Straight

by Seth King

  “Okay.”

  “And Henry?” he asks, his needy voice barely audible.

  “Yeah?”

  “You are all I think about. I hope that doesn’t scare you.”

  And that does it – I hold myself at his entrance and then start pushing myself in. But it doesn’t work at first, and he rests a pillow under the small of his back to help things. Now it’s easier, and as I sink myself in, I have to hold my breath to keep from orgasm-ing – that’s how tight he is. The texture is different from a girl, too, and grainier somehow. It is a hundred times better, though, and I am mesmerized. The look on his face alone is taking me to places I’ve never been before…

  As I pump, getting to know him in a new and sublime way, he reaches around and slips a finger into me from behind. It burns at first, but then I really get used to it, and soon I actually love it. It’s friction in a way I never expected, in a place I’d never experienced.

  Our sex is sex until it isn’t sex anymore – it becomes something higher, something holier. It’s like our bodies are singing to each other, and every movement is a hymn. I feel a warmth, an affection, for him that I’ve ever known. Everything about us is melding together. And as he stills and climaxes, it hits me that I could eventually love him – really really love him. Whatever I am, whatever this is, it just feels right. Maybe I was the stupidest person in the world to think this kid didn’t deserve to be loved because of his gender. Every human deserves love – maybe their outward bodies are nothing but a pink, ephemeral casing.

  Afterward I reach over and feel his body, warm, male, alive, new and so, so different. And happiness spreads out like an ocean within me, wide and blue and brave and borderless.

  ~

  Half an hour passes before we can collect ourselves and start functioning again. I realize I still have a few “straight” impulses I’ve retained from having so many buddies over before – I grab a beer and put on SportsCenter, but soon I glance over and realize who I’m with. Oops. Ty’s my lover, not my bro, so I fumble with the remote and find the Bravo network.

  “Yes!” he calls. “Keep it here! There’s a dinner party fight in this episode that I’ve been waiting months to see.”

  I wrap myself up in him and watch the Housewives do their thing. The women get drunker and more hysterical as the dinner goes on, and soon one of them tosses a glass of Pinot Grigio into another’s face. At first I think it’s kind of dull, but eventually I’m on the edge of my seat. When the episode ends, I grab him by the leg.

  “How was your first gay show?” he asks.

  “Really good, actually. Denise was so wrong to accuse Carla of trying to undermine her like that. What a witch.”

  “Wow, maybe you are homo.”

  “Shut up.” Then something comes to mind. “Have you ever had sex with a girl?” I ask in the lazy twilight. My butt is already getting sore, and I have to arrange myself a certain way to keep it comfortable. For some reason I don’t ever want to imagine him with someone else, but I still want to know.

  He pats my shoulder. “Not really. I’m a gold-star gay.”

  “Gold-star gay?”

  He blushes. “It means my penis has never been inside a vagina.”

  “But you’ve…?”

  “I’ve done other stuff, yeah, with female friends, back in high school. We would go after each other at parties, sort of just to try each other out, just for fun.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “I found that I’m a big old homo, and that vagina isn’t for me – that’s what I found. I didn’t hate it, I just wasn’t particularly thrilled by it. Did you like it?”

  “Honestly, yeah. But dating girls wasn’t much different from this. The affection feels the same. If anything, they were just more possessive and dramatic.”

  “Oh, don’t get too comfortable, you haven’t seen me in a mood swing yet.” I laugh, but he gets more serious. “I agree, though. It’s the same thing. To me, gay relationships and straight relationships are like sports bras and workout tops – they’re the same exact thing, it’s just that one of them is accepted out in public and one isn’t.”

  “You make me happy,” I suddenly respond, giddy and exhausted and confused all at the same time. “You’re smart, and everything you do makes me happy. Even the way you talk. You’re kind of perfect, and it makes me feel perfect, too.”

  He smiles that spotlight smile, and it makes my stomach feel like a bottomless pool of sloshing water. My butterflies take flight, and he just holds me like that until he’s asleep. But I don’t want to fall asleep, because being here with him is better than anything I’d see on the other side of consciousness.

