THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO NATE
By
Encolpius
Author's Note: Thank you to Brentraz for proofreading. Havnig another pair of eyes is very helpful.
Feedback is always appreciated! Write to Encolpius1@protonmail.com
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SIX
The man at the bathhouse taught at the University.
I was watering containers of begonias and fuchsia just inside the walkway into Hardeman Hall when he entered, holding a briefcase. I was close to the door, and I opened it for him. It was at that moment that our eyes met and I recognized him. I could tell he recognized me.
"Hi," I said.
"Hello," he answered. He said nothing more as he passed by me. I watched him turn in the entryway and go up the stairs to the second floor.
I asked Fred what subject was taught in Hardeman Hall, and he said Religious Studies. That actually made me feel pretty bad. I had had anonymous sex with a guy who taught other people about religion and faith. It was like doing it with a preacher. At first, I thought I wouldn't go back to the bathhouse anymore. I actually promised myself that I wouldn't. But I did. I let horniness get the better of me. And that next time was even worse. I went into a room with a guy, and had sex with him, with me as the top. When we were done, I noticed that he had a band of gold on his left ring finger. I felt really bad for his wife.
The problem was that Hardeman Hall was in my landscaping work zone. I couldn't avoid going there. I just had to remind myself that our anonymous experience probably didn't mean anything to him, and I shouldn't let it mean anything to me. Another problem was that I wasn't going to church as much as I had been. I still helped Fred out with the flower beds, but I didn't really go to services as often.
We had to cut a diseased limb off of an oak tree, without damaging the roof of Hardeman Hall. It was tricky, requiring a fair bit of just manual labor and torque. After we got it down, I took the chainsaw and cut the limb into smaller pieces so we could get rid of it. It was my job to load the branches and take them away. But I needed a chug of water first, and stopped for a little rest. That was when he came up. It was the professor from the bathhouse.
"I was going to come out and complain about the chainsaw," he said.
"I'm done with it now."
"I'm Charlie," he said, sticking out his hand.
"We've met."
"I remember," he said. "It was memorable."
"I uh...." I stuttered. "I don't know what I am supposed to say."
"I want to make you an offer," he said. "My mother passed a while back, and I need to sell her house. But there is work to be done, especially in the yards. I could use the help. Would you be free for the next few Saturdays to help? I'll pay, of course."
"Yeah."
He smiled. "Good. $10 an hour sound right?"
I nodded. He told me he had tools, so I didn't need to bring anything. He gave me the address. I promised to be there by 8:00 am. $10 an hour was more than I was making at my regular job, and this would be tax-free, too. I was totally happy to do it. And a couple of weekends in a row? That was really cool.
When I got there, I was disappointed. The house needed pressure washing, and the yards were a mess. The shrubs needed trimming. The beds needed weeding. There were plants in bad shape that just needed to be dug up. The grass needed cutting. The driveway needed edging. There was a lot of work. Charlie was there and we talked about what to do. He asked what new plants he should put in.
"I don't know," I said. "I can ask Fred, though."
"You're not an expert in landscaping?" he asked. I could tell he was joking.
The first thing to do was cut the grass. He had a push mower. It took quite a while to do, but Charlie didn't seem to be hurrying me. As the morning dew burned off, I got hot and took off my shirt. After the mowing I got to work trimming the shrubs. That was a big job, but it was finished when lunchtime came. He went and bought burgers from Wendy's. I didn't tell him that I didn't really eat meat much -- and working at BK had turned me off to fast-food burgers. As we ate them, he joked about the benefit of me having a young metabolism.
We didn't even get the front yard flower beds weeded that day. It seemed Charlie needed to talk as much as work. He asked me about my life. I just told him I had to leave home because I was gay. He asked some more questions, but then I shifted the conversation back to him. He told me he'd been married and had children, but he was gay and now divorced. I realized that did happen, but I hadn't ever talked to anyone who had been married to a woman and walked away from it. He told me about his education, about being a pastor and then an academic. Then he became a professor. So we worked and talked. Finally it got late. He asked me to stay for dinner, and asked me what I wanted. I told him whatever he wanted.
"Young people like pizza and beer!" he said.
"If I drink beer, I can't really drive," I said.
"You can stay here with me."
"I don't think I should," I replied.
