Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:25:07 +0000
From: Jeffrey Fletcher <jeffyrks@hotmail.com>
Subject: Parson's Folly:   Parson's Pleasure    Part 2

This story contains accounts of sex between two people of the same gender.
If that is offensive to you,  or illegal where you reside,  then go
elesewhere.  The story is was inspired by the comment of a guy with whom I
was chatting,  who said that his first sexual encounter was on a train.
That was all he said,  but....
I am grateful to John who has again proof read a story for me,  and
remaining errors are entirely my fault.


Parson's Folly;  Parson's Pleasure.

I went up to University.  I never did anything with another guy there;  but
I continued to get stuck in - if I may put it that way - when I was at home.

Before going to University I had to make the decision whether to enter the
Church and get ordained or take up medicine.   I opted for the Church.
After getting my degree, with encouragement from the Church authorities I
decided to work abroad for a couple of years before going to Theological
College.

It was while I was in Nigeria that I received a letter from my mother at
home.

My dear Michael,
(After the usual opening platitudes she wrote)   The village has been rocked
by a real scandal.  I am sure it will come as a shock to you.   Alan Arnold
has been found to be doing some terrible intimate things with some of the
boys of the village.  As you know he was so looked up to and respected in
the village.  He had been head boy in the church choir,  and leading scout,
as well as Head Boy at your old Grammar School.   Then at University he got
a first,  and his D. Phil.  The parents of the boys involved held a meeting.
   They decided not to bring the matter to the Police, as they did not want
to drag their sons through the lengthy legal process that would have
occurred, even if Alan had pleaded guilty.   They delivered him an
ultimatum:   leave the village within three months or they would bring the
matter to the attention of the Police.  His house is for sale;  and I have
just heard he has got a job in America.  I know you used to go to his house
from time to time.  I do hope you were not involved.

My parents never refered to matter again.  I think my mother suspected that
I was one of those who had been involved.  Mothers often have a strong
intuition on such things.   My father would have been too embarassed to
mention it.

When I returned a year later life in the village had moved on.  I made
contact with Bill,  who had also moved away.   He had heard the full story.
One of the younger boys involved had blabbed to his father under
interrogation.   His father had suspected something.

***

I think my story is like so many.  There were the sexually active adolescent
years.   I was at University during the years when legalisation was being
debated in Parliament,  and the relevant bill was eventually passed.   I
have often looked back and tried to examine myself.   I think I regarded all
that had happened as a passing phase.  It was, I thought, something I had
grown out of.

I went to theological college for a couple of years.  I was ordained.  I
served as a curate in a busy London parish.  It was there I met Sue.  She
was a helper in the Youth Club,  and in those days curates were expected to
be involved with the Church Youth Club.  Soon a certain amount of mutual
teasing went on,  then  we would be among the last to go home because we
engaged in deep conversation.   So one thing led to another,  we got
engaged, and in the last year of my second curacy we got married.

I continued to remember all that had happened back in my home village.  But
it was more and more something that had happened in the increasingly distant
past.  I worked hard.  In the fulness of time we had three children - a boy
and then a couple of girls.   It is often not realised how many hours a
parson can put in.  Because the work is so varied,  the hours can be long.
Mornings,  afternoons and evenings are usually taken up with working.   This
may well have been one of the reasons for the eventual breakdown of my
marriage.  I always tried to take one day off a week  but I was not the
master of my own diary,   there were always  funerals or other emergencies
on that precious one day off a week.   But I did manage always to take full
and proper holidays.

So the years passed.  The children grew up and eventually left home.  When
they were at school,  and safe to allow in the vicarage on their own for an
hour or two,  my wife went back to work teaching in a local school.

And what of the two of us?  I suppose we were drifting through a comfortable
middle age.   I thought she was happy,  at least reasonably happy.  As for
sex  its frequency had declined after the first flush of marriage.   After
the birth of the third child and a couple of years of broken nights it
steadily became a rare activity.   I must confess that there were times when
I  used my hand in the shower to relieve myself.  I found that rather
unsatisfying,  so that too was occasional.

If I did recollect those distant teenage years in my old home village it was
with a smile.  It was just a passing phase.   I was  a committed parish
priest,  I was married,  I was the father of three children,  what further
proof would anyone require to prove that it was anything other than a
passing phase.

I wonder how long  things would have drifted on  if Sue had not taken
matters into her own hands.

***

It was the height of midsummer in 2000.   I had to go away to a clergy
conference at Swanwick in Derbyshire.  It was the usual curate's egg of
these affairs - good in parts.  The main speaker was rather dreary,  but the
bishop was both highly entertaining,  and much to the point.  He seems to
believe and practise the Nineteenth Century Baptist preacher,
C.H.Spurgeon's dictum,  `You tickle the oyster before you insert the knife.'
   As always it had been good to meet colleagues and talk with them over a
pint in the bar.

