Going to Bed with the Boy Next Door

Rock Island, November 1968.

 A Thursday, two days after my eighth birthday.  Mom isn't feeling well, so she's in bed already.  Dad made macaroni and cheese for dinner.  My brother and I are in our pajamas, watching The Flying Nun and reading books.

Suddenly Mom calls Dad into the bedroom.  He returns a few moments later.  "Boys, get your coats and shoes on.  You're going on a sleepover."

Cool!  They said I could start going on sleepovers when I turned eight, but I didn't think it would be so soon after. But why does Kenny get to go?   He's only six!   

"Who with?"  I ask.

"Mike from next door."

Mike?  But we aren't friends -- he's a year younger than me, in the second grade.  We only played together once last summer, when he talked me into running through a sprinkler with my clothes on, and got me in trouble.  

But -- a sleepover, like the big kids have!  "I'll go pack some clothes and toys."

"No, there's no time.  I'll bring you some clothes tomorrow.  Just put your coats and shoes on right over your pajamas.  And you can pick out one toy apiece to bring.  But hurry up."

Kenny and I run down the stairs to our basement room to get our shoes on, and then look for toys to bring.  My teddy bear (named Ted E. Bear) seems like an obvious choice, but I don't want to act like a little baby in front of Mike, so I choose a Tarzan action figure instead.

When we climb up the stairs again, Mike's Dad, Mr. Maartin, is standing in the living room.  "Ready to go, cowpokes?" he asks with a broad smile.

I smile back.  Mr. Maartin is tall and broad shouldered, with thick arms and a little tattoo of an anchor on his wrist.  He's way old, of course, almost 30, but sometimes old guys are nice to look at, too.  I wonder if I'll get a glimpse of his shame tonight, like with Cousin Joe last summer.

Dad helps us put our coats on over our pajamas, hands me a plastic bag with our toothbrushes and toothpaste in it, and gives us each a hug.

Mom comes out to say goodbye.  She has her coat on, and she is carrying a suitcase.

"Where is Mom going?" I ask.

Nobody answers.  Mr. Maartin takes our hands and leads us down the steps and across the fresh November snow to his house.  I see Mom and Dad walking across our back yard to the garage.

"Don't worry about a thing," he says as he opens the screen door.  "Your Mom will be fine.  This is all perfectly normal, the cycle of life."

My heart sinks.  Is she sick?  Is she going to the hospital?  Is she going to die?

I try to avoid thinking about my worries and enjoy my first sleepover.  It's not what I was expecting: no other boys except Mike.  Mr. and Mrs. Maartin right there all the time.  We watch Bewitched and That Girl and Dragnet, eat Jiffy Pop  Popcorn, read comic books, and play army men.  At 9:00, Mrs. Maartin brings us mugs of warm milk, and then sends us to brush our teeth.

9:00?  I thought you stayed up all night at a sleepover.       

Mr. Maartin stands at the bathroom door, already in his pajamas.  I see his broad pale chest with little hairs around his nipples, his thick biceps, his little belly.   "Ok, cowboys, which of you wants to bunk with Mike, and which wants to bunk with his old dad?"

"You!"  I exclaim.  Mike is cute, slim, brown-haired, blue-eyed, with small, hard biceps and an outtie belly button.  I like how his brown skin stands out against the white of his pajamas.  But -- Mr Maartin is big!  And I'll be able to see his shame!

"I want Mommy!" Kenny exclaims.

"She'll be fine, I promise," Mr. Maartin says.  He turns to me.  "Um...you know, pardner, if it's all the same to you, I think the little buckeroo might need a woman's touch tonight."  He takes Kenny by the hand and leads him down the hall.

Suddenly I realize that he meant him and Mrs. Maartin.  No way would I want to sleep with a lady!  All those disgusting powders and perfumes.  Besides, at church the preacher said boys should never sleep with girls unless they're married.

Mike smiles at me.  "Sometimes I snore, but all you have to do is shake me til I I wake up.  I don't care."

We climb into his single bed and wait for Mrs. Maartin to say goodnight and turn the light off.

The bed is very narrow.  I accidentally push my leg against Mike's thigh.

"Hey, stay on your own side!" he murmurs.

This isn't fair!  You get stuck with the second-best bed, far away from Mr. Maartin and his shame, and you can't even be comfortable!

"I don't got cooties!", I say, wrapping my leg over his leg and my arm over his thin chest.

I've never held a boy like this before -- it's amazing, warm, hard, intimate.  I flush with unexpected joy.

