Jude in Chains

by K. Z. Snow

  Some of the program’s organized activities were fun, too—a few of the sports, the short hikes around the Camp—and they were especially fun if Jude and I were near each other. I came to like and respect a number of the other guys as well, but my feelings for them came nowhere near, in nature or degree, my feelings for Jude Stone.

  I treasured our time together, whether it was filled with quiet conversation or earnest competition or hilarity. I treasured that time because, I realized, I treasured him. The realization filled me with apprehension.

  On Tuesday evening in Jude’s room, after I grumbled a little about Hammer constantly giving me the fish eye, I let slip something about Robbie. It was one of those stream-of-consciousness missteps I wasn’t even aware of… until Jude picked up on it.

  “Did your ex-boyfriend enroll in one of these programs?” he asked, perceptively watching me.

  The question took me by surprise and put squealing bats in my stomach. I felt the flare of their red-eyed heat in my face.

  “He, uh… yeah, he did.”

  “While you were seeing each other?” Jude, who was on the bed, rolled onto his side to face me. I was again sitting in the bedside chair.

  “Mm-hm.” I hoisted my ankle up to the opposite knee and picked at the hem of my pants. It was a real fucking downer, having Robbie intrude on one of these pleasant interludes.

  “What brought it on?” Jude asked. “Did you see it coming?”

  I sighed. No way could I tell him, I really don’t feel like talking about it. I’d done plenty of poking and prying into Jude’s life, so I didn’t want to add the label hypocrite to those delightful epithets Barbarosa’s customers had already hung on me.

  “Robbie had always been one of those spiritually restless types,” I explained, to myself as well as to Jude. “It began with him deciding to start going to church. He tried out a bunch until he found one he stuck with. Then he got more and more distant and our sex life went to hell. Then he informed me he’d met a woman and couldn’t see me anymore. Then… well, then it was over.”

  A Reader’s Digest condensed version was the best I could do. I really couldn’t bear parading out all the details of each phase. First, Robbie’s soul-searching withdrawal. Then, his sudden, frightening animation, as if he couldn’t talk enough, couldn’t mute the flash and clamor of whatever spirit had possessed him. Finally, his eerie disconnection, like a movie astronaut who floats off into space when his lifeline breaks.

  I’d never forget how Robbie’s eyes changed as he got deeper and deeper into the remaking of himself. At the end, they had the kind of preternatural sheen Renfield’s eyes had in the 1930s Dracula. Hell, I’d even begun to see him in shades of black and white—a half-toned wraith without color or dimension.

  It was during the second phase that we had all our hideous, go-nowhere conversations, as if we were members of two drastically different cultures or even species. Neither one of us understood, much less accepted, a word the other said. My voice bounced off Robbie’s glow; his voice bounced off my glower. We’d become utterly alien to one another. And utterly odious.

  I silently sank into myself as these memories slithered past my mind’s eye. Jude patiently, indulgently let me remember without pressing me to cough up every last piece of dirt. I finally turned my eyes to him. I have no idea how I looked, but it seemed to affect him.

  “How did you react?” he asked gently.

  “Oh, I just armored myself with pride,” I said. “I told Robbie to get the fuck out of my life and go do what he had to do, even if it meant hanging himself with a beard. And that’s precisely what he did.”

  Jude’s eyebrows were still drawn together. I had a feeling he wasn’t buying my insouciance. “You didn’t try to talk him out of it?”

  “Not after a point. I figured that would’ve been akin to groveling, and I refused to lower myself. I knew there were more fish in the sea. So I went about finding them. In fact, I started the evening of the day he ended it.”

  Great. I’d just confirmed the rumors of my promiscuity. My bravado had come across as pretty pathetic, actually.

  I got off the chair, stuffed my hands in my pockets, and began a slow, directionless ramble around the small room. Goddamn, how did this turn into a dissection of my life?

  “You were hurting,” Jude said quietly. “By the time you got that armor in place, he’d already wounded you.”

