Growing Up Queer in Australia

by Benjamin Law

  This silence made me more aware of my surroundings, more so than my peers. Years later, over beers with an old bandmate, I casually remarked on the school’s wire Jesus.

  ‘Wire Jesus?’ he replied, wiping the beer’s head from his lip. Surely I couldn’t be the only one who’d noticed. I was captivated by that sculpture of Jesus. Not in the spiritual, believe-he-died-for-my-sins kind of way; it was the oddness of the crucifix, or lack thereof, that got me. Unlike in most churches, where the Son-of-God was well-and-truly nailed to the cross, this Jesus was liberated, a minimalist wire sculpture suspended above, his hand stretched out before him. Waiting in line for the Eucharist, my eyes would fix on where Jesus’ eyes should have been but weren’t, and I’d feel a piercing pain in my lungs, like the sort I sometimes got from running. I did not believe in God – or His wrath on Sodom – but beneath that chicken-wire Jesus, I felt seen in all my queerness and I was afraid.

  St Paul’s had a strict uniform policy that extended well beyond its gates; after school, teachers drove in their dusty Volvos to distant train stations to find students wearing their uniform improperly all across the eastern suburbs. After my forty-minute bus ride and twenty-minute train ride, it was easy to believe that I was far away from the institution’s reach. But on a thirty-six-degree day, after I loosened my tie just enough to let in air at my clammy neck, Father Michael stepped out ominously from behind the bus stop. He took my name and wrote me a detention slip.

  The following lunchtime, I walked to the edge of campus. The detention rooms were famously stuffy, the air too hot and close. I arrived on time, and sat in the back row to avoid the light, split by the venetians. Mr Lee, a dumpy man known as ‘Dogfuck’, supervised. The nickname originated in the aftermath of an infamous religious education class in which Lee said that masturbation was a greater sin than bestiality.

  ‘I’m surprised to see you here,’ Mr Lee said.

  I might have explained myself, if not for Tan. He came through the door yelling to an out-of-sight friend, but silenced when he saw Lee. The men acknowledged each other with the wordless nod you might grant an old enemy. Tan shuffled to the back of the room and settled beside me. My fingers started to tremble. I met his gaze with trepidation, and raised my eyebrows, as if to say, Hey. He pulled out his laptop. My stomach plunged. We were supposed to tackle our homework in silence, and I thought we might do just that, until I saw him opening MSN and circling his username with his mouse. I don’t know why he wanted to talk to me; he had barely shown me any attention at all. To pay this mind would break my rule of silent protection. But I was intrigued by the gesture.

  His username was t@nXXX. Mine was Basil Lurhman. In his profile picture, he stood in green shorts at the beach, rivulets of seawater tracing his abdominals. Mine was of model trains.

  t@nXXX said: look at Dogfuck go.

  Mr Lee picked at his teeth with his finger, digging furiously in an attempt to dislodge an indeterminate green speck.

  What do you suppose he’s digging for? I wrote.

  Tan sniggered. Treasure.

  Mr Lee’s excavation expanded into a two-handed operation. His left hand prised his lip over his gums, exposing a raw fleshy mound into which his finger furrowed. Tan sent another message. You got any games?

  I admitted that I did not.

  Nerd.

  Mr Lee rose with an exasperated huff. The dig had failed to dislodge the gunk.

  ‘You gentlemen stay here,’ he said. ‘Keep working, and don’t talk.’

  With Lee gone, Tan let loose his crooked smile.

  ‘I have a game,’ he said. ‘Want to see?’

  The game’s name was Beer Goggles. The player shifted a six-pack from left to right, trying to catch bottles that fell from the top of the screen. On the right, a buxom blonde flashed a flirty smile. I didn’t understand. Tan collected ten bottles and the game lurched, as if glitching. The bottles sped up. The woman on the right was now sans shirt, firm nipples visible through a white bra. Another ten bottles, and her pants flashed off. She lost her shoes, her panties. Finally, her breasts were free.

  Nailed it! the game declared.

  ‘You think she’s hot?’ Tan asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied, though I didn’t really think so. Something about the game had left a sour sensation in my mouth.