  And so I continue getting lost in Ty’s watercolor world, one breathless kiss at a time…

  8

  The next day something strange happens: a gay-bashing incident occurs in Savannah. An older guy (whom Ty didn’t know) was leaving Chuck’s Bar late at night when he was pushed down onto his face and kicked in the ribs by a gang of drunken teenagers from Macon, only two of whom were caught and ID’d. The attack gets some moderate media coverage, but more than that, it makes me wobble a little. Weren’t we moving forward? Why would that still be happening? And what did it mean for me?

  I do everything I can to not dwell on it or obsess over it, and surprisingly I mostly succeed. That afternoon I find a free hour between classes and head to a fancy café on Broughton for some alone time. I want to message the girl from the chat room; pick her brain and ask her about her story. So I send her a short overview, and she responds within barely five minutes.

  Sure. I’d love to chat. What’s going on?

  I bite my lip. Thanks! So the thing is, before I get any deeper with him, I want to…understand it, and make sure I’m doing everything right.

  Okay, she says soon. I understand. One thing that killed me in the beginning was the indecision. First it would be good to think about whether you’ve perhaps always been gay, and if you were just suppressing it because of fear or self-loathing or inner homophobia.

  I chew on the insides of my cheeks. Honestly, I liked girls, and that was it. I would’ve had no reason to hide it – my family is very liberal and open. I don’t think that’s it.

  Hmm. Maybe you really did just suddenly change, then.

  Have you heard of that? I ask.

  Hello! I was a straight girl who fell for a lesbian!

  Oh. Yeah. Sorry.

  So where’s the hesitation then? What’s the problem?

  There’s no problem. I’m just overwhelmed.

  Well look at it this way. If a guy who usually liked redheads suddenly fell for a brunette, would he drive himself crazy with angst and regret over it?

  No, I say.

  Well, hair color is a detail about someone, just like gender. What matters is the soul inside. So if one detail doesn’t matter, why would another detail matter?

  I stare at the screen, dumbfounded.

  Do you love the kid? she asks before I can respond.

  What?

  Do you love him?

  Just the question makes me smile. I don’t know, I answer. I think I might? It’s so soon.

  Okay well, the reality is that it’s a big step. Your life will change in a lot of ways. I lost friends and cousins. I would make sure you have real feelings for him before you make that leap.

  I do, I say without hesitation. He’s making my whole life happier.

  Then get to know him, and his world. Start learning about the LGBTQ community. Show him you care about his life. Lock it down, bro!

  I laugh to myself. Okay. I’ll work on it. Thanks for your input.

  Good luck. I hope this story has a happy ending, she says.

  Me too. You have no idea how badly, actually.

  Look, she says. Things happen all the time. Cats fall in love with dogs and women fall in love with women. Only the heart knows why. So stop using your brain to try to understand mysteries that can’t be understood.

  Clas
s that day is boring and unremarkable. That night I go over to his house for the first time, since his roommate is out of town at a wedding. I can’t sleep over, since anyone might bust in, but I try to enjoy the time I do have. I don’t know what I was expecting, but in the end his apartment turns out to be old, shabby, and impeccably decorated. But his bedroom is a bit darker, with a black flag on the wall that he says was from a Green Day concert that changed his life.

  I stop at his dresser and marvel over his box of watches and trinkets, star-struck. I can’t believe these are his things – this is where he lives. This is his private world.

  “What happened with your dad?” I ask as we migrate to his bed, and he holds me in the darkness. “I saw that family picture. You look just like him.”

  “I don’t know,” he exhales. “We never had a meltdown or an explosion or anything, we just never really had a relationship to begin with. He never liked me, and then he found me watching gay porn in high school.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Most mortifying moment of my life. But we never discussed it – not even once. That was the point where we completely drifted apart.”

  “I thought you’ve always been open...”

