Chapter 10: More About Jack and Me
I introduced you to Jack in an earlier chapter. Jack was the twin brother of my first girlfriend, and while she was undeniably pretty, he was the most stunningly handsome boy I had ever seen. I confessed in that earlier chapter that when we were near each other I sometimes forgot to breathe. Jack had an animal magnetism to me, and based on his little teasing behaviors, I am sure that he knew he had a powerful effect on me and enjoyed the power he held.
Turning the clock back, I saw Jack for the
first time at Little League baseball practice when he was just eleven. He had
just moved to our town and the coach added to my team in the middle of the
season. Almost 13, I was starting to feel a newly strange, highly confusing,
intoxicating kind of desire and excitement growing when I was near certain
boys, and I didn't yet understand why. I also didn't know enough to be ashamed
of these feelings yet... and I'd find myself fixated, sometimes forgetting to
breathe while watching Jack intently as he put the catcher's equipment on. He'd
glance up and see me looking; I'd smile and he'd smile back. I liked to be
close to him and soon I would be waiting and ready every inning to help him
strap the gear on his legs and chest. Crouching beside him and reaching under
his legs to snap the hooks, reaching around from his back to strap the chest
protector on, lingering while touching his warm body just a little more than
was necessary, especially enjoying feeling the taught firmness of his beautiful
muscles in his arms, shoulders, thighs, chest and legs, smelling his sweet,
salty youthful sweat, handing him his helmet with the face mask attached that
was always damp from his hair. I liked this all better than any other part of
the game, I decided, as I stood far out in right field like a spectator while I
intently watched Jack catch every pitch. I couldn't wait till the stupid inning
was over so I could help him dress again.
Jack was a boy whom I had been magnetically drawn to since I first laid eyes on
him, then standing glistening soaking wet and nearly naked in his tiny tight
blue swimsuit while silhouetted by the sun at the neighborhood swimming pool.
At eleven, he was a year and a half younger than me, but far more athletic,
more handsome and well muscled, popular-kind and friendly to everyone. It was
through my curiously unexplainable attraction to Jack that I first began to
truly suspect I was not normal... that my feelings of affection for him that
wouldn't go away must be stuffed down and hidden from everyone in the world,
lest my life be completely ruined. This childish nonsense would pass with time,
I prayed with all my might, as I would certainly soon be attracted to girls
like I was supposed to be. But when I was near him I felt dizzy and couldn't
breathe properly and I suddenly couldn't talk right. When he so much as smiled
at me my blood pressure would shoot for the sky, and even when he wasn't nearby
I'd think about him constantly, against my will. Jack was the crystal-clear
vision in my mind's eye the overwhelming majority of times I masturbated at
that age, and I desperately wanted to have a relationship with him that would
somehow be both acceptably innocent yet also hot and sexual, which was for me
an impossible riddle without a solution.
I couldn't fit all the little teasing pseudo-sexual experiences I had with Jack
into that earlier story posted here; it was quite long enough as it was! So,
with just an example or two I tried to give you a flavor for how he and I acted
when together. But there were a few more events I could relate that might
underline that I was not imagining his playful teasing when it came to sex, and
his obvious awareness of the way I was excited by him, erotic excitement which
as a barely pubescent boy was utterly confusing to me. He seemingly enjoyed
teasing or tempting me in so many little games he played. I truly don't think
any of this was mean spirited on his part, as I don't think he could possibly
have comprehended the deep feelings of confusing desire I harbored inside for
him. But I suspect he sensed that he affected me in a way that gave him an
uncommon amount of power over me, despite the fact that I was older and bigger
than he was. He was probably just playfully, idly fooling around, but his
antics often left me highly aroused and sexually frustrated, ready to be
scraped off the ceiling.
Like that time in the locker room after track practice. He had quit the
baseball team by ninth grade and had joined the track team instead to try out
pole vaulting. (yes, POLE VAULTING. I couldn't have done that if my very life
had depended on it. Amazingly to me, starting the next year he was also the
field goal kicker on the football team... there was seemingly nothing this kid
couldn't do.) I was still in baseball, and our teams' afternoon practices would
often coincide. I'd grab a seat next to him on the locker room bench, even
though I knew it was considered quite odd by my teammates. After all, baseball
boys stuck together in their part of the locker room, and the track boys
dressed together in theirs, that's just the way it was. But I didn't care a
lick... there was nobody on the baseball team whose body I craved seeing
unclothed more than Jack's.
