As he silently raised his hands, preparing to jump on the seemingly intensely focused Valentinus, the leg of his brother rose swiftly behind him, delivering a painful blow directly to the testicles of a momentarily stunned Paulus. Letting out an almost inaudible groan, he sank to the floor, eyes watering as his hands futilely covered his crotch.
Not once looking up from what he was doing, Valentinus warned sternly, “Don’t fuck about in my control room, Paul.” The message, both verbal and physical, was well and truly received; Paulus whimpered an acknowledgment and began to struggle to his feet. “Now, what do you want? I have a lot of work to do before Thursday.”
Paulus raised himself up, clutching the edge of a particularly colourful control panel, and his speech was punctuated by deep gasps as he replied, “I just came to… see what you were… up to. I was… bored.”
“Well, as you can see, I’m very busy.” Paulus looked up at the hundred or so video screens that formed the fourth wall of the room, each displaying live surveillance footage of a different couple, many of whom were in some romantic situation or another. Spotting a particularly amorous pair making out on a park bench in New York, Paulus made an exaggerated motion as though to vomit.
“Don’t you get fed up of this lovey-dovey bullshit, Vale?” he asked his brother, whose job it was to monitor this activity all year round and attempt to spread a little more love in the mortal realm. Paulus didn’t believe in love, however, and abhorred the job he had been given out of pity as Valentinus’ secretary - the one proviso on his stay in Heaven was that he earn his keep, not having quite earned the privilege while on Earth.
Valentinus carefully adjusted a control to clear some clouds so that an elderly husband and wife in Melbourne could enjoy a gorgeous, moonlit walk along the beach, brushing his petulant younger brother to the side as he swept majestically around what he considered his masterpiece, the Relationship Control Room. It was a feat of engineering, even by Heaven’s standards, and had more potential to seriously impact humanity than any other department. God himself had recognised Valentinus’ efforts by having an angel deliver a particularly delectable fruit basket.
“There is nothing more beautiful nor precious than love, dear Paulus. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you will realise how important the work I do here is.” He pulled a large blue lever, releasing a flock of doves as a wedding party emerged from a church in Dresden. “By the way,” he continued, casting Paulus a sideways glance, “Whatever happened with that guy from International Relations?”
“Andrew? It turns out he wasn’t cross-dressing that day; he was wearing a kilt, whatever that is.” Paulus smiled as he remembered the muscular legs of that burly Scot in a skirt. “Not even gay, would you believe? Cock-tease.”
“Those Brits have always been a bit fruity, if you ask me,” Valentinus offered consolingly. “I really do wish you would find a nice guy to settle down with though.”
Paulus scoffed incoherently at the idea, always having fancied himself much more of a ‘player’ than the settling down type. Besides, Heaven was hardly teeming with eligible gay guys. God had no problem with it but a few of the senior angels were a bit ‘old-fashioned’ in that respect. They probably just need a good arse-fucking, Paulus reckoned.
“This thing you call ‘love’, big brother, is all in the mind. There is no relationship that can’t be broken… and I’m going to prove it to you.” A wicked plan had hatched in his mind and a devilish grin spread across his face.
“Paul, I really don’t have the time for your mischief; not this week. Gabe’s already had it up to here with your shenanigans and I’m not sure I can save your arse again.” Valentinus looked exasperatedly at Paulus, already knowing it was useless to try to stop him.
“Let me handle Gabriel; I’ve got dirt on that ‘angel’ like you wouldn’t believe! Now, give me any couple and I bet I can break them up before Thursday.” He looked excited and determined, thinking of all the fun he could have with this little project.
The older brother gave a grim look, distinctly unimpressed at having been distracted from his work for so long. “If I do this, will you leave me alone?”
“Sure thing.” He resembled a dog, begging for a bone.
“Fine.” A perfectly-rolled scroll containing two names and some background details was conjured in Valentinus’ hand. “I warn you,” he said gravely as he extended the scroll to Paulus, “This couple is one of the best examples of true love I’ve seen in centuries.”
Paulus snatched it from his hand, barely hearing his last words, and with no more than a quick “grazie”, he vanished into the air, Earth-bound for the first time in over fifty years.
“Fucking idiot,” Valentinus grumbled under his breath, returning to his work.
***
Paul materialised, to his pleasant surprise, in his home town of Rome, right outside Saint Peter’s Basilica. He was confident that, with the home advantage and lifetime of experience as a sleazy Italian, his ‘assignment’ would be a cinch. The scroll told him that the happily ever after he was to destroy was that of Mario and Denisa Santelli, newlyweds who had just returned from a six-month round-the-world honeymoon. Valentinus had included a note to say they were high-school sweethearts who had saved themselves until marriage, at which Paul simply rolled his eyes.
