QColumn: A Gay In The Life: Walk It Out

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the very last installment of AGITL. To read about the series and why it’s ending, check here. To start reading from Steve’s first column, click here and then click on every image at the top of each column to go to the next one.
Also, Steve promises to stop by the QComments section here this weekend to bid his fans a fond farewell and talk a little about his future plans, so tell him how you feel and stop back to see what he said. Goodbye Steve Prince! Much love and luck from your fans at QueerClick!
Walk it Out
By Steve Prince
Peter yawned as he folded up his blanket. The early morning sun hung behind his right shoulder. I squinted as I watched him, his naked torso giving him the effect of a cloud with a silver lining.
I smiled. I had only seen a cloud with a silver lining once in my life. I was driving home from college for a weekend in Oklahoma. It had rained all day but as I crossed the Texas/Oklahoma border the clouds broke apart. It was late afternoon. I rolled my window down taking in the smell of fresh rain. I looked out my passenger window and there it was, covering in the sky as if frozen into place. I’ll never forget how the dark the inside of the cloud was in contrast to its edge. It was this dark bulbous, billowing dark cloud while it’s edge radiated a blinding white gold—a light so bright you could barely look at it.
“What are you thinking about?” Peter said.
My thoughts slipped back to the present. I shook my head. “Nothing, really.”
He bent low and kissed me.
We made love again.
Forty minutes later, I was folding the blanket while Peter lounged on the truck bed.
“Do we have to?” he pleaded.
“Yes,” I said, “I need to get back. The last thing my Mom needs to worry about is me right now, she’s still upset about her brother dying.”
Peter sighed as he fiddled with the edge of the blanket. “Do you think your Uncle Jerry was gay?”
“Where did that come from?” I asked.
“Well, he was single all his life,” Peter said. “That’s kinda weird for around here.”
Honestly, he might have had a point. A part of me always did wander if Uncle Jerry was gay. When I was younger it seemed he and I were a bit closer, but when I came out to my family he had nothing to do with me. He could have distanced himself from me because I was someone he wanted to be. Maybe.
“He could have been,” I said honestly, “but I didn’t really know him that well. He was kind of an ass, bless his heart.”
“Hmm,” Peter stood, “Well, I’m glad.”
“You’re glad he died?” I said with a smirk. I knew Peter was changing the subject.
“No,” he said hugging me, but then he reconsidered. “Well, yeah actually. If he hadn’t died, you would be here, and I wouldn’t be doing this.”
He kissed me again, and tried to pull me closer.
“Stop,” I said smiling, “I really have to go. I’ll see you tonight.”
Peter’s face seemed to grimace at the thought of returning to the real world; we both felt so comfortable in our little private pasture. We loaded up the truck and climbed in. The light of day had changed the look of the place. At night with the stars, it felt so romantic, mysterious, and exciting. But now has the May mid-morning heat began to sink in, I could see most of the grass had been trodden on by cattle or was dead from lack of rain. A part of me already missed the mild Los Angeles weather. I wonder what the boys were doing right now. What would they say about me and Peter?
As Peter pulled onto the dirt road, the mood seemed to change. We both knew we were heading back to the reality at the end of that road.
“How are you going to tell her?” I asked.
Peter bit his bottom lip nervously.

“I’ll just tell her,” he said.
I began to speak.
“But I should do it alone,” he said. “It’s better that way. I’m the one that got me into this mess.”
“And your Mom?” I asked.
Peter swallowed hard. “I don’t think I’m going to tell her.”
“What,” I asked surprised, “you’re just going to leave?”
“What can I say that won’t hurt her and make me feel like shit?” he protested. “I’m in a lose-lose with her. Either way I’m going to kill her.” Peter shook his head as if trying to deflect a coldness from wrapping around him.
“You can do this,” I said putting my hand on his thigh. “But Peter, you have to stand up to her sometime.” He nodded feebly.
“Pull over,” I said. “Let’s talk it out. Come on.” Peter looked at me oddly. If Peter and I were going to do this relationship thing again, then I was going to be more upfront. And I was going to say what was on my mind, and hope he would to.
