by Carl Weber
“Aw’ight, Kareem. Don’t forget me, now.”
37
Brent
I’d tried my best to throw myself into my work to take my mind off everything, but it didn’t help. I kept thinking about Alison and Jackie and how I loved both of them in such different ways. And yes, despite everything you might think, I did love Alison, only my love for her was more like the love you have for a sister than for a lover. I know that sounds kind of creepy, considering we were having a child together, but the truth is, that’s how I felt since the first day we were introduced by the first lady. I just wasn’t man enough to admit it to her or myself because of my own insecurities. I did wish I could work things out with Alison, though, for the baby’s sake.
The love I had for Jackie, on the other hand, was that deep, passionate love that you dream about all your life. Whenever I was around him, I felt like a boy again, when I had a crush on the captain of the basketball team. The problem with loving a man, though, was that it came along with taboo and ridicule. Even if I chose to remain in the closet, it would still bother me that so many people consider it wrong, especially when it comes to being a Christian. First Corinthians 6:9 specifically says: Do not be misled: Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor men kept for unnatural purposes, nor men who lie with men…will inherit God’s kingdom. I interpreted that to mean that a lifetime of love and happiness with Jackie would only bring me an eternity of hell in the afterlife.
I thought about going back to the bishop to talk to him about my dilemma, but he’d just given a sermon on the sins of homosexuality, so I was pretty certain I knew what his opinion would be. Still, I needed to talk to someone so desperately that I even picked up the phone one afternoon and called James. I was going to tell him everything, about Jackie and me getting caught and the whole nine yards, but after he told me about his problems with Cathy finding out about Marcus, I didn’t even want to bother him. And Sonny…well, Sonny had been a homophobe for years.
So, as I drove home from work, I still had quite a bit on my mind. When I pulled in front of my house, I was actually surprised to see Alison’s car parked in the driveway. Usually around this time she was at the hospital with the first lady. Plus, we hadn’t spoken since the incident with Jackie earlier that week, and considering how badly that turned out, I was almost afraid to enter the house. Was she alone? Was she there to pick up clothes? Was she there to talk? Or was she there to kill me? I really couldn’t blame her for it if she was. Whatever she was there for, it was time to face my wife as a man.
When I entered the house, I was even more confused. I expected to find Alison waiting there, ready for another fight. Instead, I saw that the lights were turned down and white vanilla-scented candles were everywhere. Teddy Pendergrass’s song “Close the Door” was playing in the background on the stereo.
“Alison,” I called out.
“I’m in here, Brent,” she answered from the dining room in a surprisingly sweet voice.
When I entered the dining room, I had to stop and take it all in. The room was bathed in candlelight, and the dining table was covered with our most expensive tablecloth and set for two with our wedding china and crystal stemware. But what caught my breath was the sight of Alison. There she was, sitting at the head of the dining room table. Her hair was pulled to the side, and she was dressed in a slinky black, off-the-shoulder dress. She was looking good and smelling good. Even her makeup looked different. She actually looked stunning. Then it hit me. My wife had gotten a makeover!
I approached her tentatively, not quite sure what was going on. This whole scene was so surreal, considering how she was acting the last time I saw her. Alison stood up from her chair in a slinky motion like I’d never seen before, and eased off my tie. Then she unclipped my cell phone from my waist.
“Baby, sit down. I’ve got your favorite dinner, and then we’re going to make love all weekend. I’ve cut the ringer off, and it’s just going to be me and you. We’re going to shut off the world.”
As wonderful and attentive as she sounded, this was a side of Alison I’d never seen, and I knew this sex-kitten act wasn’t her true self. In my heart of hearts, I knew it was about Jackie. She was trying to compete with him. But could she compete? Can a woman ever outdo a man in bed once that line has been crossed? I didn’t know, but I wanted to see if I could forget Jackie. I did want this thing with my wife to work, for the sake of God and my unborn child.
I still found myself hedging around the issue, uncertain if I could go through with the sexual act. I didn’t necessarily want to go to bed with her now that I’d admitted to myself that I really didn’t have strong sexual feelings for women, but I didn’t want to hurt her fragile feelings either. I searched for an out.
“Aren’t you worried about hurting the baby? Maybe we shouldn’t be doing it in the first trimester.”
“You know the doctor said I’m doing fine. We can make love safely up until I’m eight months, as long as there are no complications.”
So I sat down and ate, all the while going through the motions of pretending to enjoy my favorite dinner of steak, baked potato, and asparagus. Every attempt Alison made at seduction fell flat, though I forced myself to smile each time. When she placed her finger in her mouth to lick off some melted butter, I knew what she was trying to do, but it had the opposite effect on me. It only served to remind me of the night I watched Jackie sucking on ribs from The Rib Shack. I forced the memory out of my mind and tried to remain focused on my wife. My mind was cooperating, but my heart wasn’t with the program yet.
Finally, after dinner, Alison got down to the business at hand. She started out by massaging my shoulders and my back. As Teddy crooned, “Baby, I’ve got so much love to give and I want to give it all to you,” Alison began to kiss me on my body in ways she’d never done before. It felt uncomfortable, and in a crazy way, it felt dirty.
