Chapter Thirteen
Bane looked over at his son, the groom to be, poised on the edge of the antique high back chair, his leg bouncing as if it had a life of its own, ready to spring up at a moment’s notice. Out of all of his children Parker had been the hardest to reach and the most rewarding. When that moment finally came it was nothing short of a miracle.
For months both Bane and Shaylon had been trying to reach out to Parker, spending time with him alone like he had Delilah and the rest of the kids still at home and having serious talks about infidelity, pornography, addictions and such. He showed him the information on the chemicals released in the brain while looking at adult material that induced the addiction and the escalation that must take place to get that same arousal feelings that he was sure Parker was already dealing with at that point. He also pointed out the link between pornography, rape, child molestation and murder, but nothing seemed to get through to him.
It was a last minute change in plans that would never be forgotten. The couple had planned to go to a conference of a well know preacher that was holding an event in their area whom they enjoyed watching on television and regularly supported. It was a three day event and the pair had enjoyed the teaching and the time together, but while driving home after the second day Shaylon suddenly blurted out, “I think you should take Parker with you tomorrow.”
“What? Why?”
“I’ve been thinking about it, tomorrow they have that session with the woman that were rescued from sex trafficking. It might be good for him to hear what those poor girls have had to go through and I don’t think he’d be very comfortable with me there.”
It was a long shot, both Bane and Shaylon knew it, but they were willing to try if it would help their son. So Shaylon stayed home and Parker was “invited” to go along, not that he had much choice in the matter. The audience was filled with mostly women and Bane knew his son was resenting every minute of it.
Parker just sat there in the stadium seat, slouched down, hunched away from his father in protest. The music portion hadn’t been so bad; it was Jesus freak music, but at least it wasn’t a choir howling out those old sleep inducing hymns; but the preaching… it was bad enough he had to listen to it on Sundays. He had nothing against God per se, he believed there was a God and he wanted to be on the Almighty’s good side, but he didn’t believe that a loving God would send any halfway decent person to Hell. Especially not just because they didn’t believe in Jesus or the Bible. He believed God was bigger than that and some people just liked to think that their way was the only one and their rules the only ones like some sort of members only club. Hell was for serial killers, child murderers, and terrorists, not someone with a healthy desire for the female form that He created, even if it was in the shape of a Playboy collection.
Both Bane and Parker sat through the conference session, neither saying a word. Not when it was over, or on the walk to the car, or the entire drive home. When Bane reached the security gate at their drive he put the car into park and turned off the engine, just sitting in the dark, quiet Mercedes. Finally he took a deep breath and turned to look at Parker who was staring out the window just as he had been doing the entire ride home and in the reflection of the glass Bane was certain he saw tears glistening on his son’s cheeks. Then he spoke.
“I just keep thinking. What if that was Delilah? What if even one of those girls I was … I… what if she was one of those slaves, being raped over and over while I ….”
“I know. I mean I knew that it existed, but it seemed so distant; like something from a movie or that only happens in some third world country or to the prostitutes on the streets. It was never so close before. I mean I know I haven’t looked at anything since I got saved, not that I haven’t been tempted because I have; more than once, but now, listening to those girls up there on that stage tonight pouring out their lives like that I wonder if some of the things I’ve seen; that I’ve paid for, put money into the pockets of the people responsible for such atrocities. I suddenly feel more ashamed than...,”
“Really? You’re still… tempted?”
“From time to time. I was delivered from so much when I gave my life to Christ, but the devil isn’t content to just sit there and say, ‘Ok, another one got away, oh well,’ and move on. Men especially, are visual and I make a decision on a regular basis not to go back to it when the urge pops up, or to close my eyes when someone is naked on TV. I don’t want to see that; not anymore.”
“For mom?”
“At first yes, because part of being faithful is not desiring anyone else as you know, but now it’s more for me. The human body is a beautiful creation of God and there’s nothing wrong with appreciating it, but it’s also a precious gift between you and your spouse. A secret shared with them, between them. I don’t want to see what isn’t mine to see whether they want to share it with the world or not. There’s nothing wrong with being proud of your body, but you should also respect it as the gift of God that it is and not do anything to lead to the lust of others. I’m not explaining this very well am I?”
“It’s kind of like your drinking isn’t it? Why you don’t do it very much anymore?”
“Yes, actually in some ways it is.”
“Because not only do you want to be sober and not dependent on some substance, but because you don’t want others you might influence to drink too much.”
Bane was proud of his son, he was a smart kid, “Yes, because of who I am a lot of people are looking at me, to me and I want to be a good role model. For so long I wasn’t. I didn’t care who my actions or my music hurt, not even those I claimed to love the most, but now I don’t … I can’t bear the thought of even one person being hurt because of something I did.”
