Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 16:05:50 -0600
From: lrglmear <lrglmear@attbi.com>
Subject: On the Way Home

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NOTE: While this story is purely fictional, it draws
on my actual experience as a former LDS missionary.
(There's a story there, of course, but it's not the
story you're about to read.)

For conscience's sake, I should say that my decision
to submit this story to the Nifty Archive does not
necessarily mean that I approve of the content of
other stories in the archive. Nevertheless, I applaud
the archive's goal of collecting "the diverse hopes,
dreams, aspirations, fantasies, and experiences of the
Queer Community." Gay Mormon experience--and fantasy--
is one piece of that diversity.

------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT! The Nifty Archivist has recently forwarded
to me some "fan mail" from readers. To spare him that
trouble in the future, send any feedback directly to
me at lrglmear@attbi.com. Be forewarned that I
probably won't reply; but it is gratifying to know
that there are readers who enjoy these stories.
------------------------------------------------------

ON THE WAY HOME

As we sit in the living room with our after-dinner
drinks, the conversation inevitably turns to our
latest sexual escapades. Terry tells us about a recent
experience getting picked up by a guy who turned out
to have a mild penchant for bondage, which Terry finds
scandalous. Terry professes to disapprove of "the
eroticization of violence"--he's one of those New Agey
types who go around talking about "healing" and
"intimacy" and "connectedness"--but judging from his
story, he seems to have found illicit pleasure in
being handcuffed to the bedstead. Devon catches my eye
and smirks. Having screwed around with Devon a couple
of times, I know he has a collection of bondage-
related toys that makes Terry's adventure with
handcuffs look downright vanilla.

"So, Curtis," Devon asks me after Terry finishes his
story. "What daring sexual adventures can you tell us
about?"

His ironic tone makes me suspect he's cueing me to
describe one of the bondage experiences I had with
him, thus showing Terry up for the na‹f. Instead I
say, "Oh, things have been pretty routine for me
lately. Except for that Mormon missionary I tricked
with last month."

Grant laughs--brays, actually. Grant gets drunk
easily. "Right. And I slept with Tom Cruise."

"No, I'm serious. I really did trick with a Mormon
missionary."

"No shit?" Terry says. He looks stunned.

"When was this?" Devon asks, delighted.

"And how the hell did you meet a gay Mormon
missionary?" Terry follows up.

Grant's a little slow to catch up with the
conversation. "You actually fucked a Mormon
missionary?"

"Must you use that word to describe sexual play?"
Terry can't stand Grant when he's drunk. "It's
demeaning and reproduces basically sexist notions
of--"

"When did this happen?" Devon asks me again, loudly.

"While I was on my way to that conference on sexual
minorities and the law at Berkeley. We were on the
same flight, and I was cruising him a little--I didn't
realize he was a missionary yet. And he cruised back.
We talked; it turned out we both had a three-hour
layover in St. Louis. So I got us a hotel room there.
I initiated him into the joys of gay sex. And then he
went on home to someplace in Ohio, and I caught my
connection to Oakland."

Devon loves it. "You seduced and deflowered a Mormon
missionary? You sick, sick man."

"I don't get this," Terry says. "He was on his way
home from his mission?"

"Yeah. He was flying home from Peru. He came through
customs here in Miami."

"So give us the details." Devon settles back for a
fuller retelling of the story. "How does one go about
recruiting a Mormon missionary to the gay lifestyle?
Pointers, please."

"Was he cute?" Grant asks.

"He was, actually. I don't normally pay attention to
someone that young, as you all know--"

Devon fills in the rest of the sentence: "You refuse
to go with anyone more than five years your junior,
ever since that twink told you he went home with you
because he's into quote-on-quote older men." He
gestures impatiently for me to continue.

"He was twenty-one, right?" Terry asks.

"Right." The question annoys me. If the answer had
been no, would I have had to put up with a speech
about how going with anyone younger than twenty-one is
"inappropriate"? "Anyway, yes, he was cute. He had
that clean-cut, wholesome, boy-next-door look. Dark
hair, nice smile. Kind of sporty. But not a jock, he
didn't have the attitude for that. He was more...I
dunno. Not shy. More like...a little unsure of
himself. Reserved. That's what first made me think
there was a chance he might be gay, actually."

"Uh-huh. What about his ass?" Devon's not into
personalities.

