Turning Heaven into Hell

She thought about it for a minute or two. "I see what you're saying, but that makes us as ignorant people, huh?"

Oops! I felt that it was time to be very careful. "Maybe we are ignorant, at least about the bible. Neither of us knew what we're learning now, and it's kind of blowing our minds. There is a lot of stuff in the bible. Remember that we tried to make sense of it, and were completely baffled?"

"Yeah, that's right, we were."

"I think that we have a lot more to learn, but in the meantime, we are learning, and it's making sense to us, right?"

She snickered, then smiled. "The fact that it's bothering me so much aside, when I consider what she's told us, I do have to say that it's making sense. I suppose I better gird myself to have more of it bother my mind," she said with a mild laugh.

"Honey, I know it's rough on you., what with that preacher and that nose-in-the-air song leader. I think they're what makes it so difficult for you. Worse, you'll probably have to put up with it quietly when we go home for Christmas, so you'll have an additional problem in sucking it all up. Then again, you may find that you won't be bothered like you were. The knowledge you're gathering may make you understanding enough so that it won't affect you in the way it had. Think that may be possible?"

She reached and hugged me. "I love the way you called me honey. That sounded so sweet. I think we've had to keep how we feel so secret that we didn't dare call ourselves any endearing names."

She became too quiet.'"What?" I whispered.

"Maybe we need to not use any endearments. If we do, we might slip up and use one when we shouldn't," she said ruefully.

"Yeah, you're right, Shannon," I said emphasizing her name a little, then breaking into a grin.

She did too, then kissed me playfully.

"No wonder I love you so much."

* * * *

As usual for us, we were easily up on all of our classes, and thus we were able to spend time discussing Ms. Carlson's lessons.

We were friendly with many of our classmates, me openly, and Shannon still quite shyly. Maybe that shyness of hers kept any of them from trying to become friendlier, which suited us just fine. It meant that we could love freely in our room, just making sure our door was locked. Fortunately, no one knocked, and we didn't have to hurry to put any clothes on.

What I did do was to sneakily shave all of my pubic hair. Shannon was shocked.

"What did you do? When?" she added so fast that I didn't have time to answer her first question.

"Feel of it," I said, knowing that I was quickly becoming hot for sex with her.

She licked her lips, and hesitated, then slowly, her hand reaching to me jerkily. She did feel of my labia, then her eyes closed, and she kept on feeling it, rubbing it tenderly, lovingly. When she slid off the bed, and on her knees, began to lick softly, I nearly lost is.

Jostling a bit to get a little closer to the bed, I put my leg up, and braced myself as best I could, for she went berserk on me. Her noises told me that she loved it, and I certainly did, the sensations were so many: different, and magnified, it seemed. My hand reached to her lovely hair and combed through it absently, I was so out of it, the sensations growing in me. Sweet as it was, my knees buckled, and my orgasm was a thing of beauty that was so new to me. it was as if I'd never been loved to orgasm before.

I had to sit down, then laid back fully. She never left being at my shaved lips, and sweetly rubbed her face across it over and over, then kissed it.

"That felt so wonderful," she whispered in an entranced voice. "I want to do that too," she added.

She had a lot of hair, though she kept it trimmed, and frankly, I loved how fiery it looked. It always made me horny for her, or I should say, kept me horny for her. But, I had opened Pandora's box, so...

"You know I love your hair. Is there any way you can keep some of it?" I pleaded.

She nodded. "I'll try," she whispered with bated breath.

Sitting anxiously on the bed, I gasped at the sight of her when she came out. My god, she looked so sexy. Slender, milky skin with freckles that crept up her thighs, and now a shaved vagina, save for a bit of hair that was out of the way. She was radiant! More, her lips were moist already, and spread apart, ready for my mouth and tongue. I gulped, and reclined fully. She stopped before me, the fire of desire in her eyes, breathing heavily.

I reached up for her without thought. Seeming to read my desires as if I'd thought of what I wanted, she straddled me, then started to move up.

"God, I love you so much, Brooke," she whispered, then set herself over my face. I was so excited by her, so full of wanting her gorgeous, sexy person, that my face moved to meet her, and I was in heaven. Maybe it was my tongue that was in heaven for it couldn't get enough of her, nor, it seemed, could she pour out enough of her love to me.

