Chapter 15: Falling Hard for My Straight Friend Ryan
Comments: It took me a lot to work up the guts to write
this story and even more to submit it. A long story, this tale is different than
the others I've posted here because it recounts was the first time in my young
life that a relationship with another person became something more to me than
just causal fooling around. Unfortunately, this budding relationship was with
another boy who turned out to be straight as an arrow. The sad thing was, even
after I realized there was no way he'd ever feel about me like I felt for him,
I still couldn't let go. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
Re-reading it before posting here, I was struck by the crazy range of
the emotions I felt, and found myself wishing I could go backwards in time to
aggressively shake my teenage self to wake up and stop being so stupid,
unrealistic and immature. But- that's what being a teenager is about, I guess.
Readers may contact me at Bradhealey@rocketmail.com
The
summer I was sixteen was the really the first time that I allowed myself to
even consider the horrible freakish possibility that I wasn't ever going to get
around to liking girls the way I was supposed to; the way I wanted to; the way
my other, normal guy friends did. Because it was such a gruesomely painful
thought, I refused to dwell on it for very long.
I had set a ridiculous, arbitrary and wholly self-imposed guideline that I
would allow myself to still have erotic thoughts, feelings and desires for
other guys UP UNTIL my sixteenth birthday. After that, I vowed I would go
straight—stop thinking about other boys, stop fantasizing about them when I
masturbated, and certainly stop messing around with them. But like a
well-intentioned New Year's resolution it was an unrealistic goal with a random
deadline, and I awoke on the morning after I had turned sixteen still feeling
inside exactly as I had the day before. Only starting on this day, it was no
longer "OK" and I vowed to stop making excuses for myself. Christ, I
was almost a man now. This silly kid stuff with other boys had to stop.
But reminders came with every day in dozens of situations that I was not
turning out "normal" as I always hoped and prayed I would be. Not a
day went by without a chance for additional self-loathing. Some examples? Well,
to start, I passionately hated teen-themed TV shows that featured
boy-meets-girl romance as a story line, and these shows abounded. (They still
do today, and I still hate them almost as much.) The TV programs I watched as a
teenager have fallen off the rerun lists owing to how old I have become, but
after secretly lusting over handsome, blue-eyed Ricky Schroeder on "Silver
Spoons" I would be disgusted as the story line would have him falling in
puppy love with a pretty new exchange student from his school. I liked tall
slim, blond Tommy from the TV show "
While things may be somewhat different for teens now (though still by no means
easy), there were no gay role models of any kind in the mid-1970's. In the
sports or entertainment world, admitting homosexuality was equal to committing
suicide in one's career. Sexual orientation was not something nice people
talked about, or even joked about in polite company. Being called a
"fag" or a "queer" wasn't funny to me at all, and hearing
people I knew (and liked) using these words to describe others turned a knife in
my heart. I knew I had no choice but to change... and fast... if I was going to
avoid being a freakish failure; a disappointment to my family, imagining losing
all my friends and needing to move away to start over if was ever found out.
As girls walked by us, my friends would follow them with their eyes, swiveling
their necks to ogle the extra-pretty ones. "Look at her!" they'd
intone under their breaths, delivering low-placed, small, hidden punches to the
pals next to them for emphasis. Meanwhile, I had concluded that my
brain-circuits to recognize pretty girls simply didn't exist; that they were
omitted or cross-wired from birth. Embarrassingly, I didn't even notice these
girls as they passed. "What did you think of her, Brad?" a buddy would
ask, and I'd stammer at a loss for words since I hadn't even seen her at all.
Worse instead, my peripheral vision instead involuntarily honed in other boys
attractive to me, causing my own head to swivel uncontrollably towards these
forbidden targets of my attraction. So, I had double duty to do. First, I had
to be alert to the presence of pretty girls so I could participate in the
guy-talk. Secondly, I had to avoid boy watching at all costs lest my friends
grow wise to my fatal defect. It was exhausting... humiliating and infuriating.
Even simple social situations like a Saturday afternoon at the mall hanging out
with the guys became a festival of self-loathing for me.
But the hardest thing to manage was if I began to develop feelings for someone
in my peer group. I had lots of friends, and I'd always be meeting new guys.
There were chances to meet friends of friends, cousins of friends from out of
town, and new younger guys who had graduated to hanging with us older kids.
