“It Distorts Your Own Reality” by Lem Billings

There’s no way I could have smiled the way I did at Jack’s wedding if I was ever at all involved with him or had any sexual or romantic feelings for him. And, given what happened between us it’s unlikely we weren’t involved in some way. And if you look at my smile and conclude otherwise you’re just dead wrong, I’m sorry. Some facial expressions are impossible given the right psychological conditions.

(June 25th, 2024 – Morning)

A Sparrow Alighted Upon Our Shoulders by Johann Jóhannsson plays.

There’s no one like my Lacey. And yet so many of you seek to violently replace her in God’s mind with Jack Kennedy and I accidentally helped you. Isn’t that something? I gave you the wrong idea. By accident. And yet…many of you also chose to misrepresent things and ignore the fact that it doesn’t…make…sense.

Lacey looked at my photo the other day and analyzed what she would think of it all if she was a gay man. And obviously she can’t be that. But she surmised that she’d notice how straight I look and feel…not attracted to me. She surmised that she’d think I belonged with a woman and that it was odd I was supposedly gay. She surmised I looked straight. …Why don’t you see it? Honestly…it’s there. …And the story makes no sense. Even if I came on to him, and I didn’t exactly, it still looks odd. And no…I never wrote him a love letter. It was on a piece of toilet paper, if I wrote it at all, and it was an attempt to make my life work. So it wasn’t sexy and arousing or filled with love and desire. It was…dull, ordinary and simple. Like…”How about we make it official?” Or…”Would you like to be my boyfriend?” That kind of thing. “Let’s tell people we’re hooking up.” “Let’s be a pair.” …And it made him angry because it was real emotion from me and…he hated my real feelings. It wasn’t just about the fact that I didn’t actually find men attractive…it was about the fact that I was exposing my actual feelings to him. My ignorance. My confusion. My tragedy. …And his response was to play mind games to gain power over me and control my thoughts and my ability to protect myself from him.

But I couldn’t have smiled at Jack’s wedding that day unless I wasn’t in love with him at all…on that day. And that’s simply not possible without a far different narrative than the one promoted publicly. Also…it’s highly unlikely, if not impossible I was anything but straight.

…If there’s an Illuminati Vladimir Putin knows this. He’s a genius. And he understands the delicate workings of the human mind far better than most people I’ve ever encountered. …He’s running the world right now to some degree. China knows that. So does North Korea. So does Iran. …America is in denial.

Truthfully, I can’t and don’t want to love anyone the way I love Lacey. What God created in the Garden of Eden was extraordinary.

…If there’s an Illuminati Lacey loved Putin. And still could. And…that’s only reasonable. …I can relate to him a bit myself in an entirely platonic way. Just as a man. …But you can’t misunderstand it. She’s not Hyacinth Bucket. …And her ability to love him…could be disastrous for the US, if he could have loved her. If he could have loved her…the US took a magnificently wrong turn in the past and has yet to recover.

Where? Lacey suspects the whole country is rotten. …I worry it had something to it. Right? Something good. What was it really? …And how does America cope with the fact that Putin knows history and we don’t understand why we should even care at all, it seems?

Why care about me? Because I’m part of the lie. My mistaken personal narrative is part of what’s wrong with the US in general. Is it just about dangerous assumptions? Or what? What is it?

And in the meantime…I have to convince Lacey of so damn many things. Not like how Jack was in denial that he was bisexual. I have to convince her I’m not far too good for her. I have to convince her I’m…real. I have to convince her that her opinion matters at all. That her opinion is real. It’s Hellish. And as much as I messed-up…I don’t think I deserved this. …I was a real victim. I was actually confused. …And again, Putin knows this all. And he’s far better off than possibly anyone who believes without remorse or reservations that a straight man can be seduced by Hell into giving away his soul for nothing and no reason except some sick, truly psychotic obsession with sexually pleasing an often violent, drug addicted, philandering, but publicly admired, malignant narcissist. …See! You think I would? WHY!? …THAT’S INSANE. …Why!? Why…would any straight man give away his soul for NO REASON…and only because of some bizarre, random, psychotic fixation with an evil rat faced loser? But you believe it? FERVENTLY? Why? WHY!?

…I looked straight. And if you know that…deep down…why ignore it?! Why suppress that? Why!? …I did act gay. But…on a deep level you may very easily notice I was straight. Why are you ignoring that?

“What Made Jack Happy” by Lem Billings

(June 23rd, 2024 – afternoon)

I spent years trying to be Jack’s lover. Jack Kennedy. I’m sure you’ve likely heard of him. Well…for now that is. Maybe someday you won’t know who Jack Kennedy is. Or who the Kennedys even are in general.

Transcend by IRSNa plays.

What was it like? Incredibly unfulfilling. …And I tried to say as much but it was always misunderstood. Because I spent years…trying to be Jack’s lover.

