Experimenting With Best Friend... Until It Got Real

At 16, in 2008, I never thought I was or could be gay - It just wasn’t something I considered. Me and Jake had been best mates for a few years and stayed at each other’s houses most weekends. He was the only one who kinda knew I was mentally struggling and had hurt myself a couple times, even if he didn’t fully understand. I didn’t even get it at the time, we were just 16. I didn’t talk about it, but Jake knew and would cover for me if I hid my arms or if someone grabbed my arm and I winced. “I knocked him over at the weekend,” or “We were messing about, and he bruised his arm.”. I'm sharing that so you understand the kind of mate he was and just how bonded we were making the end of this storing so much more confusing to experience.

The first time I really noticed something was when he told me he had a mark on his dick he was worried about. I told him to get it checked by a Dr, so he did. The next night, he came over, and I asked how it went. He went red and laughed, saying it was just a friction burn from wanking without lube. Then, like it was nothing, he pulled his boxers down and showed me. Something clearly shifted in me at that moment and it was the first time I saw him in a sexual way.

About a month later, prom happened. We all camped in my garden after—me, Jake and 2 other friends. Me and Jake had our own zipped-up section of the tent. We were drunk and I whispered, “I’m horny and hard.” He snorted, “Same.” Then I said, “We should wank,” and he just nodded. So, side by side under our sleeping bags we started wanking. Then I asked, “Have you ever had someone else do it?” He said no, so I laughed and said, “Shall we try?” and he just nodded yes. I reached over, wrapped my fingers around his cock, and the second I started moving, he loudly sighed and panicked as we were in a tent with other mates, luckily the other 2 were laughing and talking loudly. I carried on and his whole body tensed for a second before melting into it. It was dark but I remember his muscles tighten under my hand, his legs spreading a little wider. His head tipped back, mouth open, eyes closed. I kept going, watching his stomach tense, feeling his dick pulse in my grip. He let out this whispered shaky groan, and I panicked again and stopped. We were both pretty drunk and tired and just fell asleep. The next morning I woke up first, saw he was asleep with his jeans still on and the belt and zip undone from the night before. I remember thinking "shit, this will ruin our friendship" and left the tent. Luckily, when he and the others came in the house it was as if nothing had happened.

A week later, I felt brave and brought it up on MSN, asked what he remembered. He said the hand job, said it felt good but he was too drunk to cum. I told him he didn't cum because we stopped, he was being too loud - he was so embarrassed and I just laughed and said, “Should we try again?” He said yeah. That weekend, we sat in my bed, wanking, then swapped hands for the first time. No hesitation. No weirdness. We were wanking each other and I was watching his face, the way his mouth fell open, the way he was breathing. He said "I’m close,” and I gripped him tighter, stroking faster. His whole body tensed, and he came hard, spilling over my hand and his stomach. A second later, I followed, cum shooting over my shoulder for the first time ever, and we just laughed, breathless. We wiped up and went back to talking shit and play-station like nothing had happened. Except, to me, everything I thought about myself changed. I had a girlfriend and I realized I didn’t want her. I had never even want to kiss her. Yet there I was, sitting next to Jake after we had just made each other cum, like it was nothing. So, right then I broke up with her on MSN. Made up some bullshit excuse. I couldn’t tell him the truth or her. After that night it became our routine. We could not get enough of each other - those teenage hormones are something else!

After a few weeks or a month of that, the next big step happened one night when we were at his. I usually slept on his floor because his dad — proper football guy, all about being a "lad" would kick off of we shared a bed. But when his dad went to bed, Jake just pulled me into his, the lights off, there in the dark, and he quietly said, “I’m hard.” So I reached under the blanket, inside his boxers, and started wanking him. But after a while, I thought, fuck it and shifted down under the blanket, pulled his boxers lower, and wrapped my lips around him. He exhaled this shaky “oh my god” and gripped my hair. I felt his hips stutter, his breath faster, his fingers getting tighter in my hair. I had no experience but decided to moved my tongue over the head, and he whispered “10 out of 10” which made us both start laughing. I then said "when you cum, do you want it to be in my mouth?" And he said "If that's okay, I wanna feel what it's like", so I went back to it, after about 2mins, his grip tightened, his whole body went rigid, and then he came, pulsing over my tongue. I wasn’t ready for it, had no idea what to do, so I spat it into a tissue and tried giving it to him saying "this is yours" and we just laughed again. Again, after this I think I knew something had changed but still I didn't recognize I was getting emotional feelings.

The moment I did realize I liked him more than a friend was when he said he got a girlfriend. My stomach dropped and felt like I'd been hit by a truck. I think he saw my reaction because he said “Don’t worry, it won’t change anything with us.” - And it didn’t. He still stayed over and got into bed with me like it was nothing. [Just for context, we knew we both spoke to girls because we spoke all the time. We both went on dates because it was just what you did - a societal norm I guess. But I never went past a date so I assumed he wouldn't either.]

About another month later, whilst shopping together, he told me he lost his virginity to her - I almost had a panic attack. Again, he said he still wanted me and it wont change. It carried on as "normal" for months, sleepovers, sneaking off at parties to tease each other in the bathroom, brushing legs under tables when no one was looking.

The final time, was one night, at a house party (this was about 6 months after the first time at prom). We ended up in a bathroom pretending he was helping me "be sick". He said "How does just seeing you or being around you turn me on so much, you always make me hard by literally doing nothing". This hit the emotions hard internally and probably finally hit the moment of realizing I was gay and loved my best mate. His hands gripped on to my hips, my hand went down his trousers. He started rubbing my bulge. We said this needs to be quick, my back against the wall, face to face, we wanked each other off in our jeans and boxers. We were breathing in each other's breaths but never kissed. Watching each other's faces as we silently noticed the signs of each other's orgasm and my head flew back against the wall and he fell forward biting my shoulder as we both came, literally in our pants. I then made a few pretend to be sick noises and we walked out to join the others again like nothing.

A few of us were in the living room talking, me and Jake were sat on the floor against the radiator. I was on such a happy buzz, I quietly said to him, “I like you. More than like you. I think I’m gay.” He just sat there frozen. He started breathing faster and then he had a panic attack, we called his parents to pick him up. After that night, it was almost like the world had just become a different reality and he stopped talking to me. It was awful because we had the same friend group. Luckily he dropped out and went to a different college a couple weeks before this so I only saw him if we both went to parties, but we avoided each other. Almost immediately I got counseling, 3 months later I came out, then after college I moved away. All I know is that he’s married with a kid.

Crazy how someone who was the most supportive and caring best friend, completely cut me out when I said "I'm gay", despite the fact we had been in each others bed every week for 6 months. One label had the power to do that.