by Laura Stone
Adam had an urge to taste everything, to explore everywhere, to memorize every hitch in Brandon’s breath and the way his skin tasted and smelled and the silky texture of Brandon’s skin stretched hot and petal soft in places. He didn’t know where this newfound daring had come from. He only knew that he wanted to hear Brandon make that noise again, the noise that said Adam did something that Brandon really liked. That was a good sound.
He smiled, pressed a gentle kiss to Brandon’s belly and his eyes closed in bliss at the sensation of Brandon’s hands in his hair holding him just where he wanted to be.
* * *
They weren’t much for proselytizing the next few days. They slept in, entangled in their sheets and each other, hitting the “snooze” button on the alarm clock well after the required wake-up. They didn’t forget to call in at the appointed time, though. That would have brought trouble down on them, and they still believed they only had a short time before transfers were announced the next Sunday.
Sometimes they came at each other shyly, touching and exploring each other’s bodies with reverence; other times they were like animals, biting and grabbing, shoving the other against the wall in desperation to be together, to touch and rut their bodies against one another until they climaxed, shaking, sated. Adam, on occasion, would feel pangs of guilt for giving into temptation so easily, but each night they would kneel side by side, like a real couple, an eternal couple, and say their prayers together before climbing into their modified bed, and his life was everything he’d wanted but never believed he could have.
While doing what they were supposed to be doing and proselytizing in one of the city’s plazas, they ran into Sorensen and May. The two had partnered up now that LaSalle had finished serving and gone home. Sorensen taught Adam a new handshake, blocking what they were doing from Elder May.
“No way, Greenie. You have to be in the trenches for at least four months before you learn this one.”
Adam laughed and asked May, “So! How is it living with this guy?”
May blushed and shrugged. “Eh. He’s all right, I guess.”
Sorensen threw his hands up in the air. “I am sorry about the bathroom. Jeez.”
May mumbled, “I’m just saying, lock the door.”
“Dude. You saw me go in with a magazine. Universal freaking sign for ‘Gonna be a while.’”
“Well, I didn’t know! I wasn’t paying attention. Just, for frick’s sake, light a match next time.”
Christensen, his face somber, said, “This is what comes of home-cooked meals drying up. Digestive nightmares. Wait, did they dry up?”
It was Sorensen’s turn to blush. “Brother and Sister Moreno love me, okay? They’re worried about me losing LaSalle, and they happen to show concern through multiple courses of really delicious food.”
“That’s not all they love,” May mumbled.
“What?” Adam asked.
“Nothing, don’t listen to him. He doesn’t like anything with spices or flavor. He’s a mayonnaise kind of dude.” Sorensen fake punched Christensen’s chest a few times. “Hey, so how goes it out here today, B? Any luck? We’ve had doors slammed left and right.”
“Sewing those seeds,” Adam and Brandon said in tandem, then laughed at each other.
“See, this is what we need to strive for, May,” Sorensen said. “If I’m going to extend, we better end up like the dynamic duo over here, or I’m going to blame you.”
May chewed the inside of his cheek, not saying anything.
“Ah, ignore him,” Sorensen said. “He’s just mad he didn’t get a rebreather in his last care package.”
“Gross, Elder,” Brandon said. Adam watched May out of the corner of his eye as Brandon and Sorensen caught up on district news, noting how May looked angry about something, something that probably wasn’t just being forced into smelling the commode after his mission companion stunk it up. Come to think of it, there was something off with Sorensen, too. He seemed… diminished. Adam suspected it was from missing LaSalle. They’d been well-paired, too.
Sorensen and May waved goodbye and moved off; their body language was stiff and uncomfortable. Brandon sighed and hung his arm around Adam’s shoulder, pulled him close and caused Adam to forget anything that wasn’t directly related to how he felt with Brandon at his side.
“I’m glad we never fought like that.”
Adam looked over in surprise. “I can’t imagine us ever fighting, can you?” He took a chance, glancing around to see if anyone was watching them. On the contrary, people seemed to be avoid looking at them. Adam whispered, “I can imagine other things I could do with you, though.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Adam’s face spread in a wide grin.
Brandon made a big show of checking his watch. “Will you look at the time? We should probably head back.”
“Yeah, let’s head home.”
Home. Their little apartment certainly had begun to feel like a home. All his life he’d been taught that finding an eternal companion to love, honor and cherish, a partner to worship with, was one of the most important things he must do on this earth. It was essential to enter the highest kingdom of heaven, after all. The fact that the companion he had chosen was the same sex was irrelevant for the time being. For the first time in his life, Adam Young felt complete, a real person with real feelings, not an automaton going through the motions. As the Mormon hymn went, “his spirit, like a fire, was burning.”
They attended the Sunday service as usual, choosing to sit in the back corner together instead of finding a family that needed an extra set of hands to help control the kids. Part of Adam simmered with shame and guilt in the familiar setting, hearing the songs from his childhood, going through all the rituals of sacrament and prayer that reminded him of growing up in his father’s house, all while sitting next to Brandon and knowing what they had done to each other only hours before.
