Nothing like that. Nothing of Jimmy flowed through Jim’s blood. Kayla bit her lip to keep quiet and give him the time and space he needed to get through this.
“I concentrated on studying and I only did that. I engaged in long discussions with fellow students and went to all kinds of conferences to collect all the different perspectives that I possibly could. There are so many interpretations of Christianity and so many ways for people to worship. My path was as far from my father’s as I could find. But that was all I did. I worked when I needed to, but mostly I just studied and learned and practiced. I went to different churches to study under new spiritual leaders and attend their services. I befriended dozens of church leaders to whom I asked my endless questions and later discussed them. I emulated some of them and tried not to be like others. I created my vocation by seeking to be the best. In that quest, I managed to find peace. I found a sense of belonging and decency. It has become the most magnificent highlight of my entire life.”
Oh, no. And then Jim started having sex with her. She shuddered at the thought of what she misunderstood, and all the reasons she thought that turned out to be so wrong.
“Then I met Kathy. She was a woman I believed I could control myself with. Not be the real me. The Jim I used to be. I was good with her too. I didn’t do anything but what I promised myself. We were prepared to wait until after our marriage. Only then would it be right and appropriate. Sometimes, kissing her aroused me and I’d just stop her. She never complained. We smiled and talked and moved on and everything was okay.”
“And then I entered your life.”
“I could never stop once I started with you. From that first touch of your lips on mine. It felt like it used to.”
Kayla didn’t like the sound of that. “What did it used to feel like, Jim? What do you keep avoiding and trying so hard not to tell me about?”
His face streaked with shame and he blushed. “I had sex. Lots of indiscriminate sex during that time. I had promiscuous, bad sex. The kind like—”
“You did not have sex like Jimmy. I know you didn’t. Don’t even say that.”
“NO!” He jerked as if she just punched him. “No, of course not. But it was the wrong kind. Like what Jimmy did with the women… And sometimes with more than one partner. I knew how wrong it was but I just did it.”
“Jim, so did I. I’ve had so many one-night stands. I did a threesome. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t make you bad or dirty or anything like Jimmy. I think it’s normal to experience as much as you can in your youth and all that. I think you longed for a human connection and didn’t know where to find it. After the Zavarians rejected you, how could you know how to deal with that? In a healthy, good way?”
“You don’t understand… my father, with whom I share the blood in my veins, has the blood of a pedophile. Do you understand that? A felon. A criminal of the worst kind. How can I…” He rubbed his temple. “You can’t convince me to believe his rotten core isn’t also inside me.”
She crossed the couch to grab him and kneeled beside him as she held onto him. “It isn’t at all. I know it’s not.”
“I thought when I was with Kathy, maybe it wasn’t. All the spiritual work I did seemed to cancel those impulses and desires. And then…”
Her head pounded. What he said slammed into her like he socked her in the gut. She knew instinctually that Jim didn’t mean to offend her with the worst insult. But he did and it hurt. Kathy was better for him because she allowed him to stay on the path of fucking redemption?
“Jim.” She took his face into her hands and her gaze caressed him. “You don’t deserve to be in a loveless relationship. You don’t need redemption. Having sex with me was normal. It’s based on normal feelings. You have the same feelings I have. Do you think I’m a pervert or on my way to hell for having them? Do you think it will lead me to becoming a pedophile?”
“No. No!” he said quickly. Then he pushed her away and grabbed his head. “But… there is something unhealthy inside me. Jimmy… he’s inside me.”
“Do you desire sex with boys?” Bold. Direct. Fucking getting right to it.
He stopped shaking his head for a second. “NO! Never. But Jimmy did and he was my father. My—”
Jimmy fucked him up mentally if not physically. Jim linked any kind of sex to the rapes he saw Jimmy doing when he was a kid. All of it. Jim’s view of sexual activity was a traumatic, inappropriate, excessive, free-for-all. The antithesis of healthy romance, obviously. Kayla knew in her gut level that he wasn’t anything like Jimmy. His whole life was dedicated to his efforts to redeem himself. To expunge his past. He strove to be a living saint, whose only flaw was his very ordinary, very normal and healthy attraction to a woman.
That woman was her.
She was the only one he wanted. And in his lust for her, he half-tortured himself.
She knew it but she erroneously believed it was all about purity. Fuck. His guilt was deeply embedded. And stubborn. She closed her eyes. By the time he came to her bedroom that day, he probably slayed himself so many times for wanting to and yet, he
