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Damn, nothing but work! Not that I have anything against earning money, but on Friday mornings, my creative urges are limited, especially when, as in this case, a free weekend was just around the corner. As a journalist, I can only enjoy this luxury once every two weeks – but then I like to do it to the fullest and don't wait until late Friday evening to start. But sometimes things turn out differently than you expect...

Our team was in a renovated baroque villa, a well-known tourist destination in our region. They were supposed to present some kind of marketing concept there. And for a local television station, attendance and reporting are, of course, mandatory. Events like these mean plenty of local celebrities and, for me, always a smile on my face, which in this case was the thought of a refreshing swim in the nearby lake. Nobody likes working in 30 degrees Celsius in the shade. At least not in stuffy rooms. "Why do they have to do this in the warmest room in the entire house?" Tim whispered to me. Our young 17-year-old intern was the only bright spot for me that afternoon. His question perfectly summed up what everyone in the room was probably thinking. I grinned: "So everyone knows what a hot program is about to be presented here." We laughed, and I asked him to put the laptop in the working mood. After all, the text for the report had to be forwarded to the editorial office immediately for inclusion in the current newscast. It was our last appointment; after that, we'd be off work, and I'd promised to drive him straight home so neither of us would have to go back to the office.

I went to my camerawoman to discuss the details of the planned report. In our young team – at 26, I was still one of the oldest – it was quite common, contrary to some clichés, for women to be responsible for good images. Eventually, the process began, and the initiators actually managed to present their concept within an hour. After another 30 minutes, filled with questions from the press representatives present, the official part was over. I made a sincere effort to write my text in a light and airy manner, in contrast to the dusty, dry atmosphere of the event space, and asked Tim to email the finished product to the editor. So while he set up an internet connection and I delegated the camerawoman to the station to deliver the footage, the district administrator approached me. "Tom, would you stay a moment? We'd like to toast this successful project. And the press can't be left out. After all, they're a great help to us." The politician, whom I knew very well from various events, winked at me. "And your station especially. Will you come into the hall with me?" It was important to make your presence felt. Even after work. "I'll be right there." The district administrator nodded contentedly and hurried off toward the conference room.

I shrugged at Tim, who of course had to wait for me. "It'll take a moment." The boy didn't show much protest. "I don't have anything planned today anyway, and my parents aren't home." "Are you coming with me?" "No, the text isn't quite finished yet, and it's not for me anyway. I'll stay here and wait for you." "Okay," I smiled at him, "I'll hurry."

Hurrying is always a tricky thing in these circles. You get engrossed in this conversation, are reminded of this appointment, and are pointed out errors in the reports, which, of course, are always the fault of other colleagues. So the whole thing took much longer than I expected. But at some point, I actually managed to break away from the illustrious gathering, which had long since mutated from a concept presentation conference into a weekend opening party.

So I walked from the ballroom back to the room that had served as the media room. The door was open, and Tim didn't even notice I was back. He was sitting in front of his laptop, engrossed in something. I crept up and took a look at what was apparently preventing the intern from complaining about the accrued overtime. I couldn't help but grin – Tim had landed on nickstories.de and was engrossed in one of the stories there. My wait was in vain; the boy was immersed in the world of some story and had completely repressed everything else. Even when I cleared my throat, there was no reaction. "Do you want to finish reading, or should we go? Do you think the two of them will still get along?"

Tim jumped up, looked at me in shock, and his face quickly turned bright white. He realized I'd realized what he was reading and began to tremble. "I... I... uh, damn, shit..." The boy ran out of the room and out of the house. From the window, I could see him fleeing into the reed belt by the lake. Since I assumed he wouldn't leave immediately, I took the time to shut down the computer, load it up, and stow it in my car. Driven by a sixth sense, I bought some liquid and solid food in the pub's beer garden and also headed into the reeds.

I found him in a small clearing, hidden from view from the outside, right by the water. He was staring at the glassy lake, tears in his eyes. "What do you want?" "Do you think I'll leave you sitting here in the reeds?" "You can't care less. Go tell everyone I'm gay. No one will understand anyway. But leave me alone." I sat down next to him and handed him a tissue. When he didn't respond, I wiped the tears from his eyes, put my arm around his shoulders, and told him in a few sentences the end of the story he had started reading earlier, and which I had interrupted. When I was finished, he looked at me, and his fear seemed to have subsided a little. "Man, how did you finish that story so quickly?" I had to smile. "Not at all. I read it at home a few months ago."

