Oliver's First Gay Experience

Sometimes Oliver had to wonder why life was so easy for everybody else- and by everybody else, he meant his stepbrother, Nash. He was smart and social and good at sports and had girlfriends, lots of girlfriends, ever since jr. high. But Oliver just had smart. Okay, he had smart in spades- he\'d started school a year early- barely out of diapers and reading to his kindergarten class, then he\'d finished high school at fifteen and was possibly going to have his medical degree before he was 22, but that was only one part of life. Everything else was really hard for him- Oliver was a geek in function if not completely in form. He did take care of himself- he ran. He ran a lot and it kept him thin and he did sit-ups when he couldn\'t work through thorny problems with his brain alone and they kept him from being too thin- so his geekdom wasn\'t immediately evident- not until he opened his mouth.

Foot in mouth disease was what Nash liked to call it. Nash was older and he was highly protective of his younger stepbrother, except when he was mocking him into submission. Nash and his football player\'s stature along with his ability to defuse schoolyard conflicts was the only reason Oliver hadn\'t spent his school years with a perpetual bloody nose or wedgie or swirly. Oliver\'s truncated education meant that they graduated from Cameron High in the same class- Nash kept him safe.

Oliver had come out to nobody. He kept almost doing it when Nash would try to fix him up with some pretty girl and Oliver would botch it on the first date. It wasn\'t even always on purpose- he\'d kind of wanted some of them for friends or maybe he could convince himself that he could be happy with a nice girl if she was really someone he cared about. Later, he came to realize that there was no way he\'d ever be happy with soft and sweet- he wanted hard, even though he\'d never had it, he knew that that was what he needed.

When Oliver got to Princeton, young and thin and clueless, he hadn\'t even tried. His roommate was a nice boy named Wightman who only left his computer to attend class and shower maybe once every three days. Oliver kind of liked him, but he wasn\'t attracted to him in the least- which was good since he was pretty sure that Wightman didn\'t have any sort of sex drive. At least Oliver always knew where to find him. Then, once he\'d gotten to Harvard Medical, he\'d been so underneath everything that he\'d hardly noticed the idea of sex beyond jerking off in the shower. There were pretty boys to notice and all, but there wasn\'t time to do more than notice.

He\'d been going to school for sixteen years and had two more semesters until he started his residency- and then things would really be nonstop. He was twenty-one, he was, for once, off for the summer. And he was still a virgin- which, Oliver decided, had to change. There was something his mother, God rest her soul, always used to say- you use the tools that you\'ve been given. So Oliver decided to use the biggest tool he knew- Nash.

\"Nash, I gotta tell you something,\" Oliver began.

\"What\'s up Ollie?\" Nash answered, handing his stepbrother a beer and turning on the TV to check the hockey score.

Oliver set the beer down- he didn\'t drink, but Nash was always handing him beer anyway. \"Uh- this is important.\" He reached over and took the remote to click off the set. He accidentally pressed the up volume instead of the off button and Nash took the remote back and did it himself. Oliver took a deep breath, tried to look his stepbrother in the eye, couldn\'t, lowered his gaze, spotted the beer on the table, considered taking up drinking, reached out for the beer, thought better of it, knocked the beer and Nash\'s bowl of popcorn to the floor, kneeled down to pick it all up and bumped his head on the coffee table on his way down.

\"You\'re being especially spasmodic today,\" Nash offered, kneeling beside him to help clean up.

\"Sorry. This is hard- I\'m not sure how to say it.\"

\"Don\'t worry, just lay it on me, bro.\"

\"I want you to get me laid.\"

\"Beg your pardon?\"

\"I don\'t mean laid, I mean you know- I need you to help me get a date or dates- I don\'t know, forget it.\"

\"Oliver, what do you think I\'ve been doing for the last five years- I have set you up with some great girls, haven\'t I?\"

\"Yeah, yeah you have.\"

\"And you, my choke-ish friend have fucked up every one of those set ups. Most of those girls really could have been good for you.\"

\"I know.\"

\"So, what should I be doing different? What different thing are you asking for?\"

\"Guys.\"

\"Beg your pardon?\"

\"I- uh. I like guys.\"

\"Since when?\"

\"Sixth grade- Jimmy Freedman.\"

\"You\'re gay?\"

\"Yes.\"

\"Wow.\"

\"Yes.\"

\"That makes so much sense.\"

\"It does?\"

\"Totally and completely. You little shit- why didn\'t you say anything sooner?\"

\"I- I didn\'t- wasn\'t-\"

\"Thought I\'d rag on you for it? You don\'t really think I\'m that crappy a human being, do you? Wait- don\'t answer that, you little flamer,\" Nash teased.

