OFF THE RAILS By The Fabler - fabler@hotmail.com
Sorry it's taken so long for this chapter to be posted... it's been a combination of starting a new business and writers block.. (smile) At last, here is chapter 3.. hope you enjoy this one as well.. I would just like to say thank you to all of you that have been sending me e-mail telling me what you think of each chapter, I really appreciate it, and it is an inspiration to keep writing. Both your compliments and criticisms are appreciated, so please keep them coming, they both serve to help me improve my writing! So without any further ado.....
The usual disclaimers apply, so read on...
Chapter 3. (Disappointments)
The flat was in total darkness, and not wanting to wake anyone I tried to feel my way through to my bedroom in the dark. Dumb move, I walked into every coffee table, lamp, couch and any other piece of furniture that furnished the path from front door to bedroom. The final insult was tripping over the stupid fucking concrete doorstop. Concrete doorstop, who has fucking concrete doorstops I ask you? I fell over onto the telephone table, which of course tipped over, dropping the phone onto the floor, and spilling the contents of the drawer all over the wooden passage floor.
"What the hell is going on here?" Bellowed Linda as she came walking into the lounge slapping on the light switch.
"Shit, I tripped on that stupid fucking doorstop. Help me, I think I've broken my toe." I groaned my reply.
Almost doubled over with laughter she carried on in her 'you're an asshole' tone of voice, "Why the hell didn't you turn the light on?"
"I didn't want to wake anyone up, thought I'd sneak in quietly."
"Yeah, you probably would have caused less disturbance by putting the light on you asshole." The cow was still laughing at me.
"Stop laughing and help me up you cow, besides, if I had put it on, I would have had to go back to turn it off again." By this time Kelly had also come walking through and was just as hysterically amused.
"Help the asshole up Linda, I'll put the kettle on for some coffee, pointless going back to bed, the sun will be up shortly."
Linda stepped over to me to give me a lift up and help me straighten the table and pick up all the shit that had scattered across the floor. "By the way, you can also turn the light off for the lounge at this switch here." She said pointing to the light switch at the entrance to the passageway. "Where the hell have you been up till now?" She asked.
Before I could answer, Kelly yelled from the kitchen. "Don't ask, he might just tell us and we'd only be disgusted! I hope you used a condom!"
I smiled and yelled back, "No, I'm not going to tell you where I was or what I did, but it was fun, and yes I did use a condom."
Kelly came walking back into the lounge carrying the coffee. I was still in pain as I hobbled across to one of the couches. "I see I'm not going to get any sympathy from either of you. Damn, I think I've broken my toe." We all sat down and chatted, the two of them trying to drag out of me what I had been up to. The sun started rising over the horizon before I stood up and excused myself, "you girls have at least had a few hours sleep, so please excuse me I'm going to crash for a while, if anyone phones, please wake me." "If you're expecting a call from Westley, please don't hold your breath. He's not exactly the kind of guy that you can rely on for a second date." Linda called after me as I walked out the room.
I didn't bother answering her, I stripped and flopped down onto the bed, I thought to myself that Linda was wrong, he would give me a call. We'd both had fun, and he did say he wanted to get together again.
I woke a few hours later, and as Linda had warned, he hadn't called. He didn't call that evening either, neither the following day, nor the next. I tried to put him out of my mind, but I was just a little upset at the idea that he had said he would call. I wasn't in love with the guy or anything, we'd just had a good time, with the promise of other good times, or so I thought. Obviously he didn't feel the same.
I started work on the Monday after meeting Westley, I was as nervous as hell when it came time to give my first lesson, but after the first few were under the belt, I settled in quite nicely. The dancing became my focus, since Westley, I hadn't been to any of the bars, or been around any gay people other than Linda and Kelley. My social life had become non existent because I worked till late in the evenings, and when I did go out, it was with the straight crowd from the studio. I didn't dare make a pass at any of the guys that I met at the studio, firstly it was a big no-no to fraternize with the students, and secondly I didn't want my reputation shot to hell with my students if word got around. I slowly started withdrawing, not really feeling as if I fitted in, nights were getting pretty lonely, not having someone to cuddle up to in the evenings when I went to bed. I hadn't had sex with anyone since Westley, all round I was feeling very shit and OH so sorry for myself.
