This is a story of a young man looking for himself and his sexual identity, a teenager, confused by society; it’s moralities and demands of normality. A young man wanting to conform to the expectations of a religious background, but knowing he cannot. Wanting to be accepted by his family, friends and workmates, but knowing he has little chance of any. Caught between his righteous thoughts and his wanting to be who he really is, what God intended when he made him. Yes, he is one of God’s children, but the leaders of his church on earth do not accept one of God’s creations. Why? Because Man has decided God’s morality, God’s likes and dislikes, and have decided on His behalf who can be saved and who cannot, who can pray and who cannot, who can marry and who cannot. This is not God’s word but the words of Man written to their thoughts and their morality. Markus is 18 years old, a man in his own right, able to make his own decisions in life. He was brought up in a normal Australian family in Sydney in the outer suburbs of Campbelltown.

Campbelltown is a city in it’s own right, but the suburbs of Sydney now spread from the shores of Sydney harbor to the foot of the Blue Mountains and south to the Southern Highlands, North to Newcastle. As the largest city in Australia, it is a city to easy loose yourself in. Markus was not a well-educated man, barely able to pass the school certificate in year 10, so had left school and started work as an apprentice motor mechanic. He enjoyed the work and was with a local Holden dealer, another GMH company. His training at tech included having to pass years 11 and 12 so that he could understand and learn the more complicated electronics of being a mechanic in a modern dealership. He loved his job but also loved the diesel side of his trade, maybe more than the vehicle side. He worked close to home so did not need wheels of his own and relied on mates to go out on weekends, and normally walked to work, except on wet days when mum drove him in. She always made him cover the seats so any grease or fuel would not stain the covers on the families Landcruiser wagon from his overalls, even though he wore a clean pair every day.

Markus had been out with several girls during his high school days and since leaving school, but could not find pleasure in it. He was confused with his fathers’ goading and his mother’s constant reminders to have condoms in his pocket. Yet they both constantly lectured him on the sins of pre-marital sex. The family was Church of England, but his upbringing was more like that of a Catholic the way his parents acted. He knew this because his best friend Jason was Catholic. Markus had never had sex with a woman. He had not even come close, he felt awkward around women, felt inadequate and useless. Sex education in school had told him the basics, but not the intimate methods of how to woe a woman. It was this and the knowledge that he got off on pictures of men in overalls like himself that really confused him.

First kiss when you have had a heavy week working on cars and vans, Friday knockoff was a time to celebrate, and Markus usually went to the local hotel with his fellow workmates for a beer after work.