The Preacher's Son
-July, 2018
At twelve years old, Noah Williamson knew he hated Michael Beauman. With. A. Vengeance.
Which was wrong; according to his father, you shouldn’t hate people. You combated hate with love, turned the other cheek, and asked God to forgive them for their wicked ways. It made you a good Christian but also a better man, and surely, those who deserved it, would answer for their sins later.
It’s what his father said.
His father Jason Williamson was a preacher and led sermons in a small non-denominational Christian church in the respectably large town of Bowen Falls, Nevada. Noah loved his dad, respected him, and hated to disappoint him and all, but at the end of the day, Noah still fucking hated Michael.
It started one day in the courtyard behind his church.
Noah was gearing up to go inside, migrate through the beautiful church pews, and was screamingly nervous. He had just given in and agreed to lead the congregation in his first solo attempt at the song “Build My Life”. It was a beautiful song, one of hopeful inspiration and delicate chiming notes that rose in crescendo and thus, rose your spirit to Jesus.
Noah had been absolutely terrified over the prospect of getting up on the pulpit stage, looking out over seventy other people in their little pews, of opening his mouth, and starting the congregation's day off with his sweetly high alto ringing through the rafters that Sunday.
He had been outside, humming the chorus line, stomach flipping while half listening to his father in the front of the building greeting the trickling parishioners into the church, and had never felt so nervous.
He wanted to puke. He was rubbing his belly, sweating, and tried like hell to keep it together before having to go in and face up to this wild upset in his day.
At the very least, his mother had taken special care with him that day. His hair was combed and parted perfectly, his little shoes were shining, he was in a pristine white button-up and had on his nice tan slacks for the occasion.
Despite the fact that he looked great, he had never felt so wretched, and had a distinct thought, that this? This was Hell.
Then he had heard voices; not from the street but from right over the short wall that separated church grounds from the small cemetery they shared the property with. He heard voices laughing softly together in hushed almost conspiratorial tones, and those people sounded far less flippin’ concerned with life than he was currently.
He had been grateful for the curious distraction, swallowed and crept over, had to get on his tiptoes to fully see up and over the five-foot stone partition, and at first, didn’t see much.
Noah supposed no one was supposed to see them and frowned with concern when he saw three kids, boys his own age, grouped just down the wall, and he recognized Demoi when he saw them.
They were always just a little taller, ganglier from that height, and usually had a very soft and ironic angelic quality to their features; eyes innocently large and lovely, with soft mouths, and a trick of genetics’ that made the vast majority of them very beautiful people at any age.
However, anyone who knew anything would have told you, culturally, physically, and historically, Demoi weren’t human, and they were about as angelic as a Besian high on meth.
His father had warned him several times to stay away from their types, and Noah tried, he really did, but it was hard when you ended up going to an elite private school where seventy percent of the population that attended was a bunch of richy-rich Demoi.
In fact, he had just finished his stint in the sixth grade and was getting ready to make the plunge into Bowen Fall’s private middle school, Bowen-Ridgeland in three more weeks.
It was a whole new world coming at him, and he could see at once that the three kids on this other side of the fence so to speak, were dressed well despite their casual clothing. They were taller, already getting some of that Demoi height that would inevitably put them all over six feet. Two were blonde, and one was a wavy-haired chestnut-brown-haired youth. They looked a little older than him, which made him nervous as it was, but very secretly, Noah had always, always been fascinated by Demoi.
Culturally they were much more fluid than his own upbringing by leaps and bounds.
He had met in elementary school, a boy who had had two dads, which was apparently not even notable in Demoi culture in any manner, had never been, and was really just starting to be a little more mainstream in human culture as it was.
Noah had been so confused, gone home and asked his mother about that one, and she had had to sit him down and explain the dynamics of gay parenting, and said, “That’s how they are in some houses, Noah. But not in our house, okay?" She had smiled, patted his shoulder, and reminded him, "It's not okay to judge others for their sins. We should always try to help everyone we can, no matter who they lay next to at night. Be a good boy and go play now."
It was fair to say he had grown up a wee bit sheltered, but he didn't feel put out by it, and he really hadn't been judging.
It had been fascinating, and it was the first time in his life he had become aware that other people lived very different, culturally variable lives far and apart from his and his family's values.
So, seeing these three boys that day had filled him with almost wonderment, curiosity, and then a sinking sense of trepidation when he caught the first smell of marijuana hit his nose, heard them giggling and the heavy cloud of white smoke appeared over their heads.
He scowled at once, almost traumatized by the notion that they would be so crass and disrespectful as to smoke the reefer not just on the outskirts of the church, but holy smokes, they were not five feet from the first headstone of the very lovely cemetery just beyond the churches stone border. "Hey!" He yelled it at them, outraged as only pre-teen angst could make a guy, and all three whipped around with huge eyes like they had just been busted by the cops.
