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I managed to get an hour or so of sleep before I had to head out to the youth service. Joanne was busy with the kids who couldn't take an afternoon nap if you drugged them. I think she had hoped my mother, who stayed in a flat adjoining our playroom, would be able to take care of them for a while so she could come and doze with me (yeah right!) but there was no such luck. The old lady was far too active for her 76 years and had made a date with a friend to go for a walk in the nearby Botanical Gardens.
It didn't take me long to fall asleep. Sundays were hectic, especially the mornings, and it didn't let up until the last person left in the evening and we had closed up and switched all the lights off. Even then it took a while to fall asleep because of the high of being with people of like mind. We had a vibrant church and I got on so well with the young folks that came to the evening service that we chatted late into the night even after it was really time to call it a day.
When my eyes drifted shut I was lying on my stomach in the shorts I had donned to be a bit more comfortable for my nap. I hated sleeping with underpants, as I could never get comfortable, so I was freeballing. I shifted my hips around a bit to get comfortable and was dimly aware as I fell asleep that I was developing an erection.
After a while, I started dreaming.
I was wandering through a misty landscape, I knew I was on my way somewhere, and I was dimly aware that the destination caused me some anxiety. I heard a voice calling me; my wife's, I was sure of it, but I didn't want to hear her. I deliberately went in the opposite direction, although I instinctively knew that the further away from her I went, the more anxiety I would experience.
In the mist ahead of me I saw a shape of a man. I recognized him as Danny, the young guy I had prayed for this morning. He was beckoning me to follow him, and the look of yearning on his face made me long to do so. The erection in my pants was very obvious and I tried to hide it from him, but to my dismay, it poked through the fly of the boxers I was wearing and pointed obscenely out. He grinned suggestively and rubbed his own growing erection through his jeans. I felt my testicles begin to tingle as an orgasm started to build. As rope after rope of ejaculate spurted out of the tip of my penis, a whole group of people, men and women, appeared around him and pointed at my predicament, laughing raucously. Danny wasn't laughing but only looked desolate as the crowd managed to work him away from me until I lost sight of him and a feeling of loneliness and loss overcame me. Still, my wife's voice called insistently: "Doug! Doug...! Douglas!"
"Douglas, wake up! You have to get ready for this evening!"
I was disorientated and for a moment struggled to figure out where I was. I was however grateful that I was lying on my tummy since I was aware that I'd had a wet dream and the gummy result was trapped coldly between my drenched boxers and my pubic hair.
Afternoon naps can either be awesome energy boosters or terribly draining and this one was the latter. My forehead was pouring with perspiration, my mouth was woolly, and to make matters worse, I had developed a headache. I blearily looked up at my wife who had assessed the situation and sat down on the side of the bed.
"Are you ok? You look like hell...heck!" A self-deprecating smile adorned her lovely face.
"Thanks, I love you too," I muttered sardonically and, reminded of my embarrassing predicament by my still waning erection, resisted the temptation to roll over onto my side to pull myself upright.
"I'm going to have to take something for my head before this gets out of hand. What time is it?"
"It's about half-past four. You have about 45 minutes to pull yourself together."
Luckily we lived close to the community hall where our church met, so I didn't have far to go. I liked to arrive about half an hour early for the 6 pm meeting, so I would have to leave by half-past five.
Joanne got up to fetch me something for my head and I was grateful as I swung my legs over the side of the bed and put my head in my hands. As the unmistakable alkaline smell of sperm wafted up to my nose, an image of Danny's face, as he was pulled in by the crowd, reminded me of the weird dream I'd had. I shook my head in an effort to clear the cobwebs but that wasn't a good move. It felt like I'd had too much to drink or something, a feeling I hadn't experienced since Varsity, long before my current saintly state.
As I walked to the bathroom I became aware of a dull feeling of melancholy that hung heavily in me like a wet blanket. I remembered the feeling of loss that I had dreamed when Danny had disappeared and I took a deep, cleansing breath, steeling my heart against the insidious vapours of the deathly mist that had surrounded him. I knew then that I had to be cautious. I had enough experience to know that I should tread very, very carefully.
Being married meant that a man closed the doors in the hope that any other relationship could possibly be better than the one he was in. Being an ex-gay man was exactly the same, except twice as hard. This was an avenue that I couldn't even look into, let alone venture down. The feelings that lurked there were deceitful. They sought to convince me that I was missing out on something; that a part of me was lacking and that my relationship with my lovely wife was the mistake. If I ventured there I would lose my sanity, my grip on the reality that God hadn't intended for me to be gay but was slowly and steadily walking alongside me as I reclaimed His image in me as he had originally intended it.
