Idolatria Ch. 03

"No?" said Levi casually. "What about a boyfriend?"

The spoon slipped from my hand and clattered loudly onto my plate, making me jump and drawing a few eyes to our table. I stared at Levi, expecting him to crack a smile and assure me he was joking... But he was placid as ever, unperturbed by my reaction and apparently serious. I picked up my spoon and pushed around a stray onion, my ears suddenly very hot. "I... I don't - That's not something I can do."

Levi raised an eyebrow at me, cocking his head to better meet my lowered gaze. "Why not?"

Why not!? How could he ask that? I breathed sharply through my nose and looked askance at him. "It's against God's will."

"What is?"

"That... you know. Homosexuality...?"

At this, Levi propped his chin up in his hand, regarding me with... Interest? "Why's that?" he asked.

I immediately opened my mouth to answer, only to find myself mute. It was like he'd just asked me why the sky was blue - it was simply something I knew to be the truth. What reason was there to ask why? To question God? "It's just... God created man and woman for a reason," I told him carefully. "Loving the same sex isn't... it wasn't in His plan for us."

"Do you think so?" he said lightly. "I mean, personally I don't think the massive, endless consciousness that supposedly created all of existence cares about who or what we love, so long as we do no harm."

I didn't know what to say to this either. But something was beginning to dawn on me... I stared at Levi, feeling as if I were seeing him for the first time. But... No. His voice, his clothes, the way he acted... He couldn't actually be... Could he? "Levi... Are you gay?"

"Am I?" he said. This wasn't the answer I expected. He didn't seem bothered at all by my assumption. He took another bite of his food, keeping his eyes on me. "I mean, I don't think of myself as gay, really. What I'm attracted to is just... whoever I find to be beautiful."

I shifted in my seat, folding my arms. "Do you think guys are beautiful?"

"I think humans in general are all capable of being beautiful, in one way or another. Man, woman, or otherwise."

"But not... not me," I stammered.

"Not you?"

I could feel the blood creeping up over my cheeks and the bridge of my nose. "I'm not beautiful, Levi," I told him firmly, though a tremor remained in my voice for all I tried to steady it.

I kept my head down, hands and eyes in my lap. When he said nothing, I looked up and felt a strange shiver in my belly upon meeting his gaze once more. He'd just been watching me without a word. Finally he said, "You are, though. Very much so."

A harsh silence fell around us, thinly veiled by the exotic music playing in the background, and the soft clink and clatter at other tables, their patrons blissfully unaware of the tension at ours. Levi didn't look away. I was drowning in his stare, in the cruelly calm eyes with which he fixed me, like a wolf to a timid rabbit. Did he know what he was doing? Could he feel my panic, my discomfort? No... Not discomfort. What the hell was this feeling?

"You're... attracted to me?" I asked in an undertone.

Levi's mouth twitched, a smile threatening its shape. "If you want to say it like that. I think you -"

"What you're talking about is a sin," I hissed, my hands gripping each other to stop them from trembling. "Did you - is - was this supposed to be a date?"

"Only if you want it to be. Would you like that, Ash?"

"I just - I told you it's wrong!" I said. My face was boiling now. Why did it have to feel like this, confronting him? "Levi, I - if I had known you -"

"You're misunderstanding me," he said gently. "I didn't plan this intending to seduce you. You asked me a few questions, and I wanted to answer them honestly. I like women - and men. I think you're an attractive person. And I do find myself attracted to you. But unless you feel the same, that's probably as far as it will go."

I looked up at him, exasperated. He was talking like this was so normal... and whether out of anger or fear or some unknown emotion in me, my body was going crazy - my blood hot, my muscles taut, my fingertips numb and wandering... As if to anchor myself, I wrapped a hand around my pendant. "Don't say things like... How I feel is... You know what I believe! I told you that it's-"

"You did tell me," Levi nodded, his voice low and deep. He folded his hands in front of him, his mouth open as he sought the words he wanted. "But... what you told me amounted only to what you've been told - that God didn't intend man to love man; that homosexuality is a sin; that it's wrong to feel the way I do about someone like you. So, Ash, your defense was that you are not allowed to like men. Not that you don't. And I find it interesting that not once have you said something to that effect... that you, yourself, are not gay. You would usually lead with that."

I opened my mouth to argue... and it only hung there, tongue dry, throat tight, empty of words. I closed it and tried again. Fragments of sentences flashed through my mind, but I couldn't seem to hold onto one long enough to bring it out. My hands were trembling. I clasped them together and pressed my struggling mouth to my knuckles, feeling the roiling heat in my face against them.

Levi, to his credit, didn't push me to speak. He went back to his meal, finishing off his plate and sitting back to enjoy the rest of his rose milk. It wasn't until he'd put his glass down and the waiter came by to clear away the empty dishes that I was able to think clearly enough to form words.

"I think I... should go home," I said quietly.

"Is that what you want?" asked Levi.

Somewhat taken aback, I nodded. He wasn't going to protest.

Levi leaned back and caught our waiter before he got too far, and asked for the check. When I went for my wallet, he smiled and shook his head, slipping his card into the billfold before I could argue. That felt strange. No one had ever paid for my food - besides my family, anyway.

And it felt strange as well that, although I couldn't get our exchange out of my head, Levi seemed happy to not bring it up again. For my benefit or his, I wondered? But he didn't appear to be uncomfortable or reproachful at all as we left the restaurant and got back in the SUV.

As soon as we were back on the road, I spaced out hard. Levi... was not the man I thought he was. And that seemed to be the case every time I met him. When we first met I took him as someone dark, cynical, even malicious. After Sunday, I saw him as kind and welcoming, if a little bit confusing.