Trying to suppress the growing longing to be near another boy whom I was
becoming infatuated with, one who was hanging out with our group engendered
simultaneously both immense pleasure and torturous pain inside of me.
The "pleasure" part is easy to explain. Being one of the guys, it was
easy to get near the new boy and get to know him. There was none of that shy,
standoffish awkwardness that went along with meeting a new girl and trying to
find something to talk about. Roughhousing was an excellent way to gain
physical contact in both subtle and not so subtle ways. Wresting holds allowed
all sorts of opportunity to grope friends without suspicion or reprisal.
Changing together after swimming was expected and common. Joking about sex-
especially the size of one's equipment or rude comments about jerking off were
thoroughly socially acceptable among our community of teenaged boys.
The "pain" part was the bleak other side of it. Stuffing my feelings
of desire as deeply down inside as I could, I'd work with all my might to never
expose my soft underside to the others. It was hard as hell many times to avoid
saying something suggestive to a guy I was attracted to that risked crossing
that fine line of being normally sexually-obsessed and being considered a
pervert. Wrestling and punching was OK... but touching and holding were
definitely not OK. Making a rude, suggestive and insulting comment was OK, but
asking a personal question and waiting for a truthful answer usually was not.
Having a sleepover in a double bed was perfectly normal, but not being able to
fall asleep because he was so close to you that you just wanted to reach over
and touch him while he slept was not. I recall often fitfully waking up near
dawn during such sleepovers, waiting for the first rays of light to enter the
room so that I could innocently, longingly survey a sleeping friend with my
eyes, hoping that as the dawn broke he'd be laying in a position to make his
morning hard-on somehow visible to me through the blankets or his shorts. The
pain came from knowing that nothing could ever happen with these guys, because
no matter how turned on I was. I was unwilling to risk my hard-earned status as
"one of the guys" by saying or doing anything that would
excommunicate me from the club of masculine teenaged boyhood to which I
belonged, and one to which I worked to be accepted in with all my might.
That summer I was sixteen is when I first noticed Ryan. I was entering eleventh
grade, and he was just starting ninth. We were in summer band camp together,
and he was immediately appealing to me when I spied him in my marching line. As
a squad leader, I was in charge of the younger kids in my section, making sure
that they learned the music, routines and the rules they'd need to know to be
part of the marching unit.
Ryan was friendly and agreeable. A slightly late bloomer, he was decidedly
smaller than the other boys, with slim smooth bare legs showing under his tan
camping shorts. He had a mop of brown hair and a fair complexion that made it
apparent that he'd easily get sunburned. With bright blue eyes and an easy
smile, he looked very much to me like actor Elijah Wood did at 13 or 14. He was
a good horn player, and as we went through our drills he often called out
playfully to his many friends in other lines with a high boyish voice that hadn't
broken yet. Ryan had peach fuzz on his cheeks and growing in a downy
"V" on the back of his neck, and when I saw him with his t-shirt off,
wetting his hair from his water bottle after one hot practice ended, I saw the
rest of his body was completely white and smooth, including his underarms.
What attracts one person to another? I don't know exactly... but I was
instantly attracted to Ryan, feeling a buzz inside whenever I was near him. As
I got to know him better I couldn't believe I had never paid any attention to
him even though he had lived only two blocks away from me my whole life. Most
appealing to me, I think, was Ryan's easy-going personality. "Good
enough" was good enough for Ryan. I, on the other hand, was a driven
perfectionist, sweating the details in every task and always trying to make
things better than they were. I admired this younger kid's ability to smile and
relax; to not get excited and worked up over wrong notes and missed steps.
"Chill out and take a big, deep breath Brad", he'd laugh at me after
I'd scold the marching line about its miscues in practice. "We'll get it
right the next time."
Physically, unquestionably he was appealing to me as well. His cute size and
trim slightly muscled boyish figure were attractive to me, and the fact that he
was two years younger than me yet didn't seem to care about our difference in
age was a turn-on too. I imagined I felt sort of like his loving big brother,
and asked him to come down to my house after practice one warm day. He gladly
came to hang out, happy with just doing nothing together. We lay in the grass
and talked about "stuff", and I learned that while he was excited
about starting high school he wasn't worried about it at all. He also didn't
seem to be concerned about his small size. "I'll grow," he said as he
shrugged. I was intoxicated that so many of the things that had caused me
gut-wrenching worry at his age didn't bother him at all, and wondered what
trait he had born within him that allowed him to be calm and be content whereas
I could never sit still and be happy for long.
