Questions
This is just something I wrote several years back. True story, just furred up.
If you've ever known the feeling of having your dad take you to a French bistro for breakfast for the sole purpose of asking about your sexual preference, I know how you feel. For about six months every couple of weeks, we would go to Le Madeline, sit at the same table, and eat breakfast. I'd always have the French Country Breakfast; he'd have the American Breakfast. Midway through our silence, he'd slide into the question, which was awkward in itself for anyone to be asking, but your dad asking ... there was something inherently wrong with it. It also happened to send a surge of anger and frustration through me. I'd flick an ear or growl softly sometimes. Why did he have to know so badly? Why can't he just keep to himself. I'd tell him the same thing, with more frustration and weariness in my voice than the last time: "Dad, I'm straight, ok? Stop asking." Of course, I might've had a slight grin when I said it or a mischievous look in my eye. Whatever it was, it gave rise to continued questioning, and more fear that he'd eventually find out.
I won't deny it, I'm a bi wolf. And so I was telling the truth... to a certain point. I've had an interest in guys since I hit puberty, but I didn't admit it. I haven't told anyone in my family about it, but I've been close to telling my parents a few times. I've jokingly came out, but joking doesn't count. Not to me, at least.
One time, on a trip to D.C. with my parents and life long friend, we were having a discussion and the topic of love arose. I blurted out that I loved my friend and they gave me a hard time. Another time we were eating at a restaurant and a handsome fox waiter winked at me after I smiled and gave my drink order. I felt my cheeks redden and I smiled bigger; I buried my face in the menu in case anyone looked at me, my tail tucked between my legs. As he walked away, I looked him over and told everyone he winked at me. Dad asked if there was something I wanted to tell them. "I don't know what it could be," I replied.
Another time, up here in Ohio, my parents were lecturing me about the dangers of sex (I was trying hard not to smile) and getting a bitch pregnant. I told them with a straight face I'd just have sex with guys then, but Dad immediately told me about the risk of HIV. I thought, "Wow, that was easy," and didn't tell him that the rate of HIV infection on college campuses is higher in heterosexuals than homosexuals. Mom said she'd have to tell everyone I was "gay... I mean bisexual. Bi." Shortly after that I started to sweat, and I passed my comment off as another joke. This time I had to convince them that it was a joke.
Coming out would go over better with my dad than with my mom, even though he'd always talk about how I'm the last of the line on his side and it's my responsibility to perpetuate the family line or whatever. That's wolves for you. I guess that means he's encouraging me to sleep with as many females as possible, but I'd never do that. Plus, I don't plan to have pups, so that's not an issue. He's much more rational and, in my mind, more open to far out ideas. "The only reason why I don't support gay marriage," he said, "is because of economics." Whatever. He also keeps secrets much better than Mom.
My mom, however, would tell everyone she knew. My aunt would be the first to know, since she calls her nearly every day. Mom said she doesn't support gay marriage. But to give her a break, she also said she didn't care what gays do as long as they keep it to themselves. My aunt, the liberal on Mom's side of the family, said she supports civil unions. She wishes that bisexuals make up their mind, though. About the only person I would come out to in my family would be my thirty-year-old, ex-convict cousin. Naturally, he's the black sheep, and I think he'd take it well. Maybe a bit too well.
In the fourth grade, I kissed my first female on the cheek, and in return, during a friend's pool party, she nearly took off my bathing suit; I ran and hid behind a guy I knew. A few years go, I kissed a distant friend on the forehead after a classic rock concert (I can still swear I saw Smash Mouth there...), and her dad didn't like that very much, I think. I learned since then to not kiss females in front of their parents. That's about as far as I'd gotten until I got a girlfriend. With guys, it's been much more interesting.
