Message-ID: <060309Z19061995@anon.penet.fi> Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories From: an151170@anon.penet.fi (...Mercury....) X-Anonymously-To: alt.sex.stories Organization: Anonymous forwarding service Reply-To: an151170@anon.penet.fi Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 05:58:08 UTC Subject: Coming Out (M/b, coming out) Lines: 158 z Another erotic story extracted from the vast library of z z ... /\/\ e r c u r y ... z z I'm Very Hot...Always Behind Venus...And In Constant Motion ! z z Notes : z z 1. I did not write this story and do not know who did. z 2. Are you a biW/A m/f 18-24 looking for friends? Hmm? Write. z 3. VOTE in the next election and run the Un-Christian Coalition out! z 4. ENJOY life while you can, because you're going to DIE! z Coming Out in Love by Steve Rider This file may be posted on Electronic Bulletin Boards for download, but may not be modified, printed for distribution, or used for any commercial purpose without the author's written permission. Copyright (c) 1992 Stephen A. Rider, all rights reserved. About a year ago I was living in Worcester Massachusetts and operating my bulletin board there. On my board I had a Match Maker door and I had always hoped that someday a gay person would use it instead of all the "straights" that seemed to dominate the thing. From time to time I would enter the door myself and list all the other users hoping against hope to see just one other gay person who listed themselves. Then one day last summer a user entered the door and described himself as "Bisexual". In looking at his description I saw that he stated he was "Under 18". I remember thinking at the time that this was probably a joke, but I sent this user a message telling him how unusual it seemed to me to see someone his age who chose to describe himself as bisexual. I also described myself to him as a gay man. Now this particular door allowed users to select a handle different than the one they used on the bulletin board itself, so it tended to give people a sense of anonymity. With that bit of privacy in mind this young caller immediately showed a great interest in exchanging messages with me, he was full of questions. Initially he was very suspicious, perhaps thinking I intended to "Gay bash" him, but as time went on I finally assured him that I was a real honest-to-goodness gay person and I was willing to discuss gay related issues with him. Since I was 43 years old at the time, and he was seventeen, I guess I was sort of a wealth of knowledge for this young man. Day by day the number and length of the messages we exchanged began to increase. It seemed our electronic conversations were becoming very important to him. This was all taking place in Massachusetts remember, a state with a reputation for liberal social policies, but one with a long history of Puritanical influence as well. He was a senior in a high school that he described to me as being very "Redneck". He was just beginning to come out to himself about his sexuality. He was intensely interested in everything I had to say about being gay. Before long I began to feel I was spending too much time typing and I suggested to him that I might give him my voice number so we could speak directly to each other. He was very hesitant to say the least. A week or so later he did ask for my number and he told me not to be surprised if he called me and then hung up when I answered. This happened a few times too, but eventually we did speak on the phone. He still knew me only by the handle I was using on the board and he seemed to prefer to keep it that way. Sometimes we would talk for hours. Part of what was going on in my mind I guess was remembering how miserable my life had been as a seventeen year old gay youth. I wanted to reassure him, I wanted to help him to feel at ease about himself. I kept telling him that it did not matter if he was bisexual, gay or straight - that this had no bearing on his worth and dignity as a person. Soon we were forming a very unusual kind of a friendship. I would come home from work and wait anxiously for him to call. I really enjoyed talking to this young man. He was so sincere and honest and full of a hunger to know and understand. Early on he would ask me some questions that I'm sure would embarass him today. Did I "look gay"? Did I walk like other people? He was really full of a lot of fears. He had mentioned to me that he worked in a record store. He would tell me about guys who came into his store that he thought were attractive. He told me about crushes he had on some of his friends and classmates. Then one day he told me he was not bisexual at all, that he was gay. I said something like "Yeah, so?" The point I kept trying to make over and over was that it was OK to be whomever he was. We would talk about religion, the (Catholic) church. One day I asked him if he thought that God would make someone he hated ? I asked him if it was wrong to love someone ? Gradually, bit by bit, he began to understand. Then one day he told me his real name. He told me the name of the record store where he worked. He told me when he would be there. He invited me to drop by. By the way, his name is Brian. The night I went to Brian's store I could not understand why I was so nervous. Looking back now, with the advantage of hindsight, I can see that we had already forged a relationship of some sort. We had exchanged descriptions of ourselves over the phone so it was easy for me to spot him the night I went to his store. I hung around for a while and watched him wait on his customers, trying to figure out just what sort of a person he was - apart from being gay. I could see quickly enough that he really liked people. He was very much at ease helping customers to find the things they were looking for and he had obvious skill as a salesman. More than that I could tell that he was a very likable person, a trustworthy person and I also thought he was very cute. Until this time I had still been hiding behind the handle that Brian knew me by through the BBS. Here I was, the urbane expert on gay life, the "teacher" for this poor lost young man, and I was not even "Out" enough to myself to tell him my name. Looking back it seems pretty pathetic to me now. But seeing Brian that night in his innocence, so open to life, well it did something to me, something good. I rushed home and sent him an Email, telling him that I was in fact the Sysop of the board on which we had "met". Telling him that from now on he should call me STeve. We talked for hours that night after he got home from work. It was another stepping stone in the most unusual relationship I have ever had. I think that was the night that I fell in love with Brian, but I didn't want him to know that. After all, I was only a few years younger than his father. The complicated webs we weave. The paths we set ourselves on. The doors we open, never knowing what lies ahead. Life can be so frightfully, awfully unpredictable. I love it. Brian and I ended up being lovers ever so briefly. Just before I moved here to California. I was totally, absolutely head over heels in love with him. Then I just packed my bags and flew to san Jose. We had agreed to stay in touch with each other. We talked on the phone every so often. I would send him diskettes with capture buffers from the great BBSes out here. One night he called my BBS here in California and sent me a long text file he had prepared in advance. In it he talked of what a dramatic change I had made in his life, how he now was so happy. He talked about how amazing it was that two people with so much difference in age could have clicked the way that we did. Brian is out now to his whole family, his parents, his siblings, his friends, the people he works with. So am I. Somehow we both helped each other across the chasm of fear and insecurity. Earlier this month I made a trip back East. I wanted to see him just one more time. I wanted to hug him for just a second and then hold him at arms length and just look at that wonderful smile. I wanted the tears to well up inside me. Brian did not even return my calls. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. If you reply to this message, your message WILL be *automatically* anonymized and you are allocated an anon id. Read the help file to prevent this. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi.