Welcome intruder

The hope

Friday, May 3, 2002.

Thinking I was “gay” was taking away my peace and ending my friendships. I no longer wanted to play with my friends or be alone with them. I had a huge fear of not resisting my instincts and attacking them like a wild beast attacks its prey. I was so scared that I almost didn't accept Thomaz coming to my house to do math work with me, on Friday, after class. I only accepted because it was worth a grade and I didn't have good grades in that subject.

As soon as we started studying, my father left with my mother for a residents' association meeting, and Thomaz and I were alone at home. My parents had barely left and Thomaz was quick to say “you’ve become a man, João Neto” and I pretended I didn’t hear him. He insisted and said “who is João Neto?”. “It’s me” I replied. “Then why are you pretending you can’t hear me?” he asked me. I remained silent trying to come up with something. A few minutes later I said that my father had said that we couldn't talk about it with our friends because we would become “gay”.

Thomaz started to laugh. He was more intelligent than all of us, because he was 13 years old and had already lived in the city at his sister's house for a year, to take care of an illness, I think it was malaria. Then he stopped laughing and went to explain to me that you don't become “gay” like that, just by looking. He said he caught his brother-in-law talking to a friend and knew all about “gays”. I listened to Thomaz carefully.

And now I'm calm, because after talking to Thomaz I realized that not all boys feel like having sex with men, he told me that what makes a man become “gay” is having sex with a man first. According to him, if your first sexual relationship is with a woman, you do not become “gay”. This reassured me, I only needed one girl for me to have my first romantic relationship.

That's why I convinced my mother to invite Seu João and Dona Luiza to have lunch here today, I wanted to get to know Cândida more, she's 13 years old and hardly leaves the house. During lunch, we talked, played and I even showed him my books. She will be my salvation. I'm going to have sex with her and get rid of this fear of becoming “gay”. Thomaz is certainly right, he always goes to the city and he told me once that he has several cousins and one of them only became “gay” because he slept with a friend and his friend grabbed his penis, and he became queer, because he still I had not had sex with a woman.

There’s no way I’m going to turn “gay.” Tomorrow, at school, I'm going to ask to do the work with Cândida and I'm going to rush this sex, some cheeky kid will mess with me and I'll turn “gay”. That's it for today, I'm calmer now. Whenever I write I feel good. Like I said, I miss people, talking to people. These notebooks of mine are the people I need to talk to, they don't answer me, but at least they listen to me and that's something.

The plan

Sunday, June 2, 2002

It's been a long time since I last wrote. As I said, I wrote to calm myself and Thomaz's words about how becomes “gay” made me calm. That doesn't mean I'm not worried, but now I know what the solution is and I'm working on it. I haven't managed it yet, but I think it will work.

Ever since Cândida and her parents went to have lunch at my house, I've been working full steam ahead on my plan to stay immune from turning into a queer like Thomaz's cousin, so since that day I got closer to her and started doing work with her, frequenting her house more. I just didn't think it would be so difficult to be alone with her. Her parents won't leave us alone for anything. I think that's why there are so many “gays” nowadays, because it's much easier to be naked alone with a friend than with a girl.

I know it's been difficult, but I'm not giving up. I already realized that Cândida has a crush on me. She looks at me differently, she sends notes to school and whenever we sign our names on school work she decorates them with colorful hearts. And several times she has sent me notes with our names written inside a heart. Now I'm confident, she told me that on the 12th our parents are going to have a party to celebrate Saint Anthony's Day, and it will be at Agostina's house.

Agostina is Cândida's best friend, they only hang out together and everything they do, the other knows. Then, Cândida told me her plan. Agostina had agreed to help us be alone, but in return she wanted my help so she could also be alone with Tiago. The problem is that for me to convince Tiago to stay with Agostina I would have to tell him about my plan to stay with Cândida and I didn't want that to get out, as my affair with Cândida was part of a plan so I wouldn't become a “gay”. And as soon as I became immune I would leave her. But as there was no other way, I agreed to everything and stayed to talk to Tiago.

And this afternoon when we went to the river to take a bath, I tried to speak, but Thomaz wouldn't leave us alone. We were three inseparable friends, not because of concealment, as I often found Thomaz a little cocky. He always got lost better than us, either because he was older, or from time to time he went to the city to spend the holidays at his sister's house. Even so, we were just the three of us.

We stayed at the river all afternoon, until late afternoon when Thomaz asked us to leave, as his sister was at his house and would leave in the early evening. I didn't want to go, I said I wanted to stay a little longer, so he called Tiago, but he didn't want to go either. Finally, Thomaz left alone and Tiago and I remained at the river. That was the perfect time for me to talk about Cândida's plan.

We played around and I didn't know how to start. If on the one hand Cândida's plan was perfect, on the other hand I didn't want Tiago to be with Agostina, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever met and all the boys were crazy about her. I was afraid that Tiago would stay with her and not want to know about my friendship anymore. I thought that if he could talk to her and ask her opinion about his pubic hair, we would no longer have any reason to be friends, as I would no longer be of any use to him.

I spent a few minutes analyzing, until I came to a conclusion: one way or another I was going to lose Tiago's friendship. If I introduced him to Agostina, he would stop being my friend, but I would stay with Cândida and save myself from becoming a queer. If I didn't introduce him to Agostina, I wouldn't stay with Cândida and I would become a queer and Tiago would stop being my friend anyway, because a queer was only good for being humiliated and making people laugh.

I definitely didn’t want to become a “faggot”. So I talked to Tiago and told him everything. He was crazy happy. He hugged me and shouted that I was his best friend, that no one would be able to do what I did and said that when he married Agostina and I married Cândida, he wanted us to be neighbors and friends for the rest of our lives. Honestly, he was exaggerating. I had no idea that my plan was to abandon Cândida right after what happened.

As soon as I left the river I went straight to Cândida's house to tell her that Tiago had agreed to participate in her plan. And she ran to Agostina's house to tell her friend the news. On the way home, I was telling myself that I had done the right thing, that I was going to lose my friend, but that it was for a good reason. I was solving a problem, however, another, even bigger, problem was growing inside me. I realized that I was jealous of Tiago. And I was very scared of losing him. I was confused, I no longer knew what I felt for him.

Suddenly I felt such great anguish squeeze my chest and I felt the urge to cry that I couldn't hold back. I cried several times that night, I didn't want Agostinha to touch Tiago, much less to see him naked. Thinking about him naked in front of her was the same as being stabbed, I felt as if something very precious was being taken away from me. And I spent the whole night suffering, I didn't sleep a single minute. The other day I called in sick and didn't go to school. The truth is that I was very angry that Tiago was happy with the idea of dating Agostina.