Marie Sexton - Between Sinners And Saints (10 page)

“Caleb!” Nancy snapped. “That language is not allowed in my house.”
Caleb sighed in resignation and sat back in his chair. “Sorry, Mom.” He glanced sideways at Levi. “I vote with you only because I think these support groups would be a complete waste of time if it’s not what you want.”
He turned next to Ruth. Hers was the final vote. It couldn’t change anything now, but Levi expected her support. She had always stood by him more than any of the rest of them. She was picking nervously at her cuticles, and she glanced warily at Levi before saying, “I vote for Evergreen.”
“What?” Levi asked. “Are you serious?”
“I agree with Caleb. In my mind, the problem isn’t being gay. The problem is the way you’re living. Maybe you don’t want what this group offers, Levi, but I don’t see what harm there would be in trying.”
“How about that it’s a complete waste of time?” Levi snapped, unable at this point to keep his voice from getting louder. “How about that it’s not what I want? How about the fact I don’t
want
to commit to life where I never get to have sex again?”
“Levi,” his mother said, “nobody is saying you have to be celibate—”
Levi jumped to his feet, cutting her off. “It’s
exactly
what you’re saying!” he yelled. “Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you understand I can no more have sex with a woman than you could?”
“Celibacy is at least a righteous way to live,” Isaac said.
“Oh, yeah?” Levi asked him. “You want to try it? ’Cause if it appeals to you so much, go for it! But I’m not interested.”
“This is a compromise,” Rachel said.
“No, it’s not! Why the hell do you keep saying that? It’s still all of you telling
me
how to live! How in hell can you call it a compromise?”
“Levi, the yelling won’t help anything—” his dad started to say.
“What the hell else am I supposed to do?” Levi yelled, louder than before. “Nothing else works. No matter what I say, no matter how many times we have this ridiculous argument, you just keep spouting the same goddamn bullshit you’ve been spouting for years.”
“Levi!” said his mom. She was upset about the language, but he didn’t really care.
“It’s always
me
who’s supposed to change, and
you
who’s so perfect and righteous. And no matter how many times I tell you this is it, this is
me,
I’m
gay,
get the fuck over it, you keep throwing the same shit back at me. I’m sick of it!”
“Enough, Levi,” his mother said, standing up. Her usual compassionate smile was gone. She was downright angry. “I will
not
listen to foul language in
my
house. If you can’t respect my rules, you’re going to have to leave.”
“Don’t worry, Mom,” he said, kicking his chair out of his way on the way to the door. “I’m way ahead of you.”

Jaime hadn’t thought anything of it when Levi followed his family down the hall and into the study. He sat down in the den where two of the wives were watching
The Wizard of Oz
with a bunch of the kids. He couldn’t keep any of the wives straight and had dubbed them the K-wives in his mind. The wives were glancing at him nervously. One of them finally asked, “Have you packed yet?”

“No,” Jaime said, surprised at the question. “We’re not leaving until tomorrow.”
The other wife laughed without much humor. “That’s what you think.” Her tone wasn’t cruel or snide. She sounded resigned.
The other wife nodded. “You might want to be ready.”
The first wife pointed down the hall toward the study where Levi’s family was. “These never go well for him,” she said. “I can pretty much guarantee he’s going to storm out of there in a rage.”
The other wife nodded in agreement. “If he’s not ready to leave when their meeting’s over, it’ll be a miracle.”
Jaime’s first instinct was to laugh it off, but then he remembered Ruth’s words from the first day.
One way or another, by Sunday it will all go wrong.
He went upstairs and packed his things, which turned out to be a good thing. The K-wives hadn’t been wrong.
Not long after he’d zipped his bag closed, Levi stuck his head in Jaime’s room. Jaime could tell just by looking at him that he was fuming mad.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
Nancy was crying. Abraham was stoic. Levi’s siblings ran the gamut from angry to complacent. Jaime barely had time to thank Levi’s parents before Levi was shoving him into the car.
The drive was uncomfortable, to say the least.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Jaime asked after the first forty-five minutes of awkward silence.
“No!”
Just as well, since Jaime had no idea what to say. It was six o’clock, and his stomach was starting to remind him that they should have been sitting down to eat dinner about now. “Are you planning to drive straight through?” he asked Levi. It would mean driving all night.
It took Levi a second to answer, and he was afraid he’d somehow pissed him off more, but when Levi spoke, he sounded a bit closer to normal. “We’ll stop in Jacksonville for the night.”
That gave Jaime enough courage to say, “Can we get something to eat before then?”
Levi almost smiled. Almost. “I’ll stop at the next Subway I see.”
And he did. It quickly became clear Levi still didn’t feel like chatting, so after eating, Jaime put his headphones on and leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the side window and watched the landscape fly past.