He navigated the truck off into a patch of dirt. He sighed as he thrust the gearshift into park.
He looked at me with sad eyes, “Well?”
“Well,” I asked, “what is your fear?”
Peter looked stunned by the question. I wanted to shock him a bit, hoping he would give an honest answer. He began to speak about his fear of losing his family. He talked about having friends abandon him because they would be freaked out and consider him weird. He worried about disappointing all the people that mattered to him most.
“And Steve,” he paused. His tone indicated this was something he didn’t want to tell me because it had to do with me.
“Just say it Peter,” I said, “you’re not going to hurt my feelings. Be honest with me.”
He swallowed hard and seemed to taste his words before he said them. “I feel bad when I sleep with you.”
To say it didn’t hurt me a little would be a lie, but I kept a poker face.
“OK,” I responded, “bad about what?”
Peter paused again, “I guess I don’t feel bad as much as I feel guilty. Like I let my desire and flesh take over my heart.”
Ah, guilty cum. I remember it well. It’s such a paradox, really. I remember the ecstacy of being with man and feeling that true connection, but after the orgasm instead of feeling relief, guilt often seemed to replace the excitement. Thoughts of “What have I done?” or “Oh no, I did this again?” played through my mind. I’m sure Peter had the same thoughts when he was with me. Actually, in retrospect, I knew what was going on. All while we had dated I could tell in his tone and face that he felt a bit detached after we had made love. I regretted that I didn’t bring this up to him. Perhaps it would have made him feel less weird, less like the only person that goes through this. Honestly, I think most gay men go through this. If only I had sad something, but I think my own pride and feelings got in the way. Being with Peter always felt so wonderful to me and I didn’t want anything to sour that.
I sighed. “So we’re talkin’ about Jesus now right?” I asked.
“I’ve read the scripture over and over and I just can’t find anything that makes me feel better,” Peter said. “I love you Steve. I do. Do you know how hard that is for me to even say, that I love you?”
I nodded.
“But I still don’t know if this is worth being…” his voice trailed off.
“Being what?” I prodded.
Peter’s eyes were beginning to mist. “Being cast into hell.” Peter put his hand on my arm. “I wish I didn’t feel that way, and I don’t want to say that to you.”
“But you’ve gotta be honest,” I finished for him. This time Peter nodded as a tear ran down his cheek.
“How did you do this?” Peter said. “How did you get past this guilt and shit?”
I looked at him.
“What’s your hope, Peter?” I asked.
He looked at me surprised. “My hope?” he asked.
“If you come out, what do you hope will change in your life? What will be better?” I continued. “You’ve been talking about all the fear you have about coming out. But what’s your reason for coming out. What are you coming out for?”
He looked at me blankly. I sat there silent in the truck.
“I don’t think I would have done this if it wasn’t for you?” Peter said finally.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, I wouldn’t be dealing with this at all if you hadn’t of come back into my life. I probably would have stayed close to my family, gotten a job, and settled down with someone like Amy, and…” he trailed off again.
He looked at me and smiled. It seemed with all this sad talk he finally had something hopeful to tell me.
“I guess I came out for you, Steve. I came out for you.”
I bit my lip. A part of me felt that I should take that as a compliment, yet it made me feel worse.
“Peter,” I said, “I love you. So much. You’ve been my best friend for so long. And you know that when you tell your Mom about us again—I’ll be there. When you tell your friends that you’re in love with me—I’ll be there. And when you walk into that church—I’ll be with you holding your hand the whole time.”
Tears silently fell from his cheeks as my own eyes began to water.
“But babe,” I sighed. “When you do this, you do it for you. Coming out is an act of love you do for yourself. Not for me, not for anyone else, not for God—for you. If you ever regret doing it, which I don’t think you will, but if you do regret coming out, then I don’t want you to resent me. Make this decision for you. I’ll help you, but the amount of love I can give you is nothing compared to the feeling of loving yourself so much that you own up to your true self. Like I said, I’ll be right there beside you. But at night, when we go to sleep and you hold me against your chest, the last person you say goodnight to is yourself. And your the first person you wake up to in the morning.”
