. Clearly, God was mocking him.
Bunny generally looked up to him-- and not just because he was six-foot-two, and thus a foot taller than her. Her smile made his blood pressure spike. Yeah, he’d like to take that thong off and give her a knee rug burn on that beach towel, he would. He’d be squeezing those magnificent breasts and sliding his manliness in her, and then he’d start pumping like a manic oil well on a bonanza claim, yeee ha! And as long as I’m sinning, he thought, why not a threesome with that studly six-pack-ab navigator? --Ohh yeah.....hmmm....
He sat up abruptly in his deck chair, aware that his erection was starting to show-- and worse, that Faith was approaching airily down the First Class deck. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to focus well these days. “Hello, dear,” she said, “did you spill your drink? Are you drinking alcohol in the daylight again?”—this last with her hands on her muscular hips.
“No, Hon, just spilled my tea is all.”
“You should go change shorts.” She smiled invitingly. “Would you like to go to the afternoon Shapes session with me?” She never gave up, never seemed to resent his evasions. She was wearing a plain white cotton shift that made her look like a novice at a convent, and she smelled of white bland soap.
“Ah, actually, I have to, uh, check with the bridge. Sorry, Honey,” he said, gently pulling her shoulders toward him, and pecking her on the cheek. He stood up, and began to walk ever more swiftly toward the bridge.
She frowned briefly, and called after him, “Well-- if you change your mind, I’ll be there—Praise the Lord!” she said, brightening with the last phrase. He strode faster, trying to think of where to find a stomach pill. It was the opposite of the Sixties--"hey, man, know where I can buy some antacid?"
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