No More Mio Amore

Chapter Four: Chance and Strength

 

Thursday September 23, 1999

“Justin, you aren’t ever home. Can’t you stay at Daphne’s some other night?” Jennifer asked, standing just inside Justin’s bedroom door.

Justin continued to pack his backpack as quickly as he could. “We’re studying for the S.A.T.’s mom,” Justin lied.

“Can you at least have dinner with your family before you go?” she relented.

Justin zipped up his backpack and sat down on his bed sighing, “I guess.”

Jennifer smiled. “Good, it’ll be ready in twenty minutes,” she told him and turned to leave.

“Wait, mom?” For that moment, Justin wanted so very badly to tell his mother where he was really planning to go that night.

“Yes?” she turned back to him with a worried expression on her face.

Justin could not bring himself to do it. “Did you get my other uniform from the dry cleaners today?” he asked instead.

Jennifer’s face looked perplexed for a moment. She had sensed the urgency in her son’s voice and she knew that the question he asked was not originally what was going to come out of his mouth. She walked over to him and sat down beside him. “Do you want to tell me something Justin?”

Justin was screaming inside his head. “Yes! Yes! I’m gay Mom!”, but the words would not come. He turned and looked at the concern and love she expressed with her eyes, he did not want to spoil that. He wanted her to always love him and he was not sure that after he told her, after she really knew who he was, that he would ever see the expression again. “I love you Mom,” he opted for instead.

Jennifer brought her son into her arms, caught up with the emotions inside herself and the ones she saw coming from within Justin. She could tell that her son was struggling. Deep inside she knew what the subject of his discourse was, but she could not bring herself to ask him. She held on tight to him and kissed his forehead. “I love you too Justin, no matter what.”

Justin stared after his mother as she disappeared out of his room and down the hall. He was sure that Daphne was right. Something in the way his mother looked at him and spoke to him made him feel like she did know what was going on with him. He only wished that he could get up the nerve to tell her. However, he was still so unsure about what those consequences may be, so he decided to wait.

He wanted to be 100% positive; he was gay before he told anyone else. Or, before any one else found out.

 

****
 

“My mom knows!” Justin told Daphne the second he got into her car.

“Uh, duh! I thought we established that like two weeks ago,” she said pulling out of his driveway.

They both pasted on smiling faces as they waved to Jennifer who was waving at them from the front door of Justin’s house.

As soon as they turned the corner Justin glared at Daphne. “This is horrible,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “Horrible!”

Daphne kept driving, knowing that no matter what she said Justin would have to have his full queen out before he would actually listen to reason.

Justin groaned, “She looked right at me and I swear it was like she was saying, ‘I know you are a fag, Justin,’ fuck! What am I going to do?” Justin put his hands on his face and gave a little scream into them.

Daphne stifled a laugh. “For now you are going to go out and get laid, Justin. That is what you are going to do. Right?”

“I don’t know if I want to go now,” Justin said nervously. “I don’t think I feel like it.”

“Oh, please. You are going just as you planned. I’m driving you down there and you are going to get out of the car whether you like it or not,” Daphne told her best friend.

“But, but...” Justin sighed, not able to think of a good enough excuse for wussing out.

“Look, you have been talking about it constantly for the last week. You are going to go do it. And I mean do it,” she laughed at the double meaning in her attempt at a joke.

“Fine,” Justin whined.

Daphne laughed aloud. “Don’t sound so dejected Justin. You are about to go loose your virginity!” She sighed with awe, “You’re gonna find out what sex is really like.”

“Humph,” Justin put his arm against the passenger window and leaned his cheek against the cool glass. “You wouldn’t think this was so cool if it were you doing it.”

“Of course I would,” Daphne said. “If it were possible for me to just walk down the street and have offers tossed at me for sex as easily as they say it is for gay men, well, I would be doing the same thing.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “You get offers like that at school all the time.”

“Ewww… those are from a bunch of idiot jocks,” Daphne gasped. “Like I’d ever even consider doing anything with them.”