One afternoon I heard him curse softly under his breath as he dressed.
"Shoot!" he muttered.
"What's wrong Jack?", I asked, always overly-tuned in to anything he
said or did.
"I forgot my T-shirt," he said. We are supposed to wear a plain white
t-shirt to practice and I forgot mine."
"You can wear mine," I offered eagerly, "I'll take it off so you
can wear it."
The prospect of having Jack wear my T-shirt as he pole vaulted, sweating in it
and then returning it damp and soiled to me was totally intoxicating to my
lust-filled brain. I wanted to get it back from him right away after practice,
smelling richly of his body, already planning to sleep with it that night,
breathing deeply from it and ensuring a fantastically powerful self-induced
orgasm without question. I was fourteen and my sex drive had never been more
highly supercharged. I could climax three or four times a day at that age, and
often did.
I quickly stripped off my shirt as he stood and waited, and handed it over to
him. Standing bare-chested beside each other we were a study in contrasts. At
15 I was broad shouldered and barrel chested, with no hair on my chest and very
little muscle definition to see. On the other hand, Jack was not so broad
shouldered but was built like a weightlifter, a top-heavy triangle, with well
defined pecs and lats, and every one of his six abdominal muscles clearly
visible to view, his waist tapered to half the diameter of his shoulders, with
a shallow and perfect belly button. Newly 14, his muscle-banded chest was
hairless and smooth, and to me he looked like the artist's rendition of Batman
as he was drawn in my comic books, he wearing his skintight costume with every
muscle visible underneath.
Jack took my offered shirt and raised his arms, exposing small tufts of golden
brown hair in his armpits. Wriggling into my shirt he smoothed it down over his
flat belly. "You look fine", I said, getting ready to finish dressing
myself. But as I turned, I noticed him grimace, touching the damp armpits of my
worn garment, and obviously this displeased him. He quickly took the shirt off
and threw it back to me. "No thanks," he said. I'll figure something
else out.
I was bummed out, and even sad. God—if he had given me HIS shirt to wear, damp
from his sweat I probably would have grown a bulge in my pants right there, and
I certainly wouldn't have thrown the shirt back! But where Jack's sweat was
unexplainably highly erotic to my twisted mind, my sweat was distasteful to his
more normal way of thinking.
Another afternoon when his and my practices ended simultaneously, he and I sat
in the locker room, and he said, "Gosh, I feel sweaty. Maybe I should take
a shower to feel better"
"Oh yes!", I urged immediately, and far too eagerly. "Let's go,
I'll take one with you!" I had no problems about showing my nakedness to
another boy, as long as I could have his unspoken permission to gaze at him in
return. It was all fair.
"Hmmmmm...." He mused, a smile playing on his lips, glancing in my
direction. He reached inside his gym shorts and stretched them far out from his
belly. "I sure am sweaty down THERE," he teased, looking first down
into his opened shorts and then looking up at my face.
I practically lost control of myself with desire, lunging as gently as I could
in his direction, trying furtively to look down the front of his pants to see
the same view was obviously seeing at that moment. But he deftly spun away as I
came close, allowing me to see the fringe of brown hair but preventing me from
seeing his naked genitals inside his shorts. He smiled up at me, and said,
"Nahhhh... maybe not."
"Oh please, Jack!" I begged almost desperately, "please take a
shower with me!" in a way that must have sounded oh-so-unbelievably-gay to
anyone who might have been in earshot. But at that desperate, brief,
split-second moment-of-truth, I didn't care at all whom might have heard. I was
so, so close to being naked in the showers beside Jack that I might have sliced
off my pinkie finger if I needed to, to complete the deal.
"Nahhhh...," he concluded letting his elastic snap back against his
tight belly, re-concealing his privates as he looked up into my face and smiled
mischievously. "I'll wait till I get home." He smirked at me, and I'm
sure my face bore an expression of incredibly sad sexually charged frustration.
And I'm sure he noticed.