Instead of shrugging me off, Mike turns over onto his side.  My arm is around his chest, and my other arm slides against his butt.  After a few minutes, he begins to snore.  I kiss his shoulder.

I don't want to fall asleep, to miss even a moment of this joy.  I want to lie like this, with Mike in my arms, tonight and tomorrow night, and every night, for the rest of my life.

I never had another sleepover with Mike -- he was a year younger than me, an impassible age gap.  But in the next weeks, and months, and years, and decades, I had lots of sleepovers with lots of other boys and men.  Holding a boyfriend in your arms all night is way better than a sausage sighting.

By the way, as you probably guessed, Mom was having a baby.  In the 1960s adults never discussed such things with kids, so I was oblivious until Dad called the next morning to announce that I had a baby sister.

See also: I Get a Glimpse of Cousin Joe's Shame; My Third Grade Boyfriend; A Crush on the Girl Next Door's Boyfriend.

My 10 Best, 10 Worst, and 10 Most Erotic Summers

I hate the summertime.  It's hot, boring, isolated, and depressing, with the sun staying up until an ungodly late hour and people always trying to force you to play outside.  7 weeks left (groan!).

So I thought it would be fun to compile my 10 Best, Worst, and Most Erotic Summers (since moving to West Hollywood in 1985).

Summer will count as the months between the end of spring semester and the beginning of fall, except for the years when I wasn't in school or teaching (then it's June, July, and August).

The 10 Best

1. 1988:  No travel except for a week back in Rock Island, where I hook up with my old grade school teacher.  In West Hollywood, a busy round of parties, barbecues, concerts, book signings, trips to museums, being double-teamed by always-effervescent Fred and Alan.

2. 1990: Looking for penises in Poland and moving in with Lane -- my first live-in boyfriend (not counting 3 weeks with Fred in college).

3. 1991: My first Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam circuit, plus moving to Nashville to start a great new career (ok, a great new semester).

4. 1992: Back to Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam, plus a new job working with juvenile delinquents.  Three summers in a row!  I must have been doing something right.  

5. 1999: Anytime you spend a summer in Paris, it's the best summer of your life.  

6. 2000: Back to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam, plus South Africa.  And, back home, Liam gave me a present for his 18th birthday.

7, 2007: My visit to Yuri and his boyfriend Michael in London, plus meeting the French Moroccan on my Sausage List.

8. 2009: Yuri visits me, and we go back to Manhattan.  Plus I'm picked up by a boy and his dog while jogging, and I start dating Troy, my boyfriend for the next five years.

9. 2014: Busiest summer in years.  Visits from Yuri and Eli (from Amsterdam), visits to Indianapolis and San Francisco, and a Pow Wow Hookup.

10. 2015: Another amazing summer.  Visiting Yuri in London, a bath house adventure in Paris, plus the Indianapolis-Cleveland-New York jaunt.

6 of my top 10 summers involved visiting Paris and 5 involved visiting or getting visited by Yuri.  I know what I'm going to do in August.

The 10 Worst

1986: It sounds good on paper, with trips to Australia and Japan, a lot of hookups, and meeting a celebrity at Mugi, but actually it was uncomfortable being a houseguest in a foreign country for an extended period.

1989: I am just starting to date Lane, which is nice, but this is the summer when I give up my doctoral plans with all but the dissertation finished, and go to work for the horrible Getty Consternation Institute.

1996: We are living in San Francisco.  Lane decides to move back to L.A., leaving me scrounging to find a new place with very little money.

1997: I fly crosscountry to New York, leaving my friends, most of my stuff, and San Francisco behind, to move into graduate student housing at a dreary college on Long Island, with three straight roommates and the nearest gay neighborhood two hours away.

2002: I start dating Wade the Beachboy, but back in Indianapolis, Dad asks me about "pretty girls."  Plus I go to a terrible conference in Brisbane, Australia.

2005: I've just left all of my friends in Florida behind to teach at-risk teenagers in Slovakia.  I get to visit Germany, Hungary, Austria, and the Czech Republic, but still -- it's Slovakia.

2008: My move to Upstate New York, five hours from the nearest gay neighborhood.  My exile into the Straight World begins.

2011: Dull, dull, dull!  Monotony broken only by a Cleveland-Indianapolis jaunt.

2012: More of the same, plus I leave Troy Upstate for my terrible year in Philadelphia begins.

2013: More of the same, plus I move cross country to the Plains.  At least I get to spend a week in San Francisco visiting David.

