Something's changed

By: Liz Day

Exploring same sex attractions

Rick keeps turning it over in his mind. It happened so fast so let's go through it again. He had felt the guy looking at him and slowly looked back out of the corner of his eye. This guy was older than him, he could tell by his build and the dark coils of hair on his legs. There was a rush of nerves and excitement when their eyes met, and the guy kept looking at him, up and down his body. He knew there was no turning back. It felt so sexy. Next thing they're in the shower and this is Rick's first sexual experience. Before he knew it the guy had gone back out to the pool. Rick threw his clothes on and, grabbing his stuff, ran home.

The last few weeks Rick finds himself more and more wanting time alone, lying on his bed. His girlfriend has been hassling him to go out but he feels uncomfortable around the gang. Surfing the channels there's just the usual crap on, and beyond the TV he spies his guitar leaning quietly against the wall. Now he's picking his way through a Pearl Jam number and looking at his reflection in the TV screen. The guitar is badly out of tune, and he's left finger prints in its dust. "I don't know what it is but something's changed".

"Where are you, ya poofta!" a mate jokes into the answer machine. "Come and watch some videos at Lisa's on Friday. She's got the place to herself for the night. Everyone's coming. See you there." Erasing the message he leaves the machine on and heads out to work. "No time to play this week".

This is his third day of a fulltime shift since the holidays began, and he's wiped out. Pete and Nick are always competing when they unload the vans. Rick's seen them look at each other, checking out the build and all that. "All guys check each other out - it doesn't make you a fag", he reminds himself. He's walking his bike to the nearby takeaway and trying to ignore the mental image he has of Pete and Nick doing what he did that day at the pool. . . 

Riding home now he's replaying a conversation with his sister from the other day. "What was she saying?... Something about how her friend's mother discovered she had cancer and actually phoned one of those help lines. Like the ones you call when you're 12 and pretend you're on drugs."

He's back on the bed, chilling. Nothing to watch on TV. Funny how you just do things in a daze sometimes. Next thing he's dragged the yellow pages from under his bed. It takes a while and then he finds the section. And now it's ringing. Someone answers. "Oh shit!" he thinks, "I wasn't expecting a woman to answer". He's about to hang up but for some reason he just holds on, saying nothing. There's a long embarrassing silence, and he's glad she can't see him.

Now it's getting a bit easier. Rick feels as if he's really talking to himself, with someone helping him on. He's getting those feelings again as he describes how it happened that day at the pool. Then she asks him a question. "So how do you feel as you're describing this?" Rick's not used to talking about his feelings like this and it's hard to find the words. It's easier to just describe what happened, so he repeats what he said.

It went so fast. Half an hour later and he's off the phone holding the piece of paper with the group's number he scribbled down. They'd talked about what sexuality means for different people. Rick can't remember what he said. She'd asked him about safe sex. "Right now all I want to do is get with other guys". He felt embarrassed that he knew nothing about AIDS and all that. "Anyway, I'm not like that". It felt more real though, now. And he had a contact number to meet other guys exploring their own sexuality in some social group. Some days after the call Rick was feeling confused again. "Does this mean I'll still get married and have kids. I don't want to be a poof I just want sex with other guys". He keeps the counselling line's number in his wallet in case he needs to call them back. "I might get a guy to talk to next time...".