It took Tim a moment to grasp the significance of this sentence. He looked at me with wide, slightly blushing eyes and then asked me incredulously, "You... you too?" I nodded slightly. "Yes, me too."

He shook his head, started to laugh, and I still had my arm around his shoulder. He laid his head on my shoulder and whispered softly, "To be able to experience this..." "What do you mean?" I asked him. "You're perhaps the first person who truly understands me. Do you know when someone last held me in their arms? When I was able to talk to someone, properly, about what's really bothering me? My parents only have their own problems; the main thing is that I'm functioning properly." I stroked his short blond hair. "Well," I replied, "at least I know it's hard to walk the path whose goal you haven't yet reached. Maybe because you haven't found the beginning yet. But I know how hard it is." Tim looked at me questioningly: "What was it like for you back then? How did you realize you were gay?"

I thought about it all and thought about Marc, with whom it all had somehow begun for me, and after a moment's consideration, I began to tell him a long story. But since there was no shortage of time and neither of us was in a hurry, I went back a bit and started when I was a young, innocent fifth-grader myself.


Sports accident and Cuddle games

Our class was a close-knit community back then, with most members having been together since they started school. At some point during that school year, we had a new addition named Marc, who didn't know anyone and thus, almost inevitably, became an outsider at first.

It should be obvious that an eleven-year-old couldn't handle something like that in the long run. A full-blown feud soon developed between Marc and another boy, sparked by something trivial and then persisted. At least once a week, there was a full-blown fight between the two.

Anyone familiar with the structure of a GDR school knows that every class had a group council. (For everyone else, this was something like a junior works council, the link between the teaching staff and the student body, so to speak.) In my role as a member of this institution, I initially made myself unpopular with Marc's family. The council had decided to visit his parents and ask them to exert a bit more influence over their boy. After all, we wanted peace and quiet in our class.

Marc's father also wanted some peace and quiet when we showed up at his front door with six of us (well, let's say six). We briefly explained what we considered to be a world-shattering problem, but he somehow considered the renovation of his house, which he was currently working on, more important. How could he? He mumbled something like, "Sort this out between yourselves and leave me alone," and continued sifting his sand. I took over as the spokesperson. "Let's go, there's no point. Like father, like son." He looked at me in astonishment – he probably hadn't expected that from an eleven-year-old kid. Only when we were almost out of earshot did he yell after me, "Get out of here and don't let anyone see you again," although he only used the singular, even though there were six of us. We knew who he meant. I didn't care; I had no intention of going back there anyway. But at that age, resolutions often don't last long.

There were many ways to make physical education appealing to me. Handball or soccer, for example, even though I was anything but a gifted athlete. Athletics and the high jump awakened my competitive spirit, and I developed the ambition to continually improve my performance. But my physical education teacher always achieved a masterpiece when he set up his famous "Power Twelve" (strength test). A dozen stations where the goal was to strengthen various muscles and collect points, which would later lead to grades.

This power circle changed my relationship with Marc, literally, in an instant. I was busy counting jump ropes for my gymnastics group when there was a sudden, brief scream at the climbing and pull-up wall. I saw that Marc was lying on the mat, clearly not in his right mind.

Physical education teacher Jentsch, who obviously couldn't be at twelve stations at once, inquired what had happened. "He somehow tripped and then hit his head on the pull-up bar."

Ouch. At least our enfant terrible had regained consciousness by now. He was bleeding slightly from his head. Mr. Jentsch quickly switched from educator to doctor and diagnosed: "It's not that bad. It doesn't even need stitches." Marc tried to simultaneously display strength and hide his pain: "So I can continue now?" The PE teacher protested: "No, you're going home now. And if the pain doesn't get better tonight, you'll see a doctor." Nowadays, any teacher would probably have called a rescue helicopter; back then, it was just "Who's going to take him to his parents?"

