Chapter 61

They exchanged small talk as they ate, enjoying jokes and laughter. The comfortable camaraderie was not lost on Ted. The ease of being with Erik made him feel good. However, they still had to get through the conversation which Ted believed was the reason why Erik had come to State. And Ted had yet to come clean about his life as well.

The diner wasn’t crowded that afternoon, so Ted didn’t feel Ollie would object to their hanging out here for a while. Coffee was replenished; the dirty dishes on the table ignored.

“I guess you’re waiting to hear all about it,” Erik said, glancing up from his coffee cup into which he had been staring.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“So, as you’ve figured out…I’m gay.”

Ted nodded.

Erik went on. “I’ve known it pretty much all my life but I didn’t want to accept it. I’d always wanted to be a husband and father. You remember when we were in school and Miss…what was our third grade teacher’s name again?”

“Warkinthene,” Ted supplied.

“Miss Warkinthene. How could I forget? I was madly in love with her.”

“Yeah, I remember. You fell all over yourself whenever she asked for volunteers to stay after and wash the chalk boards or bang the erasers.”

Erik laughed. “Anyway, Miss Warkinthene assigned that theme on what you wanted to be when you grew up, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, I wrote that I wanted to be her husband and a father to her children. I even bought a stupid, big, ugly ring with a yellow plastic stone on it and gave it to her when I turned in the paper. Geez, talk about your first class dork!”

Ted chuckled.

“And to make it even dorkier, the fucking ring had a bulb on the bottom so you could squirt water through it.”

They both laughed.

“That’s how far back I wanted to be just a regular guy. But then I started to have these feelings. I remember getting all excited by seeing guys in swim suits and stuff. At first I didn’t realize feeling like that had anything to do with sex or being a dad. I did know that in order to be a dad you had to fuck a girl. I started jerking off and found I didn’t think of girls while I did it. I thought of boys, male teachers, football players, anyone with balls and a dick. I began to wonder if I could fuck a girl, a definite pre-requisite to becoming a father,” Erik said, clearly made ill at ease by his confession.

Ted smiled sympathetically. He knew how hard this must be for his friend.

“By the time I was in high school I was pretty sure I was gay. I joined the swim team. At the state championship my freshman year we had to stay overnight. I was the odd man out and I had to stay with Mr. Swartz.”

Ted remembered the swim team coach. He was a big, handsome hunk of a man, with a very muscular build and was gorilla-level hairy. The memory of the man and the thought of him being with Erik wasn’t lost on Ted’s cock.

“I think he picked me on purpose now that I think about it. Like maybe he suspected something. Anyway, we slept in the same bed even though there were two in the room. He only wore pajama bottoms. I had my briefs on. Sometime during the night I woke up and he was behind me, holding me close. I could feel his hairy chest against my back and his big hard cock as he rubbed it against me. He never tried anything else, just held me the whole night. But I knew then this was the kind of sex I wanted—sex with a man. I actually wished he’d have done more.”

Erik paused for a moment as if savoring the memory. “But I couldn’t give up my dream of being a dad, so I kept trying to make it with girls. I got engaged to Jennifer. We had sex but it was hard for me. I had to fantasize about men to do it. Then I started having sex with one of the guys on the swim team. I realized what lay ahead. I knew I wouldn’t be true to Jen. I’d need to have a man in my life to feel complete. I saw how much Jennifer loved me and I knew I couldn’t give her that level of love back. So, I broke it off.”

“Probably a wise decision. And an honorable one,” Ted said, thinking of how he’d tried to take the coward’s way out with Kenny. “That must have been really tough on you,” he added, empathizing with what Erik had gone through.