Chapter 9: Jack

The first time I every successfully jacked off, I did it to the picture of a man. It’s probably not a subject I should be discussing, but I’m trying to remember the major moments in my life, and this stands out among them. I was 13 at the time. 

I’d seen the picture several times in a heavy metal magazine that my sister kept in her bedroom. The picture was innocuous enough; it certainly wasn’t intended to be erotica, but that’s how I saw it. In the picture, a raucous lead singer stood shirtless in a backstage dressing room. A towel draped around his waist, and he smirked knowingly into the camera while exposing his bare chest. I felt myself particularly aroused by the picture, though I told myself I liked it only because I admired the band and not because I truly liked the man’s body. 

Nobody ever showed me how to jack off, but I figured it out. Don’t get me wrong: I'd played with myself a thousand times before that, but I did it like a child would, to feel a faint sensation, almost like pressure building up inside of me. All throughout my childhood, I would push myself against a variety of surfaces just so I could experience that sensation of pressure, but it never amounted to more than that. 

On the day I’m recalling though, I succeeded in actually making it work. I took my sister’s magazine and made my way to the bathroom where I set the magazine on the counter and then stared down at the shirtless man. I pulled at my penis in just such a way that the pressure inside built in intensity until finally exploding into a white, sticky orgasm. When it happened, I gasped in pleasure, confusion, and fear. 

What had just happened? Had I hurt myself? What was all this stuff? I didn’t know. 

I’d gone through sex education back in the sixth grade, so I knew about ejaculation, but I only knew it in a clinical sense: “When the man inserts his penis in the vagina, the male ejaculates into the vaginal canal.” 

I didn’t recall anyone talking about pleasurable sensations, and I didn’t recall anyone saying that ejaculation could occur without the man’s penis being inserted into a vagina. Yes, school taught us about “nocturnal emissions,” but I’d never experienced one, and I knew nothing about the possibility of masturbating. What should have been a wonderful moment of self-discovery instead became a point of shame. 

After succeeding, I had the terrible realization that I had done something gay. After all, I was staring at a picture of a shirtless man, which is pretty freakin' gay! The moment after the flood’s rush, I nervously cleaned up the mess and then quickly ran the magazine back to where I'd found it. My thoughts raced. 

Had I really just ejaculated? And had I done it to the picture of a man? I felt panicky. Was it too late? Had already become gay? That afternoon, I went into the bathroom as a curious teenager, but I left with a heavy, enormous secret that caused me to feel unlucky and confused. 

“Of all the people in the world, why me?” I thought, “Why this?” 

Yes, I’d always known I was sensitive. And sure, I even knew I was different, but I never truly believed that I was actually gay. Not really. That was just an ugly comment that rude people said about me. It’s what my brother called me to make me feel bad about myself. It was a slander, a lie. But it wasn’t true. Now, I came face to face with the realization that it was true. 

“No,” I told myself. “I just did it once, but that doesn’t make me gay.” 

All the teasing made sense now. My father’s insistence that I play sports, my brother’s harassment: they all made sense. They saw within me my secret before I had even seen it within myself. That day felt like I had just discovered I had cancer. I promised myself that I would never masturbate again, but—being an adolescent male—I found it impossible to stay away from the temptation of my newfound discovery. 

The next time I did it, I deliberately left the magazine alone. I felt determined to focus on women this time. Yes, I would masturbate again, but this time I would do it right, so I conjured the sexiest images of women that I could imagine. The trouble was I couldn’t think of any women who turned me on, not like the bare-chested man draped in his towel. I tried not to think of him, though, and instead I did my best to recall what a beautiful woman looked like. 

Would she be naked? Would she be older? My brother had a poster of Bo Derick from the movie 10. Would that work? I tried thinking of everything I could, but I came up short. I had no desires for women, and no amount of conjuring changed that fact. I’d convinced myself that if I could fantasize about women, that would mean I wasn’t gay, so I racked my brain for sexy images until I finally came up with a long line of dancers doing the can-can, like the Rockettes. I still remember them. I must have taken the image from one of those variety shows on television. I imagined a row of synchronized legs kicking in unison while I nervously tugged on my penis in the bathroom. I imagined their legs, their underwear, their bouncing breasts, but none of it excited me. 

Somehow, I’d managed to bring myself to an orgasm, but I didn’t feel the exciting sting of lust, nor did I feel any more heterosexual because of it. Of course, it didn’t take long for me to feel horny again, and I couldn’t ignore the fact that somewhere in another part of the house, my sister kept a magazine with a handsome bare-chested man; I felt drawn toward him. I wanted to stare at the picture and imagine myself being with him, though I wouldn’t have known what to do if it actually happened. 

