My name is Pete, and I'm going to tell you a story. Now, It might be long, but I like to think its a good one.
The thing about most good stories though, is that you rarely know when when ones begun, until you're already in too deep. Chapters have unfolded, and you feel like you've almost reached the end. If you're lucky, you start to realize what it was all about, even if you have no idea what's going to happen.
From what I can recall though, my story starts like this...
* * * * * * *
I looked out through the frosted window at the snow covered sidewalk, nervously awaiting my guest. It was a week after New Years, and the neighbours hadn't taken their lights down, so the few flakes in the air twinkled as they spun to the ground. I could see a figure crossing the street, his hands buried into his pockets, head bowed as he walked. He approached my porch and quietly knocked.
Opening the door let in a gush of cold air, and I gestured him inside. He stomped the snow off his sneakers and pulled his toque off.
"wow, all this yours?"
"Yup, for now anyways,"
He was a stringy kid with a shaggy mop of brown hair on his head, and a dusting of fuzz on his chin. he took off his heavy winter jacket, his wide shoulders tenting his t-shirt out over his skinny build. He was tall but delicate.
I closed the front door, shutting out the brutal cold and followed him down the hallway. This kid was a complete stranger, and obviously new to my place, but I let him tour me as he walked around trying to get his bearings. With his back to me, I checked the app to make sure I remembered his name. "So Mikey, did you want a drink?"
We were practically in the kitchen by that point anyways.
He turned on heel, and kissed me, his hands grabbing at my ass, pulling our groins together. Even through our jeans, our hard-ons were obvious, and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, gripping tight as we made out with increased passion. My body leaned into his, and pushed him against the fridge, magnets falling to the floor with a clatter. His hands slipped past my waistband and under my briefs until he was kneading the hairy flesh of my ass cheeks. We were panting at each other as we ground our bodies in a crude embrace.
A break between our lips allowed him to speak "Where do you—" his voice trailed off as I began to nibble his neck.
"Bedroom's upstairs,"
He slid his body out from underneath mine, and grabbed my hand. I trailed his youthful energy as he blindly drug me upstairs.
After we both got off, there was some polite chit chat before he left. Nice kid, I thought. Cute, but sexy. I figured I would never hear from him again.
* * * * * * *
My profile had a picture of me hefting a large fish in a boat. I thought the tank top, the muscle and the easy smile worked best online, selling me as a pretty basic bro who just so happened to be looking for dick. 33, 6'1, fit jock type. Enjoys beers with guys, sports and architecture. It got me play. What it didn't say of course, was that I was perpetually in the gym and eating the most boring shit known to man. That I was nervous about whether or not my dirty blonde hair was receding, that I was dying in a horrible office job, and feared that the older I got, the fewer options I would have in love.
I didn't come out until I was 25, and when it finally happened I threw myself into the lifestyle full force. I moved to the village, became a club queen, fucked a lot, took a lot of drugs, and fell hard for a guy. I would learn though, that we were all incredibly fucked up.
I had this theory about it too - that at that point in time, before Glee and Will & Grace and Ellen, before marriage equality - all us gays were still incredibly on the edge of respectability. And that even as acceptance and law fell on our side, the greater number of us still suffered from a post traumatic stress thing. It was the guilt we'd lived with our entire lives, compounded with the desperate grab for sex and intimacy, turning into even more guilt and shame for not having more self control and self respect.
The guy I fell hard for, I still don't know what it was all about. Like, I felt as though when I met him, that I suddenly wanted all the usual trappings of a straight relationship. I wanted to be his, and him mine - with nobody in the picture or on the horizon. I wanted out of the clubs, and onto the couch. I wanted to shop at Costco on the weekends with him, and be boring. Like I said, I still don't know why, but he flicked that switch for me.
But he didn't feel that way back. We had mutual attraction and lusts, just not the same feelings.
The thing that I didn't understand about his reaction at first, was that while I wanted all that I wanted - he was scared, and non-committal. We'd both grown up as the despised other, grabbing at each others cocks in the dark, away from prying eyes, the judgement, the ridicule. We were both used to feeling like we had to hide, and be ready to run. At the time, there was no role model for the "respectable" gay life, just a branded idea of what being gay really was. Marriage wasn't granted to us, so we rejected it and defined ourselves by it.
But when I fell in love, like real, hard, difficult, love - everything I really wanted was seen as "straight".
As one could imagine, picking up the shrapnel of an "exploded" heart with all the anger and resentment possible, made it that much easier to prescribe to that theory. If I was gay, I wasn't going to let the norms of straight society tell me about monogamy. I was going to celebrate my sex and do whomever the fuck I wanted.
By the time I hit thirty though, I was hit with a wall of regret. I could easily feel my relevancy on the scene dissipate. Where do old fags go exactly? Again, I was short of role models - the generation before mine didn't have the luxury of old age.
Great. We could marry now and have stable and public relationships. Except me, and everyone my age was taught that that was wrong, so...
I tried my hand at boyfriends in the last couple years, seeking out guys like me in my early thirties. But I would either find a guy who showed up with "couple goals", or one who loved stability, so long as they weren't the ones providing it. I was probably also caught somewhere in between, I suppose.
It was fucked up. I was fucked up. And with my job being so incredibly meaningless, I did nothing but focus on my failures to find and keep love.
But as John Lennon said "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans"
* * * * * * *
— You up? —
I heard the blip on the app while talking to an older guy about kink. His responses were lagging, and the probability of a hook up with him was falling fast, so I flipped over to the messages and saw what was sent.
It was Mikey. The kid from January. Mikey was back.
If I was being completely honest, the stages of emotion that follow were something like this.
Yes! That cute guy I hooked up with! Now I don't have to make do with someone else. Maybe he DIDN'T think I was ugly/awful in bed/smelly the last time He's probably just drunk and horny and doesn't care.
Despite the rollercoaster ending in a dip, I wrote back and hoped for the best.
