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Brian had always thought that going to an all-boys school had left them stunted, unable to properly socialize with the fairer sex, and honestly not very good at empathizing with them. Women had gotten the write to vote some four decades ago, but some men talked about them as though they were little more than serving machines to rear the children and tidy the home. Brian respected women -or at least he tried- he empathized with them and felt they were to have every right of a man and to be treated no differently. They were people at the end of the day, and that mattered more than gender.
No, his problem with women was... well, Brian didn't feel what he was suppose to about them. He had thought himself a late bloomer, but now as his late teens were turning into his early twenties he feared... well that something was wrong. He'd been able to not think about it because his studies had been all consuming, and it had been terribly useful that he didn't waste his time wanting to chase skirts.
Only now on their tour with Mott the Hoople Brian- well he'd never experience sex like this. Women were throwing themselves at them- at all of them. And sex here was completely disposable, with people you didn't know that didn't know you, whom you'd never seen before or would again. Brian didn't have a gradually escalating stage between never seeing girls in grade school and now this. He'd spend his college days in the library mostly.
It was shocking. And honestly... the sex wasn't very pleasant. Brian had done it because it was the done thing. He was still close enough to being a teenager that he'd managed to make himself hard and stay hard long enough to come, but- honestly it had been an effort. It wasn't nice, it wasn't fun, it wasn't anything of the things it was promised to be. And that hadn't been the girl's fault, a lovely bird called Barbara. She had been all kinds of eager, wet and ready for him, willing to suck him until he was hard and proper but- It just didn't do it for him.
Maybe it was the lack of connection, Brian told himself. If he only knew the person he was bedding, if he only cared for them, then it would work. But even as he told himself this, he doubted. He'd never felt that way towards any girls even if he hadn't properly gone steady, just a few dates. But those few dates had never amounted to anything but well... he simply wasn't interested. He didn't care for them, for kissing them, nothing. When the lads, even now Roger and John, talked about the joy of having breast press against them, Brian just... didn't want it, didn't care for it.
But maybe... Freddie had had his own stream of groupies going into his hotel room as they all did. But they there weren't all women. Sure Brian didn't care for women but maybe them being 'women' was in fact the problem. Maybe he'd have more success with men. Technically he felt the same way about women as he did about men, and he'd fantasized about and desired them both equally. That equal number was zero, but that wasn't the point. Brian was still going to try at least once. Maybe he was bisexual. Had to see how being with a man would pan out.
Brian wasn't sure how one pulled a man. He thought about asking Freddie, but the very thought embarrassed him beyond belief. He thought he might manage to talk about his problem with birds, and thus his seeming preference for male company; he wasn't so ashamed of the 'homosexual' aspect of it. No, the problem was talking about sex, or rather his issues with it. And Brian didn't want to talk about sex. He hadn't understood the fascination with it in school, and had been happy not to bother keeping up with it during his higher education. Talking about sex with Freddie- who seemingly loved it, might well give him hives.
Thankfully, in the end, it was really as easy and as mindless as picking up the female groupies. They crowded after the show with sultry expressions and an eagerness that could not be denied. Only this time instead of giving attentions to the birds, Brian turned his attention to the men and once they knew how the wind was blowing he had his pick of the lot. Did he want his man tall or short? Masculine or feminine? Muscular or lean? Urgh, this was terrible. Brian absolutely had no clue and wondered what it would do to the band's reputation if one of their members was known as celibate.
But honestly... Brian didn't care that much about the band's reputation, this was more important to him because of the whole 'they got married and lived happily ever after' thing. Not that gays could marry, but the idea was the same. Find someone to live the rest of your life with and that would cause you unending happiness. Not that anyone here was looking for marriage but sex was a part of that. Seeing how Roger and Freddie gushed about it, sex might even be better than marriage that could end in such bitter divorces.
So Brian slept with a man. As he wasn't the bottoming party the logistics were honestly very similar, and he found himself with a very similar problem too. Fuck. This was really going to be a problem then. And honestly... Brian didn't want to force himself to go through the motions a third time. He resolved himself that he would not have sex again until he thought something was different, something had changed, so that he might like it.