\"I\'m sorry.\"

\"For what? Being gay?\"

\"For thinking you were crappy,\" Oliver corrected.

\"Not crappy. Promise.\"

\"So, you\'ll help me?\"

\"Sure. What do you need me to do? Be your wingman so you can cruise the Copacabana?\"

\"Uh?\"

\"Go with you to a gay bar and try to help you meet someone,\" Nash explained- \"Jeeze, have you never paid attention to pop culture at all? Have I taught you nothing?\"

\"Not much,\" Oliver admitted. \"I\'m hopeless aren\'t I?\"

\"Nah- you\'d be surprised how well hopeless can be parlayed into cute and cuddly.\"

\"I\'m cute and cuddly?\"

\"Not to me, but there\'s probably some three hundred pound drag queen who\'d love you.\"

\"Oh shit!\"

\"I\'m kidding- I promise to protect you from the three hundred pound drag queens- I\'ll sacrifice myself if I have to.\"

\"No you wouldn\'t.\"

\"Okay, no I wouldn\'t, but I will be your wingman.\"

\"Okay, thanks.\"


Strike while the iron is hot is another of those things Oliver\'s mother used to say and Nash repeated it to Oliver before dragging him out the door, then dragging him back inside to lend him better clothes from his own closet, look up the names and addresses of a few local gay bars online and drag him back out again.


\"So, this is nice,\" Nash said at the first bar they tried.

\"I\'ve been to exactly three bars in my life, including this one, and even I know this place is a meat market,\" Oliver replied making Nash chuckle.

\"You wanna try the one down on fifth or get a drink here first?\"

\"No telling if the next one won\'t be worse.\"

\"Point taken. Bartender, two whiskey sours,\" Nash ordered.

\"Make mine a soda.\"

\"Gay and a teetotaler? Could you narrow your demographic a little more?\"

\"You forgot- no three hundred pound drag queens.\"

\"Right, won\'t Mistress Lardillia, be disappointed- that poor lush.\" Nash slipped gracefully up onto a barstool back to the bar and surveyed the room. \"Lots of boys here. You see anything you like?\"

Oliver climbed ganglyishly up onto the stool next to Nash, looked at the dance floor and answered, \"No.\"

\"Oh, come on- how about that blonde over there? He looks non-scary.\"

\"He\'s with the big guy next to him- the big, fully-scary guy next to him.\"

\"Okay. How about the short one in the corner?\"

\"He\'s talking to himself.\"

\"He\'s singing along to the music.\"

\"That\'s music? I thought the public address system was malfunctioning.\"

\"Hey, don\'t dis the disco- disco is your bread and butter- or are you the show tunes type?\"

\"Are those the only choices?\"

\"Lesbo rock?\"

\"I think you should know that straight guys don\'t get to make those jokes.\"

\"If we go by experience, I\'m a gay as you are.\"

\"Yes, but do you want to have sex with men?\"

\"Well, if you\'re gonna get all technical on me- I jerked off with Jimmy Freedman in eighth- I might just be gayer than you.\"

\"You what? You\'re kidding!\"

\"His idea, but you know me- I was a horny little shit back then. It sounded good enough.\"

\"But you didn\'t think to invite me?\"

\"It was spur of the moment- right before he moved to Chicago. And I had no idea you liked him.\"

\"He was pretty wasn\'t he?\"

\"I wasn\'t really looking at him- I barely remember it anyway.\"

\"Oh God- I\'m done- I\'m officially the most pitiful gay man on the planet if you have more homo experience than I do and you don\'t even remember it- that\'s- it was Jimmy Freedman! How could you not remember?\"

\"You know, I might be able to look him up.\"

\"No.\"

\"No?\"

\"No. Nash, let\'s go. I can\'t do this.\"

\"Ollie?\"

\"No. Thanks for trying to help, but really, who am I kidding?\" Oliver headed for the door.