My former best friend/next door neighbor and I experimented for many years, mainly in the closet (boy, talk about coincidence!). We grew up together and spent nearly all our time together when we weren't at school. He went to public schools, and I went to private schools. During middle school, my neighbor and I grew closer, even as he became the dominant one in the friendship. Most everything happened in eighth and ninth grade, when I was thirteen and fourteen; in retrospect, his dominance started to show around that time. Thinking about it, I was the physically dominant one, if you could call it dominance, purely because of my size and strength. I'd playfully punch him in the arm or smother him with a beanbag, like normal best friends. Physical scars, however, heal more quickly than emotional ones.
It got to the point where I wouldn't care if he came over to IM his friends and not talk to me. Well, I shouldn't say that. I cared a lot, and by the time he rarely came over and still did all that, I was furious with him. I couldn't do anything about it though because I'd lost my voice and had no confidence or command. What was worse, with middle school nearly an hour away, and my slow journey inward, he became my only friend, with the exception of another lifelong friend who moved two hours away. I had friends in school, of course, but I didn't recognize them as friends until recently.
My lifelong friends and I still had sleepovers (I had a big enough bed so all three of us could sleep in the same bed), and I still sleep with my other lifelong friend when he spends the night (the only qualm I have with him is he's a sheet-hogger). Of course, our fun was escalating slowly, and at the time we involved our other great friend in the fun. He was hesitant, to say the least. Our experiments went to the next level when we were alone one night. We were both young teens experimenting throughout our lives sleeping in the same bed; I guess it was only natural to come to that. It was spontaneous and harmless.
After that, we had one more such encounter, though I'd be kidding myself if I said it was spontaneous. We never talked about it after that, and I'd be surprised if he even remembers what happened. After the peak, I was certain I was pregnant (hey, I was young and didn't know any better), but that passed and instead the greater fear of HIV/Aids came into play. Every time I became sick, I knew that it was the HIV kicking in regardless of what Mom or the doctors said was just a cold. That lasted two to three years and helped speed a growing depression. The experience also led me to think I was gay, not straight. I didn't even know someone could be both.
One of the last times we did anything together, we were at a beach house and the beds were small enough for one person. The three of us had our own room, so he stuck his hand down my covers; my other friend watched. That had to be one of the best nights of my life, and it cemented my thoughts that I was gay. Anyway, he quickly turned goth and hardly came over. Whenever I'd ask if he wanted to come over, he'd always say he'd be there in a few minutes and I naively listened to him. This happened more and more until one day he dropped off the face of the earth. I cried, of course, but I felt empty, mostly. I didn't hear from him again until this summer. His dad had kicked him out of his house and he was living in Arizona with his mom. He graduated a year early and was working odd jobs. He was moving back here a few days after I left for college
I certainly couldn't tell my parents about anything, as they were having troubles of their own (they divorced four years ago). So I was an entering freshman in high school thinking that surly I was gay and on the football team. Naturally, the locker room scene was difficult, and I had a couple rules for myself. I always changed in the bathroom stalls, and I never took a locker room shower. I'd always wait until I got home, for the obvious reasons and fears. The image I have most seared in my mind was when a husky stepped out of showers and walked right in front of me. I nearly collided into him and just stared. I might've been drooling; I can't remember (I was not looking at his face). To make things worse, I was only wearing boxers. Thankfully, nothing came of it. That was the only notable situation I'll have had in high school until my senior year. Sophomore year was a wasted year. Junior year, I became heavily involved in the theater. I may've had a semi-constant lunch table, too.
The internet was a double-edged sword for me. While doing what any male high school student would do at night when he doesn't have any friends (Mom embarrassingly walked in on me a few times; either she didn't see, didn't care, or I hid really well), I also found many articles and websites concerned with gays and lesbians. I saw both sides of the story, and became quite knowledgeable about the issue. I noted the sites claming to turn gays straight and sometimes I'd wish they could help me. Other times, I'd sometimes laugh at all the sights proclaiming gays were going straight to Hell, and sometimes I'd be scared as hell that I'd be going to Hell (I had yet to figure that issue out). But for the most part, I noted that most of the sites and people who were against gays were Christian. This, of course, helped me to push away from Christianity.