He didn't- It wasn't anything like a nonconsensual experience and all the horrors that came with that. Brian didn't feel violated. He just... God, sex was so boring. He imagined it was like what many couples went through, a bird watching a sports game to please her beau, a man being dragged shopping only to sit in the shops bored out of his skull. And Brian would put up with quite a bit to make his partner happy only... wasn't sex suppose to be fun? To be good? To... give him something? Kissing had been unspeakably inane, but at least when they were doing more he got orgasms. And those... were nothing to write home about honestly.
Just so bland and dull. Which was not what he had come to understand orgasms were supposed to be. But it just... it made him think of doing Physical Education in school. Of being made to do a handstand for so long that when he stood up all the blood rushed to his head. Orgasms gave him a headrush but there was no... associated of pleasure with that. It wasn't painful, just... neutral. And that seemed a lot of effort for nothing.
Because... It shouldn't have been nothing? Brian knew he was a worrier. An anxious soul that liked to pick at his problems. He couldn't tell if he was making this up to be more than he thought in his head or not. So... He had to talk to someone about it. He loved his bandmates and trusted them with so much. He could at least hope if he asked them not to, that they might restrain themselves long enough not to laugh in his face or where he could hear them. But that might be a lot to ask. He was going to tell them he couldn't figure out sex and that he didn't enjoy orgasms. What could make him less a man? Less a human? The very way the human race had reproduced was because sex was desired.
He tried not to be so hard on himself. After all, he didn't think Freddie was unnatural for his homosexual inclinations. Different yes, but not... lesser. So why should he be so hard on himself?
Seeing how Roger and Freddie both so clearly and vocally felt about sex, Brian thought he might start with Deaky. If needed he'd discuss it with the other boys, but maybe hopefully -naively- this could be fixed and there'd be no such need.
He didn't know how to preface this conversation. But like everything it had to start somewhere, so he set the tone. He'd ask to share a room with Deaky when they bunked up and then sat on the bedspread -there were no chairs in their rooms- when they'd come in after the evening meal. "Hey Deaks... There's actually something I've been hoping to talk to someone about, and I was hoping that could be you."
Deaky shrugged unconcernedly as he sat himself down on the bed, leaning against the headboard and lying back. "Well, we're always here for you. Touring can be- hard like that, taking you away from your support system. But I'll do my best."
Brian nodded, did he need to ask him not to laugh? No Deaky was a quiet, serious type that liked to play it close to the chest. Yes he loved drinking and to go dancing, letting his hair down so to speak, and he had ended up joining a rock band; but he'd also taken his final exams without any kind of fuss, just showing up to the studio as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. To say he was the youngest, it wasn't often that he acted like he was.
"I...I've been having a hard time with... well the birds. They're- I'm sure they're fine, but I... I seem to be the problem." Brian bit his lip and looked up at Deaky that was still lying there cool as the sphinx. His unbothered attitude honestly made it easier for Brian to continue speaking about this. "So uh-" The band had never been explicit about it, but Brian truly had taken that silence to mean approval. It had barely been legal for 5 years, and legality didn't mean acceptance, people were more than capable of making their opinions clear, and even taking matters into their own hands if they felt the law fell short, "Then I tried lads."
This got a response from John but it was just a little grunt and nod. It wasn't a question of him approving or not, so much as him not caring. He cared that they could play their instruments and write their songs. If Freddie really was a spaceman from Mercury, or if Roger had been a girl, it would have all been the same to John. But John was aware that this was a... touchy subject that people could be wankers about, so he did try to express his approval if that counted for something, which it clearly did. In his repressed British way, he gave another deeper nod and went, "Alright." Truly what more could be asked of him?
And that was nice to know, that Deaky was a decent sort like that, but honestly, that didn't concern Brian as much as it might say Freddie. "Only that... that didn't work either," Brian continued. "I didn't like that either. I don't- It's just never... really been good. I haven't had a 'bad' experience per say, nothing traumatizing like some. No relative or teacher touch me. Nothing forced. I just... don't care for it. And uh," Brian could feel himself blush, this felt like too much information but how could he be helped if he wasn't completely honest. "Not liking it has made it difficult to well- y'know... get hard, stay hard, finish." He blurted out that last bit.
Deaky's eyebrows rose but he nodded again. "Ah, uh yes. I do imagine that... not liking the act would make that... complicated I imagine." Brian was sure if he was having this conversation with Roger, that the drummer would have made a 'hard' pun at this point.
And now the heart of the matter and how this terrible conversation had started. "Do you... think I should see a doctor?"
