worried. At one point, he told Lucas he had the feeling something-or someone-was after him.”
The waiter came over. I got my first good look at him, and I suspected Freddy’s motivation for beckoning him over may have gone beyond just wanting to place an order. The server really was kind of spectacular. He had the smoldering looks of an Argentinian soccer player you’ve never heard of who then winds up modeling for a Versace campaign and dating Miley Cyrus.
“I am sorry to have been detained,” he said in a velvety Spanish accent. “How may I be of assistance?” His eye contact with Freddy promised a main course of polite attentiveness with a side order of flirty innuendo.
Little did he know subtlety wasn’t on Freddy’s menu.
“I hate to bother you,” Freddy said. “But my friend thinks this is disgusting. What’s your opinion?”
Freddy picked up his bowl and gave it another long, sensuous lick. It was a mortifyingly vulgar display that only he could pull off, and just barely at that. He finished with a final wipe around the rim with his finger, which he sucked into his mouth with the subtly of a voice mail from Mel Gibson.
“I think,” the waiter said thoughtfully, taking out his order pad, “you should have this.” He wrote ten digits followed by his name.
Freddy tucked the paper into his front pocket. “Bring me another bowl of this and I might call,” he said.
“Right away, sir.” He scurried off, with a more obvious wiggle to his butt than before.
“Another?” I asked incredulously.
“Waiter or dessert?” Freddy asked. “I’m not sure which indulgence you’re objecting to.”
“I’m talking about what you’re going to eat.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down, honey.”
I rolled my eyes and snorted.
“Lovely,” Freddy observed. He reached into his pocket and handed me the waiter’s number. “Here. Just in case you ever need to piss off Tony.”
“You’re not going to use it?”
“I have Cody,” he said nonchalantly.
Wow. This from the guy who didn’t do the “dating thing.” I decided to let it pass. This might be a stage in Freddy’s evolution that went better unrecognized. At least by him.
“So,” Freddy said, “Brent had a bad feeling, huh? He wanted to give Lucas his parents’ number in case something happened to him?”
“No,” I said. “That’s just it. Brent was almost completely estranged from his family. His father wasn’t just antigay, he was rabidly homophobic. He kicked Brent out of the house when Brent was still a teen. They had no contact at all.
“A few weeks before he went missing, though, Brent got something in the mail that worried him. Someone sent him an article in the mail. Anonymously. It was clipped from a fundamentalist magazine Brent knew his parents subscribed to at home. It was about an extreme form of reparative therapy.”
“Like, for a shoulder injury? ’Cause, if so, I’d like to see it. I was doing flies at the gym the other day and-”
“No, not that kind of therapy. This was for repairing homosexuality.”
“Like, making it even better? ”
“No, you nut, like making it go away.”
“Oh,” Freddy said. “Like that scam Harrington’s son was running.”
Freddy and I had come across a similar program when my friend was murdered.
“Kind of,” I answered. “But that one, at least, was voluntary. Unethical, sure, but no one was forced into it. It was also kind of New Agey and based in psychology.
“The one sent to Brent was worse. It regarded homosexuality not as some kind of undesirable lifestyle but as a cult. It was a deprogramming program. The ‘patients’ are kidnapped. They’re subjected to confinement, mind control, and mental abuse until they conform.”
After Lucas told me about the letter Brent had gotten, he showed me some papers from Web sites he’d printed out about these kinds of programs. Deprogramming forces people to abandon their participation in a religious, political, or social group. Since the believer is unlikely to volunteer for this kind of change, deprogramming involves kidnapping and arm-twisting.
Often, deprogramming is arranged for and paid by relatives. Most typically, it’s the parents of adult children who foot the bill. They claim they want to help their children, but where do you draw the line? Is it an act of love to take someone against his or her will? Are you saving your child, or is it just another way in which parents seek to control him or her?
On the other hand, some cults are dangerous and are manipulative themselves. They prey on the insecure and weak, exploiting their alienation by promising acceptance for allegiance.
It’s a dull cliche, but you have to ask yourself: Do two wrongs make a right?
In this case, obviously not. Being gay is natural for some people-it’s who we are. No one had to coerce me into liking dick. I had that one covered by myself.
Freddy looked appalled. “Is that even legal?”
“Not as far as I know. It’s been challenged in the courts and hasn’t fared well. But that doesn’t stop some people from trying.”
“So, did Brent ever figure out who sent him the article?”
“He figured it was his older sister. The father is very controlling, and he made it clear that no one is supposed to be in touch with Brent-he’s exiled until he’s willing to change. Anyone who breaks the dad’s rules is subject to equal banishment.”
“Nice guy,” Freddy observed.
“Brent’s older sister is the only one who dares to buck her father’s edicts. Not too much-Christmas here, birthday call there. She didn’t sign the article, but it was postmarked from her town. Brent figures it was her way of warning him without getting in trouble with their dad.
“Bottom line: Brent didn’t want Lucas to call his parents if something happened to him. He wanted Lucas to call the police and tell them it was probably his parents who did it. And then he wanted Lucas to send them the picture.”
Whether Brent’s sentiment of love and forgiveness was sincere, or if he just wanted to make his parents feel remorse for what they’d done, I didn’t know. Maybe a little of both.
Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.
“Oh my god,” Freddy said. “That’s like, the worst thing ever. And I thought my parents were evil when they wouldn’t buy me a pony for my fifteenth birthday.”
“You still wanted a pony when you were fifteen?”
“Did I say ‘pony’?” Freddy asked. “I meant to say ‘subscription to Playgirl.’ So, now that Lucas knows Brent’s gone missing, did he call the cops and rat out Brent’s folks?”
“No. Two days after Brent told Lucas about the letter, he told him not to worry about it. He no longer thought his parents would do that to him.”
“What happened?”
“Brent never said.”
“So, why doesn’t Lucas call the cops anyway?”
“Like I said, Brent was sure his parents had abandoned the idea. But if they found out Brent heard they’d looked into it, they’d know the sister was the one who gave him the heads up. He loved her too much to get her into that kind of trouble.”
The waiter came over with another dessert for Freddy.
“This one’s on me,” he purred.
“Maybe later, I really will put some on you.” Freddy winked. “With some whipped cream, too.”
The waiter walked away with a big grin.
“I thought you weren’t going to call,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t flirt,” Freddy said. “He did give me free ice cream after all.”
“That does look good,” I couldn’t help admitting. “Think I could score some, too?”
“That depends,” he deadpanned. “What are you willing to do for it?”
“Ask nicely?”
