by L B Winter
He was a great kisser; that was what I remembered most about it after. His arms encased me, his skin intoxicated me, but it was his lips that would haunt me forever afterward—soft, warm, delicious.
The thought of stopping him never occurred to me. Not when he slid off his own shorts; not when he slipped his fingers into mine, lowering them to my knees, where I kicked them away, far away, and nothing but skin was between us. Not when a light floated in through the big window where anybody could have walked by. (What a strange moment to realize you’ve got an exhibitionist kink.)
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I whispered between kisses, and he laughed.
“I don’t really, either,” he said.
“I thought you’d done this before.”
He smiled. “Well, yeah, like…three times. And I didn’t know what I was doing then, either.”
I laughed. “You made it sound like you had all this experience…”
“No,” he said, leaning in to kiss me again. “Although, I mean…I know some things.”
“Okay,” I said, nipping at his bottom lip—that full, perfect, kissable mouth that I couldn’t get enough of. “Show me what you can do.”
He dived into me again, rubbing against me wildly—just passion, hot and raw and amazing. I was so turned on that I did everything he said to do, hardly giving it any thought. I rolled over when he said to, came up on my knees as he guided me back towards him, parted my legs so his hand could slip between them. God, I wanted him. More than anything I’d ever wanted before. I barely noticed how painful it was when he tried to push his fingers inside me, slick with only his saliva. And then, when he positioned himself behind me, and I knew what he was about to do, I didn’t care how much it would hurt; I had to have him inside me. It was a few moments before my body learned to relax and welcome him, and he used a little more spit to make himself slide in easier, but even so, it felt rugged and harsh—and somehow that turned me on even more.
“Are you okay?” he’d asked after pressing inside, and his hands gripping my hips loosened. I felt them on my shoulders then, and his chest warm above my back.
“I think so,” I said, breathing hard and hoping like hell that it was good for him—that he liked me more than he’d ever liked Dylan.
“I’ll go slow.”
And he did. Even though it hurt, it was awesome. In the high of that moment, I felt like I could do anything. I loved that I turned him on, and I wanted to be the only person who did.
Luckily for me, it didn’t last long. He collapsed onto the bed beside me and rolled me toward him, staring at me with heavy-lidded, dilated eyes. “Paul,” he’d whispered. “Wow.”
“Was I supposed to come?” I asked, glancing down at my own erection, now falling a little limp.
“Oh, you didn’t? Yeah, you—hang on,” he said, and he slid down the bed, taking my dick in his mouth before I could even think about it. I’d never had a blow job before; I’d never even considered the idea of having or giving one, but this was amazing. My ass still ached from where he’d been, but somehow that just made it more intense. I loved how I could tell he was enjoying it, too. He looked so happy, with his shoulders relaxed and his skin flushed. I loved knowing that I was the one who made him so happy. I finished in record time, and he swallowed down every drop—something sexier than I had ever known humanly possible.
When he crawled back up the bed, I knew with one look in his eyes that I loved him. I was really gay now. I could never go back from this; I didn’t want to. This was right, beyond any shadow of a doubt—and he had to love me, too. I could just feel it.
He couldn’t stay in bed with me after for long; somebody would see. We laid there for a while, though, and talked about everything and nothing, and I kept losing myself in how beautiful he was. I couldn’t help but stare. How was it possible that somebody like him wanted me? Just plain old me.
After we’d each said he should go back to his bed at least three times, Jamie finally decided to go through with it, though the last thing either of us wanted was to be apart. Jamie kissed my sweaty hair, picked up his pajamas, and hurried back to his own bed. It had hardly been an hour since he’d come over in the first place, but in that short time, everything had changed.
Neither of us were asleep about an hour later when I turned to him in the dark and said, “Hey, what if we didn’t finish the program?”
“What?” His sleepy voice came from across the room.
I shrugged. “Like, what if we just…left?”
In the shadows, I could see him shake his head.
“Come on, why not? We know we can’t be together otherwise; nobody would understand.”
“So, what, we just—run away together? And live where? We don’t have anywhere to go, or any money.”
“We have like…a month to figure all that out,” I said.
“Hmm.”
“If I figure out a way for us to do it—a place to live, some money—then would you?”
“How would you possibly figure that out?”
“I have a savings account,” I said. “And we could always work. Just hypothetically,” I added, smiling. “I mean, in a hypothetical world where we could do that, would you?”
“Would I what?”
“Leave with me? Forget about this and just, like…” I paused, feeling such a weightiness in my heart that it was hard to say out loud. “Just be together?”
He was quiet for a moment, but then he said, in a stronger voice, “In a hypothetical world where we could? Absolutely, no questions, yes.”
I smiled at him in the dark, and he smiled, too, and I drifted off to sleep knowing somebody loved me just the way I was.
I didn’t want to ruin Thanksgiving for Mom and Dad, so I didn’t say anything about Jamie or therapy when I came home for the holiday. The whole break, a week-long stretch in which I was immersed in school work that was thankfully easy, and seeing friends who were thankfully not nosy, I looked forward to coming back to the center because I couldn’t wait to see Jamie again. When the break was over and I came back to Freedom, I could hardly look at Jamie without blushing. All day, I counted the seconds until we would be together again. I wanted to tackle him onto his bed; I wanted to jump all over him.