It was ten o’clock when they arrived in Jacksonville. Levi seemed to know just where he was going and pulled into an old motel. It was two stories, all of the doors opening either into the parking lot or onto the narrow balcony clinging to its face. Jaime waited while Levi checked them in, then they took their bags out of the car, and Jaime and Dolly followed Levi halfway down the length of the building.
Whatever friendliness had returned on the road was gone again now. Levi was edgy and surly. Jaime could hardly stand to meet his eyes. He was afraid the whole evening was going to be awkward. That was when Levi turned to him and handed him a key. “This is my room,” he said. “Yours is next door.”
Jaime felt his heart sink. He looked down at the old-fashioned key hanging on the plastic key ring with the room number on it. No fancy key cards here. “We’re staying in separate rooms?” He realized as soon as he said it how pathetic he sounded, but the idea of sleeping alone in a strange motel room frightened him. There would never be enough locks on the flimsy door to keep the terror at bay.
Levi smiled at him, but it wasn’t the smile he was used to seeing. It wasn’t happy or carefree, or even teasing. It was cruel. Levi took a step toward him, and Jaime instinctively backed away.
“What’s the matter, Jaime?” he asked, his voice low and threatening. “Did you want to watch?”
Watch what?
He almost said it out loud before it dawned on him what Levi was saying. He felt the color rise in his cheeks. “Oh,” he said weakly. “You’re going—”
Out.
That was what Jaime planned to say.
You’re going out.
But Levi interrupted him with a leer. “I’m going to get laid. Why?” He stepped closer, and Jaime backed up again, bumping into the wall behind him. “Do you want to come?”
There seemed to be a couple of ways to interpret Levi’s question, and Jaime blushed more. Either way, the answer was the same. “No.” He shook his head, turning away from Levi’s gaze. He hated what he saw there—something that was part pity and part loathing and a whole lot of raw anger. “I’ll stay here.”
Levi opened his door, tossed his bag on the bed, and left without a backward glance. Jaime went like a martyr to his room, Dolly trailing at his heels.
The room seemed dark and turning on every lamp it held did little to chase the shadows away. Dolly immediately set out to explore the entirety of the small space with her nose. Jaime closed the door, feeling as if he was sealing himself into a jail cell. There was a deadbolt and an old-fashioned chain, so he told himself over and over they would be enough. There was really nothing to fear. The monsters were already in the room with him anyway.
He got ready for bed and settled under the sheets with Dolly at his side. He turned on the TV. There was no satellite service. Not even digital cable. There were a dozen channels to choose from, half of them clouded with static, and none of them Syfy.
He was watching a
M*A*S*H
rerun when he heard Levi return. He recognized Levi’s voice outside his door, although he couldn’t make out his words, and another voice answering. He heard the door to Levi’s room close, then shared laughter through the thin walls. He turned up the TV. Could he still make out the muffled sound of their voices or was it only his imagination? He turned the TV up a bit more. That did it. He couldn’t hear them talking anymore.
Of course, they probably weren’t talking.
Even though he had the TV ridiculously loud, he found he was still listening, straining to hear more. Underneath the sound of Winchester and Hawkeye bickering and canned TV laughter, could he hear muffled moans or the rhythmic pounding of the bed against the wall? Would he hear Levi cry out?
“Shit!” he cursed, and Dolly jumped up, looking at him in alarm.
“It’s nothing, girl.” He noticed his voice was shaking as he said it. “I’m being an idiot.”
She threw herself down on the bed with a huff that sounded for all the world like an exasperated sigh. Jaime grabbed his iPod off the bedside table and put in his earbuds. Once the music blared in his ears, he turned off the TV. He lay there, determined to hear only the music. He tried not to think about what was going on in the room next door.
He failed.
He thought about Levi kissing somebody. He thought of Levi undressing some nameless, faceless man. Was Levi a top or a bottom? Was he using a condom? Jaime wondered if Levi was on his knees right now in front of the other man, and the thought made Jaime’s cock grow hard.
He fought his arousal. He flipped through songs on his iPod, trying to force his mind to think of something else. He almost succeeded. But then, in the silent moment between songs, he heard the sound he’d both longed for and dreaded—a low moan from the room next door.
He had no way of knowing which man had made the sound, but the images immediately flared to life in his head: Levi on the bed with his head thrown back, his eyes closed, his cock lying erect against his flat stomach, and another man there, between his legs. Was he going to fuck Levi or straddle him and be fucked? He imagined Levi’s long, tan fingers wrapped around the man’s shaft. He imagined the strokes. He heard the moans and the panting breaths. He saw Levi’s mocking eyes, and he heard Levi ask again, “Do you want to come?”
And suddenly there was no other man there. There was only Jaime and Levi. He imagined his hands on Levi’s thighs, running up his hips, over his stomach. He thought of the way Levi smelled, like the ocean and sunlight. He imagined Levi’s hand on his shaft, and the low moan he heard now was his own.