I had travelled up to Swanwick with a neighbour,  and  we chatted
extensively on the way back.  We went down the A38,  round Birmingham  and
on down the M5.  We discussed the problems facing the Church of England,
especially the current hot potatoes of women's ministry and women bishops in
particular  and, of course,  gay priests.  Looking back on that conversation
I did not see myself in any way involved.  What had happened  when I was
young  was in the dim and distant past,  and now I was married,  the father
of three adult children,  and a priest in the Church of England.  Yes,  I
knew there were some priests who were gay;  and  I could have hazarded a
good guess as to those who were actively gay.   I knew for certain I was in
no way among their number - either active or otherwise.

My neighbour pulled up his car outside the short driveway up to the
vicarage.

"Would you like to come in for a cup of tea."

"No thank you,  Mike,  I must be getting back.  P.C.C. [Parochial Church
Council] meeting tonight.

"Poor you!"

I waved him good bye,  picked up my case  and walked up to the  vicarage.
I unlocked the front door and went in.    "Anybody at home?"

Even though Sue and I were now the only ones living in the house,  there
were occasions when my secretary was there working,  or some church group or
another.

That there was no answer came as no undue surprise.

I went through to the kitchen to put the kettle on to make a cup of tea.
Then I picked up my case and took it upstairs to the bedroom.  I dumped it
on the floor and went into the bathroom to go to the loo.   As I stood
peeing I noticed that the bathroom looked less cluttered than usual,  and
presumed that Sue had been doing some clearing up.  I went into the bed room
and started to unpack my case.   I placed my dirty clothes in the laundry
basket,  nothing unusual in that.  But when I went to  hang up a jacket,
the wardrobe seemed strangely empty.  I opened the other door and noticed
that  Sue's side was completely empty.  The penny still did not fully drop.
She could have taken her clothes to be cleaned.

I went back downstairs,  and I remember hearing the click of the electric
kettle as it turned itself off.  I went back into the kitchen and this time
saw on the table an envelope addressed to myself.   I pulled out the letter.

Dear Mike,
I fear that all this will come as a shock to you.
For several years I have been more and more aware how little there is in our
marriage.  We seem to be leading lives that run parallel but never really
meet.   You work all hours of the day and night.   Yes,  I know  that I work
too,  but I sit at home most evenings waiting for you to get home from some
meeting or visit;  and when you get home you flop down in front of the
television with hardly a word.   The sexual side of our marriage seems no
longer important to either of us.
I have decided to seek a richer and more fulfilling life.
The children know that I have left you,  and they know where I have gone.  I
hope that we both can avoid using them as pawns and go-betweens.   If you
need to contact me please do so through my solicitors - Brayne and Firbanks,
15 High Street,  Barchester.
You probably wish to know if there is another man involved.  The answer is
simple,  there is not.  If I do meet a man who can give me those things that
were lacking with us,  I want to be free to explore the relationship
unhindered by ties.  But for the moment I am not seeking a divorce,  but it
might seem the right thing in a few years time.
I wish you well,  Mike.   Thank you for the good times of our early years.
Yours Sue.

I sat down at the kitchen table,  placed my head in my arms and wept.  No
words can adequately describe my surprise.  A bolt out of the blue?
Flabbergasted?  Gob smacked?  I don't know for how long that I sat there.  I
was just beginning to  think, what should I do,  whom should I tell,  when
the door bell rang.  I  was tempted not to answer it,  but when it rang the
second time I realised that most people can intuit when there is someone in
the house  and they are not answering the door.   Whoever it was may well
come prowling round looking to see if anyone was at home.   I ran my hands
through my hair to tidy myself and went to the door.

There stood Mrs Alice Prince,  the leader of our Mother's Union.   She was a
mother,  and grandmother.   Very committed to the life and work of the
church.  I knew that there had been times when life had been far from easy
for her.

"Mike, what's the matter?  You look awful."

I shook my head to clear it.  I realised my personal plight could not be
kept secret from the church and parish for long,  and that there was no time
like the present.  "It's Sue,  she's left me!"

"Left you?   You poor man!  When?"

"I've been away at a conference up in Derbyshire,  and when I got home a
little while ago  I found that she had gone." I paused for a moment before
adding,  "Come on in."

"So you've just found out?"

I looked at my watch.  "I got home a couple of hours ago."