7 of my 10 worst years involve ending -- giving up on grad school, moving to a new city, breaking up with boyfriends.  Almost everything bad that has ever happened in my life has happened in June, July, or August.

The 10 Most Erotic

1987: Alan and I meeting guys in a bathhouse in Tijuana, public sex at a conference at Notre Dame, and a Date from Hell at Mugi, "Mr. Muscle Doctor Big Basket."

1993: Visiting Alan in Norfolk, Virginia, and having him fix me up with Tarik.  It almost made being stranded on the Island of Dogs earlier in the summer worthwhile.

1994: Visiting Spain, where Lane and I hooked up with a Chinese Catalan guy and his roommate.

1995: The Great Redneck Roundup of 1995: Lane and I hook up with 20 guys in 20 days.  Plus we moved to San Francisco.  A fitting end to three erotic summers in a row.

1998: Trip to Estonia, Finland, and Russia with Jaan and Yuri, plus cruising at a conference in Montreal and discovering the Truth about the Formosan Penis.

2001: Moving to Florida, a memorable encounter with the Amish Boy in Red Bikini Briefs, plus getting into the hectic Wilton Manors nightlife.

2003: Hookups, dated, and sharing.  Janik, the Frisian Bodybuilder at the Horseman's Club, invites me to stay.  I share Yuri's boyfriend.  David and I pick up a teenage hitchiker in Key West.   I date the son of my old high school speech teacher.  I'm surprised I had the energy!

2004: Visiting Larry in New Mexico, cruising in Tucumcari and in the Navajo Nation, plus, back home in Florida, Jaan came to visit.

2006: Doc and I search of sex and languages in Durban, South Africa!

2010: Troy moves in with me.  We don't leave the apartment for two days.

Only three of my most erotic summers have involved travel to Europe (hear that, Paris?), but eight involve visiting friends or traveling with a friend.  Apparently it takes the combined cruising efforts of two or more guys to make a summer erotic.

See also: My Best, Worst, and Most Erotic Christmases

Will and Scott Have a Wild Night with Keanu Reeves

When I met Will the Bondage Boy in November 1987, he was the picture of a Silverlake leatherman.

He was in his 30s, short and compact, bearded, with a muscular, hairy chest and a little belly.

He worked as a bartender at the L.A. Eagle, he wore chaps, boots, and a leather jacket almost everywhere, and he had a fully equipped dungeon in his basement.

Will wasn't averse to going down on guys, especially if they were big beneath the belt, but he preferred S&M.  He was into intricate, complicated scenes with dialogue and plots, like "prisoner of war" or "interrogated spy."

I naturally assumed that he had been into leather as long as he had been out.  But no: not too long ago, he was a West Hollywood twink, with a closet full of polo shorts and cargo pants, Duran Duran on his car stereo, and no bondage experience except for a few vague fantasies.

He claimed that his awakening came in the summer of 1986, during a wild night with film star Keanu Reeves.

West Hollywood, July 1986

Although Will and I were both living in West Hollywood during 1985-86, our paths never crossed, that I know of.  I was into the Metropolitan Community Church, Asian guys, and Muscle and Fitness.  He was into musical theater, fashion, and...well, dancing.

He and his best friend, Scott, were at the Rage, the twink dance club, with occasional forays to Mickey's and Studio One, four or five times per week, every week, month after month, year after year, dancing and cruising, dancing and cruising.

"It was like we were killing time, just waiting around for our life to begin," Will says.

One night in July, a couple of weeks after Gay Pride, Will and Scott were in the Rage, as usual, when Scott started cruising a Cute Young Thing: tall, thick black hair, sharp features, a soft, smooth chest, and an enormous basket.

His name was Keanu, which he said meant Breeze over the Mountains in Hawaiian.  His parents were native Hawaiian and British, but he grew up in Canada.  He just moved to L.A. a few months ago.  He was living with his stepfather and trying to make it as an actor.

After they danced and fondled for awhile, Keanu said "Let's get out of here!"

Scott blanched -- "tricking," bringing someone home after just meeting, was taboo in West Hollywood.  Besides, you didn't abandon a friend in the middle of the evening.

"Oh, I don't mean anything like that," Keanu said.  "I meant let's go have some fun.  Both of you, of course."

Wondering what could be more fun than dancing at the Rage, they followed him out of the club and got into his battered Volvo.

"You got into a car with a guy you didn't know?" I ask, shocked.

