I Am Not An Animal

Contributor: Reese Scott

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He would sit in his room. He could hear his father watching Monday Night Football. He could hear his mom preparing dinner. He locked his bedroom door. Took out the magazines from his backpack and put them on his bed. Took off his pants and stood there staring at the magazines.
There was Playboy, Penthouse and some other ones he had read about that were supposed to be more exciting.

He touched his dick. Pulled it back and forth. Looking at the women. Their breasts. Their pussies. Some with dicks in there mouth, others having enormous penises inserted in places he would never have thought off.

He kept stroking his dick. Then he began to become hard. Then he could feel the excitement running through him. He felt like he was alone hiding a secret that only now he could release. When he finally came, he looked down at the magazines and began to cry.

All the women had turned to young men. In front of him. These magazines. Nothing but photographs on paper. Existed with or without him. He wasn’t crying because he came. He was crying because something was wrong.

Downstairs his father was shouting about the game. Screaming racist comments. He could hear his mother asking if he needed another beer.

He opened his bedroom door and walked down stairs.



When he was a few years into High School he began to notice changes. Mostly in his reactions. Even though he wasn’t popular, good looking or masculine, he was somehow good at sports. Particularly basketball. He was good at one thing. He could make almost all his jump shots. During practice was the first time it happened. He dribbled down the court and passed the ball. His pass was deflected and the other team got it back. He heard one of his teammates say, “Stop being such a faggot and drive to the hoop.”

Then it was like the sky changed color. But quicker than that. So quick it was almost like a blackout. All he knew was he saw red and he had the boy who said that on the ground. Throwing punch after punch into his face.

When he was pulled off there was shock. Did that guy just beat the fuck out of Jimmy. Jimmy is twice is size.

That was the first time. He looked everywhere for an explanation. He looked everywhere except for the place he didn’t know about. This began to happen more and more. It was happening on the play ground courts. But thankfully not enough for the other kids get his reaction to the word.

Senior year was the prom. The prom was something that scared him as much as anything else he could think of. There was no hiding there. Inside the prom the lights stared right at you and everyone could see who you are. Plus he had to find a date. There was one girl he had kissed a few years back. But he never spoke with her again. There was another girl he saw in the library who was always alone. He had never spoken to her. But he knew she didn’t have many friends. That night he sat in his room and looked through some books about how to get women by being yourself - a man. He read pages after page, but it only made him feel further and further away from where he was trying to go.

In the library the next day he watched her from a table across from her. His hands were shaking. He felt sick. He wanted to leave. But he knew he couldn’t. Finally he walked up and did his best to ask her out. She said yes. It was the happiest moment of his life.

The one thing he hadn’t really thought through was what people do at the prom. When he arrived he saw everyone was dancing. He had never thought of that part. He felt stunned. His hands began to shake and he could feel sweat running through his body. She walked up to him and asked him to dance. She was beautiful in the way one is not supposed to be beautiful. She felt lost to him. Something he could identify. He started projecting his problems onto her. When she took his hand to take him on the dance floor. He felt strange. Her hand felt warm, caring and beyond what he could have imagined.

When they got to the dance floor and she put her arms around him something changed. It was like God had sent down some kind of lightening and suddenly he felt sick. The touching and the nice feeling were now exchanged for guilt, hate and disgust. Not for her. But for himself. He felt like he was going to either pass out or start to cry. Neither one would be a normal reaction at a prom. He didn’t know what to do. Then like a child who is scared someone is under his bed, he puts his hands over his eyes hoping that it will be gone. And it was. Suddenly she was no longer there. He touched her hair but it was a different color. He touched her back but it felt smaller. He touched her face and it was younger. He closed his eyes. Trying to make it go away. He prayed to God to make it go away. “Please stop. Please. Let me be like everyone else. I don’t want to be special. Please.”

But he stood in the middle of the dance floor. Dancing with a young boy. All the disgust and hatred was mixed with someone he was unable to get rid of. The excitement he was supposed to feel with women. But for some reason he was feeling it with boys. For the first time in his life he felt like he might not have a choice. As they finished dancing and walked back to where they were sitting, he noticed some of the boys and girls looking at him and laughing. He smiled back. When he got back to his seat, he saw that he had an erection. He was only seventeen years old.


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Reese Scott was born in New York. He currently living in San Francisco.
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