I really had no knowledge of what two men did with each other. It wasn’t something I’d seen, but I knew it was something I wanted. After the initial shock of my discovery wore off, I managed to convince myself that my sexuality would probably change. Maybe this was all normal? The attraction itself came on suddenly, so maybe it might change just as suddenly. Maybe boys needed to learn how to fantasize about women? 

In the passing months, my attractions did not change. During that time, AIDS started gaining national attention. Like everyone else, I didn't understand the disease, but I knew it came with an incredible amount of stigma. I knew that gay men got it, but I didn’t know how or why. I remember on several occasions thinking that I might already have the disease and that I probably contracted it from pictures of men. For all I knew, that caused AIDS.  

Aside from the library—a painfully public forum, in my mind—teenagers had no way of finding out much credible information. Even if I had access to the library, I still wouldn’t have known the questions to ask or how to ask them. Back then, Phil Donoghue hosted a popular daytime talk show, and it always came on just about the time I returned home from school. Looking back, I credit Donoghue for helping me understand more about my situation and even pointing me in the right direction. 

At least once a month, it seemed his program aired shows where homosexual guests openly discussed their lives. The guests typically sat on the stage in a long row of chairs while the studio audience listened to their stories. The guests did their best to educate the audience, and then—toward the end of the program—they faced a barrage of questions about their sexual behaviors. These brave men and women were attempting to show themselves as normal, well-adjusted people and not as freaks of nature. That’s where I learned that I wasn't alone. 

Any time Donoghue aired a show on the subject of homosexuality, I would race home from school so as not to miss a minute of the program, and I would pull myself close to the television and intently watch while nervously making sure nobody came home and caught me. I mentioned it to Benji one night while we sat out in his parents’ Jacuzzi. Both Benji and I were drunk and looking up at the stars. 

I turned to him and said, “Remember how you once told me that you were bisexual?” He seemed taken back by my question. 

“Yes,” he said. “But I was just joking.” 

“I know,” I said. “But here’s the thing: I think I’m bisexual, too.” 

He didn’t say anything. A full minute passed with only the sound of water bubbling up all around us. “How do you know?” he finally asked. 

“I just… I just figured it out.” I let my words sink in, but in the moments that followed, when I heard the weight of the emptiness that followed what I said, when I thought of the potential ramifications, I felt an instant terror that my secret was out. What if other people found out? What if they knew? What if Benji and I got into a fight and he told everyone?  

No. I didn’t feel comfortable, so I changed my mind. 

I said, very seriously, “I’m just kidding though. Just like you were kidding.” 

“Oh,” he said. “Just like I was kidding?” 

More silence. He let the truth of my words sink in. Then he said, “I think I know what you’re telling me.” 

We never mentioned it again, though we both knew the truth. We kept it hidden, though I imagine it was always somewhere just under the surface. I would officially keep the secret for another three years, until age 16, when I finally met a boy at a neighboring school and learned what it meant to love someone. 

Life changed for Benji and me when we got our licenses. Then, life seemed to shift into high gear for us. No longer restricted to bicycle paths and foot trails, we now had a larger world to explore, a world criss-crossed by endless roads pointing us in all directions made up of countless possibilities. In those first few months, we were like great explorers: Mike was Magellan, and I was Columbus. We could drive wherever we wanted to go and we could follow the roads and see where they took us, even if that simply meant heading over to the neighboring town or going to see a movie at the theaters in Dublin. 

Having a car also came with the promise that maybe we would discover new friends, new romances, new adventures. At first, Benji and I simply drove around. We went no place in particular, but we enjoyed the freedom of being able to get in the car and drive up and down the familiar streets we once walked on foot. 

We’d heard that the older kids hung out at a place called The Buttercup Pantry, a diner located right near the exit off 580. The Buttercup Pantry was a right of passage for teenagers, and when we gathered enough nerve, we made our way through the doors of the restaurant and took our place among the countless other teens. 

There, we routinely ordered coffee and french fries and talked about nothing and everything simultaneously. It felt nice to be around the buzz of people, and we felt accomplished for simply having gone out. In time, we went other places, too. At first we stayed close to home, but the wider world drew our attentions. Living in the Bay Area meant that we could drive to Berkeley, San Francisco, or the beach in Santa Cruz, and—though we didn’t tell our parents—we occasionally disappeared for whole afternoons to go and explore. 

We made whole days out of hunting for rare records or used clothes from one of the many thrift stores scattered throughout the Bay Area. A car meant new fashion, new friends, and new freedom. Having a car also meant that I needed to get a job, so I got my first real job at B-Dalton Bookstore in the mall. When I applied for the position, I mistakenly assumed it would be an easy job, as if I would get paid to stand around and talk about books all day. This could not be further from the truth. 