I would lie in bed at night and dream of the future, looking back on my history with guys, I dreaded the thought of spending the rest of my life hopping from one man's bed to the next. It seemed that gay relationships would tend to be short-lived, the pressures of keeping them secret wouldn't exactly be conducive to helping them to grow. Coming out would only lead to being ostracized and persecution. Why did I have to be the gay one? I also had dreams of having a family, the children and all the other crap that goes with it. There was nothing in this world that I wanted more than to have my own child. I was beginning to understand what it was that Doug went through when I tried to put the pressure on him to come out with me. Just when I thought I had my life sorted out and knew where I was heading, the doubts and fears set back in again. The thought of disappointing my family and friends only succeeded in depressing me. Even though they were so far away, it used to get to me knowing that although they all suspected I was gay, they kept expecting me to be straight. I'd wish that I could just have the guts to come out and tell them all to fuck off. That I was gay and that they must let me live my life the way I would be happiest. The thought of the devastation it would cause to my parents always stopped me.
I started to rationalize why I should go straight again, life with Doug wasn't exactly a bed of roses, hopping from bed to bed didn't appeal to me in the slightest. Women didn't exactly turn me off, I'd had sex with women before, and it had been great. There were a few thoughts about it that turned my stomach, but I didn't have to do those things if I didn't want to.
One of the things about being a dance teacher was that you were never without a partner if you needed one and the single ones always tended to fall in love with their teachers. My students always used to run around me like I was some God or something, each one trying to outdo the other in the way they would pamper me. Shit, one evening at a social, two of my students started slapping each other because the one became jealous that I had danced 2 consecutive dances with the other.
Slowly but surely I started removing myself from the gay mindset, I had moved into my own flat and hardly got to see Kelly and Linda. The more attention I got from my lady students, the stronger the attraction became for more than just social interaction.
It was a Thursday evening, same as any other Thursday, 6:30pm on the 16th July 1987 I was sitting in the reception area waiting for my next student to arrive. This is going to sound soooooo corny, but the door opened and I got this absurd feeling that my "other half" was walking into the room. It wasn't anything sexual, I mean I didn't pop a boner or anything, but just had this odd urge to get to know this person. I must have lapsed into a dream world, because the next thing Dulcie our receptionist was yelling at me, indicating that my student had arrived. I snapped back to reality and walked over to introduce myself, her name was Cindy, and we got the usual formalities out of the way and proceeded to the dance floor to begin the lesson.
She wasn't likely to be the next world champion, but her eagerness and determination to learn was admirable. There was something about her that seemed to draw me in, something that made her stand out from all the other students I'd taught in the past. It certainly wasn't her dancing ability, something about the way she carried herself, the way she spoke, her eyes, they seemed to be looking right into my soul. I was mesmerized, she wasn't a Miss Universe but she wasn't a "dog" either, something inside told me that I had found my sole mate, this was the girl I would marry.
My bubble was duly popped after the lesson when I learned from my manager that she had signed up for a six-week course to learn how to dance because her boyfriend was a dancer. He had already moved out of town and she was going to surprise him by learning to dance before she joined up with him at their new home. Besides that she was 10 years my senior and came from the northern suburbs placing her totally out of my league. Ah well, at least we'd still have 6 weeks together, besides what was I thinking, I was gay! We spent a lot of time together, I'd always make sure that I didn't have a lesson booked straight after hers so that we could sit and chat for a while longer.
A week before she was destined to leave, at the end of her lesson while we were having our usual chat, she told me that she had cancelled her plans to move. She'd got her old job back, and was having all her belongings sent back. I swear my heart skipped a beat, "Yes! Thank you!" my heart cried out in silent prayer to God. This had to be a sign! "Calm down now! She's not changing her plans because of you!" I had to keep reminding myself. "Shit, you haven't even had a date yet. She probably wouldn't even go out with you, let alone marry you!" Well, the one way to find out was to ask her. You could have knocked me over with a feather when she said yes. We saw each other every night, the sordid details you don't need to know, but it wasn't long before the subject of marriage came up! There was of course one little detail about me that might just shatter the dream. It was make or break, I had to tell her about my past, we couldn't go into a marriage with secrets. I told her the whole story, from start to finish every little detail about Doug and my relationship. She sat there in silence listening to me pour my heart out.
"Which lifestyle would you prefer?" she asked when I had finished.
"I want to have a family, I want children, a wife, a home and everything else that goes with it!" I replied.
"Why?"
"Having children and a family has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. A gay relationship will never be able to give me that. Besides, I don't believe that gay relationships ever last."
"Maybe the relationship you had with Doug was just a phase you went through." She rationalized. "If you love me and believe strongly enough that this would be the lifestyle that you want, then maybe getting married wouldn't be wrong. I know I love you and I feel as if I have found my 'other half' with you!" She continued.
"Well I do love you, and I don't believe that anyone else other than you, male or female, would be able to give me what I want out of life! Being with you and the idea of spending the rest of my life with you feels right, like it's the way it should be!"
