Wanting Jack, Confiding in Adam
Author's notes: Continuing here, my true story of growing up in the 1970s. Thank you to those who have written to me to comment, share their similar experiences or tell me what growing up was like for them. I wish I knew then how many of us there were. I felt so alone.
Chapter 8: Wanting Jack, and Confiding in Adam
I was in Tenth Grade when I invited my friend Jack to sleep over for my 16th birthday. To my eyes, Jack was absolutely the most beautiful boy in the world, and over the years since we had first met I had cultivated our relationship more carefully than one would tend a rare bird hatched from a fragile egg. Jack was fourteen, fair-skinned, with dark-blond hair that fell over one eye. He had beautiful hazel eyes, a square narrow jaw and had a trim body sculpted out of marble. He was on the wrestling team, but was not big and bulky. Instead, he was trim and lithe, with tight muscle definition. When he moved his arms, his bicep would just pop out of his shirtsleeve. He was slim and fair, with narrow hips and he always wore tight, pale blue denim pants. When I was near him I couldn't breathe properly.
I met Jack for the first time a few years prior on my little-league baseball team when he had first moved to our town. The first time I saw him shirtless at the pool, I couldn't take my eyes away. Though he was only 11 (I was 13), he was so perfectly proportioned as he stood tanned, wet and nearly naked in the sun that I became paralyzed staring at his form. Like studying a drawing in a human anatomy book, one could see every muscle and the way it connected to the muscle next to it to make a beautiful, nearly perfect smoothly shaped and perfectly proportioned human form.
But looks weren't all of it. I got to know him and was delighted to find that he was polite, humble and friendly. He was in the band and was a good student. But most impressive to me, Jack was the kind of boy who could excel at any sport he tried, seemingly without effort. Yet, he was never mean or dismissive to those who didn't have his natural ability (like me). He made sure that other, less skilled kids were included in games and activities, and had a knack to make others feel good about themselves. Even though he was a year and a half younger than me, I looked up to him and wanted to be more like him.
The Halloween when he was fourteen he dressed like The Incredible Hulk for a party, accomplishing this task by wearing ripped clothes, removing his shirt and shoes, and painting himself with green body paint. If anyone else had done this I would have been disgusted with the pompousness of the act, but with Jack it was just neat, and to me highly erotic as well.
I only saw him naked one time, but the memory of it is burned into my mind. I had last period gym, and Jack was in the locker room for weigh-in for a wrestling match to be held at our school that afternoon. I came around the corner and saw Jack standing bare on the scale, looking to me like a statue of a Greek god. I froze in my tracks, and as he stepped from the scale and went to his locker to dress, I followed him like a dog, probably babbling incoherent breathless nonsense as I drank him in, beautifully naked from head to toe. He was as beautiful in real life as he was in my masturbatory fantasies.
But best of all, Jack thought that I was cool. He might have been a jock, and I was just a jock "wannabe", but to him I was an older guy whom he trusted. He would talk about seemingly anything I wanted to, and of course what I wanted to talk about with him was sex. Jack didn't seem to have much of a sense of "personal space" around his body. He would let me get really close to him and would let me touch him on the arm or leg when we talked. Sometimes he even touched me back. When we talked our faces were sometimes close enough together that I could feel his breath on my cheeks.
Looking back, I think he absolutely must have known that I was attracted to him, and I don't think he minded. I dated his twin sister (yes. He had a twin sister who was a beautiful as he was handsome, who several years later went on to become a state winner in the Miss USA pageant. I won't say from which state to keep this story as confidential as I ought.) Though I dated her, with some shame I will now confess that I did so only to be closer to him.