My hands behind her, I cupped her cheeks, and settled in to enjoy her until I died.

I have no idea how many orgasms she had, but I loved every moment of the time she was over me, pushing into me, sliding up and down my face, gasping in joy, calling my name, and yes, even many terms of endearment.

When she was in my arms, and I was kissing her wherever I could, I felt her tears.

"Why the tears, honey?"

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, "but you make me so happy, so alive, and now so free. My heart can't seem to love you enough, nor the rest of me. Our love is so sweet, so delicious, so marvelous. Why would they even try to hide this from us? Why? Are there others in the church as I am, or as I was? I'm so lucky," she ended with more tears softly rolling down her cheeks.

* * * *

From there, our love exploded even wilder, becoming more intense. She had to know what I felt when she sat on my face, and when she had me over her that way, she went berserk, refusing to give me up to the loving lust of her tongue taking as much of my outpouring of love as she could squeeze out of me, and she squeezed out a lot—she was insatiable. I didn't care for I loved looking down at her face as she wolfed down what she could get of me.

But then our religious class came up.

She was anxious to get to it, and so was I.

Chapter 10

"Well, how was it?" Ms. Carlson asked with a broad smile.

Everyone else appeared to be as ready as we were to get on with it.

"Let me say that I'm pleased that everyone has stayed with the class...so far," she added with a grin.

Get to it we did. Many of us told of what we'd found, and surprisingly, what wasn't there, at least not completely. It was a lively discussion, and we all participated except Shannon, at least not until she had to know.

"What is the connection you wanted us to know about?" she asked in a quiet voice.

The others were so used to her not saying anything that they seemed startled to hear her speak, and acted as if they didn't want to miss a word of hers.

"Glad you asked, Shannon," Ms. Carlson said.

She reached to her desk and brought out what had to be a bible, or a book about it. Taking it to an end row, she said: "This is one more the many editions of the bible put out by the Catholic Church. They've titled it, 'The Catholic Family Connections Bible.' "

"Would you please read the underlined portion aloud?" she asked the first girl.

She read: "Quick facts. Inspired Author: unknown writer around 164 BC, during the persecution of Israel by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Theme: to give hope to those experiencing oppression and persecution. God's reign will ultimately triumph.', she read."

"Thank you. Did you all hear that?"

We all nodded.

"Do you all know about this, about Antiochus IV Epiphanes?"

To the person, we all shook our heads.

"This is important, for everything we believe is dependant on this little piece of connection that ultimately links the Old Testament, Jesus, and Christianity as we know it today by one and all, Catholic, Protestant, and Independents.

"You all know about Alexander the Great who conquered the whole of Europe, Egypt, the Middle East, the Persian Empire, and even went on into India?"

There was a mixture of responses with the head and eyes; she understood it.

"This is known history: the Persians, after defeating Babylon, extended their rule until they reached Greece. Are you all familiar with the Battle of Marathon, and the 300 hundred Spartans who held up the Persian army?"

At that, we all nodded. Everyone knew about it.

"In short, when Alexander led his army across much of the known world, and into India, his army didn't want to be there, so we're told, and he led them out, but then not long afterward, he died, somewhere about 323 BCE, from what, none really knows. He had four generals, and they divided his kingdom up between them. Ptolemy, who was Cleopatra's ancestor, took Egypt, and Seleucus some of the Middle East, including Syria. Those two generals are the important ones here.

"After many changes in kings, and fights between The Ptolemies and the Selucids, there came into power one who added Epiphanes to his title, Antiochus IV. Please remember that it says that this was written during the persecution of Israel by Antiochus IV Epiphanes to give them hope during this persecution. This is very important.

"Will you pass that bible to the person behind you, please?"

To her, she had her read the underlined part of what she said was a part of the In Depth preface until stopped.

" 'Scholars question whether he was an actual person. If he was, he lived in the sixth century BC—but the Book of Daniel was written four hundred years later,' " she stopped.

