Straight

by Seth King

  straight.

  a love story

  seth king.

  Copyright © 2016 by Seth King

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  “Matisse, there is nothing inside of you that fights with itself anymore...”

  - Gertrude Stein

  To my brother, who told me that marriage is for straight people and that I need to “shut the fuck up about it.” This book is me not shutting the fuck up about it. Enjoy.

  1

  Our eyes meet at exactly the same instant, mine while I am just looking up from my phone, his while apparently searching for an empty seat on the bus. The contact jolts me for some strange reason, and I have a harder-than-usual time looking away. I try to focus on the streets outside, but everything is a sweaty blur. I don’t know how, but somehow I know he is going to sit next to me, even though the bus is probably only half full. I am just sure of it, unexplainably. Sure enough, he does.

  My seat is knocked a bit as he plops down. I feel that electric jolt again, then I shake my head and try to reorient myself: I’m sitting on the bus, next to a guy. Nothing is abnormal about this.

  On second thought, though, he’s not just any guy – he is a handsome guy. I can admit that. He’s a very handsome guy who is looking right at me – and for some reason there seems to be sex in his eyes. But why?

  “Hi,” he says, a smile in his voice. He smells bright and clean and new. But why am I even noticing his smell?

  “Hi.” I can’t tell if he’s nervous or just animated. Maybe he just wants a friend?

  “So is that a banana on your shirt, or are you just happy to be here?” he asks.

  “Huh?”

  He points down, and I catch myself and smile.

  “Ah, oh – no, it’s a pickle. My friend has a pickle company, The Chill Dill, and they give me free merch sometimes.”

  “Ah, a pickle – even better than a banana.”

  My eyes grow – I can’t believe he just said that. He’s flirting with every syllable, and once again his eyes do that thing where they seem to have sex with me from afar.

  I inhale – I don’t know what to say. Right now I don’t even know how to talk. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Doesn’t he know what he’s dealing with?

  As for the reason I can’t look away…it’s not just the greyish tattoos going down one of his skinny-but-toned arms, his swimming-pool-blue eyes, or his floppy hair dyed platinum at the ends. There’s also something sort of…swaggy about him. He’s not someone I would ever usually talk to, but…but. There is a but, and I don’t know what that but is.

  “Everything good?” he laughs, his voice deep and easy and flirty all at the same time. “You seem a bit…nervous?”

  “Yeah,” I finally tell him. “Oh. Yeah. I’m Henry, by the way. Hi.”

  Why did I just tell my name to this stranger?

  “Hello there, Henry. I’m Ty.”

  “Just Ty?”

  Why do I want to know his last name? What is happening?

  “Ty Stanton.”

  “Hello, Ty Stanton.”

  And there it is again – his sex eyes, that crackling blue. Most blue eyes are pale, almost greyish, but his are bright and cold like a glacier. They do things to me that haven’t been done to me since…well, ever. Not by someone like him, at least.

  “So…do you live around here?” he asks. I swallow.

  “Yeah, but my apartment is being renovated because of the hurricane, so I’ve been staying at my parents’ place.”

  He rolls his eyes, and I’m relieved – I’ve found something safe we can both talk about, something not involving pickles or his sex eyes, something that won’t make me sit here and dissolve into a puddle of jittery nerves. The hurricane from last month didn’t exactly decimate the city, but where it did hit certain neighborhoods, it hit them hard. Ty launches into a story about how the storm flooded his carpet and made his clothes smell like garbage for a week, and soon I find that he is open and funny and friendly. These are all things I would like to be more of; things I admire in people. Usually I just sit and respond to questions – I never ask them. I’m always just sort of there.

  Until now.

  “So, are you from here originally?” I ask him in a lull.

  “Yeah, but I went to Savannah Art Academy. You strike me like a Savannah Christian Prep kid, though – am I right?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  I pause, glance down at my khakis, and realize it’s probably not that hard to figure out I came from the most straight-laced school in town. “Well, it was a good hunch. Where are you headed now?”

  “Singing lessons,” he responds. “You?”

  I’m not surprised. There’s something a bit…showy, maybe a bit flamboyant about him. It makes sense that he’d be a performer. And the corners of his eyes are remarkably dark – is that eyeliner?

  “Just home,” I say. “Nothing exciting.”

  For some reason he blushes and glances away.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m still excited,” he says.

  “Oh…”

  “Sorry,” he smiles, “I’m just having a hard time keeping it together around someone who is just so goddamned attractive. I mean, were your parents residents of Mount Olympus, or what? Like, Jesus…”

  And just like that, it feels like I’m falling down a hill. I can’t believe he is saying any of this, but I don’t want it to stop.

  “I don’t know about that,” I say quietly, looking around to make sure nobody is listening. Sure enough, we’re good. So I sit a little taller, fluff up my collar a bit. Why am I doing this? Why am I trying to impress this dude? And is he reading me as hard as I’m trying to read him? Or does he even care?

  A quiet moment passes. Then I think I hear him gulp.