"Well, there were two of us and one of him, so we thought it would be safe.  Besides, Scott was really into him."

They drove all the way through Beverly Hills, Century City, and Santa Monica to the Pier, where they got out and walked along the beach.

Gay men in West Hollywood simply didn't go to the beach, so it was quite an adventure walking on the sand, Scott and Keanu holding hands and kissing.  Will, feeling left out and a bit jealous, pushed himself into the group and kissed and fondled them both.  Soon he was going down on them.  Scott had a Kielbasa+, and Keanu had an uncut Mortadella.

After a few minutes, Keanu pulled him to his feet, zipped up, and said "This guy can't wait, can he?  We'd better cool him off, or he'll never last the night."

They climbed back into the car and drove into Beverly Hills.  Keanu parked in a back alley off Rexford Drive.

"Is this where you live?" Will asked.

"No, I live three doors down.  But this house has something my stepdad doesn't.  A pool."

"Wait," I protest.  "You were just on the beach.  Why didn't..."

"What can I say?  It was a wild night."

Before they could question, Keanu was taking his clothes off, leaping over the fence, and diving headfirst into a stranger's pool.

Scott eagerly followed.  Will followed, too, reluctantly.

"What if the people inside hear us?  We'll be arrested -- and you know what that means."

 In 1986, the LAPD was notoriously homophobic.  They would be laughed at, called names, lectured on the book of Leviticus, and probably assaulted.

"Spoilsport!" Keanu exclaimed, splashing him.   "I know these people -- well, I've seen them, anyway.  From a car as we drove past."  He got on his knees and tried to go down on Scott underwater.

Will pulled him to his feet.  "Are you crazy!  Now it's not just indecent exposure and trespassing, it's lascivious behavior -- a felony!"

Keanu tried to grab Scott's penis, but Will pushed him away.

"Sounds like somebody needs some discipline," he said.  "You ever been spanked, boy?"

It was oddly exciting to be called "boy" by a Cute Young Thing barely out of his teens, and the prospect of a spanking...maybe it could be a teacher-student thing, like in his high school fantasies...besides, anything to get them out of the pool!

So they stopped at Laurel Hardware for some clothesline and clothes pins -- rather a popular purchase at 2:00 am -- then returned to Will's apartment in West Hollywood.   Will stripped to his underwear, and Keanu tied him to a chair with his hands behind his back.

He was gagged, fondled, whipped lightly with a belt.  Clothespins were attached to his nipples.

Then Keanu said "We've been lovers for ten years.  You never knew that I've been seeing other guys on the side.  One day you come home unexpectedly to find me with my boyfriend.  We tie you up, make fun of your tiny penis, and force you to watch."  He led Scott to the bed and kissed him passionately, then moved him into the 69 position.

Will was already a little jealous, and he found himself getting into the role easily, struggling against the ropes, yelling into the gag, feeling real anger and betrayal -- and becoming tremendously aroused.

They took their time, making the act as slow and romantic as they could, which aroused Will even more.  He really believed that he was watching his long-term lover cheating on him!  Keanu looked over a couple of times and smugly fondled Scott's Kielbasa.

When Keanu finished, he lay there for a moment, then came over to Will,  took off the gag, and untied him.  Will pulled him into a long kiss.

"Did you like that?" Scott asked anxiously.  "Or was it a little too weird for you?"

Will stood,  still sticking straight out, and made his way shakily to the bed.  He grinned. "Are you going to punish me for being late to class, Teacher?"

They never saw Keanu again, but the next Saturday night Will was standing at the entrance of the L.A. Eagle, wearing chaps and a leather vest.

Were Will and Scott telling the truth?

1. Guys often have a second "coming out" into the leather scene, but Will's transition from vanilla sex only to complicated role-playing bondage games seems a little abrupt.

2. They got some biographical details wrong: Keanu was born in Lebanon, not Canada, and in the summer of 1986 he was already established as an actor. 

3. But he did drive a battered 1969 Volvo, and he was living in Beverly Hills with his former stepfather, director Paul Aaron.

4. Keanu apparently has a rather small penis, not a Mortadella.  But that might just be the convention of West Hollywood storytelling, where everyone is enormous.

5. In 2014 a female intruder went skinny dipping in Keanu's pool.  He called the police and had her arrested.  He never mentioned any similar acts in his youth.

