Who is Beltira Anyway?

Well, the rest about me doesn't fit nicely into that table.

My interests include the game of chess, playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, computers, and last, but not least, finding the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with.

Below are things about my life. Everyone has their own unique story.  I believe that who a person is, is the sum of all their life experiences.

So, here is my life story.  I wish to make it clear that I am NOT whining about my upbringing, my parents did the best they knew how to do.  What I am writing is what happened, what it was like, and what it's like today.  The whole of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I grew up in a small but friendly Jewish neighbor (where my family was the first non Jewish family to move into) in Atlanta.  I've lived in Atlanta all my life.  I'm sort of a rare thing to find here, a native Atlantan.  My father is an alcoholic, but he wasn't an abusive drunk.  He would drink himself comatose, then sleep for 8 hours and drink himself comatose again.  This would last for a day or two in the beginning, and would last for longer as I got older.  When he wasn't drinking he was normally an OK guy, but he was ALWAYS kidding around, and I NEVER knew when he was serious or not.  As a role model, he was not a good one.  He raised me to think black people were inferior.  I think he's one that still thinks that blacks should still be slaves.  Fortunately, I went to high school that was half black, and I was able to overcome this racist upbringing and see blacks as just people.  And all other races as just people.  Mom was the bread winner in the family for the most part, and the one that made most of the decisions too.  They were both always uptight about what people would think of them.

In all fairness to them I never wanted for material things, they made sure I had the things I needed.  But I never felt loved.  Instead of love, I always got the 'your the cause of all the family's problems'.  Around age 9 I came up with what at the time seemed like a GREAT idea.  Since I was the cause of all the families problems, if I wasn't around, the family would be OK.  So, I tried to choke myself to death, both with my hands, and with a phone cord.  I discovered you can't really choke yourself to death that way.  You just pass out, and release your grip.  Dad also did hit me a few times.  Not really physical abuse, but he was always loosing his temper and yelling at me, and hitting, kicking, or throwing things (not AT me though).  I came to be a kid that ran for cover whenever he raised his voice.  It was an irrational fear, but to me it was STILL a major fear for me.  And when I did run for cover, Dad just got even madder.  I learned to try to be invisible.  I became quite good at it too.

As soon as I was old enough, mom made me join the Cub Scouts.  She wanted me to be around other kids because I didn't socialize with kids.  I hated it, but that was because I was forced into it.  I went all the way through Webelos into the Boy Scouts.  I ended up in a small but fairly old Scout troop.  I had by this time come to enjoy Scouting  ESPECIALLY in the troop I ended up in.  It was there I learned about some things that while I was a TOTALLY willing participant in things that no kid my age should ever learn.  Not that young anyway.  I learned about the joys of drinking, using drugs, AND gay sex.  I learned a lot of good things in Scouts, I in NO way mean to say there is anything wrong with most Scout troops.  Like in life, there are good and bad people.  And even in most bad people, there is good if you look hard enough.  Again I MUST state that I was not forced, coerced, or manipulated into doing what I did.  Not everyone was into these basically drunk/stoned orgies, and we had a STRONGLY enforced rule among us that no one do anything they didn't want to do.  And if anyone tried to use peer pressure to get someone to do something they didn't want to do, the person that tried to use peer pressure would get  his ass kicked.

At about the time I graduated into the boy scouts, I was in 6th grade at the time, my dad became what we called a 'room mother' (or in his case, a room parent) at me school.  This was a parent that chaperoned on field trips, helped out with classroom parties, that sort of thing.  I had no idea at the time, but my 6th grade teacher was also an alcoholic like my dad, and they began having an affair.   It was quite a shock when I learned that.  My dad doesn't know that I know about it, someday, maybe, I'll let him know I know.  Anyway, my mom started dating an older man after the divorce that she'd dated before she met my dad.  He was a sweat, kind, caring, loving man.  He tried to make me feel important.  He thought I hated him (and my mom did too), but, I didn't.  I just had problems dealing with my mom dating, it was so unusual for me.  I know my apparent coldness hurt him a great deal.