We had pizza anyway. It was the first time in a long while that I'd eaten pizza, so I really enjoyed it. He paid me, and included the amount of time spent eating lunch and dinner. I tried to give him back $20 that I felt I hadn't earned. He wouldn't take it. He said he was paying me for my time.
I went to church that next day, and helped Fred with the flower beds there. I told him about the professor's house, and asked about the type of plants that would help get the house spruced up and ready to sell.
"Oh, he will want some color, some flowering plants. If it's for the winter -- snapdragons, wild petunias, dianthus, pansies. Ornamental peppers and ornamental cabbage. That would work well," he said.
I went back the next Saturday and cut the grass again, then did the edging and went to work weeding. I told Charlie what Fred had suggested about new plants. That was going to be our plan for the next weekend, to do the planting. He bought lunch again. After we were done in the late afternoon, he asked about supper. I was a little bit shy, and hesitated a moment before answering.
"Uh, if you want to buy pizza and beer, I brought a change of clothes."
He smiled. "Let's do this then. We'll go to my condo, and you can take a shower. I will arrange for the pizza and beer."
I rode my motorcycle to his condo and waited outside for him -- feeling kind of like I didn't belong there, like maybe somebody was going to call the cops. Then he pulled up and got out of his car, telling me that he didn't know what kind of beer to get, so he got Budweiser. To be honest, I didn't know what kind of beer I liked either. He ordered the pizza, and I got in the shower. When I finished, I dried off and wrapped a towel around me and walked out of the bathroom to get dressed. Charlie was on the bed.
"You are a beautiful boy," he said.
"I didn't see a bed in the other bedroom."
"It's my office. You could sleep here with me. Or... I have an air mattress."
"I am not a prostitute."
"I didn't think you were, Nate," he said. "Whether we have sex is up to you. I am paying for the privilege of getting to know you. I am paying for your time."
He had a lot of books on shelves in his office. In fact, the whole condo had bookshelves. Everything was very tasteful and well-decorated. I was looking at his books as I told him that I enjoyed reading. I picked one off the shelf called "A Confederacy of Dunces".
"I've heard of this one," I said.
"You'll love it. It's one of my favorites!" he said. I offered to leave it and pick another. "No, Nate. It's a gift. I'll replace it. Don't worry. Read and enjoy."
We had the pizza and beer. The few times I'd had beer, I found it sour and bitter. I guess it's an acquired taste. After my second, I was pretty lightheaded and loose. At first, he wanted me to talk about myself. But I asked him about his life. We talked about his work, which was focused on what he called the Synoptic Problem. I didn't know what that was.
"Well, we are pretty sure the Gospel of Mark came first, was written first, probably pretty soon after 70 AD. It reflects an awareness of the Apostle Paul's theology. Actually, more than an awareness. Matthew and Luke borrowed heavily from Mark -- sometimes whole passages, but certainly the basic literary frame. So let's say that Matthew and Luke write about half of the content in their Gospels. But about half of the rest seems to be very similar between Matthew and Luke, but does not have so much in common with Mark's book. Did Luke copy from Matthew? Or did they both have another shared source that's since been lost? Then another quarter of the text is unique to either Matthew or Luke. They have very different theologies and even Christologies, and they differ greatly in two very important places: the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. In fact... if one is right, then the other has to be wrong."
(I had a bit of trouble processing what he explained to me. But later on, I checked him in my Bible. When you compare one against the other, they are totally different. They couldn't both be telling the truth.)
Eventually, as I got tipsy, Charlie wanted me to tell him more about myself. So I did, and foolishly drank a third beer. I told him about being adopted, and then my brother Sam being born, and how different we were. And about them finding out about my being gay. All of that. He asked me about my plans for the future.
"I don't know. I was thinking of maybe being a paramedic, but I don't really have the time to go to school since I work two jobs."
"The University gives free tuition to staff. You could do nursing or even pre-med," he replied.
I looked at him, shocked. "I did good in community college, but I don't know that I could do real college courses. I think I could do technical school though, if I had the time and the money."
He looked at me hard. For a long minute.
"There is something in that statement that makes me very angry, Nate. Not at you... at them," he said, his voice low. "You're clearly an intelligent young man. You seem to be kind and generous. You are handsome. But somehow, somebody let you believe, made you believe, that you are less than you are. That you are not worthy. That you are defective. That you are disordered and not deserving. And that is a crime. Because you aren't. You are deserving and you are capable. You are not broken, or somehow any less than anybody else!"
