Author's notes: Continuing the true story of my life, growing up gay while in complete denial of it, and hating it instead of learning to accept myself. I am a middle-aged man now, and offer these stories with the perspective of hindsight. I wish I could go back and do it again, but it doesn't work that way. You may contact me at bradhealey@rocketmail.com. I will reply, and will add you to my list to notify when future chapters post.
If you are enjoying this series, please read my opening story, "Gay..and Married" posted in the Encounters section on Feb. 14, 2010 www.asstr.org/files/Collections/nifty/gay/encounters/
Chapter 13: Sharing Little Roy's Big Secret
Comments: Sometimes a shared secret can generate a
feeling of warm intimacy between two people. Roy and I talked frankly about his
pain of being so small for his age. As we shared our feelings with each other,
I began to fall in love with him, wanting to ease his hurt and share my own
secret with him—that I liked other boys and not girls. No fairy-tale endings
here, just real life teenage angst.
But he really was 14, and I immediately carved out a special place in my heart
for him. I didn't know why exactly at the time, but I felt his loneliness, felt
his pain in being so different from all the other boys. I know now that I
suppose in a big way I had the same pain inside, because I knew I was different
from the other boys too. I may have looked the same as the other
seventeen-year-olds, but inside I knew I was turning out all wrong, a freak.
The other guys my age had graduated from idle horseplay with one another and
lost interest in spending all their time with other boys as they all became
interested in girls. Girls were usually the topic of conversation, the subject
of arguments, the source of their interest when Friday
and Saturday nights rolled around. When we'd go to the mall they'd meet girls
they knew there, elbow each other when fresh prime specimens walked by, browse
the record store racks looking at life size posters of bikini clad models. My
special buddy Ryan (see "Falling Hard for my Straight Friend Ryan")
even had a poster in his bedroom, taped to the underside of the top bunk of the
bed above his. He bragged that he loved to look at the woman "on top of
him" while he lay in his bed, and the other boys
whistled low with respect. Most other of their moms would never have permitted
such a thing, but Ryan's mom did.
I, on the other hand was becoming far too finely aware of the other teenaged boys all around me, tall and muscled and lean. I
knew this wasn't normal, and I wanted it to stop. I had hoped my preteen
fascination with older boys would go away, but it had turned into
early-teenaged romantic fantasies about being with older boys, and now as an
older teen, I furtively tried to make eye contact with every other teenaged boy I saw, hoping that just one of them would look
back and I would find him to be as interested in romance with me as I was in
him. This was a seemingly endless futile pursuit, and I felt defective, ugly
and alone.
When I had first met Roy I had assumed, like probably like 99% of everyone else
that he was several years younger than he actually was. Glumly and robotically,
looking at the floor he had informed me of my error, and told me that he was
indeed fourteen, and not ten. I hadn't known what to say, and again like
probably 99% of everyone else, I registered my surprise to him, digging myself
deeper, telling him how small he was and that I was surprised he was so much
older than he looked. He just looked away, at the floor, this having been
probably the ten-thousandth time he had heard this dialogue.
I was immediately sorry for my mistake, and I told him so. "That's
OK" he said glumly. "It happens all the time." My heart hurt for
him, and the rest of that day I couldn't get him out of my mind. When it was
time to go, I sought him out and said goodbye, placing my hand on his shoulder,
turning him to look me in the eye, and said, "I really think I like you,
and I'd like to get to know you better, if that's OK." He looked up at me
and smiled a little. "OK," he agreed.
I'd see him in school band practice all the time. It was the start of football
season and the practices were frequent. He always had a set of tri-toms
strapped to him, which was a set of three drums that were among the most
difficult to play well and among the most important in the marching band. But
they were big and clumsy, heavily hung onto a harness that went over his
shoulders and back. Whenever we would pause he'd sink to the ground to rest,
and if I could I'd go over and sit beside him. He was really too small to carry
the heavy drums he played, but his skill (and his dogged insistence) made his a
logical choice to play them. I'd examine him closely and lovingly as we sat
wordlessly near each other, his thin bony chest covered by the thinnest white
t-shirt, soaked with his sweat. He wore small gym shorts, his thin hairless
legs folded underneath him, bent at his bony knees as we sat on the field.
"Don't you wish you played a smaller instrument,
"No," he replied. "It's not the instrument that's too big. It's
me that's too small."
Talking to him often as I did, as I respectfully asked he told me more and more
about his life, sometimes edging on the verge of tears. He had always been
small for his age, so this was something he had learned to live with a long
time ago; something he was born with; something he couldn't change. Something
everyone could see and something everyone commented on and reminded him of at
every opportunity. I noticed that he often chose to stay alone, staring blankly
off into space while the others around him laughed and horsed around.
Then twelve and thirteen and fourteen had hit, and the situation became far
worse. As the other boys started puberty and began to experience growth spurts,
Roy watched in dismay as Mother Nature left him cruelly behind. Boys who had
been an inch or two bigger than him before became a head or more
taller, towering over him displaying their deep voices and hairy legs.