6. There's no evidence that Keanu Reeves is gay.  Although he is unmarried, he has been linked with several women over the years, including Winona Ryder, Cameron Diaz, Parker Posey, and most recently trans actress Jamie Clayton.  He is a strong gay ally, so surely if he was gay or bi, he would have outed himself by now.

See also: West Hollywood Stories of Celebrity Dates; Will the Bondage Boy with the Sweeney Todd Fetish.

My Third Grade Boyfriend

Rock Island, July 1968

When I was 7 1/2 years old, we moved from a nice house in Wisconsin, a block from the beach, to a gross house in Ill-An-Noise, in back of the grade school. Yuck!

This new world was stupid and boring, but I was determined to make the best of it.  The first thing I needed was a boyfriend.  Somebody to show me around, introduce me to other kids, point out the places to get necessities (like cookies and comic books), and the places to avoid (with mean dogs, mean boys, crazy ladies, and escaped killers).

He should be a boy, of course, around my age, and preferably both nice and cute.

In August, when school started, there would be a whole roomful of boys choose from, but that was over a month away, an eternity for a 7 1/2 year old!  I needed somebody now!

Fortunately, 1968 was the heart of the Baby Boom, the biggest generation in history.  There were 77 million kids growing up in the U.S., some in nearly every house on every street in the country.  It didn't take long to compile a list of prospects who lived within a couple of blocks.

Bill, who became my boyfriend in February, wasn't on the list -- I think he was away on vacation at the time.  Joel and Greg, who would become close friends later on, lived three blocks away, too far.

But there were a lot of boys left. You have to figure out who I chose:

1. The Little Kid, aka Mike (top photo), who lived next door.  He was a year younger than me, but he had muscles and a brown smiling face.  We ran under the sprinkler in his front yard, clothes and all, which soaked my shirt and pants and got me in trouble.

2. The Cereal Boy, a cute redhead with freckles, a year older than me (left).  He invited me to watch Saturday morning cartoons and eat cereal -- but it was Froot Loops!  I hate Froot Loops!

3. The Football Player, aka Mean Dave, who punched me in the stomach and called me a "girl," then helped me to my feet and said "I was just kidding.  You want to go to the high school and watch the football players practicing?"  They didn't have football at Denkmann, but he was playing on a summer enrichment team, and he wanted to be a football player when he grew up.

4.  The Parakeet Boy, aka Nice Dave (left), a curly-haired blond boy who had two dogs, a rabbit, a parakeet, and a hamster.  He talked to the parakeet, and made it eat a cracker out of his mouth, which I found gross.  But I liked petting the dogs and the rabbit.

5. The Old Guy, much taller than me, with all kinds of muscles.  But he was eleven -- almost a teenager!  Way too old for me, sort of like a West Hollywood twink dating someone in his 70s.  And he said crazy things, like he already knew how to drive a car and he could stay up until midnight if he wanted.  He had tons of toys in his room, plus a sticker labeled "panic button"; he said if he pushed that, sirens would go off and the whole house would shake.

I tried.  Nothing happened.  He said "It only works for me."

6. The Sick Kid (left), pale, kind of ugly, always looked like he was pain, but he had a round plastic pool in his back yard, and his Mom brought us lemonade in plastic glasses with little palm tree straws.

7. The Angel, aka David Angel (there were a lot of Davids in the neighborhood): puppy-dog cute, but  painfully shy.  When I try to talk to him, he ran to the back of the house.  When I went to the back of the house, he ran to the front.

8. The Rock Star, aka Craig (left), who wanted to be a rock musician.  He had weird hippie hair that turned me off, but he never wore a shirt, which was nice. We went into his basement and played rock stars with his drums and guitar.

9. The Indian, aka Bobby,  a year younger than me, short and slim with black hair and a bright smile.  He wasn't really from India, but he looked like Raji, the boy on Maya.   But it was hard to get close to him, since he lived on the other side of the house where the Killer lived, a crazy-evil blond boy who attacked anyone who came nearby.

Ok, which of these 9 hot guys did I choose to become my summertime boyfriend?

Answer after the break.

The Search for a Roommate Leads to 3 Hookups and 2 Dates

Germantown, Pennsylvania, September 2012

When I got a temporary one-year position at a small college in a distant suburb of Philadelphia, I was ecstatic.  Finally I could move back to a gay neighborhood.

It didn't take long to realize that the commute was going to be a problem: a five block walk to the metro station, wait for the train, take it to the downtown station, wait again, transfer to a new train, sit for 45 minutes, walk to campus, an hour and a half each way 4 days per week.

