The First Time Yuri and I Shared

Long Island, February 1998

Yuri knows the exact moment he came out: at 7:40 pm on December 5th, 1997, the night of the department Christmas party.  The night he found out why my nickname is Boomer.

We tried to date afterwards, but we were so used to being friends that it was awkward.  So we decided that Yuri should start exploring the gay world on his own.

"For my first date," he said, "My first real date, I want somebody special.  Big."

"What, I'm not big enough for you?"

He laughed and hit me on the shoulder.  "You know what I mean.  Super big!  In Russia we don't have a lot of chernokosnie -- black guys.  Have you been with them?"

"A few."

"How big are they?"

"Well, I can't speak for all black guys, but T, the thug wannabe I dated in West Hollywood, was a Mortadella+."

He grinned.  "Great!  We will go to Manhattan and find some chernokosnie.  Except  for my first time I'm a little...um...scared.  So for the sex, you will be there too, ok?"

I knew all the places to meet black men in Los Angeles, but in New York, I wasn't so sure.  I checked the Gayellow Pages and the Damron Guide, and came up empty except for the Mount Morris Baths in Harlem.

On Sunday afternoon we took the train into the City and checked it out.  But it looked rundown and sleazy, and Yuri didn't want to go in.  We spent the afternoon at the Museum of Natural History instead, and then went to a tea dance at Barracuda in Chelsea.

A sea of white faces.  I was beginning to suspect that Manhattan was as racially segregated as West Hollywood.

We were cruised extensively, but we came to Manhattan to meet a specific kind of guy, and that's what we were going to get.

"What about the Bondage Club you go to?" Yuri asked.  "Do they have black guys?"

"Occasionally.  Not a lot of black guys are into dominance and submission games."


"I saw a club in the Gayellow Pages.  Black and White Men Together?"

"No, that group is for guys already in an interracial relationship.  You won't find a boyfriend there."

We returned to Long Island and tried a search on gay.com.  Eventually we started instant messaging Ali, a grad student at Hofstra University, 25 years old, rather slim -- Yuri preferred older and muscular.  But he was black, and he spoke Russian!

Yuri typed furiously for awhile, and then told me "He always wanted to be with a Russian guy.  He thinks we are big down there."

"Well, you're not small.  Sounds like a date."

 "Sure, sure.  But don't forget, you will be there for the sex."

The next Saturday night I watched tv in Yuri's apartment while he met Ali at an Indian restaurant.  Afterwards they went to the Hercules Pavilion, which houses the figurehead from an old ship.  It was the only public beefcake on Long Island, a favored spot for a first kiss.

They returned to the apartment at 10:00.  Ali was a polite, soft-spoken young man who called me "sir" and shook my hand.

Did he think I was like Yuri's father, inspecting his son's date?

"We can do better than that," I said, drawing him into a kiss.

Soon all three of us were in the bedroom, kissing and groping and pulling our clothes off.  We fell down onto the bed with Ali in the middle.

He was only average beneath the belt, not even a Bratwurst.

I started to go down, but he pushed my head away.

"Sorry," I murmured.  "I guess that's Yuri's job."

I tried to push Yuri's head down, but Ali resisted again.

"It's not that," he said.  "I don't really like oral."

Yuri looked confused.  "No...down there?  I will turn over for you, then?"

"Not without a condom!" I reminded him.

"No anal either," Ali said.  "Sorry."

Now it was my turn to be confused.  "No oral, no anal. That's different.  What do you like?"

"This, mostly."  He started kissing and groping me.

Nothing else happened that night, except between me and Yuri.

Rather an inauspicious first date.

But not to worry, Yuri soon learned to negotiate gay chatrooms and started setting up his own dates. Black, white, big, small, he didn't care, as long as you were attractive and able to hold a decent conversation.

And willing to do things other than kiss.

See also: Yuri's First Boyfriend; Why My Nickname is Boomer