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Every year, National Coming Out Day happens on October 11. This year, I thought I’d revisit my coming out story.

It was 1993. Picture, if you can, a world without cell phones, social media, or even the Internet. There were hardly any out celebrities to look up to. Queer characters on TV and in movies, when they existed at all, were sexless sidekicks or living with AIDS. My uncle and his partner were out, but they didn’t live nearby, and certainly, them being gay wasn’t something that was ever discussed. The rare times I heard anything about being gay, it was a punchline or a source of shame or sympathy.

Looking back, there were all the clues I needed to figure out my sexuality, but I truly believed for the longest time that any queer leanings were a phase I would outgrow. After all, I had very loud, public, and dramatic crushes on girls, and had had those my whole life. Yup, my cover was so good, I’d fooled myself; I was basically the only one fooled though. The “homo” and “fag” that everyone called everyone didn’t mean anything, right?

But then I met and became friends with a guy named Daniel, a friendship that ended as abruptly as it began. The depression that sent me into was way worse than when any of those girl-crushes went nowhere. Even if it was only in my head, I started to accept the fact that this wasn’t a phase. By the fall of 1993, I was ready to start telling my closest friends. Some took it well, some didn’t, but with every person I told, it got a bit easier. Still, I was nowhere ready to tell family, and I honestly don’t know when or how I would have, because one cold November night, a friend did it for me.

It was an accident and I never blamed her. It just spilled out one night along with a lot of other drama and chaos and tears and depression. And vodka. There was lots of vodka that night.  Right from that night, my coming out story really did become my mental health story and my addiction story. For years, I would see them as unconnected. But no, they went hand in hand.

Mom didn’t want to believe it. She wanted to know who was to blame. She was convinced someone had molested me to make me turn out that way. Meanwhile, I could barely process what she was saying because I was 100% focused on the guy I thought I loved starting to date my best friend. It was a very fucked up grade 12 year, and certainly, it didn’t seem that coming out had brought me any closer to peace or happiness. Far from it. I started to self-harm. I started to flirt with suicide. I was in so much pain and all of that pain seemed to come from coming out.

So I went back in. High school was over and I was starting University in a new city, and this was a chance for a total fresh start. Certainly, my homophobic roommate helped reinforce that decision. I decided just to focus on school and forget about everything that had happened in the last 12 months. The way to forget? Booze. I drank so much that first semester. (Spoiler: alcohol didn’t make me happy, and spoiler: it got a lot worse after I came out again. That’s a whole different blog).

I started dating a girl named Kim. I knew I wasn’t straight but I figured I could fake it. What was four years? After University, I could revisit coming out. Who would it hurt (spoiler: Kim). But then I started taking Psych, and in that Psych class, there was a guy named Troy. He was handsome and happy and seemingly out and proud. I didn’t know if I wanted to do him or be him, but I knew the closet wasn’t working for me anymore. I broke up with Kim, figured out where and when gay people in Lethbridge gathered, and called a cab to take me away from the closet for good.

Ellen came out, and that was a huge deal. Matthew Shepherd got murdered, and that was a huge deal. Delwin Vriend took the province to court and won, and that was a huge deal. Mental health got better then worse then better then worse. Mom got better and better and better. Alcohol use got worse and worse and worse and then better. But my coming out journey? That was pretty done from that point on. Aside from those times I still catch myself “straightening up” around people I don’t know; that damage might never go away wholly.

But this National Coming Out Day, and so many other days, I am so grateful that yes, it got better.