I got to our room before he did, and when he arrived, he didn’t say anything to me at first—and he didn’t walk over to me, either. I started panicking, my heart racing a little, when got in his bed across the room and rolled over to face the wall. After a second, though, he turned back around and his face broke into a smile—it seemed, involuntarily, as though his face recognized me and smiled of its own volition, independent of reason.
“Did you have a good break?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I sighed deeply, immensely relieved to see that perfect grin. My heart rate slowly returned to normal, but my face took longer to recover; I could feel its heated blush and the way it made my eyes sting. “Did you?”
He shrugged. “It was okay. My parents were kind of weird.”
I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
“Did you get to see any of your friends?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why?”
I panicked then, thinking maybe he thought I was asking about old boyfriends or something. “Just because I missed my friends, I guess, and I got to see a couple of them, and it was really nice, especially my best friend Taylor, he used to be on the track team with me, and he goes to our church, and he thinks I’m away at boarding school, and I don’t know what he’d think if he knew the truth, about where I am and all,” I babbled, and when I finally paused for breath, Jamie was smiling again.
“Gotcha. I mostly stayed at home,” Jamie said. “That’s cool that you got to see your friends, though. Do you have, like, straight dudes as friends?”
“Yeah, mostly,” I said. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just wondered.”
I felt like smiling, but I kept it to myself. He wan
ted to make sure I hadn’t hung out with any other gay guys over break—at least, that’s what I thought he wanted. Feeling like teasing him, I said, “I used to have a crush on Taylor back when we were just kids, but that was forever ago. He’s like a brother to me now, and he is definitely straight.”
“Gotcha,” he said. Then he was quiet, and I started wondering if maybe I shouldn’t have said anything about Tay. I mean, it was mostly a joke, and I’d only said it to see if he would get jealous. But honestly, it hardly seemed like he’d heard me. He looked like he had something else on his mind.
“So,” he finally began after a long pause, “last time, when we…you know…”
He glanced at me expectantly and I nodded to show that I remembered. Of course I remembered, it was only the most amazing, unforgettable, wonderful, terrifying night of my life.
“I just wanted to…apologize,” he finally said.
My heart began to race again, in a very bad way. “For what?”
He didn’t meet my eyes. “We’re here to turn straight, Paul. I shouldn’t have done that.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I already told you, I—I don’t think that’s possible.” I paused, searching his eyes for something that I just didn’t see. “You said you felt the same way,” I added.
“No,” he said, “I…look, I thought a lot about it over break, and…I know this was wrong. What we did was wrong.”
It was a combination of disbelief and anger, what I felt. “What we did was wrong…” I repeated, hardly understanding the words as they left my lips.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently, and something about the way he said it made me feel like I was being dumped. Was there something wrong with me? Was I not as good as Dylan, and was that why he didn’t like me anymore? And then before I could stop, I was choking back tears.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, but by then I was so embarrassed, I completely lost it. This sucked, it absolutely sucked. And he was the last person I wanted to see me cry. “It’ll get better, Paul, I swear it will.”
“It won’t,” I choked miserably. “Why the hell did you do that if you didn’t feel the same way I do?”
“It’s not that I don’t feel the same way—I do. Or, I did. But Paul, I…I started seeing somebody over break.”
And then, I went completely numb.
***
Her name was Ellen. Jamie said he’d met up with her a couple times over Fall break, since she was the other high school senior at his church and his parents had wanted them to spend time together. Now, after the fact, he said he’d been thinking a lot about her these past few months, thinking maybe she was the one God had planned for him. He told us all about her at group, and Cal was really glad for him—Cal had gone through an almost identical experience after leaving therapy when he was reoriented, finding the love of his life just waiting for him—and the other guys in the group expressed varying degrees of admiration and jealousy. And I was jealous, too, but of the wrong person. I was jealous as hell of this “Ellen” girl, who served on the worship team and played bass guitar and wore shoes made of recycled water bottles and even knew about Jamie’s therapy and said she forgave him. Like he required forgiveness from a bitch like her. (Obviously, she must be a bitch; this went without saying.)
For me, that was the last straw. This was all just bullshit, wasn’t it? I mean, he’d been in my bed every night, making out with me, laughing with me, even making love to me, but the person God had planned for him was Ellen? Seriously? I mean, what was this place? A fantasy land where we all pretended to be somebody we’re not, consequences be damned? I didn’t know if I could do it anymore.
We stopped talking. Or, really, I stopped talking. He still tried at first, but after a couple days, he figured out that he was getting the cold shoulder. I loved that I could tell it bothered him. He really wanted to talk to me; he watched me all the time and hated that I was mad. It was the one thing that could make me feel better, but it wasn’t enough. Maybe I would still run away, I thought. Maybe I could still get out of this place.
I don’t know if I would have gone through with it, though, if that shithead hadn’t tried to get in my bed with me again.