Alice was wonderful.   She took charge.  She offered to make a cup of tea,
or something stronger?  I chose the tea,  which she made.

She sat at the kitchen table and we talked.  She asked the obvious
questions,  and we started discussing what actions I needed to take.

"You won't be able to hide something like this from the parish,  so it is
best not to try.  Sue's deserted you.  You're a popular Rector,  the vast
majority will stick by you.  I am not aware that Sue had any close friends
in the village."

"I know.  I think things might have been different if she had made some
close friends."

"I suppose you need to inform the Bishop fairly quickly."

Alice was a great help over the next few weeks.   She supported,  was never
nosy,  and helped deal with the parish.

The Bishop was more searching in his questioning,  but must have picked up
my bafflement at Sue's departure.  He insisted that I did not do duty for
the next two Sundays,  so that  it could be mentioned openly in church
without my having to do it,  or being present when someone else did.

So began the years of living alone.   For the first few weeks,  I thought
much on  why Sue had left,  and entirely blamed her.  I was hurt and angry.
I felt betrayed.

That stage passed,  and then I began to think seriously as to why she had
left.  She had mentioned various things in her letter.  Loneliness - yes I
could understand that.  I saw that she was correct in that I would come home
late of an evening and sit in front of the television, not wanting to talk,
and often dropping off to sleep.  After all I had been talking with or to
people all the evening, while she sitting at home  was longing for some
adult conversation.   We had never carved out any quality time to be
together,  just to talk  or do something together.

Sue had never enjoyed being the Rector's wife.  The church had expectations
of her,  from doing the flowers,  and running the Mother's Union,  and
helping in the Sunday School.   She enjoyed her teaching,  and found the
additional burdens of parish expectations difficult to bear.  Some in the
Church had made snide remarks from time to time,  about her not being a good
Rector's wife.  Such comments hurt,  even though they could be dismissed as
reflecting the expectations of more than a century before.

I thought over the sexual side.  My memory was that it was more than me that
had not wanted that.  There had been tiredness after the birth of our third
and last child, - a daughter.  She  was a demanding baby and toddler,
needing for several years almost no sleep.  Sue bore the brunt of the baby
care with its sleepless nights.    I know for a time Sue was slightly
anaemic.

This process of self examination went on for some months.

***

Then came the dreams.

In the first one I was walking in the maze at Hampton Court for what seemed
hours. That was easily dismissed as I had been watching a documentary on
that place during the evening before.

I was not into dreams.  I had never done any work on interpretation of
dreams.  I know that when I told them to someone who was something of an
expert their meaning and significance was obvious.

In the next dream I was in a system of caves,  clambering over  rocks and
squeezing through narrow passages.  Again it seemed to go on for hours and
hours.  When I woke I entangled in the duvet.

There was a dream where I was in a house that caught fire.  I was trapped,
the door was locked,  and the windows shuttered.  When I tore down the
shutters it was to find the windows securely barred outside.  I was
desperate to get out.

Then I woke one morning after a vivid dream with a raging hard on.  I was
back in the village of my youth.  Except it was and was not the village in
the way that dreams so often are.  Alan was there,  stark naked playing with
and then sucking my cock.  I was lying back in utter bliss.   I woke just as
I climaxed,  to find my cock pulsating and cum all over the bed clothes.  I
reached for the handkerchief under the pillow,  and mopped it up as best I
could.
That dream with slight and very erotic variations occurred every week or so
over the next few months.   I was soon recollecting that time,  and all the
incidents with Alan, Bill and all the others.   I quickly realised that they
were for me happy and carefree days.  I wondered what had happened to all
those involved,  especially to Alan.   Professionally he would have
succeeded in the States,  but what of his love life?  I even contemplated
trying to get in contact with him again.  Those days had held the best,
happiest and most fulfilling sexual experiences of my life.

Once I realised that, I began to worry!  Was I gay?  It was something I was
loath to admit.  Men in my profession,  with my views were not supposed to
be gay.    But I was not a complete ostrich, with my head buried in the
sand;  I knew that many clergy in all the Churches were gay.  Where I was
more uncertain was about married gay priests.  I was certain some of my
bachelor colleagues were gay,  and actively so.   But when I starting
thinking about the married ones  I found it difficult to imagine that any of
them were gay.  Christian ministry as a caring profession seems to attract
gay men.  But was  I one of that number?  After several weeks of wrestling
with this new thought I decided I needed help and counsel.   I could go to a
profession psychiatrist,  but I feared some a person would not understand
the spiritual aspects of my position.   The church has a number of  priests
who offer good spiritual direction and counselling.   But I had to be
careful.   There were those whose theological position made them utterly
hostile to any implications of active homosexuality,  and they were probably
completely lacking in any understanding of what it means to be gay.  I
decided to talk it over with a bachelor colleague,  who, I was pretty sure,
was gay.  I rang him said I had a problem I wanted to talk through
confidentially.   He invited me round for coffee.

