Heart

Reading time: 4min.

by Michael Lee

School ties and toilet cubicles

It was a warm sunny afternoon in the local park, decked out in my school uniform and Nike bag in hand I waited idly outside a public restroom when really I should have been participating in my P.E lesson kicking balls with all the other boys.

But what brought a juvenile boy outside a smelly public toilet on a beautiful day? Surely it couldn’t be the alluring stench of urine lingering from the graffiti covered entrance? Well, what enticed me to hang around this lavatory was hormones and curiosity, and a desire to get penetrated. Here I was, 15 years old and desperately frustrated, frustrated with never feeling the rugged lips of a man on mine, I wanted affection, I wanted love, I wanted romance and the only place to find a willing participant for a closeted teenage boy and his seedy fantasies in 1999 was the toilets in the local park.

I had noticed a smartly dressed older man hovering suspiciously around the park, and being the keen Scooby Doo investigator I was decided to see why someone dressed so elegantly would be walking alone aimlessly in a local park. I think subconsciously I knew what was occurring, or at least had an inkling, a smartly dressed older man alone in the park? A curious teenybopper lurking around near the bushes ever so seductively? I don’t think it could be any more obvious as the game of cat and mouse began, following one another around the grounds of the park in a subtle yet very leading way, before I finally stopped the chase and made my way into the toilets with my mystery admirer soon in tow behind me.

This wasn’t the way my mum and dad met I’m sure, and I don’t remember my Nanny and Grandad recalling tales of courting within the confines of a stinky public toilet. School most certainly was not going to teach me anything about being gay let alone how to find love, so was this just the way all gay men met? Washing my hands in the stained sink of the restroom, my smartly dressed admirer followed soon behind me and ventured into a toilet cubicle directly behind me leaving the door wide open and just stood there, indicating an invitation to join him.

This was it, this was the moment. All those nights of masturbating aggressively under my duvet would finally pay off, I was going to see a real life penis in the flesh, quite literally. Was I about to lose the title of ‘virgin’ that had miserably hanged above me like the loser I was? Or was it going to be the equivalent of having a Bunsen burner from science class stuck up my bum? Well, actually neither. Being the shy, socially awkward and anxious teenager I was, I hurriedly dried my hands and walked out as fast as I could, without even glancing behind me I was gone just as quickly as I had entered.

So with my Nike bag in hand and school tie flapping in the air I ran, I ran as fast as I could, away from the man in the toilet cubicle probably now awkwardly standing there soft and limp, and away from the scary world of homosexual promiscuity, and back into my bedroom with my PlayStation.