  “I was, but he didn’t want to admit it to himself. But after he walked in on me, he couldn’t ignore it. Recently he reached out and said he loves me as his son, and doesn’t support what I am, but wants to pursue a relationship anyway. I hung up the phone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because things like acceptance and love aren’t conditional. You either accept someone or you don’t. Would you be okay if your mom told you, ‘Hey Henry, I hate everything about you, but I want to take you out to lunch?’”

  “Um, no.”

  “Exactly. ‘Loving the sinner and hating the sin’ is a crock of shit, because you can’t insult someone and then tell them you support them only partially. That’s like telling someone, ‘Hey, I notice your house is on fire, and since I’m a supportive friend, I’m going to toss one cup of water on the flames and then walk away.’ Love me or don’t love me, but don’t give me half of either. So I closed the door on my dad until he accepts me. At this point we talk probably twice a year – Christmas and my birthday.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You’ll learn that people with bad energy are better out of your life than in it. It’s corrosive and depressing to constantly have to think about the fact that someone only quasi-supports you. I’m so much freer without him looking over my shoulder all the time, reminding me that he doesn’t really approve of me. I had to let go of him, and of what I wanted from him, too. And now I have my new, gay, artsy family I found at school!”

  I still don’t like this, though – I can’t just brush it off. There was a father out there who had disowned a kid because of something he couldn’t control or change about himself, even if he wanted to. Life was too short for that. But then again, what kind of authority was I? I’d never had a loved one tell me I wasn’t good enough to receive their love.

  Eventually we start making out, and his stubble is longer than usual – it feels good, and sexy, and soon the kissing turns into more than kissing. When he’s going down on me, he asks if I’ve taken a shower.

  “An hour ago. Why?”

  He reaches for a container of liquid I realize is lube. “Because you’re about to get fingered again. But for real this time.”

  I open my legs a little, sit back, and watch him. It starts the same: it burns at first, but then he does a motion like he’s calling me forward, and it sends me perilously close to orgasm. Soon it starts to stretch me and hit me in spots I didn’t even know existed. I start making those sounds again, those weird foreign moans I never even knew I could make. If this is what being with him feels like, I need it every day. Every hour.

  He starts moving in and out faster and faster, and sure enough, I come in a few minutes, rocking and twitching and sighing. He is unlike anything I have ever experienced before.

  “Sorry,” I say, wiping my chest. “That didn’t last very long. And why are you staring at me?”

  “Because that was the hottest thing of my life, and you’re crazy to be sorry.”

  I toss aside the towel and sit up. “Okay, well sit back now, because it’s my turn.”

  9

  October proves warmer than usual, but one weekend another, stronger cold front blows through, jump-starting the transformation of the leaves. Within a few days every tree that can change is starting to put on a fire show, and Ty and I walk through the squares two days in a row, taking pictures and talking and laughing. Liking him is starting to make my whole life brighter and louder. Music sounds louder, food tastes better, my thoughts are bolder and fill my entire skull instead of hiding in a corner, unreachable. If this is what living in infatuation is like, I don’t want to go back. How does anyone go back? Is that why some people lost their minds after breakups?

  That weekend my “gay lessons” really kick in. I have no idea how I’m going to learn, as before this I was a khaki-wearing straight dude who thought watching SNL was pretty metrosexual of me, but I’m game nonetheless. First we go to the Savannah Outlets, a huge shopping complex on the highway. (More new sex positions like the 69 and the reverse cowboy have thankfully been involved in the lessons, too, but that’s another story.) When I ask him why we have to go shopping, he glances at my outfit with a slight cringe, and that tells me everything I need to know. Then he tells me that according to his friends, I dress “like a straight guy.”

  “What’s the problem with that?” I ask him.

  “Well, nothing, except for the fact that straight guys have no taste.”

  I’m relieved to find that instead of a total wardrobe overhaul, our trip turns out to be more of a light refresher. He gets some dark-wash jeans to mix into my sea of khakis, and a few pairs of sleek, European-style leather shoes are meant to replace my every-present Dockers boat shoes. The shopping trip is so boring, though, that I make him turn into a Cracker Barrel afterward so I can suck him off in the parking lot like a crazy person.

