Lonely Hearts Chapel

Excerpt from Chapter 2 of LONELYHEARTS 2016, my upcoming campy, surrealish, coming-of-age dramedy novel about a bipolar pansexual at end of the world.

(In this scene: Miss Lonelyhearts reminisces about a bible-study teacher he knew in high school, whom he jokingly referred to as “Father.” ( “I thanked him and called him ‘Father’ as a joke, knowing he wasn’t a priest; the word tingled on my tongue, lips, and teeth. Like a powerful spell. A secret magic that everyone was born with and I was just discovering.” )

He asked how I felt about god and the bible so far. I told him I thought it was silly that people referred to god as ‘He, with a capital H.’ I said, if god did exist and for-some-reason had a sex, ‘I would imagine it’s the sex that gestates Life.’ He laughed at my candidness and I was warmed inside. He told me that he agreed; that he didn’t think god was sexed. And he told me, in regards to my childbirth-as-punishment concern, that he believed the sacrifice of Christ had washed away most of that Old-Testament thinking, along with the rules like not shaving and not eating shellfish.

It was all so rational. He asked me if I was ready to accept Christ into my heart; I said I wasn’t sure.

He began playing the organ as if possessed. Everything moved around me with music and connectedness. I closed my eyes and felt the soul behind the song. It was troubled, but searching and eager, and I felt something for it that I imagined was love. I was one with it. I opened my eyes and realized that Father was overtaken with the fluidity of happiness like I’d never seen in him.

He was active but calm.

He stopped playing and, without looking at me, said that he wrote it for me; that I was his muse.

‘Shouldn’t your muse be god?’

‘It can be . . .’ he smiled at me. ‘You’ve got a fire in your eyes. You know that?’

‘I think it’s just light,’ I blushed.

He started telling me that he loved my voice, and he thought I should sing in the choir. I started to say I didn’t think my voice was good enough, then he grabbed my face and pressed his lips into mine. They opened instinctively for him, and I let him inside me. He tasted like a smell I recognized; like cigarette smoke. It felt like caffeine and a sunshiny walk, and I wanted more. I needed more. Our tongues flirted with real oneness, and I was lost in how warm, pulsing and purposeful our movements were.

He leaned into me further, and I felt an expectation in the pressure of his body on mine. A snake slithered up his throat and down my own, but I didn’t want it there; I pushed my body back against his, and the snake slithered back into his belly. I could sense its coiled comfort there. I could also feel the sudden, newfound absence in myself, but the absence felt more natural than the urgency to fill it.

I separated us to breathe. I looked at him and thought about how natural it would feel to love him, with a love I’d never known. He asked if it was okay that he kissed me, and if it felt good for me. I told him it was lovely, but that I didn’t have any experience for comparison.

Upon hearing that he was my first kiss, his eyes retracted in shadow. I called to him lovingly as he slipped into the abyss, but some demoniac doubt had contorted his face beyond reason. He acted like he didn’t hear my concern, and he yelled at me to leave. He continued screaming until I rose from the bench and inched away from him. Then he began pounding on the organ with a disjointed urgency. The rumbling made me turn and run; the Earth was riddled with apocalyptic fits.

The forceful, directionless thunder followed me, even as I descended the steps outside. I was certain the church would collapse. But then I glanced at its facade one more time, and I realized that the church had been built to withstand and amplify that very noise.

Read more excerpts (and soon, the first five chapters) here.

Be gentle; this is only a tentative cover.

Love always,

your Mister