Prologue

PROLOGUE

"BUT EVERY MAN IS TEMPTED, WHEN HE IS DRAWN AWAY OF HIS OWN LUST, AND ENTICED."

James 1:14

"HE THAT HATH NO RULE OVER HIS OWN SPIRIT IS LIKE A CITY THAT IS brOKEN DOWN, AND WITHOUT WALLS."

Proverbs 25:28

V ulnerable like a city without walls, waiting for a conquering.

If my holiness at any point could be akin to godliness, if my faith at any point might bestow sanctity upon my body, I was at that moment Jerusalem with its broken walls, open to evil. Perhaps what separated me from Nehemiah and his great distress over Jerusalem's defencelessness was the love I possessed for my weakness.

I was delectably susceptible. A willing, stupid man who had abandoned God so completely that I no longer heard even the slightest tug of his call. Lying in the ejaculate of demons, with my hole spent and leaking, I could think of nothing else except holy, holy, holy .

The way God led Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem's wall or Ezra to the temple, I felt like He had led me to this.

Fear not. I still possessed an ear for blasphemy. I knew at once that my feelings were human and ridiculous, that under no circumstance would God have allowed this—even as a means of returning me to His flock. Yet a kind of peace had taken root in me, orgasmic in its pervasiveness. It was as if every fuck encouraged another sprouting branch, another knotted root system that fed me euphoria, joy, desire, lust. I had no use for shame any longer.

Not after I had found my purpose.