Author's notes: If you are joining us late, this is the true story of my growing up in the northeastern US suburbs during the 1970s and early 1980s. I "knew" inside I was different from the time I was five, but repressed it mightily. I first realized that I might be gay in high school, but the thought was so painful to absorb that I didn't actually accept the fact until I was in my early thirties, married and with two sons.
This story is a follow-up to Chapter 7:
"After School with Alex". In that earlier tale of mutual exploration,
Alex and I were 14-year-old ninth graders. This story takes place three years
later when we had become seniors in High School. Erotic but full of conflict,
it tells the story of two boys still confused and ill at ease with their sexual
orientation, while rapidly approaching adulthood.
Our High School put on an annual musical
theater production that was quite a spectacle. It had a big impact on the kids,
who were for the first time in their lives in roles of responsibility for all
sorts of things—lights, sound, scenery, costumes, and music. The actors on the
stage got a small taste of celebrity, wearing makeup and performing under the
bright lights, pressured to remember their lines and the words to all the
songs, along with all their dance steps. I was a member of the orchestra,
enjoying the party environment and the chance to participate, but was glad to
make my contribution hidden in the dark orchestra pit, safely out of the
spotlight.
My friend Alex was one of the actors on stage. You'll recall my ninth grade
experimentation with Alex, described in detail in the story linked above. Then
14, Alex was a wonder to me, a giant of a boy well over six feet tall and
developed already like a man, while I was still small and child-like in
stature. I was fascinated by the great differences in our size and physical
development; it was so hard to believe that we were the same age.
Alex had seduced me then, inviting me to his house after school and convincing
me to masturbate with him. I had been very surprised by the suddenness of his
proposal, but being a pretty randy little guy I was eager to play along. Once
we were both unclothed, I was stunned at the size of his equipment, then even
more surprised when he was very aggressive about the specific things he wanted
to do with me, some of them I can't write about here without having my words
strictly edited. I was a little taken back by his forwardness, and was
uncomfortable with the somewhat rough way he wanted to get down to business,
man-handling my smaller body that autumn afternoon in his bedroom. I learned
that afternoon that Alex had been initiated into sex by his much older brother
whom he adored, and that Alex had gathered a great deal of experience at his
brother's hands. Alex seemed to like the fact that his older brother doted on
him so much, craving their illicit sexual contact with such anticipation that
he told me that his penis would stiffen just to hear his brother coming down
the hall to his bedroom at night, because he knew that sexual bliss was close
at hand.
Alex's experiences with sex were therefore far more advanced than mine by the
age of 14; he explained the things he did with his brother in a matter of fact
way that were both erotic and a little frightening to me at the same time. As
far as I was concerned he qualified as an expert, and it was clear that he
wanted to jump quickly over the baby steps that I would have welcomed as part
of my seduction that afternoon: maybe sharing adult magazines while laying
beside each other on the bed or on the floor watching TV, casual contact
between our bodies that would have grown more intimate as the minutes passed,
maybe culminating in feeling each other quietly through our trousers, making
each other aroused before we unzipped, before I felt the wonderful sensation of
a strange hand touching my secret places for the very first time in the privacy
of an empty house.
He obviously didn't consider such foreplay important or necessary. After he
asked me right-out to masturbate with him, we went upstairs and quickly
undressed, then began to feel me all over without a second's delay, and just a
moment later I felt his hot, wet mouth all over me as well.
Normally I was the initiator, but Alex had taken charge of this event, and I
didn't like it so much. I had asked him to stop, and told him I would masturbate
myself, lying beside him, but that would be the extent of our contact for that
day. Alex looked disappointed, frustrated and even a little angry, but he had
complied, eyes glued manically to my progress as I jerked my small cock and he
jerked his giant one.
More than three years had passed since then, and both of us now nearly
eighteen, I wasn't so fascinated by Alex's size anymore. I had grown to nearly
six feet myself, and while Alex was still bigger, I now regarded him instead as
somewhat overweight and certainly out of shape for his size. His role in the
school play was a comedic one, and he played a buffoon whose shtick included
him constantly eating something different in every scene. Spicing up his role,
Alex sometimes came on stage carrying unusual things to eat, such as cat food
or dog biscuits, always getting a laugh from fellow cast members and a scolding
by the show's adult directors who didn't want to see juvenile humor added to
the show that wasn't already included in the script.
Much of my life revolved around baseball and outdoor activities, and I had
little in common with Alex. But he was funny and enjoyable to be around, and
during that spring's musical I spent a lot of time around him.
Alex came to me during a break in practice one afternoon and whispered to me
that he was taking care of a neighbor's home while they were on vacation. But
he said it as if he was telling me a dirty secret, and I couldn't figure out
why this news was so supposed to be so exciting to me. "Yeah?"
