Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

It’s the biggest struggle of my whole life, but I’m making it for Heavenly Father.” The kid’s big gray eyes were damp now. “But sometimes it’s like … there’s nothing I can do about it.”
    Oh shit, thought Jake. So that’s where this is going.
    “It’s not like I wasn’t prepared. I was. I knew that a place like San Francisco would put me in the path of temptation. But sometimes when I meet somebody new, the urges get too much for me and …”
    The kid didn’t finish the sentence, so Jake tried to spare them both the embarrassment. “Jonah … dude … I’m really flattered, but I don’t think that sexually you and me would be—”
    “No! I don’t mean you!”
    The response was so fierce that Jake couldn’t help but feel stung by it. “Okay, man … cool … whatever.”
    “No offense … you’re handsome and all, but you’re more like a friend. I just meant … I met this dude at Starbucks today, and he asked me to go home with him.”
    Jake took that in. “I thought you guys couldn’t drink coffee.”
    “What guys?”
    “Mormons.”
    “I was having a brownie.”
    “So … what? … You had sex with this dude, and you’re feeling guilty now.”
    “No. I told him no. I said it was against my faith.”
    “Well … there you go. Nothing to be worried about. Your sacred purity is intact.”
    “But … I’m still feeling the urges. I haven’t stopped feeling them for the past two hours.”
    “Then go back and fuck him. Get over yourself, dude. Get over your damn faith. It’s gonna kill you.”
    The kid looked devastated. “Haven’t you ever had something you wanted to change … and you couldn’t … and it made you feel like a crazy person?”
    Oh , one little thing, thought Jake.
    “If you don’t wanna help—”
    “I just tried to, Jonah. I gave you my best advice. What else could I possibly do?”
    Jonah hesitated, his fingertips fidgeting at his temple, where a sprinkling of acne betrayed his idling adolescence. He seemed to be weighing something.
    “It’s gonna sound wack,” he said.
    “Try me.”
    “I need you to hold me.”
    Jake just blinked at him.
    “It’s part of my therapy. Back in Snowflake my therapist does it, but I don’t know anybody here besides the other elders, and I don’t … they don’t know about my, you know … You don’t have to, dude, if you don’t—”
    “Your therapist holds you?”
    “It’s called touch therapy. I’m supposed to do it when I feel unclean urges. He says the urges come to me because my dad was so distant, so … if I can find a man to hold me, I’ll be getting what I want, and sex won’t have to be part of it. He says gay men really just want strong masculine love.”
    Jake remembered now. He’d seen this on a CNN report about ex-gays: one grown man holding another on his lap, rocking him like a baby, stroking his head.
    “Is this guy like … a therapist therapist?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Like … a psychiatrist or something?”
    Jonah shrugged. “He’s a reparative therapist … a highly respected LDS leader. He went through this himself. Personally.”
    “He’s gay, you mean.”
    “ Was. He’s married and has kids now. Listen, dude … it was wrong of me to ask. You’ve made your own choices. You’ve got your life worked out.”
    Right, thought Jake.
    The kid stood up, stumbling a little, obviously embarrassed. He headed for the door, looking much more rejected than Jake had felt moments earlier.
    “What the hell,” said Jake.
    Jonah turned. “What?”
    “What do I have to do? Do I have to talk?”
    “You’ll do it?”
    “I’ll give it a shot.”
    The kid’s peachy face went red with relief. Or gratitude. Or something.
    He blushes like I do, thought Jake.
    “You don’t have to say anything at all,” Jonah assured him. “You can watch the match, if you want.”
    “The TV’s in the bedroom, dude.”
    “That’s okay. I trust you.”
    “We keep our clothes on, right?”
    “Totally.”
    Jake led the way to the bedroom—and the bed—where he propped pillows against the headboard and let Jonah lie against his chest. Jake wondered what to do with his hands, until Jonah guided him, placing one of them behind his own head and the other on his waist. He did this with such practiced authority that Jake was reminded of a ballroom dance class he had endured one summer as a kid in Oklahoma. Only then he had been the one with a hand on his waist.
    “So this is it?” he