The next few weeks were busy with work and on the weekends we were staying and working on the farm. It was great to be up there, just the two of us, working all day in the sun, bathing in the outdoor shower and sleeping naked, spooning and fucking on the porch. I wished that the rest of our lives could just be like that. However, when Sunday evening came, we had to pack up, drive home and pick up our everyday lives on Monday. After a few more weeks, he asked me to move in with him and I gave up my apartment which simplified our lives.
One Friday, Josh met me at the train station and said, "I was thinking we could stay in town this weekend and go and meet my parents on Sunday."
"Sure," I said.
I knew that family means a lot to Josh and I was a little nervous about meeting his parents. He never really talked about them, although he had mentioned his brothers, sisters and some cousins and he had talked to all of them on the phone on several occasions. "What have you told your parents about me.....us?" I asked.
"I told them I had met a special someone and his name is Tom," he said softly. "They don't seem to understand. It may not be the most pleasant situation we are going into."
"If you would rather meet them alone, I understand..."
"No Tom, I think we should meet them together. I feel that we have made a good start on a solid foundation as a couple. This situation is not about me alone, but rather us. The last thing I want to do is put you in an awkward situation, it may be the first resistance we meet as a couple and I would like to meet it head on with you. What do you think?"
"I'm game, I'm ready to take on the world...I just think that if your family is against our relationship, this may be the worst resistance that we are ever going to meet." He smiled softly and raised his eyebrows and gave me a hug.
On Sunday, we drove over to his parent's house. We had not discussed anything since he first mentioned this, so I felt that he trusted me. I must, however, admit that Tom's rather gloomy forewarning had made me nervous and the drive over to his parent's house went by way too fast.
We walked around the house and found them sitting at a table on the back patio and only his father stood up when we reached the table. "Hello, Eli Phillipson, and this is my wife Shirley," he said and shook my hand. His wife sat and looked at me and nodded her head and said a rather cold and formal, "Hello".
"My name is Tom Huber, pleasure to meet both of you," I said.
They nodded at Josh and we sat down at the table. "Help yourself to some coffee," his father said and Josh poured cups for both of us. We sat there in a very awkward silence sipping our coffee until his mother spoke up.
"I guess I really don't understand why the two of you are here," she said in a cold manner.
"I wanted you to meet Tom and for him to meet both of you. As I told you earlier, Tom and I are a couple and Tom means a lot to me." Josh said in a friendly, upbeat tone.
"A couple of what? A couple of friends?" his mother asked in an unfriendly tone.
"I think you know what being a couple means," Josh said in a monotone.
"No, I don't. A couple is a man and a woman," she said, reasonably neutral, and then she turned and addressed me. "Tom is a very eligible bachelor and has many women who are interested in him."
"I would certainly believe that ma'am." I said very calmly and in a friendly tone.
She then turned in a very angry, haughty and accusative tone directly to Josh, "Well, Josh's father and I don't understand this at all and certainly don't accept this. We never expected this and certainly had no idea that Josh was interested in this type of perversion. Is this why you and Kate broke up and you have never settled down with a woman, is it because you are interested in laying with men? You know it's against the Bible, we raised you to be a good Christian boy and we always thought you were. Now you come round here with some, some man that you've shacked up with and expect us to smile, to throw our arms around you?"
Hmmm, I thought, she would make a good trial lawyer throwing out a string of innuendos to try and confuse the witness and manipulate the jury. She wasn't speaking to him, rather at him, almost as if he were a person she despised, at least at that moment.
She prattled on about how could Josh do this to his father, her, the family, the family's reputation, they would be excommunicated from the church, did he not have any shame and on and on for at least ten minutes, one would have thought that Josh's transgression was the source of world hunger, war and devastation. She finished off with her grand finale--Didn't he understand how unhappy he was making his father, her, the entire family and opening himself up to being damned to hell for eternity?
Finally she had run out of arguments and statements leaving a tense, awkward, thick silence that enveloped us all.
I had watched Josh while she was speaking. His face and body language were expressionless, however I could detect a flicker of emotion in his eyes. I couldn't understand if it were anger, disappointment, sadness, hurt, or a mixture of all. I could however feel an anxious, melancholy energy emitting from his body. I also knew that Josh was not just hurting for himself, but for me and for us, our relationship. I felt so bad for him and wished so much this wasn't happening. While my heart was heavy, my anger had risen, how dare Josh's mother speak to him like this? How dare she spit this venom and hate towards him? I was seething with anger and I knew I had to control myself for Josh's sake.
Josh sat and looked directly at her without saying a word, just staring at her with an expressionless face. While she sat there glaring at him, she seemed nervous that her diatribe didn't seem to have any effect on him and he just sat there looking directly back at her with his piercing brown eyes. Perhaps she, herself, now had the feeling that she had gone too far. His father sat there with a frightened, confused look on his face and seemed powerless to react to what just happened.
I was confused regarding my role in this drama. This was Josh's family, was it his responsibility to answer them and I should sit there quietly? Does Josh have a strategy that I will ruin if I start talking? If he doesn't have a strategy, will it make things worse if I say something? "What the hell?" I thought. My highest priority at this time was my concern for Josh and I just did what felt right. I reached out and took his hand in mine and before I knew it I was talking.
"Mrs. Phillipson, Josh is a fine and wonderful man, well-educated, god-fearing and has a heart of gold. A man whom, I believe any mother or father, would be proud to call their son and any one who was fortunate enough to win his heart and soul to call him their partner.........