I had bared my soul and hadn't been rejected. To cut a very long story short and skip some of the details that I'm sure you are not really interested in, we were married on the 24th September 1988. At last I was going to have all those things that I wanted and what everyone else expected me to have. The wife, the home, and of course the most important of all, the children. I couldn't wait to become a father; having a child was the one thing in life that I had wished for since I was one myself. Life was good; being married was the best thing that could have happened to me. We loved each other and understood each other so well; life doesn't revolve around sex after all. What we fell short of in that department, we made up for in others.
Having a baby immediately would not have been a good idea, so we decided to give it a year before we started on the family. It was the second year after having tried for a year without being successful, that we get the shocking news from doctors that we were never likely to be able to have children. Some or other medical condition that Cindy had, for which the most successful cure was to fall pregnant, but the condition itself made the chances of falling pregnant remote. Artificial insemination and other similar options were out of the question for us because we simply didn't have the money to pay for it.
Pretty devastating news, but no problem, if that's the hand we've been dealt there are other options, if we can't have our own, we'll try adoption. The bad news didn't end there, it turns out there is a maximum age for adoptive parents, after which adoption is not possible through child welfare, Cindy had just reached that age limit. Going through private channels had a high price tag, which we couldn't afford. It wasn't the end of the world, we still had each other, and life goes on. There are lots of couples that go through life childless, so what's the big deal?
I had left the dancing world, and was working as a consultant for a video production company. That's where I met Graham he was the producer/director, we clicked on introduction. He had just gone through a messy divorce, his wife had caught him screwing around with one of their friends, I think his name was Richard. His gaydar was perfectly tuned and he recognized the signs of our similar situations immediately.
I'd been married for 4 years by this time, and it was the first time that I'd come into contact with a gay person again. As I said, we hit it off from the beginning, I wasn't sexually attracted to him in any way, so there was no likelihood that we'd be jumping into the sac together. Cindy also liked him, and we used to visit together quite often, dinner at our house or a cookout at his. He met a couple of our friends and we met a couple of his, one of them being Tony.
Let me take a moment to tell you a little about Tony, he became a very special person in my life. He was 45, tall, thin, not too bad looking for his age, and he had the gentlest most caring nature anyone could ever hope to find in a friend. After 20 years of marriage and 2 children, his wife had also decided it was time for him to go out and find his happiness with the boys that he so desperately sought to bed. Yes 'boys', Tony had this thing about picking up boys for his pleasures. The oldest one I met was about 20, but he preferred the 18/19-year-olds. I guess they made him feel younger and he provided them with what they needed financially, so there was synergy. He had an insatiable appetite for sex, and if he didn't have a young stud in his bed, anyone else would do the trick. Everyone knew about my situation with Cindy, they also knew that I had no interest in getting into any relationships or even screwing around. They all respected that and didn't try to put any pressure on me to change my way of thinking.
One morning Cindy and I had an argument, I can't even remember what it was about, but the tension had been building up for me, my feelings of loss because of not being able to have children, our not so exciting sex life. I guess I was just looking for an excuse but that argument tipped the scale. As soon as she had walked out of the door on her way to work, I went into the room, grabbed a bag out of the cupboard and tossed a few of my clothes into it. I needed to get out, get away. I'd only met Tony a few days earlier, but I knew where he lived, a few minutes later I was knocking on his door. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw me.
"I need a place to stay!" I asked sheepishly.
"Oh fuck! What happened? Come inside, you are more than welcome to stay here." He took me by the arm and led me to the lounge.
I rattled off the story, he related to me in every way, because he had gone through all the same feelings in his own marriage.
"Cindy doesn't know where I am, and I don't want her to. I'm not ready to confront her with my feelings just yet. She's never met you, so she's not likely to look for me here." I said.
I realized I was being very cruel by not telling her, so I called Linda the following day to ask her to just tell Cindy I was OK, and that I wasn't ready to talk to her yet, but that she mustn't worry about me.
I'm going to cut a very long story short. (Everyone sighs a sigh of relief!!) I stayed with Tony for 6 weeks. After getting together with marriage councilors and working out all the problems, which revolved around everything else other than sex and being gay, I moved back home. After all it had nothing to do with that, I was straight now! Other than the blowjob that Tony woke me up to one morning, and the brief jack off session I had with Peter (Tony's friend) the one evening. Hanging out at the gay bars practically every night with Tony and his friends, copping a quick glance at all the sexy guys that were playing pool, nothing led me to believe that I was having a problem with my sexuality!????
I'm sorry there is no sex in this chapter, and that it is probably as boring as all hell to you, but things do get better. It was a turning point in my life, and needed mentioning. Chapter 4 should follow shortly.