This story contains accounts of sex between two people of the same gender. If that is offensive to you, or illegal where you reside, then go elesewhere. The story is was inspired by the comment of a guy with whom I was chatting, who said that his first sexual encounter was on a train. That was all he said, but.... I am grateful to John who has again proof read a story for me, and remaining errors are entirely my fault.
Parson's Folly; Parson's Pleasure.
I went up to University. I never did anything with another guy there; but I continued to get stuck in - if I may put it that way - when I was at home.
Before going to University I had to make the decision whether to enter the Church and get ordained or take up medicine. I opted for the Church. After getting my degree, with encouragement from the Church authorities I decided to work abroad for a couple of years before going to Theological College.
It was while I was in Nigeria that I received a letter from my mother at home.
My dear Michael, (After the usual opening platitudes she wrote) The village has been rocked by a real scandal. I am sure it will come as a shock to you. Alan Arnold has been found to be doing some terrible intimate things with some of the boys of the village. As you know he was so looked up to and respected in the village. He had been head boy in the church choir, and leading scout, as well as Head Boy at your old Grammar School. Then at University he got a first, and his D. Phil. The parents of the boys involved held a meeting.
They decided not to bring the matter to the Police, as they did not want to drag their sons through the lengthy legal process that would have occurred, even if Alan had pleaded guilty. They delivered him an ultimatum: leave the village within three months or they would bring the matter to the attention of the Police. His house is for sale; and I have just heard he has got a job in America. I know you used to go to his house from time to time. I do hope you were not involved.
My parents never refered to matter again. I think my mother suspected that I was one of those who had been involved. Mothers often have a strong intuition on such things. My father would have been too embarassed to mention it.
When I returned a year later life in the village had moved on. I made contact with Bill, who had also moved away. He had heard the full story. One of the younger boys involved had blabbed to his father under interrogation. His father had suspected something.
I think my story is like so many. There were the sexually active adolescent years. I was at University during the years when legalisation was being debated in Parliament, and the relevant bill was eventually passed. I have often looked back and tried to examine myself. I think I regarded all that had happened as a passing phase. It was, I thought, something I had grown out of.
I went to theological college for a couple of years. I was ordained. I served as a curate in a busy London parish. It was there I met Sue. She was a helper in the Youth Club, and in those days curates were expected to be involved with the Church Youth Club. Soon a certain amount of mutual teasing went on, then we would be among the last to go home because we engaged in deep conversation. So one thing led to another, we got engaged, and in the last year of my second curacy we got married.
I continued to remember all that had happened back in my home village. But it was more and more something that had happened in the increasingly distant past. I worked hard. In the fulness of time we had three children - a boy and then a couple of girls. It is often not realised how many hours a parson can put in. Because the work is so varied, the hours can be long. Mornings, afternoons and evenings are usually taken up with working. This may well have been one of the reasons for the eventual breakdown of my marriage. I always tried to take one day off a week but I was not the master of my own diary, there were always funerals or other emergencies on that precious one day off a week. But I did manage always to take full and proper holidays.
So the years passed. The children grew up and eventually left home. When they were at school, and safe to allow in the vicarage on their own for an hour or two, my wife went back to work teaching in a local school.
And what of the two of us? I suppose we were drifting through a comfortable middle age. I thought she was happy, at least reasonably happy. As for sex its frequency had declined after the first flush of marriage. After the birth of the third child and a couple of years of broken nights it steadily became a rare activity. I must confess that there were times when I used my hand in the shower to relieve myself. I found that rather unsatisfying, so that too was occasional.
If I did recollect those distant teenage years in my old home village it was with a smile. It was just a passing phase. I was a committed parish priest, I was married, I was the father of three children, what further proof would anyone require to prove that it was anything other than a passing phase.
I wonder how long things would have drifted on if Sue had not taken matters into her own hands.
It was the height of midsummer in 2000. I had to go away to a clergy conference at Swanwick in Derbyshire. It was the usual curate's egg of these affairs - good in parts. The main speaker was rather dreary, but the bishop was both highly entertaining, and much to the point. He seems to believe and practise the Nineteenth Century Baptist preacher, C.H.Spurgeon's dictum, `You tickle the oyster before you insert the knife.'
