Page 32 of Brainwashed

It was sofirm. A nice, large hand. A bit calloused, which had me wondering what he did for fun. What made his skin feel like that.

I wanted so badly to say something cool, but I couldn’t think. I wasstuck, frozen in place, suspended in the room this gorgeous boy had just sucked all the air out of.

Isaac’s forehead lined as he yanked his hand out of mine, snapping me out of it, and I scolded myself inside for being such a weirdo. I’d been holding on for way longer than a typical handshake. And I was just standing there like a mute. Like a moron.

I loathed myself in that moment for not being cooler, obsessing over it as I mumbled something about unpacking and staggered to my side of the room. And my uncoolness would only get worse from there. Because at that point, I was an almost eighteen-year-old virgin who’d never even kissed a boy, living in close quarters with someone who looked like the epitome of a closeted wet dream.

Realistically, I’d known for quite some time that I was gay. Girls never interested me the way they did other boys. It was all I’d heard, all throughout high school. In every locker room, in between every class, on every field trip and every social function I was forced to attend.

Have you seen what Maggie Walsh is wearing today?

Her tits are perfect.

I’d chop off my own arm to get under her shirt.

Or into that skirt.

Her ass, too…

Her lips, her hair, her eyes.

Feminine features were all they wanted.

Girls girls girls.

And to me, it was just like,yea… Shrug.

I tried looking at girls the way the other boys did. I checked out Maggie Walsh in her low-cut top and shorter than short skirt. But all I saw were plump breasts that didn’t interest me, thin, hairless legs that also didn’t interest me, scrawny arms and a face without any sharp angles to it. The only thing I could get on board with was how soft her skin looked… But most of the boys looked like they might feel soft too if I felt them. Except that their softness would cover hardness. It was something I thought about all the time… The contrast.

How soft things could also be hard, beneath the surface.

Despite me knowing with certainty that I didn’t like girls, my sexuality was still a big old disaster. Because none of the boys in my school ever talked about checking out the other boys. It just didn’t happen. So I felt like even more of an outsider than I already did in every other aspect of life, and I just couldn’t deal with it.

The only time I felt like myself was within the confines of my own thoughts. When I’d lie alone in my bed and stare at the ceiling, remembering how it felt to touch Cam’s hand. How his tongue felt on my skin that time he’d licked up my blood. That was the only thing that got me up to that edge…

Burning with the insufferable need to release.

So I’d learned how to jerk off, but even then, I didn’t do it often. Only when I couldn’t take it anymore.

The day I met Isaac, I jerked off. For the first time in a couple of months, actually. I was on the bottom bunk. He’d taken the top. And I remember feeling every movement he’d made up there. Every time he shifted or repositioned to get comfortable was like a lick of fiery yearning; a splash of kerosene onto the fire spreading inside me. I stared up at the bottom of his mattress while I reached inside my pants and stroked my dick, imagining that he could hear me, and that he liked it.

It took me three minutes to come, and when I did, he was all I could feel. I drifted off to sleep and dreamt that he wanted to kiss me. It was such a realistic dream I remember waking up and thinking it had actually happened.

Of course it hadn’t.

Come to find out Isaac was painfully straight. He was a football player, and he had a girlfriend at NYU. Her picture was on his desk, and I scowled at it every time I walked past.

Isaac and I got along well enough, but we were very different people. I hated that, because I felt so strongly for him and I just wanted him to like me. I wantedanyoneto.

Months were ticking by in college, and I really didn’t feel like I’d started fresh. Sure, I enjoyed my classes. And even with my required courses, I was still able to take some cool electives, like a photography class I was super into. And in biology we were dissecting things, so that was satisfying to a part of myself I still didn’t fully understand.

But the same hopeless need seemed to fill me, and I wasn’t sure how to get rid of it.

It wasn’t as if I was atotalloser at LIU. There were a few girls who’d taken an interest in me. And part of me wondered if maybe I could just force myself to hook up with them, just to get it over with. Just to see what all the fuss was about.

One night, Isaac had invited a few friends back to our dorm for a party. One of the girls, Ashley, was following me around all night, drink sloshing out of her red solo cup.

“Felix,” she’d slurred my name, grabbing onto my arm while I stood against the wall, taking large gulps of the vodka cranberry that Isaac’s best friend, Brody, had been making for everyone. “That’s a cartoon cat’s name.” She burst into a fit of giggles while I stared at her, adjusting my glasses. She smooshed herself into me, hot, cranberry-scented breath on my face as she whispered, “Do youpurrlike a kitten?”