Chapter 21

Shortly after the incident in question, Anne-Marie, Felix, and I returned home, to be greeted with a few bits of news ourselves. The first was on the TV, where reports of the adult theater romp and the exposure of the Reverend Elijah Moorehead on viral video were already making waves. Since he had a radio and TV ministry and was a local celebrity of sorts, it was a big deal here in Kentucky. He had already begun to experience the consequences with remarkable, break-neck speed (fitting for a state famous for its horse races).

The first was that he lost his contract and was fired by his own church. They didn’t waste any time doing that. The second was that Jessica Moorehead had filed for divorce, asking for custody of their children, too. Everything that Elijah feared happening to him had started to happen. It was his living nightmare, and for once, I actually felt somewhat bad for the guy, as did Mom and Dad. My folks understood what I did and why I did it, but it was still tough for them. This was especially since people now knew that Felix and I had helped to expose a leading voice of the moral crusaders for a hypocrite leading a double life.

The next thing that followed was an immediate audit into the ministry’s books, with reports that already complaints had surfaced of the misuse of funds, including by Mrs. Moorehead herself. She hadn’t been Miss Innocent after all, despite her self-righteous indignation over her husband’s infidelity and hypocrisy. This was going to get ugly in a hurry, and I already knew that the reporters would soon be camping outside our home. We got only half an hour, tops, before the press arrived.

“Look, I’ll try to get Maman and Papa to find Mr. Moorehead a new job, but he might not want to be too picky about what it is. Now that he’s openly gay, of course, statewide LGBT organizations might start to protect him, assuming that he’s willing to embrace their platform. He’s gonna have little choice but to find a new camp, since he’s going to be a pariah in his old one. That’s part of the problem with denying your nature and attacking people of your own sort for others. Once the others realize who you really are, they turn on you, just like that. They’re just like snakes, these religious wackos,” Anne-Marie offered to help ease things along.

“Wow, you really do want to use your wealth for good, don’t you?” I told Anne-Marie with a kiss, making her blush as she returned my kiss with enough tongue to make me hard all over again.

“I just had a brainstorm, my love. You should start your own church. Seriously. I’d join it. Maman and Papa will join it if I tell them to, and I will. We’ll bankroll your start. It’s quite clear that if you found your own religion, people will back you up and you can influence people in ways that others only dream of doing. You’ll have your father’s expertise, at least for now, and as long as you don’t have some silly exclusivity rule, even Jenny could join and still be Jewish. We have the makings of a serious first congregation, too, and who knows what we can do with it, particularly given that many people are alienated from Christianity, but looking for spiritual answers that atheism lacks,” Anne-Marie proposed, making me grin at the way that her mind worked.

“And let me guess, you’d pay my salary for a time, wouldn’t you, so I wouldn’t have to get a regular job,” I winked at Anne-Marie, who nodded and fondled my ass.

“And so that we could set up our little camp. Fuck Bible camp! This would be Slut Camp or Heathen Camp or whatever we wish to call it! We could start our own schools, our own colleges, etc. We could begin to remake and remold the minds of youth, of young adults, too. This could be awesome!” Felix thought aloud.

Right then, the press began to camp out on our front lawn, and boy was that very frustrating. Marten looked Anne-Marie, she nodded, he kissed her, and then called his lawyer, Cameron Edwards. Mr. Edwards was a known shark, too. If he wanted to get a restraining order against the press infringing our privacy, he totally could. In the meantime, Nicole had another idea.

“Let’s just everyone move into our place. Seriously. Our daughter’s offered you rooms. It’s time to take them, I think. We can more easily operate this church of yours, Jake, from said house, too. Think of the fun and games that we could have away from prying eyes, too. Odds are, in the meantime, that Cameron can get a restraining order or injunction against all of this, but we should use the opening to get away, sooner rather than later,” Nicole suggested.

“Sooner or later, the injunction would be lifted, but by then, they wouldn’t know where you guys were. We could really have fun with this, tie them up in red tape and court fees, hold our meetings of the new church, that sort of thing, and we could also enlist legal counsel to help Reverend Moorehead and his wife with an amicable divorce ... as well as any criminal defense, assuming that they’re willing to cooperate. It’s just a thought, of course ... Master,” Marten reassured me.

“Very well, then. I’m making an executive decision that we’re going to sell things off and move in with the De Groots for now. I might well have you sell off this property and move to another state or country eventually. I want Dad to be comfortable, of course, so it will wait at least until after his passing for that. When Troy comes of age, he can join us, too. I bet that he’ll be ready for it by then. I presume that Kathy and her men will be welcome as well, not to mention Henry, Sherry, Angie, Annabeth, Trevor, and Bubba,” I declared my intentions, getting agreement all around.

“I have one request, to be honest. I want to be cremated and my urn taken with you to wherever you go, so that my remains aren’t separated from the family forever. Perhaps you can find a place of honor for me in your new church. Also, would you preach my funeral, son? I want mine to be one worthy of remembrance,” Dad requested of me, making two requests as it turned out, much to his own embarrassed realization.