"Yes, let's stop there. What we're told is that this book was about someone in the 500s BCE, but the book was written four hundred years later. Is that what you got too?"

We all nodded, a bit stunned, but wanting to go on.

"Whoever this Daniel really was,if he was, he was in the sixth century BCE, but the book wasn't written until four hundred years later. How did you do on the history of the kings, and any errors?"

"There are many omissions on who was king, and when, and the obvious error in Darius instead of Cyrus the Great as the one who defeated the Babylonians," I piped up immediately.

"Hm, think you might wonder why there are so many errors, or even if the writer knew about what he was writing?"

Just about all the heads were nodding.

"So what might that say about the veracity of this book? If the writer couldn't get a few historical things right, what do you think about the rest? Before you answer, let's see why this book was written. Go on, read some more of the underlined part."

She began reading again. " 'This was also the time of the Maccabean revolt, told about in First and Second Maccabees. King Antiochus desecrated the Temple...' That's were you had us stop," she said, looking and wondering if she had done as she was supposed to.

"Yes, that's where I wanted you to stop. Think back to when I told you about Jesus being connected to Daniel when he quoted the 'desolation of abomination' as spoken by Daniel. Do you all remember that part.

Some nodded, others didn't. I was working to remember it, but Shannon was nodding.

"Shannon, you remember it?" Ms. Carlson asked.

"Yes I do. Jesus was said to be telling about the end times being that when you saw the abomination of desolation, and I think that was in Matthew 24:15."

"Excellent. Thank you, Shannon. That was when Jesus was saying the end times would be here. They didn't quote Jesus saying the next time you see it, but as spoken by Daniel the prophet. Did the prophet have it wrong? Okay, read on again," she said.

"Me?" she asked. Ms. Carlson nodded with a smile. "Okay. It says: '...and attempted to erase many of Israel's religious practices.' "

"Thank you. Those two books of Maccabees aren't a part of the canon, that is, considered sacred scripture, and thus were left out of the bible other than the Catholic ones. However, even the Catholic ones tell you that they're in the bible, but not considered canonical. So, yes, you can find them in the Catholic bibles. The important thing is that what this king Antiochus Epiphanes IV was said to have done was to put an idol of their pantheon in the Temple, and told the people to go in and worship it. The story is that one refused, and things got out of hand, and there was a war, and in time, they won partial independence that included Jerusalem.

"The Jews, however, were between Ptolemy's Egypt and the Middle East, so they got it all the time, and now this fighting in their homeland over the Temple. Winning, the victors elected a high priest that wasn't of the line of Levi as commanded by Moses, and their troubles didn't end, and not for several thousands of years later, but for now that's not important.

"That abomination spoken of by Daniel had already been put in the Temple, so did whoever wrote the gospel put the correct words in Jesus' mouth?

"I'll leave that for each of you to decide, but read it all carefully, and let your minds wander and wonder in as much objectivity as you can muster. The thing is, do you see that Jesus connects himself, so the writer of the gospel says, to all of these main Jews? Therein lies how you may read the bible, how you see it. Again, keep in mind that it says that it was written to give the people hope from persecution.

"That's about it for this time. Next we'll go into some other things in the bible that may be questionable, and have a connection to all of this."

One of the students raised her hand. "Yes," Ms. Carlson said.

"Can you tell us where, or how, you came to all of this knowledge about the bible?"

She smiled as if to herself. "My parents are of different Christian faiths, so I got a part of it from them. I noticed the differences between them, and saw it all as somehow an error by one or the other. I sort of idly tried to learn about it all over many years, and saw a lot of differences between them, but not at all like the differences in the bible itself. Once started, my interest grew, and here I am. Okay?" she smiled.

"So no one else influenced you?"

"Yes, along the way, there were others. A lady, Liv is the only name I know her by, was quoted as saying that this is the golden age of books, at least in the Western free world. What she was specifically referring to was books other than those that just gave pep talks, "Me-to" books she was said to call them, but now also there were books that were critically objective in how they saw the bible. I had read some of those books already, so I knew what she meant."

"Were is she? I mean, if we wanted to talk to her, how might we find her."