We'd often walk home from school together and talk the whole way. Though he was
neither brilliant nor deep, Ryan had no problem holding up his end of a
conversation. He expressed his opinions on a variety of topics and often asked
me what I thought about things. I looked forward to being with him on these
walks alone, just feeling totally alive and happy inside as we walked and
talked. Sometimes he'd really open up to me and tell me things that bothered him
in school or at home, and this too caused my affection for him to grow. I'd
mess up his hair and he'd pretend to be mad. Though he was not terribly
athletic, that never stopped him from trying, joining in all the games that
went on in our neighborhood that was just loaded with kids. I began to find
myself looking for opportunities to be alone with him, and this fact set a
little warning bell off and ringing in my head... because I knew that I was
headed for trouble I didn't want-- but couldn't resist-- as my feelings for him
grew.
Ryan's mother was an attractive younger mom, and she doted on me. She told my
mom once that she was glad her son was spending time with me as she hoped he'd
pick up some of my desire to excel. This was ironic to me, as I instead much
admired my friend's laid-back way. Whenever I visited at their house Ryan's
parents always made me feel very welcome and allowed me to stay there till late
at night. Ryan didn't have as many rules to follow as I did at home, and I
liked being in his house with him.
Ryan shared his bedroom with his younger brother Kevin. Kevin was blond but
looked just like Ryan otherwise. He was only 11, and he had a hot temper that
flared up at the slightest provocation. Sharing a room was one of the things
that upset Ryan, and that he often spoke of during our conversations. I truly
understood, because I too had shared a bedroom with my much younger brother for
many years, finally packing my stuff and moving my bed to the basement when I
was 14, without even asking my parents' permission!
One warm evening after a strenuous game of "Run the Bases" had ended,
Ryan sat near me in the failing light of dusk, and I heard him wheezing softly
as he breathed. I had never noticed it before, but he told me he had mild
asthma and that sometimes a lot of exertion made it hard for him to breathe. I
was worried that he would be OK and told him so. He smiled and told me that I
shouldn't worry, that he after resting for a while he'd be just fine.
The scene was almost serenely perfect, just us two boys lying in the grass side
by side in the dimming light of a warm evening. With concern and affection I
laid my hand on his chest and felt it rising and falling with each breath.
Right at that moment I was so happy, but I knew that I was crossing that
invisible line I had drawn for myself. I was falling in love with Ryan but I
knew I didn't want to stop.
He didn't seem to mind my hand on his chest, so I left it there. I felt his
heart beating and after a while silently moved my fingers to count his ribs
through his shirt. I allowed my hand to trail down to his waist, and I let it
rest on his slim stomach, feeling it rise and fall with each breath. He had one
arm behind his head, and I noted that even though he was sweaty from running around
so much he still smelled wonderful to me. Then, other boys approached and as we
heard the sound of their footsteps and voices, he very casually, very gently
pushed my hand away.
That single, innocent, and simple act set off the fireworks inside my brain. By
him pushing my hand gently from his belly, to me he was saying, "I
acknowledge you were touching me and it was OK to do. However, that was a
private moment between you and me and I really didn't want the other guys to
see it." The thought that Ryan had allowed me to be privately intimate
with him (intimate at least by the strict standards of American teenaged boys)
ignited a jet engine of emotions inside my adolescent brain. I was most excited
at the glimmer of hope that he might permit me to get to know him better, yet
glad he wanted this part of our relationship to remain secret from the
others... which was just what I wanted too! I absolutely and certainly didn't
want the other guys to know I had feelings for Ryan, and keeping things safely
hidden and undiscussed suited my desires perfectly.
That night when he went home he forgot and left his light cotton windbreaker
band jacket behind. I brought it in the house, and then at bedtime pulled it
off my chair and into bed with me, holding it near my face and all night long
breathing deeply his distinctive pleasant scent that lingered behind.
One winter afternoon we lounged in my basement bedroom and just talked. I
wanted to know how much he knew about sex, but I was afraid to ask him for fear
of crossing the line and being seen as strange. I finally formulated my
question in the perfect way:
"Ryan, has your Mom ever caught you jerking off?" I casually asked.
