I never actually met Tommy, not in the three years I
went to school with him. We never shook hands in that
official way and said, "Nice to meet you." We never even
nodded recognition to each other by our lockers. But Tommy
profoundly changed the way I looked at the world.

I began fantasizing about Tommy my freshman year. When I
first came to high school, there had been so many good
looking athletic men around that I changed my masturbation
fantasies from day to day. But slowly, Tommy's face, and
especially his body, made more and more appearances in my
sexual imagination.

Tommy was a wrestler on our varsity team. He was about
5'10" with a large build. He never had any fat on his body
that I could see, even though I knew he drank a lot of beer
at weekend parties. He was part Spanish, and he had this
dark, smooth, flawless skin. I never saw him with a pimple.
He was tan all year round. His teeth, which were bright
already, looked even whiter against his brown skin and pouty
lips. He was one of those people you might stop to look at,
just because he was beautiful. He could have been a male
model. He looked that good.

If Tommy had only been physically attractive, I don't
think I would have had such strong feelings for him. But it
was that "I don't give a fuck" confidence which made him so
sexy to me. When he walked into a room, you knew it. I can
still see him today in my mind, walking into class with his
letterman's jacket and a pair of faded Levi's. He reeked of
sex. I knew how clichéd the Rebel Male Icon was, but as a 14
year old stew of hormones, I couldn't get enough of it. I
didn't care if it was a cliché; I still loved it.

One day in my Junior year, we had a pep rally at our
school. Because of the rain, we held it in the enclosed gym
instead of the outdoor theatre we usually used. I was
leading the pep band that day. It was my job to conduct the
20 person group in the national anthem and our fight song.
The rally was supposed to get people to come to the upcoming
wrestling tournament. We usually had a couple of these a
year, so I wasn't anticipating anything besides the normal
comments from the trumpet players about how attractive the
cheerleaders were. (Yawn.)

Tommy walked out wearing his one-piece wrestling
uniform. It hid nothing. He was a Senior now, and his body
had gotten bigger through the years. He was very close to
being a man now.

I didn't know if I was the only one looking at the bulge
in his crotch, the tight material showing everything. From
my seat in the third row of the bleachers, I could clearly
see genitals, outlined perfectly. He looked like an anatomy
lesson.

I couldn't think of anything besides the bulge in
Tommy's crotch. Never in all of my fantasies of Tommy would
I ever have imagined something as graphic as this. I was
seeing Tommy's penis, through fabric, in front of 2,000
other people, and they all seemed to think this was normal.
I wanted to stand up and shout to the stands, "Don't you see
that?! That's Tommy's DICK!"

They introduced Tommy-All-State Runner-up, captain of
the wrestling team, graduating this year. He was going to do
a wrestling demonstration with another wrestler, some other
tall guy I had never seen.

They began to wrestle. Tommy was good. Even I, who never
watched wrestling, could tell that he was an expert
wrestler. His rival got him in these incredible positions
that no one could escape from, but Tommy somehow Houdinied
his way out of them. I was very impressed during the match.
And almost drooling from lust.

Tommy won the match and stood up to take a bow as the
crowd applauded. He bent over to bow to the other bleachers,
giving me a nice view of his butt. Then he turned around and
bowed to my side of the bleachers, directly in front of my
aisle.

Tommy was hard. I could see it from 50 feet away. He was
pressed up against his belly from the tautness of the
fabric.

I wanted to look around, to say something to someone
around me, to yell at someone, anyone, "Oh my GOD! The man
of my wet dreams is standing right there sexually aroused
from wrestling another man!" But I wasn't out then to anyone
except myself.

I sat there in the bleachers. The only physical sign
that I let show was my eyes which I now had opened to
extreme. I became instantly hard in my own pants. I could
not believe what I was seeing.

I watched every move he made, slow motion in my head. He
finished bowing, turned to leave, and tugged at the front of
his uniform to try to make his erection seem less obvious, a
job made impossible by the skin-tight fit on his wrestling
uniform. He turned around as he neared the exit door to wave
to the still-cheering crowd. That image of him at the door,
waving and with an erection, is burned into my memory.

The band members finally got my attention by tugging on
my sleeve. I'd forgotten to cue the fight song.

* * *

When I Came Out to an old high school friend who also
went to UCLA, I told her about the crush I had for Tommy.
Karen had been friends with his girlfriend. She told me that
Tommy was an asshole. For fun, he used to go to the junior
high and kick the shit out of seventh graders.

I picked up a copy of my yearbook from my Junior year
and turned to a picture of Tommy, his Senior portrait
airbrushed. I'll bet they didn't have to airbrush even one
damn pimple off his face.

I look at that picture now and the spell is broken. I no
longer need him in the same way I did when I was in high
school. He lost that power over me with every person I Came
Out to. I'll bet he still has a nice body and I know he
still has that big dick of his. But I know that I need more.
And I know now that I don't need Tommy.