(Unedited) 

Everybody had a secret, one that they kept close beside them. A secret that kept them up at night, a secret that if let out would be their undoing. Whether anyone would admit to having such a secret was the question.

I knew about secrets better than most, playing my own metaphorical skeleton in my closet. The closet being my sexuality and I taking on the main role. I being one of those people. The people you crossed over the road for, the people you heard being talked about by bored housewives over late brunches and the people nobody wanted to speak to in fear of catching the disease.

Myself being homosexual.

Something I had known ever since I could remember. When other boys my age were busy fawning over Cindy Crawford I was fawning over them and when they were talking about boobs I was thinking about what it would be like to kiss them. At age seven I was assured of my sexuality when Bekkie Nommie kissed me in a game of truth or dare.

I felt nothing.

And if I didn't know then, I sure did freshmen year after puberty came along, the gym locker rooms an abundant of evidence as to how exactly gay I was.

But being gay in 1984 was not exactly kosher.

Not when every boy I dated was on the down-low, not when every kiss was a secret and I was simply a phase for teens to try out before going back to their girlfriends.

"You really don't give a shit do you?" Lukas asks me as he moves in closer to me on the bed. He to, one of the teens that wanted to try it out before going back to his girlfriend. His girlfriend, a little perky blonde thing that screamed domestication and missionary passion.

He reached to grab my hand as I arched my brow. His palm feeling clammy against the back of my hand. I could tell he was nervous from the way he avoided eye contact yet his gaze kept flickering to my lips. He was thinking of kissing me but was too afraid to.

What would people say? Was he one of those people too?

I answered with a simple shrug.

"What do you want to do after school?" Lukas asking question after question trying to delay the inevitable.

I shrugged again, "Maybe travel, probably move to Germany."

"There is a whole revolution going on there, what with the wall and everything. I think we talked about it last week in class." Lukas tells me as the mixed tape in the background clicks and switches to a heavier track instead of the cheesy bubblegum pop song it had just been playing.

"Maybe I want to be part of the revolution," I suggested to Lukas matter of fact as his sweaty palm moved up my arm. He was going to kiss me I could tell by the way his pupils dilated at the thought and then he started to move in. I'm not exactly stopping the action from happening as he pressed his lips to mine. They were soft, gentle even like he was trying a new car out for a test drive. My lip ring cold against his tongue as he parted my lips, asking for permission to taste me. His hand went down to the belt which held my black jeans up.

"Hey," I said, pulling back.

"What, you don't want to?" Lukas asked me, his floppy dirty blonde locks nice and kept together. He looks like every bit of the star tennis player he was, he was going to make it big and buy a house in the hills with his model wife and two kids. It was inevitable.

"You have a girlfriend." I pointed out not really caring all too much, it was not like I was cheating, he was cheating.

"Nobody has to know about this, right, it is just between us." He stated with that pretty boy smile, these words made me smirk a bit. Nobody ever knew that was the thing, it was always between them. Every lover I had ever had, it was always just between us.

"Nobody will know," I reassured him, thinking for a moment before I was pulled into another kiss, getting the answer I was looking for. If I had known what was going to happen next I would have never let him kiss me. Never have let him undo my belt and unzip my fly. But we were inside my bedroom, the bedroom I had grown up in the one with my record collection, the one with all my books and the one with my green bedspread Lukas was sprawled out across. It was safe. So I let him, no I helped him, remove my clothes item for item. I helped him with the condom that he rolled onto me and then as he looked over his shoulder at me, reassuring me that this is what he wanted I entered him.

It must have just been a moment, a moment of bliss as our soft moans filled my room. Vibrating off the green walls that matched that of the comforter Lukas was gripping onto. It must have just been a moment, maybe even two.

Then we heard the door, the front door to be exact. "Honey, I got pizza hope that is okay." My mother called out through the house as she dropped her keys next to the door like she did every night when she came home from her shift. But this was not at night and she had come home early.

"Shit shit shit." Lukas cried out as we quickly separated. Lukas went for his pants while I went to remove the used condom.

"I thought she was only supposed to be home later?"

"She was," I spoke with a calmness that did not seem to please the boy whom I had just been inside moments ago.

