Center Center by James Whiteside

Author:James Whiteside [Whiteside, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sort4
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

The nail in the coffin of my heterosexuality arrived with a return to its origin. During spring break of 2001, I went back to Connecticut to find that Noah had become a beekeeper, and Max-the-interloper had moved to Washington, DC. I hadn’t spoken much to Kurt and Jordan in two years; we had fallen out of touch, as kids tend to do. I called Jordan and asked if he wanted to hang out. He invited me over. I drove up to his house, the same house in which I’d had my first homosexual experience, feeling the anticipation streaming hot in my veins.

His parents weren’t home. We spoke somberly and quietly, not quite sure how to bridge the distance that had grown between us. We played a computer game upstairs in the home office for a while. I recall the atmosphere of the cozy Connecticut study in the late evening, with the floodlight from the garage peering severely through the slatted windows. I remember studying his pale face in the film-noir light, how his beard was coming in, how his hair was longer than it had ever been in the past. I thought, while looking at his soft lips, that I had wasted years not kissing them, when, out of nowhere and everywhere all at once, without taking his eyes off the screen, he said, “Wanna hook up?” Jordan identified as straight, and still does, but what teen can resist liberal, magnanimous sex?

I said, “Sure.” We undid our pants and gripped each other’s already erect penises, as though we knew it would come to this. Everything was the same and everything was different. I was myself, the same self I had always been. I was my number one fan and my own worst enemy. It was acceptance that was the difference.

He said, “You’re gay now?”

“Yup,” I whispered.

He said, “This is the last time we can do this.”

And I replied, “I know.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.