I grew up knowing I was somehow different.  I wasn't ever interested in girls.  But as far back as I can remember, I took EVERY chance to see as much of my male friends as I could.  It made me feel something I didn't understand.  Today, I know it was being attracted, but I didn't understand it then. I remember the first time this one particular guy started coming on to me (a fellow boy scout), and saw him naked for the first time, and looked into his eyes.  Something passed  between us in that brief moment.  It's something I can't put into words.  We became an almost inseparable pair. I was 14, he was 13.  We fell madly and passionately in love.  In the back of my mind I thought I was some kind of pervert.  I didn't even know what a queer was, just that it was one of the worst things a guy could be called., the other being 'cock sucker'.  And I WAS a cock sucker.  I just KNEW I was a sick pervert.  AND that I also couldn't see myself without my Jerry (not his real name BTW).  But that fit what I'd always been told, that I was a sick person that would never amount to anything, and would always be in the way in my family.

It was about this time that my mom dumped the guy she'd dated for several years for another guy.  The guy she was dating would have made a good father and husband, but he didn't have allot of money, and mom wanted to get with a guy that was more financially stable than she was.  And this new guy was that.  He started giving her custom made jewelry and stuff.  But as a person, he was a total jerk.  He ordered her and me around like we belonged to him.  And he was still married, although his wife was dying of Alzheimer's, and didn't even know who he was anymore.  And another thing, this guy liked to drink.  ALLOT.  Just like my mom had become.  The guy she dated before this one wouldn't have more than two beers in an evening, and most of the time only one.

All the boys in the scout troop knew about us (although in all fairness to the BSA (Boy Scouts of America) the adult leaders didn't know ANYTHING about either Jerry and I, or the drinking/drug abuse/sex games going on with us), and let us pair off when the sex games started. See, to the other guys it was just a way to get off, and they knew it was different for us.  And gawd help ANYONE from outside our troop call us queers or cock suckers or whatever, cause the rest stuck up for us..  They were a bunch of horny drunk teens getting off.  Anyway, Jerry and I were together for two years.  Until his mom found a  REALLY passionate love letter I'd written to him.  They freaked.  They put him on school and home restriction.  He was not allowed to go anywhere except school and then home.  They dragged him from therapist to therapist until they found one that thought there was something wrong with being a queer.  The 'therapy' involved hooking up a device to his penis to measure any enlargement in it, and showed him gay pornography.  If he showed ANY signs of excitement, he would get hit with a major electric shock.  He decided he couldn't take it anymore, wrote me a long letter explaining what all was going on, that he loved me very much, but that he couldn't take it anymore.  He snuck out to get it into the mail to me, and went back home and took his own life.  And he asked me to forgive him for leaving me.  I did.  Someday, I may even be able to forgive myself.  The letter his parents found was one of just a couple that said anything 'obvious', I never should have written it so obvious.

Even though I didn't understand that I was gay, I know I loved Jerry.  We had talked about going to college together.  Buying a house together.  It was like we had both decided that we wanted to be together for life.  Ironically, I can say that I did get to spend the rest of his life with him.  To those of you reading this, PLEASE never leave things unsaid with your friends or loved ones.  You never know when they might be taken away from you without warning.  To this day I burn a candle and sit by myself remembering our good times together on his b-day.  I wish that I could visit his grave, I might be able to find closure if I could.  But, Jerry's parents won't tell me.  They wouldn't even allow me to attend his funeral.  They blame me for corrupting there son into being a sick pervert.  I hope someday they can understand what it really was, and find the peace I wish for all to find in there life.

Anyway, after Jerry's death I was devastated.  I didn't care if I lived or died, and starting doing dangerous stuff.  When you just don't care if you live or die, you'll do some CRAZY things.  I stayed drunk or stoned all the time.  I became a drug courier/dealer to get money to buy alcohol and drugs.  (A note here to parents:  People of ANY age can buy alcohol, the liquor stores just make it more expensive to minors because you have to bribe them.  And there are never a shortage of people just old enough to buy it that will buy it for minors, either in exchange for getting to share in it's consumption, or getting paid for it.)  I am not proud of this period in my life.  I was a mean horrible person.  I would do anything to someone that got in my way, without a second thought.  And without re-morse, as, someone that stays drunk or stoned all the time has no remorse.  Out of being lonely and horny, I would try to get guys I found sexy VERY drunk and then talk about sex (str8 sex that is), and hope they would get horny enough to be willing to have sex with me.  It worked most of the time.  The interesting part came the following morning.  Waking up hung over and naked in bed with another naked guy.  Most of the time we just agreed that it was because we were drunk.  But a couple told me they weren't as drunk as they acted, and had kinda wanted to try it with a guy.  With those, I usually ended up doing it with them again right then and there.  I had some pretty good sex those mornings when it worked out that way.  Not drunk or stoned either.  If it hadn't been for what was going on in my life at the time, I might have fallen in love with one of them.  But I wasn't EVER going to allow myself to do that again.  Just sex.  Just a HETEROSEXUAL guy having some fun with another guy.  Yea, right.  *G*