"I didn't have a good view. He was in dress pants,
white shirt and tie. You've seen what they wear. He
had the backpack even, which, duh, should have tipped
me off. But he wasn't wearing his suitcoat; he had it
over his arm. That's why I didn't realize at first he
was a Mormon missionary--his namebadge was on the
breast pocket of his suitcoat, where I couldn't see it
yet.

"Anyway, I first noticed him when he approached the
check-in counter. I was sitting where I could watch
the scenery pass by while I waited for them to call
the flight--though I was supposed to be reading a
bunch of documents related to this brief I had to
write when I got back from California. And when this
kid walked over to the counter, even though he was
younger than I prefer, there was something about him
that I couldn't take my eyes off of."

"How sweet." Devon's being sarcastic; he isn't into
romance any more than he's into personalities.

"So when he finishes checking in, he looks for a place
to sit to wait--which isn't hard, there aren't a lot
of people waiting to board our flight. And he ends up
sitting on the row of seats facing mine but down near
the other end. And I'm sitting there, reading, or
making the motions of reading, and checking him out
every now and then. My gaydar wasn't getting a clear
signal. But then I noticed that he seemed to be
secretly checking me out. So we played the cruising
game for a while--you know, where you're not entirely
certain the other guy's cruising you, so you don't
want to be too obvious. But he's in exactly the same
position, so you go back and forth for a while,
checking each other out and then looking away when the
other guy looks at you but still trying to see what
he's doing out of the corner of your eye. And then
finally you make that unflinching eye contact that
tells you that what you've been hoping is going on
really is going on." I can't help but laugh a little
from the pleasure of remembering. "Building up to that
first solid eye contact is my favorite part of the
whole cruising ritual."

"So he made direct eye contact with you." Terry's
prompting me to move the story along.

"It took a while, though. I was beginning to think
that this kid might be straight--straight and
clueless--and that the only reason he kept looking at
me was because he couldn't figure out why I kept
looking at him. But then finally we made contact. And
he blushed. I mean, literally blushed. I watched his
face change color. It was...endearing. But it also
made me suspect this kid was new to the whole gay
thing and maybe even closeted."

"So he probably wouldn't recognize the secret handsign
for 'Meet me in the loo for a quickie,'" Devon says.

"Exactly. Not that I'd have the nerve to do something
like that anyway. So I thought: Well. That was fun. A
little recreational flirtation while we wait to board.
But game's over. And I went back to reading."

"You didn't fuck him?"

"I'm getting there, Grant. So as I'm reading, I can
see out of the corner of my eye that the kid's still
looking over at me. And I start to feel guilty--"

"Something you do almost as well as Terry," Devon
interjects. Terry makes a face.

"--because I'm remembering what it was like back when
I was first coming out of the closet, when sex with a
man was still just a dream and I worried it would
never happen because no one would want me or I
wouldn't know how to approach someone. All that
delayed adolescent angst. And I'm imagining that
that's what this kid's putting himself through,
wondering what he did to turn me off. And, I admit,
I'm flattered at the thought that he seems to be
interested in trying to take things a step further.

"So when we get on the plane, I notice where he's
sitting. And once we're in the air, I get up to use
the lavatory, and on the way back I stop at the row
where he's sitting--we were basically alone in that
part of the plane; like I said, there weren't a lot of
people on this flight--and I say, 'Hi, I'm Curtis.'
And he gets this big smile and introduces himself as
Jared...Williams, I think it was. And then he reaches
over from the window seat to shake my hand. And as we
shake, I happen to look down at his suitcoat, which is
sitting there on the seat next to him. And that's when
I see the little black namebadge they all wear, with
'Elder Williams' on it.

"Of course, immediately I think: Oh shit. I've been
misreading the situation all along, this kid wasn't
cruising me, he was scoping out a potential convert.
And I'm racking my brain for some polite way to abort
this before I get in any deeper, but I can't think of
anything else to say except what's on my mind, which
is: Oh. You're a Mormon missionary."

"Eloquence worthy of your legal training," Devon
remarks.

"And he goes, 'Yes, but don't worry. I'm off-duty.'
And then he gives me this pleading look. Like he's
begging me to stay and talk. So I think: Well, maybe
he was cruising me after all. I mean, if there are gay
Catholic priests, why can't there be gay Mormon
missionaries? This is just turning out to be more
interesting than I expected."

