After dating for awhile, Bernie had noticed that my walk and the way I talked was different from the other girls he had met in the past. He just always thought I was just boyish. However, in the summer of 2016, Bernie was sensing that I was hiding something from him because of my distance. I was making up excuses of just wanting to hang out every other Friday instead of every Friday. We were not seeing each other often. As my miserableness got worse, I really wanted to go out and have sexual intercourse with a female. There was a friend that I used to hang out with from high school named Jordan from Harold Washington. Some days during the week, he took me to a strip club, and we had sexual intercourse with women there.
I was lonely and miserable because I wished I could confront Bernie about my feelings and I still wanted to do the right thing with him even though I had messed up and cheated on him.
In the winter of 2016, was when Bernie could not take my distancing from him anymore. One night, on a Saturday at my grandmother's house, I was in my aunt Sandra’s room watching a movie that had gotten interrupted from Bernie texting me.
“We need to talk,” Bernie said.
“Talk bout what?” I asked, responding back feeling extremely nervous and my body was in panic hoping that he did not figure out what I was hiding from him.
“About how you been distancin yoself and not showin me any affection like most females would show to their boyfriends,” he replied. I had paused for a minute and had put my phone on the bed thinking about how I should respond to next. Before I was about to reply again, he had sent me another text that said:
“I don’t think this relationship is goin to work out if u keep doin what doin, cause I can’t be in no relationship with u if you not showin me no affection,” he said.
“Can I call u now?” I replied, wanting to get the conversation over with.
“Naaw I’m at work, I get off at 12. U can call me when I get off,” he responded.
“Okay, cool. When we was done texting, I felt sad and nervous of having that talk with him and I had started to cry and I could not do anything else. I had turned off the TV and laid down thinking he would not accept me if I confess to him about my feelings.
When I went home, I called him on Facetime using my laptop. I was sitting at the grey dining room table. My legs and arms started to quiver with nervousness.
“Yeah?” I said. I just wanted to get this conversation over with.
“Yeah I called you because I can’t take this distancing and not showing me no affection,” Bernie said. He looked sad and concerned.
“You say I don’t show you no affection, like what?” I asked.
“You know, when I be downtown going to work and coming home from work, when I get on the bus. I always see a lot of young couples standing by the school all cuddled up. I always see the girls sittin on their boyfriend’s laps or kissing them or even holdin they hands. I always see that everywhere I go. Every time I see that, I be thinkin like, man, I wish Ciara could show all them type of affections like that. I know you told me that you don’t like really kissin that much, but at least try holdin my hand or somethin. And I’m just curious about why you don’t like kissin or showing me no affection like what most females do with their boyfriends?”
While he asked me those question, I was silent. My legs were shaking.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?” I asked feeling very heated and mad inside but was trying to control my anger.
“Why don’t you like kissin me? Cause you said you never liked kissin me or any other guys before you met me. At least, why you don’t like kissin me? Did you go through something to not like kissin guys? I mean, is it my teeth? Or do my breathe stinks? Or am I not a good kisser?” he asked tryin to make me laugh, but I was still angry. I had my arms folded and did not want to answer his question.
“I don’t know. I just don’t like kissin,” I informed him.
“But why? It has to be a reason why you don’t like kissin?” he asked. He kept badgering me with those questions and trying to break me to tell him the truth.
“I just think it’s nasty,” I said.
“Nasty? Naw, it has to be a reason. You had to go through something in the past to why you don’t like kissin, cause that’s weird,” he said. I was thinking that maybe I should just tell him the truth but I was also thinking that if I told him, he would leave me and find some other woman. I really did not want to be with a woman in the future. I know I like the feeling of being with a woman, but it would not seem natural for my future, especially in having my own children. If he did leave me, I would have to accept it and move on and keep praying that Bernie would accept me. So I wanted to confront him about everything.
“I have to tell you something,” I said.
“What? Tell me,” he said.
“I have to tell you why I don’t like kissin you or any other guys I dealt with in the past,” I said.
“Tell me,” he said looking very curious.
“Okay imma give you a hint, when you had read some of my artworks like my homosapien comic book, was you thinking or being curious about that?” I asked.
“What I was curious about-- that-- why that comic book was all about dudes talkin about smashin females,” he said
“That didn’t give you an idea of how I am?” I asked.
