The first time was an accident. Well, it was if drunkenness mitigated the circumstances. When Kurt had dreamed of New York, he had dreamt big, in true Kurt Hummel fashion. He’d make it on Broadway.  He’s have his choice of boys - men, desiring him, wanting him, willing to romance him. He would live with Rachel for a few years before hitting the big time and moving on to bigger, better, shinier. Before moving on and leaving every last lingering piece of Ohio behind. He’d shake the dust of a small town from his clothes and just be.

Of course, it hadn’t worked out that way; not any part of his dreams. Sometimes, he was ok with that. He was ok with staying in Ohio if that meant being closer to his ailing father; he could wait a little longer for New York, because this was temporary. He could wait for bigger, for better, for shinier. But he couldn’t wait through this. The loneliness, the aching for something, anything, that would make him feel less solitary and unknowable.  Kurt had years of being untouchable, of feeling invisible and somehow less. He’d watched his friends, hell even his father, find love.  He’d spent years watching others take everything he wanted so badly for granted. 
 
Kurt saw his move to Columbus as an opportunity for change. It was a bigger city; statistically speaking there had to be a larger population of out gay boys. He simply could not be the only one.  So that first night, barely a week in the dorms, when Sarah had begged him to go out to the club with a group from their residence hall, he’d reluctantly agreed.  Kurt doubted he’d find his soul mate at some tacky bar that catered to the under 21’s that attended OSU.  But maybe if he was lucky, he’d meet someone who was interested in something. A kiss. A dance. His existence.
 
When Kurt realized that they were going to a gay night club, he’d almost balked on principal alone. He didn’t need to feel like some charity case, the hopelessly single token gay who needed a dozen tag alongs, ready to witness how pathetically dearth his romantic life was.
 
“Kurt, I swear,” Sarah held up her hands for emphasis, weaving a little as they made their way down the busy street. They’d pre-gamed back in her room, and while Kurt was feeling a little buzzed, Sarah was more than a touch past tipsy, “We aren’t going because of you.”
 
“No really,” The short blonde (Krista? Kristen? Kurt couldn’t remember) next to Sarah piped up, seeing the disbelieving look on his face, “Spiral is the best club for under 21’s here. Half the time they don’t card at the bar, and it’s just, like, totally crazy in there. You’ll see!”  Sarah tripped, and Kurt had to move fast to grab her arm and keep her from falling. Rolling his eyes theatrically, he linked arms with her, reluctantly agreeing to give the club a try. At the very least, he didn’t’ feel comfortable leaving Sarah alone in the state she was in.
 
Krista had been right- half the bartenders at Spiral didn’t bother to check for wristbands- so long as they took care to catch the right ones, they all got served.  The atmosphere in the club was unexpected; it was rowdy and crowded, darkly lit with strobes and other flashing lights that left Kurt more and more disoriented as he drank with his friends. The best part by far, for him, was the crowd. It might have been a gay club, but there were plenty of hetero couples there as well. And no one seemed to care. Everywhere he looked were men and women in various states of undress; dancing, touching, kissing in every combination he could think of. And no one said anything, there were no dirty looks, no pushes or slurs.
 
For the first hour he’s sat at a table and watched. Kurt waited patiently while the others came and went in waves, minding their drinks, laughing as they fumbled around the dance floor with strangers. There was a boy at a table two down from his; in the poor lighting it was hard to tell what he really looked like, but Kurt had an impression of curling hair and deep eyes; beautifully shaped lips.  Kurt jumped a little and looked away when the stranger looked over and met his eyes, cursing himself. Next to him, Sarah laughed.
 
“Kurt, it’s ok to look.” He laughed with her. He felt hollow; unsure and young. He downed the rest of his drink, wishing the night was over, that he was anywhere else. Kurt wondered how long it would take him to peel Lima off of him, to unstick years of learning that everything he did, that everything that he was, was dangerous- either a threat to other men, or threatening to his own safety.
 
By the time he’d made his way through his third drink, he felt lose enough to accept a request to dance, making shouted introductions over the thumping music.  As he was led to the dance floor, Kurt let himself look, surreptitiously. Braden was taller than he, not overly muscled but in good shape, with blonde hair that gave Kurt a nostalgic twinge; there was something faintly reminiscent of Sam Evans in this boy. 
 
Kurt tried to smile when Braden began to dance assertively, grabbing Kurt’s hips and pulling him in close. It was strange, another boy touching him so intimately. It felt wrong, defying instincts he’d built and layered over himself for years.  Kurt closed his eyes, willing himself to feel the alcohol in his pounding veins, wanting to feel more at ease and willing in this moment.  He managed alright, dancing with a false confidence he’d learned in his Glee club in high school; despite this false bravado he still didn’t  feel secure enough to meet Braden’s eyes as they moved together. When the song ended, Kurt made a hasty retreat to the bar, where he did a quick shot with Sarah and Tom before ordering another drink.
 
