Forgive Me Father, for I Have Sinned

When he was twelve, Tom discovered porn for the first time. He’d heard that word before, whispered in the hallways of the school, screamed by drunkards along the streets, written on adult magazines and on the back shelves of the local DVD rental store. He’d heard the word before, but he didn’t know what it meant.

It was David who introduced him to it. He came home one afternoon with a DVD hidden in the inner pocket of his jeans jacket. By this time, Tom had already been to Florida with the Dawsons. Since he came back the only thing he could talk about – other than the rollercoasters of course, he was twelve after all – was the warm feeling that invaded his body especially down there when he held Theo’s hand. You want to feel like that again? David had asked, and Tom said yes. How could he not? Let me talk to Jazz he said. Jazz was one of his classmates, a big guy with a pair of orange glasses held by tape and way too much facial hair for a fifteen-year-old. He was the guy you would talk to if you needed grown-up stuff - alcohol, cigarettes, porn. On Thursday nights, when his parents left him home alone to go to a salsa class, he would invite his buddies over to watch erotic films - of which his dad had a collection - together. Erotic films are for group enjoyment he always joked but if you want to get a boner by yourself, you need porn.

David put the DVD in the player they had in their room. Keep it quiet he said, lowering the TV volume, and let me know when you’re done. Tom looked at his brother walking out of the room and down the stairs. Their dad was still in church, teaching premarital class. On the screen, a naked man was holding a naked woman’s chin. Tom had never seen a naked woman, only his baby sister when she was younger and their mom changed her diaper. Now the woman was on the floor, the man on top of her. Tom knew what sex was, he watched animals doing it on Discovery Channel, but that was different. He got that warm feeling again. Now the man was inside of the woman, violently moving his body up and down. Tom felt a lightning going through his spine, his penis getting harder and bigger. David had warned him. You need to touch yourself for it to work. But Tom didn’t want to. Now the woman was on top, her hands around the man’s neck. She was moaning. Tom turned it off. It was too painful. He thought of his father’s voice carrying through the church walls on Sundays, warning couples about sin. If even a kiss before marriage was dangerous, what would this be? The shame rose quicker than the arousal had.

Still, after that night, Tom became a porn habitué. Eventually, he overcame his prudery and learned that the fastest way to heaven was masturbation. And the more he watched, the more he learned about himself, about the things that made him truly happy. The main one was sapphic porn. It was on the screen of his bedroom’s TV, with his father still in church, this time supervising choir practice,  that he saw two women kissing for the first time. This one is a special one Jazz told him, sliding the DVD in his hand during recess. It was in that moment that Tom was sure he loved women - they were so angelic, so beautiful, so perfect. And when they were together, they were magic. That was the first word that came to his mind: magic.

When he was fourteen, Tom kissed a girl for the first time. He had his arm around Theo’s shoulder, the Dawsons were sitting on the couch next to them. Emily had fallen asleep, Arthur was stroking her hair with the back of his hand. Then Julia Roberts entered that bookshop once again. I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her. Theo turned to him. Her big, blue eyes as happy as they could be. It was clear what she wanted but somehow Tom didn’t understand it. She held his head with both hands and whispered to his ear can I? Before he could say yes, before he could even think about what that question was about, she kissed him. Make no mistake, their first kiss was far from perfect. It was too quick, too wet, too awkward – just like all first kisses. They did it again the next day, and the day after that. Little teen kisses exchanged like they were the most precious thing in the world. I love you they would say before touching each other’s lips. Little teen I-love-yous exchanged like they were the most precious thing in the world. Still, Tom could not help but think about God. How could he be disappointing Him, how could this be temptation, if every kiss felt like prayer?

