Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 16:05:50 -0600 From: lrglmear Subject: On the Way Home ------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------ Send feedback to the author at lrglmear@attbi.com. ------------------------------------------------------