After the usual platitudes in the kitchen, while he made the coffee, we went
in the large drawing room - only that word adequately describes the room -
of his huge Victorian Vicarage.   He was a bachelor,  but his aged mother
lived with him,  plus several cats.

"Well Mike,  what can I do for you?  You said you wanted a confidential
talk."

"You know, of course,  that Sue left me  some months ago?"

He nodded.

"I have been having some vivid dreams,  and doing a lot of thinking. I think
I might be gay."

He gave a very slight smile.

"Why do you smile?"

"You are not the first married man, or even married priest,  who has sat
there and said that.  I sometime feel like writing an alternative version of
  `Tell Me the Old , Old Story'  to describe the men facing that problem."

I breathed a sigh of relief.  I had suspected I was not unique,  or some
freak,  in being married,  a parson, and possibly gay.

"What makes you think you might be gay?"

I told him about dreams of being back in the village of my younger days.

"They could well be significant.  I presume you did that sort of thing in
you teens?"

"Yes,  a lot."

"Well, you started before me.  My first sexual encounter was with a fellow
student at University."

I breathed a further sigh of relief.

"There are a lot of clergy like us.   Most of the Bishops,  and certainly
the more fundamentalist and Bible bashing church people,  want us either
unfrocked,  or swept up and kept under the carpet.   What are you going to
do about it, Mike?"

"At the moment I'm trying to come to terms with what I seem to be
discovering about myself."

"No hints that you might be gay  in the intervening years between your
youthful escapades and these dreams you have been having?"

"I don't think so."

"It might be revealing to you,  to look over those years more carefully to
see if there was any evidence then of your true sexual orientation."

"I know I never did anything!"

"I am sure.  But the evidence might be there in thoughts, attractions,  even
in things you suppressed or pushed to one side.  The heart of man is
deceitful,  and we often deceive ourselves. "

"Do you think I'm gay?"

He shrugged.  "Just on the basis of your youthful escapades,  and those
dreams, I wouldn't like to say.   Anyway,  I would be very hesitant to  tell
any man he's gay.   Mike,  it is something you must work out for yourself.
There are many boys who do things together for a number of years,  and it is
just a passing phase.  They get through it,  get married,  have children,
and seemingly live happily ever after.  Would you have thought you might be
gay if Sue had not left you?"

"I don't know.  Probably not."

"The dreams may or may not be significant.  I think  lot of us have
throwback dreams,  when we go back to a particular chapter in our lives.
Then there are what I call professional dreams.  The sort where you cannot
find your sermon notes,  or your robes for  a service."

I laughed.  "I have those.   But the dreams which I have told you about,
were not the only dreams.  The others seem totally unrelated."

"What were they about?  I've done a little work on dreams."

I started to tell him about the Hampton Court maze dream.

He interrupted me.   "Mike I want you to sit back,  shut your eyes,  and
play back the dream in your mind,  and tell me it as you go through it.
Tell me in the present tense."

I told him the dream.  Before I started on the second dream  he asked me to
tell it to him in the simple present,  rather than the continuous present.

"You mean `I walk',   rather than `I am walking'."

"Exactly"

I told him the second dream of the system of caves,  and finally of being
locked in the room with the house on fire.

I opened  my eyes,  and saw a broad grin on his face.   "Why the grin?"

"I think those dreams are much more significant than the dreams about the
village of your childhood."

"In what way?"

"By  re-living the dreams, and telling them in the present,  you said some
interesting things.  In the first dream at the end you said `I am coming out
of the maze'.    With the second and third dream you said `I come out of the
caves',   and `I am struggling to come out of the room'."

I think my mouth was open, as the penny dropped.

"Yes, Mike.  You know every bit as much as I do the significance of those
words about coming out."

I nodded

"Is it your subconscious pushing up into your conscious this truth about
yourself?"

"They were powerful dreams.   The fact that the memory of them has stayed
with me shows that.  If all this is true,  then I think I need to think more
about it."

"Sure."

"I need to think about this coming out.  I suppose it means telling friends
and family."

"I think there are several stages involved.  At least three for the
Christian."

"In what way?"

"First,  you need to come out to yourself.  We have talked about the
possibility that you might be gay.  But you have not yet said  `I am gay'.
For many men  the actual saying of those words is tremendously significant,
and in a way liberating.   It is the admitting of a very important truth
about oneself to oneself.  Some men struggle for ages over it.  Some indeed
will never even admit it to themselves."