"Most of the priests at my Catholic high school were
gay," Grant begins--the prelude to a series of
pederastic anecdotes he's told us before. I keep
talking over him.

"So I sit there in the aisle seat, leaving an empty
seat between us. And...we talk."

I pause. They wait. "Yes?" Terry asks finally.

"I'm trying to think what to tell you. We talked about
a lot of stuff. I told him I was a lawyer flying out
to a conference in California to give a presentation
on work my firm had been doing with gay custody cases.
I was watching to see, actually, how he'd respond to
the word 'gay,' so I could figure out for once and for
all if this Mormon missionary was family or not. But I
couldn't tell. I got the sense that the word made him
uncomfortable but that he was trying not to show it.
But that could have meant either that he was straight
or that he was closety.

"Anyway, I ask whether he's coming or going, and
that's when he tells me that he's flying home from his
mission in Peru. And we end up having this long
conversation about that--what Peru's like, and about
his work there.

"It was really interesting, actually. He'd been there
for two years, entirely at his own expense. I didn't
know they had to pay their own way. I also didn't know
that they don't choose where they go. They just submit
some paperwork and go wherever they're assigned. So
one day he gets this letter saying, 'You're going to
Peru'--and he doesn't know anything about the place,
he's only had a couple years of high school Spanish,
but off he goes. He spent most of his time in
different parts of Lima, but he also lived for a few
months in a couple smaller towns farther out. It
sounded like his living conditions were pretty
primitive. But it was obvious that he was in love with
the place--and with the people more than anything. He
kept going on about 'the people.' 'The people are so
friendly.' 'The people are so hospitable.' Because he
was out there on the streets and in their homes, all
the time, going door-to-door, like you see them doing
here, except that there I guess it was a lot easier to
get people to talk to them."

I hesitate, decide to continue. "It was kind of weird.
I'm no fan of evangelical religion. I have nothing
against religion per se, but I have major problems
with any group that claims to have a monopoly on the
truth, or that encourages people to devote all their
time and energy--and of course, their money--into
building up a religious institution rather than, you
know, helping to make a better world. And what little
I know about Mormons, and their record when it comes
to gay rights, would tend to make me take a dim view
of the work this kid was doing in Peru. But as he told
me about teaching people to..." I'm regretting now I
started talking about this; it's embarrassing. "To
pray, and to stop drinking their salaries away, and to
get more involved with their families and integrate
themselves into this new faith community, I realized
that in his way, this kid was trying to help people
find some kind of hope or stability while they're
living in some really bad situations. He wasn't down
there helping to bring about the kinds of change that
need to be made in terms of government and social
services and all that. But still, he was getting
involved in the lives of people there, trying to do
something for them that would help them cope better.
And I had to respect that. In his way, he was an
idealist. And as someone who got into the law because
I wanted to make a difference, I respect idealism."

Devon's unimpressed. "So his idealism got you all hot
and bothered--"

"It did, as a matter of fact, asshole." I laugh after
I say this, to defuse the tension; Grant joins in,
more loudly than necessary. "It was charming. It was
part of what made him so cute. So yeah, his idealism
was a turn-on."

Devon does his mock-therapist cluck. "Don't you see,
Curtis? Your attraction to this boy is narcissistic.
He reminds you of how idealistic you were at that age.
And since you have always been your own ideal lover,
you naturally find yourself drawn to this boy to the
degree that you perceive him to be a reflection of
yourself."

Terry speaks up, seeing an opportunity to enjoy a
moment of comeuppance over Devon. "No. I understand
what you're saying, Curtis. The fact that the two of
you shared common values and concerns brought a whole
new dimension of intimacy to the encounter. It
elevated the attraction from a merely physical level
to a psychic or spiritual level."

Devon rolls his eyes.

"So when do you and this kid finally jump in the
sack?" Grant asks me.

*	*	*

There's a particular moment from my conversation with
Jared that I remember vividly but don't dare tell my
friends for fear they'll make fun. It's the moment
when I lowered my voice a little and asked, "So...why
did you decide to be a missionary?"

Jared thought about it for a second. "I didn't really
decide to become a missionary. I became a missionary
because that's what you do when you're LDS and you
turn nineteen." He laughed. "If I'd known in advance
what I was getting myself into, I might not have done
it." He became serious again. "So I didn't ever
actually decide to go on a mission. But when things
got tough, I decided to stay because I felt that a
mission is what God wanted me to be doing at this
point in my life. I got to spend two years completely
dedicated to serving other people, and I had
experiences I wouldn't give up for the world."

