Denis

Kids are dumb.

And gay kids are dumber than most.

Go to a gay internet chat room. Find the “youth room”, “twinks room”, or whatever they call it and read what the boys write about themselves.

I mean, gimme a break.

You’ve got a kid maybe 14 or 15 years old or so. Let’s say he’s living in Florida.

He says that for the past year he’s been the boyfriend of 17 years old Chip who, it turns out when you read on, lives with his folks, two sisters and a cat in Washington state.

Only 2,700 miles away.

And the two boys have never actually met each other apart from on the internet!

Safe sex? Gimme a break.

Well, in case you think I’m unfair, let me tell you that I was one of those dumb kids just a few years ago.

When I was 14 my dad gave me a computer for my birthday. I guess he thought it would help with schoolwork. But then he never did know much about computers. Or me either, come to that.

In just a few days I’d worked my way around dozens of gay sites. And I quickly discovered the chat room scene too. And Denis.

Soon we were e-mailing every day.

But we never spoke (Denis’s folks were never out of the house long enough for him to call, he said).

We never wrote (they read all his mail).

And, even though I sent him a couple of pictures of me, he never sent one back (he never had one he liked).

All the same, like all those other dumb kids, I soon convinced ourselves that we were real-life lovers.

Until last month.

‘Cos, when he turned 19 at the beginning of June, Denis bought himself an old car, climbed in, told his folks he was leaving home for a few weeks and e-mailed me that he was heading south.

Like, long-distance south.

To see me.

I was worried. I might have been pretty dumb at 14, but by 19 I knew enough to realise that my “boyfriend” could well be someone on the wrong side of 50 who’d been stringing me along all the time.

Considering they’d hardly heard of him, my folks were pretty good about the fact that a complete stranger was about to turn up on their doorstep as a house guest for a couple of weeks.

And, when I finally saw Denis strolling up the dirt road to our house (his old car just couldn’t get through the ruts), what a guest he turned out to be!

For the next few days I went back to being pretty dumb. I just didn’t know how to get onto the physical side of things, I guess - after all I’d only tried cyber-sex up to now and that probably isn’t the best way to learn.

Then Denis took charge. He suggested we take a trip in his car to the river. Mom even made a picnic lunch for us - she’d taken to Denis almost as much as I had.