Loving You At My Own Risk

"Boys who suck dicks are no better than snakes. They have no place in this world, and they should be killed and humiliated as one."

That was what my father said to me about gay people when I was twelve, the day he caught me staring at a handsome man on the television with my hand cupping my balls.

"No real man should like his fellow man. Not in that way." He gave me a disgusting glare I had never seen on his face before. Not even toward his worst enemy had he ever directed that glare in the past.

"So, what about girls who like girls?" I had been foolish enough to ask that day—not because I was trying to prove stubborn or wise, I'd be damned if I'd do that, but because I had seen it happen before. A lady had kissed another lady full on the mouth on the television once, and my father had been in the living room that day, watching our first movie together as a family. He never batted an eye or looked disgusted by it.

So I had wondered—if he hated boys loving boys so much, why hadn't he said anything or cursed at the lady who kissed her fellow lady?

"You see, my boy, that one is good." My father had said, with a sly—almost lustful—smile plastered on his face. I would never forget that look on him. "They are just bored and need something to keep themselves busy while waiting for the big thing." He paused, cupping his cock through his tailored suit pants. "A real man loves to see his toys get dirty for him before he fucks them silly."

Lesson learned. When boys liked their fellow boys, they were apparently disgusting snakes who should be killed before spreading their venom to society. And when girls did it, it was okay, because they were just sex toys who were supposed to be bad and dirty for men. My father's words, not mine.

"But what will happen if a boy likes his fellow boy and he can't help it—" I remembered trying to ask about the possibility of being gay and not being able to help it, but I would never forget my father's reaction to that question.

"Since you are old enough to ask stupid questions, I think you are old enough to join the business, yes?" My father cut me off angrily that evening, shoving himself off the cushion so suddenly the movement triggered my panic attack.

He grabbed me by the arm, dragged me out back toward the rink, and shoved his personal shotgun into my hands, while barking at his men to bring in the bastard who had betrayed the family.

I was so shocked when a man was pushed into the rink. He was badly tortured and seemed to be gasping his last breath when my father asked me to pull the trigger and kill him.

I was so scared the gun slipped from my fingers. I was shaking like a cat caught in a storm.

I didn't flinch because I didn't know how to shoot—heck, I had been practicing with guns since I was eight. But I had never pointed one at a living being before, and I had never thought I would take a life someday. Now it felt real, what I had always been training for. My father had been training me to be a killer.

"I am not going to tell you again, boy. Kill. This. Motherfucker. Kill him and become a real man."

My father picked the gun up off the floor and thrust it back into my palm, planted his hand on my back, and yelled at me to pull the trigger. So I did. I held my breath and pulled the trigger, shooting a man who had done nothing to me, just because I had angered my father by asking a question.

That was foolish of me.

I would never forget the delighted smirk on my father's face as the man I had been forced to kill hit the ground with a loud thud. He moved his hand to grip my shoulder and turned me to face him.

"Now, my son, this is what real men do. They kill, and they don't suck dicks." He gritted the words out, gripping my shoulder so hard I nearly cried from the pain and panic. "In this world, being gay is one of the gravest sins that can't be forgiven. And you, my son, know this. The day I catch you taking a dick in your mouth is the day I take the life I gave you. And being my only son—being the heir to my empire—won't save you from dying by my hands that day."

You would think that was the end of it, but it wasn't. You see, when you are Russian, there are certain things you can never be, and gay is one of them. Not when men like my father are the ones running the show. And if you are in the organization, being gay shouldn't even cross your mind.

I thought I only had to do what they wanted—put on a front and be the real man they wanted me to be—until I gained a meaningful position in the organization and could establish new rules.

But you see, the mafia organization wasn't built for one person. It had been there for hundreds of years, and it would still be there hundreds more. It was too vast, too rotten, for anyone to believe he could change a thing. I learned that when the new Don of the East was caught in a bar with a guy's face buried in his groin, his cock buried deep down the guy's throat.

When I heard the news, something shifted inside me, and I breathed. I really, truly breathed for the first time in years. I was seventeen then, and for the first time since that conversation with my father in our living room, I thought there might still be hope for a gay man in Russia—especially in the organization. I was wrong.

Less than an hour later, I got a call from my father ordering me to join him at the commission. When I got there, the new Don of the East was on the floor. A very handsome young man in his early thirties, newly elected Don after his father's death, beaten beyond recognition—and the men who were supposed to be his family, because the whole Russian mafia organization was one big family, were there, cheering.

I was terrified to watch, but I couldn't look away, because I knew my father was watching me from somewhere in the crowd. I didn't dare blink even as the man before me was beaten all over again with whatever the men could find. I wasn't bold enough to shut his cries of agony from my mind as he was butchered and burned by this homophobic organization.

I watched a man die at the hands of his family—the whole organization—for being gay. And it wasn't just any man. It was a man of power, the newly elected Don of the East, brutally killed for being gay.

I felt my father's hand on my shoulder and was too scared to look back at him. He leaned close and pressed his lips to my ear. "Can you see it now? This is Russia, and this is the life of boys who suck dicks. And I'm warning you, son—this will be your life if I ever see you looking at another boy like you want to suck his dick. Real men don't take it up the ass. Only animals do. And if you want to be an animal, I'm going to kill you like one."

That night, I stood in front of the mirror for a long, long time and stared at my own face, searching for the sickness in it.

Straight is the default.

I told myself I was not one of those boys. I told myself I was not a snake, not a pervert, not an animal that deserved to be put down.

Desiring a fellow man is weakness.

Desiring a fellow man is filth.

Desiring a fellow man is a disease.

Desiring a fellow man is a death sentence.

So I learned to crush it the same way my father and the organization crushed everything else—without mercy.

I would fuck women even if my body felt nothing.

I would kill men without shaking.

I would smile when they burned.

And if the day ever came when I felt the urge to kneel for another man, to open my mouth and take his cock and disgrace myself like the ones they butchered on that floor...

I would put a bullet in my own head before I ever let my father or the organization do it for me.

It had worked. I had stopped desiring the handsome man on the television, or any man at all. I had learned to like boobs and pussy. I had learned to enjoy fucking women, and that had kept me alive. So why now?

Why am I standing here, as a thirty-three mafia underboss, staring at that beautiful guy from across the street, wanting to risk everything and go on my knees for him, and take his cock in my mouth?