Silence in the forest; interest in bringing the injured man home to his family was apparently limited. Even though it would take at least a whole class period. Since no one volunteered, it was up to the physical education teacher to choose someone to accompany him home, and his choice fell on me.

I refrained from protesting, but sincerely hoped that Marc's father wasn't busy with construction work in front of the house again. I escorted my injured classmate to the locker room, where he first checked the severity of his injury in the mirror. "It's not that bad. I've had worse." He followed up with a brief list of various minor accidents. "You've had a few experiences, haven't you?" He nodded thoughtfully. "You're lucky my father isn't home. Then you'd have had a few experiences." I grinned slightly.

Marc's mother welcomed him without much complaint. She was obviously used to minor injuries to her offspring (he had a younger brother). Since she didn't know me yet, the reception was quite friendly, and I was even offered drinks. However, the lure of class was still very strong at the time, and my plan was to return to the educational institution as quickly as possible. I gently stroked Marc's head once more and said quietly, "So long, unlucky boy." He looked at me for a long time and asked, almost fearfully, "Shall we be friends?" Hmm. I thought about it for a moment. The boy wasn't as bad as I thought. I nodded slightly and left. The ice was broken.

This school year's class trip put another stamp on our friendship, the final straw, so to speak. During the class soccer game on the day of arrival, Marc's defect struck again: he sprained his ankle. This, of course, prevented him from participating in the long hikes planned. And since even our class teacher realized that he couldn't stay at camp alone all day, she agreed to my suggestion that he stay as a "nurse." "You could do a little something for the school," she suggested. We both smiled at her and said in unison: "Sure."

I don't really remember exactly how we passed the time back then. I only remember that we definitely managed without television and computer games. At some point, we came up with the idea of watching a sunset. While the others were enjoying some kind of card or board game, we sneaked out of the camp onto a small hill and watched more than just the glowing fixed star disappearing over the horizon. He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed towards the edge of the forest, where a herd of deer shyly emerged from the protective thicket. We watched the natural spectacle in fascination and silence. Marc had put his arm around my shoulder and was snuggled up to me. Somehow, something clicked for me, or rather "pop": Cupid's arrow had hit me for the very first time, of course, without me having the slightest idea what was wrong with me at the time.

From then on, we were practically inseparable. During the summer holidays the following year, as we were more or less looking forward to seventh grade, Marc and I spent much of our time visiting the swimming pool and going on bike rides. One of these trips took us to the river meadows, where we decided to rest for a bit. We spread out our blanket, quickly took care of destroying the food we'd brought with us, and then lay down next to each other on the blanket.

The sun was playing a lively game of interplay: Into the cloud – wind on, thermometer down. Out of the cloud – wind off, thermometer up, risk of sunburn on. This was obviously too much for Marc. He shifted his position, moved under the covers. "Come down. You'll catch a cold or get sunburned." The thought of lying under a blanket with this boy gave me more or less visible pleasure, so it didn't take long to accept this invitation.

Marc knew exactly what he wanted. "I'm cold," he shivered. The weather conditions were changing almost every second, but it seemed rather unlikely that a healthy person would get chills in temperatures ranging from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of 30 degrees Celsius. I must have looked at him questioningly. He saw this, smiled, and assured me with complete conviction: "Yes, really... Warm me up," and looked at me with big, brown, forest-like eyes. I began to stroke his back. "Here, feel this," he asked, and guided my other hand to his arm.
In fact, he seemed cold: He had goosebumps. Without thinking twice, I wrapped my arms around him. And what did he do? He kissed me on the lips.

We didn't continue our bike ride that day and stayed under the blanket by the river. When other walkers approached, we disappeared completely under the woolen fabric. A remarkable sight for passersby: a living bundle of wool. I wonder what thoughts come to mind.

Marc was definitely having similar thoughts, his caressing hand slowly and lovingly moving up my thigh. I protested at first, but he told me, "That's part of it. You can do it too." He kissed me and guided my hand between his legs. As if the nature lovers had known, the two of us remained undisturbed under our blanket for the next half hour. Or maybe we simply hadn't noticed the passersby.

