I already knew I was gay but hadn’t accepted it. I had crushes on friends and knew what attracted my attention at school, on the beach, on the street, at my tennis club, etc.

I remember when I was about 19 and had changed tennis clubs. I arrived early one Saturday and Ashley, a pretty blond boy probably a couple of years older than me and a country boy, asked if I would like to go out to a court and hit.

“Sure” I replied. He hit the ball okay, was a nice guy and yeah, very easy on the eyes.

We played on a back court that bordered the neighbouring house. The fence was not particularly high and it was covered in a flowering creeper.

As luck would have it, a ball flew over the fence at Ash’s end so he promptly scaled the fence and retrieved it. Upon his return to the court, he swiftly removed his shirt to shake out the twigs, leaves and flowers that had managed to find their way under it.

OH MY GOD! He had the body of an Adonis (how had I not noticed before?). I had never really noticed much about him, or the physique of guys like him, but on this day, the site of him in just his tennis shorts hit me like a lightning bolt.

Nothing happened between us (he was probably a straight boy anyway) and we were never close or anything. I saw him quite a few more times over the season but soon left the town for work and by the time I returned some years later he had moved on.

Although he was a nice guy and fit beyond belief, it was more the site of his abdominals and his chest that flawed me that day. I had never really been affected in such a way by the site of a semi-clad man. This was the definitive proof that a woman could NEVER flaw me in the same way.

Ashley, if you are reading this and you recognise yourself, thank you. You were the final proof I needed.

—

RELATED STORIES:

I’m From Watford City, ND. “I asked a fellow soprano who you were — she said you were a gifted athlete from Dickinson. Rumor has it, she said, that you were a lesbian! I couldn’t stop staring–you often looked back. I blushed several times a day, lost track of the song measures and conductor’s direction. And looked again, heart pounding.”

I’m From Salt Lake City, UT. “I woke up as the plane touched down on the runway. The familiar mountainscape outside was a comforting sight, but I couldn’t help feeling more out of place than I ever had before. I wasn’t the same kid who had left here a month earlier. Or maybe I was, but something was clearly different.  And I was starting to think that different wasn’t such a bad thing.”

I’m From Adelaide, SA, Australia. “I knew I was gay. When I was alone. In the dark, in the safe cocoon of my bed. When my own hands touched myself, and those images and thoughts went toward the movie star, the guy I had seen on the street, or my best friend. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.”