This is for Sheila

The great and glorious Sheila O'Malley has been taking us all on a winsome trip to teen crush land with her expose on the career of Ben Marley, the quintessential 70's cutie. And I have been awash in heartthrobitis, revisiting my crushes on David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, and a whole slew of dark haired/light eyed/lithe bodied boys. Here is the story of the day I was stamped with this particular lust.

Junior High. Seventh Grade. For weeks through the summer I was freaking out about PE. I was a chubby boy - chubby might be too kind a word for it - and the idea of getting naked in front of a bunch of other boys was terrifying to me. My pudgy, stretch marked body had never been seen by anyone since a visit to the pediatrician when I was 8. Now I was 13, and as an only child, I had no occasion to either be naked in front of others, or for that matter, to see others naked. I was excited about having the opportunity to see other boys naked, but I was also a little nervous about getting an erection in front of them. I approached the whole thing with such heightened emotion. This was going to be awful! This was going to be awesome!

Back in 6th grade, at the end of the school year, we were taken on a field trip to the Junior High to see our future home, and the boys were ushered into the locker room. It was all one open space, with the lockers around the perimeter of half the room, wood benches in rows, and a big open white tiled shower area with about 12 shower heads placed a few feet apart. We happened to be given the tour right when a class was showering, and I remember seeing lots of white butts and wet bodies in the shower - ten seconds of flesh that thrilled me (no question, I was gay) and freaked me out (my own big white butt would be added to that tableau in short order).

Now comes the second day of the school year, and we have to suit up for the first time and play dodge ball or whatever. I manage to get changed into the uniform - the jock strap was tricky but I figured it out - and we duly did our calesthenics and ran around the field. As the minutes ticked away I knew that "Hit the Showers!" was coming and there I would be, naked, in front of all those other boys, and certainly the object of scorn, derision, laughter. A nightmare.

Well, I panicked. We were back in the locker room and everyone was pulling off their uniforms and going into the shower, and I just thought nobody would notice if I skipped the shower and got dressed. Wrong. As the showers came to an end and dripping boys started to return to the lockers, one of the boys figured out that I hadn't taken a shower, and he said, "Hey - he didn't take a shower!" Suddenly we were in a scene from Lord of the Flies, and I'm Piggy. It's a SERIOUS situation. My heart is pounding and all attention is on me. At first I denied that I skipped the shower, but I soon felt like I would be torn to shreds if I didn't do something, so I said, "Well, I don't care, I'll take another shower, no big deal!" and I quickly got naked. Lots of boisterous laughter and all eyes on me. It was everything I feared about PE and boys magnified to an unbelievable degree.

So now, because of my stupid decision, instead of being just one of 60 boys in the shower, I am naked and alone in the shower and being looked at and laughed at (all the rest of the boys had finished and were toweling off). Agony. But the punishment wasn't over yet. The showers turned off just as I stepped into the white tiled scene of my humiliation. This caused another wave of mean-spirited laughter. Someone pointed out that there were two shower heads that had an independent turn valve, and it was all away at the other end of the showers. I basically had to waddle the wet slippery white tile catwalk naked in front of all the other guys to get to the right shower. I am dying at this point, having an out-of-body experience, pretty much planning my suicide for later that day.

As I approach the manual shower, I take in for the first time the fact that there's another guy there. He's a 9th grader, a member of the track team or something, and he's showering up. He's about a foot taller than me. And he's a man. Most of us 7th graders were still boys. I walk towards him (by now the laughing boys have turned their attention away from me and are getting dressed) and get to the manual shower next to his. I try to turn the shower on, but can't - it's too tightly closed. And this boy, this man, this god, reaches over and turns on the shower for me.

At the moment of my greatest shame and humiliation, a prince came to my rescue. It was just a moment of courtesy to him, a good deed, but it meant so much to me. I said thank you, and he said, "No problem, man."

And he looked in my eyes and smiled at me.

And I showered next to him.

And from just a foot away I looked at his truly beautiful body, his glistening white skin, his robust patch of dark pubic hair, his lovely dangling penis, his big balls, his wet dark hair, his crystal blue eyes, his ass, his feet, his calves, thighs, arms, armpits, and chest and abdomen and nipples, rivulets of water running down the valleys and byways of his topography, his utter perfection, his complete comfort with himself, his sweetness, his kindness. And I fell in love, forever, with him.

Never knew his name, never saw him again.