Meet Antoine Jean-Phillippe, a young black man of Haitian descent living in the City of Gatineau, Quebec. He's going through a hard time. It's not something which he can discuss with family or friends. Riding the 44 bus from Portage Station in Gatineau, Quebec, to the Rideau Shopping Center in Ottawa, Ontario, he looked out the window. Antoine thought about days gone by, when his life was much simpler, before his current demons began to plague his consciousness...
"Lord, please take these feelings away," Antoine thought, as he continued to look out the window. The other night, Antoine went to Provigo, the local grocery store to buy a few things. While walking down an aisle, Antoine saw a big-booty Arab woman bent down while tying her shoelaces, and smiled. Antoine had always been a sucker for a woman with a big butt. Still, when Antoine reached the cash, the tall and skinny, big-eyed white dude working there looked at him and Antoine knew without a doubt that the fella looking at him was into dudes...and checking him out.
Antoine pulled his Scotiabank debit card out of his wallet, and got ready to pay for his purchases. The cashier kept staring at Antoine in spite of his effort to avoid eye contact. Sighing, Antoine looked back at the cashier, addressed him politely and waited for him to check the items out so he could pay. The cashier began to talk, and it had nothing to do with the business at hand. What should have been a two-minute transaction got forcibly stretched into something else...
"I like your shirt," the cashier said, staring into Antoine's eyes as he swiped his purchases against the mechanical reader. Antoine thanked the cashier then looked away, feeling intensely uncomfortable. The cashier's voice was soft and high-pitched, and he kept snapping his fingers with his free hand as he went on and on about Antoine's rather plain blue T-shirt and black sweatpants. I wish he'd get on with it so I can leave, Antoine thought, losing patience.
"Sir, I come here to shop, not to flirt, so stop this, please," Antoine said firmly, finally looking into the cashier's eyes. What was wrong with this bozo? The cashier seemed to freeze, and his smile vanished. He pursed his lips, shrugged and crossed his arms as Antoine used his Scotiabank debit card to pay for his purchases. Taking his reusable shopping bag full of goods, Antoine pocketed the receipt which the cashier laid on the counter ( rather than to hand it to him ) and walked away.
Antoine exited the store, feeling the cashier's disapproving eyes on him as he headed home. I have nothing against LGBT people but I don't care for effeminate males flirting with me, Antoine thought as he reached his apartment. He put his purchases in the fridge, then went straight to bed. Between Antoine's day job as a shelf stocker at Costco and the encounter with the cashier, it had been a long damn day...
On his bedroom wall, Antoine had lots of pictures of celebrities, both female and male. A picture of bikini-clad Tennis champion Serena Williams carrying a surfboard took center stage. Another picture, featuring well-built and handsome British boxing champion Anthony Joshua took up a significant part of the wall. In between the two mainstream sports icons was a picture of Transsexual porn icon TS Madison, whose career Antoine had been following for years...
Antoine remembered the exact time when he began to change. He'd felt attracted to females his entire life but then one day, during the summer after he graduated from Ashton Academy, and prior to his enrollment at Algonquin College, he began to feel different. Antoine's sexual attraction to women never diminished, but all of a sudden, his sexuality shifted. He was still attracted to women, but he caught himself noticing certain men...
The men that Antoine noticed looked and sounded nothing like the talkative cashier from Provigo. Antoine prefers women, that's true, but when he does notice a man, that man is usually tall and masculine, with a deep voice and the mannerisms of a normal guy. The cashier from Provigo reminded Antoine of an over-the-top character from Will & Grace, an old sitcom that his mother used to watch a long time ago. Thanks but no thanks, Antoine thought.
Lying in bed, Antoine grabbed his phone and went to check out XVideos, hoping to find something good. In one video, a cute brunette named Abella Danger fucked a sexy dark-skinned black chick named Ana Foxx with her strap-on dildo, and world-famous lesbian porn star Sinn Sage joined in. Antoine stroked his dick to full hardness as he watched the two kinky white women fuck the black woman with their strap-on dildos.
"That's more like it," Antoine groaned, a few moments later as he came, his hard dick spewing cum all over himself. Antoine had always been a fan of lesbian porn, especially interracial lesbian porn. He knew the top lesbian porn stars, past and present, by name. Ariel X, Janine Lindemulder, Mistress Kara, Antoine liked them all. Yup, life was alright for Antoine, except for the occasional unwanted sexual thought about, well, men.