  “Yeah, well. I got over it.”

  “Did you?”

  I stopped and gave him a direct look. “Yes, Jude, I did.” When he didn’t acknowledge my affirmation, I repeated it. “Honest, I did. Eventually. For the most part.”

  He gave me a wan half smile. “Any lingering feelings?”

  “No sentimental ones. Sour ones, maybe.”

  “So this article you’re writing… is it like payback?”

  I had to give that possibility some thought. “Could be, in a way. But I think it’s become more an attempt to understand. Sometimes that’s what closure is all about.”

  Jude vacantly traced the pattern on his Indian-print bedspread. I risked sitting on the edge of the mattress. He didn’t chide me. He didn’t even flinch or bend his legs to pull them away from me, just slid them back to give my butt more room.

  “I hope I’m not your instrument of revenge, Misha.”

  I frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know. They took someone away from you, so you’re trying to take someone away from them.” Jude flipped a glance at me. “An eye for an eye.”

  They. Them. The people involved in the ex-gay movement. Okay, I got that part. But did Jude really think—

  “No,” I said firmly. “That’s not the way it is. I swear on my honor.” I moved back to the chair so I’d be closer to his face. “Or what little honor I have.”

  “I think you have a lot more than you give yourself credit for.”

  An unsettling current crackled between us. There’d been other moments like this, when we knew damned well we were forging an awkward bond neither one of us could fully accept or define.

  Jude broke our brittle silence by asking, “Did you love him?”

  “I don’t know.” Damn, I just wanted to fall into his eyes. Dark and warm and guileless, they invited immersion. I had to look away. “Everything that happened sort of… muddied the waters of recollection for me. It’s hard even to conjure an image of Robbie the way he used to be.”

  Jude curled a hand over my arm. It wasn’t a dramatic gesture, and certainly not a suggestive one, but it made my breath catch. His warmth seeped into me. My first impulse was to put my hand over his.

  “I’m really sorry for your loss, Misha. It must’ve torn you apart.”

  Words I might’ve expected to hear at the death of a loved one. But, then, the Robbie I’d known had died. “Don’t be,” I said. “I’m ready to fight back now.”

  “Isn’t it too late?”

  I stared at Jude’s hand as he withdrew it. “It’s never too late.”

  Chapter Ten

  EACH evening, one of the six groups ambled off to a place called the Hollow and sat around a burn pit for a campfire chat. Wednesday was my group’s turn. Led by Thom Swain, all six of us gathered up kindling and, in true Boy Scout fashion, helped construct the perfect framework for a fire. Cut wood was heaped beneath a lean-to at the edge of the groomed space, and we were to take turns fetching a length or two whenever the flames dwindled. Tomorrow, during the designated physical activity time, we’d have to split wood for the Thursday group. These were apparently more exercises in wholesome fellowship and selfless cooperation.

  I didn’t mind. I cared about these guys and liked the outdoors. And, although the August evening was too sultry for a blaze, I looked forward to watching the firelight play over Jude’s features.

  Just as we all got settled around our crackling masterpiece, an eighth person joined the circle. Hammer emerged from the darkness of the woodsy path like a murderous stalker. In spite o
f his convivial greeting, my spirits sank. Good things did not happen when Ev and I were thrown together. Moreover, I could get away with watching Jude when only the deaf, dumb, and blind Thom Swain was around; I couldn’t when his eagle-eyed boss hovered nearby.

  “Now’s a good time,” Thom announced, “to share your life experiences before you came to Stronger Wings—like, what put you at the point of seeking help—and talk about how your stay here has affected you.”

  “Feel free to ask questions too,” Hammer added. “We all need advice as we try to claim our true identities.”

  I sat on the ground just outside the log circle, so I would look like the unobtrusive observer I was supposed to be. There were other advantages to distance. I was away from the fire’s unpleasant heat. And I was mostly in shadow, which meant my face was harder to see.

