Picture Perfect: A Steamy MM Romance

1

Rich

Ilooked nervously around as I entered my photo classroom for the first time. My anxiety was going through the roof.

It was the first time I was back in the classroom in over a decade. I haven’t been in one since high school, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of being very out of place here.

But I couldn’t start doubting myself now. I made my choice, and I made it for a reason. I was absolutely going to stick with it.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be hard, though. I knew I was likely going to be the oldest person in this class. And I probably wasn’t going to find anyone with whom I had anything in common.

I took an empty seat at the front of the class. The back rows were starting to fill up, so the front row was the only place I could grab a seat without having to sit directly next to anyone.

I preferred to be in the front anyway, though. It would be easier to focus on what the professor was saying, and I’d easily be able to ignore any judgmental looks from my classmates.

I was probably overthinking this. I didn’t think it would be very likely that most people here will be total assholes… A man in his early 30’s isn’t that out of character at a community college anyway, right? I was being insecure. I couldn’t be the only person who had fallen down this path.

What a path it was, though. This wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned for myself when I graduated high school.

I really thought I’d had a good plan when I’d graduated. I didn’t go to college like most of my friends, but I’d still had goals. I’d wanted to get an electrician apprenticeship as soon as I had graduated, and I did. I had wanted to make good money doing electrical work, and I do. And I wanted to marry my high school sweetheart and only girlfriend… I did that, too.

Every goal I’d had I had achieved pretty easily, in fact. What I hadn’t predicted was how all those goals were going to drive me to complete and total discontent.

The professor had not yet arrived, and it was still about ten minutes until class officially started. To my dismay, people were still filtering in. It looked like this would be a packed class, which meant I would undoubtedly end up sitting next to someone. I only hoped that it would be someone quiet, focused, who wouldn’t throw any judgment my way.

Of course, that was just too much to ask for. The young man that ended up sitting next to me was nothing short of obnoxious.

When he came in, he was still talking on his phone. Loudly, I might add. I couldn’t help but notice he was a good-looking guy. He looked to be in his mid twenties had a muscular body, and a full face of facial hair. The kind of guy that is usually my type… except it was immediately clear his personality was atrocious.

No, seriously, stop. I don’t want to hear it anymore, he said angrily into the phone.

I heard a female voice on the other end, though I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I assumed it was a girlfriend of his.

Can we not do this right now? He rolled his eyes as another guy walked in and waved at him. Yeah, okay, bye. He hung up the phone, and I could hear that the female on the other line had still been talking. He didn’t seem to care, though. He turned his attention to the guy who just walked in and gave him a quick handshake. I guess it qualified as more of a high five.

Hey, man, what’s up? he asked the boy who sat down next to him. They then proceeded to have a rather loud conversation about going to some bar tonight.

Okay, see, this is exactly what I was worried about. I’m not going to be able to relate to younger people in this class. They lead completely different lifestyles. They have different values… and, okay, I’ll admit it.. guys like him seem pretty superficial to me.

I know you can’t judge a book by its cover or whatever, but let’s admit it: we all pass judgment. And I could see this guy’s lifestyle right now. He probably lived in an apartment with a few roommates, had a girlfriend that he argued with all the time, and drank far too much on the weekend.

I had never been that kind of guy. I can’t even say that I’m over the partying stage of my life because, honestly, I never had that stage to begin with. Unlike other guys my age, when I was young, I went straight to settling down. Got myself a job, got engaged, and did what I thought I was supposed to do.

I’m not sure why I was in such a rush to grow up. I think I was really just in a rush to feel differently than I did in high school. I had wanted to feel accomplished and normal. I had wanted to be accepted by the rest of society, and I had been terrified of being an outcast.

Most of that stems from my insecurities about being gay. Even in just the last decade or so, it’s become way more socially acceptable to be homosexual. But when I was in high school, if you were suspected to be gay, you could expect to be endlessly tormented.