We were too young to drive, and since Jack's family lived in walking distance from the High School, I'd go with his sister to the school dance or football game and afterwards we'd walk back to their house. He'd always be there, and as soon as I'd see him involuntarily my heart would start pounding, my breath would quicken, and my cock would stir involuntarily in my shorts. We'd lock eyes with each other and I know the look on my face surely betrayed that I was in love with him. My lust towards him would have been obvious to any astute person watching me, but luckily his sister was rather a rather clueless individual. He'd smile back, never breaking his gaze, and he'd sit down next to me on the couch- the twins on either side with me in the middle. He sat very close to me, closer than necessary and becoming immediately drunk with lust I would uncontrollably slide my hand over so I was touching his leg, out of her sight. Immediately I'd grow an uncomfortable erection in my tight blue jeans, and he'd notice. Grinning a little, he'd slyly grope his own crotch, nudging and repositioning his own newly erect penis in his pants so I could see it in return. There is no question in my mind that he knew I what I was looking at, and I think he must have enjoyed showing off. I have no idea what his sister saw, noticed or thought, because as soon as Jack appeared in the room she ceased to exist in my universe.
Jack would stand with me in cafeteria lunch line sometimes in High School as we waited with our trays to be served. Packed together in the crowded noisy hallway, whenever I could I positioned myself directly in front of him, then with my hand at my side I'd slowly back up till my hand just brushed against his pants. Slowly, gently and hopefully not obviously I would push against him just a little with the back of my hand, feeling his penis push back inside his tight Levis. My heart would pound at the lewd contact, but during this NEVER did I look him in the eye, and not a word was ever said, and never did I become so overt as to feel him with my fingers But looking back now I must conclude there is no way on earth he wasn't complicit with what I was doing. He never moved away and just allowed my contact. One day I felt an electric shock of surprise pleasure while, during this activity he reached into my open shirt cuff from behind and quickly stroked my bare forearm with his fingers a couple of times, just for a moment, as if to say "It's OK. If I make you horny that's all right. I am a boy and I am horny a lot too."
I was so happy just being near Jack and I thought about him constantly. On a long night bus trip with the school band, Jack sat next to me in the dark and told me specifically how he had learned to jerk off (he said his older cousin had taught him that past summer, and when he visited they did it together... imagine how many private times I re-envisioned that scene), that he liked to do it "every other day or so" and that he was not ashamed of it. Jack said he really liked girls, especially this one and that one, and I told him that I liked girls too. (However, when pressed I couldn't come up with any names for him though.)
The week before the sleepover at my house, I had heard a schoolyard rumor that Jack had recently slept over with another boy in a backyard tent, and that they had gotten naked and been sexual together, and that the whole thing had been Jack's idea. I was heart-poundingly conflicted: both tremendously excited that this story might be true, but also shocked and horrified that it was being told around, wondering where it had come from. However, so intoxicated was I by the story that I searched the other boy out, a rather feminine and wimpy boy, and frightened him by asking him questions related to the event. But I simply wanted to know what technique he used to seduce my friend, so that I could use it too. The boy was flustered and denied that anything had happened. I'm sure I half scared him out of his wits with my aggressive fact-finding, especially since I had rarely spoken to him about anything else in the past.
The night that Jack finally slept over, I made sure we looked at some racy magazines and when I shyly asked, he actually raised his T-shirt and let me feel his stomach muscles as I sat on the edge of my bed and he stood in front of me. They were so beautiful, rippled like a picture in a book. And he was smooth and strong and for that moment alone, mine. Right then, I didn't have to share him with anyone. Feeling his naked, warm smooth skin made me feel suddenly lightheaded, and suddenly I lost my nerve and decided I didn't dare go any farther with him that night. I was afraid if I made one, tiny wrong move not only would he never be my friend again, but also he would probably tell the other guys about me, and my life as I knew it would be over. I decided not to ask him if he would jerk off with me that night as I had planned or months to do; I'd simply wait till the "next time". But the opportunity never came again and I was perpetually sad for the next ten years thinking about what I certainly had missed.
In retrospect, I know my sadness came from the overpoweringly silent and frustrating realization that Jack was not feeling anything for me that I was feeling for him. I am sure this was only a game for him; If he suspected how powerfully I was attracted to him, he probably would have been shocked... and likely repulsed.