Now I was crying. In fact, we both sat in the truck silently crying for about ten minutes, just holding one another. Finally Peter rose his head from my shoulder and looked at me.
“Steve,” he began, but couldn’t finish.
I kissed him, and wiped his cheek. “I know,” I whispered, “you can’t do this right now.”
“I’m sorry,” he began. “I don’t want to be like your Uncle Jerry.”
“You won’t be, because you’ll have a good friend,” I said. I sniffled, “So don’t be sorry—be grateful.”
He nodded and somehow managed to smile. I wanted to kiss him one last time but we could feel that an agreement had been made between us. It was over.
Five minutes later, I stood on the dirt road and watched Peter’s truck drive away. Dust from the back tires danced behind the bumper turbulent and firey and then in a second the sand drifted up into the wind and was swept away.
Peter said he would take me home, but I wanted to walk. My mom’s house wasn’t far and I needed the time.
I’ve only felt this way once in my life. It was when my family had sold the childhood home I had grown up in. They moved out when I was a freshman in college. About two years later, my mother had found an old garage door opener to the house and she asked me to take it by. As I walked up the old driveway I had played on most of my childhood, memories flooded to my brain. Imagine my surprise, when the new owner invited me to a tour of the house.
Everything was changed. The dining room table was in a different place. They had changed fixtures and even some of the carpet. The biggest shock was seeing my old room. A lot had happened in that room. I had lived there before I was even one year old. I got my first tooth in that room, had my first laugh, had my first crush, my first wet dream, my first heartache, and my first hopes for my life were born there. But now I looked around. It looked different. I smelled different. It felt different. It was different, and it wasn’t my room anymore. Moreover, I realized I had changed more than the room had.
As I walked along the road, I kicked gravel around like I had done when I was a kid. Peter was like my old room, and perhaps I was trying to be someone with him I wasn’t anymore. He was my first love. I had wanted it to work so much. Maybe I wanted to heal a part of myself that had longed for him since high school, but I couldn’t change the past. And the more I thought about it, I didn’t want to. Peter was in a different place than I was. And sometimes that’s okay, and sometimes it’s not. But when I think about us, we both were compromising a lot. Compromise is a necessity of love. But when do you compromise so much that you become some one else? When do you change so much that you actually do lose yourself in love?
I continued to walk along the road. Walking and walking. I smiled remembering a memory I had of when I was eight. I was playing baseball, when a ball took a hard bounce and pegged me in the back. As I yelled and dropped my glove, my coach walked over and patted my back. “Walk it off Steve,” he said, “Walk it off.”
And I did. As I cleared a small hill on the road, I saw my Mom’s house. I smiled. I hope Peter would come out one day. He deserved that just as much as I deserved to be with someone who wanted fully to be with me. Who knows? Perhaps we both were trying to come home to one another and realized that it’s true: you can’t go home anymore.
I looked around at the grass and the fields. I took in the smell of ozone. As I looked around all I could see was beauty, yet it wasn’t my home.
Epilogue:
“You stop it,” Troy said playfully clocking Alex on the arm.
“You are though,” Alex cooed, “you’re in love.”
“What?” I said, taking a seat. “A boy leaves town and comes back to Troy in love.”
“And,” Omar said, “he’s cute.”
“He’s one of my old tricks friend’s,” Cody said, taking a drag from his cigarette. “His name is Lee, a smoking hot Asian with a hot ass—”
Troy sighed, “And a smile that makes me feel like Ginger Rogers.”
We all stared at Troy with wide eyes. I had never heard him talk about a guy like that. Nor had I ever heard him say something that gay.
We all laughed. It was great to be back with all the boys. Of course, I had told them separately about my Oklahoma trip. Alex cooed and said it was a ‘bittersweet love story.” On the other hand, Omar only thought about all the sexual stuff and was glad to know I finally ‘topped’ Peter. As one would expect, Cody cried and couldn’t believe I was finally able to walk away, and Troy felt glad it ended on good terms but said it was still “Peter’s loss.”