Thirty minutes later Kurt was back on the dance floor, flirtatious and loose, no longer bothering to ask for names. Everywhere he looked were more and more beautiful men. Tall and short, ripped and reed thin, sexy and beautiful and delicious and wanting to dance with him.  And he could, it was allowed. He could dance and flirt and look and no one came close to laying a violent hand on him.  The only looks he saw were those of attraction and interest; not some badly disguised fear that he might somehow pass on “the gay”. 
 
By the time Kurt found himself on the dance floor, mouth to mouth with a strange boy whose hair was too dark to be natural, Kurt was so drunk he wasn’t sure he remembered his own name.  He certainly couldn’t remember this boy’s name; this boy who was all dark eyes and easy hands and small thrilling bites along Kurt’s neck in a way that made him stumble and shudder. Kurt let himself spin into it, closing his eyes and riding this wave of acceptance and desire and desperate need, because yes. Yes someone was touching him, yesyesyes, someone wanted him, even if it was a tiny piece that had no name, even if it was nothing more than this instant, someone saw him and wanted.
 
So he didn’t say no. He didn’t think no, he didn’t do more than pause and then barrel forward into the unknown. Kurt didn’t let himself stop to think, just let himself be crowded into the tiny bathroom stall, eyes open, then closed, then open again as everything slowed down, infinitesimal seconds clicking, passing and washing over him like molasses as this strange boy took him in hand, then in mouth, then undid him.
 
There were many things he wouldn’t remember the next day- the name of the club, the song he’s been dancing too when he’d been kissed. He’d had his first real kiss, and when the pale morning broke, bleeding reds and yellows into his eyes and over his pale skin, hungover and exhausted, he wouldn’t remember how the kiss had come about, or what might have happened or even with whom.
 
 But losing his virginity in a dirty bathroom stall to a complete stranger; there wasn’t a moment of it that Kurt would ever forget. That he wouldn’t relive; ashamed and turned on and feeling dirty and thrilled and obscene.  Kurt would lie in bed every day for a week and recount the buzzing in his head in the flickering lights. The way it had felt, relief and fear and need when the other boy had slowly rolled a condom onto him; his embarrassment at not even realizing he should have a condom for this (but it made sense because oral sex was still sex and oh my god I had sex with a complete stranger).  Kurt would lay awake, counting off the moments in that bathroom with shame and pride, slowly stretching and filling into his long body, warming his muscles and remembering, remembering, remembering it all.
 
It was this feeling; this heady rush that thrilled and repulsed him, that somehow kept him coming back. The first time was an accident; he’d fallen into it without intention. But every time he went back after, every boy that came next- they were never accidents. There were moments in those lost nights when Kurt felt so free; to beautifully alive and queer and just so right, that he couldn’t stop.  For the first time, Kurt felt right; 18 years of being wrong took a while to undo, and for a while this seemed the best way. Like ripping a bandaid off, fast and sure, that was what Kurt wanted. To cleave the last vestiges of Lima from his skin, to skin himself and come out new and cleaned and whole.
 
After a while, he began to realize that what  he was really doing was dismantling himself. That it wasn’t just Lima being washed away, it was his self. He was stripping himself of some of the best parts, the parts that ached not just for acceptance and human touch, but for love.  The parts of himself that ached to love; to have someone to cherish and take care of and give himself too, a present to be held and taken and cared for.  More and more, he woke up with the sickly sweet taste of hangover coating his mouth, a lingering shame coating his skin, and his father’s words echoing deep in the spaces where he’d buried all the sweetest and most tender parts of who he was.  His father’s voice, pealing like a bell, resonant and vibrating through him. You matter Kurt.  And Kurt would roll over and throw up, trying to rid himself of the memory.
 
Kurt wouldn’t realize until much later, how lucky he’d been. How much he had needed, how empty and how much more alone he’d made himself by virtue of that need.  With every anonymous boy, every nameless moment in a bathroom, in an alleyway, stumbling into his dorm room, Kurt had thought he’d feel more. More full, more alive. He never believed in fate, or God, or karma; not in any sort of cosmic balancing or powers that would “look out” for him.  But, years later, he still managed to be blindly thankful, dumbstruck at the sheer luck, that on a night like any other, he would meet Blaine.  Because it was a night like every other; too much alcohol, the thrill of so many boys, so easy to come by, and then there had been one who wasn’t. A curly haired boy with serious eyes who’d shaken his head, solemn and smiling a little, when Kurt had tried to steer him toward the bathrooms. Who had smiled again, disarming and too sweet for this place, and had taken Kurt by the hand; taking Kurt in hand and changing his life.