  ‘The next chick’s hotter.’ Tan clicked ‘Play Again’.

  The ‘next chick’ had red hair. Larger breasts, curvier. I felt nauseated. Then I realised that for him this was porn, and he was probably hard. I eased myself up an inch in my seat, vying for a glance. I saw it stir beneath the fabric of his shorts. My cock lurched in reply. I could tell he had a pornstar dick. I bit my lip, and held my breath.

  ‘You like that, huh?’ Tan asked.

  I glanced back at the screen. The ginger woman’s pants blipped into non-existence, revealing a trimmed strip of pubic hair. ‘Oh yeah,’ I said, swallowing. ‘Hot.’

  A bang on the window behind us. Tan slammed his computer shut as we turned around together. Mr Lee’s round face was pressed up against the glass – bright red and furious. He too had seen the ginger pubes.

  ‘Fuck.’ Tan said.

  *

  Sex education at St Paul’s was folded into a class called ‘Personal Development’, in which we mostly talked about ‘Goals’ and how to say no to drugs. What I recall most vividly was a video about ‘the change’, which featured infrared footage of a hard penis. The boys in my class had screamed ‘Sick!’ and ‘Turn it off!’ while Mr Platt, our teacher, yelled, ‘Be mature’. I was oddly captivated, and I knew in that moment what others had deduced from my girlish laugh.

  So I felt ridiculous, and sick with dread, to be dragged to the vice-principal’s office for the porn I had no interest in. Being caught with porn was about the worst thing that could happen to a boy at St Paul’s. When Father Peter had caught Bradley Howett gifting his stash to a Year 8, a meeting was organised with the vice-principal, who played the offending material back to Bradley and his stone-faced parents. Bradley told the story through fits of laughter, but terror hung behind the façade. Excuses presented themselves to me as Dogfuck walked us across campus: I could tell the vice-principal that I was forced to watch it. I could say, ‘I was as shocked as anyone, I was only looking so I could be sure of what it was, once I knew it was too late.’ I could pose a question: ‘If someone tapes a knife to your hand while you’re unconscious and uses it to kill someone, does that make you a killer?’ I had a good record, would probably get away with it. But I couldn’t do that to Tan. It felt right that we should both suffer. I thought that, like Simon of Cyrene, the shared burden of our cross would draw us together somehow – that it would become the story we would laugh about and tell strangers at parties when they asked how we became friends.

  I was lucky: the school only called my mother, who responded with faint, inarticulate huffs. When I got home, she had burnt dinner, and then she disappeared to her night-shift at the Alfred Hospital without looking at me. I was not surprised. We were strangers in those days, and weathered the disappointments we inflicted on each other as old friends do – we did not believe that the other person was capable of change. The shame I had felt quickly gave way to excitement. Tan had shown me porn; we got hard together. In Pastoral Care the following day, I asked him for the game. I needed him to know: I was hard too.

  Our detention was escalated to a Saturday. In the days leading up to it, the bulge of Tan’s cock crowded my thoughts. I found a photo of him online wearing a lime-green mankini at last year’s swimming carnival – the swimwear came with the special DVD edition of his favourite film, Borat. I heaved over this photo: it was what I turned to when horny at night and hard in the morning. I could not, did not, believe the fantasy would become real. Still, usually in the heat of it, I opened MSN with the intent of starting a conversation, only to be stopped by the terror and exhilaration that pounded through my body. Besides, I had been unable to think of anything to say except ‘Hi.�
��

  Saturday came. In the shower, I nervously scrubbed my arsehole, just in case. I didn’t have any concrete plans, and when I tried to rehearse a conversation it failed. I was unable to imagine what we might talk about – he did not seem the sort to get lost in a discussion about Thelonious Monk. Still, when I saw Tan standing outside Father Peter’s office joking with Tommo and Luis, my crotch tightened with anticipation. Tan was leaning against the lockers in the hall, and nodded a hello. I watched him, not really listening to what he was saying. I wanted to touch his body; I kept my hands in my pockets and pinched my thigh when I felt myself getting hard. Then, Kristof rocked up and gave Tan a one-armed hug. He was one of Tan’s best mates, a quiet man who was built like a refrigerator. Watching them embrace, the tightness in me evaporated – I wouldn’t be able to get between their antics.

