A Simple Twist of Fate

I had my first twist of fate a few months before I graduated high school in 1979. It was on a Sunday in late February or early March. There had been a big snow a few days earlier and mounds of old snow and ice were piled up near the alleyways. I was walking to the corner confectionary to get dog food for Sam, my peekapoo dachsund crossbeed. Someone's trash had been ripped apart and was perched on a mound of snow. I looked down and saw a picture of a nude man. I was incredibly excited and nervous. I mean here was a picture out of my innnermost fantasies.

Up until now, I had been creating little porn visons about the boys in high school in my mind and now here was something real that reflected my fantasies. Anyway, I hurriedly rushed to the store and got the dog food .When I came back to the alleyway with the trash, I looked around and grabbed the magazine, stashed it between me and the 5 lb bag of dog food and rushed home. Fortunately, my parents were out of the house and I ran upstairs to my room. My heart was racing. Here was a magazine about all my inner fantasies. I turned page after glorious page. Nude men in various poses just like the poses the women were in my uncle's Playboy's but they were men and there were articles. The words gay and homosexual kept popping up. It was then that I understood what I was. Until then, I had locked my fantasies away and did not have a name for them and now I knew. Later I was to learn how powerful a word could be.