The Burn in Your Stomach

Summary: When Sam goes to see a movie with his older niece, he doesn't quite care about the plot. All he can think about is the pretty brunet actor, even though he feels like he shouldn't.

Date: June 2026

Quote: "The next morning, he threw the picture out on his way to school. But he knew that he wouldn’t even need it to repeat his actions from the previous night. Removing the physical evidence of his lust wouldn’t stop the monster in his stomach from lighting up again. After all, he had already memorized every bit of the man’s face."

May, 2010

Sam’s older niece was becoming a different person, a true student. Ever since she started vocational school, she began to walk around with an air of maturity during her visits to his home, as if she knew something that he didn’t, that perhaps even his parents didn’t know. And she had dyed her hair a bright pink.

Along with her maturity came her need to be around him more often. They saw each other at least once a month, but while he was growing up she never really paid him much attention. And then, suddenly, she began saying things like soon you’ll start vocational school as well, and then we won’t know how often we'll see each other, we’ll both be so busy! As if they weren’t three years away from that, as if she wouldn’t have already finished by the time that he would start. For one of her classes, she needed to write an essay about any movie that wasn’t for children, and she had decided that it would be the perfect opportunity for them to bond.

His mam had been excited, when Louise brought it up during a family dinner, and Louise’s mam had seemed glad as well. Even though both of them had often complained about how expensive cinemas were getting. On a Tuesday night, despite the fact that he would have to get up early the next day, his niece took him to the movies.

He hadn’t paid much attention to the plot of the movie, he mainly wanted to go home through most of it. The main character was a pretty brunet in his mid thirties going through a divorce, played by an actor Sam vaguely recognized from a poster he had once seen on Louise’s wall, years prior. The thing that made him finally pay attention was the reveal of the character’s affinity for both men and women. The movie was definitely more adult than his mother would have agreed to, if she had heard about it before buying his ticket. But the staff hadn’t cared much, since he was accompanied by Louise.

As he sat in one of the stiff seats, he did think that it was nice to be in the dark, surrounded by people he didn’t know, who he couldn’t even really see, watching the same thing as them. Some parts of the movie managed to amuse him, the jokes were clearly not written by some rich old man who wanted to sound younger. He liked that, whenever he allowed a chuckle to leave him, he could hear someone else near him laugh, too. In the cinema, he felt like he was a part of something purposeful, sharing a common goal with other people.

Near the end, the pretty actor went clubbing with his friend in an attempt to find him a new girlfriend. And then, suddenly, an even prettier blond man came by and slid his arm around the brunet’s waist, who seemed to melt into his touch without much thought. Oh, Sam thought, hearing Louise bite back a laugh beside him, oh.

❃ ❃ ❃

He stared at the picture of the brunet actor from the movie, which he had seen two weeks ago and hadn’t really thought about since. His ma had asked him if he could throw out the old magazines gathering dust in the television cabinet, the ones she bought weekly at the supermarket that repeated the same celebrity gossip and life tips for women over and over again. Out of curiosity, he had opened one, which might have been bought by his mother for Louise instead. And there it was: an advertisement from the cinema, placed months prior, before the movie had begun screening in cinemas.

The actor had a nice jaw, Sam realized, slightly rounded at the edges but still prominent enough to catch people’s eyes. And his nose was the perfect size for his face. Sam wondered if the actor had always looked like that, or if he had had to work for his attractiveness. He imagined a boy much like himself, very average, and couldn’t see that boy turning into such a man. Sam would have stared at that face for hours if he could, but he couldn’t. His ma was already calling the family for dinner from the kitchen, so he would have to hurry up if he wanted to avoid a scolding for taking too long.

Sam wasn’t sure what exactly compelled him to tear the whole page out of the magazine before shoving it into the cabinet, not wanting to throw it away entirely in case that it had indeed been bought with Louise in mind. The page was stuffed between his books in his schoolbag beside the TV, and the other magazines he bundled up into his arms.

“Need help with that?” his pa asked, stepping into the living room, holding a few empty plates.

“No, thanks, I’m just gonna throw them out now,” he mumbled, hoping that the man wouldn’t, for some reason, touch his schoolbag.

He stumbled out of the house and to the paper container outside. For the first time, he felt like he had done something undeniably wrong. His cheeks were hot with shame, and he wished that he had taken his bag with him, so he could have discreetly thrown out the picture of the actor immediately. It didn’t matter how pretty the man was, he was an actor, a male, and Sam shouldn’t have the urge to look at his face for hours on end in private.

For a moment, forgetting dinner, he stood by the container and allowed the wind to brush against his face, hoping that it would cool him down before he went inside. His bottom lip found its way between his teeth automatically, and he was not yet ready to wonder why he felt the need to look at the actor in the same way Louise often looked at male celebrities on the television. All he knew was that it was strange, wrong. Something inside of him seemed to match something inside of Louise, and some of the other girls from his school, and that was a problem he would have to fix.

When he finally returned back inside, his mother was scowling at the dinner table. “Asociaal,” she muttered, at just the right volume for him to hear it as he sat down.

“Sorry,” he murmured, nodding his head towards her and giving a silent thanks for the meal. At that, he saw her eyebrows knit together before they softened. During that split second, he thought of asking his mam if she could fix him. But it felt like his strange infatuation for the actor was something he would have to keep to himself for as long as possible.

❃ ❃ ❃

That night, with a great shame burning in his stomach, he ended up taking the picture of the actor out of his schoolbag and to bed with him. He slid underneath the blanket and gazed at the man’s soft jawline, imagining how the light stubble there would feel against his palm.

Perhaps the reason behind his admiration of the man was envy. His own self-hatred twisted into love for the sight of someone who looked so much better than him. But, had he ever been that insecure? He didn’t think so. Sometimes he looked at the other boys in his glass during gym and felt like a rope had been pulled tight across his chest at the sight of their knobby knees, scraped up from football games outside, and their blond hair the colour of sand. He didn’t look that much different from them, though, he had darker hair and was a tad thicker around the waist and thighs, but nobody had ever called him fat. Sam himself didn’t think he was fat, either, and the school doctor had never expressed concern during the occasional random weigh-ins they had to do. But still, it felt like there was something missing, either on the inside or the outside of him.

After a while, he laid the actor’s picture on the floor beside his bed and tightly closed his eyes. There it was, that feeling all over his body, that sudden realization of oh. When he sneaked a hand closer to his crotch, familiar guilt washed over him. He’d touched himself before, but never with someone in mind, especially not a man. Had he looked at the actor on purpose, knowing what it would do to him?

The next morning, he threw the picture out on his way to school. But he knew that he wouldn’t even need it to repeat his actions from the previous night. Removing the physical evidence of his lust wouldn’t stop the monster in his stomach from lighting up again. After all, he had already memorized every bit of the man’s face.