He gave up fighting it. He gave up pretending he didn’t hear it or didn’t care. He rolled onto his stomach, pulling his earbuds out as he did. It was faint, but he
could
hear them. Not constantly, but every once in a while, he caught a moan, a low laugh, or a thump as something hit the wall. What he couldn’t hear, his imagination filled in.
He thrust himself against the bed as he imagined Levi underneath him. He imagined Levi’s moans were for him. He imagined Levi moving down on him, his hands on Jaime’s hips. He imagined pushing his erection deep into Levi’s waiting mouth, and seeing his soft, full lips sliding down his shaft. He imagined letting himself go as he thrust harder, panting, reaching for something he couldn’t quite see.
And then he heard a noise—a sound from next door—a wrenching cry of release and relief. It went from his ears straight to his groin, triggering the tightness deep in his balls, and he came hard, burying his face in his pillow to muffle his own cries, lest Levi hear him, too. He came like he hadn’t come in a very long time, for once feeling more pleasure than guilt at his own orgasm, and he thrust against the bed one last time, sliding in the sticky warmth of his own seed against the fabric of his boxers. And God, it felt it good. It felt
so goddamn good.
It wasn’t that the guilt was gone. It was still there, in the back of his brain, trying to find some purchase to crawl into the light. But right now, it was kept at bay by the sheer pleasure of what he’d done. What he’d
allowed
himself to do.
He lay there in his own mess, smiling, no longer listening for anything next door. He felt tired and relaxed and sated and not a bit scared. For one of the first times in his life, he felt normal. Or close to it. He felt at peace.
Once he’d caught his breath, he squirmed out of his wet shorts, using the dry part to wipe himself off. He rolled away from the wet spot he’d made to the other side of the bed, and he fell sound asleep.
That night, the nightmares found him.

The man Levi’d picked up at the bar was young and blond and a bit overconfident, but they’d had a good enough time. Levi never even asked his name. He’d fallen asleep next to Levi in bed, but when Levi woke the next morning, the blond was already gone. Levi was relieved. He hated making small talk with strangers over breakfast.

Jaime barely looked at him when he answered Levi’s knock on his door. “You ready to go?”
“Sure,” Jaime said, “but I’m hungry. Can we get breakfast first?”
“There’s a restaurant a couple of blocks away.”
They loaded their bags in the car and headed out, and still Jaime wouldn’t look at him.
At first, Levi was annoyed. It wasn’t enough for his family to treat him the way they did, now Jaime was going to pass judgment on him, too? Then he remembered his words from the night before. He remembered the cruel pleasure he’d taken in asking Jaime if he wanted to come.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and Jaime turned to him in surprise.
“What for?”
“For what I said last night.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Then I’m sorry for whatever it is you’re pissed at me for.”
“I’m not pissed.” Now that he could see Jaime’s face, he realized Jaime didn’t look mad at all. He looked exhausted. And, for some reason, a bit embarrassed. But not angry. “I didn’t sleep well.”
“Why not?”
In typical Jaime fashion, he avoided the question altogether and asked a new one. “Does this happen often?”
“What do you mean?”
“I get the impression you’ve stopped here before. Not just Jacksonville. I mean, at that motel.”
“Fairly often on the way home, yeah. It’s kind of a routine. My family pisses me off. I leave early. Can’t drive straight through.”
And always feel the need to go out and blow off some steam afterward.
“What happened with your family?”
Levi sighed. “You really want to hear about it?”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
“I will,” Levi said as he pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. “But not on an empty stomach.” He told Jaime over scrambled eggs, bacon and pumpkin pancakes about the confab, Evergreen International, and the vote.
“They actually thought that was a compromise?” Jaime asked.
Levi was relieved to find Jaime at least felt as he did. “Apparently.”
“And I assume you won’t be looking up the nearest support group once we’re back in Miami?”
“You assume right.”
“Natural man, one. Righteous living, zero. Not that I blame you,” he added. He looked at Levi appraisingly. “So Isaac, Jacob and Rachel believe everything your church tells them. And your parents, too, it seems. Ruth seems to half-ass it. Caleb doesn’t seem to buy it at all. Am I right?”
“I’d say that’s an accurate summary.”
“So what about you? What do you believe?”
Levi groaned. “I don’t know any more.”
“That’s a cop-out answer. Do you believe in God?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you Christian?”
“Define ‘Christian.’”
“Are there different definitions?”
“Most people think Mormons aren’t Christian, but Mormons say they are.”
“Fair enough. Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God and he died on the cross for your sins?”
“My church believes that, yes.”
Jaime smiled. “Nice try, but not what I asked.”