As always it had been good to meet colleagues and talk with them over a pint in the bar.
I had travelled up to Swanwick with a neighbour, and we chatted extensively on the way back. We went down the A38, round Birmingham and on down the M5. We discussed the problems facing the Church of England, especially the current hot potatoes of women's ministry and women bishops in particular and, of course, gay priests. Looking back on that conversation I did not see myself in any way involved. What had happened when I was young was in the dim and distant past, and now I was married, the father of three adult children, and a priest in the Church of England. Yes, I knew there were some priests who were gay; and I could have hazarded a good guess as to those who were actively gay. I knew for certain I was in no way among their number - either active or otherwise.
My neighbour pulled up his car outside the short driveway up to the vicarage.
"Would you like to come in for a cup of tea."
"No thank you, Mike, I must be getting back. P.C.C. [Parochial Church Council] meeting tonight.
"Poor you!"
I waved him good bye, picked up my case and walked up to the vicarage. I unlocked the front door and went in. "Anybody at home?"
Even though Sue and I were now the only ones living in the house, there were occasions when my secretary was there working, or some church group or another.
That there was no answer came as no undue surprise.
I went through to the kitchen to put the kettle on to make a cup of tea. Then I picked up my case and took it upstairs to the bedroom. I dumped it on the floor and went into the bathroom to go to the loo. As I stood peeing I noticed that the bathroom looked less cluttered than usual, and presumed that Sue had been doing some clearing up. I went into the bed room and started to unpack my case. I placed my dirty clothes in the laundry basket, nothing unusual in that. But when I went to hang up a jacket, the wardrobe seemed strangely empty. I opened the other door and noticed that Sue's side was completely empty. The penny still did not fully drop. She could have taken her clothes to be cleaned.
I went back downstairs, and I remember hearing the click of the electric kettle as it turned itself off. I went back into the kitchen and this time saw on the table an envelope addressed to myself. I pulled out the letter.
Dear Mike, I fear that all this will come as a shock to you. For several years I have been more and more aware how little there is in our marriage. We seem to be leading lives that run parallel but never really meet. You work all hours of the day and night. Yes, I know that I work too, but I sit at home most evenings waiting for you to get home from some meeting or visit; and when you get home you flop down in front of the television with hardly a word. The sexual side of our marriage seems no longer important to either of us. I have decided to seek a richer and more fulfilling life. The children know that I have left you, and they know where I have gone. I hope that we both can avoid using them as pawns and go-betweens. If you need to contact me please do so through my solicitors - Brayne and Firbanks, 15 High Street, Barchester. You probably wish to know if there is another man involved. The answer is simple, there is not. If I do meet a man who can give me those things that were lacking with us, I want to be free to explore the relationship unhindered by ties. But for the moment I am not seeking a divorce, but it might seem the right thing in a few years time. I wish you well, Mike. Thank you for the good times of our early years. Yours Sue.
I sat down at the kitchen table, placed my head in my arms and wept. No words can adequately describe my surprise. A bolt out of the blue? Flabbergasted? Gob smacked? I don't know for how long that I sat there. I was just beginning to think, what should I do, whom should I tell, when the door bell rang. I was tempted not to answer it, but when it rang the second time I realised that most people can intuit when there is someone in the house and they are not answering the door. Whoever it was may well come prowling round looking to see if anyone was at home. I ran my hands through my hair to tidy myself and went to the door.
There stood Mrs Alice Prince, the leader of our Mother's Union. She was a mother, and grandmother. Very committed to the life and work of the church. I knew that there had been times when life had been far from easy for her.
"Mike, what's the matter? You look awful."
I shook my head to clear it. I realised my personal plight could not be kept secret from the church and parish for long, and that there was no time like the present. "It's Sue, she's left me!"
"Left you? You poor man! When?"
"I've been away at a conference up in Derbyshire, and when I got home a little while ago I found that she had gone." I paused for a moment before adding, "Come on in."
"So you've just found out?"
I looked at my watch. "I got home a couple of hours ago."
Alice was wonderful. She took charge. She offered to make a cup of tea, or something stronger? I chose the tea, which she made.
She sat at the kitchen table and we talked. She asked the obvious questions, and we started discussing what actions I needed to take.