  The men began a kind of scattershot exchange. Swain sometimes threw in his worthless two cents’ worth. Hammer listened but mostly refrained from getting involved in the conversation… unless, of course, the mentor fumbled the ball.

  David again raised the possibility of celibacy. This time, Hammer did step in. “The whole point of repair,” he said, “is to reshape one’s internal sexual paradigm and redirect one’s thoughts, not just suppress urges. Intimacy should be courted, not rejected. It’s essential to a normal life.”

  As I groaned and growled inside, David lapsed into silence and the conversation veered in another direction. Jude didn’t say much, except to verify that domestic violence did exist in the gay community. The men continued berating their old liaisons and the “lifestyle” in general.

  And then Danny Quinn lost it. He’d been talking about the HIV-positive man who’d coaxed him out of the closet, become his lover, and soon thereafter contracted pneumonia and died. The story made several of us misty-eyed. Jude, who was sitting beside Danny, put an arm around his shoulders. Murmuring soothing words, he drew the distraught man close to him. Danny wilted against his chest.

  “Jude!” Hammer barked. “Get your hands off of him!”

  Everybody jumped, as if one of us had thrown a firecracker into the flames.

  Jude took his time letting go of Danny. “Can’t you see the difference between—”

  Hammer wouldn’t let him finish. “Regardless of motivation, that is not the proper form of interaction for two vulnerable men who are still in transition.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said, springing to my feet. “Jude’s only trying to comfort Danny! There’s nothing wrong with holding somebody when he’s grieving!”

  My objection hung chillingly in the air. Only the fire didn’t freeze.

  Hammer glared up at me. “With all due respect, sir,” he said levelly, “you know far too little about what these men are going through to judge what behavior is acceptable and what isn’t. The rules of this camp exist for a reason. They are part of a very thoughtfully planned program intended to help troubled people out of an untenable existence.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “this is a case of deficient understanding.”

  Hammer likely knew what I meant, knew I was impugning his understanding and not my own, but he had no way of being sure. So he donned the persona of a kindly but put-upon uncle, slathered his voice with all the forbearance he could muster, and said, “Mick, I can see why my objection would be incomprehensible to you. Why don’t you meet me in my office later, and I’ll try to explain.”

  “All right.”

  I caught a glimpse of Jude looking down and shaking his head.

  There wasn’t much I could do now but prepare for Round Two.

  HAMMER’S large, frontier-chic office was like an extension of the South Lodge lobby. His desk could’ve come straight from the Ponderosa ranch. Two cows must have given their lives to upholster the Holstein-hided chair that loomed behind it.

  Seating himself, Ev took up a ballpoint pen and slipped the button end between his pursed lips. Little did he know it, but he had his gay face on. There were just some things a wife couldn’t change.

  I already knew he hadn’t summoned me here to clue me in about the No Touch rule.

  “According to scuttlebutt,” he said after regarding me a moment, “you and Jude Stone spend a lot of your free time together.”

  Laconically, I shrugged. “He’s a nice guy—bright, well read, well mannered. I enjoy his company. I don’t feel threatened by him.”

  “The question is, might he feel threatened by you.”

  “For what reason?”

  “How old are you, Mick?”

  “Thirty-one. It’s on my registration form.”

  Nodding, Hammer tossed the pen onto his desk. “You’re a good-looking man. Don’t you think it might stress Jude out to be around you so much?”

  “Why should it stress him out any more than it stresses you out?”

  Ever so slightly, Ham fidgeted. “I have a wife to turn to. He doesn’t have anybody. Surely you realize how difficult it must be for these men to fight against their… inclinations.”

  I could’ve sworn he was about to say “natural inclinations.” It made me smile inside.

  “So isn’t it better,” I said, “for any one of them to hang out with a straight guy than with another gay guy?”

  Hammer chewed on something that wasn’t there. “That depends on how the straight guy looks. You probably don’t realize this, but gay men can be very superficial, carnal creatures. They’re drawn to attractive males, regardless of preference.”

  “Really.” My voice had gone flat.

