One of the contributing factors to the deterioration of the relationship between Chris and I was that it had created an environment in which some of my own emotional and sexual issues to surface. Bear in mind that I had only been out for about a year and a half at this point, and had spent at least the eight previous years denying and repressing my feelings. That repression had forced my heart and mind to get creative in dealing with the feelings I wouldn't allow myself to voice. Now that I had opened myself up to face those feelings, my heart and mind also decided it was time to face the damage I had done to myself by not facing them.
The first and probably most shocking revelation came about a month before Chris and I became sexually involved with each other. We had already talked about whether or not we wanted to take our friendship - and Chris was certainly proposing a "friends with benefits" type of relationship rather than a truly romantic one - to that level, and we had agreed to do so. The idea that I would finally get to not only admit my sexual desires, but act on them brought back memories of how my mind chose to express those desires when I was a teenager. Specifically, I began to remember a sexual dream that I had back when I was about fourteen years old. I'm not sure why, but I remember this dream quite vividly, despite the fact that there was a time when I wanted nothing more than to forget about it.
In junior and senior high, I had been a part of our school's band. The band room was one of the largest rooms in the whole school. It was actually a series of rooms, including a room to store instruments, a long room to store uniforms, two or three practice rooms, and an office for the band instructor with a lockable door. That office was the setting for my dream.
I also remember the other boy in the dream quite clearly, a classmate who I will call Brett. Brett was not in the band, which makes the setting a strange choice in my mind. I can only assume my subconscious chose it because it was familiar to me. In this dream, Brett chased me into the band instructor's office, forced me against the one wall, facing it, and proceeded to assault me.
The assault did not involve any penetration, thankfully. (Then again, I'm not sure I understood the concept of penetration at the point, and the lack of such activity in the dream may be simply a matter of my naivety.) Instead, he just proceeded to rub his penis between my cheeks, with me being quite unwilling. The dream was intense enough that I actually ejaculated, and woke up as a result of my own body's response. I remember lying there, frightened and confused.
What's strange - and a little embarrassing to admit - is that I clearly recall that when I woke up from this dream at age fourteen, I was not bothered by the violent or coercive aspects of this dream. Instead, I was more upset at the thought that I had just experienced climax at the thought of being sexually involved with a guy, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the experience. I was more concerned with convincing myself that it didn't "mean anything," that a lot of boys have dreams like that, and I was still perfectly straight. And had just this one dream been the only hint that I might be gay, that reasoning would've been justified. However, it was not the case.
As an adult, I later come to understand that the violent nature of the dream (which did freak me out when I recalled this dream in my twenties) was a result of the situation I put my subconscious into. I refused to acknowledge that I liked other boys and was both fascinated by and sexually attracted to them. Due to my religious upbringing, I refused to give such an idea any ground whatsoever. So my subconscious mind, being creative, decided to express those desires through dreams - and eventually, my conscious mind joined in with fantasies - that were violent in nature and portrayed me as a helpless victim in the situation. After all, I did understand that a person was innocent of a sexual experience that was forced on them. So creating such scenarios was a way for my mind to resolve me of any guilt.
Unfortunately, such reasoning did not work as well as my subconscious might have hoped. I still experienced a great deal of guilt over such experiences. Not so much that my conscious mind refused to participate in some of the fantasies that evolved, mind you. Of course, that fact only increased the sense of guilt, creating a cycle of indulgence and guilt.
I will note that one of the reasons that I allowed myself to participate in such fantasies is that I was hoping they would eventually prove to be cathartic in nature. I was hoping that if I could just get all of these feelings out and indulge them a bit, I could eventually put this phase of my life behind me and get on with growing up to be the heterosexual man that my family, my religion, and society as a whole told me I should be. I became obsessed with this reasoning to such a high degree that at one point, I even considered finding or creating a situation in which one of these dark fantasies could come true. After all, I thought that would be the ultimate catharsis, granting me final freedom. Fortunately, I never went through with that, as it would have only made matters worse in the end.
All of this, which I had managed to forget during college, came back to me and haunted me during the remaining weeks I was with Chris and for several months after he walked out of my life. To be honest, his leaving hurt even more because I felt like he had abandoned me to these painful memories and emotional wounds after helping to awaken them.