"It seemed I could not get rid of him. He just abused...everything. And he simply refused to just go. He was violent, controlling, manipulative, a truly oppressive presence, made all the more toxic because he was so charismatic and so handsome and absolutely sexy. People were always eating out of his hand, and he was just such a master controller. Worse, one of the women in the community was in love with him, and entertained fantasies of curing him of his homosexuality."
"No shit! say I.
"Lots of shit sitting here in this toilet, kiddo!" says Aaron.
"He had this lover, Francisco, a Nicaraguan whom he never could quite entirely shake. Francisco hated me with a total lack of finesse or decorum. He wanted to see me dead. As far as he was concerned, I had stolen from him his dear darling Dougly. But Doug wanted to leave Francisco, and Doug wanted to join me in Christian community, or so I thought, but to this day, I still don't know his real motives, he was such a player of games and manipulator of persons.
"Anyway, while my mother lay dying in the hospital, I got an apartment in the West End, so I could be near the hospital. The others in the community also wanted to use the apartment as a kind of rest station for the work downtown, and very reluctantly agreed, and stupidly had keys cut for all of them. And I still had to put up with Doug's scolding and disapproval that I was spending more time with my mother, who was due to die in three months, rather than with his exalted self. A real asshole, through and through."
"You will find that he hasn't changed much."
"And he is the leader of this community."
"Is there a story here?" say I smiling.
"Oh, do shut up, darling Christopher!" says Carl, laughing quite out loud, and I can only join him in laughing, Aaron alone is neither laughing, nor even smiling...
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