Sinner's Prayer

by Seth King

  “Adam, you are so beautiful. Please come here.”

  I don’t know what else to do, so I walk over. His hands fall on my belt and start undoing it. My body surges with need and guilt and desire, but I can’t stop him. I don’t want to stop him. And I have a plate of chicken casserole in my hands.

  “Oh, Fabian, I have something on the stove, and – oh.”

  Just like that, with one hand stroking himself, he pulls my penis out of my pants with his other hand and devours it. I feel myself go hard inside his throat, which is the single sexiest sensation I have ever experienced. I’ve never been fully inside someone’s mouth before – ever. I’ve messed around with some girls, sure, but I never got this far – I never forgot my Sunday School teacher Miss Debbie telling us that oral sex was just as ungodly as any other kind of sex. So I never went that far with a woman – and ironically here I am, blazing past all stop signs, with a man. Go figure.

  The blowjob makes me moan immediately – it feels like it’s being rolled around inside the warmest ocean in the world. I spot a cross pendant atop my dresser and wish in passing that I’d put it away when I’d had the chance. Why was I always setting myself up for these little moments of guilt? Seems like the Catholic gene never truly left me, even if I left the church…

  “You like it, baby?”

  “Oh my God, yes…”

  I moan so loud I am sure they can hear it in the living room, if they’re listening. This makes me roar back into my head, and I push him back a little and try to regain my wits. “Fab, that was…that was amazing, but hold on. You should wait for your dessert. I’ll be back.”

  “But…”

  “But waiting will make it better. Just hold on.”

  Red-faced, I adjust my pants to hide my boner and head back into the meeting like nothing ever happened. My heart is beating a million miles a minute, and I’m sure I look a total mess. But all I want is to head back into that room and explore him again already, have fun with his body, see what he’s got to offer…

  They’re going over budgetary details now, and I sit and try to act normal as my pulse races. But truth be told, that was the best thing I’d ever felt. The softness of his mouth coupled with the coarseness of his light stubble was just…too much, really. And I want it. I want it again.

  I try to contribute, but I can’t really form many words. I just sit there, praying for everything to end soon. When ten minutes I hear a sound coming from my bedroom and realize I need to check in with him one last time before the meeting adjourns, or else I could have a naked man walking into my church group. So I excuse myself again, claiming an upset stomach, then stop by the refrigerator and grab a Popsicle and a glass of water. Then I head into the bedroom one more time – and he’s sitting on the floor, in front of the door.

  “Where were you?”

  I just stare at him.

  “I can’t wait anymore. I need it now.”

  “What?”

  “Your cum. So give it to me.”

  He lunges forward and unwraps me from my pants, this time with both hands. Then he takes the Popsicle and starts dancing it around the tip of my penis, and, wow – the cold sensation sends my nerves tingling into heaven.

  “Oh, Fab…”

  I grab his hair and pull a little as he plays with me. I’ve never felt anything like this. He tosses the Popsicle into the trash and starts sucking harder and deeper, and I’ve never been handled like this in my life. His mouth is so sweet, so wet, so…deep. And the fact that he’s aroused by me just turns me on even more. I lean back and stare unseeingly at the ceiling. If I could make this moment last forever, I would. I can’t believe what I was missing out on, I simply can’t believe it. Cathedrals, frescoes, choirs – none of that has ever made me feel the majesty provided by this moment.

  “What the hell?” he asks, and I look down and see I’ve dripped some water on his head.

  “Oh, sorry – I lost myself for a little, there.”

  “You just baptized me,” he smirks. “While I sucked your dick.”

  “Please stop talking, or else we’ll really go to hell. Just suck me instead.”

  He dives forward again, bringing me right back to the precipice. “Ahhh,” I gasp, and then I finish in one of the loudest orgasms I’ve ever had in my life.

  I poke my head out one last time, abandon all dignity and claim I’m having diarrhea, and then retreat into my room and lock the door. I can’t believe I pulled that off – they’ll get bored and let themselves out, and I’ll just text them in the morning and apologize and tell them how much better I feel. And I do feel better – I just got my first blowjob from Fabian Blanco. They don’t need the rest of the details.

  But not so fast. When we’re cleaning up and cooling off, the room is suddenly filled with light. The headlights of one of their cars flash through the window, then disappear. He walks forward and peers out as two more cars leave. My blood is pumping as he turns back to me. “Wait – who’s leaving? Who’s driving away? What’s going on?”

  For a moment my mind races with excuses. Then I just drop my shoulders. I can’t lie to him. Not after all the other lies. I’ve already sinned more than enough tonight. “My church group.”

  “What?”

  I look away. “We kind of had a meeting today. Just now. That’s why…that’s why I didn’t want you out there. They were there.”

  I keep my eyes away, but I can sense his shame, his embarrassment – it’s radiating off him. I want to step forward and hold him, but I can’t. I don’t know how yet. We haven’t yet reached that part of things; we’re not yet that familiar.

  So I clear my throat. “Listen. Fabian. Please. This is happening so quickly…”

  “No,” he says, starting to grab his stuff. “No. There is no excuse this time. You didn’t walk away from me, you hid me, lied about me.”