From then on, these quiet, intense moments together became a part of our friendship. Besides love, I also experienced another emotion: jealousy. Marc was participating in the adolescent game of musical chairs. In our class at the time, there were about five boys and five girls who were gathering and sharing experiences in every possible male-female constellation. "My" Marc was one of the most active when it came to trying French kissing.

Only occasionally did one of the girls show interest in me. It never lasted longer than a week, and I didn't make any effort to make the relationship permanent. I only wanted one thing permanently: Marc's affection.

Garden with shot

The older we got, the rarer our moments of togetherness became. By then, the tenderness had almost disappeared; it was all about pure lust and satisfaction. Of course, that was less satisfying for me. But I'd known for a long time that Marc would probably never be able to feel the same way I did. He was into women, and the occasional change of scenery wasn't out of the question. My friendship with him became more relaxed. After German reunification, we switched schools. He went to a secondary school (Realschule), I to a high school (Gymnasium).

For me, there was no partner in sight, and coming out was out of the question. My surroundings were completely heterosexual. Whenever I wasn't alone back then, everyone else was perfectly camouflaged. Just as perfectly as I was.

The clique, which at that time was delighted by my presence at irregular intervals, one day grew. Almost out of nowhere, two boys appeared – and stayed. Rico and Maik were a bit older than us, and so they rose through the hierarchy relatively quickly. Rico seemed to like our part of town; he rented a garden with a gazebo, which from then on became the meeting place for the clique. A youth meeting place in the countryside, an adult-free zone. This naturally appealed to us 16-year-olds. So at regular intervals, which became shorter and shorter, there were parties to celebrate. At first for the most trivial of reasons, later simply for the sake of the party.

Maik, who, to put it mildly, was anything but bright, was swapped out for Andre at equally decreasing intervals. He was a friend of Rico's from old times, considerably older than us, had a car, and was also gay. He was proud of it, and no one had any serious problems with it. At least not openly. Of course, a vehicle was reason enough to idolize the owner and driver.

It quickly became clear why Maik didn't show up anymore, or rather why Andre wasn't there when Rico and Maik were getting drunk: He couldn't stand him at all. This was understandable in some ways: Whenever the two were together, there was always a bottle of alcohol nearby, and increasingly, a small bag from which the two rolled strange-looking cigarettes.

One day, or rather one late summer evening, the two of them, completely stoned, decided to go into the nearby forest with a blank-firing pistol hidden in the arbor to test their definitely no longer existing aiming skills.

Andre tried in vain to stop the two of them – a nasty argument broke out between him and Rico. The two yelled at each other without any regard for their underage audience. "Think about what you're doing, you can't think straight anymore!!!" Rico's response confirmed this. "What do you want? You just want to advocate for me. Er... preface it. Patronize me. Let me do my thing, I'm old enough." Andre changed his tone – from loud to almost threateningly quiet. "You're proving the opposite. Why do you have to go into the woods with this customer to shoot in your drunken state? It's either him or me. Make up your mind. If you leave now, our friendship is over." Rico at least seemed to think it over. Maik called to his drinking buddy from the garden gate: "Are you coming now, or what?" Rico brushed aside all his doubts and left.

Andre watched him silently, and although it was almost dark, I clearly saw his eyes grow sadder with every step. He retreated to the arbor's separate bedroom, which served as a sort of bedroom for permanent guests. I turned to the remaining visitors. In brief: three girls, three boys. The six of them obviously had better things to do than interfere in the conflict between three older people, let alone try to solve this problem. "Hey, did you just hear that?" Marc, who was busy with his current crush, Janina, grumbled angrily at the interruption: "Yeah, and? They argue every day anyway." For my unattainable angel, this was nothing unusual anyway, since things regularly got heated between him, his brother, and their sister. Or whatever was available at the time.

In any case, the boys in the gazebo were now the only ones within reach of the girls, and I was, of course, the fifth, seventh, or whatever wheel on the wagon—a superfluous one in any case. I left the cuddly haven and briefly considered whether I should disturb Andre, who, in contrast to the cheerful six, was sitting considerably more alone in the next room—probably incredibly sad.