I had come to recognize these feelings for what they were: a hunger for masculine love that dated out of my broken relationship with my absent dad. The desire to be united with a man was nothing more than an immature longing for masculine affirmation denied me as a boy. But praise God, in my relationship with Jesus, all would ultimately be restored and in the meantime, I could live a fulfilling life with the wife that he had given me.
With this comforting litany playing through my head like a familiar chorus, I stood under the showerhead and allowed the warm spray to ease away the last dregs of the headache that clogged my brain. I was a blessed man. I did a job I adored, helping people to find their way out of the confusing and deceptive half-life that was homosexuality, into the clarity of their identity in Christ. The cloying melancholy that I had woken with seemed to wash off me with the perspiration of my dream-induced sweat. I felt excitement begin to rise in me as I spoke in tongues to awaken myself to the work of the Holy Spirit in me in preparation for the evening's meeting.
Somewhere in the corner of my mind, an inkling of a curiosity about the whereabouts of the beguiling Danny grinned impishly.
I was going to have to make sure that if he made an appointment with me I got somebody else to tend to him. It wasn't worth the risk.
The service had gone off without a hitch and I was relieved that Danny didn't put in an appearance. I was a little concerned that my weird dream would ruin the evening for me, but "all's well that ends well" as they say. There had been too much going on.
We had practised and performed an interactive skit. We had decorated the hall as the inside of a spaceship, and I had pre-recorded a dialogue with the "supreme commander" (God), in which I did the live responses. It was about our mission to establish a celestial kingdom on earth. The evening went down really well and much fun was had by all.
As usual, it took forever to wrap it up as most of the real work happened after the evening had officially ended. We had a young witch who attended, somebody that claimed to be able to levitate and fly around the garden. She attended because she knew that -- unusually -- we wouldn't expect her to change but rather accepted her as she was, just enjoying her uniqueness without expecting her to get "saved". I had abandoned the bait and switch strategy--believe, behave, belong--of the traditional evangelical church in favour of the more postmodern approach of "belong, behave and maybe believe."
Our mission statement was "To value, affirm and serve people because Jesus does." We had work-shopped it one afternoon in my garden, and it was one of the things about our young church that I was most proud of. So Andrice, as she called herself, attended and even shared our love feasts (communion) because I believed that there was no person that was excluded from it because of our narrow-minded prejudice. I visited her and her various Goth friends at her home and occasionally also made myself up to look like them, mostly because I enjoyed young company and admired the courage of youth to be themselves, but also because I felt a deep love for them -- born, I believe, out of Christ that had revealed his reality in me.
I was outside, laughing with her and some others of her group (including a young man, Kevin, who I knew had stolen some money from my car one afternoon when I had given him a lift), when I suddenly became aware that I was being looked at. I tried to brush off the sensation since Andrice was a demanding and intense young lady that wasn't easily ignored. There were two guys engaged in a very passionate session of fire twirling, something that I found deeply terrifying and thrilling at the same time, and I turned in that direction since the feeling of being watched came from there.
The light was dim so I wasn't sure at first, but when my eyes got accustomed to the brightness of the arcs of fire I recognized the unmistakable blonde hair and the studly shape of Danny, and when he saw that I was looking in his direction he lifted his hand in a shy wave. I felt a tightness in my chest (and other parts of my anatomy) as I waved him over against my better judgment.
He extracted himself from the group and walked casually over. He ducked his head in greeting as he approached -- a lot like my Great Dane when I arrived home after a day away -- and extended his hand when he was within range.
"Sorry to join you guys so late, but I had a family thing," he apologised and nodded in the direction of the other people in the circle. I introduced him to Andrice and Kevin, who just then decided that they had to leave because they had school the next day. That left Danny and me alone, and I asked him to join me as I started to pack up the hall.
We chatted about all sorts of things and I felt the tension in my body relax a little as he helped me roll up the carpets and carry them to the storeroom. The image of him in my dream was revived as somebody recognised him and whisked him away in a group of people more his own age. I carried on doing my thing and as I wrapped it all up and pushed the sound desk into the storeroom, the last thing before I finally locked up and left for home, Danny joined me again.
"I haven't seen those guys since school. I'm sorry I deserted you, Doug. Looks like you do most of the work on your own."
"It used to tick me off until I realised that I like it done in a particular way, and the main reason they are here anyway is to connect with other young people."