Maybe I could relieve some of the pressure by finding someone in town to stay with now.

Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of gay men on the small, conservative campus at least not many open enough to find and amiable enough to make friends with.

1. Horst.  The academic advisor of the gay student organization, a bisexual woman, introduced me to the only out professor on campus, a musician named Horst: in his 30s, tall, thin, elegantly dressed.

We met at small, elegant bistro near the campus, where he got on my bad side right away by waiting until I ordered the fajita platter, then ordering just a small bowl of mushroom soup -- "You don't need to eat much for lunch, just a little soup or a salad."

He was a graduate of Brown University, originally from Germany, where they still believed in culture.  Americans -- all idiots!  Is there anything more hideous than rap?  And American students, with their mindless pursuit of video games and graphic novels! A generation of morons!

I hate elitists.

Next!

At least I got a date out of the deal. Horst had an uncut Kielbasa+, very thick. I didn't even mind his habit of yelling out orders "Faster!  Slower!  Take your time!  Take it all the way down your throat!"


2.  Jimmy. Horst gave me the number of his ex-boyfriend, Jimmy, who worked in the Admissions Office: in his 30s, rather buffed, with thinning brown hair and very big hands.

Jimmy insisted that we meet in a park by the river: "It will be getting cold soon, so we have to squeeze in all of the outdoor time we can, right?"

We walked through the park, over the bridge, and through the park on the other side, while he talked about his garden: "I got some asters and Russian sage coming up, and I still have to do some weeding and hedging.  The helenium is looking good."

"So, do you own your own house?" I asked.

"Well, it's actually my great-grandmother's house.  My mother is renting it to me and a straight couple."

I stared.  He shared his house with a straight couple?

Next!

But at least I got a hookup out of the deal.  Jimmy was average beneath the belt, but very passionate, into kissing and oral.  We laughed over Edgar shouting out orders.

October

3. Rory. I couldn't stay with a student, could I?

Jimmy gave me the number of his ex-boyfriend, Rory, a senior majoring in modern languages.

We met at the YMCA near the campus, where many students and faculty worked out, and shared a desultory game of handball.  Rory had a round, handsome face, a slim swimmer's build, and, from what I could peek at in the shower, a Bratwurst+ beneath the belt.

He was impressed by the fact that I was a Modern Languages Major as an undergrad, that I had lived in Turkey and France, and that my boyfriend Troy was a French major.

But: "I live with my parents and little brother.  They know that I'm gay, but we don't talk about it.  I've never brought guys home when they're not around, but I've never introduced them to a boyfriend."

Next!

At least I got a hookup out of the deal.  Like many 22-year olds, Rory was constantly aroused, before, during, and after the bedroom activity.  He was strictly oral passive, going down on me while murmuring "Take me, Daddy!"

4. Hamid.  I hate, hate, hate the question "Do you have any big plans for the weekend?"  It always makes me feel guilty.  Am I the only person in the world who doesn't spend the weekend riding dirt bikes on the beach and then singing around a campfire with 20 of my closest friends?

So when the Middle Eastern guy at the Barnes and Noble near the campus asked, I got sarcastic: "Sure, I'm jetting down to Cancun to go hang gliding with Tom Cruise."

"That sounds like fun," he said, oblivious.  "I'm going to the Beer Fest in King of Prussia."

"You drink beer?" I asked in surprise.

He grinned.  "I do a lot of things."

Hamid was a recent graduate of Temple University with a major in theater arts, a practicing Muslim, but he ate pork and drank beer.  He had a trim physique, with a smooth tight chest, thick biceps, and a thick Bratwurst.  He was mostly into anal, but open to suggestions.

Oh, and he was living with his sister and her husband, who didn't know he was gay.

Next!

But at least I got a date out of the deal.

November

5. Sprag.  Maybe I was going about this wrong.  Maybe I could actually rent a room from a gay guy two nights a week.   It would be a little pricey, but it would save me from a long commute.

I answered an ad for someone to stay during the spring semester, a room with kitchen privileges for $300 per month.

His answering message was very long and annoying, ending with "and the little bird said 'beep'," and he was never home, so it took about two weeks to get ahold of him.

His name was Sprag.  He was about 40, very pale,very muscular,  with dark eyes, red lips, and a short beard.

While I was interviewing, he played loud music constantly -- an immediate turnoff.

"My boyfriend stays over several nights a week," Sprag said.  "And sometimes I hook up.  I hope that's not a problem."