I knocked and entered. He was sitting on an air mattress that had been converted into a bed, tears in his eyes. I spontaneously sat down next to him and hugged him. He began to tell me the whole story. How the two had met, how their truly great friendship had developed. Rico knew that Andre was gay. And he knew that he himself wasn't. Nevertheless, the two had shared a few X-rated adventures, stuck together through thick and thin. Until Maik came along. Suddenly, Rico was transformed; the two were drinking and smoking weed almost to death. Andre was suffering from this love deprivation, as he called it. "It's okay if nothing's going on between us. But then this guy comes along and ruins everything. I don't understand him."

It was difficult to say anything encouraging to him. While I was still thinking, the door suddenly burst open, and Rico stood before us. He, too, had something wide open: his eyes. His shirt was smeared with blood.

The Drink am See

Tim had stood up. "Advertisement!!!" He grinned, and I looked at him questioningly. "It looks like it's getting exciting. There's always advertising. I'll quickly go into the reeds for little interns." He disappeared, returned a few moments later, and made a move to sit down again. "You didn't wash your hands." He looked at me, probably to determine if that was a serious request. I tried to suppress a smile, apparently with little success. "Falls into the water," Tim replied. I stood up and was about to throw him into the lake. He got there first, grabbed my arm, and said, "Wait. As much as I'd like to go swimming. But I don't have a towel or any other clothes with me. I couldn't have known that this press conference would turn into a swimming trip. But we can go to Lake Biethetal, where my grandparents have a garden right by the water. And they definitely won't be there because they're on vacation with my parents. In Hungary."

At that moment, I loved Hungary. The weather was gorgeous, and an equally gorgeous boy had just invited me to a secluded piece of land for a swim. We briefly drove past my apartment, where I quickly threw a few things into a bag and gathered some provisions for us. A few kilometers later, Timmy guided me down a lonely, almost hidden track and made me stop at a piece of land that didn't really deserve the name "garden." A small, cozy cottage with a well-kept front garden and a spacious fenced lawn that ran directly down to the water on the lake side. A jetty served as a mooring for a rowboat, and in the evening glow, a pair of swans glided across the lake toward the setting sun. This was paradise.

We stowed our bags in the house, undressed, rushed into the cool water, and did what the swans do: We swam toward the disappearing sun. Tim knew the water and headed for a sandbank. He had solid ground beneath his feet. I stood next to him and enjoyed the spectacle of the sunset. "This is so beautiful," I whispered. "Yes," he replied, "I've never seen anything like this with another person." I looked into his eyes, where tears were about to break out, and took him in my arms. He held me tightly. "Hey, Timmy, the time for loneliness is over. You know me, and not just from your internship. What connects us is at least a soul mate. And whatever becomes of us, I'll always be there for you from now on. You're no longer alone with your problems." He looked at me, first incredulous, then happy. "Do you know what that means to me?" His lips met mine. "It's time to live." "Yes, you should. Stop playing hide-and-seek when you're ready. I've wasted too many summers myself." "Oh yes, there was something else. So how did the whole story with Rico continue?" I smiled at him. "Oh, is the commercial over? Take it easy, Timmy. First we'll swim to shore, and then we'll have something to eat."

No sooner said than done. We cooked ourselves a delicious instant soup, fried a couple of steaks in the pan because it seemed too much effort to fire up the grill for just two slabs of meat, and sat down on the terrace. When we'd finished eating, I asked him, "Beer or wine?" We opted for a bottle of sweet red wine and settled down on a lounger, where Tim snuggled up to me, sending expectant glances my way.


Open words

Andre and I both immediately thought of a catastrophe. Rico was in front of us, covered in blood, and we knew the two of them were completely drunk, planning to go shooting with a blank gun. "Shit, what's going on?" "The thing went off. Maik got it in the arm." "Where is he? Where's Maik?" "The forest is on the path, at the edge of the stone near Maik." Andre pieced together the location, grabbed his car keys, and ran to the garden gate. Using the car wasn't necessary because the injured man with the injured arm had already dragged himself to the garden. Whimpering, he leaned against the gate. Andre reacted immediately and correctly; it proved to be a great advantage that he had completed his community service in an ambulance. He disinfected and temporarily bandaged the wound and then ordered: "Get in the car, we need to go to the hospital." "No way, asshole," protested Maik. "Does this really have to happen?" Rico asked too. "This is about a little more than your childish games with such a stupid thing." "I wouldn't call it childish games," Marc replied. He was the first to intervene; up until then we had only watched what the three of them were up to. "You're right," Andre replied. "But it's childish when two people who, at least according to their IDs, are adults, stagger into the woods at night with a gun to shoot at metal or something else. And in that state, too. You're crazy." "More than just crazy," Marc muttered next to me.

