I grew up with my mother and my grandparents in a small beach community on the Gulf coast. The main business was fishing/shrimping and tourism. When I was fourteen my grandfather got me a summer job working with a friend of his who would go out shrimping for the day. Out there it was just the two of us and he had sex with me. I became his boy toy and went offshore with him two or three days a week that summer and every time we went offshore we had sex. By the end of the summer I needed to see him every day. My grandfather was very happy with me that I liked to go work on the shrimp boat, I really didn't I just like to have sex.

During the school year I saw my grandfather's friend off and on by going to his shrimp boat when he came back in and we usually had sex on board. He kept several cushions that we used because the bunk was hard and the floor harder. One day late in the year I went to his house when his wife was out of town and we had sex in a bed for the first time. That time sex lasted a long time, it was the best experience I had up to that time. By then I was thoroughly in love with him.

During my college days I had a hard time accepting that I was gay, I had a crush on one of my classmates I couldn't shake and I blamed my grandfather for that and it strained my relationship with him. I don't blame my grandfather now, he never knew that I am gay. I spent a lot of time when I was young believing that I had turned gay because of my experience shrimping that summer, until one day I realized I was gay all along and all I did was follow my nose and having sex was a natural step. Like my grandfather my first lover has also now died and the secrets of going offshore with him are forever hidden from those close to us.

I have come to terms with being gay, I live in Atlanta and work for a corporate communications company. I have crush after crush, most of those I never act on because I know the objects of my affection are straight, I have sex because I need to have sex, but I can honestly say I never have any feelings with men I have sex. I never have sex in a bed. I have never felt close like I did during that first summer I went to work on the shrimp boat.