Well, anyway, my drinking drug use was getting worse and worse.  I had come to the point of using just about ANY drug I could get my hands on.  Like I said, I didn't care if I lived or died, but I was coming to the point of hoping I'd die.  I was doing things that had a good chance to kill me.  Sorta a wimps way of trying suicide I think.  My mom's b/f asked her to marry him somewhere during this time, but I haven't a clue when it was, it's very hard to remember when exactly things happened during this time.  Anyway, they were married on August 10, 1984.  I knew I needed help, so, I joined a church.  In fact the same church that sponsored my scout troop.  I just showed for Sunday service one day.  And afterwards I talked to the pastor of the church.  He was a dear sweet man of God.  I told him I'd been doing allot of sinful things, and I wanted to stop, and I hoped God could help me.  He assured me that God could and would if I asked.  I joined the church a month later, on, August 24, 1984.  I was welcomed into the church, and for the first time in my felt I belonged somewhere.  I quit almost all drinking and drugging, except the friday/saturday night parties.  I also quit trying to get laid with guys, cause I wanted to be a good Christian.  About a month after I joined the church, the pastor collapsed during Sunday service, and died a few days later, on September 24, 1984.  I couldn't handle loosing him, and went to the funeral stoned.  And pretty much stayed stoned until november.  In October my mom and new step dad left for there honeymoon, a 3.5 week cruise in the Med.  I was left home all alone, and started having guys over to get them drunk, and have sex with them.  The second day after the left I was out driving and getting stoned.  I had this bong with a 10 foot hose, we were passing the hose around.  I drove THROUGH a street sign, and did like $2000 damage to the car.  I just parked it, found the extra secret set of keys to my step dad's car and drove it instead.  I pretty well trashed my step dad's car and the house.  When my parents got home. the first thing said to me was to give them my car and house keys and driver's license.  Then to go to my room.  It was a few days later on October 24, 1984 that the dog I'd had for 10 years died.  I managed to go on living somehow for a couple weeks, then on a friday after school I came home, locked myself in my room, took out a razor blade, held it against the artery in my wrist.  I was shaking and crying profusely.  I sat like that for 3 days.  I decided to get professional help, and I went and got drunk one last time.  That was November 11, 1984.

Monday I went and talked to my vice principle at my school and told her what was going on.  That afternoon there was a social worker there to talk to me.  The following morning, before school had even started, all the teachers in the school were looking for me.  The social worker had told her boss what was going on with me, and the school system sent out there #1 psychologist to see me, even before school started.  We talked all day.  At the end of the day he called my mom and asked her to come see him ASAP.    She was there in like 20 minutes.  He told her I needed psychiatric help, and that I needed it now.  He gave her some names, and she called them the next morning, arranged a meeting with a psychiatrist that night.  He told me the hospital that he admitted patients in was full, and that in the morning he'd get me on the emergency waiting list.  The following morning I got pulled out class, and was admitted to the mental ward.

When I got there,I was put on the adult alcohol and drug treatment ward to sleep, and spend my days down on the teen unit.  I fell asleep in the sofa in the adult unit while my mom was filling out paperwork.  I was awakened by one of the guys that got me started doing drugs, he was there trying to get clean.  I was the only adolescent patient there because of choice, the others having been put there against there will by their parents.  During my nights up on the adult unit, I got a chance to see just what people that were there by choice were doing to help themselves.  After about 10 days a bed opened up on the adolescent unit, and I was moved down there.  It was a small unit, 14 beds.  All of us were there for drugs.  Or should I say to get off drugs.  I VERY quickly realized everyone there was just trying to bullshit their way through it, not to get help.  Our unit was tied to an adolescent psychiatric unit that held 30 something kids.  We went to school together, and had a couple group meetings during the week, and spent most of our weekends together.  I had heard rumors about 4 or 5 guys that were having sex in there rooms at night, but, I simply attributed to people spreading malicious rumors to hurt others.  Well, towards the end of my stay one of them became my roommate.  I must admit he was SOOOOOOO fine.  He was 17 or so, like 6'2", had short blond hair, the deepest most masculine voice I have ***EVER*** heard, and smooth body.  Had I known the rumors to be true, I don't know if I could have controlled myself.  I found out years later when I ran into him at a gay AA meeting that the rumors were true, except, it was A LOT more than just 4 or 5, it was MOST of  the guys on that unit.