They had been busted alright. Busted by the Preacher's son, damn it.
They spotted him all but dangling forward over the wall, dark eyes narrowed to furious slits on the trio of them, and that was the day Noah Williamson met Michael Beauman.
Michael was the brunette, had beautifully stunning blue eyes that caught the early afternoon light, perfect skin, and was taller already than even the other two. When he caught sight of the scowling pissy towheaded blonde all but shaking his fist their way, he really couldn't help himself.
Michael burst out laughing. He was way, way too high for this shit, his two friends were Daniel Meadows and Sylvian Dimeter, who they all just called Sly when his parents weren't around, about bent over double they laughed so hard. Sly had been holding a lungful and immediately began to choke on it, which just sent Michael and Daniel into a new fit.
Noah scowled even harder. "Get away from the church. There's a congregation coming in! Plus, you're on Church property, you hooligans!"
Michael couldn't even breathe, rubbed his face, and grinned at this bizarre apparition.
This boy, with his perfectly parted blonde hair, his fiercely burning chocolate brown eyes, and his furious disposition was about the best thing he could have asked for today. He called back, "Mind your own business, Churchie. Cemeteries are public property."
"Not if it's on the churches hallowed grounds it's not!" Noah shooed them dramatically towards the road around the church.
Sly finally recovered enough to ask, "What? Are you the pope? Get the hell out of here, bro."
The look on Noah's face made Michael grin ear to ear. He looked so offended, affronted, and thrown off like his argument had been so bulletproof, just...this was great.
Better when he indignantly spluttered out, "No! I'm the Reverend's son. I should know or not if the church owns the cemetery! You're stepping all over blessed grass, you know what I mean?" Then this little shit made the critical error of getting pious and a little too uppity and judgy for Michael's liking. "I'm sure you heathens wouldn't understand it, but this kind of land is not conducive to your kind."
Michael got pissed that fast and started for this little fucker. "Who? Demoi?" He saw that startled expression and snapped for the joint. He knew all about how to fix the Preacher Boy's shitty, uptight personality disorder; frankly, this kid was lucky he was on Church grounds because Michael was tempted to drag him over and kick the living hell out of him.
Sly just handed it over and they tailed him, and Michael would give Preacher Boy this: he got wide-eyed and looked a little freaked out, but he held his ground on that approach.
It was brave but also really stupid.
"I didn't mean Demoi." Noah floundered a bit, was a little red in the face and truly hadn't meant that to come across in that manner. "I meant pot-smoking deviant's hiding behind the church wall to smoke away from prying eyes."
Daniel muttered, "Are we going to shut this guy up, or what?" He too looked annoyed as hell now.
Sly just laughed in a high pitch and grinned. "Fuck this kid."
Michael however, smiled back and it was a rather unpleasant curve of lips that didn't once touch his icy blue eyes. "We'll shut him up."
Michael hit the joint and was about a foot from that glaring staredown when he made the move that would forever seal in Noah's mind that Michael Beauman was, in fact, the Antichrist.
Noah was relieved to see them moving along, simmered back a bit, and it was as if the second he relaxed, he almost screamed when this brunette reached out, couldn't even fall back fast enough before that hand whipped out and caught his pristine shirt. Never, IN HIS LIFE had he been prepared for this other boy to yank him almost over the damnable wall and press lips to his.
It wasn't a kiss. No. That became clear when Noah gasped in shock, this monster exhaled that pot smoke directly into his perfect hymn-singing lungs, and let him go in a spillback of panic, coughing and desperately blowing it all out like he had been poisoned with mustard gas.
Noah hit the grass on his ass, wild-eyed, felt that sudden rush of anxiety-inducing euphoria hit him, and instantly almost hit the dirt. Truly, that day, that horrific wildly potent high hit him like someone had taken a sledgehammer and thwacked him between the eyes.
"Oh. Nooo." He said it so oddly, heard his voice like it was muffled and staticky in his own brain and was only mildly aware of the sound of this brunette's friends cracking up like it was the funniest thing that had ever happened to them.
Noah wasn't fucking amused. He was terrified, instantly panicky, and at that moment could only see those blue eyes when they creased over the wall at him with an evil smirk.
That voice he definitely heard with a crystal clear intensity that made his skin prickle. He was wildly aware of everything down to the grass blades under his white-knuckled hands, the wind on his skin, and the eyes of God himself, to the point he petrified with that overwhelming rush of sensations.
All Michael said was, "Mind your own business, Churchie." He flashed a smile that looked evil, at least to Noah, and then he and his friends left laughing and left Noah in one hell of a bind.
Needless to say, he had not sung "Build My Life", that day for the congregation.