I had been back from Oklahoma for only a week, but it felt much different than the last time Peter and I broke up. I wasn’t sad this time, maybe because we still had our friendship.
Troy interrupted my thoughts and tapped my arm, “Okay I do like him… a lot.”
“So he’s young?” I asked, assuming. Troy’s type is always a young thing barely twenty-one; think Zack Efron three years ago.
“No,” Troy squealed and balled up his fists excitedly, “he’s twenty-nine but he looks twenty! It’s perfect.”
We all shook our heads, laughed and traded knowing smiles. It was nice to be back to normalcy. Seeing their faces was like looking at great mirror of myself; my friends were all reflections reminding me of the best parts of myself. And hey, if I’ve found four great gay male friends in Los Angeles, maybe there’s a decent guy for me out there yet!
“Are we waiting for someone else?” Troy said pointing at an open chair.
“Oh no, we’re not,” Alex said beginning to rise, “I’ll get the waiter.”
I lightly grabbed his forearm to stop him.
“Leave it,” I said. I turned over my shoulder and saw a group of men walking towards us.
A tall red-headed man grinned at me.
“Maybe Mr. Right is just waiting to have seat,” I mocked.
The boys laughed and I smiled.
Well, all one can do is hope.
——————————
A California boy with a Southern heart, Steve Prince finds himself in so many sexual positions it can make your head spin. Thankfully for us he’s willing to share it all…no matter how sordid it gets. Quick to admit when he fucks up, Steve still laughs it all off, and hopes you will too. Also, it should also be noted he is gayer than glitter.
——————————
Previously, on A Gay In The Life:
The Birds and The Birds
Lyin’, & Twinks, & Bears—Oh My!
Going Public
Christmas in July
Luck Be A Lady Tonight
I Left My Heart In Oklahoma
As Luck Would Have It
Shock & Awe
Blame It On Britney
The Unending Journey
Makin’ Copies
Bullets and Bracelets… and Lube
To Tell The Truth…
Stars Aren’t Blind
The Dark Knight
Come As You Are
A Date?
A Happy Ending
Better Than Nothing
A Man With A Slow Hand
Taking The Long Way
Everybody Knows
Wake Me Up, Before Ya Go-Go
Definition
The Best
The Upper Hand
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
2000-Date
Dick The Halls
The Queer Dear
A Night At The Museum
A Conversation
I’m Just A Girl Who Can’t Say No
Change The Way You Feel
Kissing A Fool
Leo The Lamb
The Elephant In The Room
Zuckerman’s Famous Pig
A Birthday Surprise
The Sleepover-er
SP Phone Home
Out of the Frying Pan and into the Closet
What If…
Just Beat It
Intimate Portrait
Intimate Portrait (Part Deux)
Intimate Portrait (Part Trois)
State of Mind
The Age of Disbelief
A Man For All Seasons
Summer Lovin’
A-Men
The Urge
Gettin’ It Done
Here You Cum Again
Eye Of The Beholder
The Present
A Minute’s Pause
Brotherly Love
Ladies Who Lunch
Here Cums The Rain Again
Dinner For Two
Blow by Blow
Commando
Cum As You Are?
Aftershock!
Caught in the Act
The Great Compromise
The Tipping Point
Cross Country
In Stereo
Get Smart
Blind Faith
The Dirty Mexican
A Few Good Men
Peter’s End
Getting Stuffed
The Good Boy
Cracking Up
The Agreement
Fuck Road
A New Resolve
Pre-cumming
Send My Regrets
On A Jet Plane
For The Love of God
Livin’ On A Prayer
It’s My Party
Move On
The Stripper
High-Ho The Glamorous Life
The Flesh Is Willing, But…
The Oldest Profession
Letters
The Rubdown
The Return of the Stripper
The Strip Tease
Tennis Doubles
The Brother’s Dick
The Marlboro Man
A Reunion of Sorts
Almost There