Spooktacular

Ok - here's the finished product - I'm calling him Batty Bill. Hopefully, Bill will have lots of stories to tell over the next few days. Halloween is always a time for bizarre things to happen. While I'm waiting for new adventures, I'll tell you about a big moment that happened many Halloweens ago when I was a college student at UW Eau Claire. I was still living in the dorms, and in the closet, and had made friends with a girl who worked the front desk. Her name was Lynne and she was one of the nicest people I've ever known. I was just making baby steps towards coming out, and I'm sure Lynne knew I was gay, but didn't push the issue. She did talk about her gay friends and she was one of the first people I ever knew who made it seem all right to be gay. Lynne lived off-campus so she invited me to a big Monster Mash at her house. I dressed as my favorite spook, Dracula, and walked down to the house with some other people from the dorm. Like many college parties, it was held down in the basement and after several beers we were all playing a drinking game around a big, round table. The music was blaring, the lighting was dark and I happened to be standing next to one of Lynne's friends from Madison. His name was Kevin. He was short, he was cute, he was dressed as a sailor and his hand kept brushing up on mine. It was very scary for me, because I knew a lot of the people there, some I'd even gone to high school with. For some reason I decided my pounding heart and my attraction to Kevin was more important than being found out that night, so when Kevin said he wanted me to go outside for a cigarette with him, I did. We went into the alley and instead of lighting up (I don't smoke, just went out as an excuse to be alone with him) we grabbed each other and started kissing. 18 years of pent-up fear, excitement, arousal, happiness, sadness and agression was flying around in my mind. I felt like I was going to pass out and it wasn't from the beer. A couple minutes into the kiss, someone opened the door and the bright light from inside glared down on us and we backed apart. But, when we went back inside, Kevin and I stayed side-by-side throughout the night. My best friend, who was a total bible banger, tried to get me to leave and go back to the dorm with everyone, but I decided to stay. Luckily, she was very drunk or she never would have let me stay without a fight. She did not want me to be gay. We hadn't talked about it yet, but I knew she knew and it was not going to be pleasant when I came out. I'll save that story for another time when I discuss religion. I was able to spend the night with Kevin. It was a Halloween I'll never forget because in a lot of ways it moved me down the road a few miles in my coming out process. And it wasn't just about being with Kevin, it was more about being bold enough to show that I was attracted to another man in front of the people I knew.