You'd think that this talk about God would be a mood-
killer. But while Jared spoke, I felt a tugging in my
groin and a powerful desire to make flesh-on-flesh
contact. Terry's right: the conversation created an
intimacy at least as powerful as if I'd asked Jared
what he likes to do in bed.

*	*	*

"So when do you and this kid finally jump in the
sack?" Grant asks me.

"Well, I still wasn't altogether sure he was gay;
after seeing that damn missionary namebadge, I had to
re-evaluate the whole situation. So while he's telling
me about his mission, I keep leaning a little more
heavily on the armrest, you know, so our bodies are
closer together. And he doesn't try to pull farther
back or anything, which I take as a good sign. So
then, he's got his legs crossed, like this"--I put my
right ankle on top of my left thigh--"so I do the same
thing in reverse"--left on top of right--"so that our
feet are almost touching. And again, he doesn't move
his foot back. In fact, after a little while, he put
his hand down on his ankle, so that now our hands were
closer together. So we've got this erotic energy going
between us, or at least I'm perceiving it as erotic
energy, and I'm guessing he intends it, but I'm
thinking there's still a chance I might just be
reading too much into this."

"You should have told him you needed to go to the loo
again, to see if he'd do the 'Oh yeah, me too' thing,"
Devon suggests.

"I told you, I don't have the nerve to pull off sex in
public places. Besides, this kid was so innocent, I
doubt it would even have occurred to him what I was
doing."

"So how did you finally figure out for sure he was
gay?" Terry asks.

"They went to bed together; you don't think that makes
it obvious?" This is Grant's idea of devastating wit.

"I mean," Terry says testily, "how did Curtis finally
know for sure that he could ask this missionary to go
to bed with him?"

"I wasn't really thinking about that so much at the
time. I knew from talking with him that he had a
three-hour layover in St. Louis, but I had less than a
hour before my connecting flight, so I didn't think
there was a chance of anything happening. This was
just...conversation with someone I found really
attractive. But I was interested in knowing whether
there was, in fact, a mutual attraction or whether I
was misreading the situation and trying to make the
moves on a polite straight boy.

"So I start to ask him about his plans for when he
gets home. And he tells me that he didn't go to
college before his mission, because he was working to
save money; so now he needs to apply to school and
find a job. Then he tells me that a lot of
missionaries, when they're coming home, are advised to
get married within six months. And immediately after
saying that, he says--and he lowers his voice a bit
when he says it, like this--'But there are things I
still need to figure out about who I am.'"

"Oh yeah, there's a clear subtext there," Devon says.

Grant nods along. "Definitely."

"So I say, 'Oh.' And then the conversation stalls."

Terry asks, "Why didn't you follow up?"

I shrug helplessly. "I'm not sure. I guess because...I
wasn't positive it meant what I thought it meant--
though that doesn't explain why I didn't ask him what
he meant." I try again. "I guess because I didn't want
to play therapist. If that's where the conversation
was going.

"Anyway, it wasn't long after that that the pilot came
on and said we were making our final descent. We made
small talk while we landed. And then I got up to get
my carry-on. And we shook hands, and did the whole
'Good to meet you' thing. I got the feeling he was
hoping I would say something more. But I just said,
'Good luck," and got off the plane, thinking, 'That's
that.'

"But then--" Dramatic pause. "I get into the airport,
and I'm checking to see where I have to catch my
connection. And it turns out my flight's been delayed
and won't be boarding for another three hours."

"Incredible." Terry shakes his head in disbelief--or
rather, awe. Terry would have no problem reading this
coincidence as a "sign from the universe."

"Right away I look around for the kid, and I glimpse
him just as he's walking into the restroom. So I wait
for him. And when he comes out, I pull him aside and
say, 'I just found out I've got a three-hour layover,
too. If I get us a hotel room close by, will you spend
the next couple of hours with me?'"

Devon nods approval. "Very direct. I'm impressed."

"Not to mention extravagant," Terry adds. He means
paying the price of a hotel room for such a brief
liaison.

"You only live once, right? It's not like I couldn't
afford it. And when I was ever going to have the
chance to trick with a Mormon missionary again?"

