No love allowed.

When I was a freshman in high school, I had a growing sense of myself and how different I was. Which I guess is the way most teenagers feel anyway, but I was gay as well, so I think it compounded my feeling of self-consciousness. And by this time my interest and excitement in other males was reaching a peak. I romanticized, fantasized, and to some degree, resented them the same way girls did. I especially resented them when I felt they didn't accept me, or didn't like me when I liked them. I was usually attracted to guys who wouldn't be any good to hang around with even if they did show interest in having any contact with me; the tough ones, the mentally dense and overly developed ones, the ones who had a chip on their shoulder, the stoners, sometimes the gangbangers. It was mainly their physical features and machismo I found so arousing. It was also odd how attracted I was to the vulnerabilities I sensed in the super-masculine types who always tried just a little too hard to prove themselves as men. These were not the types that were safe to approach in any sexual way... or so I thought.
I really had no idea of just how much homosexual activity there was going on between some of them at the time.

The reason I've been using the word "homosexual" instead of "gay" is because it was the term used at the time. The word was used with pity or disgust, or sometimes used the same way you would describe someone when they had a disease:   "He acts that way because he's a homosexual."

From now on, I'll use the word "gay".

I became friends with a boy in one of my classes when we were assigned to work together on a history project. His name was Jesse and he was very tall and lanky, with a mop of yellow-blond hair and deep, soft voice. He was one of those gentle, sensitive types that most mothers wanted their daughters to have as a boyfriend. To me, Jesse seemed unusually sensitive - beyond the timidity and uncertainty of the typical insecure teenager. Over the weeks of working together on the project, we got to know each other better and I realized he was neither timid or insecure. He actually possessed empathetic qualities that you'd expect from someone more mature in age - someone with more worldly experience. The more we talked and worked together, the more I realized how much we had in common intellectually. Both of us were aware of the growing intimate communication between us. The communication became layered, as if there were two different conversations going on; one spoken and heard, and the other felt and absorbed.

On the last weekend before our project was due, Jesse spent the night and we wasted time watching television and ate body-temperature pizza delivered to the door, and we talked.
We talked and filled in the blanks about our families, and where we grew up. We talked about school, our classes and teachers, about other friends and students, we talked about gym class... and the locker room. Boys were changing into men and we talked about what we saw; broadening shoulders, muscle definition, the hair growing on their arms, stomachs, and chests. I was surprised how he noticed the same things I did. Like how some guys had thick armpit hair and how it would stick together forming rings from the sweat.
We talked about the pungent smell of the locker room; the heavy and potent smell of sweat fueled by adrenaline and testosterone. And about how on the hairier guys, the hair on their chests and bellies would stick flat to their skin when it was wet. We talked about the thickness and lengths of guy's dicks, and low hanging balls... snickering about it first - and then with admiration. Jesse talked about how he couldn't stop staring at the guys who were uncircumcised. He said he liked the way the foreskin would grip tight on guys with unusually big heads. We went on talking about what we smelled and what we saw, our descriptions becoming more and more erotic until finally we both seemed stoned with arousal.

We smelled the same smells, and we saw the same things.
And we felt the same way.

The arc of realization flashed back and forth between us, and it was unbelievably awesome. As we sat on the floor, Jesse moved toward me, laid his hand on my chest and pushed me slowly backward to the floor. He ran his hand down my belly, keeping it there, and then looked into my eyes for a second. With me laying back on the floor, he positioned himself so that he was straddled over me, suspended without touching each other. I reached up and ran my hands from his hips, up his lean sides, around his wide shoulders, and running down along his tightened arms. When I looked at his face, his eyes seemed so deep and dark, they were hungry somehow. I moved my hands up under his shirt, feeling his narrow waist and broad smooth back. With my fingertips, I could feel goosebumps forming as I moved my hands around his body. And I could feel the warmth of my own blood rushing into my legs and groin, the sexual hunger building within me.
He slowly lowered himself on top of me, moving up and forward so his groin pressed into my stomach. I could feel his hard bulge through his pants and I pulled his hips downward tighter against me. I was trembling with excitement, and when he looked down for a moment, I realized he was as well. I rolled both of us over, him on his back, and deeply smelled his chest through his clothes. He moved his hands up and pulled my shirt off up over my head, and gently rubbed my shoulders and back. I sat up and unbuttoned his shirt while he explored my bare chest and stomach. I moved my hands downward and unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans. I could see his long, hard dick through his pants before I tugged them down off him. When he was naked I took in the sight of his thickness and size, his light blond pubic hair, and the dusting of fuzz growing over the rest of his body. I lowered myself again so that my stomach was pressed against his hot, stiff dick.

