Raw Text | The Love We Hide

The boys saluted and went to the locker room to shower. Like most members of the swim team, Zavien found Coach’s military side endearing, but he had heard the man was brutal with the track team if they ran slower than expected.

“I beat your time today,” Caleb said with a smirk as he opened his locker.

“Nuh-uh, I was faster,” Zavien retorted, opening his locker to grab his shower caddy.

“Doubt it,” Caleb teased. In truth, the boys were evenly matched in strength and speed.

“We could ask Coach for the times,” Zavien said.

“Nah, doesn’t matter to me at practice. Besides, you heard what he said, we’re gonna dominate and smash records. I bet we do it next year.”

Zavien smiled. “I hope so. That would be awesome.” Zavien wrapped his towel around his waist and pulled down his speedo. Caleb did the same, and the boys became silent.

Showering in an open concept shower room wasn’t easy for the freshman boys whose bodies were changing in ways they didn’t completely understand. Zavien and his peers remained awkwardly silent in the shower room, trying to hide themselves from each other while simultaneously fighting the natural curiosity of peeking to compare their physical development with each other.

Not having a father or an older brother at home made Zavien more curious, but he also sensed an unexpected excitement when discreetly glancing at the other boys’ nakedness. Since multiple sports teams practiced simultaneously after school, a plethora of immodest and surprisingly talkative upperclassman moved through the locker and shower rooms as necessary. The older boys’ nude appearance suggested Zavien was developing just fine, but that didn’t quiet his growing, somewhat insatiable desire to look at the nude male form.

After finishing the awkwardly silent business of showering, Zavien and Caleb returned to the changing area, their towels around their waists. Since Zavien’s mother would be waiting for them in the car with his sister, and he didn’t want to make them wait because he was headed to piano lessons next. While he was at his lesson, his mother would drop Cale off then return to pick up Zavien. Then they would all head home and watch TV while his mother prepared dinner. After dinner, he and his sister did their homework, and after that he would practice the piano, while his sister did whatever she did during that time.

When the boys finished dressing, they left the pool building and met Zavien’s mother at the car. She glanced at her son with her all-knowing eyes and asked, “where is your shower caddy?”

“Busted,” Caleb said as he tossed his bags into the trunk.

“Darn it,” he said, realizing he had left it hanging on the hook next to his shower spigot. “Be right back.” He loaded his school and gym bags into the trunk, then jogged back into the pool building and entered the locker room. In a matter of a few minutes, most of the guys had cleared out, so he didn’t think twice about tiptoeing into the shower room to retrieve his shower caddy.

Once inside, he heard the sound of water running, which meant someone was still in the showers. Then he heard a strange sound.

Is that…moaning? Did someone fall? 

He was about to call out, but when he crossed the threshold and his vision pierced the steam, his mouth fell open and he froze in place. 

Oh my gosh!

His eyes widened with horror and fascination at the sight of two naked senior boys holding each other under a running stream of water, lip-locked in a passionate, raw moment, their erections pressed between them as the boys’ hands wandered over the other’s wet skin. They didn’t see him, but he saw them.

They are homosexuals! Sinners! Abominations before the Lord, my God!

His mind summoned words and phrases from Pastor Glenn’s sermons on the evils of homosexuality at church. 

Then, to his horror, his body diverted a copious amount of blood to his groin and he quietly gasped with embarrassment when he realized the mere sight of the two fornicating seniors aroused him. He felt both dirty and humiliated that such sinful sexual behavior could arouse him because he had given his life to Jesus Christ. But at the same time, he felt invigorated and alive in a way he never experienced before. Sometimes, he wondered why he never felt the way his peers did when they lewdly joked about the girls in their class, but he had dismissed it as not having time to think about girls because music was his first love. But this—these two seniors—didn’t look evil.

One of the boys noticed him and casually nodded. “What’s up, Zavien? Forget something?”

Zavien’s eyes darted to the shower caddy hanging on the wall right where he left it. “I forgot my shower caddy,” he squeaked, his voice cracking like a 12-year-old boy.

“Cool,” the boys said, been jerked his head in the direction of the shower caddy. “Better get it then, Huh?”

“Yeah,” Zavien blurted out, slipping on the wet tile floor and nearly falling as he scurried across the shower room. A shaking hand and reached up and grabbed the shower caddy. He spun around and hurried out of the shower room.

“See you around,” one of the seniors said.