Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 00:24:42 +0000 From: revjpgibson@hotmail.com Subject: A Home in the Woods chapter 16 A HOME IN THE WOODS By Rev Jesse Penfield Gibson, MDiv, DMin DISCLAIMER: This story is fiction. Any similarities between any persons, living or dead, is coincidental. It involves bisexuality on the part of teenagers, including intergenerational sex, as well as drug use. If this offends you, please reconsider your browsing choices. If it appeal to you, enjoy. Complaints, compliments and comments to revjpgibson@hotmail.com Please consider donating to Nifty. I have and you should too. It costs money to run the archive and there are few other places that would house stories like this SIXTEEN Nate had a used Kawasaki motorcycle, a cheap one. He set out on that up US 1, which is a frustrating drive, then on the Florida Turnpike at Homestead. It got colder as he went north and it took hours and hours, 7 just to Orlando and then 4 more into Georgia. He left before dawn and it was night when he pulled off of US 41 onto a dirt road banked with red clay, past an old country church. The driveway to the house, big and sprawling, was 3/4 of mile of rock and there were a half dozen cars parked. Family for Christmas Eve. They would be exchanging presents soon, he thought, as he came up the drive. They did on Christmas Eve, in case his father was on call for Christmas, and then Santa on Christmas day. He rolled to a stop and stretched a bit. Even young and fit, it was a long ride and the buzz of the road was still in his ears. No one knew he was coming and he had only the single letter as proof that he would be welcome. On the porch, he rung the bell and stood back. A girl answered. She hasn't the chubby pig tailed girl she had been when he had last seen her. She was lanky and awkward, the beginnings of puberty. "Wow. You grew up" Nate said. He saw that she looked at him quizzically. "I'm Nate. Your brother" Rachel slammed the door shut. Nate stepped back in disbelief. She was too young to be subtle. He had been turned away. Sad about it, he turned and headed down the steps. It was cold here. Not even 40 and he had only a light jacket and a couple of change of clothes. He was briefly making his plans for how he would survive the next few days as he walked slowly back down to the bike. He only got a half dozen steps when the front door flew open and his father rushed out of the door, people piling behind him. "I'm leaving" Nate said in terror as he back pedaled away. "Don't hurt me" His father rushed up to him and grabbed him in his arms. Nate struggled to get away, pushing the man off. Then his mother flung her arms around him and hugged him so tightly that it almost hurt. She sobbed. Nate stopped struggling. His father gathered him in his arms too. Then his sisters. A mass of people in the cold night air, one boy in the center and a mother overcome with joy. "Nate" she sobbed. "Nate" "It's cold" his father said. "Come inside" His mother, her head buried on his shoulder, continued to cry and hold him tight. Nate began to tear up too. His father gently pulled her away. In front of him, his grandmother stood, looking at him. "You didn't have to go like you did." she said. "You could have come to me" Nate shook his head. She was wrong. It wouldn't have worked. "No I couldn't" he said. "You could have" He left it there as Lacey, now 15 and mostly grown, hugged him and cried too. Sam, his brother, stood off to the side with a girl as he held her hand. Nate looked at him. Other than his father, this was the one he least wanted to see. Sam sighed. "Hey Nate. I um, I told him about what happened. In the bathroom. They know what I did" He had held the door for them so they could beat him. Then, when he was down, Sam kicked him in the kidneys and punched him in the face as Nate pleaded with him. Later, after the ICU, Sam had threatened him if he said anything, which he hadn't all ready when the police questioned him. "Okay" Nate said. "And I am sorry. You deserved better. You deserved a brother that would have fought for you. It was the worst thing I have ever done" "You were young and you didn't want them to think you were gay too" Nate said. Sam shook his head and looked down. "I am sorry Nate. I can't make it up to you, I don't even expect you to..." Nate looked at him. "You want me to forgive you?" He couldn't believe it "I don't deserve it" "I do" Nate said. Sam looked up. "I forgive you" He thought Sam, tall and muscular, an athlete, everything his father wanted in a son, would cry. His girlfriend reached over and hugged him close. "Thank you" The amount of food they had there was amazing. There was ham roll ups and pigs in a blanket and meatballs and sausage balls but there was food too. Ham, acre