"Oh, hmm," Deaky's eyebrows lifted as his lips pursed, he turned to look at Brian rather than stare at the wall. While that much eye contact had been too much as Brian had been trying to stumble through his explanation, now it was welcomed and comforting. He shrugged, "It couldn't hurt to try, then you can have that squared away but honestly... I don't think that's needed. Still, I guess it'd be nice to know that nothing is wrong physically." He shrugged again, "Honestly it's a little hard imagining it not being part of one's life, but if you say it isn't *and you've tried it,*" John specified as he thought how neglected women's pleasure had been in the past, but things weren't like that with men and if Brian had tried it and it hadn't done anything for him... Well, it was strange, but no stranger than being colour blind he supposed, "Then I suppose your life might be a lot more straightforward than ours. Certainly less drama."
Brian blinked. He hadn't thought of it that way. The end goal was always stated as being married and having children. But Freddie had no interest in children it seemed. And Roger didn't strike him as the marrying type. And they didn't seem to think their lives were lesser for that being the case. After all Brian was a rockstar, and that was more than enough to make him overjoyed with happiness. It was hard to imagine wanting anything more than that.
~*~
Brian followed Deaky's advice- although it wasn't as much advice as permission or a nudge to do what Brian had already been thinking about doing. He was nervous at the doctor's office and almost frightful of what would happen. He didn't really know why in the moment and answered the doctor's questions the best he could as he submitted himself and his biological material to every test there was.
It wasn't until he got home and was staring at his ceiling that he realized- yes he was different, but he didn't want that to change. The more he thought on it, the more he knew it to be true. He felt like that day Freddie had convinced him to stop straightening his hair and had in fact come to his flat and confiscated all his pomades and straightening iron. This was part of who he was, and he didn't want that to change. That thought made joy bubble up inside of him so uncontrollably that he could think of no other outlet but to laugh and flap his hands against the bedspread.
This was who he was, and he really enjoyed that actually. It wasn't always easy, and it wasn't like everyone else, but he did truly love himself and he didn't want the doctors to find anything because- it felt like his true himself. Things might have been different if he had been into sex as a teenager and then abruptly turned off to it later in life. But to him- he wasn't missing anything, he wouldn't have known it if society didn't tell him.
He hoped he wasn't loony to think that, but he did. He didn't think he was wrong any more than he thought the promiscuous Roger was wrong, even if the 60s had not fully moved people past the idea of sex before marriage being accepting, and being 'easy' or 'fast' as negative. Hell there were still those that burned rock 'n' roll records, and later would burn disco records. They could grind their wheels about progress and accepting new and different- or just previously rejected ways of life, but that didn't make them write. Oscar Wilde a hundred years ago was homosexual and God only knows what monks and revered Saints might have been like Brian.
Brian braced himself at the thought. That people had always existed like him, and only now was society getting wise to what that might truly mean. People that were different yes, they weren't making a saintly or sinnerly choice, but were as different in nature as a blonde was from a brunette.
Right then.
And indeed the doctor found nothing wrong. That didn't stop him from ordering more tests. It could be a symptom of something, that was a fair concern, a decrease in libido. Including being reduced to zero. Only it hadn't changed, it had always been this way for him. He didn't have any problems having or maintaining erections. He was technically in the peak of health. And he didn't feel sick. Only when he looked at others and thought he should have that too. He was different but... so what?
And so he lived his life celibate and without problem, for truly he didn't want that. It could look like fun, the same the lines of cocaine did, but it really wasn't... Brian's kind of thing. He felt he could party well enough, he liked to drink and stay up late, but not impossibly late and not to such excess he made himself ill. And he really didn't think he was missing out on much.
But of course, there was no way for him to live this way and for the band not to notice. With the way their hotel rooms were, and how they often shared, it was only natural. They only wanted what was best for him. Roger had no problem picking up birds. He was part of the band, yes, but he was also wildly attractive with the matching confidence to go with it.
So he and Freddie tried to bring him to girls, groupies that were clearly very interested. Brian had tried to enjoy their likes before, and as cliche, as it was, 'it's not you, it's me.' Now how to make his band understand this? He had hoped that Deaky might tell them so he wouldn't have to, but then that was the problem with someone who actually held your secrets and respected your privacy. Damn Deaky and his decency, why couldn't he be a filthy gossip like the rest of them?