I was already asleep on Thursday when I felt something warm rolling me to one side. “Jamie,” I said, eyes still closed, as I realized who it was. “Knock it off.”
“Come on, Paul.” His voice was shaky. “Just for tonight.”
I finally opened my eyes. “You can’t be serious.”
He huffed a sigh and stomped back to his bed. Now that he had my attention, he went back to the argument he’d been trying to make me have all week. “We’re here in conversion therapy, trying to get better. Aren’t you…aren’t you happy for me?”
“No,” I said flatly. “Unless you being in denial about who you really are makes me happy. In fact, if seeing people do that made me happy, I would be over the fucking moon right about now.”
He cringed when I said “fuck,” which made me even more mad, then said, “You’re wrong. I’m sure Ellen is the one for me, and this—” gesturing back and forth between us, “was a huge mistake.”
Ouch. “Okay, fine. You know what, I agree. I never should have trusted you.” My eyes filled with tears as I said it, but I kept my voice as steady as I could.
“Don’t make it like that,” he whispered, and I could see tears in his eyes, too. “I wanted to get better, but then you—you—”
“What?” I said, swiping my tears away angrily. “What did I do to you? Did I make you come over and get in my bed? Did I make you kiss me? Did I make you fuck me? Did I make you try to get into my bed again tonight? No! I didn’t do any of that, Jamie—you did it all on your own, because it felt right. And now you want to tell me that Ellen feels right to you? That you want to kiss her? Marry her? Fuck her?”
“Stop saying fuck!” he whispered harshly, and I could have laughed.
“Oh, my God. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! And fuck you, you hypocrite! Jamie, I had never been with anybody before you, and I never lied to you a single time. But I don’t think you’ve ever been honest with me.”
“Yes, I—”
“Well, you were either lying then or you’re lying now. Which is it?”
He paused for a second before breaking down, his fists pressing angrily against his eyes. “Paul, stop, okay? Just stop! I don’t want to be this person. This isn’t who I am! This isn’t who I want to be! I just want to be normal, Paul! Don’t you get that?”
I did get that. And all at once, I stopped. I got it completely. I’d been there once, too—wanting to be different and praying every day that I would be. Before I came out to myself—before I accepted who I really am—I wanted that, too. So, okay. If that’s where he was, then maybe there was nothing I could do. And maybe he wasn’t the person I’d believed him to be.
“Okay,” I said finally, rolling back to face the wall again. “I’ll stop.”
I could feel that he was watching me; I never heard him roll back over, and his breathing was still too heavy for me to miss. I even thought I heard him crying a little, before I finally fell asleep. But I couldn’t let myself pity him. He was too far out of my reach. When I’d thought we were in this together, both laughing at the idea that we could ever change or even needed to, I’d felt so close to him. But now, I was really and truly alone.
When the center was still quiet in the morning, I dressed and packed my few personal items—clothing, toothbrush, Bible—in my duffel bag. I told myself stoically that there were things in this life I could control, and things I couldn’t. It was time to make a decision. I woke Jamie an hour before dawn, crouching beside his bed.
“Jamie,” I whispered, “wake up.”
“Huh?” he said, lifting his head and glancing at me through red, tired eyes. “What time is it?”
“Early,” I said. “I’m leaving.”
“What?” he groaned, ripped from his peaceful slumber by what I was sure he thought was the worst idea in t
he world. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m gay, and that’s reality, and I’m done with this fantasy world the rest of you are living in.”
He took a deep breath, then let it out, looking at me like he’d never quite seen me before.
“You can come with me,” I added in a whisper, “if you want. I got money out from my bank account before I left home. I mean, I couldn’t take out more than $100 from the ATM, but…it’s something. It’ll get us somewhere safe where we can get our feet on the ground.”
He still just stared blankly at me.
“Look, if you love Ellen, you can stay, okay? Just…I’ll accept that, if it’s true, but if you don’t love her, and you know deep down you’re never gonna love her, then…don’t lie about it. Even if we aren’t gonna be together, don’t say you love somebody you don’t.”
He looked away, a dark expression in his eyes. “You don’t know the first thing about it.”
God, he could be cold. I could hardly believe those were the same eyes that had sparkled as they looked into mine, the same lips that had kissed so passionately. He was like a stranger now.
I stood up. “I hope…I hope you have a good life.” I heard the door close behind me and had to jog to the staircase so he wouldn’t hear the single, solitary sob that escaped my lips—the last remnants of my feelings for him.
The rest of the day was a blur of tears and disappointment and judgment and general horribleness that I’d like to forget about as soon as possible, though I doubt I ever will. Apparently wanting to leave conversion therapy wasn’t an unheard of thing, and they normally keep people there even if they request to leave, but when I told the leaders that Jamie and I had had sex (emphasizing that it was all my fault, of course), they seemed glad to be rid of me.
I called the house, but it was a weekday so Mom was at work. On the phone with my dad, all I could understand through my tears was that he’d never get over it if I was gay. And I sobbed because I am gay, and it really wasn’t his to get over. But I finally got him to understand that it was a done deal. And that’s when he said it:
