Author's Comments: It's been far easier to share the funny stories from my growing up years. I've enjoyed remembering them, writing them and sharing them. Just like all the others, this happened exactly as I've penned it here, and this one makes me sad to recall. I haven't seen Robby in more than 30 years, though I've heard he isn't a happy person. I wish I could go back and do this one over. I'd try to make it have a better ending.
You may contact me at Bradhealey@rocketmail.com. Drop me a note and I will add you to the list letting you know when new chapters post.
I was 16 when the school band went on a trip
to
Boys were grouped four to a room, and happily, adorable Ryan was in mine and
would also be my bedmate! But the room next door to ours was not such a happy
place. Robby was one of the four boys there, grouped with three strangers. A
year younger than me, Robby was a challenged boy. Tall and always more
physically mature than the others, Robby was shockingly effeminate. All the
other boys mocked him mercilessly, especially the way he walked, sticking their
butts out and swinging them back and forth with each step, almost like a parody
of a
Robby frankly terrified me. I was so afraid that others viewed me as I saw him:
feminine, freakish, and unspokenly homosexual to the
core. But I felt bad for him too, and tried to be kind to him even when it
caused me to take some little heat. My conflicted emotions often caused the
sparks of a short circuit in my psyche. In an attempt to be compassionate I
would take him aside and counsel him uselessly.
"Robby, why the hell do you have to stick your ass out
like that when you walk? Stand up straight and walk
normally like a guy. And don't talk like that! You don't have to sound
like such a girl—stop waving your hands around like that when you talk! Cummon, BUTCH IT
UP, for Christ's sake."
Robby would blink slowly at me behind his designer turtle shell aviator's
eyeglasses and flip his long dark blondish bangs out of his eyes with a little
toss of his head and a flick from his fingers. "Huh? What do you
mean?" he'd ask, confusion registering in his face. "I don't know
what you mean!"
He was hopeless. When he'd laugh and talk at lunch, I'd see other boys nearby
making fun of him behind his back for all his gay mannerisms. I just wanted to
go over to him and shake him by the neck. If he'd only listen to me I could
coach him to not sound and act like such a fag. Even
the way he sat, legs intertwined and stretched to the side as if he had learned
his posture from watching Elizabeth Taylor movies was enough to make my blood
boil.
Today, I know that my fixation with his behavior was mainly because I was so
hypersensitive and insecure about my own appearance and image. (And, I really
believe it is true that those who act the most homophobic towards other often
have the most confusion with their sexuality inside themselves. I was living
proof of that.) As far as being "gay", I had no confirmation what
Robby's actual sexual preference was, and really didn't want to know. It was so
easy to simply assume that he was homosexual; there was really no need to ask.
Researching further would have been almost like trying to prove that water was
wet, as far as I was concerned.
Secretly powerfully conflicted about my own sexuality, I had been first attracted
to Robby a year or two before, but very much like a moth is to a flame. Almost
as a first overture, instead of even hanging out with him or inviting him over
to hang out with my other friends, I had quickly invited him to sleep over, not
because I had a lot of interests in common and wanted to build a friendship
with him, but so I could have the opportunity to observe him in private, away
from my normal friends, and away others' prying eyes. Sitting together in our
skivvies reading comic books on my bed, I slyly passed Robby a racy adult
magazine that I kept hidden in my closet. "What's this?" he asked
nervously, and he grasped it tentatively, like he was holding a dirty diaper.
He flipped through a few pages and I was interested to see his erection rise in
his undershorts immediately in response. The pictures were of naked women, but
it wasn't at all a conflict to me that if Robby was gay that he might also have
an erection from seeing naked girls. After all, I know I always did. Reaching
the centerfold, Robby blushed as he opened it only halfway. Stretched out on
the bed lying on his side, his penis was at full mast, straining behind the
thin fabric of his far-too-small tight whites so that every nuance of it was
clearly visible. He blushed, and handing the magazine back to me he said
"Maybe I shouldn't look at this."
I was amused but didn't tease him about it. I didn't escalate the situation, to
urge him to show me his stiff dick or to masturbate with me, but I had achieved
a goal: adding an element of humanness to his unwittingly cartoonish persona,
learning that he was easily sexually excited, as was I. I filed this knowledge
away for possible future use.
We slept in the same double bed that night, and I could hardly sleep as he lay
beside me, me wide awake and staring at his tall, slim body covered by the thin
sheet as his breathing became slower as he clearly fell asleep. Carefully
peeling the sheet back I saw that his penis again stood erect in his shorts,
and after a great long time of staring intently, with hands shaking I reached
out in the moonlight to touch it for just a moment gently through the cloth,
and found it rigidly firm; turgid, stiff and warm. My hands shook so much with
a case of nerves I was afraid I'd wake him. The room wasn't very dark and my
eyes had adjusted well to the light, and with the sheet thrown back I stared at
his cock so vividly outlined in his underpants. So close, I could see it twitch
ever so slightly with each beat of his heart, and the notion that I was looking
at an alive thing that craved attention even as its owner slept, unaware of its
needs, was very exciting to me. If ever an opportunity existed for me to nudge
Robby awake, and see how he would react to my caresses of his body as he lay
beside me, this was it. But I was too afraid: afraid that he'd say no, even
more afraid that he'd say yes. But probably I was mostly afraid that this
simple act would confirm in my psyche that I was truly doomed to be a homo
freak. So instead, I lay silently beside Robby and staring at his arousal in
the dark, I masturbated myself to a fast, guilty climax to release the
incredible sexual pressure that had built up inside my 14-year-old body over
the past few hours. I recall it was a pleasureless,
mechanical exercise, much the same as a maintenance man would release steam
from a too-hot boiler as a mundane part of his job.