My life has always been full of strange coincidences.  My time in treatment was just the same.  On my first day down on the Adolescent unit, I ran into my step mom's best friend working there.  Also, I was wearing my school's football team jacket, and another staff member came up to me, and asked me if I knew one of the players on the football team.  I told her I did.  She told me that he was her little sister.  She and I became very close.  Unlike many of the staff there, she was one that cared.  Cared about the well being of the patients there, and was not one that cared just that rules be followed, she really cared that we get the help we were there to get.  Another one of these coincidences came later when my psychiatrist was going to go on vacation.  He knew that church had played a major role in my life before coming to him to get help, that he asked a retired psychiatrist to fill in for him that week because he was also an Espicopal priest.  What my psychiatrist didn't know was that this retired psychiatrist was the parish priest at my mother and stepfathers church.  To make it even more coincidental, 5 months after I left the treatment center, we moved to a suburb of Atlanta and my parents joined a small church in the neighborhood, and within a month of this happening, this same priest was transferred to this church.  And a few years back, this same priest went into an alcohol treatment program himself.

I started weightlifting while in treatment.  They had a PE class there(the program there had a full school there because most all of the patients where high school aged) that met 3 days a week.  They also had 2 'open' sessions a week in the afternoon were anyone could join in, provided their psychiatrist had written a medical order allowing it.  And during most weekends they had open lifting sessions.  I took part in all of these sessions.  When I started out, all I could bench press was the 45 pound bar.  I used isometric exercises in my room at night that allowed me to increase my strength very quickly.  Within a few months I was able to bench press 225 pounds.  The staff that supervised the weight training told me they had never seen someone so determined to increase his strength so quickly and at the same time do it safely and correctly.  I continued weight training my senior year in high school, and eventually worked up bench pressing 285 pounds.  For me, this was the greatest thing I'd ever done for my own self image.  Unfortunately, I've sense graduating high school not continued lifting.

I could tell so many stories of the jokes I pulled while I was there, but, I'm saving them for a book I want to write "1001 things to do to have fun while in a mental hospital."   Well, OK, just one:  Hord toilet paper, but make sure you get caught after you build a large supply, the staff will spend countless hours attempting to figure out what the psychological comforting factor is in hording toilet paper.

Well, on the serious side, I struggled coming to grips with so many issues, and did get some help out of it, but, because the nature of the mental health business is such that most hospitals don't have the time to treat patients, just get them in, and try to help them before there insurance coverage runs out.  It's something like fast food style mental health care.  Fortunately, my parents had better than average insurance, so I was able to stay long enough to get the help I needed.  I have some interesting observations I have of the experience.   One being that I had come to the conclusion that I was attracted to guys because of my being fat and ugly, that no woman would EVER want to be with me, so I was stuck with other lonely guys, and destined to go from one guy to the next guy.  I NEVER once told anyone there about either my experiences with guys, or, my attraction to them.  The other observation is that mental health professionals can't tell when a patient is faking being mentally ill, but, the other patients can tell in no time.

I'll write more about the people I met there later, but here are some of the ones that have had the most profound impact on my life.  The first is Bobbi(that is her real name, I would have made up a name for her, but, it wouldn't make sense when I tell the rest).  Bobbi was younger than I was(I was 17), but I don't remember how much younger  when she was admitted to the unit.  She walked right up to me and said 'I know you', and it turns out she went to my high school.  She was a real sweetheart.  Her god mother was Janice Jopline.  Yes, THE Janice Joplin.  Joplin had dedicated 'Bobby Magee' (sp?) to Bobbie just after Bobbi was born, and thus her mom gave her that name.  Bobbi never got the program, and was transferred to a state facility after I left.  She ran away from it with her boyfriend, and hid in a seedy hotel.  On a sunday(you can't buy alcoholic beverages here on Sunday) an argument broke out over the last beer, and it turned voilent.  The person who they were staying with stabbed Bobbie to death, and many times AFTER she was already dead.  I can't think of something less trivial to die for than a beer.

Another was Wendy.  Wendy was on the psychiatric unit, and we were kinda close.  We had come in about the same time, had worked our way up through their level system about the pace, and had discharged at about the same time.  If you've ever seen the movie 'The Breakfast Club,. the girl that was the shy one that came to Saturday school cause she didn't have anything to do, looked and acted JUST like Wendy.  She and I had both been on one of the field trips the higher levels got to go on to see 'The Breakfast Club'.  The Sunday night after we discharged, she took a fatal overdose of anti-depressants.  Ironic way to commit suicide I think.  To this day I cry when I hear the song from 'The Breakfast Club', it's that line in it 'will you forget about me', and of course I never will. There was a memorial service performed on the psychiatric unit, and the patients from it that had recently discharged that were close to Wendy were allowed to come back for it.  I however was not invited back.  The reason was that I was not from the psychiatric unit.  Also I think that the staff had no idea how close I was to Wendy.