When he was sixteen, Tom had sex for the first time. He and Theo had been together for the good part of two years. He had just gotten his driving license. When he turned sixteen, his brother David was gifted a brand new, flaming red pickup. He was so proud of it. Tom didn’t know you could be so proud of something that was not your merit. When he turned sixteen, Tom wasn’t gifted any car. He was grudgingly given the keys to his dad’s old mouse-grey Audi.
After watching Jurassic Park III at the cinema, Tom drove Theo to the same big, empty field where Arthur had taught him how to ride a bike. Except now it wasn’t empty anymore. He parked the Audi a few hundred meters from the train tracks. There was no service at that time of the night. Tom liked to drive Theo around, show her places she couldn’t have visited by herself. This is an odd choice she said even for you. He smiled at her. He always did. I like this place, it’s calm. His hand was on her thigh, his index finger drawing small circles on her jeans. It was a warm, humid day in Pennsylvania, but Theo refused to wear shorts. I love you he said. She smiled at him, she always did. Leaning forward to kiss him, Theo slid her hand under his t-shirt. Despite all the porn he watched, Tom was the most stiff and awkward guy when it came to physicality. Theo kept kissing him – on his lips, on his cheek, on his neck. She never stopped kissing him, not even when she took his shirt off. Just like for their first kiss, Tom knew what was about to happen but he didn’t know what to do about it. Touch me Theo said, bringing his hand to her breast. She unbuttoned the lilac cardigan she was wearing. Touch me she said, bringing his hand down to her jeans. Tom kept doing what Theo said, a puppet and his puppeteer.  Before he knew it, her hands were in his shorts. Then he didn’t have his shorts at all. And now she was on top of him. Tom felt like he was watching himself from the outside, like all of that wasn’t happening to him. Part of him wished his father could see him now. Not for approval -  he had long stopped expecting that - but for proof that he wasn’t only the boy who dragged his shame into church week after week. The sermons said the body was a temple, yet Tom’s felt more like a battlefield, desire pulling one way and doctrine the other. For the first time, he began to wonder if his faith had been nothing more than fear dressed up as love. What he was doing felt like the best thing in the world, and still he knew God would call it sin. Why? How could something so private, so clumsy, so full of love, make heaven turn away? If the God he believed in cared so much about what he did in the dark with someone he loved, maybe He wasn’t so gracious after all.

When he was twenty-two, Tom tried sadomasochism for the first time. Her name was Eve and she was much older than him. They met at a party, one of those parties where there’s more drugs than people. By this time, Tom was a desperate man. He self-medicated with alcohol and coke, his life swinging like a pendulum backward and forward between zombiness and euphoria. Since he lost his faith, since he lost Theo, since he came to New York - running from his family, running from his father - and realised he didn’t fit, that he would never fit, he had let go of any kind of self-control. Why should it matter? Happiness wasn’t meant for him. Those who still cared, the few who hadn’t already turned their backs, were worried. He wasn’t. He had stopped worrying long ago. He had stopped caring about his future, about God, about whether the man in the mirror was even worth saving. There was a kind of freedom in that, a bitter kind, but freedom all the same.

When he first saw her, Eve was talking to someone Tom was pretty confident he knew, but of whom he couldn’t remember the name. Her back arched toward the barman, a glass of dry Martini in her hand. The burgundy dress she was wearing draped her tall, skinny body. The long, brown hair framed her face. Tom knew she was way older than him by the wrinkles that crossed her face when she smiled, and by the way she looked at people his age. He wondered what kind of job she had, what kind of people she knew to be at a party like that. Tom knew she was older than him, probably smarter and richer too. He also knew she was way out of his league – or at least that’s how he felt – but he still couldn’t stop staring. What’ you staring at? Eve asked turning her back to the man she was talking to and placing her glass on the bar counter. Tom smiled. ‘You new? I’ve never seen you at one of these parties before. Now that she was looking at him, Tom realized she kind of looked like a snake. Not in a bad way. She looked regal, powerful, her eyes penetrating your soul and her body strong enough to kill you. I’m Eve she said. I’m Thomas he said but everyone calls me Tom. She laughed, beckoning the barman to bring her another Martini. Tom is a little boy’s name. ‘You a little boy? He would have liked to answer that question in a smart, or witty way. But he didn’t. He just kept staring at her.

