Secret Sins Ch. 07

"You have an answer for everything, don't you?"

"No, not everything, but that's okay. I can live without that, would rather live not knowing truth than deluding myself into thinking I do. And that's why I'm happy. I know who and what I am. I don't try to deny it, I don't allow guilt to ruin my happiness and I don't listen to those who do. I embrace my nature."

"Back to screwing willy-nilly in the street?"

"You enjoyed it," she shot back, somehow without accusation. "You told me that you had a line up in front of and behind you, and you took them all, you and this other woman right beside you."

"I was drunk," I icily pointed out.

"So what? You wanted to do it, and you enjoyed it because that's what's in your nature. So, why flog yourself for it with the whip of a phony, ridiculous theology? Because the very god who created you this way also disapproves of you for, essentially, being his creation? Does that make any sense to you at all?"

It didn't, but I wasn't about to admit to that.

"You have to put this in perspective," she went on as I took a gulp from my drink. "Even if you never had any form of sex ever again, if you got rid of all your lingerie, stopped watching porn and masturbating, that nature would still exist within you because it's a part of who and what you are. It's part of the drive to procreate the species, and there's nothing wrong with it any more than there's anything wrong with the rest of the animal kingdom doing it."

"The rest of the animal kingdom," I differed, "doesn't have sex because it's fun. They only do it to procreate."

"Oh, puh-lease! Tara! Have you ever seen a cat in heat? Do you think that what she wants is to have a litter of kittens? That may be the end purpose of her biological drives but, at the top of her mind, she only wants to be humped by the first tomcat that comes through the yard.

"We're no different," Donna pontificated. "Yes, our intelligence is greater, our emotional sets are more complex and we have ambition; these things separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom, but never make the mistake of thinking that we're not animals. Those who do make that mistake are in denial. They've lived lilly white lives of privilege in shining cities of convenience and technology, most of them thinking that beef comes from a fucking can, made in a factory in some industrial park somewhere. Take all that away, introduce sudden hardship, and these are the very people who are first to break their neighbors' skulls for a loaf of bread and revert back to cannibalism, if need be.

"Believe me, our technology may have changed over the centuries, but we haven't. We're still the same self-serving, dirty, dangerous, lustful animals we've always been and always will be."

"Animals can be trained," I refuted.

"I'm so glad you said that," Donna returned. "Yes, animals can be trained. Picture this: You haven't eaten in three days, so you make yourself a nice, hot meal with the only food you have and place it on your coffee table to go pee before you sit down to eat. You come back to find that faithful Fido has knocked your plate from the coffee table and down to the floor where he's been enjoying your supper. He could tell how hungry you were, because dogs are very sensitive in that way, and he certainly loves you because dogs are also very loyal little bastards, and he would certainly never want to see any harm come to you, including starvation. Yet, he's done this without a second thought because that's what's in his nature, and his natural instinct is to follow and satisfy that nature.

"So, you decide train him. Now that dog will never eat another bite unless he gets the go-ahead from you first. Through whatever means, he's been mentally conditioned to sit in front of your plate, guarding it from other dogs, even while he starves if need be, but he'll never touch it. Did you get rid of the dog's nature to feed itself? No, you've just trained him, modified his behaviour in order to suit yourself, but that nature is still there and always will be. To punish him for that is as useless and unjust as it would be to punish him for actually eating your food.

"And that's you, if you'll excuse the unfortunate dog analogy. You punish yourself for only following your nature. You've been trained to think that following your nature is wrong, but it's really the training that's wrong. Even though that training has been successful, you'll still go on punishing yourself anyway for every filthy thought that you clamp down on before it can make your pussy so much as moist. It's a never ending, guilt ridden hell of self-hatred, designed to keep you crawling back to the spiritual authority that brainwashed you in the first place, to push upon them the power over yourself that is rightfully yours. Free yourself."

By the end, I wasn't even looking at her, but I'd been listening with a growing alarm from deep within me that the spiritual toxicity she was spouting might actually hold some truth. Mindlessly crushing that alarm with the power of blind faith, I had little trouble seeing how Donna could have converted the Rahmans. She was obviously well educated in Christian theology and very intelligent, her sharpened debating points having poked the tiniest holes all over my armour that I somehow knew might never really be chinked.

But she'd stopped speaking and, after some moments, I looked up, asking in a quiet, emotionless tone, "Are you finished?"

"For now, yes, she replied, allowing a few more moments to go by while we both sipped at our drinks before she said, "Please don't think I enjoyed that."

"It seemed like you did."

"Well, I didn't. Your faith is no threat to me and, in fact, I find it to be kind of a turn on. But underneath your bright, sunny positivity and shiny goodness, you're unhappy. You agonize because you're not perfect, because you can't measure up and don't deserve salvation. Deep down, as all Christians do, you beat the hell out of yourself for things you can't even help, and I have a hard time with that because... well, because I love you. And you know that's true like I know you love me in return."

I nodded, indeed knowing that our mutual feelings for one another were true, as was her claims of my inner self hatred and the reason it existed. This last part was a minor epiphany of sorts, and I once again began to feel alarm over the sense in the many things she'd said.

She rose and approached me, slowly wading closer as I too rose. We looked each other in the eyes and I once again knew her love for me, a special, inexplicable love that went beyond sex and even family. We put our arms around each other and kissed right on the lips, right there in the public pool area of the hotel. And we kept on kissing, soon tickling each other's lips with our tongues and making out as I instantly and totally forgave her for offending me in the way she'd been doing, knowing without a doubt that she really was only trying to help.

And, from that day on, despite those mutual feelings, I also knew without any doubt that there was something very wrong about Donna.