I’m Kirk LeMoyne Billings. I’m a ghost. A dead person. …And Lacey…has drifted into the real realm of the dead, so to speak, because she’s been too neglected and unloved in her life so she talks to us, and it’s not by choice. We started talking to her first. Decades ago.

I was straight. So I failed him.

He’d go wading in the ocean near their family house on Cape Cod and I’d sit on the shore and watch. And…he’d walk around in the water as if he was searching for something. Waiting for something to come to him. And I’d watch him and…feel guilty. Because I couldn’t give him what he wanted most. Love. Real love. …But I was good at…well…essentially babysitting him. And I think he felt comfortable. You know? …I felt…safe and non-threatening to him. But…I never could get around to it. And he’d get very quiet at times and become incredibly withdrawn and sad. But I could act gay, bring him to Cape Cod…buy him his drugs…get him his women and schedule his day…and yet at the end of the day, which must have on a certain level felt very cold to him, I was…frigid. …I gave him sexual favors. And I was the one who first took what we were doing seriously, as I believed we were both homosexual. And I was wrong as I was straight and he was bisexual. …I didn’t want him. Ever. It was all a mistake to me. Like a horror version of Brideshead Revisited.

The thing is…Jack Kennedy was such a narcissist. A malignant narcissist. So…most of the time he’d not care that I didn’t care. And yes, I fawned over him. It was a trauma response…and it was false. I felt pushed to appease him, so I went overboard and acted as if he was my a absolute everything. And it was obviously fake. But…I guess people aren’t all that perceptive at times. And possibly being gay was still so foreign to people that even gay men didn’t realize how fake I always was. Later I was called moody. …No. I repressed my feelings about everything everyday…and nobody knew. It was only as I grew older and more despondent that I couldn’t keep it to myself all of the time. And the drugs and alcohol I used didn’t help either. …Anyway…he didn’t care…and yet when he’d get quiet and lonely like that…I felt…guilty. Because I knew deep down that I didn’t feel it. I didn’t love him the way I knew someone else could. …But…as I had no one else to love…and he refused to be vulnerable or honest with anyone, including me…what else could I do? Right?

I thought of completely leaving him…and I did try several times actually, over the years. You know? Like maybe if I just got away from him he’d finally get better somehow. At times I thought I was giving the homosexuality like some sort of contractable disease. And if stayed away from him long enough he’d recover. But…he never got over his desire for men, and I never could bring myself to truly love him. Love him in any way. Physically. Emotionally. …No. You don’t know what happened.

…Why did I smile so much at his wedding? Why…did allow for Red Fay? They obviously had some sort of sexual relationship. Right? Come on. …I didn’t care. …Why didn’t the droves of women he slept with bother me?

Lacey’s right. I look straight. …I’m the one who taught her how to tell. …Not that I knew while was alive. But I knew after I died and I wanted her to be able to believe I’d have loved her.

Why is that so damn important? Because…I love her. And…there are other dead men who could love her too. Not as much as I do. But love her.

What made Jack Kennedy happy? Cape Cod. Cape Cod made him happy. …Being high made him happy. …Being in bed with someone made him happy. Prowling around and looking for sex made him happy. …Sailing. He loved to sail. …Good food. …He was relaxed by painting. …He was a terrible travel companion, actually. But he found other cultures intriguing, to a point. He wasn’t a truly intellectual person. Philosophy was often annoying to him. Theology bored him. …And to be honest he wasn’t a very nice man. He could be nice when he wanted to be. But at heart…he was…distant.

Jack was cold as ice. But it didn’t bother me. Isn’t that weird? Isn’t that odd if I wanted him so damn much? …No. I simply did not. …I took the stuff we did seriously and I knew it was homosexual behavior…but…he did not like that. And…I didn’t care.

So when he’d waltz around in the water…drunk…lonely…and searching and I’d follow paces behind him…forcing a smile whenever he’d turn around…it was very dark. I was lost. Forlorn. I’d given-up almost entirely. …And he was…his own worst enemy.

Are homosexuals insane? Ask God. If they are…they’re often insane together these days and…sometimes insane people share delusions. And sometimes, sadly, our delusions fulfill some part of us that’s not insane, like the need to be deeply loved by one beautiful person who we also love. …I needed that and never had it. Jack Kennedy needed that too but he never admitted it.

And maybe what’s most aggravating and sad to Lacey…is that I do love her. Profoundly. …And it’s a part of me and my personality and heart that Jack Kennedy never knew and maybe…he’d be given closure if he could have just allowed himself to see that and realize it was all fake…for real. You know? I’m just not who he thought I was. But…instead of healing and being loved and loving…he chose evil. And now it’s harder for you to hear me too.

You can’t make something there that isn’t there. You can create things…but they weren’t there before.