Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 13:08:06 -0400
From: Just Jake <mission_hockey_4_life@hotmail.com>
Subject: From the Heart of a Little Guy (highschool)

This story is a work of fiction and any resemblances to  any
person or written works are purely coincidental.  The author
retains all rights to the work, and requests that in any use
of  this  material that my rights are respected.  Please  do
not  copy  or  use  this  story in  any  manner  without  my
permission.   It does contain consensual sex  between  young
men.   You've  found this site like the rest of  us  so  the
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Please  read of your own free will, and direct any  positive
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*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

I'm told that we all remember times in our lives when we feel painfully
awkward.  For some of us it is on rare occasion, for others it
seems to be a way of life.  That's how I met Jon.  Grade 9 in a
huge school of well over 2000 students was such a big change from
Grade 8 in a feeder school of less than 200 students.  I was never
a loner, but never popular at school before; we all knew each
other and popularity didn't matter.  All of a sudden, thrust into
a new environment where image and popularity meant everything I
got lost.

When I got my schedule on orientation day I was so upset that I only had
2 classes that paired up with only 3 of the 16 classmates I
graduated Grade 8 with.  Even though it was a new starting point,
it was so unfair that I was so alone all of a sudden from the
comfort I knew with my small group of classmates that I had grown
up with.  I walked around the school in a daze, in my own personal
pity-party.  I felt so numb that it took me weeks to remember
where friends lockers were, and by the time I did they all seemed
to have made new friends.  Like we all manage to, I got used to
the change and slowly started to make new friends.  By the end of
the first semester I wasn't the scared little kid that came from a
small school anymore.  Instead I was just a normal kid in every
way with normal friends.

By this point in my life I have learned about sexuality obviously, but
never put it together that the boner I got over guys like Matthew
Lawerence meant that I was gay.  I drool over Nick Carter.  Ain't
ignorance and denial great?  Hahaha!  It still is hard to write
that 3 letter word about myself.   Now nearing the end of grade 11
I am coming to terms with it, but only Jon and my family know for
sure.  Houston and my family are so anti-gay I didn't think I
could ever come out there.

I met Jon on a dull, typical day.  In the first few weeks of high school
I couldn't find anyone to eat lunch with until the lunch class was
usually almost over.  Like I said, I was in a daze.  So instead I
gave up and convinced myself that if I went to the mall that was a
block away from school and ate at the food court there I could
forget my loneliness.  I also convinced myself that everyone else
in my grade would think I was cool because I didn't care and
actually went to the mall for lunch.  I can't really explain other
than it made sense to me.you know?  So every day I went over to
the food court at the mall for lunch.  After a couple weeks it was
getting too expensive to buy food there so I started buying a can
of pop and a chocolate bar or a bag of chips.  Soon I was just all
together brown-bagging it on my way to the mall and walking around
loosing myself in the mall instead.  There were others I saw from
school that did the same thing, but I was way to chicken to
actually approach any of them and maybe make friends.

I was in a music store buying a CD for my Mom that she gave me money to
get for her when I met Jon.  He was behind the counter.  He didn't
actually work there, one of his older sisters worked there and he
hung out with her at lunch.  She was busy trying to get the stereo
to work when I came up to the counter so she forced Jon to ring
through my CD.  He was almost throwing a controlled tantrum that
he had to help her, but it was because he was shy and liked me I
much later learned.

"Hey, you like Madonna?   That's kinda gay.  My name's Jon," were his
first words to me.  I guess that was supposed to be his way of
making friends with me.

Feeling awkward because it challenged my masculinity I offered, "It's
for my mom."

Of course that made me feel like even more of a pussy as the words left
my mouth.  I wished I was some big buff guy with armpit hair and
facial hair or at least looked I was older than like 10 so that he
wouldn't have had the nerve to say that to me in the first place.
But I didn't, even now I still look too young to be in high school
and am still totally behind most guys in the development stage.

As I paid for the CD and Jon tried to count out the change but kept
screwing up he asked me, "Hey, I seen you in Parkwood havn't I".

Always the conversationalist, I said, "yeah."

"So ya wanna walk back there with me?  Lunch is almost over and all?"

Of course I made up a story, "I would but I've got some friends waiting
for me.  I better get going."  After he finally gave me the change
I didn't bother to check it or get the receipt, I just fled back
to school.

A few weeks later I passed him in the hall and he said `Hi' to me.  I
wanted to be his friend so bad, but was too chicken-shit to even
say hi back to him.  From time to time we kept running into each
other until I started memorizing when and where we always did so.
I always rushed to get to the right spots at the right time!  As I
became friends with Neil and Tim who I had all my classes with,
they thought I was a freak that I did this, but I never told them
why.  I think Jon and I spent all of grade 9 playing this game.
It still never occurred to me that I liked him, I thought I liked
girls and couldn't figure out what the fuck I did this for.

