CH 3

It took a whole thirty minutes to snap out of that traumatic experience. I dragged myself out of bed and basically crawled my way to the bathroom for a shower.

I could hardly feel it earlier as I was overwhelmed with my survival instinct, but now that I’m safe – there’s an excruciating pain coming from the back of my waist to my tailbone. Turning towards the mirror and lifting my clothes up to check, I found a large bruise all over my back.

Fuck, the price to pay for pretending to be gay was far too big. I lost my dignity, my first kiss and even broke my waist.

But none of that matters! My virginity is still in fact! I’ll be back to an energetic straight man filled with vigour in no time!

I strongly believe that tonight’s incident was nothing but a small hiccup in my path of being straight. As long as I ignore the temptation and continue to move forward without looking away, then nothing will fucking happen again!

I won’t be going back to that bar again after today anyways, so I won’t meet that man anymore either…

Wait, what’s this heavy stack in my pocket?

I slowly pulled out whatever they are from my pocket, only to see the friendly smile of a grandfather in pink1.

Oho, little guy, you didn’t expect to see me, right?

…Fucking hell.

I swear to god from now on, I’m never setting up a single fucking flag in my life ever again.

I really wanted to throw away my conscience and stash these bills into my own wallet, but as a responsible and upright young man who upholds the five stresses and four points of beauty2, just touching these bills felt like they were burning my hands in panic. I didn’t even dare to use part of these money to treat my back injury at the hospital.

The next two nights, I sneakily visited the gay bar again and loitered, wanting to ask a waiter to pass the money to that guy when I see him around before escaping. With that, everything between us would have been written off. And from then on, our paths won’t have to cross each other’s ever again.

Unfortunately, fate has a way of playing tricks on people. Despite camping at the bar for few days in a row, I couldn’t spot him there. That stack of red bills was then hidden underneath my pillow day after day.

I’m not sure if it’s because those bills were tainted with gay vibes, but it caused me not to get a good night’s sleep for days on end as I dreamed about that scene from that night over and over again.

Strangely enough, no matter how hard I tried to stop things from happening in the dream, the end result still always ended with being forcefully kissed in the car. It even progressed further than what happened in reality.

After the kiss, that guy used his hand to gently rub the side of my face for a moment before leaning in closer to kiss the corner of my lips. Then, he whispered something to me.

Before I could catch what he said clearly, I snapped my eyes open and woke up with a jolt.

My pants are wet as expected again.

After a few days of similar experiences like that, I have gone from scrambling out of bed as if I was struck by thunderbolts to feeling completely numb as I silently went to toilet for a change of pants.

I caught a glimpse of myself when I passed by the mirror and was startled by the thick layer of dark circles under my eyes.

Shit, what has life done to my kidneys!

I even started doubting whether or not that person I met that night was a man. What if he was a male vixen, casting some kind of spell on me down there?

Or could it be…I really got…bent?

That terrifying thought caused me to break out in cold sweat. I couldn’t come up with a definite answer even after thinking about it for the whole night. Without any other choice, I had to consult someone.

I made a phone call to my childhood friend.

My childhood friend is a girl, or to be more precise, an experienced fujoshi3.

To what degree was her experience, you asked? The two of us were in the same class since kindergarten to high school. I can still remember during sixth grade, she was secretly writing a BL fanfic of me and the class rep already.

So much so that later on when I was already in junior high, I discovered it when I came across her notebook by accident. It opened the door to a new world that I did not belong to.

Fortunately, she no longer tried to match straight men with each other anymore when we entered high school. However, she claimed that her gay radar was the most accurate one out there. Although I didn’t quite believe in that, but there was no harm in asking.

After the phone call got through, I described the events from that night to her, skipping some shameful details in between. Then, I told her what I have been experiencing the past few days too.

From what I knew about my childhood friend, I initially thought that she would let out excited screams and was ready to be bombarded by her questions. Yet, the other end of the call seemed extremely calm. It was so quiet that I almost thought she wasn’t listening anymore. Until I was almost done with my story, there was a loud bang noise that came from her.

I jumped up in fright, “What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I fell off the bed from rolling around too hard.”

“……”

I’m beginning to regret telling her what happened.

She cleared her throat and quickly adjusted herself before asking, “How much did that handsome guy pay you?”

I had counted those bills hundreds of times when I was bored. “4200.”

“Woah…” She let out the gasp of a fellow broke student and added, “It’d be just right if he gave ten yuan less.”

I didn’t get what she meant. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing. So, you’ve been having wet dreams all week?”

I corrected her firmly, “Those aren’t wet dreams.”

How can a kiss be considered a wet dream?”

But it was still true that my kidneys have suffered from this. I sighed in despair and asked, “Am I doomed?”

“No,” She corrected me firmly, “You just got bent.”

I didn’t want to believe it no matter what. “No way! I’ve been straight for so many fucking years!”

How could I be bent just like that!

She explained it with a forlorn tone, “Child, do you know that there’s a theory called Schrödinger’s straight man?”

“Schrödinger’s what?”

She continued, “Simply put, according to quantum mechanics, when a man is locked in a closet, he’s in straight and curved superposition. No one knows whether he’s still straight or now bent until the closet door is opened.

That sounded like it made some sense…not!!

I’ll be damned if I believe in this woman who didn’t even pass her physics since junior high!

Going as far as referring to scientific theories in defining a gay dude…I’m impressed in a way.

She expected that I wouldn’t believe in her so she just sighed and said, “Xiao Xia, sexual orientation doesn’t work in that way. You won’t be straight just because you want to. Just accept the truth already.”

Before I could hang up the call with a sunken heart, she added another sentence, “I’ve calculated it already, you still have an unfulfilled fate left with that handsome guy. Based on my intuition, you two will definitely reunite again.”

Great. If physics doesn’t work, then it’s metaphysics, huh? My childhood friend sure is knowledgeable.

However, the naïve me didn’t expect her to fucking get it right this time.