The Queer Stories

05. The Kidnapping

Crimes always catch the eye of the public, especially cases involving murder, sex, and kidnapping. If the crimes happen to celebrities or the wealthy, it will even spice up an ordinary person's life. People discuss them, disseminate them, and enjoy the thrills and chills they get from them.

A kidnapping case in the city recently attracted local interest. A wealthy family, who owned restaurants and stores, was on the local news. The glamorous granddaughter of the family patriarch just got married to an equally beautiful man a year ago, and this handsome husband was kidnapped. Rumor had it that originally the family wished to solve the problem privately before the police got involved, but the news leaked and spread faster than the corona virus. The police stepped in and now it had everyone's attention.

It had been over a week and the police still had no clue about where to start. The kidnappers seemed exceedingly cunning. The wife was seen crying at the police station, but no further information was revealed. Sources indicated that the wealthy family hired two experienced detectives to investigate independently.

People started to develop theories, conjectures, assumptions, conspiracies, and even some intriguingly stimulating stories. Was the competitor of the family business involved? Could it possibly be that the wife had another man, a secret lover, and they kidnapped the husband? These imagined plots got wilder and wilder, and facts didn't seem to matter anymore. Oh, crime! As long as it happened to somebody else, it would always be an exciting topic..., at least more exciting than many other boring subjects, like, for example, philosophy.

Ryan was a young professor, teaching philosophy at a renowned university. He got his PhD from an Ivy League school and then immediately started his teaching career. He was in his early thirties and just became an associate professor a few months ago. He was an openly gay, mixed-raced minority, center left wing, so his identity couldn't be any more politically correct. Ryan wasn't only smart but also very hardworking. He spent a lot of time working, researching, and writing; he likewise spent a lot of time with his students. His students liked him, and he believed that the university liked him, too. He was happy about where he was in his career.

Ryan paid attention to this kidnapping case, too, not because he was interested in criminal activities, but because he actually knew the lady. He attended her wedding, a splendid, luxurious, tasteful one. He went as a plus one. Ryan's boyfriend Ian was her high school classmate. They went to the same prestigious private school and became casual friends. Ryan wasn't sure if she would remember him, but he definitely remembered her. Actually Ryan remembered both the wife and the husband very well. They were kind, humble, and beautiful. Ian even joked and said the handsome groom looked as hot as some guy who did a live streaming sex show. That comment even resulted in some feeble quarrels between them. Ever since he heard about the kidnapping, he was immensely horrified.

Ryan talked about this kidnapping case during his Ethics class. Some students responded keenly, while others seemed much more aloof. Ryan liked to inspire students with current events, but not all students felt like being inspired. It was frustrating to see those smart kids so half-hearted. He failed to understand why they wanted to major in philosophy if they weren't interested in the subject. This bothered him.

Another thing that bothered Ryan was that a couple students would often ask him about his boyfriend Ian's theories. Ryan's boyfriend Ian was a rising star in the field of philosophy. Teaching in a famous university, Ian was known for his books and articles discussing new aspects of Existentialism. According to his theory, all human behaviors and activities could be explained as the "desire to exist" or the "desire to secure existence," whether existence was physical or mental, or even just imagined. People would sacrifice their lives for an idea, simply because they wanted that idea to exist or to survive. From that he derived, all human behaviors could be explained. For example, the reason people liked to read news or gossip was because they wanted to get more information to ensure their existence, being it to prevent problems from jeopardizing their existence or directly improving their existence. A few interesting terms were thus created, like Existentially Imagined Value, Existentially Initiated Behaviorism, and so on. Ryan, nevertheless, hated people asking him about these terms.