“Sure, why not? It would be my honor. Whatever issues we had with each other, you’re a great Dad and you know it. I might rearrange some of these marriage plans, but we’ll see. Just know that we’re all bound together in a way that can never be broken. We’ve all shared the same recent experiences that have strengthened our love for each other and our commitment to our mutual vision. I believe that it’s safe to say that none of us would ever betray the family, would we? If I am to teach and preach, let me teach and preach truth, not lies. Let me guide people toward reality, not myth. Let me help heal, not wound. Let me bring harmony, balance, and peace,” I agreed with sincerity, “and in your last days, I do hope to see you preach when you can, to have the chance to teach and preach the very truth that you thought that you believed that you already were.”

“I would love that!” Dad hugged me as we opened up to each other ... there was nothing gay about it ... he was straight as could be ... it was just a father’s love for his son and vice versa.

“What to call the new religion or church, though?” Stephanie asked me, and then answered her own query, “how about the Church of Earth and Man?”

“That sounds good, at least for now. We can really emphasize a more ecological agenda as well as sexual freedom and peace and goodwill toward our fellow man, a reduction of the violence that we see today. We can push for a better understanding of it means to be our brother’s keeper, too. Father God, Mother Earth, that kind of thing. Both sexes ordained, including Mom, Crystal, and Ruth if you wish. Uncle Steve, Felix, etc. Perhaps even Elijah when he moves on past pining for his old life,” I concurred, even as I felt Stephanie up a bit and she moaned slightly from the attention.

The press started to get a bit louder and more obnoxious, so I decided to come out and face them briefly, but only long enough to distract them while Cameron Edwards headed our way.

“Excuse me, but you’re on our private property here. My name is Jake Parsons, and you’re trespassing on our land. I will, however, make a brief statement for the record. Let me say that I regret any pain that this incident has caused Reverend Elijah Moorehead, his wife, and his family, but that this had to be done. He needed to have to face facts. The world needed to have a little reminder that the voices which preach ‘traditional values,’ ‘family values,’ ‘morality,’ and all that other bullshit are often the biggest violators of their own ethical standards.

“Why? Because it’s a worldview that teaches people to repress their own natures in order to comply with this religious and moral paradigm that is frankly unnatural. Celibacy doesn’t exist in nature, but bisexuality, homosexuality, polygamy, polygyny, polyamory, and polyandry do. Hell, masturbation is one of the most natural things in the world. While the Kim Davises of the world insist on breaking laws and shoving their religious hypocrisy down our throats, we will defy them and expose them for the hypocrites that they are. Let this be notice: if you persist in trying to force others to follow moral codes that you yourselves cannot even abide in private, you can and WILL be hoist from your own petards, and by us!

“I am forming a new church, in compliance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and here are some of my officers, such as Marten de Groot, Nicole de Groot, Rev. Larry Parsons, Hannah Parsons,... , “ I started to say, but was interrupted by one of the reporters on the lawn.

“Excuse me for interrupting, Lisa Calderon from the Beacon, would you say that this new religion is Christian, pagan, or something else?” a chunky brunette with lovely curls interrupted me with such surprising politeness given the inherent rudeness of it all that I strongly suspected that her true motive was to flirt with me.

“New Age is closest to the best description. We want to move society beyond the usual bullshit and forward to a more enlightened era of humanity and civilization. I will pardon the interruption this once, since you seem honestly curious about us. Perhaps you’d like to consider joining, or perhaps your husband would,” I noted her wedding band, in case that might be a factor in the future.

“Oh, Raul? He might well be interested. Hard to say. He’s a fun guy. Puerto Rican. Jockey. Very amorous fellow, if you know what I mean. I think that he might appreciate a new, more permissive faith. I know that I would. Perhaps we can ... talk later, after this story has run, that is,” Lisa winked at me, not even trying to hide that she was married ... to Jenny’s new lover Raul, no less!

“Get a room, you two! We all know that Raul and you are swingers, anyway!” one of the more annoying reporters interjected, “Randall Thornton, the Sentinel, sir. What do you say to those who consider you and your friend Felix to be ‘homewreckers’ for wanting to break up a happy family in the interests of ‘truth?’ What do you say to their children?”

“I’d say that a divorce and friendship between parents is a helluva lot better for children than a stormy, toxic marriage between two unhappy people. If Reverend Moorehead was that miserable posing as a straight man, and he clearly was, or he wouldn’t have been seeking some male ass, namely that of my boyfriend, Felix.

“Now, Felix and I are far from monogamous. We have an open relationship as well as a polyamorous one. The only real restrictions are that we don’t rape anyone, we don’t molest children, we don’t hurt animals, we don’t do scat or mutilation, and he doesn’t do women. He is completely gay and I’m as bi as they get.

“We didn’t want Mrs. Moorehead to be in the dark, though. She has a right to know if her husband is going behind her back, engaging in a secret double life of what some call ‘the downlow,’ and endangering her health by possibly having unprotected sex with complete strangers. We didn’t believe that Reverend Moorehead’s congregation should be in the dark about being taught by a hypocrite.