It took him a few minutes to become accustomed to his human form again. Although outwardly he looked identical, his body on Earth had much more functionality and was more difficult to make bend to his will; in Heaven, it seemed you barely had to think of something and it was done. His limbs felt heavy with the comparatively extreme force of gravity taking effect, and he paced a little outside the church to get used to walking normally.
After a few curious looks from passers-by, he realised he was still in his ‘work’ clothes—a long, brown robe secured by a piece of rope (worn for comfort rather than style)—and that he must have looked like a nut-job to these twenty-first century Romans and tourists. Slipping into a nearby alleyway, he let the robe fall away to reveal his naked body which, in his vanity, he admired for a moment before dressing himself in an outfit both simple and suave. An open-collared white shirt showed off just enough of his tanned chest to be alluring, tucked into pressed black trousers which hugged his tight, toned buttocks and accentuated his impressive package beautifully. The coup de grâce, however, was the pair of hand-made, Italian leather shoes, gleaming in the sunlight as Paul stepped back out into the street.
He scanned the street and his eyes came to rest on a man sitting alone outside an expensive-looking café. How Paul knew that was Mario Santelli, it was impossible to say, but it most assuredly was and, judging by the way he kept glancing at his wristwatch, he was expecting Denisa to join him soon. The scrawny, curly-haired lad could not have been more than twenty-two years old; his baby face possessed a certain youthful charm and he looked like lamb dressed as mutton in his pointedly ‘mature’ clothing.
“May I be seated here?” asked Paul in his rather dated Italian. It was a requirement in Heaven that everyone speak English (God was something of an Anglophile) and so he was a little out of practice with his mother tongue.
“Actually, I’m expect—”
“And I shall be gone as soon as she is present; I only wish to rest my feet for a moment and enjoy this unseasonably warm February morn.” Something in the way he oozed confidence and sophistication made Paul impossible to refuse. The weedy Mario nodded his assent, looking once more at his watch and then up the street, presumably in the direction he expected Denisa to come from.
Paul stretched in the metal chair and sighed loudly and contentedly. Eyeing his prey, he contemplated the optimal way to break this nervous young fellow, tapping into his God-given intuition for detecting people’s weaknesses and attacking them mercilessly. Everyone had something, some fatal insecurity, which would ultimately be their downfall. Within a minute, Paul deduced Mario’s—his youthful naiveté and inexperience.
“Married, I see.” He nodded towards the gold band on Mario’s left hand which he was absentmindedly fiddling with. “It is your wife you await, yes?”
“Si,” he replied quietly, placing his hands on his lap, “We are only recently married. I love her very much.” His words seemed almost more to himself than to Paul; this poor boy reeked of someone who had gotten in way over his head. He peered up at Paul’s smiling face momentarily and then back up the street, anxiously willing his bride to appear.
“So young to be married, when you know so little of the world.” Paul’s charm naturally drew you in, his velvety voice containing so much seductive mystery and hidden wisdom; he possessed an altogether worldly quality, you might say.
Mario’s response was defensive but only made the point more abundantly clear. “I have traveled a great deal with my wife,” he said almost too quickly for Paul’s unaccustomed ears to understand, “We have seen many places in these last few months.”
An imperceptible movement from Paul brought the two men closer together and their eyes locked in an intense stare which simultaneously confused and entranced poor, overwhelmed Mario. “Seeing the world is one thing, but opening your eyes to the truth of what really goes on is another entirely.” The words were sharp, direct but not threatening; Paul’s voice seemed to make an offer, a promise, that wasn’t quite understood by the stunned groom.
“There is great evil in this world,” he continued, his voice lowering as he placed a hand on the inside of Mario’s thigh and began to inch it slowly towards his crotch, “But there is also pleasure the like of which you have never even dreamt of. There is so much a young married man like yourself might never experience, but it’s never too late.”
He lifted his hand, just grazing the gradually growing bulge, and sat back to survey Mario, breathing heavily and looking altogether flushed. Paul magicked from his shirt pocket a business card with a number on it and slid it across the table. “Call this number tonight if you want a taste of my world; I’m very discreet.”
Before Mario could find it in him to respond, Paul was already strolling confidently down the street without so much as a glance backwards. As he watched him walk away, he spotted Denisa coming in the other direction and his heart started to pound with guilt and shame. He snapped up the card from the table and, with only a second’s hesitation, pocketed it, sipping from his coffee in an attempt to steel his nerves.
