Secret Society by Miasha

cuddle buddy, and O was busy getting high and sellin’ dope. He was at a point where he was moving sixty thousand pounds a week. He had money in five states and twelve cities. He had houses in Delaware and one in Jersey, a town house in D.C., and a loft in New York. I was sure he had girls in all of those places too, or maybe boys, who knew? But I didn’t care. He was paying all my bills and maintaining my wardrobe. I couldn’t complain.
    I spent one Sunday afternoon reminiscing and putting things into perspective. I got up out of my king-sized poster bed and dragged my feet across my mink rug. I went into my walk-in closet and retrieved some photo albums from an old suitcase I had hiding behind all my clothes. I pushed a pile of shoes to the other side of the closet and sat in the middle of the floor. The first album I opened had pictures of me when I was just a baby. Times my mom and dad took me to the zoo and the circus or just times we all spent at our house. There were pictures of me in the bathtub, taking my first steps, all the way up to me on my first bike. I just smiled at the sight of myself so young and innocent. Those were the days, I thought, when life was so simple, when my mom and dad were happily married, before I started messing shit up. It made me cry.
    I wished I could go back to those days. Nobody even knew I was gay, except for my dad, according to my mom. She said my dad knew something was wrong when I started having more girl friends than guy friends and when I showed a strong interest for fashion. She claimed that was the reason he left us. I’ll never forget the day she told me that.
    The week after graduation I had made up my mind about dressing up, which meant I had to come clean to my mom about being gay. I went downstairs to the kitchen where she was making dinner. I took a seat at the little round wooden table. My mom ignored my presence, as she did most of the time after my father left. I picked up an apple from the fruit bowl that sat in the center of the table and asked my mom to pass me a knife so that I could peel it. That was my way of getting her attention. She didn’t pass me the knife. Instead she told me to get it myself because she had to turn the chicken that was frying. I got up and went over to the drawer. I took a knife out, rinsed it off, and returned to my seat at the table. All the while my mom was standing in front of the stove, not once looking at me. I told her that I had something important to talk to her about. She turned around with a disgusted look on her face and asked what was it.
    “Mom, you know my friend Tina, right?” I began.
    “Yes, Charles, what about her?” my mom asked in a frustrated tone of voice.
    “She’s really a guy, Mom,” I revealed.
    My mom’s face frowned up. She asked, “Charles, what are you talking about? I’m trying to cook dinner here. And Sister Anna is coming to pick me up at seven for Bible study, so I really don’t have time for foolishness.”
    On that note I decided to get it over with.
    “Mom, I’m gay and I want to start living my life as a girl like Tina does.”
    My mom had a look on her face that I will never forget. It was an expression of anger mixed with confusion.
    “Charles, do you know what you just said to me?” she asked.
    I nodded my head yes.
    “You sound crazy. Don’t you know that God will punish you for this?” she asked.
    “Mom, there is no proof of that,” I said.
    “No proof? Son, it is in the Bible. What more proof do you need? God intended for it to be man and woman. Not man and man! And the fact that you want to change your sex? That’s taking it overboard. You might as well slap God across the cheek with your bare hands!”
    “I’m telling you this because you’re my mother and I need your support,” I whined. “Not so you could judge me.”
    My mom turned back around to face the stove. “No son of mine will sleep with other men. And no son of mine will live his life as a woman,”