“Watching you dance turns me on,” he shouted over the music. His lips dragged over the shell of my ear and he lowered his voice to repeat his initial statement, “You’re fucking gorgeous.”
I turned to face him, our noses bumping together for how close we were. I hadn’t stopped swaying to the music and neither had he. His cock now pressed against my hip and his fingers dug into the small of my back. I was sweating from the dancing and his grip stuck my t-shirt to my back in four distinct spots.
Even on the phone with my parents, I reached behind me and dropped one finger after another against my back, through the starched fabric of my collared shirt. Like a constellation of stars—one, two, three, four.
“It’s my birthday,” I’d blurted, unsure why. This man didn’t know me. He didn’t care that I was another year older, another year further away from a life I’d never have.
The man’s mouth had curved up into a smile, revealing a row of almost white and slightly crooked teeth. He had eyes like the ocean, blue and bright, and he tipped his chin up, bringing his face closer to mine.
“Does the birthday boy want a kiss?” he’d asked.
“Yes.” My mouth spoke before my brain could catch up, and as soon as I realized what I’d said, the secret I’d admitted, his mouth was on mine.
The kiss was fast and messy, his tongue diving into my mouth like he already knew his way around. His fingers pressed harder against my back, and I tilted my head to the side to make room for him to explore. Against my hip, his cock turned thicker, harder, pushing more insistently against my jeans. Behind my fly, my own dick had started to take notice of what was happening, turning soft to hard quicker than I’d ever experienced in my life.
Everything in the room froze.
Time stopped, the music stopped. The only things I was aware of were the taste of this man’s mouth on mine and the throbbing desperation between my legs that had never existed before that moment.
“Colin!” Henry shouted, fisting my shirt between my shoulder blades and ripping me away from the stranger.
I blinked, the music resumed, the shouted conversations drowned out my own heartbeat, and I stumbled backward into Henry, knocking his drink onto the floor.
“What?” I stammered, turning my back on the man I’d been kissing to face my best friend.
I’d known Henry my whole life and I’d never so much as uttered a hint that I might be attracted to men. What would he think of me if he knew? Would he hold the same opinions that my parents did? It wasn’t something he and I had ever talked about. Maybe he didn’t have feelings about it one way or the other. Henry was pretty much as hetero as they came, and he treated everyone like they were the same. None of our friends were bisexual that I was aware of, let alone gay.
What was he going to think?
“I thought I lost you!” he shouted, shaking out his hand, the droplets of his spilled drink spraying onto the front of my pants and the floor. I looked down, hoping the bulge behind my fly wasn’t noticeable in the dark, but I put space between us just to be safe.
“I’m right here.”
“This place is shit,” Henry had said, giving up on getting his hand dry. “No chicks.”
“Right.” I swallowed, voice caught in my throat. “No chicks.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“I’ll be right there.” I held up a hand as he turned toward the door. “Gotta piss.”
He nodded and left, and I spun back, but the man I’d been kissing was long gone. No trace of him. No evidence he’d been real beyond the precum that caused my cock to stick to my boxers.
I sighed, snaking my way through the crowd to the bathroom. I didn’t need to pee, but I locked myself into a stall to catch my breath and adjust my erection.
I’d wondered for years about my attraction to men. From the very first time my high school girlfriend and I hooked up in the back of my dad’s car our sophomore year and it had taken me way too long to get hard in her mouth to the last woman I’d dated in my late twenties who complained that having sex with me was so much work.
Well, it had been work for me too.
But I’d barely ever entertained the idea that any sexual issues could have stemmed from the fact I was taking the wrong kind of people to bed. That kiss on my thirtieth birthday confirmed my suspicions, and also my parents’ worst nightmares.
“Well,” my mom’s voice brought me back to the present, to turning thirty-eight, to my desk in a cubicle in Los Angeles, a glittery birthday card spread open beneath my line of sight. “If you wanted to come over tomorrow, some friends were going to come by for a game of gin rummy.”
“I’m thirty-eight,” I reminded her. “Not seventy.”
“I’m nowhere near seventy,” she protested.
“I don’t think that’s really my scene, Mom, but thank you.”
