IM NOT SURE IF THESE QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN ASKED BEFORE SO BARE WITH ME

1. When did you finally realize/come to terms with your sexuality?

2. Before Percy, as a kid, did you ever have a crush on another guy?

I realized I was gay when I was seven. It was 1931 and I was living in Italy.

There was this boy, he was my neighbor. His name was Antonio and he and I were best friends. We spent most of our time together. We played a lot in the streets around our house; you usually didn't find one of us without the other.

I realized I was gay that summer when Antonio's family invited me to go swimming with them for the day. Of course I agreed and Mama said it was okay so I went with them.

When Antonio took his shirt off, I couldn't stop looking at him. I had always known Antonio was pretty, but I also knew Antonio and I would grow up to find wives and live happily with our families.

I kind of panicked when I realized Antonio was really pretty and I wanted to kiss him the way Father kissed Mama. I told him I had to use the bathroom and just kinda ran off.

He found me on the floor of the bathroom shack crying. When he asked me why I was crying, I told him I was crying because he was pretty.

He laughed at me because he didn't understand. He asked me to tell him what I meant and so I told him I wanted to kiss him the way grown ups kissed.

That's when he told me he would like that, too.

Of course, we didn't kiss because that wasn't what boys did. Boys wrestled and played war and fought and kissed pretty girls.

But, he helped me clean myself up and then held my hand all the way back to our group.

We spent even more time together after that and we held hands the way we saw the older boys and girls doing and we kissed each other on the cheek.

Antonio was my first boyfriend, you could say. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him before we moved to America and I forgot him for a long time.

I looked him up a while ago and found out he ended up marrying one of the girls in our neighborhood and he had five kids, all of which have kids now. I've visited them before; last time I was in Italy I met up with his kids.

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