  We spent the morning picking up litter from the footy oval under the watch of Father Peter. Above, stony clouds hung close like a ceiling. I scooped discarded Smith’s chip packets and the lids of LeSnaks and Yoplaits from the dewy earth, while Tan and Kristof trailed behind, taking the piss. They shoved each other and laughed in thick stumbling bursts. When Father Peter asked what was so funny, Tan pointed to a used condom.

  ‘That’s too big to be yours, mate,’ Kristof said.

  ‘You’re right,’ Tan said. ‘Must be your mum’s.’

  *

  Waiting for the 904 bus, I felt ridiculous. I smelt mouldy from the trash and was hot with disappointment. But what had I missed out on, really? Him fucking me at detention? I mourned him all the same. I tried to escape into my book but couldn’t absorb myself in it. What had seemed exciting a week before was now unfathomably far away.

  ‘Hey, nerd.’

  Tan settled on the seat beside me and gave the finger to a passing black Mercedes.

  ‘Kristof,’ he explained. ‘If he isn’t the richest cunt we know, I don’t know who is.’

  His use of the collective ‘we’ punctured my misery. Perking up, I asked, ‘How rich is he? Does he have a tennis court?’ Idiot.

  ‘Ask him yourself,’ Tan said. ‘His folks hate me. Won’t let me round. Want to smoke?’

  He led me into thick bushland and down to a shadowed clearing. Under dappled glow, Tan stared at me with his arms folded as I struggled with the lighter. If he were testing me I was failing. I tried the spark wheel six or so times before the flame leapt up, and when I dragged on the firm tube nicotine seized the back of my throat. I managed to stifle the cough. Tan easily lit his own cigarette and blew smoke into the sky.

  ‘Where d’you live?’ Tan asked.

  ‘Close-ish. Montmorency.’

  ‘That’s the fucking sticks,’ he said. ‘What do you do out there?’

  ‘A lot of reading, I guess.’

  He sucked to the butt and flicked the cigarette into the underbrush. I waited for a fire to erupt in the scrub, and when nothing happened I followed his lead. He lit two more smokes and passed one to me.

  ‘What did your folks think of the tits?’ he said. ‘Good boy like you, I bet they flipped their fucking shit.’

  I didn’t like that he called me a good boy. I exhaled some smoke.

  ‘They were chill,’ I said. ‘Disappointed, but too ashamed to say anything. What did yours think?’

  Tan pulled up his shirt and pointed to a vermilion bruise below his right nipple. ‘Dad.’ He made a half smile.

  ‘Shit,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Tan laughed. ‘Not your fault,’ he said. He shuffled across the dirt and rearranged himself beside me. ‘Last one,’ he explained, producing another cigarette. We shared it close, his leg against mine. He smelt like chlorine. My head spun from fear and nicotine. I wanted nothing more than for this moment to go on forever. I took another drag, and stared at the autumn leaves shivering overhead. Then, his hand settled on my lower thigh.

  My heart rattled but I didn’t let myself look. With delicate, testing movements, the hand shuffled north. The advance ceased, then continued. My gaze strayed to Tan’s face. He grinned manically. His hand moved on to the inside of my thigh, and he was close, so close he brushed up against the firm presence and – ‘Fuck!’ He leapt to his feet.

  ‘You were going to let me,’ he said. ‘Weren’t you.’

  I said nothing. He grabbed his bag and set back up the hill. I realised too late he was playing chicken; hard and horny and bewildered, I had failed to swerve.

  I spent the rest of the weekend in a terrified fugue. My insides squealed and roared. What was I going to do? If I asked Tan not to tell anyone, it would be like admitting that something did happen, and I wasn’t ready to admit that to myself or anyone else. Should I deny everything, pretend it never happened? Should I fake sick? Move schools? I knew I couldn’t come out. My mother had once said, ‘The gays live lonely lives.’