Anyway, I should explain what I went through as I was discharged.    Some of you may be familiar with the term 'institutionalized' as referring to someone that becomes accustomed to, and dependent on, the institution they are in.  This is what happened to me.  It's hard to explain it fully, but, I will try.  In such an institution, life can be simple.  So much of the normal things people have to deal with in the 'real world', patients in mental hospitals don't have to deal with, and it becomes comfortable to stay there.  Eventually, it becomes horribly scary to think of returning to the real world.  Well, when it came my time to leave, I was more scared than normal, as, I was the only one there that really wanted help.

During my time in treatment, I had gone to many AA(Alcoholics Anonymous) and NA(Narcotics Anonymous) meetings, and had begun to build a support system of people that knew me.  There was an AA clubhouse right around the corner from the treatment center I was in, and I attended meetings there a lot.  However, I was told over and over that I was too young.   I even had some old timers in AA threaten to call the police on me to have me removed from the grounds of the clubhouse for being disruptive and trespassing.  One older gentleman grabbed me and pulled me aside.  He asked me if I was an alcoholic, and was I really ready to learn a new way of life.  I told him I was was(on both parts of his question).  He didn't recognize me, but I recognized him.  He was the father of the guys that got me started on drinking, drugs, and sex with guys.  I never let him know about that, but, his youngest son was also just getting sober, and apparently the son told him some of that, but left out the part about having sex.  Anyway, this man was like 6'6" and weighed like close to 400 pounds.  He told the other old timers to leave me alone, or he would have to step in and MAKE them leave me alone.  He was known to have a vicious mean streak when he was mad, so they left me alone, and I was never hassled there over my age again.

I had been told to go to at least 90 meetings in 90 days after I got out of treatment.  However, one of the staff members who was herself in recovery at the treatment center I was in had said she went to 400 meetings her first year sober.  So, I went to as many meetings as I could that first year out of treatment.  I ended my first year out of treatment having made almost 600 meetings that year.  I had been told that less than 1 in 1000 people stay sober for 5 years or more on there first attempt.  I was determined to be that rare person that did it.

The treatment center had what they called an 'aftercare group' for patients after they left the hospital.  I was the only one that attended it every week, and I was the only one that was also making lots of AA or NA meetings.  And I was the only one in the group that stayed clean and sober outside the hospital.  Close to the time when I had two years sober, there was a 15 year old openly gay kid that discharged and joined the group.  I wasn't yet ready to accept myself as gay though.  I had made a great friend with a guy I knew had meet in AA and the summer after I had two years sober, he got married, and asked me to be his best man.  At his bachelor party, we went to see 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' and he actually talked a girl into coming back to the apartment where we were having it to strip.  After she striped, he declared that he wanted all the virgins there to loose there virginity that night.  I was the only virgin that got laid that night.  I ended up sleeping with her all night after it happened.  And spent the next day with her.  We ended up in a park the night after the bachelor party, and things started happening, and, well, um, ah, we ended up having sex on a cement dock, and we attracted a crowd.  The crowd clapped when I climaxed.  We got up, bowed, got dressed, and left with faces totally red with embarrassment.   I took her home, met her parents that night.  Her parents thought I was the best guy she'd ever brought home.  I was the first guy that her parents allowed to be in her bedroom, or alone with her in the game room they had downstairs.

The next day I showed up after work, and she wasn't home.  Her mom told me I could go wait down in there game room if I wanted, so I did.  A few minutes later here younger brother came downstairs.  He introduced himself, and offered me a drink.  I just asked for a Coke, and he gave me that, and took out a quart of some liquor I didn't recognize and was drinking it from the bottle.  He said he had a bad weekend, and just wanted to get drunk to forget it.  I got him to talk a little, he said his 'lover' had broken up with him.  I worked it around to find out his lover was a 25 year old man (he was only 16).  He was getting drunker and drunker, and finally, he asked if I was curious about sex with a guy.  I told him I had been with guys a few times.  He started coming on to me, and, in all fairness, it didn't take much to get things started between us.  We didn't get very far before he passed out.  Things between he and I progressed quickly over the next few weeks, as things grew between his sister and I.  Well, things really only grew for this girl.  I was the first guy that didn't treat here like a sex object, and she fell in love with me.  I enjoyed her company, but not as anything more than a friend, well, except for the sex.  I didn't understand why at the time, but, I was able to have orgasm after orgasm with her.  It wasn't that I particularly enjoyed the sex, it was that while I was having so many orgasms, I wasn't being satisfied.  But I was finding satisfaction with her brother.  One day she caught us, and that was the end of it for all of us.  I regret that I hurt her so much.  I know today what a blow it is to most woman to think that they drove a guy to being with another guy, instead of with a different woman.  It's like, was I so bad that he's going gay?

