Bennu had been Awake only a rather short period of time, but he had already found himself in a number of surprisingly "interesting" situations. The next one gave the popular Earth description "close encounter of the third kind" a whole new meaning.
It had all started out innocently enough, soon after his arrival in the US. It was a bright sunny day, and he was hitchhiking along a tree-lined road. His mind detected an oncoming truck whose driver might be amenable to giving a stranger a lift. Suddenly, everything was blotted out by an incredible psychic pain combined with a terrible self-loathing. Before he could do more than throw up a hasty shield against the worst of it, a teenage boy, probably about 16, raced into the road into the path of the truck.
Fortunately, the boy, nearly blind from his emotions, didn't properly position himself, and the impact, though it did serious damage and flung him several feet, did nothing Bennu's powers of healing couldn't fix.
The trucker, not wanting any contact with the law, sped off. Bennu raced to the stricken boy - his name seemed to be "Jay" - and carried him to a sunny spot. Bennu held his medallion out and began the process of physical healing. Both of them were quickly enveloped in the Light. Bennu also began to probe Jay's mind for the cause of that awful self-loathing.
He was shocked to discover that it had been put there, apparently with the sanction of the community, by the boy's own parents! Though he knew words such as "sick" and "disgusting", "faggot" and "queer" were new to him, and hinted at something utterly awful.
Bennu began to probe further, but before he could learn anything useful, Jay, a quick healer, if nothing else, woke up, opened his eyes - and made an entirely natural mistake. Well, what would YOU think if you'd just attempted suicide, been creamed by a truck, and now found yourself free of physical pain, enveloped by a beautiful light, filled with a sense of love and compassion, and supported by a being so physically perfect that he, despite the apparent absence of wings, HAD to be an angel.
Jay: "OH MY GOD! An angel! They're all wrong - this is Heaven, not Hell!"
Bennu was further puzzled. Jay's parents had told him he would go to Hell when he died? What COULD the poor boy have done? Bennu probed further.
Jay had had enough. Between his "religious" experience and the feelings Bennu was enveloping him in, the knot of self-loathing exploded and vanished.
Meanwhile, the Light, its work done, faded. Jay suddenly realized that the arm supporting him was real, and it was indeed attached to the most beautiful man he'd ever seen - or even imagined.
Almost any adult human male can attest to the "raging hormones" of the average 16-year-old boy. Something deep within Jay, bottled up since puberty, awoke. Jay snapped.
Bennu was quite lucky that Yago was nowhere around, for his mind, overwhelmed by the release of those long pent-up emotions, driven as they were by the storm of hormones, had conscious thought blanked out. His body responded to his mind and generated the expected reaction. His medallion flared, the Light covered both of them, and the runaway feedback quickly caused Nature to take its course.
As they slowly came back to consciousness, Bennu asked "What on Earth was THAT all about?" He was quite well aware of homosexual conduct among social animals, mostly to prove who was higher/lower in the "pecking order", and sometimes from lack of a suitable partner of the opposite sex, but he'd never heard of normally raised animals preferring it, much less humans of any race.
Jay replied: "I'm gay. Only it isn't disgusting, it's wonderful! Is THIS what I've been missing?"
Bennu held up his medallion and said "This DID provide the special effects. And that's where some of your luck runs out. Only people from my planet have them, and we just don't happen to find the idea of sex between two males to be erotic. But, unless it's rare on Earth -"
Jay interrupted "It isn't. I've been reading up on the subject, and even the most conservative studies say 2% of the adult men are gay."
Bennu continued "Good. So I'm sure you can find plenty of partners."
Jay: "For someone who doesn't find it exciting, you sure seemed to be enjoying it!"