  “But…”

  “No. You could’ve asked me to leave or something. you didn’t have to hide me like some filthy secret. You’re afraid of every single little thing. Still. And you’re as tense as a statue when we’re in public. I notice things, you know.”

  “But-”

  He looks up and then stands straight as a cross. “You know what? No. You should’ve just told me you were ashamed of me. It would’ve saved me a lot of time.”

  That cuts me deeply. “Are you…are you really leaving?”

  For a moment I think I see sadness in his eyes. Then he turns and storms away. “Yes, I really am.”

  And then he is gone, and suddenly I am alone again, in so many more ways than one.

  This marks my second betrayal.

  Adam Venus

  The next day I try to busy myself, to convince myself he’s not on my mind, but he is. He is all of my energy, focused on one word: Fabian. Fabian. Fabian…

  In Theology that day I have less tolerance than ever for Professor Kinnan’s…well, his intolerance. Fabian is slowly changing me a little. One time Kinnan makes a throwaway comment about how Muslims and Jews are all essentially going to hell for not believing in Jesus, and another time he sees an Ariana Grande image in a slide about religion and terrorism and then refers to “the wicked social standards of our time.” I don’t get it. She’s wicked because she’s a female who chose to put on a miniskirt? When did I ever listen to any of this without furrowing my brow?

  I assume Fabian is coming over that night, because I’m beginning to see his presence as a foregone conclusion – I just want to be around him all the time for some reason. But he doesn’t text, he doesn’t call. Then I remember that of course he isn’t coming over – I disrespected him. So I call him, and he doesn’t answer. In fact, he presses ignore.

  I try to get to sleep, but it eludes me. That night I revert back to that one terrible recurring dream, the one where the demon is coming for me. And when I wake up I know I can’t run from this anymore. I need to talk to someone religious about this, someone like me. If I talk to anyone at school, I know they’d gossip immediat
ely. So that leaves me with one main option: Our Immaculate Lady, the Catholic church down the street.

  Many Baptists loathe or even fear Catholics; I just think they’re Christians with fancier rules. Actually, I’m kind of obsessed with the ritual and the tradition, hence my artifact collection. I’ve been in their chapel a few times just to look around, and after I Google their visiting hours with their priest, I slip in and look around. It smells like stone and dust and wood, sort of like a funeral home, and the few ladies in the front pews all have hair whiter than snow. But there are wooden confession booths on the right side, and I approach and then shut myself inside once I know the other side is occupied.

  We go through the greeting rituals – I Googled this part, too – and then it’s time. Time for me to confess to a priest that I’ve been sleeping with a man. But my romantic urges have surpassed my will to serve my God in the way I know how, and this thing must be confronted. Confessed. Admitted.

  “So, something happened. I sinned.”

  “Really?” a gravelly voice asks. “That does tend to lead people here, after all. Care to tell me which variety of sin we’re dealing with here?”

  I try to relax. “Oh. Of course. Well…I like someone.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “And…I’m a guy.”

  “…Okay?”

  “And…so is he.”

  It’s like the air gets a little more tense immediately. I just sense it.

  “I see,” he says.

  “Yeah. And I need advice, because I’m waffling back and forth, and it’s not fair to him. Oh. And did I mention I’m…well, I’m going to be a pastor?”

  “You did not. This certainly seems like a predicament, here, doesn’t it?”

  “Predicament is my middle name.”

  “I can imagine, young man.”

  “But, listen…let me backtrack. I never knew I was…like this. God was always the number one thing in my life – He was the light, the noise, everything. I never even thought about dating at all. It just fell by the wayside. And then he showed up…”

  He doesn’t respond.

  “It still doesn’t make any sense. It was just kind of an ‘attraction at first sight’ thing, and I couldn’t fight it. Today he’s not only my best friend, but he’s…well, he’s kind of my love. And sometimes I can see myself falling straight into hell because of that love.”

  He inhales.

  “What do you think?”

  “Well. Personally, my views are…somewhat conservative on the issue.”

  I wait for the speech about the fire, the brimstone. It doesn’t come.

  “But it doesn’t have anything to do with me, now does it?” he asks instead. “I actually do see the biblical argument for the acceptance of gay people.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. They are just that – people. Everyone sins. Who in the world am I to judge? Someone once explained it to me this way. People are born with all kinds of flaws, all kinds of dark urges inside themselves. Humans were not born perfect. Only God is perfect. Why couldn’t homosexuality be seen as one of these defects, too?”

  I try to swallow this down, but I can’t. I know exactly what Fabian would say to this. “But that’s the thing – you’re still calling it a defect,” I begin carefully. “You’re still taking something I feel down to the bone, the affection I feel for another person, and calling it a defect. Don’t you see the problem there?”

  I think I hear him gasp, but I’m not sure. “I have never really…had it presented to me like that. Look, I’m usually the one doing the channeling in this setting.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Never.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Look. Life is all about your relationship with God. Your own. Nobody else’s. You decide. If you can look God in His eye, and also take the hand of a man at the same time, by all means, go forward. But you, personally, are going to have to decide how you feel inside about that.”

