The gym is always sparsely attended on Fridays. After a full upper body work out, complete abs routine, and a twenty minute cardio. I’d burned more calories than I’d taken in and was a sweaty mess – my favorite, black bandana was soaked and greasy as I’d used grape seed oil as my styling product this morning. I headed to the locker room and stripped out of my sweaty clothes. Needless to say that I couldn’t wait to jump in the hot shower and get ready for the weekend. While I was in the middle of shampooing, I heard the slide of the rings of a shower curtain. I figured it was some guy going into the next stall. “Sorry, I had to join you,” I knew that voice. I’d fantasized about that guy for months, but he never acknowledged me. His name was Michael, and with his lion’s mane of blond hair, I could see an artist using him as the model for a portrait of the archangel. He’s one of those late twenties muscle bound guys who got through college on a wrestling scholarship. I’m a forty-something bear who’s found his inner gym rat and doesn’t recall which closet I’ve stored my diploma in. In a single motion, his arms were around my waist and his mouth was making its way toward mine. As made a move to be more passionate, he whispered: “No not here,” his hot breath blowing down my neck. As quickly as he came, he was gone. I heard the water in the next stall start. “Yeah, I’m starved. Let’s grab something to eat.” I guess he was talking to me.I was confused and finished my shower wondering what had happened. Maybe he lost a bet? I heard him shut off his shower, and I followed suit. The locker room was.He grabbed me and kissed me again. We heard the door open, and I was standing in the middle of the floor looking blank and wondering how he got across the room so quickly. He gave me a smile, a wink, and a come hither look. “Michael, I’ll be happy to follow you anywhere,” I thought.
We took his Harley back to my apartment. “Did my driving scare you,” he asked with a smile. “No, Babycakes, I learned to ride from one of Hell’s Angels,” I answered matter-of-factly. He chuckled. “I’m not kidding.” He cocked his head to one side and looked at me inquisitively. He followed me up the stairs–which is all that matters really.
I barely got the door closed before he held me captive in his arms with his tongue in my mouth. Pulling from his embrace, I grabbed his blue t-shirt and literally ripped it from his body–another long, deep kiss that just might shake the foundations of Western Civilization. He found the stereo, and one of the Big Easy’s finest was singing some tune about roller coasters and countries without any land. “Strip for me.” I was happy to oblige. It wasn’t exactly stripper music, but I could make it work. I might be a bear, but I always could dance. I turned by back to him at one point, and when I turned around, he wasn’t wearing anything but a smile and some silver medallion. I got an idea and an impish smile. “What,” he said with a chuckle.
“Hey sailor, want a lap dance.”
“I’m not a sailor,” he countered.
“That’s okay. I’m not a stripper.” I paused just long enough to find “Spirit in the Sky” in my stash, put it on, found the beat took him for a nice ride in the easy chair.
I was about to mention that my stash of condoms and lube are in the Gashlycrumb Tinies lunch box, but before I could make a noise, lifted me in the air. I’m not inexperienced in the ways of love, but I’ve never had anyone use me as a barbell before. It was exciting – to say the least.
A couple of hours and another shower later, we were kicked back and naked on the bed with the smell of Chinese take away lingering in the air. His hands found my ass and began to emulate the beat of the Jamaican funk streaming from the desktop. I almost cried out in ecstatic pain.
Saturday came on the strains of Afro Pop. That round ended and we slept.
When you literally fucked away your Friday night, it’s difficult to get up before noon on Saturday. And I woke to the sound of Michael grinding coffee. I staggered naked into the kitchen. He stood there in my silk robe trying to figure out how to operate the French press. I talked him through the steps. “I was going to make pancakes for you, but you don’t have any mix,” he said.
“That’s because I don’t use it. I make them from scratch.” Did I sound bitchy? “I’ll teach you.” Now I’m not used to giving cooking lessons at all – much less naked, but it worked. The look he got on his face when I had him add the coco and cayenne to the whole wheat flour and flax seed was precious. “It’s good. I promise.” Then when he wanted the syrup, we had another moment. “I use honey, not syrup. It’s organic from a local bee keep.” Too snobbish?
“I’ve got to do some errands,” he said sheepishly. “But I’d like to come back later. If you don’t have other plans.”
“No. Yes. Damn,” okay, I wasn’t exactly articulate. “I’d love for you to come back.” Too needy?
“You could come with me if you don’t mind my bike,” he countered.
” We could take mine instead. It might do you good to ride the bitch seat.”
“Next you’ll ask me to bottom.”
“It would do you some good.” To punctuate my statement lightning flashed and thunder clapped immediately behind it. The rain started falling in buckets. “I guess we won’t be doing anything on the motorcycles today,” I said in an almost anticlimactic voice.
“Fuck! I’ve got to go some places.”
“We could take my car.”
“I’ll drive,” he said smiling.
“Nope. It’s my car, and I don’t trust you behind the wheel.”
“What?”
“He’s a fully restored, cherry red 1965 Mustang. We’re the same age. You’re not driving it.” There was no question in my voice–no leeway for him. “Though, if you bottom, I’d consider it.”
I pay almost as much for a private garage as for my apartment. I guess I should consider buying a place. It didn’t take long before I had Michael in the garage, naked and bent over the hood of my other lover. “Don’t worry Babycakes, I’ve topped before,” I whispered in his ear. Despite himself he let out a groan of pleasure.
Half an hour later, it was still pouring as he pulled out of the garage and drove through town to do his errands. I sat in the passenger’s seat watching the his hands on the wheel and his leg work the clutch. We were on a stretch of road that was barely traveled in the best of weather and literally couldn’t make out anything beyond the hood. He saw the parking lot of a vacant store and pulled in. “I’d rather sit here for a few minutes an wait this out.” I’d have done the same thing.