Jack began dating a ninth grade girl the following year, and he eagerly told me with great detail what they did sexually together. He described the most erotic, wild adult sex you could imagine, and because he was such a good boy he was allowed to be home unsupervised every day after school, and was able to pull off actual in-his-bedroom escapades that were beyond my wildest fantasies. But instead of being aroused at his lusty depictions of him having sex, hearing these stories made me just sick inside. It was becoming painfully clear to me- he was straight, I was a fucking freak, there was no chance that I would ever have him or anyone else like him in my life. I was learning fast that everyone else in the world I wanted to love was straight and was completely clueless as to how they affected me. I was fast coming to the conclusion that I would always be alone and unhappy, and all that awaited me was brief, furtive and shameful hidden sexual encounters with people I'd never want to be seen with in daylight.
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I was feeling sorry for myself in this way as I rode the train from the city with my friend, Adam. He was of Asian descent, and year behind me in school. Adam was a gifted musician who later became a professional with a major orchestra. I was a casual player, and found most serious musicians a drag to be around, intense and humorless. Adam was different, though. While he was very dedicated to his music, he was tall and fun loving and light hearted. He laughed a lot, had a silly streak in his sense of humor and was a lot of fun to be around... not very common with people as deeply into performing arts as he was.
As we rode the train, conversation turned somehow to Jack. We had been talking about other people we both knew, so I expected that we'd make a few comments here and then move on to the next topic.
"So, did you like his Hulk costume?" I asked Adam
Adam's voice lowered. "Oh my God", he intoned, "It was unbelievable that he wore that."
I was very curious. "What did you think?" I asked, wondering if Adam had thought Jack was being boastful or obnoxious by wearing the getup.
"I was staring like a fool", he admitted
"I know", said I. "Me too."
There was a period of silence and my mind raced... WHY was Adam staring? Was it the same reason as mine? We were nearing our stop but I had to know!
"What do you mean you were staring?" I asked and my voice broke a little in anticipation. "Did you not like it?"
Adam looked at the floor. "No—I loved it," he said. Right about then, time halted around me. My brain was having serious trouble processing this conversation.
"I did too," I heard my detached voice admitting. "I wish I looked like that"
"He is beautiful," said Adam simply.
My heart stopped. Never in my life had I had a conversation with another boy that had gone this route. I had never heard one boy refer to another as "beautiful" either. Boys just didn't talk that way to each other.
"Yes", I said softly. "I think he is beautiful too."
We sat in silence as the train rumbled on. Having laid the cards on the table, my mind suddenly filled with questions I now urgently needed to ask Adam before the mood was broken.
"Do you think he is attractive?" I asked, my voice caught in my throat. Adam didn't look at me and stared at a spot somewhere on the seatback in front of us.
"God yes." He answered. "He is awesome."
A surge of adrenalin pushed me to keep going. "I think about him all the time", I admitted. "He is going to sleep over at my house".
Adam nodded. He knew what that meant, it was clear to me. "You are lucky," he said.
I needed to go for the Gold.
"You masturbate, right?" I asked suddenly and boldly.
"Everybody does, don't they?" replied Adam, not looking at me.
That was a good answer. I was ready to let it all out now, to unburden my deepest secret to someone I prayed would understand.
"I—think of him sometimes when I do it", my voice said. My brain imagined a virtual game of Russian roulette in progress, as I spilled my secret sexual shame out to another person for the first time, waiting to be blown to pieces by rejection.
"Sometimes when I come, I am thinking of him", I said so softly I wonder if he heard me.
He had heard me. "I know" said Adam. "Me too."
I suddenly needed air. It felt as though the heat had been turned up in just a few moments' time by thirty degrees, and my heart pounded in my ears. I looked around and realized with a shock that we had missed our stop. We had been so engrossed in this strategic, truly life or death conversation that I had lost track of where we were.
Hurriedly getting off at the next station, I wondered aloud how we'd get home; it was too far to walk and getting dark. Adam looked shell shocked. I doubt he had gotten on the train with the intention of confessing his most tightly held secret to another, but that's what had just happened between us.
The wait for the train going back in the other direction didn't take long, because we had much to discuss and the time passed quickly. We were still somewhat cautious as we bared our souls with measured words and long pauses, but bare them we did, a scant inch at a time. For me to learn that another person—a trusted friend, at that, was also attracted to other boys (Notice I didn't say GAY. My brain couldn't begin to fathom that word used in connection with myself) was a revelation I never dreamed of. Our conversation made me suspect that Adam had come to his own final conclusion some time ago that he was terminally attracted to other boys, and not girls. For him the decision was already baked; it was done and over; finished. Not for me, I told him bravely. I still had some thinking to do and my mind wasn't made up yet. I still liked girls too, or at least I was sure I did, I told him cheerfully. He seemed unimpressed.