It seems so sad to me that I was unable to have an open conversation about
sexuality with Robby. But he was only 13 and I was 14, and I was just not ready
to be honest with MYSELF about such a heavy, heavy topic, let alone discuss it
with another person. I fell fitfully asleep next to him, confused and agitated.
Not till two years later did we discuss sex again, when Robby admitted to me
shyly that he masturbated, but only after I boldly asked. Again, I was glad to
know that Robby and I shared something in common, but he was so frighteningly
and flamingly homosexual to me that I was still too afraid to do anything more
with the knowledge.
Returning to the scene, all of us boys were reveling in the freedom of being on
a school overnight trip far from home. It was just before curfew, and for a
single wonderful hour boys and girls roamed the wrought iron railing boundaried outdoor hallways of the sleepy southern motor
inn. The night was warm and pleasant, and the voices of happy teenagers filled
the air. I won't retell the story but that night I was truly a sixteen year old
in a silent raging battle involving my own sexual orientation. My heart was
pulling so strongly with deep attraction for my younger friend Ryan, my
mop-topped blue eyed fourteen-year-old friend whom I was falling hopelessly in
love with completely beyond my will, and who I'd room with on this trip. Yet at
the same time I had taken up with a pretty blond blue eyed girl in pigtails
named Brita, and was newly infatuated with holding her hand and especially (I
think) having others see me holding her hand.
It was getting close to curfew and I had just left Brita, after holding her
hand in the moonlight for the past hour, smelling her sweet lavender scented
perfume and wordlessly resting my cheek next to hers. Returning to my room, I
was flushed with pride at my "conquest", more sure than ever that I
certainly must not be gay, because if I was, why would I enjoy being close with
Brita? There was a knock on the motel room door, and when I opened it, I was
surprised to see Robby, standing there, clearly fighting back tears.
"Brad I need to talk to you. Can I come in?" he asked, barely
controlling his shaking voice.
"What? Yeah, sure, come in Robby" I said, pulling him past me into
the room. Robby immediately collapsed and sat on the floor at the foot of the
bed. He breathed heavily as he fought back the urge to cry. "What
happened?" I asked. I had never seen Robby like this before.
"The guys in my room poured ice and water in my bed," he said,
looking into my face as I sat on the floor beside him. "I can't sleep
there." He began to cry openly, and I didn't know what to do.
"Why did they do that, Robby?" I asked, not totally surprised. Robby
was a constant target of the other boys, both older and younger, but I had to
admit that this was a particularly mean trick, considering the circumstances of
being far away from home like this.
"I think I'm gay. When they asked I told them. I told them I like boys,
not girls," Robby confessed through heavy sobs.
I'd like to be able to say that I was a compassionate friend, sharing my maturity and wisdom and that I did the right
thing. But instead, I'd rather like to be able to stop the clock and rewind to
this spot, because at that moment in time I reacted in a way that I am still
most ashamed of.
"You idiot!" I said to him, punching his
shoulder roughly. "Why did you do that? What a stupid thing to have
done!" Robby sniffled and cried harder. "I don't blame them for
throwing you out! What were you thinking? I can't believe you would be so
incredibly stupid!!"
I was filled with a new terror of my own... the kind I might have felt should a
murderer have staggered into my room and confessed his savage deeds to me while
still gripping the murder weapon... maybe even handing me the tool of death to
hold in my own hands, imagining that any moment the police would burst through
the door and catch me holding the bloody object and draw obvious conclusions
that would forevermore make my life an endlessly living hell.
I had to get Robby out of there quickly before anyone saw him. This story was
sure to spread like a gasoline fire, and all I could imagine was how would it
look when others found out that it was ME that Robby had turned to for
compassion and understanding when the other boys had punished him for his
foolish, shameful admission. They'd assume the worst about me too, that we were
two peas in a pod, that because I was friendly to Robby that likely I was his
lover too. I was so angry with Robby for intruding on my heterosexual bliss
that night especially, a night that I had banished thought of my own probable
homosexuality, if even for just a short while.
"Get out of here!" I ordered him. "Stop crying, and go back in
there RIGHT NOW and tell them that it was a joke. Tell them you were only
kidding! Lay some towels on your bed and sleep there. My God, how could you
have been so stupid Robby?" My foolish words of wisdom came from my heart,
I'm afraid. I shared with him what I believed, what I had been taught, what I
knew deep in my heart.
I remember only sleeping fitfully that night, in bed beside Ryan, slim, smooth
and boyish, sleeping in only our undershorts, smelling and feeling his
musky-sweet body heat and hearing him and feeling him softly breathe. As he
slept, I wanted him so badly. But I vowed: this certainly wasn't the way my
life was going to turn out. No way in Hell.