Shaman War

Chapter 1

 The Sunday mass was in full swing, and Father Goh was standing in the pulpit in his usual gown of black with a purple sash. He was preaching hell fire and sexual sins.

"Sexual sins is one of the most dangerous," he said, casting his eyes over the congregation, and resting on Doros. "But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly."
This was a young man that Father Goh liked, but there was something obviously wrong with him today, for he was slump in the pew, almost sliding off it.

Father Goh wonder if his sermon was the problem here, or was Doros feeling ill. His face was pale and the sparkle had gone from his eyes. The teaching was hard for the Priest too, because he had enjoyed sex with many men for many years, something that was so addictive that he could not stop. Maybe that was why he was preaching about sexual sins.

Doros listened with a heavy heart. For many years he had to endure his parents, teachers at the mission school, and the priest, telling him sex was sin. He had become afraid of it, and it was almost impossible for him to be close friends with any girls.

When the service was finally over, people made their way out the large double font doors, but Doros remained in his seat, eyes half closed. He only opened them when he felt the touch of Father Goh's hand on his face. He was trying to forget the many times that his father had caught him masturbating in bed, and punished him, telling him that he would end up in hell.

"Doros, come with me into my inner sanctum. We must speak." The priest had no doubt that Doros would obey him, for he and Doros had a long history of, well, doing that thing in his inner sanctum.

He took Doros by the hand and they walked towards the back of the hall, and into his inner sanctum, a place so sacred that only a few privileged boys had ever been permitted to enter. Father Goh made Doros sit in a large arm chair, and gave him a drink of wine.

 "I can see that you are not well. Have you seen a doctor?"

"Several times, but it's no use. They can't tell me what's wrong, and the pills they gave me didn't work. I have been feeling ill and depressed for over a week now."

Father Goh then explained that sometimes, these illness are not from natural causes, but may be of a spiritual attack. He told Doros that he had come across a few such cases in his years here in the Capital City, and all those victims had had to visit a witch doctor in the end.

"Father, surely you don't believe in witch doctors. I mean you are a man of the cloth, isn't it wrong to think of magic spells and spirits?"

"On the contrary, we are often fighting against principalities and powers from the spiritual world, as the good word tells us."

"Now, when you get home, I want you to take a hot shower, and while you are doing that, I want you to touch and feel every part of your body. You may find something, unusual like, know what I mean?" "And if you do, come back and tell me. I suspect someone has cast a magic spell on you, what the locals here call a 'Kong Tau'".

So, with that Doros had no choice but to go home and try what the priest had suggested. He wasn't quite sure that he believed in any of this, and maybe what the priest suggested sounded too suggestive.

Sex is sin, Doros kept thinking to himself, yet, wasn't that what he wanted? Doros felt that his life was empty, that what he needed was to be loved, and to belong to someone.