I had been a slightly late bloomer too, but maybe only by nine months or so;
only one school year in time. While most of the other boys had begun to sprout
hair and their bodies had begun to noticeably grow around seventh grade, I
stayed with the smaller group who stubbornly refused to bloom. I recall the
desperateness with which I would frequently examine myself in the mirror,
looking for signs of my adolescence to begin. In every library and every
bookstore I'd go right to the section on "Human Development",
grabbing books from the shelves and turning to the pages that described the
stages of puberty. I read in every one of them that puberty stared at different
times for different boys, and when I looked at the charts and graphs I could
see that I was still squarely within the "normal" scale, but I
remember the anguish I felt. I feared I would never grow, that something was
terribly wrong inside of me, that somehow I was being punished, that somehow I
would be different and freakish my whole life.
My mother pointed to my size ten sneakers and told me "Brad, your feet
have grown already. It's just a matter of time before the rest of you catches up." She turned out to be right, but for one
awful, endless school year I remember that this topic weighed so heavily on my
mind that I often could not think about anything else.
But
We had the same-time lunch period scheduled, and I'd see him sitting sometimes
alone on the bleachers after eating. "Roy-Boy!"
I'd call in his direction, and I'd go over and sit with him. When he'd see me
his face would always light up. "Brad-Boy!"
He'd always say in return. We'd sit next to each other and I'd talk about
subjects that would interest most other boys, but
I told him about my own puberty experience, just as I told it to you here. I
tried to express my empathy for what he must be going through. I put my hand
behind him on the bench and moved closer to him, and then impulsively I put my
arm around him for just a moment and squeezed him tight to me. "It'll be
all right," I said. "I don't care how big or small you are,
That seemed to open the floodgates for him. His lip trembled a little and his
eyes filled up, and he began to speak. He told me how much he hated being so
little, how he hated the mean teasing, and even the friendly, well-intentioned
comments that reminded him about his diminutive size. He hated being patted on
the head by girls, and being excluded from games by boys who thought he was
just a baby.
Fighting back tears he told me how he had been given the bass drum to play at
the first summer band rehearsal and how heavy it was, and then how the older
boys had tipped him over with delight so he couldn't get up, then rolled him
along the field like a toy, still strapped to the giant drum. My fists clenched
with rage at the thought of this. I hadn't been there when this happened, but if
I had, the boys who did that would have paid for it. I told him that as long as
I was around I'd never allow such a thing to ever happen again. He and I then
sat closely and quietly, shoulder to shoulder till we heard the bell ring,
signaling that lunch was over and classes were going to start again. Sitting so near to him I could feel his
breathing and sense his heart beating, and in spite of myself, my mind would
fill with thoughts of holding him and tenderly undressing him, my cock growing
stiff and erect, imagining sucking his small stiff dick into my mouth, and
imaging if I could fit both his dick and tiny balls in my mouth at once,
rolling them around on my tongue gently while he writhed and moaned and
wriggled, finally grabbing my hair while he came uncontrollably in my mouth,
emitting tiny clear emission so small that it could only be tasted but not
seen. I wanted to put my arm around him
and tell him that I loved him, but common sense prevailed and I kept my hands
at my sides, though my cock throbbed inside my jeans.
Roy was a good tennis player, and one of the things we could do at lunch was
play tennis on the high school courts, and he'd often beat me. I'd mess up his
hair afterwards, and drape my arm over his small shoulders, and for the first time
I began to see him look truly happy, with a wide smile and a sparkle in his
eyes. "I beat you, Brad-Boy", he'd say. "I know. You are too
good for me, Roy-Boy." I'd answer.
Our conversations grew more and more specific, as our trust for each other grew.
One day he told me that he had seen the doctor and that his parents were told
to just give it time and things would happen. The doctor had
run some tests and told Roy that his puberty had actually begun, albeit very
late and very slowly, and that he would eventually catch up, though he'd never
be tall.
I asked him boldly if he had any pubic hair, and he shook his head
"no". I asked him if he masturbated, and he said that he did
sometimes, but "not successfully", as he put it. When I questioned
him on that answer, he told me sadly that he got the 'feeling' but that nothing
came out. His orgasms were still dry.
As the year went on he seemed to come out of his shell a little bit more. Once
in band I had sternly yelled at several boys who were giving him a hard time,
and though he said nothing at the time, I could tell he was grateful. We had
gym at the same class period as him, and in the winter when we'd all be stuck
inside and paired up into teams for volleyball we were both delighted to be
able to participate in some more physical activity together.
One day late that year he excitedly came over to me in gym and said
"Success!" I asked him what he meant, and he said, "You know, I
did 'it' and this time I was successful!" I understood what he meant... he
was telling me that he had ejaculated semen for the first time. I was so proud
for him and I told him so. I shook his small shoulders and congratulated
him—and I really meant it! We talked a little about the "important
event" and he told me he had paused during homework like he often did to
rub his stiff penis (just like I often did, to release tension) and this time
the feeling was more powerful and felt like he was going to pee and as he
watched as a little liquid squirted out for the first time! He proudly admitted
that he had finally grown some fuzz down there, and though it had been just a
tiny bit of clear sticky stuff, he considered it major progress nonetheless.
