Chapter 7.5 Ancient History

I’VE never been one to enjoy the “life of Riley,” as they say. As far

as I am concerned, my life has been an uphill battle in an ice storm with no crampons. Nothing goes right for me—at least not without effort. When I came out to my parents, it was a forced event. I wasn’t ready to admit my sexuality, but that option died the moment I was caught ogling Brad Foley’s ass. Since then, it seemed like I never had it easy.

My dad didn’t talk to me for a long time. He used to take me on “garden tours,” as he called them and spout Latin names for plants and pick up bugs for me to identify with our insect encyclopedia. After I was a known homosexual, there was a threeyear gap in our father-son outings. Thankfully, the silence ended, but to this day I am unsure what changed.

My mom and I have never been very close. We talk, and I guess the communication is about the same as it always was, but she favored my older sister. That’s just the way it was.

I hear there are families that are affectionate by nature, but that wasn’t mine. We didn’t hug. And we didn’t talk about our feelings. I learned early on to suck it up and take things like a man. Of course, as I got older, that cliché got harder and harder to understand. I wanted affection. I longed for a hug now and then when I fell and scraped my knee, but that wasn’t acceptable in the family I had. We didn’t cry over cuts and bruises! At least not out in the open.

I remember running to my room and hiding in the corner between the bed and the wall, crying until the pain went away. I’d pretend my mom came in to smooth my hair out of my eyes and kiss my nose. She’d tell me, “You’ll live.” But it was all in my imagination.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, and we did have fun together. We camped when I was little (like I mentioned before) and went crabbing on the Chesapeake Bay. My dad taught me how to clean fish, and my mom taught me how to cook. (Although, when I moved out and asked how to cook hotdogs, I thought she’d die from laughter. I’ll never live that one down!) We were a good, normal family, I guess, with the exception of those few years during high school.

After high school, life got worse.

I had to get a job. I worked at Giant Food for four whole weeks before my mother decided I needed to go to college “stress free.” That was a joke. She thought that giving me money would be easier on me so that I’d keep a four-point-oh and land a high-paying job when I graduated. Thanks Mom, I appreciate that. Not having to work was nice, but it didn’t make everything easy. My grades were not hard to maintain; it was having extra time on my hands that I didn’t need. If I had a job, I wouldn’t have time to worry and obsess over my personal life.

The one I didn’t have.

I tried talking to people on campus, but they looked at me like I was a nerdy freak. (Which I suppose I am.) I didn’t really have great social skills given my nonaffectionate family, and the fact that I am gay and was basically shunned from the age of fifteen. I’d never had close friends; my best friend was always my dad.

(Which is why I am socially awkward after he ignored me for a couple years. Maybe I need to talk to a professional about that? It could not have been beneficial to my emotional development. Hmm.)

I’m convinced that meeting Jonathan was a fluke. I mean, he’s, like, awesome, and I didn’t have to work for his friendship at all. It just fell together! Things like that don’t just happen, at least not to me! Still, our friendship came on fast and strong, like a summer storm, only it didn’t die out as fast as it came. It endured for three years.

During that time, I developed a small crush on Jonathan. He knew about it. He laughed about it. And he helped formulate a game-plan of communal discourse that would lead to relational bliss. At least that was the plan.

My disastrous date to the cemetery, he had no control over, but date number two? He could not contemplate the reason for failure.

“SERIOUSLY?” Jonathan questioned shrilly.

“Seriously,” I replied for the second time, without a hint of sarcasm or humor to my tone. “You better not ask me that again.”

“But… guys really do that?” he asked, flummoxed by the activities of men in America, as though being gay made them so different from straight guys.

I flopped back on his bed after closing the door behind me. The noise from the other boys in the house was deafening. I was glad we were comfortable enough around each other not to have to “pretend” for the sake of appearances. Do you get my drift? He was fine if I was in his room with the door closed and others were in the house. He didn’t care if they said something about his sexuality. He was secure enough to know he liked women. And he was also secure enough to know he could be near me in a comfortable, lay-on-mybed type of way and know I wasn’t going to make a move on him.

I wasn’t stupid. I’d acquired some self-control. I could be near him and not think thoughts that made me get hard and sweaty. “What can I say? Some guys are pigs,” I admitted with a sigh.

“Well, yeah, but he didn’t seem like that to me when we met him,” Jonathan replied. He crossed his outstretched legs and just about kicked me in the head. He was leaning up against his headboard, and I was at the foot of the bed with my legs hanging over the end.

We had discussed my single status a week or two prior and he’d told me I was good-looking enough to be able to find an interested party anywhere. When I laughed out loud, he considered it a personal challenge and we ended up cruising for guys everywhere we went. It was sort of fun, so I went along with it. He’d point at some random guy, and I’d say, “No way,” or “Maybe,” and his guesses would get more and more accurate to what I liked in a guy. The problem was, every guy he pointed out was straight.

This time, the guy we discussed as we lay on his bed, was not. Another fluke! We were in a mini-mart and this cute guy was squeezing the honeydew melons. Jonathan pointed, I nodded, and the cute guy, his name was Eric, smiled our way. I froze, but luckily Jonathan thought fast on his feet. He had me over to Eric in a flash, and he was—to my shock—interested!

So we went out.