This was an ideally worded question, as it assumed that I knew already that he
did jerk off, and answering either "yes" or "no" to my
question would still be an admission that he pleasured himself. Denying that he
did it at all would be harder.
"Nope, she never has" he said, "but because of my brother in my
room I have to do it in the bathroom."
I was ecstatic with his admission. "When do you do it?" I asked as
casually as I could though my mind was racing and on fire.
"All different times" he admitted. "I sometimes sit on the edge
of the tub and other times lay on the floor. Saturday I did it when I got up at
10 o'clock, and I made it last for 15 or 20 minutes before I finished." He
looked up, almost like he had said something wrong. "20 minutes—that's
weird, isn't it?"
I assured him it was not weird at all, and putting my hand on his shoulder I
told him that holding out sometimes gave the most pleasure to me, too. He
seemed relieved, and kept talking. He told me that he had learned to jerk off
by accident in Cub Scouts, as his own wandering fingers caused his first
unexpected orgasm while in his sleeping bag during a camping trip. He admitted
his fright at this first experience (not unlike mine) and that soon he began to
masturbate regularly, just like I did. I told him that I masturbated a lot too,
and my admission seemed to offer him relief from the guilt that many boys share
that "they are the only ones who do it and they do it more than anyone
else". My affection for him had now grown past the point of infatuation. I
truly hoped that somehow he could be mine.
The high school band went on a spring trip down south and Ryan and I shared a
motel room together with two other boys during the trip. I was so excited to be
able to spend the night in the same room with him, in the same bed with him,
and though I didn't do anything that would have raised the suspicions of the
other two boys, I snuck a long peek as Ryan changed into his swimsuit to go to
the pool. I was awestruck to see his naked body for the first time, as
surprisingly to me below his waist he appeared fully sexually developed, with a
full patch of brown hair, a mature thick penis and plump balls. I was so
surprised because he still looked and sounded like a baby-faced kid in all
other ways. I never dared imagined he would look so mature when naked!
In those days, boys wore tight bathing suits, and he filled up his well—so well
that I coaxed him to pose for a photo, one I masturbated to many times as a
teen and probably still have somewhere to this day.
The next morning I watched him with one eye open as he got out of bed wearing
only his skivvies, and marveled as I clearly saw the outline of his thick,
erect morning hard-on pushing out his white briefs as he went to take a shower.
With powerful lust growing inside of me, I yearned to see him aroused like
this, but naked, wondering how I could possibly make that happen.
Oddly (or perhaps very purposely) on this same trip I had taken up publicly
with Brita, a pretty blond girl, a year younger than me, and the child of
strict Swedish parents. We very openly held hands and sat together at
mealtimes. I remember being so proud to have Ryan and the other guys see me
with a girl, especially one as pretty as she, as this was a badge of honor that
I wanted to share with them all.
When the trip ended and the band returned home, I became so depressed that I
moped around the house for several days, crying myself to sleep more than once.
My parents noticed my distress, and I told them about meeting Brita during the
trip and the fact that she was not allowed to date, all of which was totally
true, and I may have actually believed this was the reason for my sadness
myself. In reality, I can now look back and realize, with perfect clarity that
this was the first time my strong desire to be straight and my overpowering
homosexual feelings had collided in the same space and time. I knew that it was
Ryan I wanted, not Brita, and I didn't know how to cope with these poisonously
toxic emotions.
That summer I got a job in a print shop where I mostly cleaned up and did odd
jobs no one else wanted to do, a fine job for a 17 year old to make some money
during vacation. But while I was at work, I couldn't stop thinking about him.
I'd manufacture lame excuses to leave early and I'd find creative ways to get
home so I might have the opportunity to spend days with him, since as a 15 year
old he didn't work yet. Finally my boss told me that if I couldn't be more
dependable, he didn't need me to come—which alerted me to the shocking
realization that I had put Ryan ahead of work when setting my usually highly logical,
very well organized priorities. I promised the boss that I'd do better, and
worked harder to regain his approval.
Throughout that summer, I tried my hardest to cultivate a mutually acceptable
relationship with Ryan that looked normal to others but at the same time
privately advanced beyond the usual boundaries of boyhood friendship.
