by Laura Stone
Adam understood that it should seem like brothers between them in their apartment; it should seem familiar and familial when they would kneel together in their living room, their knees and thighs almost touching as they prayed together morning and night. It didn’t. It seemed like something bigger, something that stuck in Adam’s throat, that threatened to choke him with how much he didn’t want to feel any of it because of how desperate it left him, how much more he wanted, especially when every night before turning off the lights, Christensen would put his hand on Adam’s forearm, warm and sure and intimate, and say softly, “Goodnight.”
Christensen was only being his typical, demonstrative self. He was everybody’s friend, even though it seemed like something different to Adam, something private and just for him. Or maybe he simply wanted it to be more?
This whole mission was becoming an experience much larger than converting people, an experience that had the very real potential to swallow him whole. Under the euphoria from building what was swiftly becoming the most significant friendship of his life coupled with having the mental space to learn what he actually believed, was a mounting terror about something he had never, not once, allowed himself to explore. What scared him was that, with every passing day in Christensen’s company, free to become himself for the first time, he began to notice the cracks in his own armor—armor meant to protect him from unknown and sinister forces in the world.
The hints of what may lie deep within himself terrified him. The thoughts he’d carefully kept locked away, thoughts he never entertained except in frustrating dreams that left him cold and horror-stricken upon waking; those thoughts could lead to his eternal damnation.
“The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” the Church’s official stance on who men were to be and what was expected of them, made it clear: Adam would marry a woman in the temple. He would have children with her. And he would touch no other person with love nor lust than this mystery woman. He wanted to hit something when he thought about it. He wanted to cry, thinking about forcing a woman into becoming his wife for time and all eternity, when he didn’t want her. He imagined her becoming as bitter and sullen as his own mother.
While Christensen took his shower, he stared at the wall and envisioned making a fist and punching its pure whiteness, cracking and splitting it open to reveal the structure underneath. He imagined himself in the armor of the ancient warriors of the Book of Mormon, the brass chest plates and red capes hanging from their shoulders, their feet and ankles wrapped in sandals, powerful with their swords in hand, and saw the armor crack open, fall away, leave him vulnerable and unhidden—and unashamed of who he really was.
He wanted it to do just that. Wanted his companion—the man by his side in every sense of the word on this spiritual journey of his—to be the person who finally cracked him wide open and helped him discover himself, the real him. He trusted Christensen, trusted him with the secret places in his heart he’d never shared with anyone, with his doubts, his hopes, his fervent wishes.
Adam would be lying to himself, however, if he didn’t acknowledge how afraid it made him, this need to connect with his mission companion in ways he didn’t fully understand.
As he listened to Christensen settling into his bed one night, the thoughts that he’d never let himself look at head-on were growing more and more persistent. He was desperate for Christensen to look at him in a new way, to somehow communicate that his affection for Adam was more than it was for Gardener and LaSalle, even more than his obvious deep friendship with Sorensen. Adam wanted more. These thoughts kept him up late that night, long after he should have fallen asleep.
And that was how he learned about Christensen’s penchant for touching himself. He probably thought Adam would be sound asleep since Adam would lay so quietly in bed. Adam knew guys did that; they didn’t all have strict fathers like Adam’s. He just never in a million years expected a guy to do that in the same room with him, and he never thought it would happen while serving the Lord on a mission.
“Chastity is sexual purity,” his father and various Church leaders had stated time and again.
“We have been commanded by our Heavenly Father to obey the Law of Chastity. The law,” his father had emphasized. “Not suggestion, not a do-you-think-you-can. We have been commanded to obey a law. And if you sully yourself both in body and spirit with sexual transgressions like masturbation, you close the door on letting the Holy Spirit enter you and guide you in your life. You are sinning, and Heavenly Father cannot dwell within a house of sin.”
The first time it happened, Christensen doing… that, Adam lay perfectly still with this eyes screwed shut and his mind replaying hymns to block out any sounds. He was certain that he was complicit in the act, because he was supposed to report that sort of thing to their Mission President. It was a rule. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. He struggled between seeing his companion as the guy whom the Mission President praised as one of their best—knowing how good a man Christensen was from being constantly by his side—and seeing him as a sinner who abused himself almost nightly. Adam had to think of it as a sin, because it had been pounded into him that a man did not do that. It was self-abuse. It was a waste and an affront to God.
At the ten-week mark, Adam had a meeting with the Mission President. Christensen was in the kitchen being fattened up by the President’s wife, Sister Jensen, while the President interviewed Adam in his study.
President Jensen shut the door and motioned for Adam to sit. “Good to see you, Elder Young! How are you getting along, son?”
“Fine?”
“You don’t sound too sure of that.” President Jensen laughed. “Don’t be nervous. This is just a formality. You know how it goes, dotting the i’s, crossing the t’s. That is,” he said, sobering quickly and leaning forward, “unless you have something you need to get off your chest?”
Adam could do it. He could tell the President about Christensen’s nightly activities. He was supposed to. He flashed back to an incident that happened when he was about thirteen. The family had just finished dinner, and, instead of Adam being left to gather up the dishes for his mother, Gerald had instead grabbed him by the upper arm and led him out of the room.
