Man to Man: A Really Gay Story, by Will Dalrymple

Healing What Wasn’t Right In My Life At That Point About an hour after the break up I then realised that Tommy had thought I was talking about him instead of Gregory, and that I really should have been more specific and mentioned Gregory by name and given some context to my reply to Fiona, otherwise this wouldn’t have happened. So I found Tommy on the other side of the playground and explained what had happened, and he understood and agreed to go back out with me again and apologised for the misunderstanding and then kissed me.

Back To The School I Go To (I’m Above The Age Of Consent So Don’t Worry About The Last Two Chapters) I had been so busy being gay over the last day and a half that it came as a surprise when Tommy’s mother and father knocked on our door on Monday morning. It was what Tommy’s father then said that was surprising rather than the knock itself. This is what he said: “Time to get dressed and go to your classes at school, boys.” was what he said. Tommy’s mother smiled and nodded simultaneously for a bit. I didn’t have any clean clothes of my own or a backpack or school supplies or homework that I was due to hand in that day. Luckily for me Tommy kept spares of all of these items and so gave them to me to use. “Thanks.”, I said, “Tommy.” I said. “You’re absolutely”, he replied, “welcome, Donald.”, he replied. We arrived at the school holding hands because Tommy had taken my right hand in his left hand or his left hand in my right hand – I can’t remember on which side of me he was

A Hot Shower That Ought To Have Been Cold After the craziness of last night, it was the next morning. Before we could shower off the dryness on ourselves we were awoken by a knock at Tommy’s bedroom door. “Who is it?” I asked, then felt bad and said “I feel bad, it isn’t my door to answer a knock on it.” “Any door of mine is a door of yours, Donald” said Tommy, with kindness. That same door then opened to reveal Tommy’s entire family. “Yes, I agree, Tommy”, said Tommy’s mum to Tommy but also for my benefit. The rest of his family nodded. Tommy’s mum then explained, while politely ignoring the semen stains on the sheets, floor and my back, that they were all going to some shops and then to the pictures. “You could come with us.” pointed out his father. “Yes”, agreed one of his brothers. “You could and should”, said the other (brother). His sister didn’t say anything so instead nodded at us. Tommy explained that they were going to have a shower. “Make it a cold one” sa

Love At First Night Tommy was his name, the kind gay boy who took me home to his house, I mean. We crossed the threshold of his front doorstep and doing so felt like leaving my old life behind and beginning a new and better one. My old life was a life of lies, a house of cards of lies, built on sand (lies). I was glad to leave the life of a closeted homosexual man behind, because I hadn’t enjoyed it. I could tell things were going to get better than that life that I’ve just described because Tommy was neither deceitful nor mistaken when he said: “My family and me are progressive; my family has no problem with homosexuality and I myself am gay as I said so you’re welcome to live with us forever if need be, and I really do mean that, I promise I do, Donald.” This because everything he said was correct. The moment his family appeared it was clear than nothing pleased them better than to be kind and socially progressive. “I am in full support of the LGBT+ movement, despite not belon

Will Dalrymple casts his mind back to the writing of CHAPTER ONE. Here we are at the beginning. Welcome all! 'Man to Man' started as a means by which to avoid working on my third year dissertation. I expressed to my friend a desire to write something. Her suggestion was, and I quote, to 'Write something gay'.  Whether or not she expected Man to Man to materialise as a result is unclear. I took 'something gay' to mean 'something wholeheartedly gay' and thought very briefly on how people tended to write about gay men. Because I had given a couple of pieces of gay fiction a cursory thumbing (lol) through, in my arrogance I considered myself an expert in the field, and my expert opinion was that the field was crap. So I thought it a reasonable course of action to try and top my contemporaries in this regard: go gayer and  go crapper. For this reason, the first chapter is a hammy coming out to preposterously, cartoonishly (although: alas, such peop

It's Dark In This Closet Mum And Dad, When Can I Come Out Of It? “YOU ARE NO SON OF MINE, YOU DIRTY GAY FAGGOT!”, thundered my father. “Bender! You bloody bender!” added my mother, not as loudly but equally as homophobically. I was really sad about these things that my parents said to me, and so I began to cry about them. This was a mistake. What I should have done was exhibited gay pride (rather than gay sadness at their anger at my being gay) by not crying. But instead, I cried tear after tear after tear, which gave my father another ‘round’ of ammunition. This wasn’t just any old ammunition however, this was homophobic ammunition. “Oh look! Now the flipping queer is crying! He really is a disgusting poofter then!” said father, leaving the faintest suggestion of a pause, in which he presumably decided with impressive haste whether or not to explain this last remark. He decided to explain this last remark. “Because you’re crying like women or gays do, you must be one