Sex in C Major

"Yeah. Online, mostly. I tried to go to an LGBT group once but it was just a bunch of gay guys trying to hook up and talking about gay adoption rights and there was nothing for me there. And I already knew what you know, porn. That side of it. So I wasn'tsure, and then they were so unlike me I thought I mustn't be a man after all because if I was, I'd be gay like them, I'd be like them, and I wasn't, so that set it all back a bit..."

"Were you still unsure when you came out?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"I'm still unsure now," Stefan admitted. "I still don't understand how I can be a man and like the things I do."

"See, that says to me you are sure."

"Why?"

"Because you're trying harder to deny the things you like than being a man. Most would do it the other way around. They'd ditch the clothes, find a better bra, and try to convince themselves they liked that. Not that they didn't like kinky sex and power play."

Stefan blinked at the falling snowflakes.

Something shifted. In the back of his mind, something seemed to slot into place.

"You were nineteen when you came out?"

Stefan jumped at the question. "I-um. Yes. Well. Got caught."

"Got caught?"

"My mum caught me trying on a binder."

"Oh."

"And I admitted what it was. And why."

Yannis hummed. "Yeah, been there."

"Have you?"

"Yes, but I lied."

"What did you say?"

"It was to stop boys looking at me in PE at school."

"Really?"

"My family aren't exactly part of a progressive movement in Islam. By the time I ran away, there were already discussions about marrying me off to the son of my father's business partner. My father was actually pleased I was taking measures to improve my modesty."

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"Did Daz know?"

"Ye-es," Yannis said slowly, "but at the time, he thought it was for the same reasons as I told my parents when I was caught. He spent most of his time trying to persuade me to take it off, until he found out the real reason. Then he bought me another one."

"Mu-Helen burned mine."

He could say her name. Could refer to her as 'my mum.' But never as-never otherwise.

"Your mother?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"So I'm told."

"What?"

"She made me leave. She didn't say anything else. Just just leave. She pushed me out and locked the door. I-I must have waited hours for her to let me back in. And when I tried breaking in, she called the police. She told them I'd moved out months ago, and I was trying to break in, so they arrested me. And when they released me the next morning, I went home, and all my stuff had been burned on the front lawn."

Yannis' hand squeezed lightly around Stefan's elbow.

"I ended up in a hostel for four months until the council found me a flat."

"Did you ever speak again?"

"No. I tried. I tried to call, and I'd go to the care home where my granddad and nana lived, but I was banned from visiting. M-Helen wouldn't take my calls. She threatened to have a restraining order taken out when I visited. And she'd just -she'd just look at me and say, 'This is because of your father, this is all because of your father.' That's all."

"Who was he?"

"I don't know."

"So how could he have caused this?" Yannis asked.

"He couldn't. I never met him. I don't even know his name. But she hated him. She hated everything about him-I don't know why-and my whole life, I was this punishment he'd inflicted on her."

"Did your grandparents do anything?"

"No. They liked me well enough, but they wouldn't stop her, and they wouldn't tell me about him."

"What about friends?"

Stefan shrugged. "I was okay until high school. Then I started getting into porn and I was always terrified people would find out. The girls didn't like me anyway, because I was too boyish, but I didn't want to talk to the boys in case they wanted to try stuff."

"Did you ever try stuff?"

"Yeah. Tame stuff, though. Like kissing."

"No sex?"

"No. I gave another boy a handjob when I was in Year Nine, though."

Yannis sniggered. Stefan felt a tiny smile creak into being on his own face.

"I'm guessing you never talked to other people about their fantasies?"

"No."

"Not even online?"

"I did online sometimes," Stefan admitted. "I'd go on chat rooms and stuff. I did a few things on camera for people occasionally. Just. Masturbating and stuff."

"You never meet any of them?"

Stefan shook his head.