Judy, if you should ever read this, you'll know who you are, please understand that I was really using you to make myself be straight.  You didn't fail me, I was already gay, I just wasn't ready to accept it. I'm terribly sorry for hurting you the way I did.  I heard you were engaged, because I ran into your fiancé one day, he recognized me from somewhere, though I really didn't remember him.  I wish you all the happiness and joy you deserve, and please remember, your no man's sex object, your a human being, with needs too.

It was the day after this that I ran into my gay friend from the aftercare group and I just knew I was gay.  I pulled him aside that night and told him that night that I was gay.  He told me he'd known since we first met, but that he also knew that I had to come grips with it myself, in my own time.  He and I became very close friends.  We never got involved because we cared for each other too much as friends.  Not to much longer after this he asked me to be his AA sponsor.  I should stop here to explain AA sponsorship.  A sponsor in AA is someone that acts as a guide and mentor.  Being a sponsor is both a huge honor and a huge responsibility.  As a sponsor, I agree to allow the person(s) I sponsor to call me at any hour if they need to talk.  I should also state this was not the first person to ask me to be there sponsor, but, this was the first time someone that I truly believed wanted help like no other I'd ever seen.  I'll call him Danny (not his real name).

Right after asking me to be his sponsor, I never heard from him again.  Finally, after several weeks, I called his parents to see what was going on.  They told me he was back in the hospital.  This happened to be the day I was set to start doing a group meeting on the unit I was a graduate of.  When I arrived on the unit, and sat down with the kids there, Danny told me that he needed to talk about something, and that he was very uncomfortable talking about what he needed to talk about because I was there.  I told him that I didn't think he could tell me anything I hadn't done or hadn't had one of the other people I sponsored hadn't done.  Danny proceeded to talk about things that I'd never talked to anyone about.  In short, he was a pedophile and beastialic (he liked sex with young boys and with animals).  He did get help, but we hardly ever spoke much after that.  Mostly due to how he was treated on the unit he was on after admitting what he had admitted. I've not heard from or about him in years now.  I often wonder what happened to him.  At times I even wonder if he and I wouldn't have made a great couple.  I can say without any doubt that I've never met anyone quite like him.  I also suspect that he and I wouldn't be compatible as a couple, he's far to outgoing in ways I'm horribly shy.  Something I have learned, is that while opposites do attract, they don't normally work well for long term relationships. but some have.

Soon after this I was spending the night with someone else that I sponsored (I will call him John), and he had a friend over to see him (I will call this friend Billy (his real name, as he is now dead, and due to his family's treatment of him, I see no reason to protect his family)).   Billy had told John that he thought he might be gay, and wanted to know if John would put Billy and I in contact.  John left Billy and I alone in the basement to talk.    We talked for what seemed like hours.  I reached out to give him a hug, cause I thought he needed it.  We hugged, and he started crying.  Through his sobbing I could hear him say that finally he knew he was OK.  That he wasn't sick or perverted, that he was in fact just different.  We ended up on the sofa holding each other.  And one thing led to another, and we kissed.  And things progressed from there, we ended up in the bed in the basement meant for John's friends when they spent the night.  John came down to check on us very early the next morning, found us sleeping nude, tangled up with each other.  He woke us up and told us he was glad things worked out for us, and the three of us ended up in bed cuddling.  I should say at this point that John had been with guys before, but he and had talked enough about it for me to know that he was not gay, he was only horny and, had sex with what ever was around, more or less, it was like he was the sort of guy I had taken advantage of so many times before I had quit drinking.  John told us that he had hoped we would hit it off well, he just had a feeling.

Billy and I fell madly and passionately in love.  I found myself scared of getting close to someone again, after having been hurt so horribly the last time.  John became our closest friend.  It was almost as if he were a third person in our relationship.  I can't think of another way to describe it.  He was closer than a brother or best friend ever could be.  There were several occasions were Billy and I actually fooled around, and eventually had sex while we were talking to John.  I know how weird this sounds and all, but it was just how close the three of us were.