  The next free day we have, he takes me to a movie theater in the artsier part of town to watch what he calls a “movie for the gays.” Honestly, it’s not bad. Then we stop by what he calls a “gay housewarming party,” where I’m introduced to some of his friends. I’m starting to understand that the gay world is an entire ecosystem on its own, and that ecosystem has a lot of drama. In fact, I am steered away from two different groups of guys at the party just because Ty says they’re at war with each other over a Tinder-related dustup and he doesn’t want to get involved. I also start learning new “gay words” by the day, as Ty calls them, and once I even slip out the term “yas” when I’d meant to say “great.” He’s slowly changing me, and the strange thing is that I don’t dislike it at all. When did a little culture – and some tight jeans – ever hurt anyone?

  But the denim and the vocabulary aren’t the only surprises October has in store for me.

  Hey babe. I’m going to the gay club tonight with my girls. Do you want to come?

  The text comes when I am making stir-fry in my kitchen the Friday evening before Halloween, and immediately it makes me excited and scared in equal measure. Me…Henry James Morgan…in a gay bar…with Ty Stanton…

  Are we even ready for this? Am I ready to meet his “girls?” And are they even girls? And what if someone sees me? We’ve been together nonstop lately, sure, but I don’t know if this is too much, too soon…

  Halloween in Savannah is very affectionately known as “the gay weekend.” It’s one of the only times that locals flood the streets without worrying about the tourists, and the entire city goes all out with decorations and parties and pumpkins and skeletons. These brick streets were made for autumn; these old European squares were made for orange leaves. But the gay community especially takes over, holding costume parades and making everything better and louder and brighter.

  So I realize I don’t care. I
can risk it. All I think about now is Ty, and if the gay club means getting some Ty time, I’m down. I would go anywhere with him. And maybe I’ll be able to suck him in a bathroom or something, if we can’t sneak back home…

  I reach over, take another shot of the Fireball bottle from the first night, and respond.

  Okay, I say. But if I come, we have to do something sexual tonight that we’ve never done before.

  Deal, he says, sending a thrill down my spine. Oh, and something else. You’d better go all out with your costume. This is gay Halloween we’re talking about. You come prepared to these things.

  10-4, I say. I put my phone down, but it pings again:

  WAIT: one last thing.

  Yes? I ask.

  Can you please not wear anything revealing? Being around you is already hard enough, with the way everyone looks at you, and I’ll have one of those mood swings I mentioned if I have to fend people off all night.

  You’re crazy, I respond, plugging in my phone and getting ready for my first big gay night.

  I raid my dad’s closet and find a vintage suit, then I comb and gel my hair and decide to go as JFK. When Ty walks over to my house I find that he’s going out as the lead singer from My Chemical Romance, with temporary jet-back hair and a goth-inspired outfit. The costume makes me dizzy the second I see it – if this was even possible, he’s managed to get even more beautiful.

  We pre-game in someone’s house a few blocks from mine, one of those college houses where nobody really bothers furnishing or decorating. Everyone smokes weed and drinks wine out of the bottle, and as the night goes on, the people arriving get more and more…well, gay. And I don’t know how insensitive this may seem, but around Ty’s friends he seems…manly. I didn’t really realize until recently that “gay” existed in all shapes and forms. Society told me they were all the same, but that was very wrong. Some of them are sort of like Ty, but some are wearing wigs and lipstick, and some use nicknames like Miss Famous. (He explains that Miss Famous is not trans, but that she just doesn’t really have a gender, so I don’t know what to make of that.) I don’t know if most of them are drag queens or trans women or cross dressers or what, but I am fascinated by all of it, and open to it, too. All of them are snappier and sassier and more feminine than Ty is, though, and for some insane reason it makes me want to take him home and fuck the shit out of him. Is that problematic of me? It’s embarrassing to admit, but it’s true. He’s like the stud duck in this pond, and soon it makes me crazily jealous, way more jealous than I’d ever been of a girl. But why?