peas, squash casserole, potatoes, turkey, dressing, corn bread. There was dessert: pecan pie and pound cake and banana pudding. It was overwhelming. His mother and grandmother insisted on him piling it on a plate even though everyone else seemingly was done. More ham and more peas. They declared him scrawny. He needed to eat. She told him 10 times that she was so happy to see him. Sitting in the great room, everyone gathered around, his aunts and uncles and cousins, sisters and brother, parents, grandmother, all watching him eat. They pumped him about his life, asking about Key West, about his job. He soft selled that. "You have a boyfriend?" Rachel asked him. She was sitting next to him. He had once been her special prince as preschooler. The room went silent. "Yeah. His name is Rafael" Nate said, pulling out his phone and pulling up a picture and handing to her. "He's hot" she said. Lacey had to see and then the others, the women, and they agreed that he was handsome. After he was finished eathing, they passed out presents. His mother sat on one side, holding his hand and Rachel on the other and they got presents. The stack of presents was huge and they went out one for another. Nate looked at what Rachel got and Lacey and a younger cousin and was genuinely happy to see them laughing and happy. Sam was off perpendicular to him and he gotten presents that he hadn't opened. "It's cool, Sam" Nate said. Sam looked up at him, embarassed. "They didn't know I was coming. It's not a big deal" "We'll go after Christmas and go shopping" his mother said. "I gotta leave after tomorrow. Got to work" "No" she cried wounded. "You just got here" Nate shrugged. Sam opened a present but there was no joy in it. Then his father handed him a big bag. Sam opened it up. He pulled out a leather jacket. "It's not fair. Nate has nothing. He has nothing." Sam said. "Here, Nate. This is for you" "It's your present Sam. It's cool. I don't mind" "It's cold and all you have is a wind breaker. Take the jacket. It's ... Merry Christmas" Nate took it and admired it. It was expensive and it was nice. He smiled. He tried it on and it fit. "Thanks" After an hour, they were spent and sated. Nate helped clean up. His mother tried to get him to eat some more but Nate didn't. They said goodbye to aunts and uncles and Grandmother and everyone said how happy and thrilled they were that he was home and he believed them. He had to go out and get his clothes which were in a cheap duffel and he wore his expensive coat to do it. When he came inside, his mother announced that he would be in Sam's room and Sam would sleep on a couch. Apparently his old room wasn't available but Nate didn't ask why. It didn't matter. Then he realized the girlfriend was probably in it and that relationship might be serious but his parents wouldn't sanction them sleeping together although they surely must. "I can sleep on the couch. Sam can stay in his room" "I don't mind" Sam said "I've slept in worse places" Nate said. "It's your home. Sleep in your own room." Nate judged that Sam, now 19, was away at college and home for the break. When he said that he had slept in worse places, his mother dabbed at her eye. She told him that it was his home too but Nate didn't really think of it as being that way. 5 1/2 years later and gone, they accepted it better but there was history here that was hard to erase. Eventually, he settled in on a couch and slept soundly. He woke to the smell of bacon frying and knew it would be a full court breakfast: bacon and eggs and grits and biscuits. It smelled good. They ate and talked, still wanting to know about his life and Nate being reluctant to say a whole lot, fearing their reaction and not wanting to give anything much away. After lunch, his parents took him aside. His father offered money to help him. Nate refused. "We made a lot of mistakes, Nate. We understand that. We hurt you. It wasn't intentional though. At least not from your mother and me. We were trying to do what we thought was right and best. Trying to help you. It was a hard time. We would have done it differently, now we would do it differently but ... I know that they mistreated you, abused you over there at the school. It was just ... The Bible says in Leviticus ..." "Yeah, Dad, I got it" Nate said. "God hates me and you hate me" "No" his mother cried out. "Nate, no" "No Nate. We never hated you. God doesn't hate you. I don't know how you square it all in the Bible with you being born this way. I know you were. I think I always knew it. But we want to try to make it right" "It doesn't matter" Nate said. "It matters a lot" his mother said. "We want to help out. Some money. Something to make your life a little easier. Make it so that you can begin to live your dream" Nate looked at him. "I