  “Yes, really.”

  Although I immediately thought of myself, I also thought of the millions of queer men who didn’t deserve to be painted with the same brush. And the many more millions of hetero men who did. “In any case,” I said, “It’s up to Jude to decide if he wants me as a buddy or not. He’s an adult. And he’s anything but superficial.”

  After scratching and rubbing the underside of his neck, Hammer let out a sigh. “Swain doesn’t know what to make of Jude. I don’t either. He’s very reserved.”

  “Sometimes.” Hammer was angling for information, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to oblige.

  “It’s especially hard to help men like that, the ones who keep to themselves. They don’t give us any openings.”

  “I see.” Revealing word, openings. And disquieting. The people who ran this camp were akin to psychic invaders, and they were always sniffing out entry points, weak spots.

  Hammer turned his gaze from the desktop to my face. “Can you enlighten us?”

  How predictable. “I’m afraid not. Confidentiality and all that. You don’t want me sitting in on your counseling sessions; I don’t want to share the content of my interviews. You can read some of what I was told when the article is published, but all the men will have pseudonyms.”

  Ev was in no position to dispute my logic, and he knew it. “So Jude hasn’t done or said anything…untoward with you?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Can you at least tell me if he seems to be making progress?”

  I stared into my lap and contained a smile. “Yes, I believe he is.”

  SAME routine the next day, Thursday, but I barely noticed. In fact, I didn’t get out of bed until breakfast was over.

  I wandered to one of the common areas and got an apple and a granola bar from the vending machines. Jude and the other registrants were tied up with their class and their counseling sessions. North Lodge felt deserted.

  After I showered, I did more writing and revising. I was grateful when lunchtime rolled around.

  “We missed you at breakfast, Mick,” Thom said. “I poked my head in your room just to make sure you were okay.”

  You poked your head in my room hoping to cop a glimpse of naked man. I hoped he had. I hoped I’d thrown the covers aside while I slept, and Thom “Sly Glances” Swain had gotten an eyeful of bare ass or thickened cock.

  “Yeah, I overslept,” I said.

  My gaze briefly met Jude’s.


  After lunch, we all had to return to the Hollow to split wood for the Thursday evening campfire. At least the area was shaded from the scalding sun. Thom and a guy named Roy Schroeder seemed to know their way around axes and mauls, but the rest of us were lucky we didn’t amputate something. By the end of the ordeal, I had a fairly good rhythm going, and I was glad I’d kept myself in shape.

  Jude kept sliding glances at me. I was sweating and felt pretty grungy, so I couldn’t figure out at first why he’d want to look at me. Then I realized it was because I was sweaty and grungy—and, furthermore, my upper body was pumped—that he kept checking me out.

  The assumption was one hell of a turn-on, even if it was incorrect.

  I jerked off during my break-time shower as I thought of Jude being aroused by the look of me. Christ, it made me feel like Gary to think that way… but it worked. And I’d really needed the release.

  I hustled over to Jude’s room once I was clean and fragrant. He’d showered, too, and was sitting on his bed, staring out the window. He gave me a distracted smile when I walked in but he didn’t say anything.

  I made the bold and completely unacceptable move of getting on the bed with him, fully, not just balancing my butt on the edge of the mattress. I didn’t do anything except sit there, but it was still a major no-no.

  “Does any of the shit you’ve been fed here make any sense so far?” I asked without preface.

  Jude shoved a hand into his thicket of hair and scratched at his scalp. “I don’t know. I need more time to process it.”

  I craned my neck in his direction and lifted my eyebrows. I knew he knew better, and he knew I knew. He glanced up and gave me a weary, lopsided smile. Even Jude’s halfhearted smiles were better than a jubilant grin from anybody else.

  “Not too much,” he finally admitted. “I’m starting to get the feeling that if I can’t turn myself around, I’ll have to pretend I’ve turned myself around. And if I can’t pretend, I’ll have to be celibate for the rest of my life and keep myself distracted with lofty thoughts.”