  “But you’re supposed to tell me how to feel!”

  “That’s like asking a map to transport you somewhere. The map doesn’t do the work. It only guides. The same is with matters of the heart.”

  “Well…thank you. I feel better…I think. You should watch Will & Grace. I just got into it. Maybe you can learn some things. I know I did. It’s OnDemand all the time.”

  “Uh, thank you, I’m sure I will,” he says in a way that really means, hell to the no, you strange kid, but thanks anyway.

  Out on the sidewalk, I imagine the line in the pavement is the line of my life. There is a line between who I am, and who I want to be. I am someone who doesn’t know how to love a man. I want to be someone who is able to be with Fabian in the proper way, in the way someone like him deserves.

  I am beginning to think those two things may be unbridgeable, because my soul is being torn apart at the seams, and something’s got to give soon.

  The next morning I turn around in the hall, and there he is. Fabian. He’s in an olive-green work jumpsuit, and it makes my hands all slick with insta-sweat. If I was a woman, I would probably lead him into a closet and demand his sex. But I’m not.

  My heart twitches, then my stomach drops.

  “Hi?” I say, and he looks away.

  “Hi.”

  I drift off to the corner and then find a private spot, by the water fountain in a totally deserted end of a causeway. Reluctantly he follows.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “No avoiding, no bull crap. What I did was cruel. I’ll never do it again. I’m a liar and a coward. I’m sorry.”

  He looks down at my shirt, then back up at me. Desire rolls through my body at his earthy scent. He rocks back on his feet. “Um. Wow. Okay. What brought that on?”

  “I just…I knew you deserved it. And without you, I’ve been…pretty low.”

  “Really?”

  “Fabian. Last night I didn’t sleep. At all. I did not fall asleep once.”

  He looks genuinely confused. “Why?”

  “Because of you starting to ignore me. I thought you…I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

  His eyes change. “Adam, that day will probably never come,” he says, and then he grabs my face and kisses me.

  Now, of course I have had a few kisses here and there. Not a kiss like this. All of those kisses felt like stale grilled cheese cooked without butter, but this is a buttery sandwich made with globs of pepper jack and some Tabasco, too. This is everything. This kiss just swiped away my entire past, undid twenty-two years of history. This is a kiss that rewrites the story of my life, a kiss that makes me feel new and clean.

  “Can we be best friends?” I ask out of nowhere.

  “What?”

  “I love hanging out with you. I really do. But I’m still…figuring some things out. And it’s really messing me up. These are convictions I’ve had my whole life, you know. Until I do, can we just hang out, without a label? And then figure it out more as we go along? Whatever this is, let’s do it. But it’ll have to start out as a ‘best friends’ type of situation at first, if that’s okay – but I want to try. I want this to work out. I want to explore it. Please?”

  Something is fighting in his eyes. “But…”

  “Fab, you still don’t get something. In my head, I still see flames sometimes – I was literally told that being gay was a death sentence. You still don’t get the extent of how deep this runs. Please just give me time.”

  He smiles, but in the back of my mind, red flags are flying. “You never even had to ask. Let’s do it.”

  “Really?”

  Finally the smile widens to something sparkling and real. “Yes. I couldn’t resist you even if I tried.”

  Fabian Blanco

  I pick Adam up the next day and drive him down to Jacksonville, a city fifty minutes to the south that actually has a gay part of town. He’s noticeably freer away from school, because nobody would know him. I know I should be mad at him for his flippancy,
but I can’t be. I knew from the moment I saw him in that hall that I would forgive him, actually. He is tortured right now, and I need to give him some room.

  Speaking of torture: he’s dressed in one of the outfits I got him, and his ass looks…well, I’ll just say it. It looks fuckable.

  We walk in and out of some boutiques and art galleries in Five Points, and I can tell he’s curious and a little stunned about all the different kinds of people walking around. I can’t imagine coming from as sheltered a past as him, but that’s why we’re here – to open his eyes.

  I’m also here because it’ll be a good place to plant some more kisses on his beautiful face, but that’s another story for another day.

  “Your life in five years,” I ask soon. “What do you see?”

  “Well…I used to know exactly what I wanted. Me, working as a pastor in some small little town somewhere.”

  “Why small?”

  “Those towns need the most help. Everyone wants to live in Charleston or Atlanta. I want to focus on the areas people are leaving.”

  “Why?”

  “To help! Anyway, I’d spend the week going to church events and writing my sermons. The weekends would be devoted to services.”

  “And now?”

  “Now…I don’t know. It’s like something has stepped in front of the sun.”

  “And yet you stay on the pastor track…”

  “I’ve spent years on this path. Getting off now would be huge. And don’t even talk to me about that. I don’t even know what you are. You creep around a school, working as a janitor even though you say you aren’t really a janitor. You have no past, you came from nowhere. You’re just…here. How can I ever trust that?”

  He leans back. “Okay. Do you want to know the truth?”

  “Do I?”

  “I guess we have no more avenues.” He glances down, sucks in his cheeks, then looks back at me. “I’m a military man. Well, I was for a few months, at least. I was one of the last people ever expelled from the military because of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

  I just stare at him.