In all of his years as a porn aficionado, Thomas had watched his fair share of BDSM. But nothing could have prepared him for Eve. She didn’t care about what other thought of her sex life, she didn’t hide. She showed her cuts, her bruises, her burns with pride. Her favourite place to fuck was in front of the glass-to-ceiling windows of her industrial loft in Tribeca, the doors of the building’s lift bound to open any time. Hit me Thomas would scream, his hands and feet tied by leather webbing. But she didn’t like when he asked for it. She just wanted to hear him howl in pain. And then she would hit him, and hit him harder, with the most expensive nine-tails-cat she could find on the market. And then she would run a knife along his shoulders, his arms, his legs. She would scratch his skin with such artistry that never a drop of blood was dropped, even if Thomas would carry those scars forever. And the more she hurt him, the less pain Thomas felt. All those scars were setting him free. He didn’t even have to get drunk or high anymore. His new drug was pain. The pain that beautiful fifty-year-old inflicted on him.

Thomas enjoyed being Eve’s toy boy, and not only for the mental health benefits that came with the sick way she expressed herself. She was the COO of a big financial firm in downtown Manhattan. With money like hers and connections like hers, the world was her oyster. Your wish is my command she would say after they had sex. Thomas never knew for sure whether she loved him – she probably didn’t. But she was happy to give him whatever he wanted, as a thank you for what he’d let her do when they fucked. They saw each other for years, on and off. And they probably wouldn’t have stopped if it wasn’t for what happened with his father.

When he was thirty-four, Thomas had sex with a pregnant woman for the first time - at least that he knew. He had always had a thing for pregnant women, he couldn’t even tell how that started. For once, it wasn’t porn. But since he was a teen the thought of a baby growing inside a woman’s body turned him on like no other thing. But it was hard finding pregnant women willing to have sex with a stranger met on a dating app. He tried and tried and tried but he never managed to check that box out of his list. Until he met Stana. Her Bumble profile stated that she was a cardiothoracic surgeon, that she could play five instruments and speak four languages. She was tall, honey-brown hair all the way down her back. Tom swiped right. It was only a few days later that he got a message from her. Tell me more about these books of yours. It took him a week to ask her out. They went to the zoo, just like kids. She had moved to New York only recently and had never been. While they were in front of the lions’ cage it started to rain, to rain hard. They ran as fast as they could to the nearest shelter, drenched hair and ruined coats. Thomas would have kissed her in that moment, but even after all that time he was still stiff and awkward when it came to physical love. They kissed for the first time on their third date. Stana had invited him at hers, a one-bedroom flat on the eleventh floor of a luxury high-rise. I’m tired she texted him not in the mood for going out. So they put an old romcom on and snuggled on the couch. It was the second time Thomas kissed a girl with Julia Roberts asking Hugh Grant to love him on the screen.

The morning of their one month anniversary, Thomas got a call from the ER. Stana passed out during a consultation and her colleagues wanted to make sure she was ok. Thomas rushed to the hospital. When he got there, Stana was sitting in the waiting room, her legs crossed on the vinyl-covered chair. They’re preparing the discharge papers she said. Her hand felt so small in his. Is everything ok? he asked. She nodded. On their way home, they stopped by the nearest Shake Shack. They got two Smoked Shacks, a side of fries, a large coke and a lemonade. But Stana was distracted. How do you feel? She wouldn’t look him in the eyes, her fingers tapping on the table like the first time they met. Without answering, Stana searched her bag and slipped a folded sheet out of it. Look she said. It was a bloodwork report - skimming through it, Thomas had no idea what any of that meant. Is there something wrong with them? Stana pointed to a value under the voice hCG. There she said I’m pregnant. Thomas was at a loss for words. They hadn’t had sex yet, which meant it was someone else’s baby. I hooked up with this guy before we matched she said, eyes on the table. How far along are you? She tapped her fingers on the blood tests sheet. I’m keeping it, Tom. Thomas had never wanted to be a father. Once in his high school psychology class he read something about intergenerational trauma - the transmission of the effects of a traumatic event. My whole life is traumatic he thought. He didn’t want to grow up to be like his mom, struggling to the point to run away from her whole life and leaving three young children behind. He didn’t want to grow up to be like his dad, a pastor that liked to fuck little boys. Even now, decades later, Thomas wasn’t sure which part of that memory burned more: the betrayal of faith, or the silence of everyone who pretended not to notice. The thought of fatherhood made him nauseous. To guide a child meant to stand in the role of authority he had only ever feared. The fact that it wasn’t his own child helped. At least it wouldn’t have his genes. Still, it was too much for him. You don’t have to stick around. I would understand if you didn’t want to.