I spent my entire shift endlessly stocking the shelves and rearranging the inventory to make room for the new shipments of books that arrived daily. I would arrange and rearrange the shelves, and then a new shipment would arrive, which required me to rearrange them all again. 

Management mostly kept me off of the cash register after the third time when someone handed me a $5 and then claimed they'd given me a $20. Never wanting to be confrontational, I would call over the store manager, and she would then have to count down the drawer. I believe that's why management mostly kept me stocking the shelves. It was something I could do. Though it wasn’t an exciting job, it gave me enough money to make payments on my own car. 

Benji had a girlfriend by this time. It’s still hard for me to believe he had a girlfriend, but it’s true. Her name was Rachel; she was a toothy girl with large breasts and long, stringy brown hair. We’d known her since junior high. I remember Rachel mostly for her love of stuffed animals and vampire books. Like me, she came from a divorced family, but Rachel’s home life seemed more troubling than mine. At least, that’s how she made it out to anyone who’d listen to her.  

She described her mother as a controlling, overbearing monster, and Rachel—as she told it—retaliated against this domineering force by staying out late, doing poorly in school, and rebelling whenever she could. She did anything she could to annoy her mother and get under her skin. 

Benji and I initially met Rachel when she was going through one of her rebellious periods. In junior high, she asked us to get her stoned in the shortcut by the field, and we did. To her, getting high was taboo, and Rachel knew her mother would disapprove of it, so that’s why she did it. Everything she did was to punish her mother, and that included being with Benji and me. 

Benji and I were establishing our reputations as stoners, so we obligingly offered her some weed, and that led to our becoming friends. Initially, Rachel wanted to be more than friends with me. All throughout the eighth grade, she would pass me heart-covered notes in math class asking if I wanted to go out with her after school. I wasn’t attracted to her though, so I never took the bait. When she finally told me that she had a crush on me and that she wanted to date me, I lied to her and explained that I already had a girlfriend named Kristy who lived in Florida. Although I’d hurt Rachel’s feelings, we continued being friends. 

Benji and I both liked her, but I had no idea that Benji and Rachel would one day become boyfriend and girlfriend. It happened during junior year of high school when Benji, seemingly out of the blue, asked her if she wanted to go to a movie with him. 

“I took her on a date,” Benji told me. 

“That’s great,” I said, trying to hide my confusion. “Who would have known that you and Rachel would end up being an item!” 

I had my suspicions as to why he asked her out. In fact, I knew exactly why he did it. The story is a bit embarrassing, but I’ll tell it anyway: in the beginning of our junior year, not even a month before Benji and Rachel started dating, I regrettably crossed a line with him.  

Friendships are funny things. They’re far more delicate than you might imagine, and they can’t weather every storm. One of the most damaging things a person can do is try to move a friendship into something sexual, and that’s what I did, though I didn’t quite realize it at the time. 

It started off as an ordinary night: Benji and I drove out to The Buttercup Pantry and after we ate, we ended up back at his house. I’d stolen some weed from Max and Benji got some alcohol from his dad, so we kicked back in the downstairs room at his parents’ place. We got a good buzz going on, and we spent half the night watching a marathon of slasher films. We’d seen most of the movies before, so we talked over the films stopping only to laugh at the silly special effects. 

Benji and I had spent the night at each other’s houses a thousand times, and this night seemed no different than the other times, but things changed when we finally turned out the lights to go to bed. In the darkness, I reached over to pull the covers, but when I did, my hand momentary, accidentally touched Benji's crotch area. 

“What are you doing?” he asked jokingly. 

“I’m pulling the cover,” I said. “What do you think I’m doing?” 

“I think you’re grabbing my dick.” 

“You wish!” I said. Then I added, “If I wanted to grab your dick, I’d just grab it.” 

That’s when I put my hand directly on his crotch. 

 “Like this,” I said, squeezing onto his limp penis. It was supposed to be a funny joke. He was supposed to laugh at what I’d said and bat my hand away, but when I held my hand against him—when I held my hand directly on his crotch—he didn’t push me away. He let me touch him, and the whole event took on a different tone. 

I didn’t pull my hand away either. Looking back, I should have stopped. I should have immediately rolled over and laughed it off as a joke, but I didn’t. I left my hand resting on him, and that put him in an uncomfortable position, I’m sure. Or maybe it’s something that he wanted. I don’t know. I don’t why it’s important for me to say this, but I wasn’t trying to give him a handjob. That wasn’t my intention. He had shorts on. He was covered… but I crossed the line that night. 

