playing for the other team (bxb)

[13] pre-nut clarity

Mikaela never did end up texting me back.

Under normal circumstances, I think that I would've cared a lot more about the lack of closure. I've never been one to feel comfortable leaving things unfinished. The only thing is that, as of this moment, the way that the flick between Mikaela and I ended is the least of my concern. I was dealing with a much, much, much larger issue.

I couldn't stop thinking about Jamie. With each passing day, more and more intrusive thoughts seemed to take over my brain. It was relentless. Never-ending, almost.

There was no avoiding it. Not during school, during practice, not during my rides home with Jamie after school, not even now, in the absence of Jamie, as I sat at the dinner table with my mother and father.

"Mrs. Valerio down the street slipped on her porch the other day," My mother made small talk, "I heard she hurt her hip pretty bad."

I couldn't care less about anything that was happening with some random neighbor, nor could I care about anything else. As my father replies, I tune out of the conversation, allowing myself to fall back into the same pattern of repetitive thoughts that have plagued my mind ever since the first night that Mikaela and I hung out.

I knew certain things to be true, but it seemed that these truths couldn't coexist. There was something wrong. I knew that I wasn't attracted to men, but I also knew that I had felt an attraction to Jamie in some form or another. It was paradoxical. Simply put, it was impossible for me to be both things at once. I'm not attracted to men as a whole-it's only one man-so I can't possibly be gay, but at the same time, how can I be attracted to even one man without being at least a little gay?

Jamie always talked about how a man who is truly straight can find other men attractive without being attracted to them. And, well, in that case... things aren't looking too good for me. I know for a fact that I don't just find Jamie to be a good-looking guy. If that was all that this was, I wouldn't have an issue. I've always felt that he was nice to look at, and it's never been an issue in the past because I had never yearned for him in the way that I did now.

I know that I am attracted to women... I just think that I might be more attracted to Jamie, which is sick in its own way, considering he's my best friend.

I keep finding myself re-evaluating my friendship with Jamie. Everyone in our closely-knit group had always made jokes about me feeling that way about Jamie, could it really have been true along? There's no way that this has all just happened out of the blue.

Looking back now, I always had prioritized Jamie over the idea of dating. I would way rather spend time with him than I would want to spend time with a girl that I was dating. And yeah, I had always felt an immense love for Jamie, but I always believed it to be platonic. I can see now that the love that I feel for Jamie is quite different than the love I feel for other close friends like Sawyer.

"Sam," I can hear my mother's voice raise as if she had been trying to get my attention and had gone ignored.

I quickly sit up in my chair, "Yeah?"

"Is everything alright? You seem out of it tonight," And then, after a quick pause, "You've been getting enough sleep, haven't you?"

"I'm fine."

Pushing her eyebrows together, she skeptically asks, "You're not on drugs or anything, right?"

Before I can even manage to speak for myself, my father cuts in to the conversation. "The boy's not on drugs," He rolls his eyes, "I'm willing to bet that this is about that girl," He thinks for a moment as he tries to recall her name. I feel myself physically cringe as the word leaves his lips, "Mikaela?"

Well, in a way, yes. "I guess," I mumble.

"How's that going?"

"It's good," I keep my answer short, not particularly feeling inclined to talk about it. I suppose I could've told them at least a part of the truth and said that we were no longer a thing, but in all honesty, I had no desire to be interrogated by my parents on why I had stopped seeing her. I knew that the second I gave even a slightly engaging detail, they'd never leave it alone. Even thinking about it now, I feel myself losing my appetite. I look down at my half-finished plate of food before looking back up at my parents, "I'm not really that hungry, I'll probably just finish this later."

. . .

That night, I find myself testing this ongoing theory in a new way.

Another big issue that I felt kept me from being gay was that the idea of gay sex wasn't remotely appealing to me. Any time that I had jacked off, it had been to women, and I can't imagine that I could enjoy gay sex. Everything about it just seemed confusing and slightly gross. I don't think that I could enjoy it regardless of what position I was taking, but if I was going to do it, I'm not quite sure what I'd prefer.

Jamie calls them "tops" and "bottoms." It's confusing because those words have a completely different meaning in gay sex than they do in straight sex. In straight sex, if a girl is topping, it just means that she's physically on top. With gay sex, it has absolutely nothing to do with positioning and it has more to do with the dynamic. When Jamie is feeling extra vulgar, he'll describe the top as being the one who does the fucking and the bottom as the one who gets fucked.

I just think that gay sex isn't something I could get into, regardless of whether I was topping or bottoming.

There's only really one way to find out right now though.

My laptop stood propped open beside me on my bed as I began to scroll through all of the videos displayed on the website's home page. I had never watched gay porn before but it felt like the proper way to figure out if it was even possible that I could be attracted to men. I decided that I wouldn't actually jack off, I would just watch one video and see if it makes me feel anything.

Before I even click on a video, I get a feeling of guilt. I've heard of post-nut clarity, but I didn't know that pre-nut clarity could even be possible. It's for research purposes, I have to tell myself. Watching one video won't automatically change who I am.

I don't look through much of the selection. In fact, I must've clicked on the first video I saw that had somewhat decent-looking guys in it. Truthfully, I didn't want to spend much time looking through video upon video. This one would just have to do.

The two men in the video seemed so different from one another. One guy was tall and muscular, whereas the other guy was short and dainty almost like a woman. There was no true plot to this video-just two guys going at it.

A feeling of relief washes over me. This did absolutely nothing for me. After all, there was nothing remotely appealing about this. Why would I ever want to get with a guy like that? It didn't seem much different than just being with a girl. It's just not something that I'd ever want. I think that if I ever did want to get with a guy, the whole appeal would be that he'd be someone who could be dominant in ways that women usually weren't. Someone who was more like...

At the thought of him, a sequence of horrific events occurs. My heart begins to race, a tingle runs down my stomach, and then something twitches.

I need a cold shower.

QOTD: if you could travel anywhere, where would you want to travel to?