Alison eased out of her dress, and underneath she was wearing a revealing black negligee, which accented her plump curves. Her nipples were standing up at attention, but they didn’t arouse me.
“Just take me here, baby,” she whispered, pointing to the champagne-colored carpeting as she gyrated to the music. I knew she was getting worked up.
I couldn’t do that. Jackie and I had been together on this same floor, and I knew I would have felt too much guilt to take my wife here now. But as I remembered my encounter on this carpet, thoughts of Jackie ran through my head once again. How come it was so different with Jackie? I had no problem getting or maintaining an erection with him. In fact, just the thought of Jackie generally made me hard. I’d used those thoughts on many occasions to enable me to perform my husbandly duties with Alison, but tonight I didn’t want to fantasize about Jackie in order to make love to my wife.
“No, let’s go to the bedroom,” I said. Thankfully, I had never allowed Jackie to come into that room, so I hoped that his memory would stay out of my marital bedroom now.
Alison was obviously so set on pleasing me, she didn’t protest even slightly. Holding hands, we climbed the stairs and went into the bedroom, where she had placed more candles. She lit them and turned on the music as soon as we entered. On the bed I saw she had placed new red satin sheets and covered them in red and white rose petals. Jackie loved roses, I thought, then shoved his memory out of my mind once again. It was such a struggle to keep myself present with Alison, but I was going to keep trying.
Once we slid under the covers, Alison tried to kiss and fondle me again. No matter how much I wanted to, I still couldn’t get hard. I was limp.
“What’s the matter, baby?” she said. “I’m willing to do whatever you want. We can even have anal sex if that’s what you like.”
It was painful to hear her say that. I knew that she would never have offered that to me if it weren’t for the situation we were in. It was not something she believed a good Christian woman should be doing, yet she was offering it to me now. I heaved a deep sigh. “I don’t know, Alison. Maybe it’s
because we really haven’t even talked yet about what happened the other day. I’m feeling really guilty, and—”
“Shh,” she said soothingly. “I don’t want to talk about that right now. All I want is for us to be together. Make love to me—then you’ll know I’ve forgiven you.”
Forgiveness. That sounded so good to me at that moment. I hadn’t yet been able to forgive myself, I wasn’t sure if God could ever forgive me, and here was my wife, the woman I’d hurt deeply, offering up forgiveness so freely. Part of me wanted to make love to her just to feel forgiven. If I allowed myself to think freely about Jackie, I could get hard enough to make love to Alison. But I knew that was wrong. Even if I could complete the act now, it would only be a temporary fix. After it was over, I would still feel passion for Jackie, not for Alison. This would never work between us, and I now understood that I’d been fooling myself when I thought that it would. When Alison discovered me with Jackie that night, she had cracked open the door of the closet I’d been hiding in. Just cracking that door had shed some light on the truth that I was now coming to terms with: As much as I didn’t want to be, I was a gay man. And as desperately as I wanted to be part of a family that society would accept, it was not who I was, and I would never be able to do it.
Before I could even turn to Alison to tell her how I felt, she already knew. She lay beside me, crying quietly.
“I’m sorry, Alison. I truly wish things could be different, but this is who I am.”
She turned to look at me and asked, “Why, Brent? I love you so much. Why can’t you feel that way about me?”
“I do love you, Alison, but not in the way a man should love his wife.”
“I don’t understand,” she said as she sat up in the bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her body language said she felt a need to protect herself, and she was right. Anything I had to say to her right now could only hurt her.
“I don’t know how to explain it, Alison. I love you like a best friend, but physically, no matter how much I want to, I just can’t make my body desire you.”
Tears streamed over her cheeks. “Is it because of my weight?” she asked. “What if I lose some weight?”
“No, it has nothing to do with your weight.” I reached out to hold her hand. “Please don’t think this has anything to do with your appearance. You are a beautiful woman, Alison.”
She shook her head like she didn’t want to believe me.
“It has nothing to do with you, Alison. You have to believe that. There’s no other way to say this except that when I think about men, I get aroused, and when I think about women, I don’t.”
“That can’t be true, Brent,” she said. “If you don’t desire women, then how were you able to make love to me as many times as you did? How did you get me pregnant?”
It was a legitimate question, but I was sure she had asked it thinking that the fact that we had conceived a child together was proof that I wasn’t really gay. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the truth.
“Well,” I said, wishing I didn’t have to, “those times that we were making love, it wasn’t you I was thinking about.”
The hurt flashed in her eyes as she realized what I was saying. “You were thinking about Jackie every time? Even on our honeymoon?”
I nodded. “I’m so sorry, Alison.”
“Why did you do it, Brent? Why marry me in the first place if you knew you weren’t attracted to women?”
“I wanted to believe I could be straight. I wanted a family so bad, and I loved you more than I ever loved any other woman. I thought if I married you and we started a family, I could just make these urges go away.”
