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“It’s just not what I was expecting.” His expression was mischievous, conspiratorial. “So you go to the clubs?”
It took Paul a moment to understand, but it finally dawned on him: Ian didn’t remember a thing. He’d blacked out the entire previous afternoon and evening. When he found a piece of paper in his pocket with a cell phone number and the name “Paul,” he assumed that the minister “brought him home.” If he assumed a man took him home, what was this club he imagined he’d been to?
“No,” Paul said, a bit defensively. “No. You don’t remember yesterday at all?”
Ian scratched the back of his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s embarrassing. Sometimes I have these blackouts. But look, if something happened between us, I’m sure….”
“Nothing happened between us,” Paul snapped. “I’m not…. We had a whole conversation.”
Paul had spent every minute since their last meeting replaying every word of the conversation, turning it over for mistakes and clues and meanings, yet for Ian, it had never happened. How could he have erased something so significant to Paul and replaced it with something so impersonal, ordinary, and base?
Ian gazed downward. He looked confused and vulnerable, and it triggered Paul’s protective instincts. The more lost Ian looked, the more beautiful he became. And the more beautiful he grew, the more frustrated Paul became. God had created this man with a quick wit and the face of an angel. How could he so easily throw a gift like that away? It was spitting in God’s face.
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” Ian said to his shoes.
Paul’s tone was harsh: “You were sitting, drunk, on the floor in my church. You showed up on the wrong day looking for an AA meeting that didn’t exist. You could hardly walk, and you were going to drive yourself home. So I brought you here to keep you from killing yourself. That’s what happened.”
“Oh.” The blood rushed into Ian’s cheeks. “So this would be one of those embarrassing moments.”
“Which part? Being falling down drunk in a church, or confusing the minister for someone you picked up in a gay bar?”
“Yeah,” was all Ian had to say.
Paul regretted his harshness. “Come on,” he said more gently. “Get in. I’ll take you to your car.”
They rode for a few blocks in silence. Eventually, Ian said, “I’m sorry, you know. I just assumed. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s just the way my life has been lately.”
“It’s none of my business, but….”
“But?”
“How often does that happen? You wake up, and you don’t know who took you home or what happened the night before?”
“Not very often. A few times. You know, sometimes. It’s just the kinds of places I go, if someone takes you home, you figure…. I didn’t mean to imply anything. I’m sure you’re a good minister.”
“It’s okay.” Paul smiled. “I guess I should be flattered, really. An old guy like me.”
Ian relaxed. “You’re not that old,” he said. “Anyway, I like older men.”
The phrase “I like older men” hung in the air. Paul had never spoken openly to a gay man before. He’d never heard a man tell him about his attraction for a certain type of male. It felt wrong. Paul’s own aversion confused him. He had been thinking about Ian for weeks, constantly, intrusively. He could recall every contour of his face, the way the corners of his lips curled up when he smiled, his big aqua eyes, the curve of his upturned nose, even the mostly faded chicken pox scar over his left eyebrow and the small mole directly under the center of his right eye—the tiny brown dot was so symmetrically placed that it seemed like the subtle signature of the artist, the autograph of God. He had been unable to stop the sexual fantasies and dreams. Ian was attracted to men. There was at least a chance for the two of them (though Ian was clearly out of his league). This should have thrilled Paul. Why was he upset?
It wasn’t entirely jealousy, although that was part of it. The image of his angel being pawed by some clumsy drunken middle-aged man in a dark corner of a bar was almo
st too much for Paul to bear. The thought that there might have been many, too many to remember, was even worse. It was desecration, pure and simple. It discouraged him about the nature of humanity. Were people all so focused on their own desires that they failed to recognize the gift of divine beauty and to treat it as sacred?
But was the nature of his own desire any different? Was it also a desecration? Or could our basest instincts be purified by love? Only disembodied angels could have a true union of souls. As ridiculous as all that sexual groping and pumping and flopping around might seem, it is the closest thing to divine union we have on this earth.
Paul had dreamed of kissing Ian’s lips. He longed for it to be possible. Yet in his dreams, it had always been as singular and extraordinary for the young man as it was for Paul, an exception, not the rule. The angel had no experience, no past; in fact, Paul imagined the moment without any context at all. Now he realized it might be possible to have the real Ian in his life. But the price would be very high. He would have to give up the beautiful fantasy. The angel would have to come down to earth.
Ian could tell he’d made Paul uncomfortable, but he completely misjudged why.
“I guess you preach that it’s a sin, ‘men lying down with men’,” he said.
“Let he who is without sin….”
“So you do think it’s a sin?”
“It’s not something I preach about.”
