Blue Balls

The bruises would fall away in days, but the sting of "Faggott" would ring for weeks. The boy that lay quivering in a mass under the young man's fists was silent, in spite of the incessant cat calls of his tormentors. He could only look up at John sadly, crying for help in silence, through a battered and bloody face.
It wasn't the first time he had a beat someone up to keep things covered up, and like every time, he had hoped it would be the last. There were simply rules in his community that couldn't be broken; rules from the Bible, rules from the father, rules from the older brother, and rules from the bigger kids at school. Honesty would come at the expense of the trust of all these people - it would ruin the hard work of his teachers, coaches, parents, and self. Anything - anything - was better than being honest.
It was 7th grade, and John had some big choices to make.
=================================================================================
Outside the walls the world was as cruel as it had ever been. As leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Mr. Baird was surrounded by the most powerful thinkers and organizers for the right in the country. Though many did call him friend, sincerely, many more simply bit their tongue and did the job. They hated him because he fucked men, and worse, he loved men. On occasion he would do it in public (the loving part), their ire kept only just barely below the surface out of a respect for their political movement. But, when the crowd was small enough, or the space safe enough, there was more than enough time for hate and scorn, of openly dreaming of another leader, or laughing at his weakness.
But here in this fleeting moment, they were safe from all that.
It had taken decades to be able to find that peace for anything longer than an instant - however it was a risk, with a cost often paid in blood, that simply had to be taken.
Laying there in his lovers arms their breath and heart beats came into sync, their chests raising lower with every breath, their sweat cooling. The arms were strong but held gently, never too much on the bad shoulder, and with a hand softly encasing his own. There wasn't time or space for talking here, the silence was filled with enough trepidation already, the sheets still humming with energy and passion, the walls and tightly drawn curtains whispering all the assurances a person could need.
Here minutes melted into hours, and would surely have melted into days had the world been different. But the world is what it is, and in the face of a cruel world, we all find love in our own ways. John found it in the arms of a boy he had once beat. Now they lay entangled, their cocks swelling with the anticipation of the touch from their partner.
Between the silence they made love, again and again, burying their faces into one another’s broad chests and drinking deep of their scent. As John rolled over he bit his lip in anticipation, drunk on the promise of their intimacy. He swam in that sea of bliss as his lover filled him, pushing through each breath, reading each sign and whimper as a captain reads the waves. This quiet dance, gentle and powerful like the sea, would wash over them until the day broke.
And then, once again, the world became cold.