Straight guys! God’s contraceptive.

I suppose I do have my folks to thank for my open mindedness. They preached peace, love and aromatherapy all through my childhood so I was ready to embrace people’s differences from about the age of five. No big deal then that I got friendly with the nerds and underdogs at school. I’m a natural outcast. I hate authority, loathe team sports, don’t like to submit to bullies and just naturally drift toward the bizarre, the different, the cool.

Cool is in the mind of the beholder and I guess every group from the jocks right through to the members of the chess club consider themselves ‘cool’ but Cree explained that ‘cool’ is a state of mind not who you mix with or how much money you have or what your exam marks are. He’d know because he’s the epitome of cool.

I guess I fell in love with him the day he stopped a gang of older girls from picking on me in the schoolyard over, you guessed it, my name. I was in tears, screaming at the girls to shut up. He gave them such a bollocking over their bullying that they ran off in tears as well. He smiled at me, his job well done. It was that moment I fell in love with him. I followed him around the school like a lovelorn puppy even as he and his friends attempted to shoo me away. I hung around the edges of their conversation for almost a month until one day they were discussing my favorite rock group. Cree and his best mate, Dion, were arguing over the lyrics of one of their songs and neither would give ground. From a few yards away I told them they were both wrong and quoted the correct version of the lyrics they were arguing about.

The group looked over at me, probably shocked that I could speak or that I actually had an opinion.

Cree beckoned me over. “I suppose if she’s right we’d better let her join the group.”

There was a bit of grizzling from one or two of the boys but Cree prevailed – he usually did. When they discovered I was correct and had a love of many of the things they did I was more heartily welcomed although Dion seemed somewhat jealous of my sway over his best friend. I suspected, without knowing how or why, the two of them were also fuck buddies.

That’s how I became the official fag hag to Cree and his group. It helped me get through high school. I was still an outcast but an outcast with the coolest friends. Once they got used to me in their midst they tried shocking me with explicit stories of their sexual shenanigans but when I didn’t rise to the bait they backed off. They weren’t to know I used the images their tales brought to mind as masturbatory fantasy material for years, especially when they involved Cree.

It was a given we’d all apply to the same college if not the same courses and, in time, we all turned up on campus. I was a year behind, a dreary year I’d spent in high school friendless and desperate for my gay buddies. Sure, I learned a lot about straight boys that year, having nothing much else to fall back on but they didn’t want to discuss the latest Kylie video or fashion or anything even remotely of interest to me once the sex was over. God I pined for the day I’d be back with Cree and the gang. Meanwhile I had to satisfy myself with catching up on the few weekends their hectic schedule allowed.

Once I hit college the gang became inseparable again. We went to parties together, bars together, dancing together, movies together, although I tended to go home alone. Cree and his mates were always picking up or buddy fucking while I learned everything there was to know about my vibrator. It really didn’t hack it as someone to talk to or share experiences with and the satisfaction was only fleeting.

One night in a dark, crowded club, watching Cree and Dion snogging and more in a corner, I lost it. I screamed, “Why can’t I get fucking laid?” I thought all eyes turned to me but, in reality, the music was so loud that only the people in the immediate vicinity heard me. I stormed off to the bar to get plastered. It didn’t help.

Later, on the street after the club closed and while Dion was getting his car, Cree wrapped his arm around me. “Is it really that bad, Une? You not getting any?”

I pouted. “Less than zero.”

“Aw, that’s awful.”

He held me close while I sobbed my frustration away.

“Hey, you up for an adventure?” he asked.

“Does it involve me getting laid?”

“Big time,” he laughed.

“Hell, yeah.”

That’s how a nice girl like me found herself at an adult book shop the next night with a horny gay boy.