  “So, I have a question,” he says quickly, and then I get all hot and nervous. The moment is here. I can’t look away from him, but I can’t look directly into his eyes, either. I’m trapped.

  “Yeah?”

  “…What are you doing tonight?”

  And this is where it all shifts – where it all becomes real. I am talking to a guy. This is happening. It makes a ball of something hot and scary and exhilarating slide down my throat. “Um. Nothing right now. Why?”

  His eyes leave me. “Well…I was wondering…would you like to…hangout tonight? And if not tonight, then sometime, for sure? I mean, talking to you has been fun, so maybe we should continue it…”

  My voice catches in my throat, because there is a problem. A very big problem. This guy is really nice, that’s for sure. But the thing is, I’m a guy, too, and until five minutes ago, I had never shown interest in any guy before. Ever. That’s why I’m so thrown. I was straight as an arrow, actually, and suddenly I am falling apart at the hands of another dude. Just noticing his eyes, his hair, his arms – none of that has ever happened before. Ever. I’ve only ever checked out females in that way. There was never any angst, never any indecision. Nothing. My heterosexuality was just something I took as it came.

  I pause and take stock. This shouldn’t be happening. This is the part where I should stop this, whatever it is. This guy seems awesome and cool and normal, which is exactly why I should tell him I’m straight and let the conversation die down. This won’t pan out for him. I don’t want to disappoint him or get his hopes up, and I need to stop this before it can get any worse…


  But for some insane reason, I can’t. I want to see where this is going, and it makes me feel like a maniac. But something in his blue eyes won’t let me go.

  “Okay,” I say, swallowing the word. Rather than making me scared or filling me with dread, though, the word fills me with a weird excitement that warms my whole body from my toes to my ears. I cannot wait for this, a voice says somewhere in my head. I really cannot wait for this. What is going on?

  “Whoa,” he says, blushing again and looking away in a way that is somewhat adorable. Did I just call a guy adorable in my head?

  “What?” I ask.

  “I didn’t think you’d say yes. I just wanted to throw a Hail Mary pass before I regretted it. I didn’t know if you were…”

  “If I were what?”

  “You know. If you were…like me. Some guys get offended when you make the wrong assumption…”

  I look away again, unsure of how to answer that one. “Well…I said yes, didn’t I? I was-”

  The bus lurches around a corner, and my sweater falls to the floor. The first cold front pushed through last night from the northwest, and today has been one of those days that washes the sticky summer away and makes people get out their pea coats and get excited about the festive months to come. But now my stupid sweater is interrupting the best conversation I’ve had in months.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say a little numbly. I bend down to pick it up, but he’s already doing the same. Our foreheads bump, giving me that same little jolt I can’t explain. He laughs and pulls back and looks into my eyes. Everything in my body freezes.

  “I got it,” he says, handing me the sweater. I notice a few of his nails are painted midnight blue, and the paint is slightly chipped. A few silver rings decorate his fingers, too. I’ve never met anyone remotely like him – or actually talked to them, at least.

  “Thanks,” I say, grabbing the sweater. Too stunned to function, I start stuffing it into my bag, but it won’t go in.

  “Just push it in,” he says more quietly – and more darkly. “It’s tight, but it’ll fit. And if it doesn’t, take a breath and push harder.”

  I look up, my lips parting. He stares back, a brazen smirk on his pink lips, but nerves in his eyes, too. I am absolutely exploding with curiosity for this kid, and I’ve never even met him before. Oh, and he’s a guy, and he has a penis.

  “Oh,” I say. “Oh. Okay.”

  His cheeks flush again. “Sorry. But…something tells me you don’t know a lot about that?”

  “Um.”

  I can’t respond, but it doesn’t matter – we’re apparently at his stop. He smiles at me, and it cuts my soul open. “Never mind. I’ll search you,” he says. “Last name?”

  Wait – search me? For what? Suddenly I forget what I am even doing; what we are even talking about. “Um, Morgan. It’s Morgan.”

  “Okay. And fuck,” he says, standing up and looking forward. “Hey, hey,” he calls, “can you wait?”

  The driver curses softly and opens the door again. Ty looks down at me. “So you really want to hangout?”

  “Yeah…yeah, I do.” I don’t know how, but I am very sure of this.

  “Okay. See soon you. I mean, see you soon. I mean, sorry, um…yeah. Bye.” Bright red, he turns and leaves. He’s nervous and I like it.

  After pressing my eyes closed for one thrilling and dangerous moment, I find my bravado again and follow his ass all the way down the aisle.

  And just for the record, I can say with assurance that it happens to be plump, perky, and absolutely amazing.

  2

  I walk three blocks back to my townhouse, my mind screaming with one question all the while: did I really just flirt with a gay guy? Me, Henry Morgan, the captain of my Lacrosse team and the winner of the Most Charming award at Savannah Christian Prep? To make matters even more confusing, there is already a series of Facebook messages waiting when I get home and check my phone again, all from the profile of Edward Ty Stanton:

  Goodness fucking gracious. Please pardon my language, but something about that meeting was really hot.

  Oh, and by the way, nice meeting you, Henry Morgan.