"So what the kid say when you asked?" Devon wants to
know.

"He said, 'Yeah, sure.' Just like that, kind of off-
hand. Which for a second makes me think, 'Shit, he
doesn't understand what I'm asking. He thinks I'm
offering him a place to crash, take a shower, and
watch some TV.' But then he takes this...not a deep
breath, exactly, but it's a bit more drawn-out, and
shakier, than usual. And he says, 'Let's do this.' And
at that point, I realize he understands exactly what
I'm asking him."

*	*	*

Later, I'll remember that I left an interesting detail
out of the story. After Jared told me, "Let's do
this," I reached for my cell phone and said, "I
noticed a Marriott next to the airport as we were
flying in. Let's go find a phone book."

Jared laughed, a nervous-sounding laugh. "What?" I
asked.

"Willard Marriott's a Mormon. It's ironic, that's
all."

"We could find someplace else if you'd rather."

He looked puzzled for a moment, then laughed again.
"No, that's fine. Believe me, if I were going to have
a problem with this, it would be about something a lot
more serious than the name of the hotel."

While I called ahead to the Marriott, I saw Jared slip
the black namebadge off the breast pocket of his
suitcoat and tuck it away inside his backpack. Like a
married man removing his wedding band, I thought.

*	*	*

"So I call ahead for a room, and we catch a shuttle to
the hotel. We don't say anything on the way over--he
doesn't say anything until we get inside the room,
actually. At one point, we were alone in the elevator,
and I wanted to reach over and touch him, or kiss him;
but I got the feeling he'd jump up the wall if I did."

"A virgin, then," Devon says.

"That's what I figured. And he said so when we got
into the room--like it was this big confession. He was
all embarrassed about it. It made me want to rip his
clothes off right there, he was so goddamn cute."

"Did you?" Grant is leering in anticipation.

I wag my finger. "Those details I don't tell."

Loud protestations from Devon and Grant.

"At least tell us this," Devon insists. "Did you pop
his cherry?"

I see Terry grimace. "No," I say. "I did not pop his
cherry."

*	*	*

I sat on the bed, slipped out of my shoes. Jared put
down his suitcoat and backpack but remained standing,
away from the bed. "Listen, um, Curtis, there's
something I need to tell you: I've never done this
before."

I lay back on my elbows, gave him what I hoped was a
reassuring smile, though part of me was annoyed at
this last-minute delay. "I thought that might be the
case," I said. My conscience told me that I should
talk Jared through this before going any further. I
should ask him why he was doing this, make sure he
wasn't going to eat his guts out later, let him bow
out if he was having second thoughts. On the other
hand, we'd come this far, and I was so ready for
this...

My conscience and I settled on a compromise. "Would
you rather not do this after all?" I asked Jared.
Admittedly, it was a lawyer's trick, springing the
question on him like that with no preliminaries. He
was unlikely to say "yes"; but he did have the option.

"No, no," he hastened to assure me, as I figured he
probably would. "I'm just letting you know that..." He
shrugged helplessly, gave me another of those nervous,
embarrassed laughs. "I don't really know what to do."

"Why don't you start by coming over here and standing
in front of me," I said. It sounded like a line from
some bad movie, but it worked. I reached out to take
his hand as he approached. I kissed his fingers,
rubbed my cheeks against them, tugged gently at the
hairs on his wrist with my lips. With his free hand he
stroked my hair, my jaw, my neck, my shoulder. He
might not think he knew what to do, but his body knew
what it wanted.

Perhaps because he didn't have any preconceived ideas
about what gay sex is supposed to look like, he turned
out not to be a bad lover. He wasn't in a hurry to
start wanking or blowing me: he took the time to
explore my body and to let me explore his. The
foreplay was leisurely. And he wasn't just passive,
the way I was afraid he might be, waiting for me to
show him what to do. He let his instincts guide him.
He nosed my nipples, grazed for a while in the hair on
my chest, ran his open mouth up and down my flanks and
then later along the inside of my thighs, brushed my
stomach with the top of his head. He gave my dick a
tongue-bath and then tried to suck it, but his jaw
quickly tired out. I took over, blowing him for a
while and then having him get down on all fours so I
could rim him. That took him by surprise--he'd
obviously never imagined such a thing as rimming--but
of all the things we'd done so far, it was the one he
enjoyed most audibly. He became uneasy, though, when I
started rubbing his asshole with my finger. I was
tempted to let him fuck me, even though we didn't have
condoms: I knew I had a clean bill of health, and I
believed him when he said that this is his first time.
But my conscience told me I needed to set a good
example. So I pulled him on top of me and kissed him
hard while I rocked underneath him; and he was so
primed that just dry-humping me like that he came,
grunting into my open mouth and jerking a little in my
arms. Then I used his cum as lubricant while I jacked
myself off. For a while I let him do it for me, but I
had to take over to actually bring myself to climax.
He watched, fascinated, while I shot.