I said. "So?"
"Well," started Alex, looking around to make sure no one was in
earshot, "They have BOOKS."
"What kind of books?" I asked, imagining cookbooks or phonebooks
something.
"You know.... BOOKS. Books with
sex in them. Lots of them."
I was suddenly interested in this secret library Alex had discovered. "Oh yeah? Tell me more", I said, my eyes growing
involuntarily wider in anticipation.
"Well, they are really liberal people and they come from
Wow, I thought to myself, my crotch stirring in anticipation. I was one horny
teenager, and if I may set the stage, please remember that this was happening
in the late 1970's, BEFORE the Internet, BEFORE cable television and before
almost anything titillating was available for children's (or horny teenagers')
eyes to see. My mother had discovered my lone well dog-eared Penthouse magazine
when snooping in my closet two years before, and it had been taken away from me
and a strong lecture delivered. Where today a boy can simply type the words
"cum shot" or "tits" into Google and INSTANTLY receive
dozens of unbelievable pictures to browse and masturbate to, all totally free
for the looking, boys in the 1970's either had to know a friend with a
"stash" of his dad's magazines, or be satisfied reading National
Geographic and looking at the pictures there.
"So... do you wanna go with me to see?"
asked Alex, mischief sparkling in his eyes.
He didn't need to ask twice. "When?" I
asked.
"It has to be tomorrow. They come back the next day." He answered.
I was waiting for Alex, heart pounding as soon as school ended the next day. Together
we walked to his house on that same route through the neighborhood we had
followed three years before. When we reached the house, Alex fumbled for the
key in the lock. The door creaked open, and together we entered the neighbors'
strange house. It smelled like foreign cooking spices and odd cologne, and I
felt a shiver to know I was someplace I shouldn't be—clearly someplace that my
parents wouldn't approve of. But I didn't care. I was so horny about what I
might see that I couldn't see straight as I stumbled up the stairs after Alex.
Entering the master bedroom Alex went straight for the bookshelf, and pulled
out three or four hardcovered books and laid them on
the bed. One was "The Joy of Sex" which I had thumbed through several
times with great guilt while standing in the big bookstore at the mall; afraid
to read too closely for fear someone would see me. The others looked like
picture filled reference books that promised to display the techniques of
lovemaking. My cock throbbed to rapt attention as I looked at the precious
treasures that lay before us. Alex sat on the bed and beckoned me to join him,
and I immediately did.
Looking through one of the books I was intrigued to find that it was filled
with pictures of a blond Norwegian or Dutch looking family. The book was
written in an odd foreign language that I didn't recognize. There were many
pictures of the whole family nude, including those of naked parents playing
with their nude children. My heart nearly stopped when I turned the page and saw
a picture of a row of boys of various ages standing naked, arms around each
others' shoulders. The picture was designed to show the different stages of
puberty, and it was accompanied by close-ups of several of the boys' smiling
faces and of their bare sex organs. Examining these pictures I almost forgot to
breathe... they were so forbidden and exciting to me. I wondered where these
boys lived that they were so willing to be photographed unclothed like this,
and marveled at how broadly they smiled with sincere happy grins even though
they stood completely nude for the photographer to capture. I was surprised
that these boys would all be so willingly nude standing so close to each other, that their parents would have unashamedly permitted
them to be photographed this way, and I wished that I had friends that would be
so open about their bodies as they to be so casually naked with me. I
especially liked the black and white photos of a boy about my age, with soft
brown hair falling over one eye, freckles on his nose, and lean teenage muscles
showing on his abdomen. He had sprouted pubic hair, but not too much, just like
me, but the rest of his body was still smooth and white. He was still clearly
an adolescent just as I was. In the next photos he stood with his naked father,
and the resemblance was obvious between them, except the father was a bigger,
hairy bear of a man and they smiled as they engaged in horseplay and enjoyed
their nakedness together. In one photo I especially liked, the boy made a
muscle while his dad felt it. They stood closely beside each other, bodies
touching, penises side by side, one finely aged, one just coming into bloom. I
yearned for them both.
"Look at this one", urged Alex, and he thrust in front of me a book
written in English open to a chapter boldly titled "Homosexuality".
Still hardly breathing and heart pounding, I took the book from him,
immediately transfixed on the photo on the opening page. It was of two boys, my
age or a little older, standing holding each other. The one facing the camera
clearly had an erection as the other boy's arms tenderly wrapped around his
back and they posed blissfully with eyes half closed, cheek-to-cheek.
