Adam Venus
The next day I try to busy myself, to convince myself he’s not on my mind, but he is. He is all of my energy, focused on one word: Fabian. Fabian. Fabian…
In Theology that day I have less tolerance than ever for Professor Kinnan’s…well, his intolerance. Fabian is slowly changing me a little. One time Kinnan makes a throwaway comment about how Muslims and Jews are all essentially going to hell for not believing in Jesus, and another time he sees an Ariana Grande image in a slide about religion and terrorism and then refers to “the wicked social standards of our time.” I don’t get it. She’s wicked because she’s a female who chose to put on a miniskirt? When did I ever listen to any of this without furrowing my brow?
I assume Fabian is coming over that night, because I’m beginning to see his presence as a foregone conclusion – I just want to be around him all the time for some reason. But he doesn’t text, he doesn’t call. Then I remember that of course he isn’t coming over – I disrespected him. So I call him, and he doesn’t answer. In fact, he presses ignore.
I try to get to sleep, but it eludes me. That night I revert back to that one terrible recurring dream, the one where the demon is coming for me. And when I wake up I know I can’t run from this anymore. I need to talk to someone religious about this, someone like me. If I talk to anyone at school, I know they’d gossip immediately. So that leaves me with one main option: Our Immaculate Lady, the Catholic church down the street.
Many Baptists loathe or even fear Catholics; I just think they’re Christians with fancier rules. Actually, I’m kind of obsessed with the ritual and the tradition, hence my artifact collection. I’ve been in their chapel a few times just to look around, and after I Google their visiting hours with their priest, I slip in and look around. It smells like stone and dust and wood, sort of like a funeral home, and the few ladies in the front pews all have hair whiter than snow. But there are wooden confession booths on the right side, and I approach and then shut myself inside once I know the other side is occupied.
We go through the greeting rituals – I Googled this part, too – and then it’s time. Time for me to confess to a priest that I’ve been sleeping with a man. But my romantic urges have surpassed my will to serve my God in the way I know how, and this thing must be confronted. Confessed. Admitted.
“So, something happened. I sinned.”
“Really?” a gravelly voice asks. “That does tend to lead people here, after all. Care to tell me which variety of sin we’re dealing with here?”
I try to relax. “Oh. Of course. Well…I like someone.”
“Okay, then.”
“And…I’m a guy.”
“…Okay?”
“And…so is he.”
It’s like the air gets a little more tense immediately. I just sense it.
“I see,” he says.
“Yeah. And I need advice, because I’m waffling back and forth, and it’s not fair to him. Oh. And did I mention I’m…well, I’m going to be a pastor?”
“You did not. This certainly seems like a predicament, here, doesn’t it?”
“Predicament is my middle name.”
“I can imagine, young man.”
“But, listen…let me backtrack. I never knew I was…like this. God was always the number one thing in my life – He was the light, the noise, everything. I never even thought about dating at all. It just fell by the wayside. And then he showed up…”
He doesn’t respond.
“It still doesn’t make any sense. It was just kind of an ‘attraction at first sight’ thing, and I couldn’t fight it. Today he’s not only my best friend, but he’s…well, he’s kind of my love. And sometimes I can see myself falling straight into hell because of that love.”
He inhales.
“What do you think?”
“Well. Personally, my views are…somewhat conservative on the issue.”
I wait for the speech about the fire, the brimstone. It doesn’t come.
“But it doesn’t have anything to do with me, now does it?” he asks instead. “I actually do see the biblical argument for the acceptance of gay people.”
“You do?”
“Of course. They are just that – people. Everyone sins. Who in the world am I to judge? Someone once explained it to me this way. People are born with all kinds of flaws, all kinds of dark urges inside themselves. Humans were not born perfect. Only God is perfect. Why couldn’t homosexuality be seen as one of these defects, too?”
I try to swallow this down, but I can’t. I know exactly what Fabian would say to this. “But that’s the thing – you’re still calling it a defect,” I begin carefully. “You’re still taking something I feel down to the bone, the affection I feel for another person, and calling it a defect. Don’t you see the problem there?”
I think I hear him gasp, but I’m not sure. “I have never really…had it presented to me like that. Look, I’m usually the one doing the channeling in this setting.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Never.”
“Excuse me?”
“Look. Life is all about your relationship with God. Your own. Nobody else’s. You decide. If you can look God in His eye, and also take the hand of a man at the same time, by all means, go forward. But you, personally, are going to have to decide how you feel inside about that.”
“But you’re supposed to tell me how to feel!”
“That’s like asking a map to transport you somewhere. The map doesn’t do the work. It only guides. The same is with matters of the heart.”
“Well…thank you. I feel better…I think. You should watch Will & Grace. I just got into it. Maybe you can learn some things. I know I did. It’s OnDemand all the time.”
“Uh, thank you, I’m sure I will,” he says in a way that really means, hell to the no, you strange kid, but thanks anyway.
Out on the sidewalk, I imagine the line in the pavement is the line of my life. There is a line between who I am, and who I want to be. I am someone who doesn’t know how to love a man. I want to be someone who is able to be with Fabian in the proper way, in the way someone like him deserves.
I am beginning to think those two things may be unbridgeable, because my soul is being torn apart at the seams, and something’s got to give soon.
The next morning I turn around in the hall, and there he is. Fabian. He’s in an olive-green work jumpsuit, and it makes my hands all slick with insta-sweat. If I was a woman, I would probably lead him into a closet and demand his sex. But I’m not.
My heart twitches, then my stomach drops.
“Hi?” I say, and he looks away.
“Hi.”
I drift off to the corner and then find a private spot, by the water fountain in a totally deserted end of a causeway. Reluctantly he follows.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “No avoiding, no bull crap. What I did was cruel. I’ll never do it again. I’m a liar and a coward. I’m sorry.”
He looks down at my shirt, then back up at me. Desire rolls through my body at his earthy scent. He rocks back on his feet. “Um. Wow. Okay. What brought that on?”
“I just…I knew you deserved it. And without you, I’ve been…pretty low.”
“Really?”
“Fabian. Last night I didn’t sleep. At all. I did not fall asleep once.”
He looks genuinely confused. “Why?”
“Because of you starting to ignore me. I thought you…I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”
His eyes change. “Adam, that day will probably never come,” he says, and then he grabs my face and kisses me.
Now, of course I have had a few kisses here and there. Not a kiss like this. All of those kisses felt like stale grilled cheese cooked without butter, but this is a buttery sandwich made with globs of pepper jack and some Tabasco, too. This is everything. This kiss just swiped away my entire past, undid twenty-two years of history. This is a kiss that rewrites the story of my life, a kiss that makes me feel new and clean.
“Can we be best friends?” I ask out of nowhere.
“What?”
“I love hanging out with you. I really do. But I’m still…figuring some things out. And it’s really messing me up. These are convictions I’ve had my whole life, you know. Until I do, can we just hang out, without a label? And then figure it out more as we go along? Whatever this is, let’s do it. But it’ll have to start out as a ‘best friends’ type of situation at first, if that’s okay – but I want to try. I want this to work out. I want to explore it. Please?”
Something is fighting in his eyes. “But…”
“Fab, you still don’t get something. In my head, I still see flames sometimes – I was literally told that being gay was a death sentence. You still don’t get the extent of how deep this runs. Please just give me time.”
He smiles, but in the back of my mind, red flags are flying. “You never even had to ask. Let’s do it.”
“Really?”
Finally the smile widens to something sparkling and real. “Yes. I couldn’t resist you even if I tried.”