After about two months, I suggested it was time for Billy and I to 'come out' to our families.  Billy went first.  It was a horrible experience for him.  His family totally disowned him.  To them, he was dead.  Billy ended our relationship, to 'become' straight and win back his family.  They wouldn't take him back.  He wouldn't come back to me, he said I deserved someone who was strong enough to face adversity and stand up for what was right and just, and that he was not that person.  I told him that I deserved someone I could love, and would love me back, and that is was up to me to decide who did or did not live up to that.  However, he refused to come back to me, and he refused help from me and from John.  Billy became someone's houseboy.  And went from person to person as his 'keeper' became tired of him.  This lasted for several years, until he no longer looked young enough to have someone 'keep' him.  Then he resorted to prostitution.  This lasted until May of 1996.  Billy was diagnosed with HIV.

Billy called me asked me to come by the next afternoon, and that if he wasn't home, where to find the key, to come on in and wait for him.  When I got there, he wasn't home.  I let myself in, and found a note for me.   A letter actually.  It was Billy telling me of the HIV diagnosis and that he had decided to take his own life instead of a long slow death.  He said good-bye to me.  This was 10 years almost to the very month of us breaking up.  Part of me will always blame myself for getting him to come out to his parents.  And a part of me will always love him as I once did.  I took care of Billy's funeral and burial.  His parents wouldn't come.  I called them and personally begged them to attend, for there own sake.  They told me as far as they were concerned, Billy had died 10 years ago when he came out to them.  And that they blamed me for recruiting him into being gay, and that ultimately it was I that was to blame for his death.  I had two ex-boyfriends.  Both dead, at there own hands.

I continued in the process of coming out, except that I've never come out to my parents, and I'm not sure I ever will.  Part of me feels that my parents should know, and another part of me thinks that it's none of there business anyway.  I started attending meetings of a new organization at school for gay students.  This was a HUGE help to me.  I came to understand that myself better.  I came to see that I wasn't alone in the gay community.  I had always known that I wanted a guy to spend the rest of my life with, not to sleep with a different guy every night (which was all I knew of other gays until I came to this group).  The group was new when I joined it.  I was the fourth member of the group, and we had to have 10 members in order to become a chartered student group.  The Provost of the college and the student senate were both very supportive of our efforts.  We had more faculty willing to serve as advisors to our group than we knew what to do with.  I was in one of the student break rooms one night when a campus security guard came in took down one of our posters advertising our group, saying something to the effect of  'if I can't live up to the old testament, then neither can they'.  I reported this to our faculty advisors the next morning.  One of them was also my personal faculty advisor, and someone I trusted completely.  He was a psychology professor, and someone I considered one of my closest friends.  He was shocked to discover that I was gay, as have almost all my friends been surprised.  Anyway, nothing ever came of this incident.

At the coming of summer, we were up to like 8 members.  Four of us decided to go to Charleston, South Carolina for a trip around the 4th of July.  We drove up in one car, and got a room in a decent but not to expensive hotel (a double room for four guys).  We went up to our room, showered, and changed for dinner.  After getting ready to go out, we went down to the front desk, and asked where there was a gay bar.  There was a 16 year old kid working at the desk, and he just looked at the four of us, and started stuttering.  He went and got the manager, the manager told us to call the police, they would know where a gay bar was.  We called the police, and they gave us the address of a gay bar.  We went into down town and had a nice dinner, and spent the evening walking around the touristy part of the city.  later, we went to find the gay bar.  Eventually we found it (it had changed names and was on the opposite side of the street from the address we were given(so the address we were given was off by one)).  It was closed for the holiday, but had a note on the door giving directions to one that was open.  So, we headed over it.

We found this one with no problem.  Unfortunately, it was 15 minutes before closing time.  We decided not to go in.  We were standing around outside the bar trying to decide what to do when some rednecks drove by in a pickup truck, with a couple guys in the back with baseball bats.  They drove up on the curve, and were able to hit one of our group in the head with a baseball bat.  I held him in my arms as he died.  His last words were 'Don't let them win'.  The cops arrived, and we told them what happened.  I heard one of them radio back 'it's just another queer'.  I have done my best to live by my friends dieing request.

