Bad Stereotypes - 22. Saturday 20th May 2012

Every weekend went the in same kind of way.

I ran before I picked up the guys for jogging, and then I ran afterwards as well. I ran every morning, every afternoon after school, and every other time that I could. I ran every time I could get away.

Every weekend I went out. Saturday nights for a whole year, I was MIA to my parents. I never took my phone or my wallet with me when I took the train into the city. A year of lying to my parents. A year of lying to my parents and my friends. And a year of going home with a new guy every week. A year of secret shagging.

After Jeremy and the bathroom blowjob, there was Kyle who was the first guy I actually screwed, then Paul who wore a suit and had really nice hair and gave excellent head, and after that I kind of lost count. One new guy every week. Trev and I had it out about two months after we’d first met and had a sort of mutual jerk off in the basement bathrooms of one of the clubs. I hated the music and preferred to pull in bars where you could actually talk, but if nothing was going on by about eleven, clubs were the best bet. I had to find someone to get me in, which wasn’t always easy, but usually the guy who got me in ended up being the one I went home with. I saw a lot of bathrooms, clubs, back alleys and studio apartments. I ended up sleeping four weeks in a row with four guys who shared one house, and that was sort of fun.

All the time I wasn’t out or running I felt like shit. Zach was still my best friend, and somehow my friendships with the guys weren’t in ruins. I was keeping up a great façade, and it was killing me. My friends thought I was a great guy, but I no longer flirted with girls; my teachers were relatively pleased with me, I kept up good grades; my parents were proud of me; I was running every day, which they thought was healthy, and I was placing top three in every race.

That year I had a record season on the track and on the field. Our school team won every single race. Zach and I got gold and silver in every single match and David and Miles upheld a good front and came in after us in the high numbers. The school and our coach loved us: every assembly after we won we got rounds of applause, standing ovations. I felt sick to my stomach most of the time. The presence of Zachary Sarver made everything both hyper-real and deeply unbearable. Every touch burned like fire and every smile had my heart and crotch jumping. At seventeen we were way too old for sleepovers, but now allowed to stay out pretty much all hours. Which was less than good.

Every Saturday my parents assumedly thought that I was with my friends, my friends had no idea where I went. They started drinking, and I was way ahead in that game: I could drink everyone I knew under the table.

It was summer again and it was hot, so I dressed in a sleeveless white t-shirt and desert camouflage print cargo shorts and headed into town with a pocket full of cash and a house key. It was all I needed. The city was packed, the evening was still hot and there were people everywhere as I headed towards the street where the bars were full of men. Now there were faces I recognised, people who would help me get in or out of bars and clubs, people who would nod, buy me drinks and not ask questions, people who would smile and offer to take me to bed again.

So I fell into step with a couple of older guys I knew in a nod and smile sort of way and got myself a bourbon and coke and stood at the bar, scanning the room and seeing what was going on. The variety of men scared me. There were guys who were so camp they were practically women and others so butch it all seemed false. Other’s still were like me, and without their convenient location you would never guess that they were gay. I chatted with the barman, with a few guys I’d slept with on occasion, and then I saw him.

He was a beautiful mix of what I imagined Alec would have looked like if he’d grown up to be like Jim-Boy. He could have only been in his early twenties, in jeans and biker boots, his white wife-beater stretched over a chest so defined that it was as though it had been carved from some delicious tanned stone. Short black buzz cut, and that sort of lopsided tight grin like a cowboy chewing tobacco. He made every fibre in my body burn.

And I wasn’t the only one. For most of two drinks I watched other guys watching him, saw him turn away a guy who was all glitter and sparkle and another with Justin Bieber hair. And about ten o’clock after the sun had gone down I saw him smile at me across the bar. He walked over, big strides, heavy boots, and put his hand on the back of my neck.

“Hey.”

“Hi…” I breathed the word, my drink shook in my hand.

“I’ve been looking at you staring at me all evening. I had to come get ya.”

“Oh…” his voice was low and rough around the edges, like sandpaper on my self-control.

“You wanna come with me?” It wasn’t really a question and I didn’t actually answer, just drained my drink, set the glass on the bar and moved when he did, his big hand still around the nape of my neck. He steered me out the back of the bar and round into a little alleyway, littered with bins and palettes from past deliveries.

Up against a brick wall I reached for the bulge in his crotch and grinned at what I found.

“Well I liked what I saw.”

I freed him from his jeans and began to stroke, expecting him to do the same. He didn’t. Like some other partners I’d had, he obviously expected me to do all the work. Frottage was better than nothing. When I went to kiss him he moved his face away from me. It should have been warning enough, but I was young and hot, horny and foolish.

“Turn around,” a low growl in my ear.

“No,” my voice and hands shook slightly when I answered, “I don’t do that.”

“You do today you little bitch.” His voice were hard, his hands stronger than mine as he wrenched me away from him, turned my shoulders, crushed me against the wall.

“No!”

“Shut up bitch. It’s not like anyone will hear you anyway.” He was calling me by a girl’s name, sort of, and his hands were very efficiently stripped away my shorts. I tried to brace against the wall, push him away, but I couldn’t. “Don’t pretend you don’t want this. With your sexy little hips and teasing eyes. I know boys like you, you just want to be fucked in that tight little boy-pussy of yours, don’t you?”

“No!” Suddenly I realised that he was going to fuck me. He was going to take my manhood away from me in some intangible and painful way, and there was nothing I could do. With the kind of weird clarity that occurs in these situations I remember all the little lessons on self-defence that Dale and his bouncer buddies had ever taught me and one phrase echoed in my mind.

‘In a tight spot, there are no rules. Pull his hair, kick him in the nuts, use our feet and teeth, whatever comes to hand.’

I took one shuddery breath and bit the hand that held my wrist. Hard.

“FUCK!”

The taste of blood, and no time to think about it. I turned, slipped under his arm, pulled my shorts up with one hand. I felt him claw at me. I turned on one foot and swung with the other. My shoe collided with his head, he was ducked, lunging for me, and he lurched sideways. I managed to get my shorts done up.

I didn’t stay to gloat my victory, so many fights are lost that way. I was the fastest thing on two legs, so I ran. I ran, and ran, and I didn’t stop when I banged into people, didn’t stop when guys called my name, didn’t dare turn and look back. I didn’t slow to get on the train, I just ran.

Two hours later, I arrived home, hot and sweaty, and only once I’d slipped past my family and gotten into a hot shower did I allow myself to cry.