As the weeks went by the feeling that another living human being knew that I preferred boys (but not that I was gay), and didn't shame me by teasing me or telling others settled into a quiet satisfaction. I was glad to see Adam in the halls at school knowing we shared a unique and special secret. There was no romantic attraction to him on my part, but I felt emotionally closer to him just by virtue of the life-or-death knowledge about each other that we shared.
I graduated High School and went on to college, and after that first year I found a summer job in construction. I grew well muscled and amazingly slim-waisted. Carrying lumber and climbing ladders every day in the heat had allowed me to earn a broad shouldered, narrow-waisted physique that I had never dreamed of... definitely not as good as Jack's was, but impressive nonetheless. I still saw Adam around. He was a year younger than me and had just finished High School.
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One night that summer Adam and I were hanging out in my basement bedroom and I put on some classical music that he liked. We casually sprawled on my unmade bed, head to toe, listening when I had the causal thought for the first time ever in my life to touch him. I reached out for his leg and rubbed it gently through the fabric of his shorts. Adam played tennis and I could feel the strength in his muscles as I touched him. It didn't feel sexual or arousing to me, just pleasant. I had a girlfriend now, one whom I was with nearly every day. My sexual appetite was seemingly insatiable; she and I took care of my 'needs' often. When she wasn't around I would fill in the hours by masturbating as often as I needed to, and I needed to a lot it seemed.
I was a little surprised when Adam, with his head resting on me, began to feel my leg in return. I closed my eyes and enjoyed it as his fingers felt the inside of the length of my thigh. As the music played I guess I wasn't prepared for it when his fingers came to rest between my legs. Using his thumb and forefinger he found my sensitive penis head and began to feel it. This was the first time in my life anyone had ever put the moves on me—and I was flat out shocked and amazed that it was happening.
I returned the favor by feeling Adam's crotch through his pants. His dick was hard already, poking stiffly up and to the side. I gripped it and rubbed up and down softly through the layers of cloth.
I held my breath as I felt his fingers on my zipper. He pulled it down and unbuttoned my trousers as his head rested on my thigh. My hips were near his face, and his were near mine. I gasped as he reached inside, and I felt his strong fingers though my jockey shorts. I think I froze right there, because I remember that he had to unbutton his own pants and then sort of stuck my hand inside them so I'd return the favor as I dumbly lay there.
He reached inside my shorts and boldly pulled out my teenage cock, now very hard, making a sharp intake of breath as he exposed it to his view. I reached into his shorts right after and exposed him in return, and I could see why he gasped. My cock, though not huge at all (It is a very normal 6", maybe a tad more), was significantly larger in every way than his. His was very hard but thinner and smaller by a large margin... I'd say that it was closer to 4 1/2 inches. At only 17 and somewhat shy, I doubt Adam had much experience with other boys, and probably wasn't accustomed to seeing another one in the state I was in.
I gripped his penis like I'd so often gripped my own, and rubbed gently up and down. Pre-cum oozed everywhere in copious amounts from Adam's cock. I looked at it with great interest, watching the sticky trail my hand left as it moved past its somewhat small mushroom shaped head.
Very suddenly he thrust his hips and put his hand firmly on top of my hands, HARD, stopping me from rubbing almost instantly. What was that about, I wondered? Apparently even though we had only been at it a minute or less, it seemed Adam was almost about to come! I immediately stopped the stimulation, barely touching him and looked at his face as he lustfully examined my penis at close range. Rubbing him again, he once more quickly stopped me, almost immediately holding my hand down tightly so I could not move it. This time, clear sticky liquid was everywhere. I had never seen anything like this—I prided myself on my ability to control my orgasm for as long as I liked. It excited me to think that Adam was less experienced than me and might be losing control of himself because he was so excited about me and what we were doing together.