We searched and explored ourselves and each other. Feelings rose from my gut I'd never felt before. Feelings of unbelievable passion and overwhelming excitement. All of the feelings overloaded my senses and the experience was surreal.

What was wrong with me?

The moment I opened my eyes in the morning I was angry. I was sick of what I did with Jesse the night before, I was sick of guys, of jacking off about them, and I was sick of myself. I wanted to be normal. Being gay was ruining my life. It was making me feel bad about myself. I took a hot shower and tried to make everything that happened the night before wash down the drain. I wrapped a towel around my waist, started down the hall, and just as I passed the spare room where Jesse had slept part of the night, the door popped open.
Jesse was smiling and asked "Are you through?"
Meaning if he could use the bathroom. I looked down, told him I was, and went into my room and closed the door. I wished he was gone. There was a tap at my door and then opened far enough for Jesse's face to show. I had just taken off my towel, which I snatched back up with embarrassment.
I said, "Hey!" covering myself quickly.
I could see the confusion in Jesse's face. Then he asked if he could come in. I didn't really say anything, so he came in and closed the door. I just wanted him gone.

He had such a calm look on his face, content and enlightened. I wasn't smiling, but he was.
He started quietly, and slowly. "I just want to tell you that I'm glad we're friends. I think I'm really lucky to have a friend like you. I mean... I feel different, you know? I just want you to know I'm glad I met you."
I could feel my face flush with a strange combination of disgust, embarrassment, and anger. Though I couldn't look at him, I said, "Just get out."
He was quiet for a couple seconds.
"What?" he said almost breathlessly.
I closed my eyes, my body beginning to vibrate with anxiety. "Just get your stuff and go." He suddenly seemed closer to me.
"What's wrong? I thought..." My eyes opened filled with watery rage.
"Get out of here you fucking faggot!"
His face went through a series of emotional changes; first shock, then confusion, to anguish, and finishing with something I couldn't read. He turned and quietly left my room, shutting the door behind him. He got dressed, collected his papers and books, walked out the front door, and rode his bike away. I felt no guilt. I was relieved he was gone. But I was left with a feeling that I had permanently changed somehow. I did not walk away from his pain clean.

We turned in our project as we had left it - incomplete. The teacher was very wise and had seen thousands of students interact with each other over her long career, and I'm sure she knew something about us, and that something had happened. She even asked why we stopped working, but didn't really press the issue. Seeing Jesse everyday was difficult, and I avoided eye contact with him. I think he was always on the verge of approaching me, but never did. A few months later, I transferred to another high school. I would become a brand new patient, in a brand new institution with hoards of new mental patients inflicted with the same old problems.

I often think of Jesse. His sweet, kind nature. His thick, wavy blond hair and low voice. His sincerity, his honesty, his gentle touch.
I think of the permanent damage I could have inflicted on him by own insecurities and denial. There was nothing ever wrong with him, but there was something deeply wrong with me. He approached me with truth and passion, and through my own hatred of myself, I stabbed him as he made the first attempt to open his heart.
I've often thought that if I could ever possibly find him, I would literally throw myself at his feet and beg him to forgive me. I would hold him tight and tell him that now I understand. I understand that he was offering an open door to a world I was too cowardly to enter. He was the "healthy" one, and I was the one who had the issues. I hope with all my heart that his life turned out well, and he's happy. And I pray that my ignorance and cruelty towards him didn't do anything to hinder his growth.

And I hope he saw me for what I was;
just another angry, gay teenager who couldn't come to terms with the truth.

But my turn in his position would soon come.