A New Outlook On Life - 1. A New Outlook On Life

I’m Johnson Tilden. I’ve decided it was time to work on solving what I felt was my biggest problem; dealing with being gay, and alone, at fourteen. Being unable to talk paled in comparison to that. I wanted a friend I could do things with. A FWB. Long suspecting my friend Tanner Rhodes might feel the same way about boys vs. girls, I invited Tanner over for a night of video game play. The plan included the visit getting turned into a sleepover. Needless to say, hopefully some of the sleepover wouldn’t include sleeping.

I hoped my guess was right and Tanner wouldn’t ruin my life if I was wrong.

After a few rounds of video games, I started the conversation. I typed the words on my tablet to begin the conversation that could change my life; for better or for worse. I silently begged, ‘better please.’

“Tanner, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure, John.”

“And you’ll be honest with me?”

“Aren’t I always?”

“I’m rolling my eyes.”

“Okay, okay. I promise to answer

“You’ll use my phone’s text-to-speech app to type what you want to say, and we’ll swap the headphones, because you may not want anyone else to hear your answers.”

“Whatever.”

I turned on, handed him my headphones, and enabled Bluetooth on both devices we’d use to type.

“Can you hear me okay?”

“Yeah.”

“The Sennheiser can alternately stream the output from two devices, so it’ll limit what we have to swap. Okay, here goes. I’ve noticed that sometimes you looked as uncomfortable as I was when the guys would talk about girls.”

He hesitated to answer.

I typed some more.

“What?”

“You’re not gonna tell anyone, right?”

“Never. It was hard enough to say that much to you.”

He handed me the headphones.

“I kind of had the feeling that you might like boys too. But I was always afraid to ask, knowing you’d have to answer, ‘out loud.’ But I guess that’s why you waited until you had the headphones.”

I nodded.

He typed, “It’s been real lonely having to keep this to myself. I didn’t know if I could trust anybody.”

I nodded forcefully, indicating I understood and felt the same.

“Does your family know?”

I shook my head just as forcefully.

“Mine neither. It’s such a relief to know there’s someone I can talk to about this.”

I held out the headphones. He put them on.

“And maybe do something with?”

He smiled and nodded, then asked out loud, “What time is bedtime?”

I laughed silently. Well, that’s the only way I could.

We spent the next hour or so with me teaching him some ASL phrases then typing what they meant while he was wearing the headphones. I wondered to myself why I hadn’t tried to teach him ASL before. I can be so stupid sometimes.

I typed, then signed, ‘Do you want to kiss me?’ first.

He giggled and nodded. Then he tried to duplicate the action. I needed to show him a couple times, but he caught on fairly quick.

I changed the motion slightly to, ‘I want to kiss you.’ He looked at me funny for a second then handed me back the headphones. I heard, “Is that I want to kiss you?”

This time, I smiled and nodded. I showed him the motions again and he repeated it correctly the first time.

“This is pretty cool. It can be like our own secret language when we’re with the other guys.”

It was my turn to smile and nod.

“What’s ‘can I see your dick’?”

I showed him, ‘Can I see your penis?’ That took a couple tries before he got it.

“What’s ‘do you want to see my dick’?”

I showed him that phrase. I believed that particular action would happen later that night in reality. Since it was similar, he got that one right. I then signed ‘see’ and ‘touch’ repeatedly.

“See, and touch, right?”

“Yes.”

I signed, ‘Can I put your penis in my mouth?’

He giggled, handed me the headphones, and typed, “Can I suck you?”

We swapped them again. “Close enough. That was, ‘Can I put your penis in my mouth?’ actually.”

I reversed a couple words and showed him. ‘Can I put my penis in your mouth?’

He laughed and said, “That’s the opposite, like can you do it to me rather than me doing it to you. But using the same words as the last one.”

After swapping again, I started to test him. “Right. Now you should randomly try them out, and I’ll type what you signed.”

He went through the phrases in the order I taught him, then mixed them up. He’s pretty smart; I gave him an A+. He only made one mistake. But then, it’s easy to mix up ‘mouth’ and ‘food.’ I laughed when he tried, ‘Can I put your penis in my food?’

“So, is it bedtime yet?”

Again, I laughed silently. I signed and typed, ‘Let’s go say goodnight to my parents.’ I repeated the phrase, ‘Good night Mr. and Mrs. T.’ a couple extra times so he’d be able to sign it to my parents.

We went into the living room, and I signed, ‘I taught him some sign language, but I think I broke his brain, so we’re going to go to sleep now, good night.’

I looked at Tanner. He signed, ‘Good night Mr. and Mrs. T.’

My mother responded, “That was very good, Tanner. Good night to you, too.”

Tanner smiled, and we turned around to head back to my room, but I stopped after we turned the corner, putting my hand on Tanner’s chest to stop him, pointing my other hand at an ear. He nodded.

We heard my father say, “I suspect tonight’s sleepover might be a little different than usual.”

“What do you mean, John?”

“Haven’t you seen the way they look at each other when the other isn’t looking?”

“Yes, now that you mention it. You don’t think…”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Would it bother you?”

“Nah. It may just be typical teen curiosity.”

“But if it isn’t?”

“Then it isn’t. It’s not like he’s killing small animals.”

“That’s true. Being gay isn’t the worst thing he could be.”

“I sense a little disappointment in that, Ellie.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I’d say it was okay if he’s gay.”

We headed to my room, closed and locked the door.

He put the headphones on, and I typed, “Wow, they at least suspect we’re gay.”

He spoke out loud, but quietly, “Yeah, and it doesn’t sound like it’s a big deal if they knew.”

I had my nightstand lamp on so we could see each other signing. Tanner signed, ‘Can I see your penis?’

I, in turn, signed, ‘Do you want to kiss me?’

I took off my pants and underpants, and he leaned in to kiss me.

I knew at that moment, the rest of my life would be fine.

That would be after I bought a second set of headphones to eliminate the swapping, of course. We’d be able to get to the sex faster.

The End