My stomach is doing flips sideways, then forwards. I'm on a rollercoaster just walking along the street. Excited. Scared. Nervous. Excited. Scared. Excited.

It's 1981. I'm fourteen years old, in my school uniform and on my way home. Well kinda. I am supposed to be on my way home but this is the third time I have walked around this block.

I am walking normally (aren't I?) every now and again pretending to look in the shops....

I feel like everyone on the street knows.

'I wonder where it is.' I know where it is, it's right there....

'Isn't that interesting..... how much is that I wonder.....' It's there.

I can see it out of the corner of my eye. There.

Theres an A-frame sign on the footpath outside. There.

Theres a sign above the open door. Right there.

The sign is tiny. It say's 'OUT'. That's all nothing more, just 'OUT.' But this simple word excites and terrifies me all at the same time.
That's all the tiny advertisement in the Sunday Paper, 'The Truth' really said apart from the tiny address and the vaguely worded byline that said something about... 'GAY'.

I looked in vaguely the last time I walked past. As if I wasn't really looking.
Stairs beyond leading...where?

A couple of metres past the doorway I want I stop, my excitement almost overwhelming me, I'm looking around as if I am lost and looking for a non-descript opening.

Just do it. Ok, nothing unnatural to see here. Everything's normal. I am walking normally (aren't I). I am normal.

Aren't I?

I am trying to look nonchalant. Off to see my friend. Going to see the doctor. I walk back and pretend I am looking for the right number. Where is it?
Ahh. Is this it...?!!!

Everybody's looking.

I flub the approach. As I am almost at the door I suconsciously speed up and throw myself through the open door. Damn. I wonder who saw me. My god what would they be thinking. Fucking Queer. Faggot. Poofter.

Everybody knows.

Too late now.

I'm in. I swallow the knot that's been in the back of my throat. Nothing dramatic awaits. A small monochromatic vestibule with stairs leading up to a hall. I climb the stairs and my heart jumps into my throat when the second to last creeks. I almost leap up onto the landing. Shit, who heard me. No one.

At the end of the hall an open door. The small sign above the door says 'Out'.

I creep along the hall as if I'm scared of waking someone. Scared of going 'in' to the 'Out' door. I linger trying to hear something to fear. Nothing? No, radio. AM Radio, slightly off the station. Here goes.

I walk through the door. No one.

A counter to the right sits looking abandoned. There is a Till to one side of its glass top. Under the glass there are big silver rings, black rings that look like plumbing supplies and a couple of tubular plastic things that look like Lifesaver containers but thicker and a rubber....Oh my god! It's a rubber penis! My face flushes as I choke, giggle, hyperventilate, giggle to myself.

I bend forward to look closer. A toilet flushes. I spin around and as nonchalantly as possible look at the books on the shelves and the piles of magazines. A door in the hall opens and a guy in glasses who looks in his thirties comes in wiping his hands with a paper towel.

I am trying to find something that hasn't got a naked man on it, so the guy won't think...Won't think what?

I'm GAY!

"Hello, sorry did you need anything?" He smiles at me. I gurgle back, "Agghhunnojuslooking, thanks." I blush. He smirks knowingly. Shit. He knows.

I'm GAY!

I calm down looking through the magazines, back issues of 'OUT!' magazine. Oh my god! Naked men! Lots of them. Oh my god! Look at that guys doodle, it's enormous. Oh man this guy is so beautiful. The cover model smiles back at me, his perfectly centre parted and feathered golden hair framing a boyish but manly face. Blue, blue eyes and white, white teeth, like 'Christopher Atkins' in the 'Blue Lagoon'. This guy has a hard on though. It sits in all its glory astride two pages in the middle of the magazine.

I quickly put it down when the guy at the counter looks over. The guy who came out of the toilet is sitting at the counter doing what looks like homework. He looks up at my progress every now and then.

I am mesmerised by the display. I look through about half even though I want to look at them all.

"The back issues are all half price." The guy behind the counter says as he looks up at me again. I find my favourite. I have to stop looking at it because I am getting a hard-on. I grab the magazine I want with one hand while the other sits in my shorts pocket providing cover.

As I am about to leave another guy comes out of the door behind and to the right of the counter. "Lovey have you finished the banking?" Lovey has. He gives what looked like homework to the other guy. As I get to the counter, the second guy just stops and stares at me as Lovey asks me, "Just that one?"

"Ahhh-no-this-one-too-thanks."

"Both? Ok that's $9.80."

"Agghyess-ok-thanks." I gurgle. I look furtively at both of them. Lovey takes my money and gives me my change. The other guy just stares at me like I am dinner, then offers, "That's a great issue. Isn't Scott on the cover gawgeous, couldn't you just eat him up."

My brain says, 'Yeah, uh huh,' but my mouth doesn't actually says anything. I'm nodding... I think.

I walk out of the store as I hear Lovey and his friend... giggling? I can't really tell. I don't really care. I'm euphoric. I'm overwhelmed and excited.

I can't wait to get home. I gently place the magazines between my textbooks in my bag and zip it up as I slowly descend the stairs. Once I have composed myself at the third step down, I walk nonchalantly as I can muster again down the stairs... but I am still too excited. My exit is as flubbed and as rushed as my entrance.

I almost explode out of the door, my subconscious frightened pushes my body as quickly out the door as it can muster. Two steps away from the door and I am back to walking normally...except I am still blushing like a beetroot.

Nobody knows. I think they do.

Three shops away and I am back to exhiliration. I can't wait to get home. To read my new magazines... to stare at Scott on the cover... and to drool and to fantasize and to... do other things...

When I get home I soak up every article and every picture but always come back to 'Scott' and his blue, blue eyes and his white, white teeth and his perfect body and that look that says he's mine and just waiting for me to hurry up and 'get there'.

The magazines confirm what I have subconsciously and consciously known but never wanted to admit.

The meanies were right.

I'm GAY. I'm one of them.

It was true. I AM a poof.

I am a 'queer cunt' like the bully at school said.

It's true. I prefer blokes... like Scott.