A FIRST GAY PARTY

I had a best friend in high school but after we graduated we had less and less contact. The last time I saw him was a Saturday night about four years after graduation, and that’s when I realized that we had nothing in common anymore. The atmosphere had been strained and the night boring and I left early around eleven o’clock.
On my way home, walking to the train station, a group of laughing partygoers called out to me and when I responded they invited me to a party that was going on in the house right behind them. That was just what I needed to dispel the gloom of a friendship extinct.
I started out with some stiff drinks and then I noticed that the girls danced together and the boys likewise. Even though this was three years before I came out, I suddenly had no doubt that I belonged. I was rather drunk and I spilled my heart, how I was in love with a straight boy. I got some sympathy and soon forgot my laments and joined the party, totally letting go of my inhibitions.
One guy eagerly pursued me, but he didn’t interest me; there was a boy that I had my eyes on. With him I danced and there was a strong current between us. After a while we sneaked off to find a hiding place where we could consume our passion, but we had hardly gotten started when my pursuer found us and joined in.
This was my first genuine homosexual experience and however exciting it had been in the moment, the next day found me in a very different mood. I felt soiled and debased, I had been drunk, I had had sex with two persons I didn’t know and I had lost my undies in the mess.
The straight boy I was in love with was staying with me for the summer while we were both doing a workshop in survey. We were together every day, but I couldn’t talk to him about it. In comparison to that messy night and my drunken lust, my love for him seemed pure - but was it? Not really! It is true that I was happy just being with him, being his best friend, but the undercurrent of physical attraction was never the less at the bottom of our connection. My relationship with him repeated my pattern of furtive approaches to pleasure. If we happened to be in the same bed, I rolled close in pretended sleep. He, of course, had his suspicions, but since I was not explicit, it went on for several years and never came to any kind of clarity.
When he found a girlfriend and began to prefer her company to mine, it spelled the end of our closeness.