I must point out that was not till 8 years later, to the very month, that I ever again went to a gay club.  This of course makes it VERY limiting as to being able to meet guys, but really, I didn't want to meet guys, not gay ones anyway.  I'd been so hurt by those I'd loved in the past, that I couldn't take it.  I though loneliness was better than the deep hurt I'd been subjected to.  So, more or less, over a period of about a year, I basically went back in the closet.  Looking back, I can't say it was the wrong decision for me.  I can however say it was the least painful, and most lonely time in my entire life.  But such is life.

Later that fall, one Saturday afternoon, I got a call from a friend, telling me that the psychology professor had called him to get my phone number, but my friend wouldn't give it out, so he took the prof's number, and gave it to me.  I called the prof, and he invited me over to his house to see his horses.  I should have guessed what this was about, but I was naive.  We ended up nude in his hottub, and I still didn't see anything coming.  When we got out, and went to get dressed, he grabbed me, and made it clear he wanted to have anal intercourse with me.  I liked him, found him attractive, but, I knew he was married and had young daughters, and I refused to be someone that would break up a marriage know today he wanted ONLY sex, but as I said, I was naive).  I have not until just recently told anyone the real truth of what happened that day.  He did rape me.  I've avoided that truth out of shame, until recently, I realized there was nothing to be ashamed about.

I called the police when I got home, and of course it came down to my word against his word, and he was a college professor, while I was just a student, and an openly gay student at that.  Basically, the cops took the attitude that if what I said really happened, it was my fault for bringing it on to myself.  I reported it to the college, and they asked him to step down from the gay student group, and that was all, he had tenure, so, he was untouchable.  I finally had to have some justice, so, I contacted his wife.  She told me that there have been others to make such accusations against him, but I was the first willing to do whatever I could to bring about justice.  She filled divorce on the grounds of infidelity.  She agreed to change it to 'irreconcilable differences' if he agreed to give her the house, all but one car, the horses, no visitation with their daughters, child support, and alimony.  And if he didn't agree, I would testify in court as to what happened, and, go public to the tv news and newspapers.  He agreed, and I agreed to never publicly accuse him again.  NOTE:  I am not naming him here, or even the college this occurred at.

It was at this point in my life I quite hanging out with any gays, except the few that happened to be in my circle of friends.

After this I left school for a few years, and eventually went back to a technical school.  I had spent those years out of school teaching myself the art of computer programming.  I went back to school to get that magic piece of paper that said I knew programming.

In his good-bye note to me, Billy begged me to look for someone worthy of me.  I could not reject his request.  I started hanging out in web chat room on WBS (Webchat Broadcasting System) called Guy Chat (a room for gay men).  It was very sleazy most of the time, but it was all I knew.   By chance I met someone there one night, and just had a feeling for this person from the moment I met him.  Quickly he became the central focus in my life.  His name was Tommy, I eventually came to love him more than I had ever loved anyone before.  It's hard to explain, most people just think it's crazy.  With Tommy, something happened that had never happened before, our souls touched, and in that touching I knew he was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

However, this would not last.  Chip couldn't handle waiting for Tommy and I to move to where he lived, and he instead moved on.  It hurt Tommy and I both, but it hurt Tommy the most.  In looking back, that was the beginning of the end for Tommy and I.  It was right after this that Tommy met someone that lived right by him, and they kinda just hit off.  I now can see where I knew it was over then, but held on in the hopes that it could survive this, but it could not.  I don't blame Tommy or Chip, they were just doing what was right for them.  I can say that not a day goes by I don't wish it would have worked out for us.  And here, 8 months after Tommy told me he loved me, but not as a lover, I still cry daily thinking about him.

Tommy was everything that Jerry and Billy were to me, and so much more.  The one thing I guess I'll never really know is, was Tommy really the guy I was meant to be with.  For both our sakes I hope not, for I know he's happy and safe for the first time in his life.  And for my sake, well, I just don't want to live out the rest of my life being lonely, but in my heart and soul I know that for as long as I do love Tommy, I will remain lonely.  After all, how can I love someone new, when my heart and soul long for Tommy?  And in my heart and soul I know I will always want Tommy.  Someone told me when this happened, if you love someone, set them free.  And if they return, then it was meant to be.  For Tommy's sake, I don't think I could take him back, not knowing in my heart and soul it's not right for him, without regard for how much it would hurt me to do that.  Tommy once told me that I was the one person that was able to show him that there was such a thing as unconditional love.  I have to accept what he says, but I can say, in all honesty, that I doubt there are many like me, that can and do love, unconditionally.  The biggest thing I think I learned from all this is that I allow myself to love far too easily, and that once I love, I find it it difficult to impossible to let go.