I broke the cycle of depression in perhaps the most natural of ways: I got a crush on a female. I naturally wanted to talk to her, but knowing nothing about her, I had to go to some of my small acquaintances I maintained over the years to find out what she was like. Soon I realized these acquaintances were not really acquaintances but great friends; I just never wanted to see it. The crush also broke the thought that I was gay. I was really bi. After the break up (I always wonder if I should call it that) I still felt compelled to talk to her; it was just really awkward. But she ended up being the first person I came out to, and together with another friend, they coached me in coming out to my girlfriend of roughly two weeks.
At first she thought I was joking; I told her once, jokingly, that I was gay during one of our many chats over IM. When I told her I was serious, she wasn't sure how to take it, but she was ok with it, and she quickly got used to it. That is, until I told her I had a crush on one of my best male friends. All my other friends were happy for me (I had two other bi friends, both females), but she needed reassurance that I wouldn't go off and do something with him. I promised her I wouldn't do anything with him, but that was very hard to do; I was thinking about him constantly. The only thing I did was ask him out, and he nearly cracked his skull open as he almost hit his car and the pavement; I managed to pass it off as a joke, but he had his suspicions. All of this happened in January of my senior year.
Unfortunately, the high of living my new life faded and a small bout of depression over some trivial matter sparked me into thinking my old self was coming back. I quickly broke down and remembered my concern over HIV. It'd been about five years, and HIV is dormant for the first five years to ten years. I looked up how HIV could be transmitted for reassurance, but there on the list was the one word I didn't want to see: oral. Being in a state of fear, I interpreted it to mean kissing. So, I again lay in bed shaking from head to toe, unable to sleep, thinking I'd given my girlfriend HIV. That brought on more distress because I hadn't even told her I wasn't a virgin, and certainly not how I wasn't a virgin. Thankfully, for two nights in a row, the female I first came out to was there for me, and I found a way out of the depression. I still had a lingering fear of HIV, but another good friend helped me rationalize it away by saying that two virgins who haven't been with anyone else couldn't get any STD's. During that time in her car, she also told me she'd debated whether to ask me out or not when I first told her I had a girlfriend. It became an unspoken law between us that however much we'd joke around, keeping my girlfriend and I together was more important. The crush on my friend went away around this time, only to resurface a few weeks later. Whenever I saw him, I hugged him just to make him feel uncomfortable. By the end of the year, I think he was getting used to it because he didn't feel as ridged.
When I finally told my girlfriend I wasn't a virgin, she didn't know what to say or do, and I was certain she would leave me. (Never tell anyone something that could potentially ruin a relationship over IM. It's very difficult to gauge the all important tone of voice. And also, it's just better to tell them in person). She said we would talk about it the next day; naturally, I feared the worst. The next day, I told her I shouldn't have told her, she told me she deserved to know, which I guess she was right. Unfortunately, she thought that my friend had arranged for a female to sleep with me. Only during the beginning of summer did she understand the truth (she was very nonchalant about it and I got the impression that she preferred the truth to what she was thinking). Nothing major really happened with us from then on, except for a little jealousy on both our sides from playful flirting for a while.
One Friday night, the guy I had a crush on had a small party for the theater techs, and I kept asking him to come sit in my lap as I had my arm around my girlfriend. The next day, while we attaching doors to the set, he joked, "Hey Chris! The doors swing both ways, just like you!" I got a big kick out of that, even though the assistant technical director was standing next to us. My last night in town, he thought I was going to kiss him on the lips in a bowling alley. I wasn't; it only seemed that way. He was leaning in close staring at me, and I opened my mouth to say something. As soon as he saw my open mouth, he turned away and sat next to another friend. In retaliation, I surprise hugged him as another friend took our picture. Unfortunately, I left the camera at home.
My girlfriend and I both cried that night when we were finally alone. We cuddled on her couch until one a.m., her head in my lap while I was stroking her hair, both of us not wanting to say goodbye. Thankfully, her parents didn't tell me to leave at midnight. It was a very sweet goodbye; I cried, for the first time in a long time, in front of someone I love.