"I- I thank you for last night truly," Brian confronted them at breakfast, after another night of them trying to set him up. Couldn't they have just grasped that he wasn't interested by the fact he always turned them down? Damn them too for caring about his happiness and pleasure.
"Well, we're just trying to help. We've noticed that you haven't had a lot of company in your room anymore. ...Are they not to your tastes?" Roger trailed off suggestively, implying homosexuality Brian assumed. Which was always nice to know. First Deaky, now Roger, truly an accepting band.
Brian shook his head. "No. I haven't- I haven't made it work with the women on tour. With anyone," Brian amended to correct his gendered language.
"Hmm, think it would work better going steady?" Freddie asked. The drummer and singer looked at each other like they couldn't imagine this, what was the point of touring if not to enjoy all that it had to offer that home limited them to?
But Brian shook his head. "No -ah, I don't think it's really that either."
Freddie's eyebrows raised in revelation, so he understood then? And they'd stop hounding Brian? "You should come with us in New Orleans then." Now Roger's eyes were widening in realization. Whatever did that all mean. Nothing good Brian feared but he just nodded hesitantly. He- he didn't think whatever it was would please him, but he wasn't against trying something once. Maybe he really could learn a new facet of himself, but in his twenties rather than his teens it did seem unlikely. That made him a late bloomer by a decade, and he could grow a full beard to prove he wasn't otherwise lacking.
... What there was in New Orleans was... a sex dungeon. Some kind of BDSM club that Brian had only heard about from scaremongers. For once, there was an aspect of sex Brian understood, control and submission. Not just understood but honestly... desired a little. Maybe Freddie was right, maybe he'd find his people here. Brian just- struggled under the burden and yolk of responsibility. He didn't know if he wanted to be a rock star full time if he was to forever turn his back on his doctorate studies, and he often craved nothing more than for someone just to tell him what to do. He wouldn't have to think and overthink, worry over every decision, but merely let himself go and trust in someone else to make them for him. Let his anxieties wash away and just let himself be. Now that sounded like the promise pleasure.
Brian looked around, how did one even approach someone here? He had some idea of the dominates from the submissives, both in lots of leathers, but the latter often kneeling or crawling with restraints and collars. Some were in normal streetwear like them but Brian was rather- looking for a little more bite.
There was a gorgeous woman in a group. While a few in the group were obviously paired off she looked alone. She was wearing a short thigh rising skirt exposing thick thighs straining her garter and held a riding crop. She looked... strict but kind, not unlike his favourite teachers. Hesitantly Brian came up to her, he didn't know how he had the nerve. Maybe he'd be better off letting his bandmates set him up as they had wanted to.
He stood politely in front of her table and dare not interrupt their conversation, that didn't seem like the done thing. Their conversation naturally lulled and she turned to look at him fully, taking in his eye contact as he made it clear he was interested in her. She leaned forward framing her cleavage and propping her head up on a hand, "Can I help you boy?"
He shivered to hear the older woman call him that. It felt- nice. He nodded. "I hope so. I'm new. Not just to here but to this- uh scene." He wasn't too sure of the terminology. "But I... am looking for a... guiding hand."
She gave him a look over, her eyes slowly trailing down his body and then just as slowly back up, making him shiver. She left her friends to come right up to him, putting a hand on his chest and getting very, very close to him. "I'm always happy to help," she practically purred into his mouth. "But let's go somewhere a little more private to have a one-on-one if that's okay."
Brian nodded, not exactly sure what he was getting into. They took some stairs down into a basement, a dungeon really, and even with the racks and cells for it. "I'm Peaches and you are?"
Oh. Brian hadn't thought of a fake name. He could go just by May but honestly... that was pretty feminine for him. "Jack."
She brought him to an alcove that had no door but also nothing really sexual, not even a bed. It had a kind of low leather couch and a mat on the ground. She made him sit on the ground with a single but firm hand to his shoulder as she sat on the bench.
"If this is your first time, I'd like to discuss some ground rules before we do a scene. See what you want and how you want it to get a feel for each other? Do you know the traffic light system? Green - Orange - Red? Do you know what a safeword is?"
Brian shook his head. She might as well have been speaking French but it was pleasing to know there were so many rules. Much like with a fight club the aggression of the space was dominated -hehe- by rules to keep control of the violence.