"You won't be able to hide something like this from the parish, so it is best not to try. Sue's deserted you. You're a popular Rector, the vast majority will stick by you. I am not aware that Sue had any close friends in the village."
"I know. I think things might have been different if she had made some close friends."
"I suppose you need to inform the Bishop fairly quickly."
Alice was a great help over the next few weeks. She supported, was never nosy, and helped deal with the parish.
The Bishop was more searching in his questioning, but must have picked up my bafflement at Sue's departure. He insisted that I did not do duty for the next two Sundays, so that it could be mentioned openly in church without my having to do it, or being present when someone else did.
So began the years of living alone. For the first few weeks, I thought much on why Sue had left, and entirely blamed her. I was hurt and angry. I felt betrayed.
That stage passed, and then I began to think seriously as to why she had left. She had mentioned various things in her letter. Loneliness - yes I could understand that. I saw that she was correct in that I would come home late of an evening and sit in front of the television, not wanting to talk, and often dropping off to sleep. After all I had been talking with or to people all the evening, while she sitting at home was longing for some adult conversation. We had never carved out any quality time to be together, just to talk or do something together.
Sue had never enjoyed being the Rector's wife. The church had expectations of her, from doing the flowers, and running the Mother's Union, and helping in the Sunday School. She enjoyed her teaching, and found the additional burdens of parish expectations difficult to bear. Some in the Church had made snide remarks from time to time, about her not being a good Rector's wife. Such comments hurt, even though they could be dismissed as reflecting the expectations of more than a century before.
I thought over the sexual side. My memory was that it was more than me that had not wanted that. There had been tiredness after the birth of our third and last child, - a daughter. She was a demanding baby and toddler, needing for several years almost no sleep. Sue bore the brunt of the baby care with its sleepless nights. I know for a time Sue was slightly anaemic.
This process of self examination went on for some months.
Then came the dreams.
In the first one I was walking in the maze at Hampton Court for what seemed hours. That was easily dismissed as I had been watching a documentary on that place during the evening before.
I was not into dreams. I had never done any work on interpretation of dreams. I know that when I told them to someone who was something of an expert their meaning and significance was obvious.
In the next dream I was in a system of caves, clambering over rocks and squeezing through narrow passages. Again it seemed to go on for hours and hours. When I woke I entangled in the duvet.
There was a dream where I was in a house that caught fire. I was trapped, the door was locked, and the windows shuttered. When I tore down the shutters it was to find the windows securely barred outside. I was desperate to get out.
Then I woke one morning after a vivid dream with a raging hard on. I was back in the village of my youth. Except it was and was not the village in the way that dreams so often are. Alan was there, stark naked playing with and then sucking my cock. I was lying back in utter bliss. I woke just as I climaxed, to find my cock pulsating and cum all over the bed clothes. I reached for the handkerchief under the pillow, and mopped it up as best I could.
That dream with slight and very erotic variations occurred every week or so over the next few months. I was soon recollecting that time, and all the incidents with Alan, Bill and all the others. I quickly realised that they were for me happy and carefree days. I wondered what had happened to all those involved, especially to Alan. Professionally he would have succeeded in the States, but what of his love life? I even contemplated trying to get in contact with him again. Those days had held the best, happiest and most fulfilling sexual experiences of my life.
Once I realised that, I began to worry! Was I gay? It was something I was loath to admit. Men in my profession, with my views were not supposed to be gay. But I was not a complete ostrich, with my head buried in the sand; I knew that many clergy in all the Churches were gay. Where I was more uncertain was about married gay priests. I was certain some of my bachelor colleagues were gay, and actively so. But when I starting thinking about the married ones I found it difficult to imagine that any of them were gay. Christian ministry as a caring profession seems to attract gay men. But was I one of that number? After several weeks of wrestling with this new thought I decided I needed help and counsel. I could go to a profession psychiatrist, but I feared some a person would not understand the spiritual aspects of my position. The church has a number of priests who offer good spiritual direction and counselling. But I had to be careful. There were those whose theological position made them utterly hostile to any implications of active homosexuality, and they were probably completely lacking in any understanding of what it means to be gay. I decided to talk it over with a bachelor colleague, who, I was pretty sure, was gay. I rang him said I had a problem I wanted to talk through confidentially. He invited me round for coffee.