A sadness come across her face. "I'm afraid you can't. I wondered that too until I heard that she was dead. She'd been shot after one of her classes that she had for lesbians—which she was—who'd had difficulties with their church. She was said to have died instantly. I heard though, that she had two lovers, and that they continued her work, but I never looked into it."

"Oh, wow! That's a shame. Wish I could have met her and talked with her."

"If you want, I can try to look up the club she used to frequent, and the names of her two lovers; I understand that they're still together, or were anyway."

"Yeah, I'd appreciate that."

* * * *

As I expected, Shannon was fuming when we were back in our room.

"They've lied!" she said in anger. "That or they don't know what they're talking about, or maybe just took someone else's word for what it all means, or meant, and bought it, and sold it as the truth to us, and god only knows how many others."

"I think you're right, but let's cool down, then pull up a Catholic bible and read a little in Maccabees.

Since we weren't familiar with those wars of the Maccabees, it wasn't quite an easy read as it was in pulling up a Catholic bible. Still, we saw what it was about, and the squabbling the Jews had amongst themselves. This all, we knew, was getting onto the times of the Roman takeover. In that bible, though, we didn't see the admissions that were read to us about when it was written. Still, we had heard it read to us by our classmates, and knew it was there.

Shannon was somewhat relaxed, and we went to find us some dinner. When we were back, we got into it some more. From what we read, it looked as if it wasn't as Shannon had been taught, or as they still seemed to tell it. We wondered what was next.

Chapter 10

We remained anxious to get to the next class on religion.

When it finally came, we were ready to hear more.

"So, what did you think of Daniel? Is the book bearing his name believable?"

Everybody shook their head, with some saying no.

"Frankly, I was shocked to see these admissions by the Catholic Church. They're sort of the original Fundamentalists. I don't say that lightly. All through their history since they were given power by Constantine, and occasionally before that, they've either exerted their power over the people, or tried to in their earlier days. Are you all familiar with the Spanish Inquisition?"

To a person, we all nodded.

"Yeah, they hadn't been slack in defending what they considered God's sacred and unalterable word, at least as they interpreted it. Their history is replete with death at their hands, or by their minions, kings over whom they exerted power while it was theirs. Disagree with them, and they get word of it, and it was to the stake, sometimes while one was still alive. Brr! That's hard to even think about, much less try to imagine. They were pretty unforgiving.

"It's said that Giordano Bruno, a former Dominican Monk with a fabulous mind was the last to be burned at the stake. He's more than interesting. He ran afoul of the church by saying that he agreed with Copernicus, and more, that there were probably other stars with planets like ours, among other things. He had a mind, and he freely used it, and was pretty much on by our present knowledge.

"Anyway, they say that he was held prisoner in Rome for anywhere from six to eight years, and finally, when he wouldn't recant, was found guilty of heresy for going against what they believed was dogma. He was said to have his tongue gagged, stripped naked, and burned alive while upside down. Is it literally true? Looks like it, but I wasn't there. Anyway, about the year 2000, Pope John Paul II apologized, not for burning him at the stake, but for the use of violence.

"The Catholic Church doesn't like to admit anything if they don't have to. That's one of the things to consider when you think about the book of Daniel. Remember I said to keep in mind that they do say it was written about four hundred years after the fact, but as if being written in real time. So when you read it, and see all of the errors, and the admissions, you have to ask yourself if you can really believe that the book of Daniel is God's word.

"Now we'll get into more of the connections between Jesus and those of the Old Testament. I'll touch lightly on The Exodus first.

"If you read Exodus itself instead of watching the excellent Hollywood movie that's shown every year, you'll find that in chapter 12, starting in verse34, it tells about the actual supposed leaving of Egypt, but in verse 37 it says a startling thing that is never talked about in churches. It says...well, lets read it. Shannon, do you have that book up on your computer?"

"I can get it quick," she surprised me in her answer. "I have it now."

"Good. Would you mind reading it and the next verse too?"

Shannon read it in a fairly loud and clear voice.

"Wow!" Ms Carlson exclaimed. "Six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children? And a mixed multitude with flocks and herds, and even much cattle. Indeed, that's a lot of people, and what about the herds and flocks and cattle? We'll see in a minute on those.