He took me to the movies, which was nice. I liked movies. And he bought me popcorn. Then, after the movie, at the remote end of the parking lot, next to his car, he kissed me a few times and asked me to suck him off. I didn’t question it because I happen to like sucking cock. I might not remember the guy’s name who fucked me the first time, but I remembered his dick. And I remembered how much I liked sucking it!

Just before Eric came, he pulled his dick out of my grasp and milked it the rest of the way all over my face. And that was that. No reciprocation. No exchange of phone numbers. No kiss good-night. He drove me home in silence and then sped off.

I sighed. “This is the luck with guys that I was telling you about.”

“Cheer up, Cole. So, this date was disappointing. At least you didn’t get pregnant.” He chuckled and I appreciated his attempt to make me smile. “I admit it’s less than encouraging, but the right guy is out there. I know it. You’ll find someone.” He sounded so hopeful. I only wish I felt the same optimism.

“I can’t believe you are okay with me talking about it.”

He replied honestly. “It’s no different than listening to other guys talk about eating out a girl’s pussy. It’s just sex. It’s not like I’m there watching it.”

“I guess. But I don’t really want to hear about pussy, if you don’t mind.”

He laughed and nudged my shoulder with his foot. I shook my head and grabbed at his ankle. Jonathan waved his foot around, evading my snare until we both jumped due to a loud noise in the hallway.
“We have to get our own place,” he said.

“Definitely.”

IT WENT on like that for the next three years. I officially met one guy per year due to Jonathan’s point-them-out method while we were around town. (And unofficially, I hooked up with Eric twice to give him head. What can I say? I’m pathetic.) I liked the sex, but it was clear that sex wasn’t my sole purpose in dating. I wanted a relationship, and I didn’t see that logistically happening while I was at school. Gettysburg just did not have a gay population large enough to support my needs. I was resigned to giving up.

“YOU can’t give up. Not yet. What about the guy you met in

Lancaster?”
I gave him my you’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me glare. “Garrett?” “Yeah, Garrett. You went out with him twice!”
I shrugged lazily. “I don’t feel anything for him.”
“Did you give him a chance?”
“Yes.”
Jonathan gave me “the look.”

“Yes,” I reiterated with more conviction. “I gave him a chance, but he doesn’t do anything for me. His kissing is… blah.” “Really? Is that the only reason? Because I remember when he showed up at our door you could not get past his attire.”

“Plaid on plaid in not fashionable!” I couldn’t believe he was bringing it up again. “And… he slurps when he drinks. I can’t stand it!”

“You are going to have to let go of these nitpicks eventually. No one is perfect.”

“I know.” My shoulders sagged. I knew he was right. I was too demanding. I sat next to him on the couch and told him, “He called yesterday and asked me to a party tomorrow night. I said I’d think about it.”

“He did?” Jon was very excited. “Then you should go!” He slapped my knee and playfully punched my shoulder.

 

“But he seems so boring,” I pointed out.

 

“And you sum this up from two dates? Give him a chance. Maybe he’ll surprise you.”

 

I LISTENED to Jonathan, and I called Garrett back. That was the last date I went on.

“What happened?” Jon asked with great concern as I entered his bedroom at nine thirty Friday night. (I would have pointed out the sadness of being in bed at nine thirty on a Friday night, but I knew Cathy was at her parents’ house.)

I stood still by the doorway. Numb. “He….” I couldn’t form the sentence in my head. I was too stunned.

 

Jonathan got out of bed and walked over to me. He touched my shoulder and I jumped. “What is it?” he asked, concerned.

“Garrett… he….” When I stopped again, I could see the alarms going off in Jon’s eyes. I touched his comforting hand. “No, he didn’t hurt me.”

“Then what happened? You look really shaken.”

He urged me forward and we sat on his bed. He allowed me time to gather my thoughts and caringly rubbed my back. This is why I can’t find someone. No one measures up to how great Jonathan makes me feel. “Garrett took me to a sex party.”

“What?” Shocked, Jon stopped making small circles on my back.

“Yup. Boring, plaid-on-plaid Garrett is into orgies.” I looked at him and felt my emotions flooding in. However, I refused to cry. I would not cry. I hadn’t cried in almost five years, and I wasn’t going to let Garrett break me.

“I can’t believe that. Wow. I guess you never know about people,” he mused. “And you’re sure?”

“Oh yeah. Naked people throughout the apartment, fucking and sucking anyone close enough to touch, the smell of come and latex chokingly thick in the air—yeah, I’m sure.”

I knew there was nothing really to say to that. Jon’s response was, “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” I leaned my head onto his shoulder. “Are you sure I can’t simply date you? I could get a sex-change operation and you could eat my pussy all you want.”

He chuckled. “Don’t you think you’d miss your dick?”

I sighed again. I touched my genitals reassuringly. “Yeah, I would. I don’t want to be a girl. It would merely make it easier if I could have you and not try to find someone in the vast seas of mediocrity. Are you sure you have to graduate in a few months? Can’t you stay with me next year until I graduate too?”

“Nope. Sorry. But I promise you’ll find someone special. I bet it’ll happen when you least expect it and when you aren’t even looking. You’ll see!”

JONATHAN was always positive. And, he always supported me. But when he told me I’d meet someone special, I didn’t believe him! Six months later, I met Ellis.