But this? Levi was not what I pictured when I thought of a gay man. Not gay, I reminded myself. Someone who loves men and women. Someone who thought I was attractive. Someone who was attracted to me. I thought that idea would make my skin crawl, knowing we were both men, and yet...

"Ash. We're here."

"Huh? Oh..." I hadn't even noticed we'd pulled up in front of my house. I could see my mom doing dishes through the lit kitchen window.

"Don't forget your stuff," said Levi. I was expecting a sting in his voice, but as always, he retained a silky, even tone.

"Right," I mumbled.

As I unbuckled myself and leaned down to grab the bibles from between my feet, I caught Levi tapping a finger on the steering wheel, looking down at me with an unreadable color in his eye. I sat back up and chewed my lip. "What?"

He was quiet for a moment. Then he tilted his head back, breathing out slowly. "I feel like I put you in a bad situation without meaning to, Ash," he said. "When I asked you to join me tonight, it wasn't to put you on the spot or make you feel like I was hitting on you. And it wasn't to call your faith... or your sexuality... into question."

The heat crept back up on my face again. "Well - no, it's... It's fine. You didn't."

"I still want to apologize."

"You don't have to," I laughed, dropping my head down. "I mean it. It's fine. I had a good time. I'd be cool hanging out again..." This came out before I realized what I was saying... but somehow, I knew I meant it. I looked back up and saw Levi regarding me carefully.

"Ash, I want you to be honest with me," he said. "Do I scare you at all?"

I blinked. "No... Not really."

"Do I make you uneasy? Or make you think I might hurt you?"

I shook my head slowly. Where did this come from? "No... Levi, I don't feel uncomfortable with you at all," I said. "I just told you... I liked hanging out with you tonight."

He paused, his eyes traveling me... and then he beamed. "Good."

I thought that was it, but as soon as I shifted to get up, Levi moved. His hand shot to the panel on his door and he pushed something; at once, there was a soft and simultaneous clunk from around the whole vehicle. Cold filling my gut, I looked around to see that the little peg on my windowsill was pressed down, too secure for my scrabbling fingers to release.

He locked the doors.

I turned slowly, cautiously back to Levi. His expression was stoic and clean, tilting his head so that the waves of his hair tumbled over one shoulder. "How about now?" he whispered playfully.

Why did he lock the doors?

Unthinking, I shook my head. "No," I said. "Not... I'm not scared or whatever." Did the crack in my voice give me away? Was this what he wanted to hear? Or did he want to hear how hard my heart was hammering, how my mind raced, how my lungs struggled to keep me breathing evenly?

But it occurred to me then that I wasn't lying to him. I was anticipating him, waiting to see what he would do... and yet, I wasn't afraid. It wasn't fear that crazed me. Levi leaned forward and shook his hair out lightly with his fingers, sweeping it back and unrolling a hairband he'd had on his wrist to tie it. Whatever he was planning, he didn't seem to be in a hurry to do it. The dim light of a streetlamp illuminated the crown of his head and the crooked bridge of his nose, and glinted in the rim of his eye as he looked back at me.

"Do you trust me, Ash?" he asked softly.

My pulse swelled into my throat, complicating my breath. "I want to," I said.

A smile pulled at his mouth. "So long as you do, you won't ever have anything to fear. I'll never do anything to hurt that trust. Do you understand?"

"I... I think so." I wasn't sure. How much was I supposed to trust him? Why? What was going to happen to me?

"Ash. Pull the door handle."

I blinked. "But you-"

Levi waved a hand across me. "Pull the handle. Trust me."

Slightly confused, I slipped my hand into the handle and tentatively pulled.

The door popped open. The overhead light flooded the cabin.

I stared at Levi, then to the open door, the popped lock peg, then back to him. He was smiling. The gears were clicking emptily in my head, refusing to catch.

"The door only locks on the outside," he explained. "You weren't locked in."

My heart was starting to slow down, but now my mind was racing for another reason. For a moment all I could do was stare at the open door, then over at Levi's calm, smiling face. "Why'd you do that?" I asked.

Levi's smile widened, an apologetic gleam in his eyes. "I wanted to see how it would make you feel."

"How it felt... Being locked in the car?"

"Being at my mercy."

The words were gentle, coaxing, Levi's voice a low purr. But it was as if he'd shouted it, and the scream of it rang hard in my ears. As single words I heard them, but together it was nonsense. I sat there, dumbfounded, mouth open and hand still on the door.

Levi reached over and gave my shoulder a bracing pat. "Go on," he said. "Do you want me to walk you to the door?"

"I - what?" I blinked, remembering myself. Clumsily I gathered my books and scooted off the seat. "No... I'm good. Thanks for... for dinner. I appreciate it."

As I clambered out of the vehicle and grabbed the door to shut it, Levi called to me again. "Ash."

I looked up, measuring the expression on his face... Was it expectation? A spark in his eye, as if he was searching me back.

He breathed in, leaning over the seat. "Will I get to see you again?"

I didn't immediately know how to respond. Compared to how sure and confident Levi had been all night, this seemed like such a... surrender. And yet his voice was still steady, more a demand than a plea.

"I'll see you on Sunday," I said. "For... for church. Will you come? I'll pick you up."

Levi appeared just as surprised by my answer. His parted mouth spread into a grin, and he straightened up. "Sure. I'll text you."

"See you then..."

"Good night, Ash."

With Levi's car revving away behind me, I walked back up to my house and found myself lingering at the door. I turned and watched the scarlet glow of his tail lights growing smaller, and then disappearing around the bend at the end of the street.

I was suddenly very aware of some unnamed something beginning in me.