You'd think that with all the stuff I've shared with y'all I would have told this story eons ago, but this morning when I was brushing my teeth, looking in the mirror I realized that I never shared this with y'all.
Due to my numerous sex-ploits most people who meet me think that I must have been fuckin' since I was ten. Actually, it's quite the contrary my friends. I did not have sex, any kind of sex, oral, anal, penetration, with a guy or girl until I was twenty years old, only four and a half years ago. I didn't even kiss a guy until I was 20. Yeah, let's just say that I've made up for a lot of lost time in the past few years. While a lot of you homos kissed, bumped, grinded, and fucked your way through your teenage years, in many ways cultivating your confidence as a gay man, I was too busy crying to God so that he could take this "gay demon" out of me that everyone convinced me I had and when I wasn't doing that I was contemplating suicide.
One major part of me snapping out of that whole self hatred thing was meeting my first love. In retrospect I guess I couldn't say that we quote-unquote "loved" each other but the feelings between us were very strong. He was my first kiss, with a guy, the first time I had sex, period (I've never had sex with a female, and never really wanted to, like hello, I'm gay). He was my everything and I'll never forget him. By a total fluke we ended up connecting with each other again via MySpace back in July. I'm in Harlem now and he's still in Brooklyn. We haven't seen each other in four and a half years but he's doing well. He knew that he was my first even though he still doesn't quite believe me. It was good talking to him though, reflecting on old times. He's one of the people that helped make me the person I am today. Depending on who you ask that can be considered a good or a bad thing. But I digress. In this series of blog posts, "My First "Love"", I will tell the story of him and I.
One night I was at home on my computer, logged into BGC (BlackGayChat/BGCLive, a dating, friendship, sex hookup website). I can't quite remember how I found out about BGC but I managed to get an account there. BGC was cool to me because even though I was a virgin, I knew I was gay, but I didn't actually know any other gay people. BGC gave me a chance to see other gay men in their natural habitat. The profiles with the naked pictures didn't hurt either. At that point in my life I'd never seen another man naked, outside of porn. So seeing real guys my age showing themselves off was really hot. I even had some dick pics on my profile. And even now that I'm offline, four and a half years later I'm sure that my old BGC dick pics are still floating around somewhere in cyberspace (I'd know that head anywhere). At that time I wouldn't dare put my face on BGC. I actually only started doing that shit like a year and a half ago. And even with that you'll never find a fully nude picture of me, with my face showing on the internet. Kiddies take this piece of advice from a retired internet hook up professional: Your dick/ass/vagina should NEVER, I repeat NEVER be in the same picture as your face. Face pics and pics of private parts should ALWAYS be two separate entities. You never know, one day you may run for president or something and that shit will come back to haunt you, but at least if there's no face attached you can always deny, deny, deny. I digress.
So I was in the chat room on BGC one night and there was this guy there, let's call him Tony, who was making fun of everybody's pics on their profile. He was being really cruel too and even though I was laughing at his jokes I was scared that he was gonna come for me next so I quietly slipped out of the chat session. A few minutes later he hit me up on AIM and told me who he was and started talking to me. I was kinda shocked by it all and wondering why he had this sudden interest in me. So we chatted back and forth on the internet and eventually ended up exchanging numbers. That night we ended up having phone sex. It wasn't the first time I ever masturbated with someone over the phone but it was the first time that I took control of it and explicitly told the other person what I wanted to do to them. I've always had a really vivid imagination so I was a natural at phone sex. It's funny because even then I was the top.
I know, It's weird for a lot of people, but for me, coming into gay sex, even doing it for the first time I always knew where I belonged. I'm a top. I was the top, Tony was the bottom. He knew that, all of my dates know that (except for this one). It's not even something that has to be asked. I guess it's just a certain vibe I give off and the vibe that I'm attracted to. An ex boyfriend once told me that he did not believe that there was a such thing as a quote-unquote "real" top until he met me. Out of curiosity I even tried the bottom thing before, nah, it's just not for me. I'm digressing again.
