THE TESTIMONY
This is SUSU fanfic. I used characters from MTVs Daria.
And donīt make a buck from it.
"So please donīt sue me
if youīre a viacom guy
your corporationīs huge
and Iīm just a small fry" - could be a Mystic Spiral song
Send comments, hatemail etc. to gunkel-kirchhundem@t-online.de
The songs from this fanfic will soon be available as MP3s at
http://www.mp3.com/SUSUExperience
the "unwritten MS song cover band" (which explains my not Trent like voice)
Let there be fics!
The mouse was shaking in Darias hand. She was doing research for her history paper and had
encountered something completely unexpected.
Her assignment was to examine one treat to the civil rights and Daria had chosen to base her paper on the history of the extreme religious right. The sheer ammount of data had suprised her and she had decided to pick one key issue and go into detail there. She wasnīt sure why she had picked gay rights anymore. It couldīve been the influence of Terence, the gay student living across the hall in the coed dorm Daria had moved into. Or maybe the phone call from her mother two weeks ago. She had metioned that she was working on a hate crime case. Some drunk members of the Lawndale High football team had beaten a student to a bloody pulp on some party, because they thought he was queer. But that didnīt really matter to her now.
Her research had led to several sites, including some from the Ex-gay movement. Daria had read their statements and critiques of the same. Then she had tried to find out who wanted to be "straightened out" and read testimonies by several Ex-gays. She printed out some texts from http://www.stonewallrevisited.com/menus/pages.html Suddenly one name sprung to her eye:
Trent
Lane
She clicked the link and read...
Trent Lane
Saved from the self-destructive homosexual lifestyle
I always felt different from my peers. They were agressive while I was sensitive, they were competetive while I chose to relax instead of letting the daily bump and grind rule my life.
My parents encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to and were happy, when I developed musical skills. Still I never really felt accepted by them. My father was absent most of the time, taking photographs of geographical phenomenons all over the world and my mother let me live in a tent in our backyard for quite some time.
When I started elementary school, I was an outcast. I never had many friends, maybe because I didnīt think like them or maybe because I came from that one family. You know, the "bad neighbours". Thereīs one family like that in every neighborhood. They donīt get along with anybody else, they arenīt invited to neighborhood meetings and the other families parents donīt allow their kids to play with their offspring. I still vividly remember Mr. Sherman throwing me out of his house calling me a "filthy kid".
I became more and more introverted. My guitar playing became my only outlet. I did not yet know, that this instrument would lead me on paths best left untrodden...
In high school I got to know kids from other parts of the town who could understand me. They were just as alienated from our classmates as I was and we became friends. I was particularly close to a boy called Jesse. I found out he played guitar, too and we started a band with some of the others. We played the style of music called grunge, which deals with alienation lyrically and transports agression to the audience. We werenīt good and we knew it, but we were having a lot of fun.
After a while I became aware, that it wasnīt just about the music.
I donīt remember when it was that Jesse picked up a girlfriend, but I remember feeling envious - of her. I remember starting to date girls, too, but they never felt like the right thing for me. I was aware that the other guys liked their girlfriends breasts to be rather large, but I prefered small ones. Ones that I didnīt notice too much. Ones that didnīt remind me of them being female, or so I thought.
Time passed and I managed to keep busy with my music. I was regularly seeing a girl named Monique, but we never got our act together. Then my sister brought her friend around. Her name was Daria, and I became aware that she had a crush on me. I found her to be a nice enough person and sure enough, after I got to know her, I fell in love with her. But something was missing. It took me a while to figure it was the sexual element. I just couldnīt think of having sex with her.
At that time I had told the band I was bisexual. They didnīt think this was weird, considering we all liked Nirvana and Cobain said he was bi, too. And Nick (our bassist) was totally into Team Dresch, a lesbian band. Besides there were quite a few gay people frequenting the Zen, a local grunge club. But when I became aware that I was going to let go an opportunity for a great relationship just because Daria was a girl, I became convinced I was gay.
Still itīd take me a while to adapt to the new situation. I just kept going on with my life as usual, playing a weekly gig with my band and doing the occassional job here and there. In 2001 we recorded an album. It was cheaply made, at the homestudio of some friends of ours. Still it was successful for an underground project, at least successful enough to get clubs interested in us, and we went off to tour the states. I had several affairs during that tour, knowing Iīd be gone the next day. I got past any insecurities I had, that this lifestyle might be wrong for me. But I never really felt fulfilled unless I played my music.
When we came back from the tour, we had sold 12.000 copies of our album, which is an awful lot for a band like ours. We recorded a follow-up with songs we had written during the tour, which sold even more. An european distributor became aware of us and told us, heīd sell our album on the other side of the pond, if we were willing to tour there. We accepted and settled for a couple of dates in Europe...
In the German part of the tour, we played with a band called "mashed P", which had a gay singer. During the two weeks we spend in the tourbus, we grew pretty close, having had a similar background. I felt fulfilled even when I didnīt play. I was sure I finally had found what I was looking for, but after the tour was over, I felt empty again. He wasnīt with us anymore and we didnīt keep in contact.
Simon (aka SUSU) gunkel-kirchhundem@t-online.de