In that moment, I immediately knew I’d gone too far, and I freely admit it now. Here’s the thing though: within seconds of my hand being on him, I felt him starting to get hard. Neither he nor I spoke in that moment, and the erect silence filled the room. What was I doing? Should I pull my hand away? I didn’t. I let it rest on him. Sure, I could blame it on the alcohol and say we were so drunk that we didn’t know what we were doing, but we weren’t that drunk. I knew exactly what I was doing, and so did Benji. Something more could have happened that night, and something more started to happen: when I noticed that Benji didn’t push me away—when I felt his expanding bulge grow in my hand—I began massaging him. I began massaging his dick, and I rubbed my hand back and forth against him. 

Up until that point, I’d never felt sexually attracted to Benji. For one thing, he was my best friend, and you don’t jack off your best friends. It’s not cool. I also wasn’t interested in him in a sexual way. I know that must sound strange for me to say since I reached over and grabbed him, but it’s true. I didn’t want to have sex with him. Benji had always come off as too feminine for my tastes. I’d often imagined what it would be like to have sex with a man, but none of my fantasies included being with someone like Benji. 

I can only chalk that experience up to curiosity. I wanted to see what a cock felt like. I wanted to compare it to mine. I wanted to explore it. He was my Magellan and I was Columbus. I was ready to let him explore me that night, too. I didn’t want to date him, but I wanted to see what would happen next. Was I too high from smoking pot? I don’t know, but I rubbed against him for nearly a full minute. 

It’s embarrassing for me to say, but I started to get hard, too, and I probably would have continued touching him had he not finally pushed my hand away. Yes, he was the one who put an end to my antics. The way he did it made me feel all the more awkward and ashamed.  

Honestly, I wish he’d laughed at me and called me out by telling me to stop being such a fag, but he didn’t. Instead, he got all quiet. The whole room became ominously silent. He pushed my hand away as if I’d hurt him, and then he rolled over on his side. I couldn’t tell whether he was crying or laughing. Had I offended him or frightened him? Was I a rapist? I swear, when it started, it was supposed to be a joke. I hadn’t meant for it to get so out of hand. I’d crossed a forbidden line, an action that I suspect most definitely poisoned our friendship. 

After he pushed me away, I pulled my hand back, and then everything stopped. I felt so horrible in that moment. There are certain moments that make you cringe when you think back on them, and this is one of those moments for me. I shudder when I think about it. Both of us lay quietly on the bed trying to ignore what had just happened, though it was impossible to forget. Nobody said a word. I don’t think I slept much that night. I kept wanting to say something to him, to wake him up and apologize for what I’d done, to explain that I hadn’t meant it—that it was a joke—but I didn’t say a word. I lay there in silence staring up at the ceiling and wishing the morning would come sooner so that I could just take my things and leave. 

The next day, before I left, we both made it a point to say how incredibly drunk we were. Just as I gathered my things and started to leave, Benji announced, “I don’t remember anything from last night.” 

I eagerly agreed and said, “Me either. I was so drunk.” 

Although we pretended like nothing happened, the DNA of our friendship had changed, and it never returned to its former state. I have nobody to blame but myself. I couldn’t play it off as if we were kids playing doctor. We were juniors in high school, practically adults, and we both had fully functioning anatomies. There’s no way for me to express my shame and embarrassment at the whole situation. 

Benji and I ignored what had happened, but within a month of that incident, Benji made Rachel his girlfriend. Though somewhat confused, I was not entirely surprised. He wanted to prove to himself, and to me, that he was straight. And since Benji wanted to prove that he was straight, Rachel made for an easy target. Ever since junior high, she’d struck me as a person who was terminally lonely, and as such, she was open to anyone’s affection, even if it was from a gay guy. She willingly dated Benji not because she necessarily liked him, but because he’d shown her attention, and dating was something her mother disapproved of. That was enough for her. 

When he asked her out, she willingly accepted. The simple fact that he said he liked her was enough for her to like him back. The fact that her mother didn’t like him made it even better. As I mentioned, I was taken back at first. I knew that Benji was gay, so Rachel didn’t make much sense to me. But Benji wanted to be with her, so I couldn’t complain. And here’s another truth: I was jealous, and not because I wanted to date him, but because I valued our friendship. Rachel seemed to get right in the middle. 

How often do you meet someone who you understand, someone in whom you can confide your secrets, and someone with whom you can explore the world? I felt jealous because now Rachel was in the middle of our friendship, and it was all my fault. Benji needed to prove that he wasn’t gay. Perhaps Benji's and my friendship had finally run its course. It certainly felt awkward hanging around with him after the incident in bed, and maybe that’s why he dragged Rachel into the midst of our friendship. 

In college, I had a friend named Rebecca. Her mother once told me that friendships are like bus rides. People get on the bus and they get off the bus. Some stay with you for the whole journey and some are only on the bus for a short distance. Was Benji about to get off my metaphorical bus? Yes. Benji's and my friendship only lasted about a month longer, but he helped me find a new circle of friends, and for that—and for so much else—I will always be grateful.