When he finally released my hand, neither of us had the will to hold back much farther. My renewed frenzied rubbing caused him within moments to arch his hips off the bed as his cum spewed all over my hand and his smooth tummy. He stopped bucking and lay back on the bed, and after catching his breath fully turned his attention to me.
I closed my eyes, put my hands behind my head and relaxed more than I ever had in my life, before or since. I was being masturbated by another boy who preferred boys to girls, wasn't going to laugh at me and was undoubtedly more of an expert at jacking a cock than any girl could ever be. For the next five minutes I completely let go of my inhibitions... if my mother had walked in I don't think I wouldn't have noticed, I imagined. Surrendering myself completely to Adam's touch I breathed deeply and gently met his thrusts with my hips while I writhed slightly in pleasure.
When I felt the orgasm coming I drew my breath in sharply and held it. As the pressure built below my waist all my muscles tightened up, I leaned my head back at an obscene angle fully exposing my throat. "Oh! Oh! Oh" I gasped involuntarily, my muscles tightened and then spasmed uncontrollably, and I began to spray—harder and more powerfully than I ever had done in my life. As a teenager, even under normal conditions I made quite a mess when I ejaculated, sometimes hitting myself in the face with my sperm as I masturbated alone in bed. Because of this, I was always scrupulously careful to place my free hand over my penis head to catch the fierce emission before it flew... (once at fourteen I found it on the wall behind my headboard one morning while making my bed which freaked me out because I realized how easily my Mom might have found it instead of me!)
But this time I didn't cover up anything. I had never felt so powerful and at the same time powerless at once. As the pressure burst and my sperm flew out, it must have landed everywhere. I didn't care, and I didn't see it as my eyes were still tightly shut enjoying the absolutely most powerful orgasm I had certainly ever felt in my entire life. Adam was an expert as he milked me down to final softness. I lay on the bed, shirt pulled up, soaked with both my cum and Adam's and lay with my eyes closed as he eventually cleaned us both up with handfuls from my nearby box of Kleenex.
The symphony record had ended long ago, and the needle was running around and around at the empty groove at the center like a mouse on a wheel, clicking softly and rhythmically over and over. I got up and took the needle off the record as my head throbbed. While I loved what has just happened, I was suddenly so ashamed and disappointed in myself that I wanted to cry. I had a steady girlfriend, for Christ's sake. Yet I had never felt an orgasm as powerful as that when with my girl, and I sadly realized I never would. Standing by the record player with my head bowed, I looked down at my wrinkled and soaked shirttail and felt thoroughly sick to my stomach.
"I'm going to take a shower, Adam", I said staring at the floor blankly.
"OK, I'll let myself out" he replied. And while I retreated to the bathroom, harshly soaping and scrubbing the shame off my body with scalding water, he was gone.
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So, was I turned on by Adam? Truthfully, no. I had sex with him because frankly (and sadly) it was the only way I knew how to relate to other guys who were defective like me. It was a wound too deep to heal, to shameful to talk about, but yet too exciting to miss out on. After all, when there is only one gas station every 500 miles, only a fool would pass it by whether he really needed gas at that moment or not. I think my first orgasm with Adam was so powerful because he was the first other boy I had an encounter with whom I felt emotionally connected to. Connected by our mutual shame and loathing of our ourselves, but connected nonetheless.
Adam and I had physical encounters together several more times in the next few years, but never one as powerful and satisfying to me as that first time was. Summers in our very late teens, he'd hang around at my house and when it was dark and late and time for him to leave to go home, and I'd wander outside with him to his car. We'd lean on the fender and talk quietly in the starlight, and then after a while without I'd simply turn my back and walk slowly towards the back yard, hands in my pockets and nod imperceptibly for him to follow me. I didn't even need to turn around to know that he was close behind me in the darkness. We'd reach the soft grass behind the shed and turning towards each other we would wordlessly undress each other from the waist down, then laying head to foot we would masturbate each other in silence until we both came. We never sucked or kissed or did anything else, in fact we never spoke a word. We were coming to our own different senses of peace about our sexual orientations... I think he was beginning to accept his, and he was prepared to accept it and not look back. For me, I bitterly hated mine but inside me knew it was there to stay, though I fought against it as my sworn enemy for many, many more years to come.
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