We fooled around some more in the shower, sensual but
not nothing serious. He didn't seem to be experiencing
any post-coital guilt. On the contrary: judging from
the towel-flicking fight he started as we were drying
off, he was euphoric.

*	*	*

"What was he like afterwards?" Terry asks. "Guilty?
Freaked out?"

I shake my head. "Not at all. He was laughing, fooling
around..."

"Did you do any kind of processing with him?"

I know exactly what thought is running through Devon's
mind right now: Terry's a lesbian trapped in a gay
man's body. "A little, I guess. While we were getting
dressed."

"What did he say? I mean, we're talking about a Mormon
missionary, for God's sake. How did he reconcile what
he'd just done with you with what he'd been doing in
Peru for the last two years?"

Terry's intensity makes me feel defensive. "He didn't
seem to have a problem with it." I look up towards the
ceiling, remembering. "There was this moment just
before we went down to check out when I was tying my
shoes back on and he was lying on the bed, and he had
his missionary namebadge in his hand, kind of playing
with it. And he said something about how technically
he was still a missionary--I guess he's not
discharged, or whatever they call it, til he gets
home--and how he never imagined he'd end his mission
like this. But he wasn't eating his guts out. He
seemed...delighted. He laughed about it."

Terry frowns. "That doesn't make sense to me."

"I even asked him: 'Why'd you decide to do this?' And
he thought about for a bit. And then he said that he
wanted to know for himself if this was really what he
wanted and if it would feel right. And he said
something about how when he was on his mission, he
felt like he was being guided in terms of where to go,
or who to talk to, or what to say. And that when he
saw me back in Miami, he got that same feeling, that
he and I were supposed to meet."

"Ooh. Fate." Devon doesn't believe in fate, of course.
I don't either, though now and then something happens
that makes me have doubts.

"Or gaydar," I say. Grant laughs. "But no, Terry, he
didn't seem guilty. He wasn't freaking out. We went
back to the airport. I said good-bye and got on my
plane. And that was that."

*	*	*

My defensiveness as I tell this to Terry makes me seem
more casual about it than I felt at the time. Just
before we left the hotel room, Jared looked me in the
eyes and said, "Thank you" in a very serious tone of
voice. I was embarrassed; I'd never had a trick thank
me before.

When we parted ways at my gate, I gave Jared my card.
"Send me an email sometime," I told him. "I'd be
curious to know what becomes of you." I tried to sound
detached, so he'd realize I wasn't interested in
playing the part of his counselor or confidant if-
slash-when he decided to come out. But I was genuinely
curious to know how this kid's life was going to
unfold from this moment.

We shook hands. "It was good to meet you," I said.

"Thanks again," he told me.

And he then he was off, walking briskly down the hall
to catch his flight. I watched to see if he might look
back, but he didn't.

*	*	*

"That is an incredible story," Grant says.

"A Mormon missionary." Devon shakes his head in
admiration. "Who'd have thought Curtis was capable of
such perversion?"

I raise my hands in a modest shrug: Please, no
applause.

"I was a missionary," Terry says.

Silence.

"What?" Devon asks.

"You were a Mormon?" Grant's staring at Terry as if he
just sprouted a second head.

"When was this?"

"Almost ten years ago. I was in the Alabama Birmingham
Mission." He says this with a Southern drawl. "The
Bah-ble Belt. It was hell on earth." He takes an angry
swig of wine.

Terry's never talked much about his past. We know he's
from a farming town in Idaho, and we know he doesn't
have any contact with his family--he said once they
don't even know he's living in Miami--so we've always
figured his coming out was traumatic. But this...we
had no idea.

I'm not sure whether or not he wants to talk about it,
but I venture, "Did you already know you were gay?"