  I stayed up till four on the Saturday, taking bites out of the block of tasty cheese in the fridge. My skin felt irritable, and poorly fit; like a wetsuit a size too small. Near delirium on Sunday, I logged on to MSN, praying he’d be online. I would pretend my enthusiasm was a joke – and if that failed, beg. He sent a message to me the moment I came online.

  t@nXXX: ive been thinking of u

  Alone, words are dangerous, terrible things.

  Basil Lurhman: Is that so?

  youre gay . . . aren’t you? its kwl if u r.

  He would be laughing at the other end, getting ready to take a screenshot if I confessed.

  He said: I hope u r.

  I wanted to vomit. I wrote: I think I might be bi.

  I want you to blow me, he said. I would . . . like . . . put my dick . . . down your throat.

  I unzipped my pants, released my already firm cock, typed: I wouldn’t object. My most explicit flirt.

  t@nXXX: coz like . . . once I start . . . im not gonna wanna stop . . . for at least a couple of days.

  I came, violently. Shame bloomed in my gut, and I wanted him more than ever.

  So, I wrote. When do you want to do this?

  No reply. I waited a minute, another few.

  t@nXXX: Duuuudeee. Another pause. My sister was using my computer.

  I slapped my laptop shut and whispered, ‘Shit!’ I opened the screen again, studied the flashing cursor.

  I’m not gay, I typed.

  I was fucked.

  But Tan told no one. And when he messaged me late one Tuesday evening, I understood. We had started to play a game: we sexted and absolved ourselves of perversion post-orgasm, only to return later, filthier and more desperate.

  At school, we remained distant. I learnt that he was slightly allergic to Vaseline; that he had to take cold showers to keep his skin from erupting into hives. Mostly, we talked about sex. Then we stopped absolving ourselves. He would steal his older sister’s g-strings and send me photos of him barely contained in the underwear. I replied in kind.

  When Tan started going around with Mary, a girl from our sister school, I despaired, but the lewd messages continued. We bought webcams. I discovered that his pornstar penis delivered pornstar loads. He loved to watch me swallow.

  One night he wrote: I can promise u . . . I want my dick to be aching. . . if I fuck you.

  When I took the exam for my learner’s permit, he told me not to fail: take me cruising, he wrote.

  It was my idea to book the room at the Box Hill Motor Inn. I suppose we might have driven to a car park, or secretly fucked in one of our bedrooms, but I wanted romance, the texture of his skin against mine as we fell into sleep together.

  I checked in a little after six. I was frightened and excited, my voicing wobbling as I passed my ID over to the disinterested concierge. While she scanned my documents, I wondered if she knew what my night was going to entail and felt suddenly hot, my temples pricking with embarrassment. This was ridiculous, I knew – even if she guessed, why would she care. And even if she did, what Tan and I had planned was legal. Though it didn’t feel that way to me then – it felt filthy and
illicit.

  Safe in the room, I stripped to my briefs and sent Tan a selfie. He said he’d meet me at seven, which gave me forty minutes to kill. I took a beer from my bag and sipped in the shower, where I washed my hair with the complimentary shampoo. I emerged bright pink from the water and checked my phone. Nothing. It was twenty past seven. You nearby? I typed out. Another hour passed, without reply. I drank another beer, attempted to call – straight to voicemail. I felt furious, and desperately sad. I wanted to scream and throw things around the room, but also crawl under the bed and stay there. Then, the shaking started. I ran a bath, but even submerged, I shook. I drank deeper and deeper into the evening, into the still depth of the night, shaking in the neon light of the motel’s entrance.

  He never came, of course. He never messaged, not on the night, nor in the days or weeks or months that followed. I tried to contact him. I asked, What happened? Drunk one evening, I wrote: Fuck you. And then, the lonely messages, months apart. Hey. Hey. Hey. You there? I’m here for you. Call me? He didn’t call.

  *

  Years have passed since then. I have dated some good men, more bad men, and one terrific man. Coming out was not easy, but it never is. My partner, Chris, says anybody who tells you otherwise is either a liar or too well adjusted. I don’t talk to people from high school, but Facebook keeps me in the loop. Tan has partied, cycled through women, and become a carpenter.