The Village

Seth’s Perspective

Thanksgiving had been amazing! All my siblings, their families, the Halls, and even my dad all together in our home. I thought my dad’s presence would put a damper on things, but he blended in fine. He spent Friday night watching movies with his grandchildren While Brad and Scotty were away celebrating their 10thanniversary, and the rest of us hung out and drank on the patio. My dad seemed to be in his element, he’d waited years for this and it finally happened… long after he had given up hope.

It was 7AM on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and I was in the kitchen making coffee when my phone rang. It was the monitoring service; something had triggered the alarm at The Village. It had happened before and was probably nothing, but I needed to go check it out. “I’ll join you” my dad said. “I’d like to see where you work.” I appreciated the offer, and although it was probably nothing, if there was trouble it would be nice to have some back up. I went into the den where Zach was asleep on the air mattress and told him what was going on, I kissed him goodbye then my dad and I went out to The Green Dragon and headed down the drive.

Brad was walking toward the house as we were leaving, I pulled up next to him and lowered the window. “Hey where are you going?” I asked my brother.

“I was up early and the rest of the house was still asleep, so I decided to see what was going on at your place.” My brother answered as he leaned into the open window.

“The alarm went off at The Village so we’re going in to check it out, wanna come?” I asked.

“Sure” he responded with a smile then jumped in the backseat of the old Buick and we three Westin men headed to The Village offices. Me, Brad, and our father… this was a first. My dad surprisingly did most of the talking on the ride over as he gushed about his successful, strong children and his perfect grandchildren. He told Brad all about his incredible night hanging out with the kid’s watching movie’s while he and Scotty were at the hotel celebrating their anniversary. He just went on and on about his family… the man’s chest was puffed out and there was a grateful pride in his voice. Despite our hellish past, it felt good to have him in our present. When we got to The Village, the windshields of the cars were papered with church pamphlets as usual. I asked Brad to collect them as I ran into the building to shut off the alarm and take a look around. As expected, it was a false alarm, everything was fine but I made the rounds just to be sure. While I was looking around, Brad and my dad entered the office with the pamphlets in their hands.

“This is my old church” Dad said with a concerned look as he held up the pamphlet.

“Yup, and they’re right down the block” I responded before taking the pamphlets from the two men and dropping them into the box by BA’s desk (we were on Box number two and it was almost full, these guys were relentless). I told my dad bout our run-ins with the church since we had moved in, including my recent conversation with Elder Roberts, and our legal battles with Benji and Joel’s father. My father listened thoughtfully; I was hoping he could give me some insight on how to keep them away from the villagers.

“They can be relentless, Seth” he said with concern in his voice. “They have convinced themselves that god is guiding them and that the boys need their help, you’re just a tool of the devil to them.” His words were chilling, but he was right. I hadn’t thought about that… they see me as working against god, I had always looked at it from the perspective that I was the good guy. The one doing god’s work; they didn’t see it that way. My dad paused for a moment before adding, “most of them are there because they are overcompensating for their own issues. I know from personal experience.” Okay, NOW he had my attention and I exchanged glances with my brother. What issues was he overcompensating for? I wondered. The world from my dad’s point of view was so different than it was from mine.

After I gave my dad the tour of the offices, the three of us went over to the coffee shop. Marilee welcomed us all with open arms as usual, and Ella was behind the counter taking orders; I congratulated her on her new job and asked her how it was going.

“Good. Between here and the pizza place I should make enough to buy my own car in a few months.” Ella said with a smile as she made our drinks. She was a good kid, just like her brother. I introduced the Marilee and Ella to my brother and father. I tipped her big then we took our coffee and found a table where we three Westin men sat down and talked. It was awkward at first, but then the conversation seemed to flow naturally. I noticed that Brad didn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable, this was the new norm and he was good with it. The psychologist in me took note of the healing powers of closure. My dad went on again about the wonderful family weekend he was having and gushed about his children and grandchildren some more. Then the conversation got deeper, more personal as he talked about his struggles with being a father and husband, and how he turned to the church for “guidance” and found many others like himself “Best, for example” he said. “The two of us had a lot of the same struggles and doubts.” My father hemmed and hawed and danced around what those ‘struggles and doubts’ were.

The conversation took a sharp turn when Brad asked, “Dad, were you struggling with your sexuality?” BOOM! There it was… right there on the table. No subtle navigation of the topic, no beating around the bush, no sugar coating it, just one big, direct question.