don't want you to take this the wrong way but I don't want to take anything from you. I don't want to feel like I owe you anything" His mother held her head down. "It broke our hearts when you left. And five years, five and a half years, and no word. It's been hell. Not knowing. I have thought about you every single day. I have prayed for you every single day" "They wouldn't feed me. They beat me. They locked me in a closet. Because I'm gay. I don't get it. If I like pussy, I'm a person but if not, then fuck you? It's that big a deal to you? I left because I heard you say to her that you would rather that I be dead than be gay. And, Mom, you should have stuck up for me, fought for me, but you didn't. I wanted to see you. I wanted to close the book on this. See if we can have a relationship. I can forgive you for the shitty way you handled it but I can't forget what happened. And I don't really care why. You should have just loved me" "We did" his father said "Didn't seem like it" Nate shot back. His father bit his lip and looked down. "We did love you, Nate. We do now. I understand now that you were born this way. I know that. But I also know the path to true happiness. It's through obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. I know this is a thorn in your flesh but I know what the Bible teaches..." "Yeah fine" Nate said, standing up. "Some book written thousands of years ago has a couple of lines in it, some book I don't even believe in anymore. Yeah, so, what you want is that I have to choose between denying myself and marrying some girl, some innocent person and hurting them because I can never be what they want or I can never know love or intimacy. I can be alone. Well, screw you. I like sex. I like it a lot. Going to keep doing it. And I have as much right to be happy as anybody else." His mother was fidgeting. "Of course you do" "And I shouldn't have hit you. It was wrong. I was angry and you provoked me intentiionally but I should have controlled myself" his father said. Nate ignored him. "We can have a relationship" his mother said "Can I bring my boyfriend here?" "Yeah, Nate, I don't know" she said "Yeah, okay, I get it" "I didn't mean it that way, Nate" she said, sobbing. "Even Sam and Jennifer were in separate rooms, at least until they get married" Nate looked at her. "And if I get married?" "The Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman." his father said. "I'm sorry Nate. I love you and we want to help you. We do. What happened, it was horrible, the beating, the abuse -- we had no idea that it would happen. We had no way of knowing. When we found out, we stopped it, brought you home. But we believe in the Lord and HIs unchanging teachings. We can go a long way but maybe not as far as you want" "Look, I get it. It was shitty what I did. Not leaving. I had to do that. I didn't have a choice. Not really. But I should have called you. I should have let you knwo that I was alive. So you wouldn't have had to worry. That was shitty. I'm sorry" "I used to think that you bringing a boy home was the worst thing that could happen. It wasn't" she said. "I got to go in the morning" Nate said His father put his hand on his shoulder. "I wish you would stay longer. Maybe we could work things out better" "I can't. I have to work" Nate said. It was a lie, though. He wasn't going back to Key West. He had made up his mind. He had a different destiny. He slept fitfully, again on the couch and again Sam, who knew of their argument protesting that he didn't have to. What the British call Boxing Day opened cool but not as cold and fair with a bit of fog. Nate knew he wouldn't have made the whole journey home in any event given how little sleep he had but he actually didn't have far to go, back to the woods, back to the magic, back to the place he had been most alive. His mother hugged him hard as he stood by his bike and had made him lunch to take and some sweets. His father insisted he take some money and stuck his hand to shake. Nate took it but his father drew him into a hug and told him that he wished it could be different. He looked in their eyes and could see the regret and recognition that he was an adult and no longer the child he had been in their imagination and they just couldn't work it out. He thought as he left that they would be okay. They would believe their lie, a lie he knew came from Molchos -- a narcisstic and needy one who needed the control that obedience brought -- instead of the freedom he felt. They would consider themselves having martyred themselves for their God, having sacrificied a son instead of yielding in their principles but Nate knew for certain that he was in fact their moral superior. He wished them well and felt no hate as he left, no bitterness and no regret.