Adam Venus
A few mornings later we walk through a little town together, and for probably the first time I don’t care at all about being with him in public. Sure, I cared less and less as time went on, but it never left the back of my mind – now, it officially has. Nobody knows who I am here, and besides, two guys hang out platonically all the time – what’s the big deal? And even if they do judge, who cares? Fabian’s attitude is rubbing off on me, when he’s not rubbing himself…
I’ve never felt like this around anyone. He makes me feel like…well, myself. I still see God everywhere, and trust in His presence – I see him in the colors in the windows of a little chapel we pass, I see him in the way two little birds dance with each other above a powerline. But I also feel Him between my body and Fabian’s. It feels no different that he is male instead of female – not that I know what that feels like, anyway. But it just feels like love, and love is God. Why can’t He exist there, too? Why is love only reserved for Adam and Eve? What about Steve? Because something complicated is happening, and I can’t pretend I don’t love Fabian anymore.
He makes me so happy. He has bloomed in me, his name lives in big dreamy letters over my skull every day like a flower crown from the stars. My love for him lives in the little moments, but it is alive and it is electric and it is not going anywhere. I know I love him when he hops into the car and I smile like a cat who just found a streak of sunlight in the living room, and become taken over by this urge to just reach over and rest my hand on his leg. I know I love him when we’re walking and I look over and just smile at him and want to dissolve into the smile he gives back. I know I love him in the way I want to build him into all my plans and in the way I don’t feel like I am me unless I am with him. My world is better because he exists in it.
I cannot lie – best of all are the hookups. The fear is fire, the guilt is gasoline, the passion is the match. An exquisite sort of violence exists between us – every touch against my skin carries the force of an August thunderstorm, his chest against mine sets off shockwaves in my bones. Every kiss is a revolution, every ounce of semen is elixir. My mind is still a battlefield, with the natural battling the supernatural every day, fending off guilt and shame and all the rest, but I don’t surrender. I fight. We don’t push much beyond the boundaries I’ve set, but we push enough, and I have never felt so alive in my entire life than I do during these…encounters, or whatever you want to call them.
All of this tells me one thing, one simple and undeniable thing: I love him. And I can’t run from this anymore, whatever it is. God’s covenant offered me protection and affection, love and light and forgiveness, all those good and wonderful forever things, down the stairs and up the roof and everywhere in between. But suddenly Fabian has become all of my light, my halo – and yes, I am fully aware of the implications of my obsession. I also know we are all inherently flawed, cursed with the stink of original sin, and I know God keeps ledgers of all our transgressions and marks them against us. But I’m also trapped, stuck between something I want, and something that scares me witless.
But at the same time, if God didn’t want me to fall for Fabian, he shouldn’t have given Fabian that Tinseltown smile. If He didn’t want Fabian to haunt my dreams and power my daylight fantasies, He shouldn’t have made Fabian’s shoulders so wide and his jaw so square and his chest so rippled. If I am a sinner, then Fabian is my prayer – and that is a truth written in stone.
~
A few nights after the blow job episode, I’m cleaning up after the best interview I’ve had yet. The church seemed fairly progressive, they had a large and engaged congregation, and they’re looking for a junior pastor – perfect for me. I still can’t get the nagging feeling out of my head that something is amiss, but this at least makes me feel more stable for a few days.
One thing I’m also learning is that he’s changing me. He loves to talk during our drives, and he tells me about politics, racial issues, the way he sees America, etcetera. I never knew how judgmental I was before. I’d just look at a person and decide whatever I wanted about them – but his influence is softening my mind. Maybe a homeless man on the side of the side isn’t just a desperate drunk, maybe he’d faced all kinds of circumstances that had affected his life in a million little ways. Maybe a stripper isn’t a pathetic junkie, maybe she’d independent woman taking matters into her own hands. At the end of the day, none of it had any of it to do with me, anyway, just like I wouldn’t want someone like Kinnan interjecting into my private life. I need to butt out, keep my nose out of peoples’ lives and souls, and Fab is showing me that more and more every day.
“I have to tell you something,” he says when he returns from getting ice later that day. He looks at me and sets his jaw. But I want to tell him something, too. Time is running out on us. This is the first day of our last week on tour. On Sunday we will have to return home, to reality…
“Okay. I have to tell you something, too.”
He deliberates, then his determined expression fades. “Okay? What did you want to say?”
“Okay. I only have a few interviews left. But one of them is giving me trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“So…you know how much you mean to me, right?”
He smiles that shy, triumphant smile I like so much. “I mean, you could be a little more vocal, but…just kidding, yes, I know. Why?”
“Well…something happened. You might not even care, but I just wanted you to know.”
“Yes? Are you okay?”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that. It’s just…I think I have to go on a date.”
“What?”
I swallow and prepare to tell him what I’ve been avoiding for a few days now. “So, long story, but this one church wants to talk to me, and the lady I’ve been in contact with has been…weird. She keeps talking about how handsome my file photo is, and she wants to eat dinner. She’s already being weird and flirty and pushy with me. She’s even kind of…”
“What?”
“She’s kind of turning it into this half-date, half-interview situation. She saw my social media, and she knows I’m single, and she’s making comments.”
“Yeah, but there’s…me.”
“I can’t do anything,” I interrupt. “She’s being weird and unprofessional, sure, but a job is a job. She’s using it as leverage – go on this date, and I’ll help you out. That seems to be the message.”
“Um? Darling, that is called blackmail.”
