About a middle-aged guy from church when I was fifteen
So onto another experience after the post I wrote about my teacher which I am thinking has been the root of my issues / preferences.. here is another that happened around about the same time. The names I’ve used here are not their real names. I don’t know if it would make much difference if I used their first names, but just for my peace of mind I’ve changed it kkkkk. Onwards..
I used to sing for the church choir. We rehearsed every friday night and played every Saturday morning. It was quite fun and to be honest church became something I looked forward to. Ben was the guitarist, he had a wife and two kids and was in his late thirties. He had brown eyes, brown hair down to his ears - think johnny depps’ hair in the secret window without the balayage lol and he was over six feet, and was always in his work clothes. I believe he worked in a bank.
The choir people were always having get togethers at their houses every week and I looked forward to these because some of the other members were my age too. I’d play with Ben’s kids too who were four and five years old. We didn’t talk much - only church choir business - nothing like, “hey what did you do today?”. But slowly I started noticing things beginning to change from the looks he was starting to give me, and the way he would always be close by.
So one time, we were rehearsing as well as having a house warming party for one of the members of the choir. My friends and I were in the house library. I was flicking though some magazines and the both of them were on their phones. After a while Ben came into the room and joined us. He asked if we minded that he played his guitar, everywhere else was too loud. He perched himself on the window across from me and started playing. I looked up and found him staring at me so I smiled and looked back down again. He started quietly singing, so I looked up the second time and he was still watching me, his head tilted back against the window with a bored look, as casual as can be. "Am I distracting you?” he asked. I shook my head. “I’m just looking at the pictures.” The third time I looked up he was smiling at me. I felt uncomfortable, but not the creeped out kind; I felt uncomfortable that I was sort of excited about the attention I was getting. So that went on - him playing his guitar and me trying to concentrate - until his wife came along and dragged him away telling him to get something from the car.
I had a feeling that after a while his wife noticed when all of a sudden she began to ignore me. During another rehearsal when we finished and were all just hanging about, I was with one of the other girls who were my age. It wasn't anything to be jealous about, but I just simply felt awkward standing there as Ben's wife ignored me and talked to my friend, and then praised her, proceeding to ask Ben if he found her pretty. “Jane is the nicest, kindest girl isn’t she? She is so pretty too. Ben, isn’t jane pretty?” Ben, who was mindlessly playing his guitar looked up and raised his eyebrows in a “what was that?” way, then looked at me and smiled.
Later I complimented him on a song he was playing, it was one of his own stuff, and he said it was really easy to play. So he offered to show me how to play it. We sat side by side, next to the dead fireplace and he put his hands on my hands and all that - like mentoring me - there was nothing weird about it. I made a face as I struggled and he laughed at it - as in he was doubled over and he never does this - he’s always his silent, brooding self with his arms crossed and what not. So I was really surprised by that. He said I should actually learn how to play guitar because I was pretty fast at picking it up. Then his wife came back asking If I’d tried this food (I forgot what it was) and she was all like “quickly go try some, it’s so good!” So I gave him back his guitar and went to the dining room.
One day we had a rehearsal at my house. The doorbell rang and I opened the door. Ben had arrived way too early. My dad asked him where the rest of his family was. And he said they were up at the coast with the grandparents. My dad was just about to pick up my mom from the station and get some groceries and food for tonight so when he left, it was just me and Ben in the house. We were at the dining room and I remember I was washing the dishes while he was fixing his guitar and going through the songs quietly. We were talking about general stuff here and there, then he said he bought a new guitar and he asked if I was interested in ever playing guitar myself. I said hells yeah, and he said he had an old guitar at home that he could just give me. “I could probably give it to you today. What time is everyone else coming again?”
I said, “i think in like an hour or two.”
Then he asked if I wanted to see it for myself. I remember him saying, “We’ll be quick. It’s only ten minutes from here. We’ll be back before they get here. I’ll show you my new guitar.”
He was kind of insistent, saying “C’mon” and shit. Now that I think about it, I might have walked into a pedophile trap all those years ago.
I declined saying I still had a lot of chores that my parents needed me to do before they got home and I told him to bring it along next time. He was just like oh okkk and carried on doing his thing.
A new member joined the choir. He was a boy my age and we instantly hit it off. Gradually everyone began to think we liked each other. At a get together I was eating outside watching the kids play. Lloyd joined me later and we were swapping food and stories. We were talking for hours until we found all the kids had gone to play somewhere else, and it was just us two. Suddenly Ben came along, he was trying to feed his kids who were busy rolling around a toy car. He said hi to us and remained in sight, far enough to not intrude, close enough to hear what we were talking about. Lloyd asked me if I wanted to go somewhere quieter. It was obvious Ben heard because I saw his head turn at the question. It was already quiet where we were so I said that I liked it here and so we stayed. When Ben finally left, Lloyd turned to me and said, “well that was awkward… helicopter dad.”
One of the choir members were getting married. Ben was taking photos.
I was sitting on one of the chairs watching people dance, across from me at another table was Ben looking through his photos. I saw him with the camera down low so it sat on his knees, in level with mine, and it was directed at me - I was a good five metres away. I kept watching people dancing until I saw this huge flash from his camera. He looked at me then looked back at his camera - he didn’t even care how non-discreet that was. I realised I didn't have my legs crossed (shit habit from being such a tomboy those days) and the dress I was wearing was pretty short, they could have seen my underwear. I quickly got up and walked out of the room completely overwhelmed at what just happened. I remember seeing these photos on an album on facebook but the only photo of me in there was me pulling a face with my other friends.
Throughout this whole time, I heard their marriage was rocky as hell, and they were still going through shit when I left the choir shortly after the wedding - my dad got into a massive argument with another member and thus my family stopped being a part of it. Ben added me on facebook when I was eighteen - I know how old I was because he had liked a bunch of my photos of when I started clubbing and even commented on one. It was just a photo of me in my clubbing outfit - just a pair of jeans, a black singlet, no make up (jesus, how I looked so wholesome back then lol). He had written “you look nice.” I “liked” it but I didn’t say anything. Then later he deleted his facebook, made another one which I found a few years ago and it seemed he had left his wife for another woman.