"I see what you mean."

"Secondly,  you need to come out to God."

"To God?"

"Yes,  to God.  Our Fundamentalist Bible-bashing friends want to consign
gays to the realms of outer darkness.  But I don't think it is as simple as
that.  I take note that Jesus was a friend of outcasts and sinners.  His
harshest words are for the religious -  put  another way,  for the likes of
you and me.  I don't think our Lord is as harsh and judgmental as some folk
think.  I believe in a God of love,  and that He loves us.  Yes,  and he
created us,  and made us.  Made me as I am, - a gay man.  My sexual
orientation is an essential part of my being.  In no way is it in the same
category as the nasties in my life,  my short fuse and my jealousy.  Get rid
of them and I'd still be me.  Change my sexual orientation and I would be a
totally different person.  I would not be me any longer,  but someone
different."

"You're giving me a lot to think through."

"Finally there is the coming out to family and friends.   How far a person
comes out is up to him.  You don't put it in the personal columns of the
Times,  or even the Church Times.   You need tell no one.  But the more
people you tell,  the more people are likely to get to know. Even
confidences leak like a sieve in the dear old Church of England."

"What about words spoken in the context of confession?"

"That is somewhat different.  I think most priests who hear confession
regard all they hear with complete and utter confidence.   But something
spoken confidentially  can quickly and easily become a matter of gossip
amongst friends."

"How far are you out?"

"I don't know.   Some here in the parish know,  how far people know I'm not
sure.  I'm out to my mother,  brother and sisters.  But they did not have to
be told."

Our conversation drifted off into dealing with his experiences.  I left with
much to think over.

"If you want to talk some more,  then you only have to ring me up."   With
that we parted.

***

It must have been three months later when I went to see him again.  It was
the height of summer and we sat out in his garden drinking iced fruit
drinks.

"Well,  Mike,  how are things going?"

"I've done a lot of thinking.   I have thought  carefully about a number of
things,  mainly relationships in those intervening years between my  teenage
years,  and when Sue left me.  I think there were one or two things that
happened that might point to any gay sexuality in me being submerged,  but
still around."

"Submerged by?"

"I suppose,  the fact of marriage,  and my  spirituality."

"Our religion has a lot to answer for.   So what are you going to do about
it?"

"That's what I wanted to talk over with you.  What can I do?"

"What do you mean,  what can I do?"

"Aren't I too old."

He immediately burst into laughter.   "How old are you, Mike?"

"Late fifties."

"I know I am  a few years younger than you,  but I know several men,  ten
even twenty years older than you,  who still enjoy `doing something about
it'.

"I'm not a complete ignoramus,  I know about  cruising places,  and sauna
places,  but what happens?  What goes on? How do gay men meet other gay
men?"

"For one thing the Internet is a great meeting place.  There are no end of
sites where you can make contact with men with similar desires.  Many will
be a long way away,  but there will be a number in Bristol,  Swindon,
Salisbury,  Bournemouth etc. Some sites will show you men of all ages and
inclinations."

"I don't think the computer will do for me.  I only have access to a parish
computer,  and I  use it more as a word processor, than a computer.  Anyway
can't things be traced?  My secretary uses it as well,  and I would be
scared stiff she would find out something.  What are these `cruising
places',  how do they work?"

"Some are places which get known as places where men can meet.   There are
certain public toilets,  which are usually called `cottages' by gay men.
But they can be dangerous,  and not always pleasant places."

"But what happens at one of these cruising places?"

"Men go there by car.  Go for a stroll in the near by woods.  Men standing
around,  perhaps rubbing their crotch,  looking you in the eye.  You might
even see two men  doing something together."

"Is there any risk?"

"Some,  and there is a limit to what you can do,  especially if it is cold
and damp."

"Where are these  cruising places?"

"Well there is one out on the Oxford Road.  About three miles beyond the
roundabout, the road has been straightened,  just before you get to the turn
off for Brincombe.  The old road is behind some bushes,  and there are
several paths that go up into the woods.   Quite a lot can go on up in the
woods."

"Have you been?"

"Once or twice."

"And these sauna places - what happens at them exactly?"

"A gay sauna is the safest place.  The men who are there are all wanting the
same thing.   They may not want it with you,  but they won't be offended,
or take you to court,  if you make an approach."

"What exactly goes on?"

He described the facilities and procedure at such places.  "Would you like
me to take you,  and show you round?"   He said this with a very broad smile
on his face.

We arranged to go together to the one in Bristol  ten days later.

***

Jeff at jeffyrks@hotmail.com