“We could always make out while we…,” I said. He must have been waiting for my queue because his mouth was on mine before I finished. At this point, I didn’t want sex, I wanted to kiss. I wanted to hold him close to me. I wanted the windows to steam up and hide us from the storm outside. All of my wants were fulfilled. He must have realized my desire, for before we were at the point of stripping off, he pulled away from me. “The storm’s let up,” I said. He started the car, and waited for the windows to clear. It was still raining heavily, but he could see well enough to drive.
“I hate it when it rain like Revelation’s gonna wash these fools away,” he confessed. He was a little shaken. I didn’t think the storm was all that bad, but them I tend to love storms – great for magick. I reached over and ran my hand along his thigh. It wasn’t meant to be sexual or even sensual. It was meant to comfort him.
Another stop, and I dozed off, and when I awoke, Michael was driving through my neighborhood. I thought we were on our way to my apartment, but he turned onto one of the side streets then down an alley. “Where are we headed?”
“Church.”
“What do you mean church?”
He turned into the rectory parking of St. Sebastian’s. “This is a really bad way to tell you. It’s best fast and blunt. It’s almost five o’clock. I’m a Catholic Priest, and I have to say six o’clock Mass. I wish it was a joke. It isn’t.”
It was one of those times when your jaw drops and you stare blankly at the person. “You fuck!” I was pissed – to put it mildly. I don’t know why. Were he an Anglican priest, it might not have bothered me. Maybe it’s the celibacy thing, and maybe it’s because I’d run screaming from the Church of Rome years ago. “Get out. Go.”
“I want to explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain. You’re a Catholic Priest with a daddy fetish. I guess…”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fairness? You espouse fairness? In the Church’s eyes I’m condemned to hell because of how I love, and you’d preach to me of fair? Get out of my car.”
“Please listen.”
“Try your confessor. Maybe your penance can be a blow job. Get the fuck out of my car.”
“I want you to listen.”
“No Father. I’m not going to listen to your false promises. I think Holy Mother Church warned me about you from Baptism on. Get out,” I pulled my phone from my pocket ready to dial 911. “How will it look to have the cops here, the newspaper, and the television stations?”
At this point he was crying. I don’t know if it was sorrow, regret, fear or all of the above. He got out though. “I’ve got to get my motorcycle. It’s locked in your garage,” he sobbed as he shut the door.
I was two blocks from home. They were the longest blocks I’ve ever driven. I had both too much and not enough time to think. By the time I pulled into the garage, I’d made an odd decision. It was just now five o’clock. The rain had stopped, and I started to push his bike outside, but that wasn’t what I really wanted. I wanted him.
I walked up the steps, showered away the sins of commission and omission, and dressed in chinos, a sweater, and my favorite brown moccasins. Putting the gel in my hair I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. Goddess help me.
It’s been more than twenty years since I was in a Catholic church, but I was showing up today for services. The floor didn’t open up and let me fall straight into Hell. I picked up a hymnal, skipped the holy water, and walked into the sanctuary. In the 1870s when it was built, the church was magnificent, but with a decline in membership during the Urban Exodus, they hadn’t had the money to remodel after Vatican II. They’d just set up a table altar in the middle of the old sanctuary space. Now that the community around it had gentrified and new families had joined, it seemed a shame to change things. They’d done an overhaul to bring the sound system up to date, repair, and rehab the building, but for the most part the church looked at it would have looked in 1945. I sat in the center section, third pew from the back. Maybe he wouldn’t notice me. Hell, maybe the ceiling would fall in after all. I’ve been so many other religions since I self-excommunicated, and I was now one of the few, the proud, the Pagani.
The organ began a mournful hymn. I rose with everyone else and watched Michael follow behind the altar boys and a woman lector. The Mass began. I don’t think he saw me – until Communion. While I don’t believe in Catholic teachings anymore, I respect them. I wouldn’t go up to receive Communion. He looked out at the crowd and our eyes met. He swallowed hard, and seemed to rush the rest of the Mass. I’m too far removed to be sure.
Instead of leaving after the Ite I walked up to a small grotto. It was dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. I walked down the stone steps and knelt before the bier of candles. I understood Her as the Catholics didn’t. She was the Goddess – simultaneously maiden and mother – due latria not the hyperdulia of the Catholics. “I’m surprised you came.” I turned. Michael still wore his green vestments.
“I brought your bike back,” I said pitching him the keys.
“That’s it. You’re just here to return…”
“I’m confused about why…”
“This isn’t the time or the place.”
“I’m keeping you from the parishioners. I’ll go.”
“No, we’re the only ones here.”
“Then, Father, what better the time or the place. You’re even vested to hear my confession.”
“I’m the one who needs to confess.”
“Well, I’m a Pagan not a priest.”
“Somehow, that’s more suitable to me. Anyway, I made a decision to leave the Church.” I looked at him inquisitively. “No it’s not because of you. I’ve sent a letter of resignation. It’s official in two weeks. If you’ll have me, I do want to see you again. We don’t need to wait, My vows are pretty shattered already.”
“All with me?”
“In word and deed. Thought’s been a little longer in the making.”
I walked over and hugged him tightly but without passion. His lips found mine with passion. When we’d finished, he traced his finger on the tattoo on my shoulder. “What it it?”
“A flaming chalice. I’m a Unitarian Pagan.”
“Always full of surprises?” I laughed.
He watched me dress. “Do you think She minds how we used Her grotto,” he asked looking at the statue of the Virgin.
“No Michael, but I think it means that in Her eyes, we’re married.”
“I can live with that.”
Matt Barber, Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America has made the following statement:
