L.if.E (BoyxBoy)

Forbidden Love

My father was a strange man, in that he would appear to most of the outside world as a reasonable and kindly person, one who was always described as “Oh, Mr Tate, He’s such a lovely man, kind, considerate, helpful and so gentlemanly”. In reality, he was a control freak who vented his anger on his eldest son, Adam, who left home at the earliest opportunity and therefore left me to take all of dad’s outbursts, not that I ever blamed Adam and I never will.

[Author’s Note: God rest his soul – That is another story to be told one day – all I will say is Adam was and is my hero for what he eventually did many years later.]

Therefore, after a couple of years of being the beating post, both verbally and sometimes physically, I only made it worse by my actions at camp. My father being a “Christian”, people who I always thought of as being as caring and understanding as their saviour, didn’t take this too well. So, once we were home and out of view, he proceeded to knock me around with punches to my body (these don’t show so much) and verbally assault me and declared I was nothing to him other than a filthy sodomite (wish I knew what that meant). I being the obedient son, though really the frightened cowardly son, took my so-called punishment on the chin, so to speak.

During all of this I made sure I showed no outward signs of emotion and certainly did not cry as this would have made it worse, he thought crying unmanly and therefore would ‘man me up’ with extra blows.

I will not transcribe the words and abusive tones used by him to me as I consider myself above such tyranny, but somewhere deep inside me it was like having knifes driven into my soul with each degrading word uttered.

Through all of this, I zoned myself out and concentrated on the image of Pete blowing me that kiss.

As always during these tirades my mother was never to be seen, never there to try and calm him down, never there to support me, never there to hold me and protect me from him, never there at all. Nevertheless, as always I would never hold this against her, because deep down I knew that before Adam or myself had been around, she must have withstood the worst of his tyranny and was therefore terrified of him. But, what would be nice now and again would be for her to have come to me afterwards and hugged me and held me, but she had never done so, either after these episodes or at any time I could think of.

Several days after this episode (it makes it easier for my mind to just call them episodes), my mother duly informed me that I was to attend a consultation with a specialist who dealt with ‘my matters’. What she meant by ‘my matters’ was anyone’s opinion, but it was obviously about so called perverted boys and their unnatural desires.

So on the appointed day I caught the bus to the town centre and changed to another bus that took me to Dr Watson’s (no, honestly that was his name) consulting rooms. As you have realised I was alone, no support whatsoever from my parents.

I have to say on the bus to his rooms I sat next to a really cute guy and I have to admit I let my leg wobble about and brush his several times. He never once moved his leg away and so I pressed home my advantage by pushing my leg further into his, whereupon he turned toward me and told me to F*ck Off. So much for my interpretation of his leg movements, always been crap at knowing who is or isn’t Gay.

So I arrived at the consulting rooms, which wasn’t part of the hospital as I had expected, but was a large Victorian town house in the area around the main hospital complex. I climbed the large worn stone steps, approached the impressively large double doors and read a little brass plate that said ‘Please ring for entry’. I looked at this several times and tried to discover what I was supposed to ring, as I couldn’t see any bell push anywhere. I was about to knock instead when a young woman strode quickly up the steps and pulled on a large black metal handle on the doorframe. As she pulled the handle downward, a bell somewhere in the house rang out. She looked at me as I reddened and said, “Your first time I take it. It took me ages to find where the bell was. What you here for, I am here to cure me of my shoplifting, hehe.” I looked at her and just played dumb, mainly because I didn’t want to tell her what I was here for, as I didn't know myself and could only guess. Though let us say my guess would be 100% accurate, but also I was always tongue tied around girls and women who were obviously bolder than me in talking to others about nothing or anything in particular.