He had his hands on the desk, helping me to push it through the door and because we were chatting when we went through the frame, our hips were pushed together and we bumped into each other quite violently. Both of us straightened up quite suddenly, being startled by the abrupt connection of our bodies. I over-balanced and tried to catch myself before I toppled to the ground by holding onto him, but he grabbed me around my waist with both arms and pulled me towards himself with his legs on either side of my pelvis. It was getting really awkward now because he couldn't take my whole weight and we were definitely going to end up on the floor face to face with him on top of me.
"Oh shit," I said as I felt myself fall over backwards, realising he had committed himself too far to save himself. He managed to slow my descent enough to ensure that I wouldn't hurt myself, but the worst-case scenario played itself out in slow motion as I first landed up on my back and he joined me pelvis to pelvis, face to face.
Before we hit the floor we were hysterical with laughter and as a result, he was unable to keep himself from collapsing onto me with his full weight. We both just abandoned any effort at being decent and he ended up lying on me with his head on my right shoulder, the two of us still jiggling against each other like a bowl of jelly. In the midst of our predicament, I was acutely aware of his firm young body pressing against mine and I steeled myself against the physical effects.
Eventually, when we were both breathless with laughter, he just lay on top of me and our bodies relaxed. He pushed himself away from my face and looked into my eyes with a goofy smile still on his face. His amber eyes were moist with laughter and I could smell his breath as he tried to recover his composure. He held my gaze with his penetrating eyes and the two of us slowly calmed down, the reality of our compromising situation sinking in.
"I guess we'd better get up then," I suggested and he awkwardly lifted himself off me. I couldn't help myself from looking down at his shapely body as he peeled himself away from mine. There was an uncomfortable silence as he first drew himself upright and then helped me up by extending his hand and then pulling me off the floor with his stocky muscle power. We paused like that for a moment and then I broke the moment with a cough.
"Thanks, man. It's nice to have a hand for a change. Pardon the pun." We giggled a little more and then sobered up.
"No problem," he said. "I've got to go now. I'll call the office to set up that appointment. Sleep well," he concluded and to my consternation drew me into a deep hug. He really paused and melted into me, but then rescued it from awkwardness and relegated it to bro territory by swatting me on the shoulder a few times.
"See you soon," I said and then fought the conflicting desires in my heart: to see him again and the desire to be obedient to my new identity as an ex-gay man.
"Get outa here," I mock-growled and shoved him out of the room and just caught myself before swatting his meaty bum as he departed. He stopped just before he disappeared around the corner.
"Bye, Doug. I really appreciate that you're so cool with me."
"No worries," I called out as he disappeared into the night.
As I closed the last door behind me and walked towards my car, I stopped at a bench under a tree about a metre away from it. The moon was full and the shadows of the tree were sharp on the ground. I lowered myself onto the wooden slats slowly, my legs suddenly feeling like slabs of lead that dragged me down.
"Oh God, oh God, what's happening to me?" I asked of the night air and dropped my head into my hands. I recalled that, more than once, I had anticipated the moment when I would be confronted by a man who wanted me, and I didn't know whether I would be able to resist the temptation to take up the offer.
I was tempted to abandon myself to desperation and loneliness, but I felt a deeply reassuring Presence settle upon me. I remembered a time some ten years earlier before I had finally committed my life to Jesus. I had been away in a strange city doing a show with four other actors, and I had managed to score some marijuana from one of the guitarists in the band. I was stoned and sitting on a hill overlooking the ocean, worshipping the sun god. I felt so connected to all things, so at peace and alive, and somehow the feeling that I had then was akin to the emotions I was experiencing now. I knew then, as I knew now, that God was always pulling me in, reeling me in, and wasn't limited to my judgments of myself. I had a picture of a tender shepherd with a lamb over his shoulders and the reassuring words came to me: "The shepherd doesn't abandon any of His sheep."
A verse from the psalms (138:8) entered my mind: "The LORD will vindicate me; your love, LORD, endures forever -- do not abandon the works of your hands."
I sat back on the bench and looked up at the moon. The silvery disc, laced by the spidery outlines of the visible craters, looked benevolently down on me and I felt a peace descend on my heart.
"You have me ... Yes, You have me. Oh, Jesus, you are so for me. Guard my heart against the work of the Evil One, please! I trust you. I am safe in Your hands!"
I got into my car and drove home to my wife. I had an anchor, and her name was Joanne.
Let me know if you enjoyed this on landingben@gmail.com
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