twenty-something

So I make detailed plans to run away. I chart routes and even start packing -- but I always chicken out. I even, for a few fleeting moments, and for the first and only time in my life, seriously consider ending it all. But I can't do that either.

The survivor instinct inside of me is screaming. "Deal with this. Deal With This. DEAL WITH THIS!" And I suddenly understand what this is. It's not school or home. It's not my identity. It's the thing that's been humming inside me... Before I can deal with Brandon or Tom or even Adam -- I have to deal with the one that started it all. "Sean."

For 1994, I briefly wrote: "That September, I have my first sexual experience with another boy. It's the school bully, also 14, and he forces me to let him suck me off at his house after school. It does not end well... leading to Move #5 -- back to NH, with my parents, tail between my legs."

There is, of course, more to the story. But in 1994, at 14, I was unable to deal with it. So I ignored it and repressed it, for two years. But since coming out to myself in 1996, I am increasingly unable to keep it hidden.

And so here you have it, a flashback within a flashback, my deepest secret, which I have shared with less than a dozen people in my life -- before, of course, posting it anonymously on the Internet.

September 1994.

Sean was smart, funny, handsome, and popular -- the only member of the Freshman class at my new school that stood out to me. And there were only 30 of us. I was drawn to Sean, but he didn't like me one bit. He would only eye me suspiciously, seeming to view me as a threat to him, somehow.

For the first two or three weeks of school, Sean did his best to humiliate and ostracize me. I remained resilient to his efforts, slowly making friends and adjusting. But still, he hated me for no apparent reason and so I start pushing back.

It all came to head: Gym class. Floor hockey. Centers for opposite teams.

We were backed into the corner, battling for control of the puck, as we had fought for control of everything else. I realized what I was reduced to: Sean's archenemy, an upstart trying to seize "control" of the school from the most popular Freshman, simply because I could.

The puck was mine. I slammed in out of the corner, hitting Sean's shin in the process. A teammate got the puck and the goal was ours.

Grasping his shin, Sean cursed. As everyone made their way back to their positions, he stared at me. "I am going to kill you," he whispered to me. "You fucking faggot."

The word cut through me, echoing. "Shut the fuck up," I told him.

I saw a fire in his eyes. He had hit the nerve he had been searching for.

"What's wrong?" he teased across the center line. "You fucking Homo."

"Fuck you."

"Like playing with that big, hard stick?" He stroked the hockey stick in his hand lewdly.

"FUCK YOU!" I screamed.

The gym teacher came over to break it up, but it was already over.

"You'd enjoy it too much," Sean said slyly as prepare to face off. My team may have won the goal, but he had won this battle.

But what Sean had found in me, in that moment, wasn't so much a weakness -- but rather a target. In front of others, he was still a complete asshole to me; but suddenly, when we were alone, he would be inexplicably nice to me, even going so far as to apologize for his taunting. It had me stratching my head.

Within a week, I warily accepted a secret after school peace offering to play Mortal Kombat II at his house. And in his room, as my Scorpion pummeled his Johnny Cage, he asked if I'd ever fooled around with another guy.

He was so bold.

I thought it was a joke, so I said no. No no no. But soon, my pants were down (his too) and he was giving me a blowjob. I sat back on his beanbag, practically shaking, and let him do his thing. I was confused, excited, and scared. Before I knew it, he was finished, but I couldn't. And then it was time to get a ride home.

I avoided and ignored him for the next week. He was cruel to me in front of others, but secretly sought me out for more MKII. I declined his invitations.

A week passed. It happened one day after last period P.E.. As usual, I waited until almost everyone was done before I entered the showers. Soon, I was the only one left in the shower and, eventually, in the locker room.

I was washing my hair when I felt a hand roughly latch onto my shoulder.

Startled, I turned to find that it was Sean. All he wore was a twisted grin. His beautiful body was on display before me and it took all my self-control not to look at it. The shampoo ran down my face and stung my eyes. I used it as an excuse to avert my gaze.

He began talking as I finished washing. I said nothing, trying to ignore him to the best of my ability. He talked.

After hitting several topics in his one-sided conversation that failed to get a rise out of me, he finally found one that did. He started graphically talking about masturbation. He touched himself. He groped himself, tugged, and grunted.

I could not help but sneak glances and soon my body betrayed me. My involuntary response kicked in and Sean got what he had wanted all along: proof.

