Underbelly by G. Johanson Page A

learnt like Aolfa before her how to cheat death and the ageing process. Her family was a melting pot, mostly Anglo-Saxon though there were Roman ancestors too and this reflected in her appearance, her black frizzy hair that framed her face very dark and her large eyes a rich chestnut. She was the most beautiful out of them all, even more so than Ioshua, and Aolfa’s fling with Acca was certainly more meaningful than her time with him.
    After they had learned of Ilsegarde’s death they had decided to act and at midnight they broke into a large church in the centre of town. Ioshua and Wykeham looked for men or women of God to use as sacrifices, taunting them as they called out to them, listening closely to hear if they were hiding somewhere. When they were content that they were alone they joined the others at the altar where Darlynn plunged the knife into her crying baby as Alice touched his head and made him an offering to the demon of her choice, trying to make the killing into a meaningful act. Darlynn chopped him up as Wykeham prepared a fire to cook the pieces over, Layne gagging and struggling to swallow the offering, earning him scathing looks from all save Acca. Aolfa chose to smoke her portion rather than eat it and cooked the bone to ash while Ioshua ate his raw, opening his mouth widely as he chewed so everyone got a good look at what he was eating.
    While Aolfa burnt the bones to ash Acca came over to her, clearly giddy from the atmosphere, and kissed her lips passionately. Aolfa felt aroused herself, Acca’s bosom straining against a strapless dress, and she left her bones for a moment and wrapped her arms around Acca and pulled her to the ground and thrust her head under Acca’s skirt. While they cavorted Ioshua had already masturbated himself to a climax and wiped his semen on the altar, the Eucharist, and the font, and he followed this up by smearing the same areas with his excrement. Alice Turner came to him, also naked, and she knelt behind him and repeatedly kissed his dirty anus as he looked for his next feat. Spotting two nails he had an idea and he went to Aolfa, who had finished with Acca for now and handed her the nails and said (in Old English), “Crucify me.”
    Acca laughed at the outrageous suggestion and, while Aolfa took the nails, she hesitated, unsure if he was serious. “At the top there, that’s where I want to be crucified,” he said, pointing up to behind the altar, close to the high ceiling.
    She thrust one of the nails through his stained palm to show him how much it would hurt. His body flinched at the pain while his face defied it – he accepted it and she was exhilarated by the idea and took him by his palm to the base of the wall and concentrated until she was able to use winds to lift them high above the others, levitation a tricky spell, especially for two. She already had one nail in his left palm and she used her own clenched fist as a hammer to force it into the wall before she nailed his right palm to the wall and left him with a parting kiss. He grinned manically, euphoric at the act and admired greatly by Alice for what he had done.
    Alice looked across to see what her son was doing to compete with Ioshua. Layne was her son, and yet he was not her son. If he had truly been the son of her heart he would have done what was required with enthusiasm and not been so damned reluctant and inhibited. Boundaries were there to be exceeded. He had been taught to believe this and despite all of their teachings, the restrictive world seemed to influence his behaviour more than they did. He would commit the blasphemous and profane acts, and he would enjoy them, but he would not want others to know of it. She wished Ioshua had been her son instead, as much of a disappointment to his conventional parents as Layne was to her.
    Layne had thought that performing cunnilingus on his wife as she flogged herself vigorously in the house of God was daring and he was averse to his mother’s