Why? Why me?

I may have written before about an incident that happened at school when I was 13 - I've certainly used a fictionalised version in at least one story in Nephelokokkygia - where I was sitting in a cubicle in the school toilets literally shaking with fear about the possibility of my classmates, and worse still my friends amongst them, finding out I was attracted to boys, about how they might react. That terror-stricken young boy resurfaced at around 6:00 this morning. At work. In the face of a conversation between my colleagues - everyone there, in fact, apart from me - about the allegations of 'historic sex offences' against (the conveniently dead) ex-prime minister Edward Heath that have been reported over the past couple of days. The contempt, the hatred dripping from every word they spoke sent me into something akin to a panic attack, made all the worse by the fact that I not only had to keep it all inside, but had to keep doing a job that was becoming very difficult, just at that moment, because of some faulty equipment. The scared little boy of 40-odd years ago was right there again, close to tears at the knowledge that all that contempt and hatred was about me, or, at least, about the sort of person I am. About something I can't help, something I would never have chosen, in a million years. I could be a self-confessed axe murderer and attract less opproprium. Why couldn't I have been 'normal', part of them and their world? Why did it have to be boys?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B