RHUBARB, RHUBARB, RHUBARB...

I suppose there have been perversions in all human walks of life....

It was cold in the old monastery. The windows, little more than generous slits, were glassless and appeared to encourage the worst excesses of a polar wind that didn't seem to want to go away. The furniture was spartan, little more than a sagging cot and crooked shelf for the novice's few possessions. He'd have liked a Bible of his own, but only the Holy Father had one of those, chained and out of reach to all but the inner circle of monks.

The boy shivered, and sighed.

The promise had been so different from the reality. He had been told (in words that sounded so like a promise it would have been wrong to see them as anything else) that he would live in peace and harmony with like-minded individuals without the temptation of a woman's flesh anywhere in sight, and be free to pray whenever he chose as well as at a great number of specified times during each and every day whether he chose to or not. And those words had insisted that he would be able to drool over every syllable of his Maker, to weep at their beauty, to love their deepest meaning, and in the end to be as ready as any man could ever hope to be for a seat in his Lord's wonderful kingdom.

He sighed again.

The reality had been so different. His cell was cold and cheerless, he was admonished for shivering and beaten for oversleeping and arriving late for the three a.m. Prayers. The Holy Book was safely under lock and key and the only access he had to its words was in the form of interpretation by senior and often sadistic monks, and it seemed they were capable of divining any message under the sun from its pages.

“Oh Lord,” he begged in the silence of his head and his cell, “Oh Lord, save me from this suffering...”

If the Lord, his Lord, had any intention of listening he showed no sign of it. Instead, the wild polar winds blew their icy fingers through the slit of his window and he shivered violently.

Then the very worst thing that could happen did happen.

He'd been told about it. Whispered tales abusing the silence of the order from others as miserable as he told him that the worst was unbelievably hard to bear.

You will be called, came the whispers, at odd hours and taken to the Father Abbot where you will have your robes taken from you until you are naked and he will gaze at you for as long as it takes...

“As long as what takes?” he had miserably asked.

Until the Father Abbot is satisfied that you are beautiful...

“But I'm not beautiful!”

The Father Abbot will tell you when he sees the beauty in you, and he will kiss you full on the mouth... His breath will reek of the mixture he drinks in order to battle the demons of Satan and its strength will almost knock you to the floor. Then his kiss will smother you and you will start to believe you are dying as his tongue enters your mouth and searches around within it...

It all sounded dreadful, and suddenly he was called. A rod beat on the ill-fitting door to his tiny cell and a Father stood there, his face a cloud of dispassionate hatred.

“The Father wants you,” he ordered.

The boy stood up, but too slowly.

“Now, this instant, or I will flog your hide until you beg for mercy...” howled the Father.

The boy leapt into the air and landed as close to the older man as he dared.

“You will come with me,” he was ordered, and there was no immediate explanation.

The corridor that led to the warmer cells of the monastery were long.

“The Father Abbot will want services of you, and you will gladly provide them,” hinted the Father at last. “Whatever he says you must do. That is the way to Heaven. That is how you will gain admittance to the inner circles of Eternity and sit next to your Lord throughout the afterlife, worshipping his mighty feet and feeling the warmth of his breath on you...”

“Yes, sir...” he whimpered.

“The Father Abbot is perfect, and you will remember that he can do no wrong,” continued the Father. “Yet he has needs, as do all men, and you will satisfy them beyond the best of your ability. The endurance of a Father Abbot is unbelievably wearying and he might desire you to stroke his brow. He might request you to hear his confession. He might even wish to cuddle you...”

The novice started shaking.

I don't want to be cuddled, not by him, not by an old man with bad breath! The words in his mind sounded loud in his inner ears and he knew that he must surely fall to the ground in agony at any moment.

That would be his doom. But he arrived at the Father's cell before it happened, which was a blessing. He crossed himself thankfully.

He was ushered into the Father Abbot's cosy warm cell. A fire blazed in a hearth, f*****s glowing and flames licking towards a hole high in the thatched ceiling. The Father Abbot, his robes spectacularly clean and fragrant, stood there, smiling.

“Ah, boy,” he wheezed.

“Y-yes sir...?” stammered the novice.

“Today I require a service of you, boy. Today you will go to the far garden and fetch me some rhubarb. I have need of rhubarb, but I am lost in my prayers.”

“Rhubarb, sir?”

“Yes: rhubarb. That is what I said.” smiled the Father Abbot.

Confused, the novice backed away, out through the cell door, and towards the exit that led to the gardens, a confused boy grateful that his task was so apparently simple.

The Father Abbot grinned at his Father deputy.

“He is so sweet,” he whispered, “Thank you for finding him for me. I will try him first, rhubarb and all, and then, my dear friend, you can have a go. Yes, he is so very, very sweet... the Lord bless his little innocent heart...”

The Priest laughed. “It is as well we found this calling,” he murmured, “and best we keep it mysterious. Think what would happen if the whole world knew our desires?”

The Father Abbot shuddered. “With no innocent young men, supple and glorious?” he hissed. “Unthinkable!”

© Peter Rogerson 06.10.13