Jesse Sterling liked dick.
There was no denying that. If there was a twelve-step program, he’d be standing there saying, “My name is Jesse Sterling and I’m a cockaholic,” and he would have been saying it proudly.
Jesse sucked his first dick at thirteen, and he was hooked. All those after school specials about drug dealers who gave new customers that first hit for free? That was Jesse with dick. He was hooked from the first time a guy’s hard dick touched his lips.
He liked all dick: big ones, small ones, cut ones, uncut, curved, straight. He even liked soft ones because he knew they wouldn’t stay that way for long. Not around him.
Through his teenage years, he got his hands (and mouth, and ass) on as much dick as possible. He got them out, got them hard, and got them off. Nothing made him as happy as discovering a new dick and what made them cum. Every dick was unique in how they liked to be stroked or sucked or ridden,but one thing they all had in common….they were all beautiful.
Well, not all, he sometimes reminded himself. There’d been one that was just…just not good. That had been long ago though, and there’d been dozens of dicks since to wash the taste out of his mouth. Literally.
And then he had met Colton.
Colton Wainford was perhaps the only other man on earth who loved dick as much as Jesse. And Colton’s dick? Perfection. Perfect length. Perfect girth. Perfect rigidity. Simply, perfect.
That they had found each other, that of all the gay bars in all the world, they had walked into the same one on the same night, and paused to take in each other’s sculpted bodies before stumbling and tumbling into a bathroom stall to appreciate each other’s dicks, that was also pretty perfect.
That bar had been Wonderland, nearly a decade earlier, and that’s why, when Brandon texted with the news of pending closure, Jesse had thrown his phone onto the couch, and exclaimed loudly. “Fuck! That sucks dick!”
“What does? Who does?” Colton called from the bedroom. “And do I get some too?”
“You won’t believe it,” Jesse said. “C’mere!”
Colton walked into the living room, a towel wrapped around his waist. He was still the most perfect man, Jesse thought, and the new chinstrap he was growing was hot as fuck, not douchebaggy like Brandon joked.
“Bad news, babe,” he said. “Brandon texted. Chess is thinking of closing the bar.[Peter Sen4] ”
“What? Why?”
“Didn’t say. But fuck. End of an era.”
Colton came over to Jesse on the couch and straddled him. He leaned down and kissed him. “It’s okay, babe.”
Jesse ran his hands down Colton’s broad shoulders and spine and into the dimple at the top of his butt.
“Mmm I know,” he said, pushing his hands down causing Colton’s towel to fall off. “It still sucks dick.” He looked down to see Colton hard and waiting. “Luckily, so do I.”

Later, they hit the gym quickly, showered and dressed, and headed out for the night. If Wonderland was going to close, it was even more important they enjoy it while they could. Not that they wouldn’t have been there anyway. It was a Friday after all.
Not that they only went out on Fridays . Last night’s muscle bear had been a pleasant Thursday surprise. The good thing about fewer gay clubs was a greater chance of visiting out of towners ending up in their bed.
It wasn’t always about picking up a third; it was just a nice change. Sometimes, it was just about dancing; they loved the Hatter[Peter Sen6] , even if he was getting progressively more retro. Of course, the whole world was; everything was remade, remixed, recycled, and it’s not like Whitney ever went out of style. Yes, sometimes, it was just about dancing.
And drinking. That went without saying.
“What’s Brandon going to do if they close?” he asked Colton, as their Lyft car crossed the bridge to downtown.
“Everywhere needs good bartenders. Don’t worry. He’ll land somewhere that he can give us top shelf at well prices.” They both laughed. Then Colton got a serious look on his face. “You don’t think that’s why they’re closing, do you?”
“We don’t drink that much,” Jesse said. He paused. “But maybe, let’s just drink well tonight.”
“Except still Patron, right?”
“Well, of course still Patron.” They laughed again as the car pulled up outside the club. “Oooh, lined up,” Jesse added.
It was. There must have been fifty people outside, most of whom they didn’t know.
“Something is going on,” Colton said, as they walked past the line up to the door. They didn’t do lines.
“Excuse me, boys. There is a line.”
They both turned to greet the drag queen who had addressed them: tall, thin, exploiting her Asian features with a long black wig and kimono. She didn’t look familiar at all, and Jesse and Colton knew everyone who was worth knowing.
“Look, queen,” Colton said. “We don’t do line-ups.” He grabbed Jesse’s hand and, laughing, they walked through the front doors and down the stairs into Wonderland.

PRE-ORDER NOW

Alex’s adventure in Wonderland began in earnest in the fall of 2012. It was never supposed to be a multi-volume story, but a publisher request for a second volume led to Through the Mirrorball a few years later. And that was that. Alex, as a character, had found sobriety, maturity, and a happy ending, and I was content to leave him alone.

But the other characters of Wonderland? The Queen? The twins? And my beautiful bartender Brandon? What about them? They whispered in my head “we want our own stories”. And I began to listen.

And today, that story got sent off to my editor. Last Call in Wonderland is, I think, the best of the trilogy. There’s still all kinds of sexcapades and brunch, but I think the characters are much more real, and the tragedy that much more moving as a result.

And who knows? I’ve a feeling some of those people and places might make cameos in future stuff. River City might not be a real place, but maybe, just maybe, you’ll come back there with me again!