Sin to Get Saved

Sin to Get Saved

By Michael P. Thomas

Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2017 Michael P. Thomas

ISBN 9781634863933

* * * *

Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

* * * *

Sin to Get Saved

By Michael P Thomas

Death cannot stop True Love. All it can do is delay it for a while.

—Westley, The Princess Bride

Chapter 1

Hubert loved sitting next to Big Jimmy on the bus. He was jocular, he was loud, and though he might not have been smart by any elitist Hollywood definition, Big Jimmy knew everything there was to know about the Bible. He certainly knew everything about the Bible as Reverend Jarvis preached it, which Hubert and everybody else on the bus knew was The Holy Unbreakable Truth, and he wanted you to know it, too. Plus, under that thickening layer of fast food and French fries, a ravenous addiction to which everyone knew was Big Jimmy’s Cross to Bear, he was still all-football jock muscle, and Hubert thrilled when the pile of Big Jimmy’s thigh spilled just the littlest bit across his seat and pressed up against him.

Not that it was about that. Hubert was drawn to Big Jimmy for his gregarious, backslapping nature and his unswerving dedication to setting others on the righteous path. Was his broad, beatific face wholesomely handsome? Did his big butt bounce around in his shorts like the beach balls Hubert had seen batted about by the crowd at a Third Day concert? Was the smell of cheeseburgers, cheap soap, and the pits of yesterday’s T-shirt that wafted off him maddeningly intoxicating? Perhaps. But if there was one message Reverend Jarvis strove to hammer home above any other—especially since last Fall when The Demon Satan Himself had sent those loose teenage girls, all that cocaine, and those cops to his hotel room in Bakersfield to test him—it was that Passion is the Gravest Sin of Sins, and Hubert understood that a place in Paradise was infinitely more important than any place next to Big Jimmy more intimate than the shared seat of a school bus could ever be. Hubert knew that the desperate longing that swirled around him was his Cross to Bear, and he could only pray with a breast-beating fervor that The Lord would forgive him for those dark-of-night transgressions when the visions The Demon sent him of Big Jimmy sitting on his couch watching television in nothing but an old jock strap proved more than his earthly hand could rise up and resist.

Hubert also knew that spreading the news of Salvation was the surest way into The Lord’s heavenly heart, and his personal struggle dictated that he actively minister to the fallen, fornicating homosexuals, who desecrated the Divine Plan every time they kissed each other on a street corner or usurped a starring role in yet another situation comedy. Leading America’s youth down the garden path away from The Lord is no laughing matter, Reverend Jarvis had preached on more than one occasion. Those who do not show an iron Will in the face of these trumped-up temptations will surely know no Grace! The amen!s near-about raised the roof on the Worship Center.

The Church of God’s Intended Love boasted four hundred sixty-three members, and Hubert had basked in the light of the Holy Unbreakable Truth as far back as he could remember. Ever since his Fool Mama, as Grandad called her, did the only sensible thing she ever did in her life, as Grandad called it, and left him as a toddler twenty-seven years ago to be raised up right with the only man’s gonna stand between you and your fiery damnation, as Grandad called himself. God’s Intended Love, Hubert knew, was of an upright man for his chosen woman, and her undiluted devotion to her children. Anything that stood in the way of a man’s right to dominion over a family was a shameful affront to The Lord, and unmarried Hubert was often offered up to the congregation as a warning.

"Scrawny, meek, a face we know not even a mother could love—do you suppose this was God’s plan? Of course it wasn’t. But Good Brother Hubert here fights against his failings every day, praying to The Lord for the miracle that will one day help him stand up straight and see Salvation. He knows he brings shame on The Lord,