"Oh yes. I thought if I worked really, really hard on
my mission, God would bless me to 'overcome my same-
sex attraction.'" He encloses the phrase in quotation
marks with his fingers. "No one in that mission was
more obedient or diligent than I was. But I still had
sex feelings for every single one of my mission
companions. I tortured myself trying to figure out
what I was doing wrong."

"Did you ever get it on with another missionary?"
Grant asks.

"Why don't you have more to drink, Grant?" Devon says
coldly. Devon likes to goad people, but he knows when
enough is enough.

"No I did not," Terry replies stiffly. "I would
probably have killed myself if I had. Literally. I
made the mistake at one point of confessing to my
mission president that I was struggling with
'homosexual urges.' He was this retired geezer who
probably hadn't been able to get it up with his wife
in years. He told me I should do push-ups whenever I
got the urge to masturbate and that I should get
married as soon as I could after my mission. Which I
had the good sense not to do, thank God."

"Jesus," Devon murmurs.

"Oh, I tried him; he was no help at all." I take it
Terry's referring to Jesus. "There's this evil, evil
quote by one of the presidents of the Church that's
supposed to inspire homosexuals to never give up
trying to change. It says that if you feel like the
Lord isn't answering your prayers, you have to keep
knocking until your knuckles are bloody and you've
beaten your head black and blue against the door. I
pounded on the goddamn door for years before I finally
wised up and got the hell away from the Mormon
Church."

I've never seen Terry so upset. None of us know what
to say.

"I simply cannot believe that this kid would decide to
just...try out gay sex on the way home from his
mission. He must be torn inside. I mean, how can he
stand up in front of his ward and give his homecoming
talk, and his report to the high council, and listen
to everyone tell him what a wonderful role model he is
for the youth in the ward, knowing that between
flights he gave his virginity to a virtual stranger?"
Terry glares at me. "You've screwed this kid. And I
don't mean...you know what I don't mean. He has to be
eating himself alive with guilt. He could very well
end up slitting his wrists because of this."

Devon tries to pull Terry back down to earth.
"Different people have different attitudes towards
sex, Terry. You can't make assumptions about what's
going on in this kid's mind based on your own
experience."

Terry ignores this. He points an accusing finger at
me. "It was grossly irresponsible of you to..." He
decides to use his least favorite word. "To fuck this
kid, knowing it was his first time, knowing that as a
Mormon missionary he had to be experiencing some kind
of cognitive dissonance, and then just walk away."

"I didn't just walk away." Strictly speaking, I didn't
fuck him either, but this isn't the time to quibble
over semantics. "As it happens, I gave him my card. If
he ever decides he needs someone to talk with, he
knows how to contact me."

"Has he contacted you?"

"No." I can tell Terry's imagining a worst-case
scenario, so I hasten to add, "Which I'm sure means
he's fine."

Devon tries to get into the conversation again. "This
kid's personal issues aren't Curtis's responsibility,
Terry--"

"Of course not. You're right. How silly of me. He's
not your responsibility. He's not a fellow human
being. He was just a pleasant way for you to kill the
time while you were stuck in St. Louis, so you'd have
this amazing story to tell when you got back home."

Devon and Grant both look like they want to say
something; but they both have the sense to stay quiet.

Terry closes his eyes. "I'm sorry. I had no right to
say those things."

"It's ok," I say quietly.

"Listen, though. If by chance this kid ever does
contact you, will you please...give him my email. My
phone number, even. I'd like to talk to him."

Something tells me that wouldn't be the greatest idea.
But I nod.

*	*	*

Some weeks later I'm sorting through my email, moving
spam messages into the trash. I run my eyes rapidly
down the subject lines. "Drowning in debt?" "Lose 15
pounds in 3 days, GUARANTEED!" "Free samples of
Viagra." "My pussy is SO WET!!!!" One subject line
reads "Remember me?", which I've come to consider a
red flag for spam; but then I see that the sender is
Jared Williams.

I hesitate. Am I up to this?

I move the message to the trash. I'm not a therapist,
I tell myself.

My conscience won't let me get away with it. Before
signing out, I open up the trash, hunt down Jared's
message. The size of the message is 10K. Obviously not
just a quick note to say hi. I open it.

The message begins: "It's me, the LDS missionary on
the plane from Miami to St. Louis. I don't mean to
bother you, but I really need to get some direction,
and I don't know anyone here I can talk to about this
stuff."

I keep reading.


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