Constantly, I walked the thin gray line with him to test his reactions;
touching him tenderly but privately whenever I dared, and in conversation
regularly straying mildly across the boundaries of how boys are supposed to
behave together. One evening we sat close side by side in his dad's station
wagon in the driveway listening to a far away radio broadcast of a baseball
game, I allowed my hand to rest first onto his knee then inch to his thigh and
then into his lap as we sat together and alone in the dark. He didn't stop me
as my fingers wandered and I gently felt between his legs for the first time,
his cock growing immediately stiff and erect. Drunk with lust at this unexpected
contact, two innings later I slipped my hand into the pocket of his shorts and
felt his secret boy parts more intimately through just the cloth of his pocket
lining. His erect cock felt as big as mine, and examining it carefully with my
fingers I could mentally picture every ridge and vein on the shaft and see the
crowning bulging softness of his cock head.
We were interrupted by his clowning brother and his friends, but that night I
went home flying instead of walking. In the intimacy of the car's darkness Ryan
had allowed me to feel his cock, and NO BOY would allow that unless he somehow
had feelings for me similar to those I was feeling for him, I believed. I made
up my mind right then that I'd convince my folks to let Ryan come on vacation to
the beach with us; I wanted to spend a whole week alone with him to see what
else might develop.
In the days that followed, I looked for the all-important telltale signs of his
lingering regret, but he showed none. Even after I had brazenly felt his stiff
cock he still acted the same towards me as before, and eagerly agreed to come
to the seashore with me. I was giddy beyond words as he sat beside me in the
back seat of the family car, wearing his short-shorts and red Puma sneakers
with no socks. Pressed hip to hip I think I had an erection the whole way
there, but riding there in the car with my brother and sister and parents there
wasn't much I could do about it.
At the beach, I couldn't get enough of him. He wore his tight and skimpy
swimsuit, and I teased him about how clearly I could see his bulge. I caught
him lying on a towel on his belly, absently grinding his pelvis into the sand
to experience the pleasurable sensations it gave, and I playfully rolled him
over on his back to see his stiffie bulging prominently in his suit covered by
just the thin, tight fabric. He laughed and pushed me back, and I pointed out
to him that my cock was as hard and erect as his was, and we laughed together.
He had one bad habit that I hated, but tried my best to endure... or ignore. He
was enchanted and fascinated looking at all the girls, pointing out the
especially pretty ones to me. I'd pretend that I liked them too, hoping all the
while that he was just trying to be cool and that he really was more interested
in me, just as I was in him. More than anything I longed for him to be my
secret lover, and to ignore and forget the stupid girls who were all but
invisible to me.
We had spent all day on the beach, throwing a ball, swimming and resting, and
when we went home in the late afternoon, as the shadows grew long, it was clear
that he had had too much sun. His shoulders and cheeks and back were burned
red. That night as we got into bed, he moved gingerly, wincing at every contact
with the sheets. As my skin was of a naturally darker complexion, I didn't tend
to burn in the sun, and I examined him with great concern.
"Don't worry," Ryan said to me. "This happens to me all the
time. I burn easily." I was unconvinced as I gently touched his fair but
reddened skin. He was really uncomfortable. Searching in the bathroom cabinet I
found sunburn lotion, designed to ease the pain.
"Let me put some of this on you" I suggested. He didn't object, and I
squirted some of the white stuff on his shins and gently spread it around with
my fingers. Some of it caught in the fine wispy hairs that grew there, and I
smoothed it down to the tops of his bare feet.
"How does that feel?" I asked.
"Better", he said, eyes closed.
I proceeded to gently rub him all over, one limb at a time, asking him to lie
on his tummy so I could soothe his burned back. As I squirted a long line of
the cool white goo across his shoulders he said, "ooooh- that feels so
good." Inside, my brain was buzzing and I felt like my cock would burst from
my shorts as it throbbed hard. I rubbed down his back, and then as I got to the
edge of his white underpants, I lifted the elastic just a bit to get
underneath. His swimsuit had been skimpier than his shorts were now, and I
tugged them down just a little to find the edge of the red line that was hidden
below. Rubbing the cream on his lower back, I pulled his shorts down a little
farther than I needed to, exposing the top of his firm bare butt.
"Hey!" he objected.
"Relax," I said. "Let me take care of you". He didn't
resist further and I gently held his slim backside as I smoothed the lotion on
him.