Up till that moment I had never seen a picture of two guys together in a sexual
situation. Seeing this one for the very first time caused a surge of adrenalin
in my gut, the way one might normally experience excitement at the critical
resolving scene in a drama or at a turning point in a sporting event. My heart
hammered in my chest. "Ohhhh, wowwww", I intoned nearly breathlessly. I could not
take my eyes away from that picture, without question depicting the most
beautifully erotic scene I had ever seen in my life. It seemed inconceivable to
me that the shockingly obscene word that screamed the title of the chapter was
printed above an image of something to me that was so unbelievably, wordlessly
beautiful. This was, in a nutshell, the pure definition of my life's conflict.
But Alex wanted to get down to business. "Come on Brad, open your pants up
and let me do you," he begged in a desperate whisper. He fumbled at my
belt and I pushed his hand away.
"Wait, Alex!" I want to look some more!" I begged, not anxious
at all for this magic moment to end. I turned a few more pages in the chapter,
marveling at the pictures I saw. Older teenaged boys
lay naked next to each other in a clean but rumpled bed, smiling with serenely
peaceful bliss. Bearded middle-aged men kissed, a sight that
was shocking and somewhat frightening to me—but was still highly erotic.
After looking at a few more of these images of males together, I flipped back
to the first photo, the one of the two beautiful young men standing and holding
each other and just gazed at it some more.
"Come on, you promised!" Alex whined pathetically, tugging at my
buttoned trousers.
I hadn't promised anything that I remembered, but Alex had obviously taken my
acceptance of his invitation that day as an implied promise to jerk off with
him. "Ooooh please! Let
me do you Brad!" Alex pleaded. He sound and looked like a baby who had
just been told he couldn't go out to play. "Cummm-onnnn!"
I stopped resisting and allowed him to unbuckle my belt, watching like a
bemused but somehow detached observer. Roughly pulling my blue jeans down to my
knees he simultaneously exposed himself and began to masturbate with his other
hand. I lay back with my head propped up on the pillows and returned my gaze to
the book that stood on my chest. I just couldn't take my eyes away from that
magical picture, the one that for the first time for me crystallized the image
of two males enjoying sex together, experiencing each other's bodies without
shame, illustrating that it just might be OK for two boys to be in love with
each other.
Alex wanted me to put the book down and fully participate with him. Whining
again that he really wanted to have sex with me like I had promised I would
(!!!) he roughly handled my genitals with his face just a fraction of an inch
away from them.
I was pissed. I was annoyed because Alex seemed to care only about himself, and
he was practically mauling me in his lust-filled desire. I moved the book from
my chest and watched him with bemusement. His eyes were closed and he grunted.
It was all so hard to comprehend.... The wonderful, beautifully magic picture
of the ideal, surreally frozen love scene in the book I held, allowed me to
imagine the tender, forbidden true love these two boys my age felt for each
other, and were not afraid to experience—that juxtaposed with the live image I
watched of lust-crazed Alex laying twisted awkwardly beside me, thrashing and
thrusting like a crazy person, oblivious to my emotions while desperately
grunting, jacking and mauling my erect cock, while he frenetically jerked his
own with a giant paw.
"Hey, STOP, Alex—Hey! How about you just do you,
and I'll do me?" I suggested none too kindly. "I'd really prefer
that."
Alex paused and looked up at me in disbelief at my request, like I had just
asked him to agree to cut his hand off. "What?" he asked in shocked
surprise. "What fun is that?" and he immediately returned to his
task.
"No, I mean it," I said sternly, "It's either that or nothing.
I'll go home."
Realizing I was serious Alex rolled off me and lying
beside me he disappointedly watched from close range as I took over and rubbed
my own dick. I would have rather simply quit and left, but I felt I owed Alex
this much, since, after all, he had brought me here to see the stash. Rubbing
his cock violently Alex groaned and gasped and then gritting his teeth and
holding his breath, he released a torrent of thick soapy cum all over his ample
belly. I also let mine fly a moment later, though I needed to close my eyes and
concentrate very hard to make it happen.
We shared few words as we cleaned up and left the house, and Alex and I were
very chilly to each other for the rest of the year as I vividly recall, barely
speaking to each other anymore in school. I realize now that we were both so
conflicted about our unfathomably defective sexual orientations and our
misguidedly powerful animal needs to have sexual contact with other guys, that
we were expressing our confusion by feelings silently, covert anger towards
each other.
I heard that the neighbors caught Alex the very next time they were away.
Apparently he had been surprised when they came home unexpectedly early, and he
was in their bedroom again looking at their collection. He thought he had
covered up his deeds, making a plausible excuse as he hurriedly left, but they
soon found the books that he had quickly hidden under the bed, and had reported
their deep disappointment to his parents at Alex's lack of judgment and his
invasion of their privacy. I recall feeling deep conflict upon hearing this
news, both gladly thinking that it served Alex right to be caught at his game,
but also feeling a great sense of fear that someday all of us who hide would be
caught as well.
I wondered when, not if, that net would fall on me.