Sleeping With Ghosts

#5

Kurt:

18th of September

"Kurt! Clean the dishes like I asked twenty minutes ago!" My Mom yelled from the kitchen.

I groaned, "Mom, I got home five minutes ago!"

"I don't care! Get it done! Now!" She hollered.

My mom stopped babying me when I was seven. Stopped dead. Like she'd hit a brick wall. She's known I wasn't 100% straight long before I did. When I was six, I dug through my Mom's cupboards and slathered make up all over my face. I didn't have flawless skills, but it still managed to convince her that I was gay when she found me rummaging through her high heels and dresses with a full cake of make up on.
She was not happy about it. When I was thirteen, I'd crept downstairs to grab a glass of water before bed, I heard her whispering furiously to my father about trying to get him to leave some adult magazines laying around so that I'd find them and "change my mind."

She was understandably confused when I brought a pretty girl home when I was fourteen. I felt accomplished then; I had a girl, my Mom had stopped dishing out the chores like a card dealer in a casino, and no-one ever picked on me at school anymore. But when I broke up with Courtney because she found a greater interest in the lower parts of the male body than anything else, well, other male bodies than my own, Mom went straight back to her original theory.

Believing that I was gay.

My dad was a different story. Where I hadn't needed to tell Mom anything, because she either already knew, or wouldn't believe me, I trusted my father not to ground me.

I hadn't known my own orientation until after I had broken up with Courtney. When she started spreading the rumour about me and Krist, I had to step back and assess the situation. Obviously, I had not, contrary to her claims, slept with Krist. But in my detailed analysis of this tricky melting pot of problems, I considered what it would be like to have sex with a guy. My thought process went something like this:

I'm not gay, I legitimately just had a girlfriend.

We kissed- a lot- and I liked it.

I do feel like a masculine person.

Wait, what? Do I really?

No, I suppose not.

Kurt, if someone offered you a stick of eyeliner, would you use it?

Yeah, I'd try it on.

Well there goes your masculinity then.

Well that went quickly.

Moving on, Kurt, would you sleep with a guy?

Hell no.

Are you sure?

Um... Yeah?

Really?

Well, I wouldn't exactly be pissed if Jensen Ackles decided to snog me.

Kurt, your bi.

I froze where I sat cross-legged Indian style on my bed. Mouth hanging open and hands floating mid-air where I'd been flapping them about. "Well, fuck."

A week after debating whether or not to tell my parents, my Mom worked an evening shift, leaving my Dad and I to watch whatever was on the TV alone.

I took a deeper breath than any I'd taken before class speeches and, during a commercial break, I said, "Dad, I'm pretty sure I'm bisexual."

I nearly ripped my hands off, I was fidgeting so much.