"Now turn over," I ordered. He did, and I watched his bony but
slightly muscled chest rise and fall as he breathed, and I prepared to put the
lotion on his bare and smooth stomach. I was delighted to see that his penis
had grown half erect in his underpants, poking upwards slightly. He didn't seem
to mind my insistence on doting on him like this, and I had to admit that there
was no real reason that it was necessary for me to continue to spread the
lotion on his skin there... he could have easily done it himself.
I spread a line of the lotion from the top of his chest to his navel and he
jumped a little. "Ahh! That's cold," he said.
But I had rarely seen—let alone been permitted to touch and caress-- such a
beautiful sight. His adolescent chest and stomach were soft, smooth and
perfect, as I rubbed the lotion starting near his throat around his puffy
nipples and then down his ribs. When I reached his stomach he wiggled a little,
and I scooped up some lotion on my finger that had spilled inside his belly
button. The front elastic of his undershorts was stretched down below the red
burn line as his cock bulged up, pulling the cloth slightly away from his flat
stomach. I hardly dared breathe for fear of breaking the mood. I so much wanted
to continue but was afraid that at any moment he would order me to stop. I
allowed the back of my hand to brush unnecessarily against his stiff dick, and
I could see clearly the shape of its fluted end as it grew more erect and
strained beneath the thin fabric. Moving my attention instead down to the tops
of his thighs, I rubbed his skin right up to his balls again allowing my
fingers to brush lightly against their softness. Still he said nothing.
"I know what will really make you feel better," I said, my voice
breaking huskily with lust. And without saying anything more, only once I
stroked the back of my hand the full length of his cock, from its top to
bottom, feeling it twitch and push back through the thin material that barely
covered it.
Ryan didn't say a word, and I reached out and shut off the light with one hand
while I continued to gently stroke and squeeze his erect cock with my other
one, pausing with each stroke to caress his soft balls. I think my own dick had
never been harder, and I reached inside my own shorts to reposition it and give
it freedom to expand.
"Hey, you know, I can do that myself," Ryan objected, and reached
down to take his own cock.
"I know you can, but I'll do it if you want" I offered hopefully in a
hoarse whisper.
"No, that's OK," he replied. "I'll do it myself."
I was only slightly disappointed and not really surprised. I didn't want to
move too fast for him. I helped him tug his shorts down to his knees, seeing
his nakedly erect boy-cock for the first time, lit by the moonlight streaming
through the window. The white glow of the region that had been covered by his
suit, and thus had stayed unburned, glowed eerily in contrast to the red skin around
it that had been over-exposed to the sun. I was so excited to realize that I
was viewing the pale private area of his body that he kept covered and hidden
from everyone else on the beach, and now, in bed and alone with me he had
exposed it to my view without a care. His cock was beautiful, long and straight
and stiff, and I suddenly realized that it looked just like mine in every way.
His right hand bobbed up and down on it. I always used my left hand on myself
so we were able to lay closely hip-to-hip as we masturbated ourselves. Reaching
out with my free hand, I touched his balls. And in objection he whispered,
"cut it out! I'm not gay!" I assured him firmly that I was certainly
not gay either and I asked him to relax and just to let me keep my hand there
and I wouldn't try to do anything else. He was again quiet, and I enjoyed the
feeling of his soft balls bouncing up and down into my hand as he tugged his
stiff mast above. I liked feeling their warm, wrinkled soft sac and stroking
the fine hairs that grew from there.
"Tell me when you are going to cum?" I asked, but he didn't reply. I
had dreamed but never really imagined that this scene would really play out as
it was happening right at that moment. I was so sexually excited, I could
barely keep from having my orgasm, and I rubbed myself ever so gently so that I
could prolong the pleasure till I could wait and see him come too. I watched
intently as he rhythmically jerked his cock, using the exact same technique I
used on myself.
"Are you ready to cum yet?" I asked.
"I just did," he replied, relaxing and laying back.
I was disappointed, as I had wanted to closely watch him ejaculate, but I
understood if he was shy and embarrassed and preferred not to say anything to
call attention to this most intimate of moments, this being our first time
together sexually. "Let me see," I said, and reached out my hand to
touch his tummy, and indeed I found it wet with his sperm. His open hand lay
beside his cock, and with a sly motion I brushed my hand across his palm,
getting much of his boy-cum onto my fingers.