  And one last thing: I would REALLY like to see you again.

  I smile, my face getting all hot and antsy and numb again. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. Why am I even smiling, to begin with? Why can’t I take the sight of his ass out of my mind? He’s a guy, and I’m supposed to be straight…

  I click on the message and look over his profile, and that same shimmery feeling from the bus takes me over again. God, this kid is photogenic. So photogenic that it makes me sigh when I scan his photos. My eyes just enjoy him: in every photo his jaw gets sharper, his eyebrows get darker and stronger, his eyes get bluer, his hair gets more immaculate, his tattoos become more artful. You can tell from his Tumblr that he’s a really artsy kid – everything is perfectly designed and laid-out. In some photos his hair is dyed white-silver and swept back in a pompadour (I learned the word from my dad), making his eyes look like tiny chunks of ice, and in others it’s dyed a golden color with hints of ice blue, and shaved on the sides. He is like an art project come to life – all of the colors are there. As I study him, I realize I want to turn him over in my bed and explore a few things, see how he tastes and smells and feels, and compare it to the women I’ve been with….

  In a quest to clear my mind I take a shower and jack off, as usual – but what would you guess I imagine as I rub myself, against all odds? Ty, playing with me, touching me, doing things with me that I’ve only ever done with girls…

  The strength, and sheer pleasure factor, of my resulting orgasm catches me completely off guard. This exhilarating little case of anxiety only grows as I change into my lazy clothes. I make a quick, sloppy dinner, my dick still flying at half-mast, and it doesn’t get any better or less distracting. I try to walk around the house to calm down, but it doesn’t help either, and my mind is just getting more buzzed – and more confused – by the moment. So after pouring a glass of wine I take out my laptop, hold my breath, and Google the following sentence: Can straight people suddenly become attracted to the same sex?

  I fell in love with my first girlfriend when I was in kindergarten. Her name was Maxie, and she was awful. I liked her because she was rude to me. (I guess I was popular and most of the girls just kissed my ass, so I appreciated her honesty.) Anyway, I followed her around like a puppy for a few days, and then she repaid me by throwing sand in my face in front of the teacher and getting sent to the vice principal’s office. Since then there has been a steady stream of girlfriends and crushes and, occasionally, Tinder hookups. I only mention all this because there has never been a question – I always just took it at face value that I was straight. I have a few gay acquaintances, but no close gay friends. My friends are mostly all from my sports days in high school and/or my frat days at the University of Georgia in Athens, and we spend our time watching football and basketball games and going to bars and hitting on sorority girls. My parents are extremely progressive, though, especially considering that I was raised in Georgia. I even remember one time when my dad took me to a Cher concert at the Atlanta arena for his job, and we saw protestors outside shouting and holding signs that said God hated gay people and wanted them in hell. I asked my dad why anyone would think like this, and he became furious and told me it was because they were mentally unstable, and that only crazy people held prejudices like this.

  But still: I was straight, through and through. Southern society broadcasts a message that says straight guys play sports and speak in baritone voices, and gay guys prance around with lisps and Rihanna T shirts. That’s probably the view I took – that’s probably why I’m so confused right now. I haven’t even ever watched any gay porn, and now all I can see inside my skull is a pair of blue eyes and a very delicious ass…

  I swallow and get back to my Google search, but it opens up a whole Pandora’s box of craziness. I come across a few blog posts by people just l
ike me, people who were walking down the street one day, locked eyes with someone, and felt something change inside, just like that. But a lot of the stories also seem like they’re from crazy religious-type people preaching about how they “cleansed themselves” of their “sinful desires” and are now living “healthy heterosexual lifestyles, just as Jesus wanted.” This sounds insane to me because I don’t want to change what I just felt – I just want to understand it and get a grip on it. But for every sensible person who suddenly started liking the same sex and wanted to analyze themselves, there are three people who have turned their attraction into some life-or-death struggle with becoming “godly” again. What did God have to do with me suddenly wanting to jump into the sack with a dude? Those two were not related in my mind.

  Soon I find something that really stokes my interest: an article by a Dartmouth College sociologist named T. Grant Hotchkins. I even put on my seldom-used reading glasses to digest the whole piece:

  It is my professional opinion that modern American society needs to forget everything it thinks it knows about human sexuality. In my studies I have observed dozens of people discovering a sudden attraction to the same sex, regardless of decades-long histories of heterosexuality. Many prominent voices agree that sexuality is not even genetically determined, so why wouldn’t it change and switch and adjust and flex, like the weather? A human can be attracted to slim, brown-eyed brunettes, for example, regardless of that brunette’s gender. This phenomenon is now known as pansexuality. Also, our culture’s rules say heterosexuals must appear one way, while homosexuals must act another way, as if there is a straight line down the middle – but in my eyes, that line doesn’t exist. This same rigidity encourages homosexuals and bisexuals to stay “in the closet,” so to speak. In my opinion, we will only develop a better understanding of the sometimes-opaque nature of sexuality when these people feel comfortable enough to be open with their bisexuality and foster a better environment for free, honest communication.