She didn't seem shocked by his lack of know-how, she just leaned back and stroked a hand through his hair. It was nice. Like cuddling with the boys or a hug from his mother. So not quite everything he thought he should want. "Tell me first, what do you want from this?"
Should Brian uh... tell her that he wasn't even sure if he was straight? That he'd tried with women yes, but also with men, and uh... really wasn't sure which side of the fence he landed on, as nothing seemed to suggest either to him.
"Communication is the most important part. I can't guess at what you want and so it's very important we communicate very clearly so that I can best provide for you," she interrupted his thoughts with a little tug at his locks. It didn't hurt, it didn't feel bad at all, it felt grounding and nice, like the hard press of a back scratch.
So Brian told her. He told her that he had no idea what he liked and had been... well struggling to find out what that might be. He told her of Mott Hopp, of how when touring he'd been exposed to sex like nothing before, it had been an onslaught to the senses until... until it really hadn't. Nothing had been enough. Nothing had been... good, despite the partners. They were willing, eager, and in every way pleasant, they came as male, female, in every variation. But he... He hadn't found the touted pleasure of sex with them, and so his friends had brought him here.
Peaches looked down at him with- understanding? Brian's hope clogged his throat. She slid off the bench to wrap an arm around him and be close to him. Despite his dislike of sex, Brian enjoyed the closeness he could have with others, the cuddling, the embracing, all of that was very fine indeed.
"My dear, have you ever heard of asexuality?"
Brian furrowed his brow his first thought surely not being right but he said it anyway, "Like... lizards? And uh... mushrooms?" He wasn't sure how fungi reproduced, maybe he was thinking of unicellular life instead. Where was his friend biologist when he needed him.
Peaches dipped her head but did not outright agree. "Yes, that is the scientific definition of asexual, for an organism to reproduced by themselves. But there is the human term. In which case much like homosexuality, it is not about reproduction at all but behaviour." Brian blinked slowly, it felt- a slow dawning he could feel in his bones, looming, not like a threat but like the grandest of hope he dare not dream of. "In this case a lack of sexual interest."
A lack of sexual interest. Five words and Brian felt like his whole world had been thrown on it's ear. A lack of sexual interest. Asexuality. And- and this was not some term he was coining for himself, to describe his experiences; this was a term a world-wise woman knew. Knew because... there were others like him. Brian had felt so very adrift, unable to understand what was 'wrong' with him, and worried about the lack of worry he had about it. He just- he just felt that way. Asexual. He didn't feel lacking or sick. He just... was. Like Freddie was. Different but not lesser.
He put a hand to his mouth, it was open in shock. He turned to look at Peaches, she was looking at him with tender fondness, even care he would say. He would never forget her, forget this, this night in the dungeon with her. But he- this was groundbreaking and significant to him, but to her, he was merely pulling her away from a fun party upstairs and failing to provide her anything here.
So he thanked her, as effusively as he knew how, and suggested she should return upstairs, to the pleasures that this club really offered. But she didn't do that, she wanted to care for him, that's what being a Dom was all about to her, it wasn't because she wanted to hurt others, or have control, it was because she wanted to tend to someone. A good person, Brian understood as much as it might shock his parents' contemporaries, for all that she carried a whip. And so she held Brian, never asking anything more, as he accepted, as he metamorphosized.
He came down here not knowing who he was, what he wanted. In doubt, and almost... afraid of the lack of answers. Concerned about his very nature, that he might not only be different but that that difference might make him a freak, broken- but he wasn't. He was only as different as say his hair already made him. Long tight curly locks like he knew of no other man having, only of wigs created to replicate this look. Different yes, but not strange, not truly, and nothing... to worry about. Just a part of him. A part of him he had to learn and treasure, same as he had learned not to straighten his hair.
And then when he was ready he would emerge. He might even tell Freddie he was right, that he did discover his true self this night in the dungeons with Peaches. Only it was a nature unlike seemingly any of them had heard about before, or ever realized that's what they were. Between Queen Elizabeth, I the Virgin Queen and all the people of history, the monks and nuns, popes, spinsters and hermits, asexual people had undoubtedly been part of the world as had all other queer folks. It was only now, in a slightly better world, that they could be known about, adequately described and find comfort in a label if they so wished. And whatever Brian was, though he'd only just learned of the term, his friends would love and accept him in it. Of this he had no doubt.