Bennu: "The physical feelings were pleasurable, of course, but that was a special case. I had my mind wide open trying to see what was troubling you and when you healed, it fed back through the linkage. Your erotic pleasure overwhelmed me and triggered my response. Though I have no desire to repeat it, it was interesting, and I did learn from it. But I don't see why Earth people attach such negative emotions to it. Either you're interested, or you're not." {Of course, that isn't actually the case, but let's not be too harsh on a completely sandbagged Bennu.} "I guess it's just another aspect of racial Immaturity - prejudices based on appearance seem to be universal among the Immature, and this isn't much stranger. "
Jay: "Oh, WOW! You're straight but actually know what it feels like to be gay, and don't think it's ugly." Jay hugged Bennu in gratitude, and that sort of emotion he would, and did, respond to.
Alas, all too quickly, Jay become aware of his immediate surroundings - Bennu's arms and body - and began to get aroused again. Bennu hastily disentangled himself and said "Look, I understand your feelings, but I really don't share them. Sorry!" In an act of mercy, he buttoned his shirt up completely.
Jay: "Darn, you're so absolutely GORGEOUS!"
Bennu looked at himself through Jay's eyes and finally realized that, by Earth standards, he really was. After all, until his recent Awakening, he was just a fairly average Eldebrani. First, there just wasn't a great deal of physical diversity on his planet, and though not EVERY male was 6'3" tall, blond, blue-eyed, and well-muscled, quite a few were. And in any case, sound heredity, a sensible upbringing, and a philosophy of development of the individual to his maximum potential - which included the body as well as the mind - meant that most Eldebranis could get a job as top-flight Earth models. Then, there were the Healers to fix most things if something DID go wrong ... he WOULD have to make allowances for the disruptive effects his appearance could have.
Jay: "You know, the strangest thing about straights is that they blame us for being this way, and it's basically hereditary. If they don't want gay children, they shouldn't HAVE them!" He then explained some of the other things he'd learned to Bennu, including the fact that, in accordance with Bennu's learning on Eldebran, normally raised animals weren't gay, either. Only Earth people were.
Bennu: "No wonder the Wise missed this. It certainly is among the LEAST likely conditions to be spread through reproduction, after all, yet you say it is common. And ONLY humans have it - you'd almost think it was put here for a purpose!"
Jay: "What a thought! I think I'm going to have a wonderful fight with my parents on the subject. Thanks for everything!" (One didn't have to be telepathic to realize that that was a double entendre.)
Bennu: "Does it have to be a fight?"
Jay: "Do you think they'll listen to reason?"
Bennu (remembering that Jay had been told that gay people went to Hell): "Uh, no."
Jay: "Hey, why don't you bring your medallion thingee with you. Maybe you could help heal THEM."
Bennu: "The Light only works on those willing to accept it. I could try to talk to them, but there is one difficulty. It's not in the nature of telepathic races to lie, and if they ask if anything happened, I don't think they'll believe in a telepathic alien OR the effects of the medallion he wears."
Jay: "Oh, oh. And I'm under age in this state, too. Oh, well. I'm quite sure I can handle things. I guess I'll go home and get it over with."
Which he did. His parents had never suspected that all those horrible things they were teaching their son to feel actually applied to him - straights can be quite blind about their own children - so when he told them WHY he had torn clothes, and ascribed his survival to "some Angelic being from another planet", his parents did refrain from throwing him out of the house, anyway. At least it was a start.
Bennu sat by the road and considered all that had transpired. He'd helped heal another human - though hardly in the way he'd expected! He'd learned something important about the nature of humans, too, though he was concerned about what else the Wise had missed.
And, obviously, Earthpeople had stronger emotions than Eldebranis - perhaps in compensation for a weaker Sun. Unfortunately, strong emotions among the Immature is a sure recipe for serious problems, which certainly seemed to be the case on this planet!
Concerning his physical appearance, he mused "As one of Earth's Great Hopes, at least I seem to LOOK the part. If only the rest of the job were so easy!"
He had also learned that he had to take the same precautions when healing men as he did with women. Misunderstandings, especially about sex, were undesirable, to say the least, and his appearance seemed likely to provoke them.
He stood up and dusted himself off. Back to work! His mind detected an oncoming truck whose driver might be amenable to giving a stranger a lift ...
Copyright May, 2000 Three Cheeks Productions (Richard Kaplan)