Guys who are young or newly out have usually been brainwashed -- I mean socialized -- into the heterosexual ideal of monotony - I mean monogamy. Rejecting all others, sharing your life, heart, and body with just one person til death. Which can't come soon enough.
So when I started dating 23-year old Troy in Upstate New York, he was not amenable to the idea of bringing in a third person to "share."
I pointed out that he went down on me and the Pitcher at the same time, and no one seemed to mind. (See The Satyr's Sinister Scheme.)
"That just happened. I didn't plan on it. But now we're together, and I should be enough for you."
"You're great, but there are a lot of cute guys out there. I want to experience as much masculine beauty as I can."
"What about marital fidelity?" he asked, repeating a buzz word from his childhood.
"That whole mythos was based upon economics. There was only way for a man to ensure that the children he was paying to raise were his own: forbid his wife from having sex with another man. Men don't get pregnant, so why not go for it? Seize the day!"
"Ok...but...I want to warm up first, get used to this whole idea of fooling around on the side."
No, that would be too weird.
Hooking up with a stranger?
A stranger in my apartment? Too risky!
How about a Sex Party? Twenty guys, no waiting.
No. Too many young guys. I'm only into older.
A bath house? There's one in Albany, and....
No.
There weren't a lot more options.
You know what I've always wanted to try? A glory hole. Where you're on one side of a wall, and he's on the other side.
You only see his penis -- he can be anybody you want.
A glory hole? I had tried them at bath houses. Uncomfortable, annoying, and a disembodied penis is not very erotic -- I like to see the guy I'm with, or at least feel him.
But ok. The only place I knew of with such facilities was a video store on the Rue Ste. Catherine in Montreal, so we drove up for the weekend, and ignored the bars, bath houses, and sex shops.
Although we did see the Bonsecours Market and Centre d'histoire de Montréal, which seemed to be rather too inclusive of local celebrities from the 1970s.
Troy wanted to try out the glory hole at 10:00 pm on Saturday night, when most of the gay residents and visitors were out on dates, or at the bars, bath houses, and sex shops.... who was left to go to an adult video store? Trolls, druggies, hustlers, closet cases...
We wanted into the brightly-lit front room, browsed among the gay videos and porn magazines, and then headed for the back, where there was a lounge area and two rows of small booths.
There were about a dozen guys standing or sitting in the lounge, waiting for someone attractive to show up. As I suspected, a rough crowd. A lot of rumpled clothes, unshaven faces, and sallow, haunted looks. Some guys were just trying to get out of the cold.
Definitely bottoms. They wanted to be on the receiving end. Troy wasn't going to get a lot of action tonight.
The booths were about the size of a telephone booth. You went in, sat down, deposited a loonie (a Canadian dollar coin), and got to watch 5 minutes of a porn movie. Another loonie, another 5 minutes. You could also deposit $5 for 30 minutes, or $10 for 60.
This could get expensive.
We opened the door to an unoccupied booth, and saw that it had two glory holes, connecting to the booths on either side. Both were deserted. "I'm a little nervous," Troy said softly. "What if the guy isn't my type? I only like older guys, with muscles and chest hair."
"That's the point of the glory holes," I said. "Disembodied cocks, no body type needed. But tell you what -- I'll wait a few minutes, then go into that booth." I gestured at the one on his left. "Then you can pretend you don't know who it is, so it will be like going down on a stranger."
He smiled. "Ok, let's try that for starters."
I left him alone. The door shut, and the "Occupied" light came on. I went back out to the entry area and scanned the video titles and got cruised by a scary-looking guy in a green trenchcoat. To discourage him, I went out to the front room and browsed among the sex toys.
Then I returned and went to the booth to the left of Troy. Scary guy followed, and went into the booth next to me. His mouth immediately appeared at his glory hole. I ignored him, unzipped, and squeezed through the glory hole into Troy's booth.
He ignored me.
I swayed a little bit.
He ignored me.
I pulled back in, knelt, and looked through the glory hole -- at the back of a guy's butt.
"Ahem!" I cleared my throat and pushed through again. I felt a hand giving me a desultory squeeze.
"Ahem!" I zipped up, went over to Troy's booth, and opened the door. He was on his knees in front of a beefy Bear, in his 40s, wearing a cowboy hat. Why hadn't I seen him in the lounge area?
"Occupé!" he growled.
"Enchanté!" Max grunted, obviously miffed at the coitus interruptus.
"You exchanged a lot of information through a glory hole!'
"He just opened the door to the booth, and we started talking. It's a lot better than a disembodied penis, isn't it?"
Max pulled Troy to his knees and zipped up. "Ta chum ne se souci pas?" Your boyfriend doesn't mind?
" Bien sûr que non! Il était son idée!" It was his idea! He enveloped Max in a long kiss. "Do you mind if Max comes back to the hotel with us?"
That was the end of Troy's insistence on monogamy, although he backslid a little when I made a teenage Friend with Benefits.
See also: Troy's Wild Ride in Hell-fer-Sartain and The Shy Boy at the Bathhouse.