"Hey—Yucch!" He said. "Why would you want THAT?" but I was
suddenly overcome with lust as, still rubbing myself, I raised my wet hand to
my face, turning my head away from him so he would not see, and touched his
creamy sperm to my lips, then put some onto my tongue, eventually licking and
sucking my wet fingers dry. The fresh taste of his forbidden stuff made me more
excited than I had ever been in my life, and uncontrollably I began to shoot my
own cum all over my stomach as I had one of the most powerful orgasms I had
ever felt. After all, just sleeping with his jacket some months earlier and
smelling his scent on it had made me dizzy with lust. Now, I lay beside him,
actually touching him naked, smelling his body's scent and tasting his sperm.
It was more outrageous than I could absorb. We were both spent with our own
nearly simultaneous orgasms.
At that moment, I was certainly happier than I had ever been in my life. Ryan
was perfect for me, I knew for sure now. He was all boy-- masculine and cool and
certainly no sissy or fag. He would never rat on me and I would never embarrass
him. This could actually work, I dreamed. We could be straight, tough boys by
day and tender secret lovers by night. No one needed to know our secret. I
wanted to take care of him and make him happy, and no one else need ever
suspect.
For me, the rest of the week was pure heaven. The next day we talked about what
had happened, and he didn't seem freaked out by it and acted just as normal as
the day before. That night as we lay in bed he brought out a kind of raunchy
adult magazine he had brought with him, sharing with me the pictures of the
girls he thought were the best. (By the way, looking at girlie magazines was OK
by me—because all "normal" boys were supposed to have them. I never
would have even imagined looking at pictures of naked guys in magazines... the
thought never occurred to me that such a thing even existed, and anyway that
would have been far, FAR "too gay" for us tough guys anyway.)
Noticing his prominent erection bulging again in his shorts I reached out to
touch it and he laughed me off, saying "Like I told you before, I can do
it myself!" and he did, lying right next to me as I jerked my own cock,
eyes glued with precision to his progress. He covered his cock with his other
hand as he climaxed, and as I reached out to touch him again, this time he met
me halfway. He willingly offered me his wet hand, which I gratefully took in my
own, transferring his goo from his palm onto mine, tasting some and using the
rest to rub myself to my own powerful orgasm right next to him. As we shut the
light off and prepared to sleep, I snuggled close to him and put my arm over
him to hold him. He protested this, again saying, "Hey cut it out! I told
you I'm not gay!" So, I moved my arm away from him, but still close, and
smiled contentedly.
Yeah, whatever, Ryan. I wasn't gay either. I was just in love with my best
friend, and all was right in the world.
For the next months I thought about him a lot. I bought him a gift for his
birthday and he brought something back for me when he went with his family on a
trip. At school and in front of other people we were just friends. But alone
watching TV, listening to music or sitting in the grass together talking I
seriously hoped we were more than that. I'd never have humiliated him—or me—by
showing the slightest hint of affection for him in front of others. That just
wouldn't have been right. But if we were alone he wouldn't object if I got
closer to him and sometimes let my fingers wander, gently exploring his
body—his hair, neck, hands, legs, arms, chest. I didn't overdo my affection; or
at least I really tried not to. Only occasionally would I dare allow myself to
feel his private areas, and if I did this I learned to be subtle and was always
careful to feel him through at least one layer of cloth, as skin-on-skin
contact with his private parts crossed the line to make him uncomfortable. So,
I saved these occasions for when he was sleeping over and we could advance to
jerking off together, which we would still do sometimes.
As we worked on my old car one afternoon, I let it slip out. "Ryan, I love
you," I unthinkingly but honestly blurted out as he handed me a wrench. He
said nothing in response and my neck burned hot and I winced with shame that I
had allowed these unguarded words to slip. I had broken an important rule: boys
didn't talk that way to each other, EVER, not even privately, and of course I
certainly knew that. I cursed myself for my unguarded weakness, but he never
brought it up and our friendship seemingly continued as before, or at least I
thought it did.
I could end the recollection right here, and most writers on this site would.
But if I did that the story still wouldn't be complete. Stay with me and I'll
continue—bringing you up to the present.