Antoine thought about attending a meeting of the LGBT Club at Algonquin College, but none of the people in there were anything like him. For starters, the guys were all white, and dressed Emo-style, or downright feminine. There were only a few ladies in the club, and most of them had the die-hard dyke look. They sported short hair, tattoos, and wore masculine attire. Some of them painted their hair bright green or blue. Oh, and they had lots of piercings. Antoine wondered if any of them looked or acted...normal. Was he a unicorn?
Nope, Antoine gave the school club a wide berth, and with good reason. After reading about what how the white LGBT community abandoned openly gay African American football player Michael Sam, Antoine did not regret his choice. Michael Sam seemed like a cool dude, and definitely the kind of brother that Antoine would holler at if he ever met him. Antoine used to play soccer at Ashton Academy, and loved sports. Antoine didn't know shit about musicals, gender issues, fashion, political correctness or Lady Gaga. He loved Hip Hop music, action movies and horror shows. He would NOT fit in with them.
"Hey, Tony," came a feminine voice, and Antoine gasped, startled out of his daydream/trip down memory lane. He turned around and saw someone he hadn't seen in quite some time. Esther Jean-Baptiste's smiling face greeted Antoine, evidently she was amused by his reaction. Antoine smiled and looked Esther up and down. He hadn't seen her in quite some time, not since their graduation from Ashton Academy...
"Salut, Esther, comment vas tu? Antoine replied, and he happily invited his former classmate to sit next to him. Esther grinned and did just that. Antoine admired Esther, who looked great in a red, white and green summer dress, with her hair done in a stylish Afro. The brown-skinned, dark-eyed young woman licked her lips, then did something which Antoine found both charming and annoying. Esther poked Antoine's nose, something she used to do back in their halcyon days at Ashton Academy...
"I'm good, Big T, your head is in the clouds again, I see," Esther said, as Antoine rubbed his nose where she'd poked him. Antoine grinned, and shook his head. Same old Esther. They'd been friends for a long time. He'd asked her to Prom and she turned him down, instead going with his best pal Samuel Lipinski. Antoine ended up skipping the Prom altogether, opting to stay home. Ashton Academy had never been quite right for Antoine, and he figured he'd have better luck at Algonquin College in the Fall...
"Nice to see you, Esther, I thought you were in Montreal," Antoine said, genuinely surprised to see her on this bus going to Ottawa. Esther shrugged, and then launched into a long tirade about how Concordia University wasn't right for her and she ended up leaving it. Antoine, who'd dreamed of attending school in Montreal but could only afford Algonquin College, found Esther's tale of woe somewhat dubious. Who in their right mind would choose boring-ass Ottawa over beautiful, diverse and lively Montreal?
"After my lousy experience at Concordia I came back to the Capital and transferred to OttawaU," Esther said proudly, and Antoine stroked his goateed chin. He was about to reply when a few people got on the bus. Two of them caught Antoine's attention. A tall, light-skinned brother with an athletic build walked in, holding hands with a short, curvy young Indian woman. Antoine's eyes flitted over the rather unique couple, and he found himself admiring the brother's muscular build...and the Indian woman's surprisingly thick ass.
"Earth to Antoine, do you know these two?" Esther asked, waving her hands in front of Antoine's face. Antoine blinked and looked at Esther, looking for all the world like a man suddenly roused from slumber. Esther frowned, and looked at Antoine, then at the couple which was sitting down. What the hell is going on here? Esther wondered, puzzled by Antoine's deer-in-headlights look upon seeing a random couple on the damn bus.
"Um, I'm fine, I, um, I thought I knew them from somewhere," Antoine said sheepishly, and Esther's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Even back at the Academy, Esther had always been sharp-minded, with an equally sharp tongue and a lot of bossiness. Antoine liked those things about Esther, but that got him friend-zoned. When will women stop tossing aside good men? Probably the day after never, of course...
"Cool, so, do you still go to the Haitian Adventist Church of Ottawa? Cause that's where I'm headed," Esther said, and Antoine nodded. He was wearing a sky-blue silk shirt with a dark red tie, black silk dress pants and black Timberland boots on a Saturday morning. It wasn't hard to figure out that Antoine, the son of Seventh-Day Adventists, was going to church. Where else could he be going? It's not like most businesses conducted job interviews on Saturday mornings!
"The Temple is my second home," Antoine said, grinning, and Esther poked him in the shoulder. Antoine and Esther got off the bus at the Rideau Shopping Center, then walked a few blocks to the church. While walking around, they took in the sights and sounds. Downtown Ottawa was always busy and lively, unlike Gatineau, which is usually quiet or unexpectedly loud for all the wrong reasons.