“Come with me, son.”
Adam had instantly become nervous, but he wasn’t sure why. His father marched them to Adam’s room, then used Adam’s arm to shove him onto the mattress. He pulled something from his back pocket.
“I think you need to spend a little extra time with your personal scripture studies tonight, and this should tell you what to focus on.”
He handed Adam a beige pamphlet with what looked like a pencil drawing of a young man, titled “For Young Men Only.” Adam’s hands began to shake. How did his dad… How did he know what Adam had done last night? Everyone had been asleep. He’d checked.
“If a person doesn’t know something is a sin,” his father said, in a tone that meant he didn’t include Adam as unaware of what constituted a sin, “then they can only be held accountable if they do it again, once they learn how grievous that thing actually is.”
Adam nodded.
“Your Heavenly Father is watching you. His angels are always watching you. Do you doubt He loves you?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you’re telling me that you, you what? You do that… that knowing He’s watching you?”
Adam felt trapped, frozen by the look on his father’s face, by the calm tones that Adam knew meant Gerald was exercising extreme control. “No, sir?”
“No, sir? You don’t know?”
“No! No, sir,” Adam answered in a more sure tone, his face aflame with mortification.
“What are you, some kind of pervert, then?”
“No!”
His father looked at him, and shook his head with mild disgust. “You get some damn control. If that… happens while you’re asleep, then that’s on
e thing. You don’t go turning on that factory, you got it? Cleaning only.”
“Yes, sir.”
His father stood and walked to the door. “You remember: God is watching you. His angels are always watching you, recording your trespasses. You do what’s right, and there won’t be any problems.”
Adam didn’t think touching himself would ever be a problem again after that embarrassing encounter when Gerald had given a shaking, terrified thirteen-year-old the Church’s infamous “masturbation” pamphlet. He’d had no idea how his father had known Adam had given into the impulse the night before. It had been the first and last time he’d ever touched himself, with the exception of cleaning. Any time he started to think about maybe giving in and doing it, he had the horrifying notion that his father would be watching, not just that God would be watching.
He’d been raised to believe, as all Mormons had, that angels kept a “book of life” about their sins and accomplishments, something to aid Christ in determining one’s worthiness to enter the kingdoms of heaven. He imagined everyone he’d ever known listening to an angel reading out loud for all to hear that he’d abused himself, had broken the law of chastity. Eventually, he felt sick to his stomach if the thought of doing it entered his head, which happened often, since he was a healthy young man.
There in his quiet mission apartment, his breath had caught the very first time he heard movement from the other bed. At first he worried that his companion had gotten sick. Christensen’s back was to him and he was ever so gently rocking, making quiet, but desperate, gasps. Before Adam made up his mind to check to see if he was okay, Christensen moaned softly. His back spasmed, then Christensen went still. When he turned to grab a tissue from his bedside table, Adam feigned sleep once again as his heart raced.
“Well? Elder?” President Jensen’s face was full of concern. “I assure you that anything you tell me is confidential. If one of the other guys has—”
“Oh! No, sorry. It’s just been a long day,” Adam said, forcing his face into calm neutrality. “Lots of walking. We met up with Señor Duarte today.”
“Did you? Any luck there?”
“No, he’s still very Catholic,” Adam chuckled. He diverted the conversation from anything uncomfortable and talked about some of the service projects they’d proposed to the local branch to involve more of the community.
When it was Christensen’s turn to talk privately, he clapped a hand on Adam’s chest and winked as he passed into the office.
“Brandon, did you hear who made the Final Four?” President Jensen asked, smiling briefly at Adam before shutting the door.
No. Adam wasn’t going to rat out his companion. He’d understood that his dad was a little more strict than other guys’ fathers, but he’d always chalked it up to Gerald Young being a military man as well as a high-ranking leader in the Church. Gerald had always told the Young family that, because of their heritage, people expected them to be worthy of it. And that they would be.
Sister Jensen took a phone call, leaving him to his thoughts (as well as a huge dish of paella). He spilled a little on his chest and, as he wiped it off, recalled the sensation of Christensen’s hand there moments before. And unbidden, he imagined Christensen’s strong hand down… there on himself. Adam could recall being thirteen with perfect clarity, could feel again the visceral shock at watching his fist work over his own body in that new and intimate way, and as suddenly as that image was conjured, he pictured Christensen’s hand there instead of his own.
He almost knocked the bowl of paella to the floor, he shook so badly.
The shame and guilt he’d been infected with from adolescence came flooding back from just thinking about masturbation. And worse, he was thinking about it while on his mission. In his Mission President’s home just after being interviewed for personal worthiness. Every Mormon was taught that thinking about something was the same as doing it, so did that mean he had done it to himself, too? Or… or to his companion because Christensen had been the one touching Adam in his thoughts?
He fell silent for the rest of the evening, ignoring the looks Christensen kept shooting his way.
“Still Waters?” Christensen asked.
“Running deep is all,” Adam said with a weary sort of grin.