The homely-looking Denisa flounced past Paul, not heeding the dashing gentleman one bit; she obviously had eyes only for her Mario. He smirked, sure that by planting the seed of doubt in his mind, that smidgen of curiosity, that Denisa would not for long remain all that he desired. Pulling out the scroll, he found that Valentinus had added a little note beside Mario and Denisa’s names: Amor vincit omnia.
Laughing at his brother’s short-sighted ideals, he rolled it back up and sauntered off to rediscover his old stomping ground in the light of a new age.
***
Paul was on his knees in the restroom of a grimy pub in downtown Rome and had a mouth full of Italian cock when his phone rang in his pocket. Releasing the meaty eight-incher and continuing to stroke it, he gave the embarrassed-looking man an apologetic wink and answered, “Pronto!”
For a few seconds, there was nothing but silence on the other end and Paul took the opportunity to give the bulbous head of the cock in his hand a cursory lick. At length, and with another prompt, the shaky voice of Mario came through, “Hello. I, uh… we met today and, uh…”
“And you’ve called because you want me to show you a good time, si?” Paul encouraged him, shushing the recipient of his blow job as a pioneering finger sought out the virginal anus of the nervous bloke.
Mario almost whispered, “Yes,” not trusting himself to say any more, it seemed. Paul inserted his middle finger, slick with saliva and pre-ejaculate, into the tight hole of his hairy toilet-stall companion, eliciting a deep gasp. He could hear Mario’s heavy breath as the innocent boy patiently awaited his reply.
“Good, you won’t regret it,” he lied before giving him the address of a hotel in the ‘rough’ part of Rome—where all the dirtiest clubs were. “Meet me in the lobby at seven thirty. Make an excuse as to why you won’t be home.” He hung up before Mario could say another word, pocketing the retro Nokia (Lord knows they would never process the expenses form on this little trip) as he returned to the task literally at hand.
“Sorry, Antonio.” The hunk of Italian beef remained silent as he watched his cock disappear into Paul’s skilled mouth, his mind wanting to end this sordid encounter but his muscular body refusing him. He grunted a little as Paul’s tongue swirled around his glans, sending sensual pulses through his body to his extremities.
Deeper and deeper he went, the thick pole filling his mouth and tickling his throat. Forcing a second, unexpected finger in, he took the whole thing in one, his gag reflex long forgotten, and Antonio’s pleasured groan echoed loudly around the otherwise empty bathroom. Paul sucked, his fingers sinking deeper to massage the prostate and transport the rugged man to a new realm of pleasure.
His balls tightened and he splayed his hands flat against the cubicle wall, indicating the impending eruption. In seconds, lashings of thick, white semen surged up through his veiny cock, escaping at the other end into Paul’s gullet, and not a drop was spilled.
Paul stood to find himself facing Antonio’s wide chest, another foot of the mammoth man still towering over him. He patted him on his gruff, stubbly cheek and said nonchalantly, “Thank you for that, big man; give my best to your girlfriend, won’t you?” Leaving him dumbfounded with his trousers around his ankles, Paul slipped out to quickly wash his hands and face before he left. The cocky-looking fellow in the mirror shot him a cheeky smile as he straightened up his clothes and headed for the exit.
Making his way through the pub, he passed by the disgruntled girlfriend of the all too easily seduced Antonio, looking wholly put out by the amount of time he had been in the restroom. He emerged from the toilet, dazed, confused and flushed, with his shirt still slightly untucked, just as Paul pushed through the door to leave and he couldn’t help but laugh.
“See, Vale,” he said, looking up to the early evening sky, “I can do this for fun!”
His phone buzzed then and he found a text message from an out-of-town number but quickly deduced it was his brother. Amor vincit omnia, it read.
“Yeah, yeah; whatever you say, bro!”
The hotel was far enough away to justify taking a taxi but Paul, feeling positively jubilant, decided to enjoy the low, warm sun and stroll there leisurely. The magnificent city of Rome smelled just as it had when he and Valentinus were children and yet was virtually unrecognizable. He came to Saint Valentine’s Church, built in the 1960s, and paused to observe it. It was still being built the last time he was here and, now he saw it, he was quite underwhelmed. Just fuel for his brother’s ego, was how he saw it.
People often forget that he’s the patron saint of fucking bee-keepers, too. Paul smiled to himself at the thought, oddly comforted by people’s ignorance of that obscure fact. They had never made him patron saint of anything, though he was sure he could get the “butt-sex” gig if it ever came up, not that it would.
