It's the day before my 27th birthday, a Wednesday, about 11:00 pm. I have spent the last hour and a half cruising at Mugi, the gay Asian bar in Hollywood.
In West Hollywood in the 1980s, in the first years of the AIDS epidemic, you don't go to the bars looking for someone for that night -- only sleazoids and druggies go home with someone they picked up right then. You talk, maybe kiss and grope a bit, and make a date for a few days later.
Which presents a problem: After two hours of looking at hot guys, and probably kissing and groping more than one of them, you're revved up, full of energy, excited, horny, and rather lonely.
I've been striking out, which makes the horniness and loneliness worse. I'm tempted to go to the Gold Coast, the sleaze bar on Santa Monica and La Jolla, and pick up a sleazoid, someone I don't even find attractive.
Instead I use my usual plan for assuaging the horny/loneliness: I go back to my childhood, when I used to buy comic books at Schneider's Drug Store.
It's mostly empty at this hour: I see a sleazoid who struck out at the Gold Coast recharging his engine with a copy of Advocate Men; an elderly bespectacled queen browsing in the used books; a couple of street kids or hustlers, hard to say which, wandering aimlessly about without looking at anything.
The night manager looks up from his half-eaten hamburger and french fries and glares at me. His name is Jacob, but I'm going to call him Comic Book Guy, after the character on The Simpsons, because now I can't see or hear him in any other way: in his 40s, dark beard, fat, with chubby hands and a gigantic belly, always dressed in a tank top and shorts, even in the winter, nasal sarcastic voice, elitist disdain of anything you decide to buy.
Oddly enough, Comic Book Guy is not without friends. He usually has two or three guys hanging out by his counter, Sometimes they sneak him over gin-and-tonics from the Gold Coast, in spite of the "No Food or Beverages" sign.
Sometimes they go back through the "Employees Only" door with him. To do what, I can only guess.
The comic book section is well-stocked with non-DC and Marvel titles. Gladstone reprints of classic Uncle Scrooge stories from the 1950s. The perennial teen beefcake of Archie.
I choose two Ducks and two Archies, plus an Advocate and the porn magazine Inches, brace myself for Comic Book Guy's sarcasm, and head for the checkout counter.
Sure enough, he wipes his hands on a napkin and announces my titles, loudly: "An infantile news magazine...a magazine for men who have struck out at the bars to beat off to...two infantile picture-books about talking ducks...and Archie comics! I take that back...you plan to beat off to Reggie Mantle!"
Everyone is looking. I redden with embarrassment.
"Give me a break!" I exclaim. "Lots of guys read comic books."
"Do you have someone at home to sound out the big words for you?" Comic Book Guy says with a sneer.
I pull out my wallet and try to hand him a bill. "Just can the sarcasm and ring me up."
"I'm sorry, the kiddie lit is only for sale until 10:00 pm. If you would care to return in the morning..."
"That's not a rule, and you know it!"
He smiles and looks blatantly down at my crotch. "Or I could give you the books tomorrow at 6:00 pm sharp, when you arrive here to take me out to dinner."
Weird way to ask a guy out! "I'm sorry, tomorrow is my birthday. I'm having a party...."
Comic Book Guy grins. "I would be delighted to be your date at your birthday soiree! Pick me up here at 6:00 pm. sharp."
I'm tired, horny, lonely, and dazed. Almost by rote, I say "Sure, that will be great."
He takes my money, counts out my change,, and bags my books so quickly that I'm not sure what happened. "Don't beat off to Reggie too much tonight. You'll need your strength."
I spend the next day going to USC, the gym, and Muscle and Fitness, and agonizing. I don't find Comic Book Guy attractive -- he's too old, too fat, and too sarcastic for me -- plus you never invite someone on a first date to your birthday party -- plus the other party guests will be West Hollywood gym rats who won't accept a sarcastic chub.
But I didn't get his number, so I can't call and cancel. Just not showing up would be rude...and I wouldn't be able to go into Book Circus again...
I end up telling Marcus, who is hosting the party, to expect one more, then driving out to Book Circus to pick up Comic Book Guy. He's wearing a different tank top and shorts. He pulls me into a wet kiss, then puts a flabby arm around my shoulders and escorts me to my car.
"I'll take the back seat -- do you mind? It's hard for me to fit into the passenger side. Besides, we need room in the front seat"
"You're bringing a guest?" I ask, fuming. My date has a date?
"We have to pick up your present. Sorry I didn't have time to wrap it. Here's the address."
Grudgingly I drive us to an apartment in Westwood.
"We're going to be late," I growl. "What's the big..."
Jeff Stryker, the most famous gay porn star of the 1980s.
Apparently he often did personal appearances at Book Circus, and he and Comic Book Guy became friends.
I don't get to go down on Stryker: he wins the "who can get aroused fastest" contest, but refuses his prize, -- ten minutes in the bedroom with me. He sends Jacob instead.
Jacob turns out to be good at kissing, cuddling, and oral, with a presentable 6" penis. And a lot of porn star friends.
No, we don't date again.
See also: Nude Photos of Jeff Stryker
I wouldn't necessarily go down on a porn star, risk of STDs, but I would, you know, have a stroke session with one.
ReplyDeleteComics have a lot of gay subtext, though. Not the Ducks per se, but you can find it a LOT in the Big Two.
ReplyDeleteI found a lot of subtexts in the Ducks when I was a kid. Donald, Uncle Scrooge, and the nephews exploring lost cities and having rousing adventures, with no women present or even mentioned. In the 1980s Don Rosa took a one-page anecdote about how Scrooge was conned by a Yukon dance hall girl, and turned it into a life-long romanc, but that wasn't at all Carl Barks' intentions.
DeleteFair, though I guess I saw the ducks as mostly asexual. Even if "Donald Ducking" is a name for going with nothing below the waist.
DeleteFor the Big Two, it's funny because the subtext isn't where you might think: Batman and Robin less so than Dick with like, four guys closer to his age, and Tim with Conner (who is also a case for Clex), but at this point the fandom thinks all the bats are bi. (And yes, this makes Oliver Queen the annoying in-law for Dick/Roy.) Hulk explicitly equates Betty and Rick as the only people who can calm him down. Cyclops and Wolverine fight over Jean, but enough subtext could make them a threesome, and they are in one universe. Then you have Steve/Bucky, which is cute in the MCU but gross in canon due to Bucky's age: Boy was just a kid who hung around the base before being reinvented for the Bronze Age.
I don't understand the obsession with the idea that porn stars are somehow "riskier" with stray guys you meet online or pick up in bars. You have no way of knowing who or what your partner-du-jour has done. Every guy presents potential STI risks (and you have to treat them that way). Porn stars are far more likely to have been fully tested recently, as many jurisdictions require that for filming work. They are also more like to be on PREP, or on antiviral medications of they are HIV+. People in the adult entertainment industry get a lot of flak as if they were the only ones out there having sex with multiple partners...
ReplyDelete