“Well, you do them,” Justin reminded her.

“Well, lately I haven’t,” she countered.

“Right, well that is only because the whole school thinks we are dating,” Justin could not hold in his laughter. “You saved my reputation and ruined your own!”

“Please, you really are dense Justin. Do you know how jealous the girls are? They always have been too. You’re not a total troll you know,” Daphne said with Pride. “Now that they think I actually snagged you they are even more jealous than when they just thought we were friends.”

“Yeah, well its not girls I want swooning over me,” Justin said sitting up straighter in his seat as Daphne slowly made her way onto Liberty Avenue.

“Right, you want to be the one swooning,” Daphne smiled.

Justin couldn’t disagree. “So. You are sure your parents are not going to be home until tomorrow afternoon, right?”

“Yes, yes,” Daphne said, pulling into a parking spot on one of the side streets. “Just make sure you call me if you think you are coming back to my place so I can wake up and unlock the door for you. Otherwise I will have your school stuff in my trunk and I’ll meet you in the parking lot at school tomorrow, ok?”

“Okay,” Justin said, still feeling unsure about the situation. He looked around at the busy crowded street in front of him. There were so many different kinds of people on the sidewalks and streets around the bars that night.

“You will be fine, Justin,” Daphne told him leaning over and kissing his cheek. “Just walk around like you have been there a million times.”

Justin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, I can do this.”

“Be safe. I will see you later,” Daphne hugged Justin and then started to push him out of her car.

“I’m going. I’m going,” he laughed and got out of the car, slamming the door after him with a laugh.

Daphne waved at Justin and then slowly pulled away from the curb, leaving Justin standing on the crowded noisy street all by himself.

He lit himself a cigarette and then took a long hit before moving in the direction toward the bars. “I can do this,” he thought. “I can do this.”

 

****
 

Justin checked his watch for what had to be the fourth time in the last twenty minutes. He had been walking around Liberty Avenue and its side streets for nearly an hour and a half. He had yet to meet anyone that was not a total freak or, a total creep.

No less than twenty people had hit on Justin. He was not even sure if some of them were serious or not, being that four of them had been questionably male/female. The others had been men ranging from people that looked around his age to men that he was positive were old enough to be his grandfather.

He’d made the mistake of stopping at a corner to light up his seventh cigarette and some guy in a Porsche had mistaken him for a hustler. He could so not believe that! He was sure he didn’t look anything like a hustler. He didn’t exactly know what a hustler looked like, but he didn’t think he appeared to look like one. He was sure he’d seen dozens of people filling the street that could be mistaken for one, but not him!

Justin was wearing a navy blue jacket on top of a blue and white flannel and white t-shirt and a pair of Tommy Hilfiger jeans. Realizing this, reminded him how out of place he looked here. He didn’t feel it though, he felt like he’d finally come home to a place that was made for him. Well, almost. Something was missing but Justin could not put his finger on what actually seemed lost.

Even though he felt at home, he also knew he stuck out like a sore thumb. It was as if everyone could tell that it was his first time on Liberty Avenue. No matter how confident he portrayed himself as he walked the street; he knew that they knew that he knew that they knew….or whatever. However, that had nothing to do with the odd feeling growing inside of him.

Many good-looking boys and men had hit on him thoughout his journey, it hadn’t only been ugly or old guys. They just did not tempt him enough. They offered a slew of propositions, some Justin did not even understand. It did not matter though because he declined them all. He would politely excuse himself from the person’s company and he could tell that they were not very disappointed, no matter how gorgeous and fresh Justin was to them. It was probably just, ‘on to the next conquest’ and he was easily forgotten.

He and Daphne had looked up Pittsburgh’s gay district on the internet. Justin had tried to learn everything he could about the streets, shops, bars and people. He learned that Thursday’s were not as busy as the weekends on Liberty. He did not want to be completely lost in the crowd. Therefore, he chose Thursday night, it was supposed to be the busiest day besides the weekends so he still had the chance of meeting someone.