"No, not at all," I said with a grin.  "I have no problem with hookups, especially if you're into sharing.

"And sometimes I have girls over, too,  I'm like 90% gay, but you know, sometimes I'm in the mood for p____."

Next!

At least I got a hookup out of the deal.  Sprag had firm, pale chest, a shaved crotch, and an enormous cut Kielbasa.  He wouldn't kiss, but he was into both giving and receiving oral.

By this time, there were only a few months left, so I decided to ride it out.  I never found a guy to stay with, but it was a lot of fun looking.

See also: My Date with the Nastiest Guy in the World

Tracking Down the Greek Boy of Mykonos

My friend Doc just returned from a holiday on Mykonos, the Greek island five hours from Athens by boat (or a direct flight from London, Paris, Brussels, and Vienna).   He invited me but I refused.  I've already done enough traveling this year, and besides, I don't like gay resorts.

1. They're beaches, with no museums or art galleries for miles around, and nothing to do but get sunburned and incredibly bored.
2. There's an awful lot of booze and drugs floating by.
3. They're packed with white upper-class elitists.  I can get those at home.

But it did give me the idea of tracking down the Greek boy of Mykonos.

When I was a kid, I loved the "My Village" books by Sonia and Tim Gidal, photo-stories about real 10-12 year old boys living in traditional villages in Japan, Israel, Denmark, Morocco, Finland, and so on.  Although they were published during the 1950s and 1960s, the modern world had very little impact on the villages: the house might have electricity, but automobiles were rare, and there were certainly no tv sets, fast-food restaurants, or tourists.

The stories were told in the first person, present tense ("I get up and..."), with very minimal plots, mostly involving going to school, learning a little of the country's history, meeting colorful villagers, and taking a trip to a nearby big city.  But since the boys were all extraordinarily cute and not the least interested in girls, I found them kindred spirits, hints of gay potential amid the incessant "what girl do you like?" interrogations of my childhood.

My Village in Greece, published in 1960, starred a boy named Yannis, who lives on the island of Mykonos, in the Aegean Sea.  His story involves going to school, catching octopuses on the beach, buddy bonding with his friend Markos, learning about Odysseus and Theseus, picking figs, and visiting the Island of Delos.

Yannis and Markos are inseparable, and neither mentions having a girlfriend!  A gay paradise!  There's even a statue of Hercules in the museum by the harbor.

When I read the book as a kid, I didn't realize that the Gidals were manipulating us into thinking that Mykonos was tiny, isolated, and untouched by the modern world.

Yannis mentions that there are nine coffee houses in town, an archaeological museum, and 350 families.  That's a total population of 2,000, a small town, not a village.  But even a town of 2,000 doesn't need nine coffee houses, unless there are a lot of visitors.

It turns out that in the late 1950s, Mykonos was already a thriving tourist destination, a playground of the rich and famous.  During the 1960s and 1970s, tourism boomed; annual arrivals increased by 800%.  Mykonos became more famous for its trendy nightclubs than for its whitewashed houses and narrow cobbled streets.

In the early 1970s, Italian artist Piero Aversa settled there and opened the island's first gay bar. By the late 1970s, it was a gay mecca.

Yannis and Markos, iconic figures of my childhood, emblems of gay potential, grew up in a gay mecca.

Could I track them down, find out if they were gay?

There are actually 10 villages on Mykonos, but the only one with 2000 people, an archaeological museum, and views of the islands of Tinos and Siros from the harbor, is the main city, called Mykonos City or Chora.

And the Gidals give the full names: Yannis Nikou and Markos Constantinou, as well as names of other people in the village.

Surely they were pseudonyms?

No -- an internet search revealed five entries for Yannis Nikou from Mykonos, under various spellings.  In 1973, the society page of the San Mateo, California Times announces the engagement of one Jill Carson to Yannis, described as a "merchant and exporter."  He would be about 24 years old.

Other newspaper articles describe their wedding and their move back to Mykonos.

There's also a reference to his export business.  It specialized in women's clothing.

Jill lives alone in San Mateo now.  I don't know if she's widowed or divorced.

Ok, Yannis was probably heterosexual, but what about Markos?

Several of those -- it's a common name in Greece.

One Markos from Mykonos currently lives in Luxembourg.  He was in the Greek Air Force from 1970 to 1973, got certified in aircraft maintenance, and now works for an aircraft company.

I'm going to guess heterosexual.

But another is probably gay.  At least he works at the Elysium Hotel -- expensive ($400 per night), predominantly gay but "straight-friendly."