“You want to talk about anything?”
Adam sighed, running a hand over his face. “Nah, it’s okay.”
“Are you sure?” Christensen asked. “Do… do you want to talk to someone else?”
Adam couldn’t stand the look of worry on his companion’s face. This wasn’t his fault, after all. It was Adam’s. He knocked the side of his fist into Christensen’s strong shoulder and said, “Nah. Just worn out.”
The stiff line of Christensen’s shoulders relaxed at that. “If you’re sure. I’m here for you, man.”
“Yeah.” Adam said. “I know. Thanks.”
He spent extra time that night with his own personal prayers and scripture study, trying to replace the memory of the enticing sound of Christensen’s choked off gasps with the voice of God.
Chapter Five
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” John 13:4
“Cut your hair regularly. Keep your hair clean and neatly combed at all times in the approved style.” LDS mission rules 7 and 8
After a few months, the two settled into a routine. They had no success in making appointments to teach in people’s homes, but they were meeting a lot of people in the city. Señor Duarte enjoyed meeting them in the park for chess, mostly as a way to chivvy them for their lack of education on Catholicism.
“You come to a Catholic country and can’t even tell me who the Pope is!” he chided them, shaking his head in disgust as he knocked bird droppings from the park’s chess table before setting up the game pieces he’d brought.
“Can you tell me who the Mormon prophet is?” Christensen grinned as he lined up his black pawns, moving one to counter Duarte’s opening pawn move.
Señor Duarte scoffed, waved his hand dismissively and moved his bishop.
“Did you get your medicine this week?” Christensen asked as he shifted a pawn two spaces.
Right. Iñigo had mentioned something about that when they’d met him two weeks ago. Adam was astounded once again at the care Christensen paid to everyone they met.
“Oh, sí, sí,” the old man replied, clearly pleased by the attention—either that, or by the ease in which he scooped up Christensen’s pieces.
“Is it helping your knee?” Adam asked as he elbowed Christensen and pointed at one of his rooks.
“That is cheating!” Duarte said. “Don’t help him. And he can’t move that piece, anyway. Hopeless, the both of you.” He settled back in the folding chair, arranging his cane between his bandy legs.
They stayed for three more games. Some of Duarte’s friends joined them to laugh at the boys’ dismal chess playing and to discuss the merits of the Catholic faith versus Mormonism. Adam glanced at his companion as the older men laughed at some of the tenets of the LDS Church, but he didn’t argue.
“Why aren’t handsome boys like you taking out girls?” asked one of the men Adam knew only as Hugo.
Another, Señor Vidal, a clever-eyed but stooped older man, sighed at Adam, “Ah, if I was built like you, every father would hate me.”
“Why is that?” Adam asked.
“Because of what he would be doing with their daughters!” Hugo said, shouting with laughter. The other men joined in. Christensen, Adam noticed, did not.
“Ah, but you are both men of God,” Duarte said, “and are maybe not so interested in that sort of thing?”
“Shame,” Señor Vidal said, shaking his head. “If only I had hair like yours,” he added, patting a worn hand onto Christensen’s forearm. “My wife once told me that she didn’t mind my eye
sight going or my back stooping, but she did regret the hair loss.” He tugged off his cap and grinned toothily as his bald and liver-spotted head was exposed.
Christensen did have a good head of hair, Adam thought. Thick and shiny and beginning to curl over his ears. Adam thought it was just long enough to wrap around the tip of his finger. Christensen glanced over, caught Adam’s gaze on him and tried to comb the sides back. Adam flushed at being caught staring and worried about what his companion must think of him.
“Are your uncles bald?” Hugo asked.
“Oh. Uh, one of them is,” Christensen answered.
“If it’s your mother’s brother, then you’ll go bald, too. That’s how it goes, you know,” Señor Vidal added. “Find a wife with a bald father. She might not mind you losing your hair so much, then.”
“I’m not… That’s not a worry,” Christensen added, sounding flustered for the first time since Adam met him.
Señor Duarte chided his cackling friends. “Now, now, these are good boys who made a promise not to get into trouble with girls. They’re servants of God, even if their God isn’t quite like ours.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that…” Christensen said, trying to steer the conversation back under control.
“Well, I do,” said Hugo, a little snappish with his tone. “I know you mean well and that your heart is in the right place, but come, now. You are boys, the both of you. Here, move aside and let me show you how to challenge that opening that Iñigo keeps using to trap you.”
Since not one of the men was interested in listening to a proper lesson from their missionary manual, they made their exit. The older men were gracious, but firm. They did not want to hear about the Mormon Church. Adam was frustrated and had no problem saying as much as they left the park and walked aimlessly down a narrow street.
“We’re not getting anywhere.”
Christensen clapped a hand to Young’s shoulder and gave him a firm squeeze; his hand lingered. “We’re setting an example, Elder. We’re showing them we’re not pushy, that we respect their rights. Spaniards respect each other’s boundaries and get offended when not offered the same courtesy. They’re not afraid to tell you to shove off, either. They’ll respect us for not pushing. Maybe that will come to something. Sowing seeds, man.”