When he had officially reached two hours of aimlessly walking around, with out any luck, he figured he would walk down to the end of the street Daphne had dropped him off near and call her. It was almost eleven o’clock and he was ready to just go back to Daphne’s and watch a movie before bed.

Justin noticed that as he made his way down the street, the bar on the corner across from him seemed to be drawing a large crowd. Everyone seemed to be walking toward it. There was a line of people waiting to get inside that reached down and around the block’s corner and alleyway. “Maybe I won’t go home yet,” Justin thought, deciding to casually walk past the bar and scope it out.

Justin watched the people coming and going for quite some time. He made his way back and forth always keeping an eye out and watching all the people going in and out of the bar. It was almost midnight by the time Justin lit up his last cigarette and got up the nerve to walk toward the club he’d found out was called Babylon. It had a very long line and Justin remembered reading that it was the best dance club in all of Pittsburgh.

As he was walking toward the end of the line, three men exiting the bar caught his eye.

“Getting drunk early was not a good idea!” Justin heard one of them say as they made their way onto the sidewalk, all of them were laughing and obviously buzzed.

One man was a tall dirty blond. The other two were short, black haired men. One was obviously younger than the other, slightly pudgy one. Justin kept watching because the taller of the men was wearing a pair of tangerine leather pants and his eyes seemed to be stuck to them as the men walked toward him.

“Oh, well hello you cute thing,” the one in the leather addressed Justin, smiling.

Justin had tried to look away from them as they passed by, but it seemed that he had not succeeded. “Hey,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant.

The tall man smiled. “Well aren’t you just adorable.”

Justin smiled back a little. “Thanks?”

“He certainly is,” the younger short brown haired man said.

Justin could feel both of the dark haired men’s eyes raking over him and he started to turn around to leave. He didn’t mind an older guy, but both of the guys eying him were just so not his type. He could not exactly place it, but something inside of him was making him feel like he needed to stay away from them, and not because they were threatening or anything. He just felt all squicky when he saw them eyeing his body up and down. He turned walked quickly away in the other direction.

“Hey boy-wonder what’s your hurry?” the younger one asked stopping Justin for just a moment.

“Oh, leave him be, Michael,” the tall man chastised his friend.

Justin started to walk away and dig his cell phone out of his pocket, but stopped when he saw ‘Michael’ walk in front of him. Justin glared at the man when he’d put his hands on his shoulders. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, sorry,” the man removed his hands and put them into the pockets of his pants. “I’m Michael.”

Justin just raised his eyebrow and flipped open his phone.

“You’re awfully young to be out here on your own,” the man said. “I just wanted to do my good deed and make sure you had a safe place to stay tonight.”

Justin didn’t think it was possible for anyone to sound as nervous as he was, but he was wrong. This guy’s voice shook with each word. Justin fought back a smile. “Riiiight.”

“Would you want to come back to my place? We don’t have to do…” the man ventured on only to be interrupted.

Justin shook his head. “Thanks.” Justin noticed a little glimmer of happiness on Michael’s face. “But no thanks,” he said, making the guy frown.

“Oh, well, are you sure cause...”

“Michael, leave little blond boy alone. He is far too young for you anyway,” the taller man and the other quiet guy had walked up next to Justin and Michael.

Justin could not have been more relieved. He smiled at the taller man and started to walk off. That guy was nice, but there was no way he was what Justin was looking for. He was not who Justin wanted to lose his virginity too.

He dialed Daphne’s phone and she answered cheerfully, “Hello?”

Justin laughed. “I thought you would be asleep?”

“Nope, I was too busy wondering how your night was going,” she confessed.

“Well, I’m going to get a cab and come back to your place,” Justin told her.

“That bad?” she asked.

“Yeah, that bad,” he confirmed.

“There wasn’t one guy that…”

“There wasn’t anyone for me here, Daphne. No one at all,” Justin told his friend.
 

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