But another part of him looked at the congregation and saw the Spanish families cooing over their spouses, giving each other little kisses, smoothing hair off of sweaty foreheads, the husbands putting their arms on the bench behind their spouses and their fingers tracing over the delicate, softly-rounded shoulders of their wives. He saw the approval of that love and yearned to feel the same acceptance, though he understood that it was an impossibility in the modern LDS Church.
At least he could allow himself to feel what they must feel, if only privately. He shifted in the pew so that his shoulder was flush against Brandon’s and imagined how it would be to have Brandon’s arm around him or his arm around Brandon, to pull him close, to kiss the side of his head just for the joy of being allowed to do it because he was moved by the spirit and full of love.
The congregation stood for a benedictory song. Adam knew the song inside and out, and began singing in his deep baritone without paying much attention to the words. He listened instead to how Brandon’s clear tenor blended with his own deeper voice—how well they meshed. As the last verse of the song began, Adam began to pay attention to the words.
“All the hopes that sweetly start, from the fountain of the heart, all the bliss that ever comes to our earthly human homes, all the voices from above sweetly whisper: God is Love.”
His voice cracked on the last low note, and he sat down quickly, fumbling in his bag to hide the emotions he couldn’t hold back. All the hopes. All the bliss that ever comes. There was no parsing that word, all. So why couldn’t… He huffed out a frustrated sigh and choked back a lump in his throat.
Brandon bumped his knee with his own. “Hey. You okay?”
Adam flipped the pages of his quadruple scripture set and nodded briskly. “Yeah. Just—” He flashed a smile he knew was wobbling on the corners and said, “We’ll talk later, promise.”
Brandon, his face all concern, nodded. He looked around the room before he looped his index finger around Adam’s pi
nkie and tugged it. “Okay.”
The Mission President approached them after Sacrament service. “Transfers are happening tomorrow, but you both know that, right?”
Adam’s heart seemed to join the sour lump in his throat. He tried to swallow past it as he nodded.
“You two aren’t going anywhere, just bringing in a new companion for Elder May,” their Mission President said. “No reason to shake things up too much, especially since I’m going back stateside. Boy, doesn’t that make my wife unbelievably happy!”
They looked up at him in shock. New companion for May? What about Sorensen? And President Jensen was going home?
“Young, you haven’t heard anything about this?” The President looked at Adam with surprise. “I thought your dad would have told you. Gosh, I guess he really is a stickler for that rule about not distracting your child on a mission, eh?”
Adam forced a laugh. “Yeah, that’s my dad. A stickler.” He swallowed and asked, “What, uh, what does this have to do with my dad?”
“He’s the new Mission President! He and your mother moved in Friday, just two days ago. You’re saying they didn’t tell you?” he asked, head tilted and eyebrows close together in apparent disbelief. “Huh. You know that he knows a bunch of the General Authorities, and, since you were the last bird to leave the nest, they thought it would be a nice treat for your mother and an honor for your dad.”
Adam was dimly aware that the man was still talking, but it sounded tinny and far away. A roar filled his ears. His face was hot, his hands were like ice, and the weight of Brandon’s hand on his shoulder seemed enough to crush his bones to dust.
Chapter Eight
“If the investigators have not yet committed themselves […] these commitments must be among your major objectives. […] Identify anything that might be holding [them] back. Make plans for helping them overcome any obstacles.” ~ (Instructions to Missionaries)
Adam didn’t remember their bike ride home from church. His mind swirled with terrifying thoughts of his father’s angry face, his mother’s disappointment and an almost overwhelming sense of shame. He suddenly snapped to attention when Brandon gave his shoulder a small shake in front of their apartment building.
“Adam! Hey, it’s going to be okay.”
Adam’s head gave an infinitesimal shake; Brandon, appearing confused, pressed further, guiding Adam through their front door. “What? What’s got you like this? We’ll handle it.”
“No. It’s not going to be okay. He’s going to know.” Adam buried his face in his hands and moaned. “He’s going to kill me.”
Brandon laughed at that and started rummaging through the cabinets, getting started on dinner. “He’s not going to kill you, Adam, what on earth? And, my gosh, he’s not going to know anything. Also, you don’t have to say anything. I certainly won’t be volunteering information. You can count on that. I mean, when we’re home, we can talk about how we want to handle it…”
His voice drifted off as Adam laid his cheek on the Formica table, the coolness of which soothed the heat in his face, and watched as Brandon pulled out noodles and a condensed soup can. Brandon, coming from a tight-knit and loving family where his parents apparently accepted everyone, didn’t understand; Adam had heard his father say he’d kill “any son of mine who turned queer” in a priesthood meeting after the Church made its official statement about children of gays and lesbians being denied the blessings and promises of the Church, of baptism. He remembered his father’s smug satisfaction when the Church doubled down on their LGBT stance in November of 2015, saying children of gay and lesbian couples would be denied baptism and the blessings of the Priesthood until they turned eighteen and denounced their parents, rejecting them as family in the eternities.
He knew just how his father would react.
“You don’t get it, Brandon. He’ll know. Oh, my gosh… What have I done? I did this to you, too.”
