These Ghosts

An erotic essay about gay desire, homecoming, and Southern roots.

I’m Alexander Cheves, and this is LOVE, BEASTLY—a blog about sex, feelings, and manhood. It’s written mostly for men—gay, straight, bi, MSM, or just curious—but some readers are women, and some don’t fit into categories. Everyone’s welcome here.

This is one of my more personal essays—written only for subscribers.

Heads up: these can sometimes include explicit content or emotionally triggering subjects.

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I never had a strong Southern accent, but when I went to college, I still said the word ya'll, the most quintessential Deep South-ism. Southerners say it’s "you all" run together. Now, the word sounds bizarre to me, like something out of a Civil War movie set in the South, but my parents and sister still use it. I trained it out of my lexicon in my freshman year of college and have not said it since.

At university, my peers were from places like New York and California—the more impressive, progressive parts of America—and I wanted them to know I was not a redneck, not like the South they saw in those Civil War movies. Not a cowpoke, not dumb, and certainly not conservative. I did not grow up on a river, huntin' and fishin' and wearing deerskins.

This was partially a lie. I did grow up on a river, part of the Ogeechee River, and that river is such a part of my soul that it feels like my heart itself. I think I will always return, beleaguered and broken, to that river. No matter where I go in the world, I can close my eyes and hear it running over the rocks. It was runoff from the North Georgia mountains and was always very cold, even in summer. I grew up with kids who hunted and fished, and although I was not much like them, I understood them, and all my life I wanted them to understand me.

In college, I was in a similar situation, but the people I wanted to understand me did not hunt or fish. They were students from London and Hong Kong. They knew only caricatures of the Deep South, only Gone With the Wind. One day, a group of classmates sat on the steps outside my main academic building, and someone asked me if I had driven a car to high school or ridden a horse. When I realised he was sincerely asking this question—he was serious, not just teasing me—I felt ashamed.

I wanted art school kids to see the new version of me, my own creation. I mimicked how a guy named Sam talked. Sam was from California. Another friend, Brady, was from Ohio and had an "i" that sounded like "bite," sharp and crisp. I took these men's voices into mine.

Some gay men think it's good and noble to stay in the South. They think their presence in small towns will create art districts, coffee shops, and small liberal enclaves. The reality, I think, is a bit bleaker. They become florists whose unspoken sexuality is passed off as peculiarity. "He's creative," the church ladies say. These men become the gay couple on the edge of town, who have to lock their doors at night and act straight when needed. Eventually, they get tired and move to Atlanta or Savannah, someplace where they feel safer. When I left for school, I knew this would never be my story. I would run. I would abandon the farm and the river. I would be free.

My university was in Savannah, Georgia—a small town, isolated as many gay-friendly enclaves in the Deep South must be. But it was still the Deep South. For five years of school, I knew it was just a stepping stone, a stop on my way out. But what a stop! What a strange, haunted city.

The only gay bars in town were across the street from each other. They had good drag shows and cheap drinks. Even so, the entire queer student body knew they could not stay out too late, especially not on weekends when tourists flooded the downtown area. They knew not to walk near crowds of drunk tourists after dark—weekend visitors from Mississippi, Alabama, and North and South Carolina. The Savannah locals were mostly gay-friendly, it seemed, but the tourists were drunk white trash and were dangerous if you were a man out after dark wearing something feminine. Queer kids knew to travel in groups and, sometimes, to call the college security team to come pick them up from the bars. To be careful and, when necessary, to be closeted.

In my final year, something changed in me. Maybe it was homesickness, or something like homesickness. I missed the men I grew up with, the farmers and deer hunters. I started driving outside the city on weekends to meet guys in the country for sex. We fucked in barns and trailers. One of my favourite hookups, a gay couple, lived in the woods an hour outside of the city limits. When I drove up, I saw their muddy pickup trucks in the front yard.

After dinner, they took me to bed. One of the guys pulled my pants down. "I'm not ready," I said. "I haven't cleaned."

"We don't care."

He climbed on the bed, leaned against the headboard, and pulled off his pants and underwear. He had the biggest dick I had ever seen. "Go ahead," he said. I could barely fit it in my mouth. He pulled me close and said, "Sit on it."