A young woman greeted Paul at the reception of the hotel with an overly cheery smile, flicking her hair back flirtily. Barely acknowledging her, he swept across the lobby into the elevator, just squeezing in beside a tall, handsome man before the doors closed. They stood in silence for a few seconds as Paul surveyed him, particularly noticing his enticing rear-end. The thought of biting down on those tight cheeks caused him to start salivating. He checked his watch—6.30pm. I’ve got time, Paul thought.
The elevator squeaked to an abrupt halt between floors. “For God’s sake,” Paul said, barely concealing his mischievous smile, “Looks like we’re stuck here for a while…”
***
Paul came down from his room, freshly showered and recharged, shortly after 7.30pm to find a visibly nervous Mario waiting for him in the lobby. Just as when Paul had first laid eyes on him, he was anxiously checking his watch every few seconds while glancing around him, looking for someone. He had changed since the afternoon and now sported a too-large shirt, too-short trousers and an old, worn pair of shoes which had seen better days. It would do for what Paul had planned for him.
Mario’s mop of curly hair bounced as he rose to greet Paul on his approach, overcompensating for the unfamiliar situation with excessive formality. They shook hands and exchanged names for the first time on this, their third interaction. Half a smile attempted to break the surface of Mario’s cute, youthful face and Paul was tempted to fuck the innocence out of him there and then. He wanted to have a little fun with this first, though; let loose a little while out from under the watchful eye of Herr Gabriel.
They walked to a bar two streets away where quite a young crowd liked to drink. Paul thought it would be best to loosen him up with a few shots of tequila before letting him experience a night of sinful rapture at L’uomo Paradiso, a deliciously devilish night-club he had researched.
“What’s your poison?” asked Paul as they approached the bar. Mario looked bewildered at the question, as though he had been asked what his favourite breed of octopus was, so Paul just patted him kindly on the shoulder and ordered two of their fruitiest cocktails and a double round of tequila slammers. “Relax, Mario,” he responded to his worried look, “Just enjoy yourself.”
“Grazie,” he mumbled as he took a shot glass and a slice of lime from Paul’s hand. Paul, starting to enjoy himself, took Mario’s free hand up to his mouth and licked slowly along the back of it, much to Mario’s astonishment, and shook a generous serving of salt onto it before doing the same to himself.
Paul raised his glass, indicating for his young companion to do the same, and toasted, “To pleasure for its own sake.” Salt. Tequila. Lime. Mario coughed a little as the liquor burned in his unaccustomed throat and Paul chuckled through his lime wedge.
“First tequila?”
“Si.” He looked up and laughed, his eyes watering. Paul started to think that this might turn out a better night than he had expected.
As more and more alcohol was consumed, Mario’s tongue grew looser and Paul managed to eek out all kinds of information about him. They sat close but not intimately as the modern-day Roman opened up about his life to this perfect stranger, a Roman from years gone by; a much-needed vent about his many self-criticisms, his fears for the future and, more than anything, his relationship with his wife.
He had no doubt that he loved Denisa unconditionally but he sometimes felt like he had missed out on his youth, on things like tequila and late-night clubs, because they had settled down so young. She seemed more than happy to be “the wife”, a role she had modeled on her fifty-year-old mother, and now Mario felt middle-aged and entirely overwhelmed with responsibilities no one warned him he was signing up for.
Paul listened attentively, genuinely interested in his story and his woes and acknowledging that rare feeling of sympathy. It seemed strange to him that this was the couple Valentinus had such confidence in and yet their relationship had cracks so easy to find and use to destroy it. It was not at all Vale’s style to give him an easy time of it; he rather liked to set insurmountable challenges and hope that Paul’s failure would teach him some lesson. Something was amiss here, though he couldn’t quite discern what.
Picking up a serviette to wipe his mouth, Paul noticed some calligraphic writing in the lower corner and held it up to his face to read. He nearly spat out his mouthful of Cosmopolitan when he saw that the tiny letters spelled out Amor vincit omnia.
Mario looked concerned. “Is everything okay?” His hand reached out to touch Paul’s shoulder.
“I’m fine; I just…”—he crumpled the paper napkin in his hand—”I just remembered that I was supposed to call my brother about something. Would you excuse me for a moment?”
“Sure.” He let his hand drift down Paul’s body as it moved away from him and his blurring eyes followed him until he was out of sight round the corner, taking another large sip of his drink.