Climbing into Bed Naked with Richard Grieco

I am a strong supporter of your right to be as masculine, feminine, or androgynous as you want to be.  Slide some ladies' rings on those long, slender, fingers, get some lovely dangling earrings to accentuate your lovely face, splash on that makeup, get your glamour-queen do on, and work that room, girl!

But I don't find people who look like girls attractive, regardless of their gender, so Richard Grieco has always been a turn-off.   I tolerated him on 21 Jump Street (1988-89) and in If Looks Could Kill (1991),  but I haven't seen him in anything else.

I understand that he has been in relationships with a number of women, including Yasmeen Bleeth and Christina Applegate.  Kudos to them for not being straitjacketed by masculine expectations.

In the 1980s and 1990s I assumed he was gay, but only because of my internalized homophobia, the belief, drilled into me through childhood, that all feminine men were gay.  I never heard any rumors or hookup stories about him.

But wouldn't you know it, a sausage sighting story appeared in my email box.

Montreal, Fall 1990

You can call me Jason.  We're about the same age, but our tastes in men are completely different: I like androgynous types.  Rings are ok.  Ascots, no problem.  Back in the 1980s, when I was a Cute Young Thing, I used to hang out at the Toy Tiger, getting drinks sent to me by old rich guys.

We do have something in common.  I remember your story about dating Roger Rees.  Well, I dated him in the late 1980s.

Roger had a partner, Rick [Rick Elise], but they didn't live together, and in fact they were usually separated by a continent.  So they had an open relationship: each could date, and even have romances, as long as the other partner was there in body or spirit.
Every morning, Roger called Rick and gave him a blow-by-blow (or blow job by blow job).

 It got so I felt like I was in a relationship with them both, even though I had never met Rick in person.

In the fall of 1990, Roger was cast as the criminal mastermind Sterenko in the James Bond spoof If Looks Could Kill.  Richard Grieco starred as a high school student mistaken for a spy during a field trip to Paris.  The writer, the director, and a lot of the cast members were gay, and there were a lot of gay subtexts in spite of the boy-girl plot.  I thought it was great fun, though it bombed at the box office.

They all had to fly out to Montreal, a stand-in for Paris, to do the location shots, and Roger said "Why don't you come up for a few days?  I'll invite Rick, too, and we'll make an event of it."

I had never been to Montreal before, and I was anxious to meet Rick in person, so I eagerly accepted the invitation.

Montreal was great!  The Basilica, the Oratory, the theaters, the Rue Ste.-Catherine (best bath houses in the world!).

Rick was great, too.  Very smart, sophisticated, knowledgeable about Montreal -- he took me to some "off the beaten track" sights, like  Habitat 67, an architectural marvel designed for the 1967 Expo.

Plus he was in his 30s, tall, built, with a hairy chest, a bright open face, big hands, and a big...you know what.  We shared two nights in a row.

But on to the Grieco sighting.

On our last night in Montreal, the "three of us" went out to dinner at Ile Flotante with Darren [Star], Linda Hunt, and their partners.  All gay, as far as I knew -- we didn't really discuss such things in the Straight World back then.

Richard Grieco came alone.  Rick told me that he left his boyfriend home in L.A.

I didn't mind the three-way relationship when there were just three of us, but at a tableful of gay and lesbian couples, I felt, frankly, like a third wheel.  So I latched on to Grieco. I figured I could go back to his hotel room for some one-on-one action.  Besides, maybe Roger and Rick would like some alone time.

Grieco wasn't really my type, but you know what they say -- in a pinch, any cock will do.

We talked, cruised a bit -- I put my hand on his chest.  Nice definition!   He was was talkative, energetic.  He was a smoker, which I didn't like, and high on something.  I didn't have any aversion to a little coke now and then myself, so it wasn't a turn off, but his manner was a little aggressive, and he made a joke about AIDS -- not homophobic, but in poor taste.

As dinner progressed, Grieco added alcohol to his cornucopia of substances -- he downed an entire bottle of wine by himself.  His voice started to slur, and he said off-the-wall things like "You're all a great bunch of machines."

I have no idea what he meant.

I was getting a little turned off, but my mind was set on my goal of going to bed with Grieco.  So I told Roger and Rick that I was going to help him back to his hotel room.

When we got to the hotel, Grieco was all but unconscious.  I pulled down the covers and helped him undress and get into bed.  Then I took my clothes off and climbed into the bed next to him and turned off the light.

I started kissing his chest and reached down to fondle his cock -- average sized, cut, not aroused.  Big balls.

"Hey, what you doing?" he murmured. "Get off me."  He pushed me aside.

"What's wrong?"

"Wanna sleep.  Hands off."

Ok, I figured, he was too tired -- he wanted to wait until morning.

But what if he wasn't into me at all?  What if he wasn't even gay, and he woke up with me in his bed?  He might freak out!  I didn't need a homophobic hate crime ruining my trip to Montreal!

I got dressed, wrote him a note with my phone number, and left.

He never answered.

See also: Elijah Wood Dumps Roger for Jason Bateman