Fitting In

I looked up into Christophe’s eyes. Christophe reached across the table and took my hand and held it in his. Panicked and trapped, I looked around the bar, but everyone else was absorbed in someone else. Everyone here was here with someone. Even Donny, the bartender, was engrossed in an intimate conversation with a big bruiser at the bar.

“It’s hard for a Jesuit priest,” Christophe said. “It’s hard for a Jesuit priest to be gay and to exist within the church—to do what he knows what his purpose is in being a priest without being able to fully and openly be himself . . . true to himself. We are lucky, you and I, that we are in an order that takes a very forgiving and supportive view of all of this.”

“You don’t . . . you just don’t . . .” Again I couldn’t say it; couldn’t bring myself out of the depths.

“Yes, I do know it, Mark. I’m gay. I’m a gay Jesuit priest. But I worked my way through it and came to a reconciliation of who I am—and what I do in the church. I was like you at the beginning, in the seminary. No, don’t pull away from me. You are gay too. We both know it. And we both know that you are attracted to me as I am attracted to you. I’m a dominant and you are a submissive. We are a fit. I can help you become reconciled to what you must do to maneuver in the church and still be comforted and you can make my time in Georgetown complete.”

“I . . . I can’t.”

“Yes you can. You are drowning here. I am offering you a lifeline.”