Brandon dropped the can opener, grabbed the back of a chair and spun it around to sit next to him. “Hey. Hey.”
Adam looked up, sure his face was a perfect picture of the complete misery and fear threatening to swallow him whole.
“Don’t think I’m not scared, too, all right?” Brandon said, his hand on Adam’s forearm.
Adam dropped his chin on Brandon’s hand. “It doesn’t seem like you are, though.”
“Dude. I know what’s at stake here. Forget that it’s highly likely that I’ll be excommunicated, with my whole family shamed by me being sent home early. Do you think I want everyone back home to know I’m being sent back dishonorably for… fornicating?“
Adam laughed wryly at the archaic word the Church used.
Brandon sighed. He had a sad smile on his face as he said, “And we haven’t even done that, yet. Just the lead up. Not that they would see it differently, but still.”
Adam’s heartbeat sped up at the casual use of “yet,“ which didn’t help matters. The last thing he needed to think of right now was that one extra act they’d both been too shy to try. He certainly didn’t need to imagine Brandon, naked, smashed up against the kitchen counter, with the muscles in his back and shoulders rippling under his smooth, tanned skin, or the hitches in Brandon’s breathing when Adam gripped his backside with both hands, kneading the thick muscle there…
He didn’t need to think of that at all, not when his father might show up at any moment with all the authority of the Church behind him, ready and willing to destroy all of the happiness he and Brandon had created for themselves in their few months together.
That sobered him up.
“Besides,” Brandon said, standing up and crossing to the kitchen, so his back was to Adam. “I don’t want anyone to think of what we’re doing, because it’s for us. It about us. It’s our business, ours and God’s. It’s not… I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. Something.”
Adam looked on as Brandon opened cans and mixed ingredients. Brandon shoved the dish into the oven, set the timer—a goofy rooster whose head spun around that had been a surprise in a care package from one of Brandon’s sisters—and sat next to Adam.
Adam took Brandon’s hand, linking their fingers. He found it oddly comforting and ironic that their CTR rings—“Choose the Right,” the acronym serving as a reminder to follow God’s laws—lined up side by side. “So… what do we do?”
Brandon leaned back in his chair and hooked Adam’s ankle with his own. “I don’t know. I don’t want to change anything, you know? I like this, how we are.”
Adam’s heartbeat slowed; calm was trying to win out. Brandon did that for him. “Yeah, I do, too. And, well, me, neither. I don’t want to change anything. But I don’t know how to hide how I—”
He cut himself off, his face flushing, and pushed away from the table to create a little distance.
Brandon stayed in his seat, looking at his empty hand. “What were you going to say?”
Adam paced back and forth, rubbing his hands through his hair. His body thrummed with nerves. “It doesn’t matter. Never mind. Let’s just focus—”
“It does matter. What were you going to say, Adam?” Brandon stood then and turned to look at him with a half-smile. “What was it?” Quietly, Brandon asked, “Please.”
Adam couldn’t look away, even though he wanted to; he’d never said anything like this to another person. He knew his face must be beet red; his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “I don’t know how to hide how I feel.”
Holding perfectly still, Brandon barely breathed out, “Feel about what?”
Adam thoughts twisted, trapped between the overwhelming need for Brandon and the fear of eternal damnation that his father and the Church had planted in him. He forced himself to look into Brandon’s eyes. Brandon was being brave about this. Adam could, too. He could see in Brandon’s face something similar to the need and fear coursing through Adam, and that helped. He took a
deep breath and started unraveling the oppressive knots of fear that had been tangled up inside him for years.
“How much I feel for you. I think that people look at us and they know.”
Brandon somehow was closer to him now still with that half-smile, half-afraid look. “What will they know about us, Adam?”
“That we… We’re…”
Brandon was moving toward him, backing Adam against the wall. Brandon reached out with one finger and drew it along the edge of Adam’s missionary name tag. Adam couldn’t breathe; all he could focus on was the heavy weight in his gut, the lightness in his chest where his lungs struggled to draw breath, and Brandon’s long, dark lashes framing his intense gaze.
“That we love each other.”
Brandon’s breath came out in a long sigh. He pulled Adam into a tight embrace, murmuring against his ear, “If you weren’t going to say it, I thought I’d have to deck you.”
A laugh that bordered on an hysterical cry burst from Adam; that heaviness in his gut melted away with every sweep of Brandon’s hands along his back.
“Oh, come on, Elder,” Adam said, pleased with how steady his voice sounded. His arms tightened around Brandon’s torso. “You know I could totally take you in a fight.”
They rocked gently from side to side, laughing softly. The timer went off; Brandon pulled away and held Adam’s face. His smile was blinding. With a small sound of pleasure, he kissed Adam softly and turned to finish dinner. Adam set the table, the both of them moving through the small space with ease and comfort. He settled at the table and watched Brandon make a “Missionary Salad”—iceberg lettuce and cheap, bottled dressing from the “American Foods” shelf at the local market. The scene was so oddly domestic and felt so right.
It felt right because it was. It was right and it was good, this life they had here and especially how they felt about each other.
Brandon sat across from him, grinning. “And how was your day, sweetheart?”