“Naw, I just thought it was boyish,” he said.
“What about my walk and how I act boyish? Do that tell you anything about me of why act that way? Or how all of my artworks are predominantly males either talking about females or having sex with them?” I asked
“Naw, I don’t, I just thought it was boyish. Can you stop beating around the bush and just tell me why?” he asked.
“Okay, the reason for all of that what I just asked you about my artwork content, and how I walk and talk and me being so distant from you and not showing you no affection, is that I was going through something,” I informed him.
“Things like what?”
“I was feeling very miserable,” I said. “I been having feelings for the same sex and I been doing some things behind your back. I went to a strip club with a friend and did sexual things to women there. The feelings I have been miserable for me to handle.”
Bernie looked sad and still, and did not say anything for a while. He just listened to what I was confessing.
“I’ve been having these feelings ever since I was a little girl. I’ve been praying very hard for my feelings to go away, but it didn’t. My feelings kept coming back and there is nothing I can do about it. Honestly being with the same sex is not for me. I always still dreamed when I was little and growing up wanting to have kids in my 30s with a man I can marry and build a future with, that would still accept me and guide me through life, and that even though how I feel about the same sex. I wouldn’t break his heart. I can’t change the way I feel about women, that’s me. I’m going to feel this way tell the day I die. I hate to say that, but it’s the truth. It’s like me having a learning disability and that I get disability checks. I’m gonna always have a disability and nobody can’t change that. And it’s like my brother being diagnosed with autism. He can’t change that. He’s going to be autistic for the rest of his life, till death, and I still love him and care for him. If I have kids one day and if I find out they are disabled, autistic, deformed, or if they are gay or bisexual, I would still love all my kids no matter what are or how they feel about the same sex. I would tell them to do whatever it takes to make them happy.”
“Yeah, that’s right. So you just woke up one morning and started liking the same sex?” he said not understanding my feelings.
“It’s hard to explain. You wouldn’t know unless you felt the way I feel about the same sex,” I said.
“You right, I don’t cause I’m not gay. Wow why you didn’t tell me this when we first met?” he said.
“Cause I thought if I would have told you, you wouldn’t want to be with me,” I said.
“You right, I wouldn’t. Like man, this is so weird that every girl that I would meet in the past was either gay or bisexual. I didn’t tell you cause I thought it would have been unnecessary. None of them was straight, and I always wanted to be with a straight woman that I wouldn’t have to worry about her looking at some man or some woman. It would just be me and her going to someplace far and don’t have to worry about that.”
“And man, all of em were homosexuals? None of ‘em were straight?” I asked.
“Yeah all of them were pretty much, It was always something with them in why they didn’t want to hang out with me, making excuses or them with their friends or boyfriends or with their babies they had to take care of. Just excuses. You were the only girl that really stood by me this long since we dated over a year now. I haven’t been with a girl this long. And I never met a girl that actually told me any of her secrets like you did.”
“Wow. How did you feel at first when I just told you this?” I asked
“I’m shocked that you told me that you are gay and that up that up upon how you walk and talk,” he said.
“Yeah I thought you went have an outburst and wouldn’t accept me and being disrespectful of my sexuality,” I said.
“Naw, but at first I thought I was just wasting my time with you cause I thought you were talking to some other guy. I would have been very disappointed if it would be that type of situation but it led to this unexpectedly, and it makes sense to me that you explained yourself of coming out to me. If you would have blurted out,’ awe I’m gay’ and just left it like that, then I would've really thought I was wasting my time, and I would ask you why you with me if you are gay. But when you said you wanna do the right thing of having children in the future with a man than a woman, that changed my perspective,” he said.
“Yeah you right,” I said.
“I don’t like it that you have these feelings for the same sex and that it will never change, but I still want our relationship to work out, and I do wanna build a future with you and have kids with you. I accept you, as long as you stick by me and do the right thing and don’t let your feelings control you. I think our relationship should go forward. I know you stuck by me for this long and you never stood me up or played any mind games. You always stuck to your words. I believe your words and I see you trying to do what’s right,” Bernie said.
“Yeah I do too, and I appreciate all of that,” I said.
#gay#lesbian#lgbt
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