Church Camp Boyfriend
I met my first boyfriend at church camp. Well, actually, we met on the phone a few weeks before. Mutual friends at mutual churches— we may have been the only two queer people either of our church friends knew, so of course they played matchmaker and got us to text each other. I liked his texts but loved his voice. We talked for hours. He liked Hamilton, I liked Hamilton! (Though I knew the lyrics better.) He was the lead in a musical—well, Snoopy in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, which is PRACTICALLY the lead! Was there anything he couldn’t do?! Even his name was hot! AUSTIN. Big, meaty Texas kinda name... And he was older. Of course, I liked that he was older.
What I didn’t like was the week before camp, the week before we were set to meet, the conversation changed. Kind of all of a sudden, all at once. There were fewer late-night phone calls and more late-night texts. And it was less about Hamilton and more about sex. All about sex, really. And I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I obviously wasn’t as experienced as him. But he reassured me that a picture’s worth a thousand words. And I freaked. And I prayed about it, but either God was ashamed of me, or my conscience was, or maybe the incessant voice of my father in my head. How could I...
I told him please, no more pictures, and please don’t talk about that stuff anymore—not yet at least, not right now, not before camp, and definitely not DURING camp. And he said okay, he understands. But I guess... he kept forgetting. Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I’m bad at words, I’m bad at all of this. He told me, the day before camp, he couldn’t wait to sneak out of our cabins at night, to the woods behind the campgrounds, to force me up against the trunk of a tree and fuck me.
I avoided him like the plague the moment I stepped off the bus. I knew what he looked like. He didn’t look so hot anymore. His hair was greasier, eyes were beadier, beard was dirtier. I could see behind me, through the crowd of Jesus-loving, God-fearing teens—I could see him searching for me. Can’t let him get close. Gotta get to my cabin. And when I got there, my friends were so angry. “You’re meant for each other!” they insisted. “He didn’t mean all that... he was playing around. You always freak out over nothing.” Nothing.
I spent most of the week in my cabin, alone. Too gay for most of the campers, and I guess “not gay enough” for my old friends. I never talked to Austin once that week, but that wasn’t hard to do. He was sent home on the second day, expelled from camp. Caught with a guy, younger than me, in the middle of the night. In the woods.