"I'm a stud now, Brad-boy," he said grinning, thumping his skinny
chest with a closed fist. I just wanted to hug him, but of course I didn't,
right there among all the other guys as we were.
I really felt an uncommon kinship with him. I believe the feelings of
attraction weren't as related to the fact that we had shared a late-puberty
experience, as much as, I think that I identified with is sense of his feeling
of being different, freakish and all alone. While his shame was tied to his
small size, mine was tightly bound to my confused sexuality, of which I was so
humiliated and felt isolated by, unwilling to discuss it with anyone else. I
imagined I felt platonically like a big brother towards him, but I must admit
that the attraction I was beginning to feel for him had become sexual as well.
I connected with him as a person and I felt happily like I was in the early
stages of actually falling in love with him. I really wanted to dismiss this as
just a passing fancy, but I found myself dreaming of him sometimes at night,
waking the next morning with a powerful longing to be with him.
That next Fall we were in the orchestra for the High
School musical together. He sat behind me playing the drum set like a pro, and
as I'd turn to look at him and smile in his direction, he'd glow right back at
me, smiling and winking in my direction. I already knew his secret, of course,
that thing that made him feel so sad, alone and different. I really wanted to
tell him about my secret too; about the thing that I held inside of me that
made me feel so defective and damaged as he did, but I had conditioned myself that
I must never, never do this with anyone, that my defect was a freakish and
unforgivable failing that I knew I must keep hidden for the rest of my life;
one that no one must ever find out about. When I had hinted to my best friend
Mario recently about how I felt for our friend Ryan I had my resolve confirmed
by Mario's angry, negative reaction. I knew that admitting my freakish sexual
urges was tantamount to signing my death warrant and banishment from normal
teenage society. But somehow I dreamed that
I had just bought an old hot rod car which needed a lot of work to make it run,
and I proudly showed it to
I did, that night, as the show orchestra got together for a cast party after
our last performance. Everyone was happy and the mood was very festive. I drove
the hot rod while
We were at the cast party together and Roy and I sat with others at a round
table and laughed and talked. Because we shared the same sense of humor and
laughed at the same things, he and I would make eye contact often, enjoying the
same jokes. Eventually I made my way beside him, edging closer to him at the
table till we were nearly touching. Close enough so I could see the fuzz on his
cheeks, close enough so I could feel his body heat, close enough so I could
smell him, I casually reached under the table and placing my hand up near his lap,
caressed high up on the inside of his thigh, stroking only once or twice
gently, deliberately, lovingly.
I still have a freeze-frame in my brain of how he looked at me in the next
instant. It's burned there and it won't go away, un-faded even after thirty-five
years' time. His look was one of surprise, then of shock, then I perceived of
nothing but sadness. My blood froze inside.
"Brad..." he said to me, not loudly because I was so close to him. "I'm not 'that way', you know..." I dropped my
hand quickly from his soft warm thigh, my neck suddenly burning with
embarrassment, then my stomach twisting with angst. He wasn't interested in me
like I wanted him. I had made an overt pass at him; there was no questioning my
motives as no boy touched another like that and in
that spot by accident. I still can see the look I read as sad, confused
disappointment on his face... a look of betrayal. He didn't need to say the
words that were going through his mind. I knew what they were. I might as well
have sliced my own throat open.
I felt like a pervert. He had looked up to me, adored me, and trusted me. And
then I had gone and made a blatant pass at him. I knew he
certainly now thought I was a deviate, trying to take advantage of him, a
younger kid. Inside, I didn't feel that way at all and I wanted him to know, I
really did want to love him. But I suddenly felt so bad, so cheap and freakish,
so worthless.
"I'm sorry,
"Forget it," he had answered, a faraway gaze returning to his face,
no longer looking in my eyes. I slunk away, wishing I were dead. I had wanted
him to accept my offer of promised affection so much, to share in my terrible,
shameful secret, that I had doubtlessly ignored all the facts that must have
been plain as day. I hated myself profusely, so obsessed with sex, and so
focused on my own twisted needs. Once again, I had received a bold underscore
to that important rule of life I already formulated and knew well, deep inside:
"If anyone learns you are gay you'll
lose his friendship forever..." I cursed myself again and again for my
hateful defect.
Things didn't feel the same between Roy and me after that. He still said 'hi',
but I just couldn't look him in the eye anymore. I was so ashamed that I had
read him wrong and that I had been so anxious to share my forbidden affection
with him that I had rushed the situation and caused him to hate me, at least
that's how I viewed it. In reality I hated myself more at that point in my life
than he could ever have.
Looking back, with thirty years of perspective, I probably attached far more
significance to this event than was necessary or even reasonable, but for a teenaged boy so confused about his sexuality as was I,
taking a risk with someone I hoped to love and then falling on my sword of
shame as had I, nothing in those years was clear or in perspective to me. In
truth, if I had been accepting of myself, and thinking
more clearly, our relationship probably could have continued just as before.
After all,