At seventeen and a half I was desperately conflicted and confused, lacking any
of the perspective on my sexuality that I have today. Then, I believed that it
was absolutely still in my power to "turn straight" and that liking
boys was just a phase that I could still outgrow. At least I prayed it would go
away so I could live a normal and respectable life. The idea that I might be
this way the rest of my life was a horrible and unbearable thought that defied
my imagination. (Today, helping me understand why so many gay teens tragically
turn to suicide as a viable option when they reach this point.)
A high school senior now, I took up with a pretty girl from my physics class,
and we became public steadies, holding hands in the halls, going on dates,
riding in my car going to the movies and kissing each other goodnight. But
privately I still longed for Ryan and thought about him much of the time.
Now nearly sixteen and in tenth grade, Ryan was starting to show more
pronounced signs of his adolescence. He had grown taller and lankier, and
talked with a newly croaky deeper voice. But worst of all, he had become
overtly, wildly, obsessively girl-crazy. Ryan sat with me at lunch and his head
swiveled around and around like the tall sign at the gas station, turning to
watch every female pass by. He confided in me that he had a crush on a
particularly tarty ninth-grade girl whom I regarded as very slutty, who wore
too much makeup and had teased up hair. But she had huge breasts, Ryan pointed
out, (FAT breasts, I thought) and he sighed dreamily that they were so
beautiful. He'd moon after her, his longing distorting his face and affecting
his voice, as he shared his private feelings and fears that maybe she didn't
like him, and I felt just disgusted inside. This obviously wasn't a put-on: he
was thoroughly blind and mentally debilitated by romantic thoughts about girls
and I just didn't want him to be. I wanted him for my secret lover and wanted
him to be truly happy with that. After a school dance he proudly told me that
he had made out with this lusty girl, and that she had made him come in his
pants in his parked car. He was so excited he couldn't wait to see her again. I
just felt like slitting my wrists.
We went to several teenaged parties together, as I could drive and he could
not. At one particular party, I brought my girl, and as I kissed her I kept one
eye on him to make sure he noticed how masculine I was. He stayed glued to the
girls, the more air-headed, stupid, tarted-up and big-breasted the better,
never even looking my way the entire evening. I watched him closed-eyed soul
kissing a girl on the sofa after the lights had been dimmed, and felt a
nauseating twist of pain in my gut as I saw that he had a bulging hard-on in
his pants, the same one I wanted him to have with me.
When it was time to go I had to practically drag him away to take him home. I
painfully bit my lip in the car as he babbled on about how beautiful this one
was and that one was. I felt so inferior to him... I was trying my hardest to
be straight, but to him being normal and heterosexual came naturally. It became
clear to me-- It was hopeless: I was defective, he was straight, and he was lost
to me.
I went on to college and Ryan graduated high school two years later and went on
to join the Navy. I next saw him ten years later with his Asian wife and his
two-year-old daughter as his parents invited my wife and I (yes... surreal) to
dinner at their house for old times' sake. Apparently he had never told anyone
there about our relationship, which surely didn't surprise me at all. Cool,
straight boys like him would never have made such a confession. Though he
looked at me with the same distinctive blue eyes, now he was like a stranger to
me. He spoke with a deep, resonant voice, sporting a closely cropped full
moustache and black beard with ample chest hair bristling out of his shirt's
open neck, and was full of tales of globe-traveling experiences.
My emotions were chaffed raw the entire evening. I imagined that I might get
him alone and talk to him to ask his perspective on our relationship of fifteen
years before. I dreamed that he'd remember it fondly and tell me that though he
found me attractive and even considered trying out being gay, but concluded he
was straight and -- that was that. But purposely I think, I never made the
chance to talk to him about this, for fear that he would have told me how he
didn't even remember... or worse, he'd tell me how much he hated my advances,
enduring my affection out of helplessness, unsure of how to tell me to stop and
leave him alone. When I think back, in these encounters through our
relationship he never returned my affection, instead passively "allowing"
me to be sexual with him. And completely perversely I guess this was just what
I wanted anyway, because if then he had loved me tenderly in return I would
probably have been terrified and run! But who knows for sure? Just maybe he
would have been the one who could have helped me deal with my homosexuality
that I couldn't rationally accept at 16 or 18. This absolutely wasn't to be,
because unfortunately for me, he was straight as they come.
When it came right down to it, I suppose I really didn't want to know anyway.
It was all water that had long since passed under the bridge.