“You’re a good person Dad, but you’re not perfect. You can’t be. None of us can. That’s a title only Jesus can hold. All you can do is the best you can and let God work through you. Isn’t that what you and mom are always telling me? ‘You’re not responsible for the world; just yourself.’ God can use your screw ups as well as when you get it right. I think more people will be affected because you rejected God for so long and did so much that was wrong. If you turned your life around and started living differently, in the exact way you use to insult than that will make people sit up and take notice one way or the other.”
“You’re really a smart young man and a great kid you know that?”
“Yeah yeah, I love you too and Dad?” He still didn’t know how much of that Jesus stuff he really went in for, but…
“Yeah?”
Parker looked back out the car window, “Thanks for taking me to that conference tonight. It made me see things a little differently.”
“Me too Parker. Me too.”
That night Parker slipped quietly into Mason’s room. He had to talk to someone and it’s not a conversation that you have with the guys at school or anywhere else for that matter, but Mason already knew. He was in the same boat after all and it was easy to bond over their latest adversity under their overly righteous parents. Mason knew all about his natural desires just as he knew about his brothers and at times the two were the only refuge each other had and their brotherly bond had grown over the past year. They recognized the same underlying influences, urges, desires and temptations in their lives. If either one needed to vent or be reassured that what they were doing, wanted to do, or had the urge to do was perfectly normal, the other was there, but tonight was different. Parker still needed someone to talk to, to vent to, but not as before.
He’d been thinking about it the entire night, turning it over and over in his mind. He hadn’t wanted to pay attention, he hadn’t wanted to know, to care and at the time he would have handed over his soul to the Devil for an mp3 player and headphones, but he was there, he was stuck and he heard it all. He heard about the young girl lured from her home with the promise of a job, a simple job as a babysitter that was taken across the border then forced into a room filled with other women and girls
. Starved, raped, beaten, forced into posing for pornography and sold as a prostitute, before being ‘bought’ then eventually rescued and freed. She spent years in a shelter for women just trying to recover from the trauma before she could even set foot outside again.
Another woman told how she had gotten pregnant four times during her captivity in forced prostitution. The children were taken away from her at different ages, some sold on the black market right after they were born. What happened to the children born to the women and girls held captive turned his stomach. Some were hobbled, crippled, their limbs amputated to turn them into profitable beggars on the streets. Some were out right killed for their organs to be harvested and sold to the highest bidder. Others were sold as sex slaves for those with a desire for children. More were turned into domestic slaves and a few fortunate ones were sold in adoptions if the price was right and it wasn’t just in the third world countries or countries he could barely pronounce let alone find on a map. Many times it happened right here in the US. Slavers would lure those wanting a better life into the United States, illegally shipping them in. Undocumented workers by day in shops and restaurants owned by those involved, their bodies sold at night and images of them available to anyone with an internet connection and a credit card.
He had begun searching the faces on the large view screens looking for anyone familiar, yet scared to recognize even one of the women on the stage. To his relief no one stood out, but he hadn’t exactly been looking at the faces of the women in the pictures and videos and shame had flared within him.
Parker couldn’t stay still, he’d sit in a chair then spring up and pace, sit on the bed then pop back up and pace some more even through Mason’s repeated threats to tie him to a chair or kick him out altogether, but Parker just couldn’t settle down. He ranted and paced, he fussed and paced, he volleyed back and forth in a tennis match of morals and freedoms, desires and realities and truths. Finally in confusion, guilt and exhaustion he slowed down, collapsing in Mason’s desk chair with a huff covering his face in his hands. When he finally came out of his hiding place he looked dead at his brother and said, “I just don’t know if I can do it anymore and I don’t know if I even want to.”
The two talked through the night and didn’t stop until the last of the stars began to fade away. Parker lay on his side next to his brother staring off in the distance. He didn’t want to go back to his room, to be alone with his thoughts and the temptation that was stashed all around him. He hadn’t the strength or the energy to deal with it. So he laid there listening to Mason’s deep breathing, finally falling asleep as the first rays of light pierced the sky.
That night held more than anyone could hope for in the Bronson family, it was a turning point for so many and not just Parker. Mason had listened to his brother, saw his fear, anger, desperation and watched as his brother changed right before his very eyes. At first Parker had been in a near panic, overwhelmed with a reality he never wanted to exist. His biggest argument had been, ‘I’m not hurting anyone and it doesn’t involve anyone else but me’, but in one evening that whole philosophy had been turned upside down. Mason didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t argue with anything his brother was saying, he couldn’t dissuade any of his guilt other than to say, “You didn’t know.”
To which Parker quickly added, “It doesn’t matter whether I knew or not, that money could just as well have gone to… you know. Me not knowing isn’t going to stop that part will it?”