And it's a 10-minute walk from "Marco's house" on the map on the flyleaf of My Village in Greece.

I'm not sure that he's the Markos from the book.  He might be a son or grandson or some other relative, or someone not related at all.

But it's nice to imagine that one of the iconic books of my childhood features a straight boy and his gay best friend.

See also: The Gay Villages of Sonia and Tim Gidal

10 Unique Photos

I've been saving these pictures for a long time, but they're too unique to use as story illustrations, so I'm just going to post them without stories.

1. I like the background.  Is that a mosaic on his bedroom wall?
2. His right arm is far more developed than his left.  A bad job of photoshopping?

3. I like the coul sunglasses and straw hat, but his penis is a little small.
4. I think this is an action figure, not a real person.

5. Why would you clean up after a circus while naked?
6  He looks like my grad school friend Viju.

7. That size difference doesn't look right.  They aren't actually in the same shower.
8. He's not really naked.

9. I like the frizzy blond hair and the 8-pack abs.
10. Did he light his pants on fire on purpose?

The "Late for Class" Dream and Oral Sex 101

I have a recurring dream where I'm late for class, but I can't find the classroom.  I run across an unfamiliar campus, try to find a recognizable landmark, rush down the corridors of random buildings, becoming more and more anxious.

I was just there yesterday!  Why does everything look so strange?  I've never seen that coffee kiosk before -- maybe I took a wrong turn, and I'm in the Science Building?  Maybe if I go through this door -- no, it's an art studio....

The clock is ticking.  Class should have started by now. I'm late!

Sometimes I rushed out of the house without getting dressed, so I'm running across the campus naked.

Or I have to push my way through absurdly crowded hallways as the clock ticks and I start to panic.

Or it's the near end of the semester.  Suddenly I realize that I've forgotten to go to the class for the last month!  I run out of my office and down the hallway, but I can't find my way...

 Or I can't find my lecture notes or powerpoint slides, and I've never taught this subject before....

It's always the same class, "Drugs and Alcohol in American Society," which I've taught several times without incident.

"School anxiety," about being late for class or unprepared for a test, is the third most common type of dream, appearing in 73% of research respondents in a University of Montreal study.  The overlapping "late anxiety" is the fifth most common type.

Many people think that these dreams are related to real-life anxieties, but the images are too similar, appearing across countless life situations.  Scientists think that they're probably related to the brain trying to make a coherent narrative out of the neurological changes during REM sleep, and falling back on memories of adolescence, in my case transferred to my job.

Whatever these "late for class" dreams may signify, they're annoying.  Afterwards I have a vague sense of anxiety that lasts through the day.

When I told my friend Gabe about the dreams, he suggested "lucid dreaming," a technique that allows you to orchestrate what goes on in your dreams by rehearsing them in advance.

Before going to sleep, you visualize the dream as you recall it, but make whatever changes you want.  Imagine that the hallways are familiar, for instance, or that you're going somewhere pleasant.

Last night I gave it a try.  I visualized that was walking across the dark, warm, comfortable campus of a clothing-optional college, on my way to teach Oral Sex 101: Oral Sex for Gay and Bi Men.

It was fun making up the syllabus:

1. The physiology and psychology of oral sex.
2. The history of oral sex from the Ancient World to the present.
3. The oral sodomy laws and the limits of jurisprudence.
4. The philology of slang terms.
5. Oral sex in literature, art, and film.
6. The sociological importance of oral sex in contemporary gay communities.
7. Roles and positions.
8. Techniques.

I imagined that today the students would be delivering their research presentations:

"A Comparative Study of the Erotic Pleasure Received through Oral and Anal Acts."
"How Big is Too Big?  Size and Satisfaction for the Oral Bottom."
"Are Big Men More Likely to be Oral Tops?"
"How Many Straight Men Will Agree to Oral Sex with a Gay Man?"
"An Analysis of the Top's Verbal and Non-Verbal Signals During Oral Sex"
"69 as an Act of Political Resistance"

Making up all of that was fun, too, but would it transfer into a more pleasant "late for class" dream?

Eventually I drifted off to sleep.



I had the "late to class" dream again, but my anxiety level didn't go down.  I was even more panicked than before, running wildly down the unfamiliar corridors, desperate to get to that classroom.

I really wanted to see those student presentations.

See also: That Bathhouse in West Hollywood; The Ins and Outs of Oral Sex; The Precognitive Dream about the Boy with the Bratwurst