"You said it was safe, that nobody would find out, fuck I am screwed." He half whispered, half yelling while finding his jacket.

"Art, are you home?" I could hear my mother making her way down the hall as I quickly pulled my jeans up, covering up the exposed ink which was littered across my body. Just as we were scrambling to put all our clothes on it was then that my mother opened my bedroom door.

First came shock, then horror as her eyes moved between myself, her half-dressed son and the blonde boy who had done a good job at putting his shirt on inside out.

"I thought you were not supposed to be home until later tonight." Was the only words I could come to think of as my mother stared at me in what could only be disgust.

"Out." She said in barely a whisper.

"What?" Lukas finally spoke as he got pulled out his own surprised induced coma. "Out!" She was screaming the words now.

"Out," My mother sounded off again,

"Out, out, out. Get the fuck out!" Lukas taking this as a clear sign to haul ass.

"I can explain." I began as I walked up to my mother but she flinched away.

"How could you do this?" She whimpered, "How could you do this to me? What will people say?" Out of all the reactions I expected my mother to have this was not one of them.

"Please tell me he pressured you into it, he forced you." Now it was my turn to be shocked.

"No." Were the only words I could say.

"No, he forced you, that is the only way. He forced you and that is why you did it. That is the only reason why you would do something like... Like...." my mother became frantic, her words slipping as she tried to catch up with her thoughts. Tried desperately to understand what she had just witnessed.

"Like what?" I asked slowly, my words picked carefully as I watched my mother waving her hands about on the brink of tears.

"Like this! Something like this!" She cried out, a single tear slipping down her cheek and then came more. She was in agony, I could tell, she was disgusted, confused and she felt betrayed. "How could you do this to me? What would people say?"

She kept saying those words, over and over again, "How could you do this to me? What would people say?"

"I am not doing anything to you." I didn't realise that I had tears running down my cheeks until I audibly sniffled.

"Yes you are, you are doing this to me." She yelled; no screamed.

"No, I'm not." I disagreed, shaking my head as trails of tears ran down my cheeks. I could not remember the last time I had cried. Maybe I had been a boy, had I scraped my knee? Or maybe it was when after my dad left.

"You're not one of those people Art, this is not you." My mother tried to reassure me, no, she tried to reassure herself.

"I didn't want you to find out like this." I cried with her, as I went to touch her but she backed away from me.

"No," She yelled, holding her finger up at me as if reprimanding a child. "No, this is not you. He forced you, this is not you."

"Mom, calm down please." I tried my best to calm her down but it was not working.

"This is not you." She insisted, with a loud yell.

"Mom," I paused knowing that it was time, "Yes it is." But my confession was only met with more head shaking and disagreements.

"Mom," I took a deep breath.

"Mom listen to me, listen!" I yelled successfully shutting her up, her tears stopping in their tracks as she gapped at me, gapped in shock.

"Listen," I said this time more softly as I took her by the arm.

"Mom, I'm gay." As soon as the words left my mouth she was crying again, crying so hard that I could hear her heartbreak, hear her soul be crushed.

"My baby boy." She cried as she laid a soft gentle hand on my cheek. "My sweet, sweet baby boy." She looked at me, with heartbreak in her eyes, with disappointment, with love but it was buried so far underneath all the disgust it was hard to even make out.

She swept my hair out my face as she whipped off my wet cheeks before taking my head in between her soft warm hands. The hands that used to lull me to sleep as a child, picked me up when I fell down and so she kissed me on my forehead.

There was a moment of silence before she finally said the words, the words I had been dreading, the worst-case scenario as she was confronted with the skeletons in my closet. My one big secret and now that she knew nothing could be the same. Now that she knew.

Gathering her emotions up as she pushed back her hair, fixed her shirt and took a step away from me.

"Pack your things and get out of my house." She spoke to me with no emotion, with no connection, like I was not her flesh and blood. She had carried me for nine months, I was her son.

"What?" I asked in shock.

"Get out of my house." She repeated herself once more but louder.

"I'm your son." Is the only words which I could muster up as tears rolled down my cheek.

"No, you're not." And with those words, my heart too broke.