CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK…
Sometimes shame is a surprise gift, carefully wrapped and hidden away, to be delivered at a time you least expect; a gift that brings tears to your eyes, ambiguous tears, so that the person delivering the surprise doesn’t know if they tears are of joy or of sadness.
You are in love with B. You never say it, but you plan your entire life around her. Every story is distilled to be delivered to her, stories of the things that have happened to you, stories of when you happen to others, stories of your dreams and your indiscretions. When she judges, she does so only mildly, and compared to the community you are by this time struggling to leave, her judgment feels like praise. She would out a long sigh, shaking her head, letting you reflect on the impropriety of your actions. And then you would say, I know, I know, I have done a terrible thing. She lets you flagellate yourself a bit but reassures you that you have a good heart.
With B you are not ashamed to be wrong. Or to cry.
Even though you are vigorously trying to cut ties to the only life you have known, your knives have been blunted by a lifetime practicing how to live according to the precepts of the one true religion. Blunt knives aren’t just inefficient. They damage tissue, they burn, they rupture. They hurt, bad. But all you want is a neat cut so you can hold tightly until the bleeding stops.
You have remnants of belief that stop you from saying to B, not just I love you, but, I want you. B herself is steeped in her own belief that might let her say I love you, but will not let her have you. You both succumb a few times, weakened by desire, weakened maybe, just maybe, by love. At the lowest points, you both kiss and fondle but never more than that. Her faith will not allow it. And because you are afraid of what you might have to give up by giving yourself to her, you are relieved that she stops you before you ever have sex, that she needs to be with someone who believes what she believes.
So you take the next best thing and make her your best friend. You tell her everything: your failed relationships and affairs doomed to end because you are halfway out of a religion that does not allow being unevenly yoked with unbelievers and although you have now begun to ignore the guilt that comes from having sex, you are still tied, groping in the shadows of this religion which waits patiently for you to realise your sins, confess them to three men in suits and ties, in painful detail, be punished, and return to the fold after a period of possible excommunication. It is the only way back to spiritual health.
B is scandalised by what she perceives to be your promiscuity. She thinks your turnover rate is high because of course, you have ways of disappearing before things ever get too serious, before you have to explain why nothing can ever come of it, why you could never get serious with a worldly person, or god forbid, marry them; because you cannot say to them look, I am just enjoying these wild fruits out in the wilderness before I return like the prodigal son, serve my time in spiritual jail, and once again become eligible for a forever place in paradise on earth.
You now know you have gestures that some consider effeminate. You have long suspected that your father didn’t think you were masculine enough, not like your strong manly younger brother, who died in a swimming accident and left them staring at this firstborn male who was not acting like a firstborn male. But it became clear to you when, Nneka, who you had the biggest crush on in Law School, said yes in response to a question you asked. She was not supposed to say yes when you complained, just after kissing her, that someone had called you effeminate.
Exasperated, you had said: how can she say that, that… am I effeminate? What does she even mean by that? Am I …effeminate?
After a short pause which felt like forever and with eyes saying: please don’t be mad at me, I am only telling you the truth, it came out.
Yes.
And as though attempting to cushion the blow she had added: kind of.
You have since left Law School, buried that episode deeper than the hole your masculine brother was buried in. You are sitting with B and you see her mouth open, tentatively, about to say something. You expect that however weighty, her words will landing softly like they always do, like down feathers falling off a chicken.
The pause starts to feel too long.
—Can I ask you something, she finally lets out.
Your heartbeat quickens. In your mind, B is untouched by fault— so much that if anyone spoke ill of her, you would instinctively question the accuser, "What did you do to her?"
You steel yourself.
—Do you think you could be… gay? .
It hits you with the force of an 18-wheeler hurtling at full throttle.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Elnathan’s Corner to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.