"I knew it."

I said nothing, just looked off into space, seeing nothing.

He moved closer.

Sean rubbed against me. I had lost my ability to speak, think, or move. He drew close and gripped my shoulder.

"It's OK," he said.

He felt good against me, he did. And I even liked his touch. This was something I had thought about, wasn't it? Something I wanted? I had even thought about Sean, what it might be like to do stuff like this with him. But this -- and the blowjob in his room -- it didn't feel right. I was excited, but I wasn't ready.

Sean was stroking both of us when the locker room door opened. (I have never had luck with locker rooms.)

Someone was entering and would be near the showers any second. Sean's desire and excitement transformed into fear. In a split second, he chose a plan on action to get him out of this situation. In a split second, he ruined my life.

His face was pained. He closed his eyes for a moment and then it began. "You fucking faggot!" he screamed. "You really are queer!"

He shoved me. Hard. Then again. On the slippery floor, I fell and hit my head on the cement shower wall. I tried to get up, but he was above me, naked and red with fury.

The person who entered the locker room was Rob, one of Sean's friends. He came to the shower door and saw me defeated.

"What the hell happened?" Rob asked. He was confused.

"Crash is a fucking faggot. Tried to come on to me," Sean said. I didn't bother to protest. I couldn't.

Sean kicked me hard in the side. "We don't want fags like you in our school."

I was reeling in pain, and not primarily from his beating; all his actions in general puzzled me, his words, his behavior, before and after Rob arrived. I struggled to comprehend what was happening, what had happened, but I failed.

Rob looked horrified. "Sean, we've got to get out of here. We're gonna be in so much shit!" And then he took off.

It was just Sean and I again. I looked up to him, staring with hatred, not even seeing him. It was as if I looked right through him.

His rage was gone. He looked almost remorseful. I swear I heard him whisper, "I'm sorry."

And then he was gone and I was left alone, under the shower water, wallowing in a pool of self-loathing.

I wanted to die. Part of me wonders if maybe I did.

I probably would've killed myself right after that. But within three weeks, I was back in New Hampshire with my parents. And I spotted a boy named Adam in my gym class. And I found a CD called "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy". And I channeled every bit of that horrible experience into my obsession with this new boy.

He saved my life.

Remembering and finally dealing with that lost month of my life from 1994 makes all the difference to me in 1997. EVERYTHING from the past two-and-a-half years relates to those moments in that locker room: my crazed crush on Adam, my freak-out during our own locker room encounter, my "fight" with the homophobe, my discomfort with sex with Brandon... all of it. Fucked up because of a horny fourteen year old jock.

It's tough, but all I can say is, "Fuck it." It happened. It sucked. It will always be a part of me, but I can't let it rule me. "Even God cannot change the past."

Thus endeth the lesson. And the depression.

● ● ●
I stop listening to No Doubt's "Don't Speak" and start listening to "Sunday Morning." That shit is bananas! Spring has begun to arrive, and it's a beautiful thing.
● ● ●
Hey! Remember Heaven's Gate? That happened in '97! My friend Mike makes a parody site for the "Temple of Mario Kart." (A MUST-CLICK -- then check out the original HG site!)
● ● ●
Getting my life back on track after my winter ordeal is an arduous task. Picking up the pieces takes a while, but I do it.

I tell my "therapist" that I'm gay. I also tell him the Sean story. He says that I'm making it all up, that I'm not gay, that those things never happened to me. I tell him to take a flying fuck and I walk out of his office, smiling.

I tell my mother to deal with it. She, apparently, does.

I tell my bitter former-nun/current-repressed-and-closeted-lesbian History teacher and my guidance counselor that I screwed up and I deserve another chance. The teacher wants me out, but I won't budge.

She grimaces at me, but I see through her. "Rewrite it," she says. "From scratch."

I do, and I am not kicked out of school. My brand-new term paper is on the stigma of HIV/AIDS on gay men. I call it "Men Without Hope." It's sad yet empowering to discover part of my "gay heritage." Once I turn it in, the teacher suddenly gets it. And it shuts her the hell up.

Life isn't great. I still have a ways to go. But I'm finally back on a good road. I'm dealing with my shit. And I'm learning two important feelings: hope and pride. What else do I need?

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Posted by Patrick on 04/20/05 at 12:01 AM
Categorized: 90s-Something
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