FicWad

Sometimes I’d trail my own fingers against my body and imagine that it was him doing it to me. Goose bumps would rise on my flesh and my nipples would harden as I ran my fingers softly around them, creating buds. I could only picture that it was him doing this to me and not my own sick fantasies. I would close my eyes and my fingers would travel south down my body, creating shadows of impure thoughts as they reached my privates. I wouldn’t ever allow my fingers to go past my penis and towards my ass, but I’d grasp my erection and begin to pump, imagining all the time that it was him. I would be hard and hot, only able to wish that he was lying in my bed with me.

But he wasn’t. And he wouldn’t be.

I would never make a noise. My parents were in the room next to mine and it would be pretty awkward if they heard me jacking off. That wouldn’t be an easy topic to explain. Though I’m sure they would understand, it wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have. My mum would probably start thinking that I was wanting to have sex with girls and she would get my dad to give me the ‘sex talk’ even though I knew it all already. It didn’t take a genius to know that you need to wear a condom to a) not get her pregnant; and b) not to get any STIs.
I didn’t need the talk. There would be no girl to get pregnant.

I was still a bit confused about whether or not I should label myself as gay. I was pretty adamant to the idea that at that point in time I did not want to have sex with a woman. But what about a few years down the line? What if I changed my mind? Then what? Would I no longer be gay?
It was safer to not say anything to anyone, to keep it all bottled up inside of me and wait and see.
Maybe I would get a boyfriend one day and people wouldn’t have to assume what I was. They would just know that at that moment I had a boyfriend.
I didn’t really need a label. People just liked to label everything to give the world a bit more meaning. If something was called something, it meant something. If I was labelled gay, it meant I was gay. What if I didn’t want to be gay? What if I only wanted that one guy at the record store?
I really had no idea.
I was doing my head in.

The alarm clock was still buzzing next to me, telling me that it was 7 o’clock in the fucking morning and I had to get up to get ready for school. I groaned and turned it off as I heard my mum knocking on my bedroom door before she entered.

“Wake up, Frankie,” she cooed and turned the light on, illuminating my room and burning my pupils that had been so used to the dark. I grumbled to her and flung my arm over my face to shield my eyes from the blinding light. “You have school,” she told me as if I didn’t already know.

“Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled and turned over in bed. I hated waking up. It was the worst time of day. It was worse than the times I would lay in bed and daydream about the man in the store. At least during those times my imagination-me was having a great time. When it was morning I was nothing but grumpiness.
I hated sleep. But I hated being awake even more.

She left my room, closing the door softly behind her and leaving the light on. I sat up, knowing that if I went back to sleep I would never get to school on time. My finger made its way into my mouth and I began to bite the lengthening nail, pulling off the crescent shaped tip and gnashing it between my front teeth.

My floor was dirty. Clothes were strewn everywhere and it was a struggle finding the clothes that I wanted to wear that day. But I managed to find the pair of plain black skinny jeans, a grey t-shirt and a zip up black hoodie to keep me just warm enough. The books that I needed were in my locker at school so all that was left for me to grab was my socks and shoes – which would come later in the morning.
For now, I wanted breakfast.

My mum had always drilled into my head that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. She had made it so I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without breakfast in my stomach and a mug of coffee to accompany it (though the coffee had been more my pushing than hers). It was just another thing that she had control over in my life. When I moved out, there would be no one telling me when and what to eat.

I fingered the marks on my left arm. They had scabbed and clotted, the blood dried to my skin and I went to the bathroom before the kitchen to wash them.

I flicked on the light to allow me to see inside the small room that housed only a toilet, sink and shower. My flannel was hanging on the wall next to the sink like it always was and I turned on the hot tap, letting it run for a few seconds before I dampened the grey cloth and then brought it to my arms. The blood was stiff and I had to push hard to get it to go away but it did and I was left with a blood-free arm of scabs and redraw skin.

It was disgusting, when I really thought about it. My arms, legs and hands were so ugly and I was so ashamed of them. I hated people seeing what I did to myself, but I just couldn’t stop. They’d see my bare arms and legs in physical education when we had to wear t-shirts and shorts. No one would comment. Not anymore. When they first found out, they would give the snide comments of ‘emo’. But they had grown up since then and had grown used to it. I hadn’t, however. I couldn’t get over the fact that I picked myself raw and didn’t feel the need to stop.

My mum had already made me my coffee when I reached the kitchen, my fingers in my mouth as I bit the peeling skin.

“Frank,” she scolded and slapped my hand away from my face. It always hurt me more when she tried to get my hand out of my mouth than when I bit my skin. When she slapped my hand, it would jolt and knock against my tooth in a way that I wasn’t ready for. It would hurt more than the pain I purposefully brought upon myself. “Stop that.”

“Ow,” I hissed. “Jesus, mum.”

“If you’d just /stop/. It’s so disgusting,” she commented and I shrugged my shoulders.

“Whatever, I don’t care,” I retorted and reached for my mug of coffee.

I took a sip of the boiling liquid and it burned my tongue. My face scrunched up and I placed it back down on the table where I found it before I busied myself with finding something for breakfast. I hated food. I hated meal times. I never knew what to eat. There was so much choice and I never knew what I wanted, what I felt like eating.
My mum controlled my dinner, feeding me, my dad and herself the same thing. Again, it was something controlled about my life. But it made it easier for me. I would probably starve if I was on my own.

I settled for cereal and I sat at the kitchen table with my mum, drinking my coffee and eating my cereal. She was eating some toast with marmalade and drinking a milky coffee. I liked my coffee black.

We sat in silence, the only sound that could be heard was her crunching on her toast; slurping her coffee; me shovelling cereal into my mouth; slurping my coffee.

My dad entered the room shortly after I started my breakfast and he began to make his own coffee and put some bread into the toaster.

“Morning,” he said with a curt nod.

“Morning,” I mumbled in response, not looking up from my gaze on my cereal.

My family weren’t a talkative bunch. My dad was the kind of man that liked to keep to himself. He was reserved and tried to get involved in as little as possible. The only thing he really cared about was my schooling. Anything other than that and he wouldn’t care. My mum was a bit more lax about my school grades. She hadn’t been the most studious of girls when she was in education and so she could understand the fact that I, too, didn’t seem to give a shit. However, she did like to try and ask me about my friends and about my life.

I had no doubt that the two of them would be 100% understanding and supportive if I ever did come out as gay. Neither of them were homophobic and they both loved me, I knew. But I couldn’t ever mention it until I, myself, was absolutely positive that I was gay and wasn’t just going through a phase.

I finished my breakfast quickly and tried my hardest to down my coffee. It was impossible. Black coffee just wasn’t a drink that could be downed. It was weird. Hot chocolate could be drunk quickly, so it wasn’t the heat that prevented me from finishing the drink in large gulp-fulls. There was something about the taste of the brown liquid that forced me to slow down, take small mouthfuls – savour it almost. Although, that wasn’t it. I wasn’t trying to savour it. I wanted it to be gone and waking me up. It just wouldn’t let me.

The dishwasher was full and clean with last night’s dinner plates and cutlery so I left my bowl and mug on the counter, leaving it for my mum to do later when my dad was at work and I was at school. It was unfair and she always complained, but I didn’t have the time. I needed to get to school.

I bit my nails and my dad gave me the look that read ‘stop it now, Frank’. I shook my head, finger still in my mouth, and left the kitchen.