My father looked startled at first and gazed down at the table, then he looked up, locked his eyes with Brad’s, took a deep breath and answered him truthfully, “I have ALWAYS struggled with my sexuality” then he paused for a moment before he continued. “I married your mother as soon as I graduated from college and we had you and your two sisters right away, just as I was supposed to. I figured getting married and having kids would chase the urges away, but we all know it doesn’t work that way. Don’t we?” He looked at both of us now with an empathetic smile on his face. After taking a slurping sip of his hot coffee he continued, “So, I joined the church. They promised a cure, a way to ‘pray the gay away’ but in reality, it changed nothing. It was just self-denial in the name of god that turned into self-loathing. For years I ignored the urges and thoughts and it just made me more and more bitter” there was distain in his voice.

“Did mother know you were struggling with this?” Brad asked. I just sat there and watched as my brother pulled my father’s most intimate secrets from him.

My dad shook his head ‘no’ in response to Brad’s question. “I don’t even think she suspected anything. She trusted me… and I let her down many times. I hid my struggles from everyone except a few of the men at church who were also struggling, like Best” and before Brad could ask, father answered “And no, I never acted on my urges. But who knows now that your mother is gone.” It was interesting to listen to him because he wasn’t holding back, he was telling us everything. “Holding it all inside made me bitter and mean, I didn’t like who I was and I took it out on my family.” I thought back to how he treated us; mother was treated as property, and me and my siblings as servants who were to be obedient… or else. “Then my eldest son came out to us…” he said with a weak, almost sickly smile on his face as he looked at Brad, his eldest son, “and I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, I worried you would lead an awful existence, I feared you would bring shame to the family, I even feared you’d eventually out me.” I could see the life drain from him as he faced his own failures. He took another deep breath and continued as me and my brother gave him our undivided attention. “Like I said, I panicked and handled it all wrong. Best had learned that his son Benny, who was away at school in Tucson was gay as well. The two of us talked to some of the other elders from the church and decided to go to Arizona and bring you both home… and I think the two of you know how that went.” I could see the shame and embarrassment on his face. “Bradley,” my father said, “I have many regrets in my life, but that’s the biggest. With god as my witness, I truly thought I was doing the right thing. I know better now and I am so sorry for what I did to you, Bradley. So damn sorry.” There was regret, shame, and remorse on his face. For the first time in my life, I could empathize with my father. He was a family man with a shameful secret that could blow up his entire world… well, it DID blow up his world and his actions devastated his family. But here we were a dozen years later and he was coming clean and doing his best to right an atrocious offense.

It was clear Brad was letting go of his hatred and holding back the tears as he reached over the table and held my dad’s hand and spoke, “For what it’s worth. I forgive you.” Dad’s face changed as the tears rolled down his face maybe washing away some of the regret and shame… who knows. The two men sobbed quietly together as they held hands and faced the black cloud that had been above them for what seemed like an eternity. I just watched and sobbed with them. We finished our coffee in silence then headed back to The Village. My dad said he wanted to see the office one more time before he left.

As soon as we walked into the office he went over to the two boxes of pamphlets by BA’s desk, nodded his head towards the shredder next to it and asked, “Does this thing work?” I nodded affirmatively and Dad added, “I’ll need another box or two. For the next fifteen minutes the three of us shredded the several months’ worth of church pamphlets we had collected from the cars in our lot and our lobby floor in front of the mail slot. We made three boxes of confetti from the pamphlets of hate. “Everybody grab a box” My dad commanded, my brother and I complied with grins on our faces. Neither of us knew exactly what our dad was up to, but we followed his lead.

The three of us walked down the street towards the Church Of The Demon just as the service was just letting out, each of us was carrying a box of shredded pamphlets. As we got to the steps of the church father said to me, “Seth, point out which one is Elder Roberts.” That wasn’t difficult as he stood at the top of the church steps pompously shaking hands, and right by his side was Benji and Joel’s Father. BONUS. My father led us through the crowd and up the steps, “follow my lead” he muttered as the three of us made our way to the two men. My dad set the box in his hands down by his feet, donned a winning smile and held out his hand, offering it to Elder Roberts. “Former Elder Westin from Texas” my dad said as he grasped the man’s hand with both of his. Elder Roberts’ face dropped as if my father’s name meant something to him. My dad dropped the man’s hand and lifted the box from the ground then dumped it at the man’s feet as he nodded to Brad and I signaling us to do the same, we obliged. “I believe these belong to you, and if we collect more from the property of The Village, your church will go the way of its Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana counterparts” my father said with a stern voice and a smile as he reached out and shook the stunned man’s hand again. Next, he turned to Benji and Joel’s Father and did the same before he turned and the three of us walked away.