"I don't think I am less than anybody else. I don't think I am defective!" I shot back, a little angry.
"Yes, you do Nate. But it's not true. You are the cream of the crop."
I made love to him that night. Not for the money, but because I wanted to. He was a man at 60 years old, and I was 19. He exercised regularly and, I suppose, was in good shape for his age -- though I wasn't physically attracted to him. But I wanted to give him pleasure. He was soft as we got into his bed, and I was hard. He told me to enjoy effortless erections because that doesn't last forever. We kissed and we touched. I was surprised at how slowly it came to life. I was almost embarrassed, thinking maybe he hadn't really meant it when he told me I was beautiful -- since he couldn't seem to get hard. Then I realized he was embarrassed too.
"I guess we all talk to each other in our heads in bad ways, huh?" I said.
He smiled and replied, "Especially about sex."
I was able to will it to life with my mouth. He gently taught me how to be better at sucking. He told me what he wanted, what felt good, how to do it better. But he taught gently, kindly. He didn't make me feel little. He made me feel big. And I liked that. I liked that he desired me, and did it so openly. I sucked him and took his orders happily, working his shaft as it stiffened and hardened. All the way down and slowly off, licking and nibbling and sucking. I worked his balls and went for every pleasure point that he described.
"You have natural talent, my little chick!" he said. "That feels so good."
I liked the compliment, and my dick sure stayed hard while I was doing it. Pleasing him was very erotic. I realized that I get off getting other people off.
Then I got the masterclass when he did me! It felt so amazing, so wonderful. He took me down effortlessly, all the way. Took me deep. He sucked me beautifully. At first, I thought it was like a starving man having his first meal. But then, no. It was like a gourmet connoisseur savoring foie gras. He certainly knew what he was doing, and how to maximize the pleasure of it. He licked and he sucked and worked my tool. He was masterful at it.
"Mmmm!" I purred.
"You like that, huh?" Charlie said. "Not a sloppy teenage blowjob, right?"
"No."
He smiled and replied, "Youth is wasted on the young."
"Suck it!" I said.
I rammed my cock into his mouth, and he tongued around the head until it sent shivers down my spine. When he flicked his tongue around the piss hole, I thought I would die. Die from pleasure right there.
Charlie looked up. "You know what I really want, right Chick?"
This time I was slower when I put it in him. He told me that mine was thicker than normal, and I needed to be gentle. I guess that was true, so I tried to be careful as I did it. He moaned with pleasure. The weird thing is that I like having a man inside of me. The times that I have experienced that, it felt really good. But this was really good, too. I felt really masculine, male. Like an alpha, dominating. I was giving... but I was taking. I felt powerful and strong. It was great.
I moved inside him. Back and forth, holding his hips, grunting as I did.
"Yeah, Nate. That's the way. So sexy, so beautiful," he said softly.
"You like this, huh? Taking it?"
"Oh, so much. So good..." he said, almost in a purring whisper, like a cat.
I had started out slowly, easily. But then the urgency caught me. I went faster. I was getting heated. Not out of lust for him so much. I guess just from the action itself. Anyway, I needed to do it harder. And then harder still. Charlie didn't object. He didn't stop me. He didn't complain. He loved it. He rubbed himself down there, maximizing the feeling. He wanted it all -- and I wanted to give it to him.
Faster. Harder.
I grunted. He moaned. Our bodies slapped together.
I couldn't manage conscious thought. It was too much. I couldn't stop. It was impossible.
I rammed it in and filled the condom up.
I fell asleep with Charlie holding me and touching me. It felt nice.
What I found out was that there are two nursing degrees -- and both lead to being an RN. With an Associate degree, you can only really be a bedside nurse. The other is a full-fledged Bachelor's degree. But getting the Associate degree was quicker. And I could get free tuition at the community college, just like at the University.
When I told Charlie he seemed disappointed, like I was settling. Like I was not maximizing my potential.
"I AM going to go for the Bachelor's, Charlie. But it will be RN to BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing). I'll get the Associate degree, pass the board exams and get a real nursing job -- and then go back to school. That's my plan."
"I'm proud of you for having a plan!"