I had never wanted that. I had been at odds with myself. I’d done everything I could to deny my sexuality. I grabbed the first girlfriend that I could, Stacy, and I stuck with her all four years of high school.

I did my best to fit in with other boys my age. I got into sports, playing basketball for my school, and I ignored the part of myself that constantly craved creativity.

When I was in elementary school, I had always assumed that I would get a job in the arts. I hadn’t been sure what I’d do yet, I had just known that I was creative. Maybe I’d be a painter, or a poet. But it hadn’t taken long for the world to teach me that those were ‘feminine’ jobs.

So, I took the exact opposite approach after graduation. I went into physical labor, arguably the manliest sector of work there is. And I married Stacy so there would be no doubt that I loved her and was in a happy, straight relationship.

And I really had loved Stacy. She was a great girl, and for many years, I had really managed to convince myself that this was what relationships were supposed to be like. I could be married to her, spend my days happy with her, have kids eventually, and ignore any desire I had for men.

I told myself all men feel this way on some level. I simply liked men because it was taboo, and that’s sexy. I fetishized my homosexuality so that I could cope with being married to be a woman. For a while, that worked. I never had a very passionate relationship, but I was happy enough.

That could only last but so long, though. Slowly but surely, we both ended up extremely dissatisfied in the relationship. I could never be affectionate enough for her, and she had never been male enough for me. She was a great girl, but I couldn’t make myself fall in love with her. We had both known that.

It took us many years of unhappiness to reach that point, but I finally did accept that I was gay a few years ago. I divorced Stacy amicably (at least, as amicably as any divorce can be) and we still talk occasionally, but mostly we’ve moved on with our own lives. She’s dating, I’m dating, and I’m happy.

Okay, well, I’m happier than I was in my marriage. I’m still pretty lost and confused about things, but I’m doing my best to figure it out… I’m trying to revamp my entire life. I want to live authentically, for the first time.

Taking this class is part of that. I’m still dong electrical work, of course, because I need to pay my bills, but I’ve been really hoping to get out of it at some point. I’m never going to be truly happy doing electrical work. And, at this point in my life, I’m all about doing what makes me happy.

If that means taking night classes to explore a new interest of mine, bring it on… even if I do have to be worried about other students judging me for being too old.

Ten minutes later the professor showed up, right on time. She was a serious looking older woman. She kept her gray hair pinned in a loose bun on top of her head. She didn’t smile when she walked in.

Hello, class, my name is Professor Bingsley. Welcome to Introduction to Film Photography.

As soon as she said that, a lot of my anxiety disappeared and was replaced with excitement. I was finally doing it: I was finally taking a photography class.

I’ve been interested in photography in a long time. And I’m a hobbyist, I suppose. I have a nice DSLR camera that I bought and I take pictures, which I often get complimented on, but I have no formal training. It’s just me pointing a camera at things I like.

And you can’t build a photography business on that, which is what I eventually hope to do. I plan to take all the photography classes the college has to offer, from film to digital, and then some business classes. You don’t need a formal degree to do photography, but you do need to actually know what you’re doing. Which I really don’t.

Everything I read online said that a photographer should absolutely learn film before they seriously delve into digital photography. From what I can gather, learning on film helps you develop a better sense of the fundamentals. With digital, the camera does all the work for you. But with film, you’re actually working with light and time.

I was pretty excited about it. I’d done a lot of research about it prior to the class. I had even played around with my new film camera… just one roll of film, though. Since I couldn’t develop it until class started, I wanted to see if I had totally screwed up before I used any more film, which is surprisingly expensive.

In this class, there will be no easy way out, she continued, in a serious tone. "I assume you all have your course materials already, including your film and cameras. I’ve instructed you via email to bring them to class. That’s because I want you all to learn how to use your cameras manually. Even if your camera has an auto setting, you will not be using it in this course. You will manually focus, and you will learn how