As we walked back to my car, Brad asked “What the hell just happened? What happened to the other churches?”

“Myself, Best, and several other former members exposed the church and testified against them in court, it made headlines, they lost members, went bankrupt, and closed their doors” My dad answered. “Some other ex-elders contacted us for help and we did the same to two other affiliates. Our group keeps getting bigger, and we know where the bodies are buried… the other churches fear us.” My dad was trying to right his wrongs! I had no clue that he and Best had been taking down the church affiliate by affiliate. Damn, he truly had changed.

“That was fucking amazing, Dad” Brad said making my father smile with pride as we three Westin men walked down the street, my dad in the middle with the arms of his two gay sons draped around him. What. THE. Actual. Fuck?! I could never have dreamed of that moment. The three of us got in The Green Dragon and went back to the country house Zach and I called home to rejoin my family for our final day together.

That afternoon Zach, Eli, Riley, and I said goodbye to our family as everyone headed home. I could not have dreamed of a family holiday that amazing. My heart was full. I went over to H & T’s place to do a quick cleaning before they came home and left a thank you note with a big flower arrangement on their kitchen Island. After that, I went back to our place to clean. Zach, Riley, and Eli were already hard at work.

I was working on the kitchen, and Zach was working on the bedrooms upstairs when he yelled, “SETH! COME UP HERE” from the guest room where his parents had stayed. I ran up the steps and into the guest room where Zach was standing, reading something. “My parents left this on the bed” he said as he continued to read.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Well, it’s a Christmas card, “Thank you for a wonderful Holiday. We can’t wait to see the four of you on Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas, Love Mom, and Dad Hall” he read.

“Well, that’s nice” I said.

“And there’s a flight reservation for the four of us to Wisconsin on the morning of Christmas EVE” Zach added, “aaaaannnnndddd… they left the title to the truck along with another set of keys” Zach said as he held up the keys.

“WHAT?!” I exclaimed as Zach dialed his dad’s number. The phone went right to voicemail since they were still on the flight home. Zach left a messaging thanking them, telling them it was too much, and asking them to call when they landed. After that, we went down to the living room where Eli was vacuuming and Riley was dusting, and he showed them the itinerary. Eli called Mom Hall and left her a similar message. God, the Halls were so generous to us. Well, long story short; the Hall’s called when they landed and convinced us to accept their generous Christmas gifts. I guess we owned a truck now… and a damn nice one.

That night Zach and I were back in our own bed in our own home basking in the afterglow of an unimaginable perfect family holiday. “You happy?” Zach asked as we lay there on our sides face to face, his hand touching my cheek.

“Yup. Happy as hell. I gotta tell you about my morning with my dad and Brad” I almost yelled before filling Zach in on everything that happened.

His eyes went wide “Holy fuck!” he laughed in disbelief. “So, he came out? HE’S GAY?”

“Basically. He said he has always struggled with his sexuality, but never acted on his urges.” I answered, then told him about what my dad did with the shredded pamphlets at the church, and what he told us about he and Best shutting the other churches down. “These guys knew who he was, Zach. And they were afraid of him.”

“Wow! Unbelievable. Did you have any clue he and Best were doing that?” Zach asked.

"Nope” I said. “Brad and I were both in shock. I guess there’s a lot we don’t know about my father, but I ‘ve got a feeling this might be the end of our issues with the church. They really did seem afraid of him.” I laughed still in shock from all of it.

I was awake, energized, and full of excitement so I leaned in for a kiss, then rolled on top of my husband. With all the family around, our sex life had been on hold for five days and I was ready to make up for lost time. I ground my groin into his as he lay there on his back and pushed his hips ups to meet my exuberance. He let me have my fun for a minute or so before he took control and rolled us over so he was on top. Our faces were smashed together as our tongues contorted inside of each other’s mouth. He sucked on my tongue… that was a first. The pressure added yet a new sensation to our lovemaking and I pushed my hips up hard in response and pulled his chest to mine. Groin, torso, lips… all three pressed together hard in a gnarled tussle of pain and pleasure. The weight of Zach’s soccer-built body pinned me to our bed as he writhed and gyrated on top off me putting pressure on all the right parts at all the perfect times making me froth with lustful excitement. We both reached down, pushed our boxershorts down, and wriggled out of them kicking them off our feet with excitement. Our rigid tools were skin-to-skin, the heat and hardness together were electrifying! We didn’t waste a lot of time on foreplay that night, we were both horny as hell and neither one of us were going to last long. Zach was on top and in charge as he flipped himself around into a sixty-nine, grabbed my ass and pulled me deep down his hot, wet throat. Oh, my fucking god!!!! His throat contracted around my cock head as the warmth of his mouth enveloped my throbbing manhood, it was so hot and tight. Zach bobbed up and down slowly and methodically at first, sucking me with his warm mouth, twisting his tongue around my rigid shaft, stroking me with one hand and massaging my balls with the other.