Was I affected by this experience? Good lord--I must have been, as these images
I've described are still laser-etched in my mind THIRTY YEARS after they all
happened. I wanted to see him naked one more time up close so much, to somehow
make love to him so much more, so much that I could taste it in my addled,
confused, burning-with-desire twisted and clearly defective teenaged brain. But
all Track season he never undressed all the way to the buff in my presence even
once... and (as I related in that earlier story) in my life I saw him naked
only once, when he was weighing in for a wrestling meet that Winter just past.
My God, then he was as beautiful naked as I ever would have imagined in my most
erotic wet dream. My heart pounded as I stood inches away from his beautiful
nude, slim, tight body.
Before practice, I would usually hang around him as he dressed far, far longer
than was necessary and I wonder what the other boys must have thought—they must
have noticed my highly unusual behavior. Sure, I got the added bonus of
watching all the other ninth grade members of the track team undress and
shower, which was fun and admittedly gave me some neat thrills. But nothing
compared to what it would have done to my psyche if Jack had agreed to shower
with me that day. I wonder if this had happened, if I would have been able to
keep from having a public erection as I soaped up beside him. I'd like to think
I would have remained in control, but I have to face facts as I tell this
story: I was hardly in control of anything related to my sexuality in those
days. Maybe it's just as well it never happened. Glenn and the other boys from
the baseball team would have found out and made my life a living hell after
that, I can conclude with relative ease.
Here's a little update that I can't resist sharing: I stumbled across Jack's
gorgeous twin sister at a wedding several years ago (See the earlier story- she
was the one I had dated to have more opportunities to be closer to Jack while
in High School, the same one who had been a state-winning contestant in the
Miss USA pageant some years later) She was still as beautiful as before, and
was now married to a prominent politician. I asked her about Jack, and learned
that we are all living spread all over the
So I called him. And I found out what her repeated references to "active
in his church" were about. My social, open minded, innocent, mischievous
friend whom I had adored so much seemingly had transformed completely into a
religious zealot. Our conversation was difficult. He said he was glad to hear
from me. We talked about our lives so far, our families and kids... and then he
launched into a speech. In his acquired southern, drawling accent (Who was
this? The Jack I knew didn't sound THAT way at all) he told me that he had been
an evil person till he had accepted Jesus Christ and had then been saved. I
laughed and assured him that when we were kids he was one of the kindest,
gentlest most well balanced guys I had ever known, and how much I had always
looked up to him. He disagreed and threw this complement off, telling me again
that he had been saved by his acceptance of Jesus Christ, and that before that
his evil life had not been worth saving.
He reminded me about his "relationship with that little girl",
referring to his wild 10th grade sex exploration that I wrote of earlier, and
told me again and again about how "his acceptance of Jesus Christ had
saved his life".
I was thunderstruck. I could not reconcile the person I had known and adored
with this babbling person on the other end of the phone. Almost in spite, I
told him of a good friend of ours from school who had realized he was gay, had
settled with a male life-partner for the past 25 years, and had adopted two
orphan babies to build a happy family together. After a pause, he drawled on
about how unfortunate and evil this was, and that homosexuality was a sin in
God's eyes, unnatural and would sadly damn our friend to hell.
My mind reeling, I ended this silly conversation and said good-bye.
I am a spiritual person, but not a religious one. I find this sort of thing
frightening in a way. How could a boy who once seemed to be so open minded,
compassionate and willing to listen to others, have changed so much??? One who
once solemnly and sincerely professed to me his desire to be a child
psychologist when he grew up, because he said, "Adults don't understand
kids and how they think. I'll be able to help kids when I grow up because I
will remember and be able to relate to them."
I think that people who have overwhelming sexual issues deal with then in many
ways. I eventually found my path, one of acceptance and growth. If Jack had
issues back then, (and really, who knows if he did.) he found a way too,
through dogma and oppressive structure of mindless fire and brimstone based
religious discipline.
One of the benefits of being my advanced age is that I can add an epilogue to
my stories that tells what happened twenty or more years later. This is the
true story of Jack. I hope he is happy. If he knew my story, where I have been
in my life and where I have come to today, he'd certainly never accept me as a
friend today, and to that fact I feel a little sad.