Warning: Apart from being pure fiction I'm not sure what this story is, if you read it, you tell me. Apart from a lot of talk, this story also contains descriptions of one hetero incestuous rape and one incident of gay-male rape, the two incidents are intwined in a rather disturbing manner. Don't read if you have no stomach for nonconsentual fiction.
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John didn't realise he was in trouble, before he was grabbed from behind on a desolate sidewalk. Even then he still thought it was a sort of joke, a belief he somehow retained while a second person taped his mouth shut - duct-style. But when one of his assailants spoke to him, John knew he was in deep shit and started struggling like a maniac.
"So you like gay-bashing. Do you, John? Huh? By the time we are done with you, you will be wishing your dad's lawyer didn't get you off the hook."
----=(Twenty-four years later)=----
"I'm... uh..." Dave was fidgeting with his coffee cup, even here with only his two best friends present, he had trouble bringing himself to say it.
Molly and Brian looked at him, patiently, not pushing. The three of them were close. They knew Dave well enough to understand he was trying to say something personal, and if Dave was about to tell them something private, which they didn't already know, then it truly had to be a big secret.
"I'm gay," Dave said, finally pushing out the words.
"Ok," Molly said, her tone about the same as it would have been if he had said 'My real hair colour is brown'.
Brian didn't say anything.
"There I said it," Dave continued, "I'm out of the closet."
"Good for you, Dave," Molly said, and offered a small smile, "There is gonna be a trail of broken hearts at the office, but the girls will get over it eventually. When are you going to tell your parents?"
"Tomorrow," Dave said, and nodded as if to confirm his own words.
"Don't do it, Dave," Brian advised, staring intently into his own coffee cup. As if the surface of his coffee had a manual - written in sugar and cream - on how to live as a gay man.
"What?" Dave was baffled, he hadn't been sure how Brian would react to his announcement. A multitude of possible reactions had run through his mind the previous evening. An advice to stay in the closet, however, had not been one of them.
"I said, don't do it," Brian reiterated, and wrestled his eyes of his cup, dragging them to Dave's face.
"Don't listen to him, Dave. Do it," Molly countered.
The three friends went quiet, they didn't want to fight. Brian was the first to break the silence.
"If you do it, you will become a walking, talking political statement. You will become a living bill-board sign saying 'Gay is ok'. Friends, family, acquaintances, everyone you know, will become political nay- or yay-sayers. Not to mention, you will become a hate-target."
After his speech Brian let his eyes move back to his coffee.
"If you don't do it, you will be living a lie. Lies are like slow-working poison, they infest and spread, and you can't presume to know what the consequences will be."
"Bullshit," Brian stated, "as long as he doesn't tell anyone, it won't mean a thing to anyone but himself."
The friends went quiet again. Once again Brian was first to break the silence, after a couple sips of courage gathering coffee.
"I'm gay too."
"Ok," Molly said.
"You?" Dave asked.
"Yes, me. But I keep it to myself, I'm not a bill-board."
Quiet took hold of the room yet again. This time Molly was the first to talk.
"Since we are sharing secrets today, maybe I should offer mine too."
"What? Are you gay too?" Dave asked, his head was spinning. Admitting to his best friends that he was gay had felt unreal, being told that one of them was gay too made him feel like he was having a surreal dream.
"No, I'm not gay," Molly said, "but in ways I would prefer if that had been my secret."
"Hah," was Brian's comment to that remark.
"In ways, Brian, in ways," she said and shot her old friend a harsh glance, "Maybe you should listen to my secret before you judge?"
"Sure, let's hear it," Brian doubted she could say anything that would make him retract his 'hah'.
"Twenty-four years ago, my brother was on trial for a hate crime," Molly began, "My father was fairly wealthy and hired a really good lawyer. His money seemed to be well spent. In spite of being guilty like fuck, my brother, John, was acquitted on all counts."
Molly sipped her coffee, her tone and manner would imply she was telling just yet another normal tale of something half-interesting, but her shaking hands revealed she was troubled by the memories.
"The crime was gay-bashing. You see, me and all my siblings, we hated gays in general and gay men in particular. We weren't directly raised that way, it was just the tone at home. Or well, our father's tone. If a package arrived torn and battered, the post office was run by faggots. If a sports judge made bad calls during a fight, he was a fucking queer. All that, the usual, you hear it all the time."
Brian and Dave nodded.
'How is this supposed to be a speech in favour of leaving the closet?'
Dave wondered.