For the next few weeks this phone sex became our nightly, before going to bed ritual, that along with our talking on the phone for four to five hours at a time, sometimes breaking daylight. We talked about everything, from our families, to our jobs, to our dreams, and even a future with one another (oh, to be that innocent again). We even had, and had make up phone sex, after our first argument. At that time Tony and I had never met it was as though I knew him and he knew me, like we were together, like boyfriend and girlfriend, or boyfriend and boyfriend, or lovers, or whatever it was supposed to be. And even though to actually be with Tony the way we planned over the phone, I knew we'd have to face insurmountable odds but none of that mattered those endless nights on the phone with him. Talking with him I slipped into a place where I was finally free, free to be myself and share my real self with someone else. Talking to Tony, I floated high above the pain and the stress of my mediocre, quotidian existence. He was the first person to ever experience the romantic side of me.
The more and more we talked, the closer and closer we got, it was killing me to not be able to see him. We'd let trivial circumstances and insignificant obligations stand in our way for far too long. One Saturday night I'd had enough and I demanded to see him. He obliged. So I slipped away from my group of friends, giving them some bullshit excuse about a friend from school needing homework help and I went to see him, Tony, my destiny.
He actually didn't live too far from me. We both lived in Brooklyn at the time and he was only about 20 minutes away by bus. When I got off the bus to meet him I remember the night being warm and him being taller than I thought, like two inches taller than me. We met, we gave our salutations and exchanged our pleasantries. During our phone conversations I learned that Tony was a huge Brandy fan. The night we met I gave him my autographed "Full Moon" CD that I stood for hours in the cold for on the day it was released. He accepted it and thanked me and we sat on a park bench in awkward silence.
It was so crazy because we'd been so expressive during our countless hours of phone conversation. We talked about our hopes, our dreams, our future, our fantasies, we busted nutts together and now we meet and there's, there's... silence, like what the fuck? So in an attempt to break the ice I suggest that we go to a local diner. We get there, we sit down, I ask Tony if he wants anything, he says no. I order a slice of strawberry shortcake (my all time favorite dessert) and we sit there, in silence. Now I'm nervous. Does he like me? Is he not feeling me? Just then, in the middle of one of my feeble attempts at small talk I reach over and knock my complimentary glass of ice water all over myself. How embarrassing? Here I am on my first date with a guy and I'm totally fucking it up.
We walk out of the diner and it starts pouring down raining, can this fuckin' evening get any fuckin' worse? Sensing that this date is basically over and the last few weeks had been a total waste of time, I made my way toward the bus stop. Tony walks over with me and stands there with me. We stood huddled together in silence under his small umbrella on the south east corner of that busy intersection, watching people run for shelter from the sudden rain, in silence. As I looked up and into his eyes I wanted to kiss him. But back then I didn't have the balls to do some shit like that, even though in retrospect, we coulda got away with it. It wasn't like there was anyone out there anyway. The bus came and as I entered I noticed that he was right behind me. Alrighty, I wasn't sure what to think of this. So I guess he did like me since he was gonna ride with me home and everything. We sat across from each other on the bus, damp, still in silence, but exchanging smiles every so often.
We get off the bus at my stop and walk toward my building. I'm not sure why exactly he was still tagging along as there was no way he was gonna meet Lydia (my mother and Jesus' unofficial cousin twice removed) that night, oh hayell nah! As cool as Tony was, he "looked" gay. And I was not secure enough in myself or my sexuality at that time to face the scrutiny that would come along with me being seen with him. He was in my hood now. It was kinda late so I wasn't so worried about being caught with him but I thought for sure that he was about to cross the street and take the bus back to his house. Isn't it funny how over the phone, dreams and speculations have you floating on air, light as a feather, but in person, reality is about as light as a ton of bricks?
We got to my building, he walked in behind me. Alrighty, we were now at the elevator, in silence. I pressed the up button as a swarm of butterflies fluttered violently through my stomach. I felt as though if I uttered a single word one would come flying out. We step into the elevator. As he stood in the back right corner, the tension mounted. Instead of pressing the button for my parents' third floor apartment I pressed next to the number 17. This was it. I'd been waiting for this all day, all night, all my life, and I was tired of playing it safe, tired of trying to please mama and daddy and everyone else. This was my life and I'll be damned if don't start living it. I didn't know what was gonna happen from that point on, whether the stars would fall from the sky or whether the Earth would swallow me whole and I'd fall into the pits of hell, but at that point I really didn't care, fuck it. I kissed him.
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Playing In The Background...
"Kissing You"
by Faith Evans
from the "Waiting To Exhale Movie Soundtrack"
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