The Hiding Place

By Wayne Mansfield

Like a million other young gay men, Bryan keeps his sexuality hidden because it's safer that way. Yet other guys know he's different -- they sense it, and make Bryan's life pure hell. At home, things aren't much better. He barely acknowledges his alcoholic father, and his mother has little time to spend with her family. So Bryan is alone, with no support, no shoulder to cry on.


Years of torture and torment, of name calling and humiliation, have taken their toll. Bryan does what he can to make new friends, but in trying to be something he's not, he makes a huge mistake. Unable to cope with the repercussions, Bryan spends more and more time in a fantasy world he has created for himself. In this private world he is handsome, an object of desire. He is loved.


Is the hiding place as perfect as it seems? Or will Bryan go too deep and not be able to come out again?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Apr 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781935753971

Wayne Mansfield

Wayne Mansfield is a Western Australian writer. He has been writing for nine years and has been published in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Additionally, he wrote a monthly erotic story for the German publications Macho and Dreamboys for two years. His novellas and stories usually have a horror, futuristic, or fantasy theme, although he does write contemporary stories such as The Hiding Place, which received Honorable Mention in the 2013 Rainbow Awards.

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The Hiding Place

By Wayne Mansfield

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2013 Wayne Mansfield

ISBN 9781935753971

Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

* * * *

The Hiding Place

By Wayne Mansfield

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Author’s Note

Chapter 1

The blast of the siren tore through conversations, momentarily drowned out the shouts and laughter of the school yard and sent students, moving at a reluctant pace, to their lockers. A small group of half a dozen final year boys continued playing ‘brandy,’ a game whereby a tennis ball is thrown as hard as possible at someone and if it hits them, they’re branded. In his haste to escape the path of the tennis ball, Darren, one of the more athletic boys, crashed into Bryan, a skinny, pimple-faced student, who was never included in their games. The impact sent Bryan crashing to the ground. Had it not been for the fact he shot his hand out to break the fall, the damage could have been much worse. As it was, the only injuries sustained were a bitten tongue, a throbbing knee, and a great deal of embarrassment.

Bryan picked himself up from the concrete walkway and gave his knee a quick rub.

Gee, are you okay? asked Sharon, who was not only one of the kindest girls he’d ever known, but who was also one of two school prefects. She was a little overweight and had wavy hair that seemed to Bryan to be untameable the way it curled this way and that, even within the confines of a ponytail, but she had a kind face. It was a face—porcelain white, blemish-free and perfectly proportioned—that he imagined an angel to have.

Bryan ran his tongue over his teeth, checking, and detecting nothing more than the metallic taste of blood, he nodded.

Are you sure? she asked, resting a hand on his back.

Bryan nodded again, keeping his eyes averted so he didn’t have to see the pity in her eyes. He could hear the boys laughing behind him and heard one of them say Well done, followed by what sounded like a high-five. He felt like sobbing. Not because of the sharp sting from the bite mark on his tongue and not because of the embarrassment of being knocked down in front of his peers, but because the boys enjoyed making his life hell and there was not a damned thing he could do about it.

He took a deep breath and felt Sharon remove her hand.

We’d better get to class, hey? she said.

He glanced up at her after she had left his side. Watching her arrive at her locker, smiling as she took out the books she would need for her afternoon classes, made him feel a little better. He couldn’t say why. It just did, though the feeling was only a fleeting one. He opened his locker and saw that during the lunch break someone had drawn a caricature of him, his face almost obliterated by spots, with a crudely drawn penis in his mouth. He reached out to rub it off with his fingers, but it was in permanent marker so he could forget about erasing it. He stared at it, feeling numb. His mind was empty of thought; the hurt and humiliation evaporated. He was the eye of a hurricane that boiled and spun around him.

The sting of a tennis ball being thrown at full force at his left buttock wrenched him back to the real world.

Idiot! snapped Kylie, one of the girls in his English class as she glared at the culprit.

When Bryan looked over his shoulder he saw Daniel, the best looking guy in the final year class, laughing riotously as Kylie showered his arms and back with slaps. He averted his eyes lest he draw any more attention from the boys. Strange, he thought, as he often had, how the girls scold the boys for bullying me and yet none of them actually do anything to help me. It was true. None of them, apart from Sharon, ever talked to him or interacted with him unless instructed to do so by a teacher, so it was perplexing why they should bother telling the boys off for torturing him.

Doing his best to ignore the various aches and pains acquired during the forty-five minute lunch break, Bryan sat down near the front of the class. The popular boys sat in the back row, directly behind the popular girls, and there were a few vacant seats in the middle rows, where Bryan sat. Only the ‘nerds’ sat at the front—the studious types who didn’t care about the high school hierarchy of popularity. Bryan sat where he felt the most comfortable, with two rows separating him from the popular students and one row separating him from the nerds. He was not at all sporty and his pimples obscured whatever looks he might have. Test scores showed he was only of average intelligence and he only put in an average amount of effort. He could hardly be considered bookish. Third row from the front was the perfect position for him.

Miss Stanovich was a new graduate. She had not yet learned how to control a class of bitchy girls wearing too much make up and of boys who were taller and broader than she was. She would certainly try and Bryan would watch in silence, trying to look as small and insignificant as possible because when Miss Stanovich began losing control she would pick on him. Why don’t you know the answer? How many times do I have to explain it? Were you paying attention at all when we went through this yesterday? And the boys would laugh because at that moment she was one of them, doing their job for them. The girls would be too busy swapping gossip and passing notes to care; only playing at paying attention for they had better things to do.

Everyone take their homework out, said Miss Stanovich, exhibiting her sternest expression.

Bryan opened his file and found the algebraic equations he’d muddled through the night before. He knew the answers were wrong. The only reason he’d even attempted the sums was to make it appear as though he’d made some effort to complete his homework. He just couldn’t seem to get his head around the concept of adding and subtracting numbers and letters of the alphabet. When would he ever need to do such a thing?

Come on, boys down the back. Where’s your homework? Miss Stanovich took a step forward.