After the usual platitudes in the kitchen, while he made the coffee, we went in the large drawing room - only that word adequately describes the room - of his huge Victorian Vicarage. He was a bachelor, but his aged mother lived with him, plus several cats.
"Well Mike, what can I do for you? You said you wanted a confidential talk."
"You know, of course, that Sue left me some months ago?"
He nodded.
"I have been having some vivid dreams, and doing a lot of thinking. I think I might be gay."
He gave a very slight smile.
"Why do you smile?"
"You are not the first married man, or even married priest, who has sat there and said that. I sometime feel like writing an alternative version of
`Tell Me the Old , Old Story' to describe the men facing that problem."
I breathed a sigh of relief. I had suspected I was not unique, or some freak, in being married, a parson, and possibly gay.
"What makes you think you might be gay?"
I told him about dreams of being back in the village of my younger days.
"They could well be significant. I presume you did that sort of thing in you teens?"
"Yes, a lot."
"Well, you started before me. My first sexual encounter was with a fellow student at University."
I breathed a further sigh of relief.
"There are a lot of clergy like us. Most of the Bishops, and certainly the more fundamentalist and Bible bashing church people, want us either unfrocked, or swept up and kept under the carpet. What are you going to do about it, Mike?"
"At the moment I'm trying to come to terms with what I seem to be discovering about myself."
"No hints that you might be gay in the intervening years between your youthful escapades and these dreams you have been having?"
"I don't think so."
"It might be revealing to you, to look over those years more carefully to see if there was any evidence then of your true sexual orientation."
"I know I never did anything!"
"I am sure. But the evidence might be there in thoughts, attractions, even in things you suppressed or pushed to one side. The heart of man is deceitful, and we often deceive ourselves. "
"Do you think I'm gay?"
He shrugged. "Just on the basis of your youthful escapades, and those dreams, I wouldn't like to say. Anyway, I would be very hesitant to tell any man he's gay. Mike, it is something you must work out for yourself. There are many boys who do things together for a number of years, and it is just a passing phase. They get through it, get married, have children, and seemingly live happily ever after. Would you have thought you might be gay if Sue had not left you?"
"I don't know. Probably not."
"The dreams may or may not be significant. I think lot of us have throwback dreams, when we go back to a particular chapter in our lives. Then there are what I call professional dreams. The sort where you cannot find your sermon notes, or your robes for a service."
I laughed. "I have those. But the dreams which I have told you about, were not the only dreams. The others seem totally unrelated."
"What were they about? I've done a little work on dreams."
I started to tell him about the Hampton Court maze dream.
He interrupted me. "Mike I want you to sit back, shut your eyes, and play back the dream in your mind, and tell me it as you go through it. Tell me in the present tense."
I told him the dream. Before I started on the second dream he asked me to tell it to him in the simple present, rather than the continuous present.
"You mean I walk', rather than I am walking'."
"Exactly"
I told him the second dream of the system of caves, and finally of being locked in the room with the house on fire.
I opened my eyes, and saw a broad grin on his face. "Why the grin?"
"I think those dreams are much more significant than the dreams about the village of your childhood."
"In what way?"
"By re-living the dreams, and telling them in the present, you said some interesting things. In the first dream at the end you said I am coming out of the maze'. With the second and third dream you said I come out of the caves', and `I am struggling to come out of the room'."
I think my mouth was open, as the penny dropped.
"Yes, Mike. You know every bit as much as I do the significance of those words about coming out."
I nodded
"Is it your subconscious pushing up into your conscious this truth about yourself?"
"They were powerful dreams. The fact that the memory of them has stayed with me shows that. If all this is true, then I think I need to think more about it."
"Sure."
"I need to think about this coming out. I suppose it means telling friends and family."
"I think there are several stages involved. At least three for the Christian."
"In what way?"
"First, you need to come out to yourself. We have talked about the possibility that you might be gay. But you have not yet said `I am gay'. For many men the actual saying of those words is tremendously significant, and in a way liberating. It is the admitting of a very important truth about oneself to oneself. Some men struggle for ages over it. Some indeed will never even admit it to themselves."