It was into the tenth grade that I started being friends again with
Michael from grade school.  We re-connected in football try-outs
that year and started making time for each other.  More to the
point, I made time for Michael because Jon and he had become
friends the year before.  It was becoming apparent to me by the
end of the first semester of grade 10 that I am in fact gay, and
it has become my deepest, darkest secret.  While I lusted for Jon
in private I was so painfully meticulous to make sure no one ever
knew.  Much to my happiness, when second semester rolled around I
had gym class with Jon.  Loosely knowing each other, we became
partners in most sports and during warm-ups.  Little by little we
got comfortable with each other, as we were both playing the feel
each other out game.  I wish one of us had the nerve to come right
out and have asked the other the question, but we were both very
careful to not expose ourselves.  I mean, not like you need to be
told because we've all been there, but the chance of being known
as a fag is still fear #1 in my life right now.  And Jon and I are
so careful of that.

So it all started real slow.  I think Jon was the one to first
`accidentally' brush his hand against my crotch while playing a
little one on one basketball one day.  I say I think, because I
have so many fantasies like that that I honestly can't say for
sure whether I had done it first to him or just wished I had.  No
matter, little by little we began to explore each other very
cautiously.  It would be things like a pat on the butt for a good
play, shot, or whatever that really was way too close to each
others butt hole, or a very cautious `accidental' hug that was
supposed to be a tackle when horse-playing.  Of course those hugs
sometimes involved a curious hand in the other's crotch.like oh,
oops, didn't mean to touch you there, sorry.you know?  In the
change room I tried my hardest to never cop a look at him, and
sometimes caught him trying to look at me when he thought I wasn't
looking.   I started to think that he might like guys too because
of all of this, but also thought that I might have just wanted it
to be that way so badly that I was seeing things that just weren't
there.

Then Michael's 15th birthday came around and we had a sleepover at his
house for it.  Jon, myself and Michael's cousin Phil.  When it
came time to go to bed, I said I was going to the bathroom to
change into my pajama pants.  It struck me as odd, but Jon said
"cool, I'll go change with Daniel so that Michael and Phil can
change by themselves.  And we can get ready for bed then."

I didn't argue, but was totally nervous.  I don't think aside from the
pool when I had a towel wrapped around me anyhow, that I had ever
been fully naked in front of another guy my age before.  I wanted
to get naked, and do I don't even know what with Jon, but at the
same time I all of a sudden was so afraid of him seeing me naked.
When we were in the bathroom Jon striped quickly to his black
Hanes boxer briefs and then started stalling.  For some reason,
down to his gitch Jon became all of a sudden modest.  I was
staring at him I guess a little too obviously while avoiding
changing.  Cowering out, I hoped that he would just change and
leave, so I brushed my teeth first.

Jon was blushing when I looked over at him again, and he finally said,
"Hey man, um I kinda don't like changing in front of other guys if
that's cool and all."

Thinking to myself `then why the hell did you come in her with me', I
said, "sure".

So we faced away from each other both with relief, but both with regret
that we both got this far and chickened out.  As we were changing
Phil used a pin in the doorknob and opened the locked door to say
"Hurry up homo's."   But to the disappointment of his jab, we were
both in varying degrees of nakedness, but facing away from each
other.

We then went to Michael's room and got our sleeping bags ready while
Michael and Phil brushed their teeth.  Before Michael and Phil
came back Jon seemed like he wanted to say something and was still
red in the face since we were in the bathroom together.  Michael
and Phil came back and then Michael's dad checked in on us and
told us not to make too much noise because he had a meeting the
next morning and needed to sleep.  Michael took this way seriously
and kept getting mad when we tried to talk so it killed the guy's
night mood, and we just shut up soon and fell to sleep.

There wasn't a lot of room on either side of the bed, so I was on one
side, John at the foot of it and Phil on the other side.  Sometime
in the middle of the night I suddenly woke up.  Jon's hand was on
my sleeping bag rubbing the back of my leg.  When he knew he woke
me he totally froze.  The room was too dark to make out his face
but I knew it had to be him.

Jon sounded so afraid as he pleaded with me, "I'm not gay, O.K.?  Sorry,
I'm so sorry.  Don't tell any one, O.K.?  Please, please don't
tell anyone, I'm sorry.  O.K.?"

!!!!!!!   Like what do you do?  I have a million thoughts as to how I
could have done things different; seductively pull him into a
kiss, steady his hand back on my leg, even tell him I'm gay too.
Anything.  But instead I just rolled over and covered my eyes with
my arm.