Mysterious Ways

By Jenna Hilary Sinclair

One snowy, frustrating December evening, Greg prays for help finding a way to be both a good churchgoer and an out gay man. He doesn’t expect the answer to be a snowball in the back… and immediately meeting Corey, a fellow grad student. With the man of his dreams falling for him hard, Greg still has trouble reconciling his faith with his needful body, not to mention understanding why someone wearing a red hat keeps appearing inexplicably. It will take some mysterious ways for Greg to accept the best Christmas gift of his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781613722954

Book preview

Mysterious Ways

Greg paused in the sheltering doorway of the University of Wisconsin bookstore as, amazed, he peered out into a blizzard.

No, not really a blizzard, he quickly told himself, fruitlessly taking a step back away from the cold. This was normal weather in Madison for December 6, 2010, and he had darn well better get used to it. Just another snowstorm, that was all.

With determination, Greg wrapped his scarf around his neck, even if it wasn’t the kind of scarf he needed for this weather. When he’d packed for his big move north, it’d been hard to comprehend what sub-freezing temperatures would actually feel like. The past week had educated him thoroughly about numb fingers and blocks of ice for feet. With him counting every dollar ’til the end of the month, though, the inadequate clothing he’d brought with him in search of a graduate degree would have to do.

He made sure his jacket was zipped up as high as it would go and then out into the wind he went. The parking lot was blocks away, giving him plenty of time to be astonished at all the weather-immune people who were still taking advantage of State Street’s vibrant, open-air pedestrian mall. Tiny, twinkling lights glowed with holiday festivity, but after that first look around, Greg hunched down into his jacket and walked as fast as he could, mindful of the heavy backpack that wanted to overbalance him on the slippery sidewalk. Whether he ever managed to grow accustomed to a true winter or not, right now he really wanted to get in out of the cold.

Excuse me, a woman said as she dodged out of his determined path. A man followed her, and then another woman, and then another. He glanced up and with a pain-filled heart saw that they were all leaving the Catholic Community Center. Not once since he’d arrived in Madison in late August had he attended mass, there or anywhere else. They’d been the first Sundays in his entire life that he hadn’t been a loyal son of the church; the catechism said he was damned because of it.

Greg stopped right where he was on the sidewalk, took a deep breath that froze his lungs, and asked himself the big question for the thousandth time. Was he damned? He didn’t know. For weeks now he’d been telling himself that nobody knew, not really.

But according to the church, he was trembling on the brink of being damned twice over. From the time he’d stared at a men’s underwear ad in the Florida Times-Union when he was twelve, he’d known in his heart that women didn’t do it for him. Men did. Nothing had changed that, not his prayers, not the whispered, fervent confessions he’d made to Father Hummel in the dark of the confessional, not his determined dating of girls in high school, and not living a sexless life all through college.

The church said that homosexuality was an intrinsic moral evil. Enduring the celibacy the church wanted him and all homosexuals to embrace, Greg said he was horny beyond belief and awfully lonely. If he kept going on like this, he… he didn’t know what. He’d crack, that’s what.

But he wasn’t going to change anything standing there in front of St. Paul’s, so he got his feet moving again. The last of the group leaving the campus church walked in front of him, two guys wearing short jackets that showed off great asses. Greg’s heart jumped up into his throat, and for one wild moment he thought the slender fellow on the right might be….

But no. Corey, whom he’d met at an August orientation meeting, whom he’d spent a few hours talking with, who’d exchanged numbers with him, who’d given him hope and featured in his wistful thoughts about change and what might be, who made his heart a little sore to think of even now, had not miraculously re-appeared. And if he ever did, what difference would it make? Corey was undoubtedly straight. He hadn’t called, and Greg hadn’t been sure enough of himself to dial his number either. Corey might be someone Greg had gotten along with one hopeful afternoon and who starred in his fantasies when he couldn’t control himself, but he wasn’t the solution to his problem. Corey probably didn’t even remember him.

Greg blinked snowflakes from his eyes. He’d come to Wisconsin with the intention of changing his life, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Yet, he told himself sternly. He hadn’t changed yet. He lived his celibate life—that was driving him crazy—dreamed his dreams of kissing a man, and endured his blue balls. It was just so hard to change. So hard to find the time or the energy or the courage to….

Excuses, Greg muttered to himself as he trudged along in the fading light. I’ve got to stop making excuses. And he needed to finish a paper that night too. He hitched his backpack higher onto his shoulders and kept going, although he felt colder.

His 1995 Honda Civic, with 199,879 miles on it, didn’t want to start, another worry