"I see what you mean."
"Secondly, you need to come out to God."
"To God?"
"Yes, to God. Our Fundamentalist Bible-bashing friends want to consign gays to the realms of outer darkness. But I don't think it is as simple as that. I take note that Jesus was a friend of outcasts and sinners. His harshest words are for the religious - put another way, for the likes of you and me. I don't think our Lord is as harsh and judgmental as some folk think. I believe in a God of love, and that He loves us. Yes, and he created us, and made us. Made me as I am, - a gay man. My sexual orientation is an essential part of my being. In no way is it in the same category as the nasties in my life, my short fuse and my jealousy. Get rid of them and I'd still be me. Change my sexual orientation and I would be a totally different person. I would not be me any longer, but someone different."
"You're giving me a lot to think through."
"Finally there is the coming out to family and friends. How far a person comes out is up to him. You don't put it in the personal columns of the Times, or even the Church Times. You need tell no one. But the more people you tell, the more people are likely to get to know. Even confidences leak like a sieve in the dear old Church of England."
"What about words spoken in the context of confession?"
"That is somewhat different. I think most priests who hear confession regard all they hear with complete and utter confidence. But something spoken confidentially can quickly and easily become a matter of gossip amongst friends."
"How far are you out?"
"I don't know. Some here in the parish know, how far people know I'm not sure. I'm out to my mother, brother and sisters. But they did not have to be told."
Our conversation drifted off into dealing with his experiences. I left with much to think over.
"If you want to talk some more, then you only have to ring me up." With that we parted.
It must have been three months later when I went to see him again. It was the height of summer and we sat out in his garden drinking iced fruit drinks.
"Well, Mike, how are things going?"
"I've done a lot of thinking. I have thought carefully about a number of things, mainly relationships in those intervening years between my teenage years, and when Sue left me. I think there were one or two things that happened that might point to any gay sexuality in me being submerged, but still around."
"Submerged by?"
"I suppose, the fact of marriage, and my spirituality."
"Our religion has a lot to answer for. So what are you going to do about it?"
"That's what I wanted to talk over with you. What can I do?"
"What do you mean, what can I do?"
"Aren't I too old."
He immediately burst into laughter. "How old are you, Mike?"
"Late fifties."
"I know I am a few years younger than you, but I know several men, ten even twenty years older than you, who still enjoy `doing something about it'.
"I'm not a complete ignoramus, I know about cruising places, and sauna places, but what happens? What goes on? How do gay men meet other gay men?"
"For one thing the Internet is a great meeting place. There are no end of sites where you can make contact with men with similar desires. Many will be a long way away, but there will be a number in Bristol, Swindon, Salisbury, Bournemouth etc. Some sites will show you men of all ages and inclinations."
"I don't think the computer will do for me. I only have access to a parish computer, and I use it more as a word processor, than a computer. Anyway can't things be traced? My secretary uses it as well, and I would be scared stiff she would find out something. What are these `cruising places', how do they work?"
"Some are places which get known as places where men can meet. There are certain public toilets, which are usually called `cottages' by gay men. But they can be dangerous, and not always pleasant places."
"But what happens at one of these cruising places?"
"Men go there by car. Go for a stroll in the near by woods. Men standing around, perhaps rubbing their crotch, looking you in the eye. You might even see two men doing something together."
"Is there any risk?"
"Some, and there is a limit to what you can do, especially if it is cold and damp."
"Where are these cruising places?"
"Well there is one out on the Oxford Road. About three miles beyond the roundabout, the road has been straightened, just before you get to the turn off for Brincombe. The old road is behind some bushes, and there are several paths that go up into the woods. Quite a lot can go on up in the woods."
"Have you been?"
"Once or twice."
"And these sauna places - what happens at them exactly?"
"A gay sauna is the safest place. The men who are there are all wanting the same thing. They may not want it with you, but they won't be offended, or take you to court, if you make an approach."
"What exactly goes on?"
He described the facilities and procedure at such places. "Would you like me to take you, and show you round?" He said this with a very broad smile on his face.
We arranged to go together to the one in Bristol ten days later.
Jeff at jeffyrks@hotmail.com