Free Satan Wants Me by Robert Irwin Page B

have been thinking that because I am so old, in your eyes at least, therefore I am not best fitted to give you guidance on the Path. Do not be deceived by appearances, for I am still young. In myself, I am no older than I was on a certain day in 1948. True, I do not appear to be as slim as I once was. Well that, I am afraid, is one of the occupational hazards of becoming a sorcerer – in that respect we resemble wrestlers and opera singers.’
    Then he handed over a wodge of five-pound notes and lowered his eyes to the diary. There were the usual gripes about syntax and punctuation. I was holding my breath, waiting to see how he would react to my description of him and of the tantric kissing, but as usual he only had eyes for errors in punctuation and syntax. What upset him most though was my use elsewhere of the word “prestigious”.
    ‘Yeeugh. I am tempted to give these pages to Boy, if I did not think that they would make him sick. You cannot possibly mean that the restaurants I was talking about were “prestigious” and I could never have said such a thing. “Prestigious” is the adjective derived from prestidigitation (which means conjuring). “Prestigious” therefore means “fraudulent” or “deceitful”. Only the vulgar and ignorant use it in the sense of distinguished or famous. “Prestigious” is part of the threadbare vocabulary of approbation favoured by used-car salesmen, remittance-men and the vendors of snake oil. Such people are lavish with the use of such adjectives as “sumptuous”, “generous” and “discerning”. What was in your head, Peter, when you used this word?’
    Actually I was trying to hold back my laughter. I had deliberately used that word because I guessed that it would wind him up. I was desperately wishing that I had put in more stuff like that and I kept asking him questions about the hyphenation and the semicolon in the hope of delaying the inevitable horror of a second lesson on kissing. To no avail … After a while even he became bored with the semicolon and, rising from his chair, he motioned that I should rise and come to him. But, I made no move towards him. Instead,
    ‘Dr Felton, do you think that I am a homosexual?’
    For only the second time in our acquaintance, I had succeeded in surprising him. He was silent for a while, trying to decide, I guess, how much he could tell me. In the end, he settled for very little.
    ‘How can you be? It is clear from your diary that our last kissing session filled you with revulsion. Besides, for the future purposes of the Lodge it is essential that you be a heterosexual.’
    There was a cruel smile on his face as he beckoned to me once more. Then we closed for a kiss … and another and another. I kept trying to make it OK by telling myself that Felton was just a projection of my mind. This time there was less work on the breathing more stress on the exchange of saliva. Felton was explaining some of the weird magical uses that saliva can be put to. Human saliva is really very like snake venom. They share a lot of the same enzymes. Saliva is one of the most precious substances in the Filthy Dispensary of the Hermetic Temple.
    I thought the session would be over when we finished the kissing lesson, but no. He then turned to my account of Sally in the diary.
    ‘I wonder if you quite realise how she emerges in these pages. As I read in your little book, she is a dim-wit who believes in fairy tales about the return of King Arthur. She is a slut who sleeps around. She is a manipulator who tries to use her body to win you round to what she wants.’
    ‘That’s not true. You do not know her.’
    ‘You are right that I have never met the lady in question. However, it is not I who accuses her, but you do in your diary. You have been telling me that she is not good enough for you.’
    ‘You are telling me to get rid of her?’
    ‘You are telling yourself that.’
    ‘But she’s my girlfriend!’
    ‘The Lodge will find you