Free All Balls and Glitter by Craig Revel Horwood

also worked at BTV6. I was slowly finding my feet as a grown-up: earning a wage, creating a home, striving to achieve my goals. In addition – and not before time – I was about to experience a sexual revolution of my very own.

CHAPTER 5   A Whole New World
    F rom quite an early age, probably about nine or ten, I knew that I was different, but I didn’t know exactly what it was, or why. I tried to avoid it and convince myself nothing was wrong, so I still had girlfriends at school.
    In grade five of primary school, I had a crush on a girl called Mary, but she was really mean to me. I found a gem and I stuck it on one of those rings you get in craft sets, then I put it in a little case and gave it to her, but she made fun of it, so that was clearly not a match made in heaven.
    In grade six, aged eleven, I was supposedly ‘going out’ with Margaret Yellowchef, mainly because everyone said we were together and I went along with it. It was one of those ‘Margaret Yellowchef – she’s your girlfriend’ taunts in the playground and I’d just say, ‘Oh, all right.’
    Unexpected drama arose from my ‘relationship’ with Margaret, though. Another girl, Lorna, imagined she was going out with me, so when she found out about Margaret, she attacked me in the playground and dug her nails right into my hand. I still have the scars. She scarred me for life!
    Lorna wasn’t the most attractive girl in school, while Margaret had a nice face, but was a little on the weighty side of thin. Mary was most definitely the prettiest girl I knew and that’s why I went for her. Not that I ever really felt anything, deep inside. I just thought I should.
    In later years, my debutante date Angela might have thought that I was her boyfriend, but we never became an item. I used to go round to her house and roller-skate, but nothing ever happened between us, although I think she may have wanted it to.
    Instead, I went out with Christine, the girl next door, whom I cruelly finished with when I realized it wasn’t working for me. We used to kiss and pet, but we never went further than that, except one time when I fondled her left breast. We would sit on the fence under the pine tree in the south paddock, where we kept Snowy the pet goat, and we’d snog for hours.
    Christine went to a different school, but as she was our neighbour, we used to play together as children and things kind of progressed from there. She was quite short and of solid build, and she had massive boobs. It lasted about eight months and then we had an argument over something, I don’t remember what, and I said, ‘Right, you’re dumped!’ She was very upset, but that was it for me.
    After Christine, I went out with a girl from school and it was the first time I’d ever been on a proper date. I took her to the pictures and, in the classic scenario, tried to pluck up the courage to put my arm round her. I was terrified. I have no idea what the film was about because I was concentrating so hard on getting my arm around her shoulders. It took me roughly an hour.
    Although snogging Christine had taken up a lot of my time at the age of fourteen, the earth had never really moved. By the time I was sixteen, I’d worked out why.
    After I started work at the TV station, I met an older man – let’s call him Mr X. He made it clear he fancied me, but although I enjoyed his company, initially I kept him at arm’s length. Instead, I fell straight into the arms of a young, good-looking colleague called ‘Eric’.
    The result, unbeknownst to me, was a love triangle going on between Mr X, Eric and myself. I had no idea that Eric was having a sexual relationship with Mr X when I started dating him,but then, we weren’t betrothed to each other. We were just having fun. I was sixteen and he was eighteen, and he became my first lover.
    It all started when his parents were away and he invited me over to his place. We began playing a game of strip poker, led by Eric. We both ended up