When he was thirty-five, Thomas cheated for the first time. Since he and Stana visited West Chester, since his little sister told him she and Theo were a thing now, since he and Theo got drunk together, their respective partners sleeping in their childhood bedrooms upstairs, he hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Now she was coming to New York a couple of times a month for work. They started meeting in bars next to her company’s office. They would get drinks, reminisce about the past and then Thomas would walk her to her hotel. Don’t be rude, invite her for dinner said Stana one night. I’ll cook. So the next week Theo visited their apartment for the first time. I thought you hated cats she whispered in Thomas’ ear while Pulitzer rubbed his body against her legs. He giggled, well aware that his soon-to-be wife was looking at them from the kitchen. That evening felt like an out-of-body experience to Thomas. His brain just couldn’t process the thought of Theo and Stana laughing together at the same table, of his present and his past gossiping about Love Island and whatnot. Once they were done eating, he called a taxi for Theo and waited with her on the sidewalk. I thought you hated reality TV he mocked her. I did, things change. Snowflakes started gently falling from the sky. Theo was shivering. Without thinking, she nestled against the soft and warm wool of his coat. He put his arm around her waist, held her closer. Soon his nose was in her hair. But when she was about to look up at him, it was too late – the yellow and black car had just pulled over.

The downside of dating a surgeon, Thomas had learned, was that they’re busy all the time. Despite being five months pregnant, Stana was still working between sixty and seventy hours per week. Working from home, Thomas really felt the weight of all the time they spent apart. But sometimes misfortunes turn into fortunes. The next time she was in town, Theo called him in the morning. The meeting she was supposed to have after lunch had been cancelled and now she was free all day. Thomas invited her home. You still haven’t told me how you ended up with this she said stroking the Pulitzer’s tail. The same way I ended up with a five months pregnant partner Thomas replied Stana talked me into it. He poured two glasses of white wine. To cats he toasted. And reality shows she added. Before Thomas could pour a second round, Theo put her hand around his wrist. She looked him straight in his eyes. Standing on opposite side of his kitchen island, for the first time in fifteen years, they kissed. Soon their clothes were on the ground. Under Pulitzer’s judgey look, they moved to the bedroom. Tell me you have a condom. Thomas rummaged in one of his nightstand’s drawers. While he was putting the condom on, Theo looked at him from behind. We’re really doing this, aren’t we?

If someone had told him when he was nineteen that he and Theo would have sex again, Thomas wouldn’t have believed it. Not in a million years. Now he was holding her in his arms under the sheets of a bed he shared with someone else. Stroking her hair, he felt something he had never felt before. Maybe he was still that awkward boy in the grey Audi, fumbling with desire and fear, except now the stakes were heavier. With Theo, every kiss carried the weight of all the years he had failed to become the man he thought he should be. Her phone rang – it was Madeline. She smiled at Thomas, got up, grabbed her clothes, and went to answer in the living room. By the time she hung up, she was already fully dressed. They stood there, in his living room, she in her white jumpsuit and prince-of-Wales brown blazer, he still naked. I should go she said.

I'm Gaia, a 24 year old Italian living in London. I have studied Medical Innovation and Psychology at UCL, currently on a job hunt (hopefully towards the end of it). I started writing before I knew how to write (I dictated stories to my mom who would write them down for me). I've published my first novel "Lontani Tutti" in 2021, and I've written three original plays for UCL Drama Society during my time at uni. My second novel "Rose di Sale" should be available soon-ish.