“Maybe you still can,” she said hopefully. She released her knees and I saw her body relax as she turned to me, sounding almost eager. “We’re going to have this baby together, and if you tell Jackie you can’t see him anymore, we can still be a family. Maybe once he’s out of your system, you’ll be able to kick this. We don’t have to make love yet, but over time, God will help you find your way down the right path. He wants us to be together, Brent. I just know it.”
“No!” I said with enough volume that it startled her. “I can’t do this anymore. I told you, I thought I could make these urges go away. I know now that they never will.” Alison’s eyes started watering again as I continued. “I will be there to provide whatever our child needs, but I can’t be here as your husband. I’ve made my decision, and I’m going to live my life as a gay man.”
“But what about the church?” she asked. “You know the bishop preaches that homosexuality is a sin.”
I stopped for a moment to calm myself before answering her. That issue had been one of the hardest for me to come to terms with, but I knew I only had one choice now. “I know what the church teaches, Alison, but I also know that I can’t change who I am. If the church can’t accept that, then I’ll leave the congregation.”
“Bishop Wilson will never forgive you, you know.”
“It’s not for the bishop to forgive me. The only thing I need to worry about is God’s forgiveness, and if He’s a merciful God like I believe He is, then all I can do is live my life and pray that in the afterlife He will forgive me for being who He made me.”
She looked dumbstruck. I’m sure she thought that I loved the church too much to ever consider straying from its teachings. After much soul-searching, though, I understood that I could leave the church if I was forced to, and I would still be all right.
“This is the only way I can do things, Alison. I refuse to live a lie anymore. I’m leaving for San Francisco tomorrow, and when I come back next weekend, I plan on announcing my truth at Sunday services.”
She jumped off the bed and gestured wildly as she yelled at me. “You can’t do that! You’re making a huge mistake! Please don’t make that announcement, Brent.”
“I’m going to do it, Alison. There’s no turning back now.” I stood up and headed for the door. “I’m going to sleep in the guestroom, and I’ll be gone in the morning.”
Alison called after me before I left. “So you call yourself a man?”
I didn’t reply, but I wasn’t really sure if I could.
38
James
“Daddy, Daddy, throw it to me!” my oldest son, James Jr., was yelling as I jogged with the football. His younger brother, Michael, was chasing behind me, grabbing at my knees to try to knock me over onto the grass and capture the ball. Marcus sat on a blanket near the edge of the yard, laughing and clapping as he watched us play.
This, to me, was pure heaven. All three of my boys were there with me, and everyone was happy…until Cathy stormed into the yard and grabbed the two oldest boys.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she screamed, holding them tight against her body. “I didn’t tell you that you could come over here and see the boys.”
Both boys looked at her in bewilderment. They were too young to understand what was wrong. Before she came, this had been a great day for all of us, a reunion after being separated for way too long. Now their mother was yelling like we’d been caught doing something criminal. My heart ached for them and the confusion I knew they must be experiencing.
“Cathy, we were just playing football,” I said. “I just wanted to see my boys.”
She took a few steps backward, pulling my sons farther away from me. “That’s too damn bad, James. You should have thought of your boys before you went and had another son with some other b—” She stopped herself before she cursed in front of the boys.
As she pulled them across the yard, James Jr. looked at me, then at Marcus, then back at me. Michael was still too young to understand what was happening, but I could see the wheels turning in my oldest son’s head. He was starting to understand what his mother had accused me of, and he didn’t look too happy now. I cursed myself under my breath. I should have had the guts to tell them myself that Marcus was their little brother. I should have been a man about it. Now, James Jr. had heard the news during his
mother’s outburst, so Marcus, even if they grew to accept him as a brother, would always be a reminder of Cathy’s pain at this moment.
I wanted to chase after Cathy and pull the boys out of her grasp. I wanted to sit down with them and find a way to explain this whole thing. It was important that they knew that I never meant to hurt their mother, and that I still wanted us to be a family. But my legs wouldn’t let me move. It was as if the grass had grown in a tangle around my ankles and was holding me in place as I watched my sons disappear.
I felt Marcus poking me now. “Daddy?” he said quietly. I was still frozen, and I couldn’t even open my mouth to answer him. He just kept poking my ribs and calling my name until finally, my eyes popped open and I realized where I was.
I was in the guest bedroom in my mother’s house, where I’d been for over a month now. She’d finally let me move off the couch when she came to terms with the idea that it would be an extended stay. Of course, she was still dropping hints and making suggestions every day about how I should go about getting my family back, but it was nothing I hadn’t been thinking about myself.
Every night I would have dreams about going to see Cathy to work out a solution, but this was the first time my sons were there too. The image of their faces was still fresh in my mind, and I had to wipe away a single tear before I turned to look at Marcus, who’d been sleeping next to me.
“Hey, Marcus,” I said, trying to sound much more cheerful than I felt. “How are you, little man?”
He asked the same question I heard every morning as soon as we woke up: “Daddy, can I go see my Mommy today?”
And every morning, I had to give him the same answer. I had concocted a story about how his mother just went on a little vacation. She would call us whenever she came back, I promised, and then we could go see her together.