“I don’t know what else to do. I need a job. I think I’m just going to show up, feel her out, see what she has to say, and if she actually does get weird, I’ll leave. But this is a very good opportunity, and hey, it could be nothing. Maybe she just comes across as weird on the phone.”
“You’ve been talking on the phone?”
I blush. “I know, I know. Are you cool with it?”
He crosses his arms. “I’ll say yes. If I can make a request. Or demand one, actually.”
“Yes?
“So, right now, the guy I like is telling me he’s going out on a date with someone else, and regardless of the circumstances, that’s fucked up. Would you agree?”
“Um…”
“Yes, you would. So. Remember when I put that toy in you?”
I look away. I can already feel it right now, the way it stretched me out, the way it made me feel something I’d never even known was possible…
“You’re going to wear something like it for the date,” he says. “And I’m going to be in the restaurant.”
“What?”
“Adam, it’s the future. People are ruthless out there. They don’t care if someone is attached – not that she knows, anyway. But I’m going to sit a few tables away, and if you do anything I don’t like, I’m going to turn on the toy.”
“T…turn it on?”
His lips twist into a sadistic smirk. “Last time I went in the sex shop, they had a remote-controlled, vibrating butt plug. And if you piss me off I’m going to turn it on. When do you leave?”
“An hour,” I gulp.
“Take a shower, then. Then come back to the bed. And we’ll get you ready.”
“Okay, then,” he says after he inserts the toy in me half an hour later, sitting back and admiring his work. It’s a small, cylindrical plug that’s already pushing against all my spots, and I have no idea how I’ll even walk there without orgasming. Goodness, want Fabian so much. “It’s in, and nobody will ever know it. So if you get too flirty with her – bzzz. I’ll punish you.”
I know he’s testing me. I know he’s trying to set boundaries in a boundary-less relationship. And to be honest…it kind of turns me on.
“And what makes you think you have the right to claim me like this?” I ask.
“Hey, I respect your career, or whatever this is, but it’s not totally fair for you to be running around like this already.”
“Whatever. You’re crazy. Do you know that?”
“Sure I am,” he smirks. “Crazy for you. And that’s the problem.”
We meet at a tacky Italian restaurant downtown with a low ceiling and faded murals on the walls. Fabian checks in separately and somehow snags a table ten feet away, roughly within earshot. I wonder how he does this, but then I roll my eyes – he’s Fabian Blanco. He could sell oil to a bucket of water. He’s just one of those people who gets things done.
“So, how are ya, cutie?” Mary Ann asks as she settles across from me, winking. She’s in a nauseatingly-pink top, and her frosted blonde hair is piled high on her little head. It also looks like she’s applied her makeup with a paint gun.
“Uh, I’m great, I’m so excited to be talking about this job opening. The-”
“Yeah, yeah,” she dismisses me, waving a French-manicured finger. “That’s all great. Let’s order some starters and turn it to some other stuff, though!”
Fabian stares at me, warning me, jealousy on his face.
“Other stuff?”
“Why, yeah. I was shocked when a young man as handsome as you contacted us, wantin’ to preach. But then again, they don’t make them in other places like they do here in the South, I swear…”
Oh, no. My ass starts vibrating, right against my prostate, making my eyes roll back into my head. I guess her flirty banter was already too much for him.
But then it stops. I try to collect myself.
“Oh, um…thanks. I, um…thanks.”
“Speakin’ of that, what are you doing, single? You checked that box on your application. Surely a young man like you could find the company of some young women? Even casually?”
“Wait, who brought that up, again?” I ask, and then I am interrupted by the vibrator.
Bzzz.
I squeeze my legs together. It feels like he is drilling me, doing what he did to me with his finger. It makes me want his sex like nothing I’ve ever wanted before. I am a volcano built for him. If I could crawl across this restaurant right now and climb atop him, I would. I want him in me, owning me, claiming me.
I look up at her.
“Honey, what’s goin’ on?” she asks, looking like I just announced I had to leave for a devil worshipping party.
“Nothing, um, nothing, I just…stubbed my toe.”
She glances down. “We’re sittin’ down, though.”
“Yeah, uh, I have sudden kicking syndrome. Anyway, preaching? God? Jesus?”
She blinks and sits taller. “Oh, yes, honey. I saw your videos, and I like your voice, and your style. Very smooth, very measured. Also – your broad shoulders and dimples don’t hurt, either, you know.”
I want to shrug it off, but it’s flattering to hear her say this. “Aw. Really?”
Bzzzz.
He’s upped the setting. It vibrates harder, giving me a feeling like I am being tickled and aroused at the same time. I can’t handle this. I can already feel like wetness seeping out of me. My toes curl and my vision blurs, and then I realize it – I am about to orgasm, right here at this table.
I clench my stomach and feel my legs lift. I see myself in the mirror above the booth across from me – my face gets pale, then flushes, as I screw my face up in an orgasmic expression. Then it comes, and I let out a weird little moan as my eyes roll back into my head.
Finally I collapse and just stare down at my wet spot for a minute.
I just came. In a restaurant. With a church employee.
When I look back up at Mary Ann, she is still. Silent. Expressionless.
“Honey, what on this Lord’s green planet was that?”
I’m sure I go even more green as I rise from the table. “Sorry. I’m so sorry, but I think I have to go. I’m sick. Really sick.”
And I am sick, I think as I head for the door. Sick of not having sex with Fabian Blanco. And sick of being in a relationship that isn’t even really a relationship at all…