Levi pushed his plate out of the way and leaned back in the booth. “I think Jesus probably existed, but I don’t necessarily think he was divine. I’m not even sure he was one man. I think maybe he was a conglomerate of different men. Different stories all meshed together.”
“The original urban legend?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“So what about Joseph Smith?”
“Do I believe he was a prophet? No, not really.” He pointed a finger at Jaime. “But don’t you dare tell my parents I said that.”
“I won’t.” Jaime laughed. “So you think Joseph Smith was lying?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to think he made it up, but I don’t quite buy it either.”
“It’s one or the other, Levi.”
“Is it?” Levi shrugged. “Maybe he ate some bad rye and had one hell of a dream.”
“He was tripping his balls off and a religion was born?”
“I don’t know!” Levi threw down his napkin in annoyance. “Are you finished? We should get going.”
“I’m
not
finished, actually,” Jaime said with obvious amusement. “So if you don’t believe Joseph Smith was a prophet, then what about the rest of church doctrine?”
“Some of it, I get. Some of it makes sense. I may not follow it all, like the no drinking thing. But I get it. Even then, though, I don’t believe it’s the will of God. I think it’s just common sense.”
“And is their stance on same-sex attraction common sense, too?”
“Yes and no. Look, in 1969 the First Presidency issued a statement saying blacks weren’t yet ready to receive the priesthood.”
“So they couldn’t be priests?”
“Mormons don’t have priests.”
“Then what does ‘the priesthood’ mean?”
Levi groaned. He hated trying to explain Mormon practices. “Basically, it’s the power to act with divine authority.”
“That sounds like a priest to me.”
“I suppose so,” Levi relented. “But in the Mormon Church, any worthy male can receive the priesthood.”
“Ahh. Unless he’s black.”
“They can now. In 1978, God ‘revealed’ to President Kimball that blacks were ready to receive the priesthood. Now, did God really pick a specific day to make this revelation? Did the entire black race suddenly become worthy in His eyes? Or was it only that church leadership was finally in the hands of somebody who was a progressive thinker?”
“So you think it was more a matter of the church finally caving to political pressure?”
“Probably. Or maybe President Kimball knew enough black people to be able to overcome the prejudice of his predecessors. I don’t know. I don’t think any of them were
lying.
I don’t think they were trying to make it a political issue. I think they probably prayed, and whatever felt right to them, they called it a revelation.”
“So you’re hoping the church will eventually have a revelation on this issue as well?”
“It’d be nice, but I’m sure not holding my breath.”
Jaime pushed his plate away.
“Are you satisfied now?” Levi asked. “Can we go, oh, sadistic one?”
Jaime smiled at him, looking like a perfect Boy Scout once again. “We can go.”
Levi offered to drive. It wasn’t until they were in the car and back on the interstate that Levi thought again about the night before. “Jaime, listen. I really am sorry. I didn’t have to be such an ass to you last night.”
Jaime shrugged and, for some reason, he started to blush, turning away to look out the window. “I told you: it’s no big deal.”
“I think you’re still mad.”
“I’m really not.”
“Then how come every time I bring it up, you turn beet-red and can’t look me in the eyes?”
“Oh God.” Jaime covered his face with his hand and scrunched down low in his seat. “Am I doing that?”
“Yes,” Levi said, laughing. It wasn’t often he saw Jaime become so flustered.
Jaime sighed and with his eyes still hidden behind his hand said, “I could hear you.”
It took Levi a second to realize what Jaime meant, but when he did, he laughed. “Having sex, you mean?”
“Maybe next time, you should ask for rooms that aren’t side by side.”
Levi couldn’t help but laugh again. Maybe he should have been embarrassed, but Jaime’s discomfiture amused him. “I didn’t realize we made so much noise.”
“Apparently the walls are thin.”
Levi thought about it—his time with the blond, what they’d done, the sounds they’d undoubtedly made—and Jaime on the other side of the wall, listening. He found the idea intriguing. Had Jaime liked it? Had he gotten off? It turned Levi on a bit just thinking about it, and his voice was a bit thicker than it should have been when he said, “You should’ve come over.”
Jaime seemed to be over his embarrassment now. He rolled his eyes at Levi’s suggestion. “I’m sure that would’ve been incredibly awkward.”
“Maybe,” Levi said, even as his mind continued to explore the possibilities. Maybe Jaime was right. Maybe it would have been awkward. Then again, maybe not. “Is that why you didn’t sleep well?” he asked. “We weren’t up
that
late.”
“No,” Jaime said, looking away. He reached into the center console and pulled out his iPod and earbuds. “It’s not your fault I couldn’t sleep.”
“Are you an insomniac or something?”
Jaime put his earbuds in and leaned against the window. “Wake me up when you’re tired of driving.”
“How come you can force me to answer your questions, but I can’t force you to answer mine?”
Jaime smiled, but didn’t open his eyes. “You have a lot to learn about being evasive.”