“Oh fuck” I moaned involuntarily as I unexpectedly unloaded my five-day load deep down his gullet. My hands were affixed to his ass pulling his cock deeper down my own throat as I freed my swimmers into his. I tried to catch my breath as my body went into an orgasmic spasm but my efforts were futile as Zach’s steel pipe clogged my throat. With my breathing restricted and my hard cock spasming, my head was spinning in an ecstasy induced fog.

Zach came up for air and flipped around so he was on top of me and we were face to face again. His beautiful eyes were glossy and watery, and tears were running down his blush red cheeks as he grinned and kissed me with his tongue, feeding me my own load. He backed away from our kiss and said in a sweet voice. “Just for that, I’m gonna fuck the hell out of that tight ass.” The evil grin on his face was so fucking adorable as he repositioned himself, pushed my knees to my chest, and lined up his steeled manhood with my hole pushing in steadily. His cock was slimy enough from my expert blowjob that it slipped right in.

I let out a… well… it was kind of an “oof” that ended in a purr as he entered me and kept pushing forward. With my five-day load already expelled there was no urgency to get off, I just lie there and let my perfect husband make love to me. Slowly and steadily, he pushed in and pulled out, over and over again. “damn you’re so tight, and so fucking hot” Zach as he quickened his pace. I put my hands on his ass and tried to slow him down, I was in no hurry and I wanted it to last. Unfortunately, Zach wasn’t in the same mood… he still had five days pent up and was looking for release. He pounded me hard and his balls slapped my ass with every exhilarating thrust; he didn’t last long. “Fuck, I’m cumming” he panted.

I slapped his ass, “No!” I said with desperation in my voice, “feed it to me.” That was so un-Seth-like of me, I was pretty vanilla but I wanted him to fuck my face and come in my mouth,

Zach’s devilish grin grew wide as he pulled out, straddled me, and brought his cock to my lips… fresh from my own ass. “Fuck my face” I said… uttering yet another un-Seth-like phrase. I opened my mouth and he plunged in and pushed my head forward. Soon he was face fucking me and his weighty man marbles were smacking against my chin, the sensations were amazing and it took less than a dozen thrusts before he exploded down my throat gagging me with his ample load. I did my damnedest to swallow it all, after all I begged for it, and it would be rude to waste it. Right? After the last spurt had made its way into my mouth, Zach pulled out and squeezed his shaft from balls to tip expelling the final, sweet/salty drops onto my waiting tongue. He got off me and we lay side-by-side kissing. Swapping cum. Basking in the afterglow until we turned onto our sides and Zach spooned me to sleep.

The next morning the four of us got up, got ready to go back to work, and had breakfast together. “So, you and Brad were gone with dad for a long time yesterday. Did you guys have fun?” Eli asked knowing that it was probably awkward as hell; my supposedly homophobic father hanging with his two out and proud gay sons. Zach shot me a knowing grin, wondering if I was going to tell Eli the truth.

I always told Eli the truth! “Well…” I started, then told him the entire story from dad seeing the pamphlets from the church to our conversation over coffee, to him standing up to the church… ALL OF IT.

“HOE – LEE – SHIT!” Eli said with his mouth agape. “He came out to you?! Seriously?!” Eli was in shock. “Goddammit, that explains so much… Is Best his boyfriend?!” He asked as he tried to piece all the information together.

“He claims he never “acted on his urges”” I said using air quotes, “but now that mother’s gone, who knows. I’m not sure if Best is a confidant or…” I couldn’t think of the word.

“A love interest” Zach said finishing my thought. Eli was in shock, Riley was wide-eyed (and probably confused), but Zach seemed amused by the whole thing. “I’m sorry” he laughed, “but all those years of self-righteous hell he put you guys through and he turns out to be a big ole ‘mo, just like the rest of us.” Eli and I were silent at first, then laughed nervously along with my husband.

Father was gay. Who the hell saw that coming?

 

To be continued…