Back When

This is just another sappy story, but I'll tell it anyway.
When I was fourteen my parents divorced and my mom and I moved to a new town. I met another boy my own age. He was really nice and kind of shy and a lot like me. Immediately there was this natural sense of attraction to one another. We were both shy and somewhat self-conscious about this, but it was really nice and we started being encouraging of letting it show. Well, we both felt romantically inclined, although neither of us were too sure about feeling that way toward another boy. We were both afraid of looking gay, although it didn’t seem gay with each other and was just something between the two of us.
So one day over at my house, after school, we worked up the nerve to be romantic with each and we kissed and just felt this wonderful affinity toward one another. We began enjoying that, and it just seemed natural to enjoy being sexual together. So we got naked and did that, and in short order we tried having sex with each other and that was so great and so significant.
My mom could sort of tell that that there was something going on and she just asked me. I confessed that there was, and I assured her that we weren’t gay. She was perfectly all right with that and found it somewhat amusing and sweet. His parents had no idea and knew that they would never approve. But he and I would come to my house after school and we would make out and have sex. When my mom got home from work she could always tell and she would smile and teasingly ask if I had a god time, and I would tell her that I had, of course.
This actually went on between us all throughout school. We both sort of dated some girls, but we continued to enjoy our friendly love affair. Then we graduated and went our separate ways and lost touch.
I still think about him from time to time, and I think about how wonderful it had been having that male-relationship. I did try to have a few halfhearted interactions with a friend or two later but it was never very good or ever as appealing, and it only severed to convince that I wasn’t gay as I might have wondered. Now I am married and have two kids and I am very happy. But I do have those memories to enjoy and even to savor.