Maik hadn't quite grasped the extent of his injury yet, obviously believing it was something like a graze. "I don't want to go to the hospital. It'll be okay." "If you don't need your arm, fine. But please give me that in writing so no one can get me accused of failing to render assistance later." Rico had briefly disappeared into the arbor and came back, holding a bottle of schnapps. The keg overflowed. It splashed. Andre had first knocked the bottle out of Rico's hand and then, not very lovingly, wiped his face again. At least he now seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation. Andre was in control again. "Okay, we'll take him to the hospital now. They'll probably keep you there too to sober up," he said, looking in Maik's direction, "and please go home." That meant us. We stuck to that. Everyone really did go home.

Just one day later, almost everyone involved met again in the garden. Maik had been released and was recovering at home. Furthermore, Rico had banned him from the garden for two weeks. The other two had talked it over thoroughly that morning. Rico had promised Andre he would stay away from the bottle and other drugs. He also wanted to resume his interrupted apprenticeship. The police investigation, which had already begun, was later discontinued; it was not possible to determine exactly what had happened in the forest. Based on his injuries, the most likely scenario was that Maik had shot himself.

Rico's promises, however, didn't last long. When Maik was healthy again, he became a regular at the garden again. And with him, the number of bottles of hard liquor increased, and then the number of empties.

One evening, Andre and I had separated ourselves from the rest of the party crowd and gone into the dormitory of the arbor. He complained, "I'm so fed up with this place." When he wasn't sleeping in the garden, he was staying with his grandmother; his relationship with the rest of the family was somehow strained. He had told me all this in more or less detail, and now he was seriously considering getting an apartment. "I don't want to stand in the shop all day, come back here at eight in the evening, and then see how they say 'cheers!' This stupid chatter is so annoying." He cried, I stroked him, and he calmed down. He stroked me, even touching my T-shirt. "Does that bother you?" he asked me. I shook my head; I was always receptive to affection. As proof, I kissed him on his stubbly face. "Are you gay?" he asked me. I flinched at first, then shrugged. I didn't want to reveal myself completely, because although Andre had become a very important friend, that was all. I was afraid that he would have wanted more if I had said yes. And sex with him – I didn't want that. He seemed to be able to read my mind: "You don't have to be afraid. I won't do anything you don't want to do," Andre reassured me. We just held each other tight. Suddenly, Marc burst into the room. "Tom, shall we..." He stared at us, grinned, said, "Sorry!" and disappeared again. Andre looked at me uncertainly: "How do you think he'll react?" "That shouldn't be a problem." I thought about it for a moment, but then told him that we had a special relationship. He smiled. "You'd make a nice couple." "Yes, but I don't believe it, and he certainly doesn't either." "After all, he's single again." "How do you know that?" He grinned at me mischievously. "It's not like you're the only one I'm talking to here." I must have looked a little confused when he put it into perspective: "But by far the most affectionate... So, now let's go over there."

A good half hour later, I brought Marc home, probably hoping he might be in need of affection again. Instead, he asked me about Andre. "What were you doing back there?" "What did it look like?" "Two guys in one bed." "And what's so bad about that? Besides, we only talked." He didn't seem to believe me, so I added, "And we cuddled a little too." "But you didn't tell him anything about us?" I decided to be honest. "Yes, it just happened that way." Marc swallowed, but I assured him that our little secret was in safe hands with him.

Andre took matters into his own hands, found his own apartment, and thus increasingly withdrew from the garden. We used the summer holidays for occasional outings together, usually just Andre and me, occasionally Marc, and occasionally other clique members joined in.

I visited Andre more often at the shop where he worked, and I also grew increasingly distant from our old surroundings, the garden at the edge of the forest, and ultimately from the group. Most of them had finished school with the tenth grade and were now diving into their training. My old circle of friends crumbled, and very soon only Marc and Andre remained.