Mason didn’t have an answer to that so he just sat there quietly, only occasionally threating him when his pacing became overly annoying. For obvious reason he had never been into the whole pornography thing and since he was still figuring things out about his own desires he’d avoided all of it, now he was so thankful that he had. “What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know. I can’t go back to it. I mean when Mom and Dad use to ask how we’d feel if that was Delilah it was disturbing, but in a whole different way and any thoughts of her would go right out the door when it came to it, but now I don’t think I could ever look at another picture and not wonder you know? What if? I’m not that cold hearted.”
“No one ever said you were.”
“I know. It’s just you’d have to be some sick creep to know about those girls and guys and children and not care. That’s a whole ‘nother level that I’m so not into. If I was to go that far I’d hope you’d help them put me somewhere for some major therapy.”
“Don’t worry at that point I’d be glad to.”
Parker smirked at him. He appreciated his brother’s attempt, but there was still so much on his mind and his heart. “I don’t know Mase, I hate to say this, but maybe Mom and Dad were right. Maybe there’s so much more than I ever thought.”
“You gonna give it up?”
“How can I not? Wouldn’t you?”
“There’s always that possibility that the girls are doing it for fun or money. You know as well as I do a lot of what’s out there is legit. It’s a billion dollar industry. The magazines you know are safe.”
“True, but now there’s this part of me that feels weird about the whole thing.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t really know how to explain it. Maybe it’s everything Dad has been saying ever since he got saved along with what I saw tonight, but there’s just something deep inside that is disgusted with all of it. I mean you know I hate for Dad to be right, but it’s like this switch has been flipped and it’s definitely turned off. I’m turned off and I’m starting to see things differently and I don’t know what that means or where I’m going to end up, but I know that something has to change. I just have to figure out what.”
“Do you think it will be that easy? To just give up something like that, something you like?”
“I don’t see why not, unless what Dad showed me about brain chemicals and addiction and all that’s actually true.”
“What do you think that’s like?”
“What? Being addicted?”
“That… and giving up something that’s you, that’s part of you.”
“Oh man Mase, look I didn’t mean to make you feel … bad. Like I was turning on you or anything. Your situation is different.”
“Is it? How different is it really? If Mom and Dad are right than I wasn’t born gay, like you I chose to allow the temptation, to follow it, to let it rule my actions, my beliefs.”
“Mase.”
“No listen Parker, I’ve been thinking about this; a lot. What if it’s no different? If what they’ve been saying all along about porn is right, why not homosexuality? If you can be tempted to look at naked women why couldn’t I be tempted to look at guys?”
“And how would that make you feel, knowing that? Or believing that?”
Mason thought about it. “Relieved.”
That wasn’t the answer Parker thought his brother would come up with. “How? How would that make you feel better? I feel horrible.”
“Because if these feelings aren’t natural, if they are coming from some other source.”
“Like the Devil?”
“I know it sounds stupid, but here me out. If these feelings just like yours are sent to cause us confusion and pain and to lead us down a dark path than that means that there’s nothing wrong with me. In fact it means that there’s something very right and Satan wants to destroy that part. It means I’m perfectly alright, I’m not wrong or born wrong or even different.”
“I never thought there was anything wrong with you Mason. Besides you’d have to go in for all that faith stuff. Are you ready to do that?”
“I don’t know?”
“Wouldn’t it be easier just to believe what everyone else says, that you’re just born gay? That it’s part of your genetics.”
“I’ve thought about that and no it’s a lot harder because in that instance it’s still me. If it was an outside force causing these thoughts and stuff than it’s not me. I’m not the problem, not my genetics, noth
ing and I can choose. I can choose to go with it or to tell it where it can go.”
“I thought that believing it wasn’t a choice was better?”
“At first I did too, but I think I’d rather be in control of my life. Does that make any sense?”
“Well, yeah I can see that. If it was a choice then that would mean that you were in control of what you do or who you do. If it’s genetic than you’re a slave to it. Still it seems like choice makes things trickier, more complicated.”
“Yeah, but it’s still me that decides, not genetics; me.”
“Does that mean you’ve made up your mind? What you’re going to choose?”
“Depends on what I believe doesn’t it?”
Now it was Parkers turn not to know what to say.
“Well, you’re still my brother that’s one thing I do know and I guess we’re both in for a ride aren’t we?”
The two continued to talk. Sometimes about the conference and sometimes about nothing in particular, but one thing was for sure both their lives would never be the same again. Mason had grown quieter as his brother calmed and turned to his own silent musings. Parker never realized it, but some of the things that he’d said hit a spot deep in Mason and he was becoming more confused and yet more determined than ever and by the time Parker had finally slipped into oblivion Mason had made up his mind and silently slipped out of bed.