A Sleazoid Plays Matchmaker

On May 27th, 1989, the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, I went to the Zone in Los Angeles in search of black men. Instead I met Lane, a West Hollywood native (the French Quarter was his childhood hangout!), about five years older than me (so early 30s), hairy, buffed, hung to his knees, and way short -- just my type!  Apparently I was just his type too, since we skipped the West Hollywood rule of "no tricks" and went home together.

Later I  discovered that Lane had dumped his tropy boyfriend a few days before. I was his rebound. 

During the next few days, we broke every rule of West Hollywood dating:
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1. At the first meeting, you were supposed to set up a date for 3-4 nights later (far enough in the future that you seem to have a busy social life). So if we met on the 27th,  Date #1 should be on May 30th, at the earliest.  We went home that night.

2. After Date #1, you were supposed to wait 24-48 hours to call, and then request Date #2 to take place 3-4 days later.  So if Date #1 ended with breakfast on May 31st, the call should come on the evening of June 1st, and Date #2 on June 4th. We stayed together all day Sunday, except for a stop home to change clothes.

3. After Date #2, another respectable 24-48 hours to call, and then Date #3 was a party on the following Friday or Saturday night, to meet the friends, "share," and get their ok for the relationship.  So if Date #2 ended with breakfast on June 5th, the call should come on the evening of June 6th, and Date #3 on June 9th at the earliest, nearly two weeks after the meeting.  We stayed together all day Monday, too, and met none of Lane's friends except his next-door neighbor Mort, a stand-up comedian who once toured with Madonna.

4. Within 24-48 hours of Date #3, you called to break up, or to ask "what shall we do this weekend?" You were now a monogamous couple. 

It was Tuesday morning.  Lane and I had spent three nights and two days together.  We saw a movie, bought books at the Change of Hobbit science, cruised at the Faultline, bought comic books at Book Circus, went to the Hsi Lae Buddhist Temple, went to the gym, went swimming in his apartment pool, learned a Hebrew prayer, had two breakfasts and a dinner at the French Quarter, and watched the annual Memorial Day Star Trek marathon. Oh, and had sex about 12 times.  Did all that count as three dates, or one marathon date?

1. One date:  I should call him on Wednesday and ask "are you free on Saturday night?"
2. Three dates: I should call him on Wednesday and ask "what are we going to do this weekend?"

If I guessed wrong, the consequences would be embarrassing -- or catastrophic.  Not only would Lane refuse future dates/dump me, word would get out, and I would become undateable as someone so needy that he moved too fast, or so clueless that he moved too slow.

After agonizing all day Tuesday and Wednesday, I decided to call Wednesday night and feel out Lane's intentions through some carefully planned chitchat.

But when I got home from the gym Wednesday night around 8:00 pm, Lane had already Lane had already left a message with my roommate -- just "Lane called" and the number  (there were no cell phones yet; answering machines were available, but expensive, so I didn't have one).  I called him back, and got his machine.

What did he want?  To ask me out?  To ask "What are we doing this weekend?"  To break up?  Grr....

Maybe I could run into him by accident.  There are only a few places he could be on a Wednesday night at 8:00 pm -- the Greenery, the Different Light Bookstore, the French Quarter, the gym (he belonged to the Melrose Fitness Center, not my celebrity-filled gym in Hollywood).  I tried all of those places -- no Lane, and now it was 10:00 pm.

I called home and asked my roommate if Lane had called back.  No.

The bars? Mugi, Basco's, the Zone, the Faultline?

Now it was almost midnight.  Lane managed his mother's apartment complexes, so he didn't have to get up early, but I did....

Enough of this! I drove to his apartment He had to come home sometime.  I went back to his apartment and knocked.  No answer.  Rick the next door neighbor let me in to wait in his apartment -- one of his mother's buildings, a six-plex off Larrabee, just north of the Different Light. 

No light upstairs.  Maybe he wasn't home...or maybe he was in bed...

I decided to go up and knock, make an excuse like "Did I leave my socks here?" But just as I locked up my car and started up the stairs, I saw Lane's car parking on the street below.  He got out...and so did a dark leather clad shape.

A date!  Or a trick?

They approached me cautiously.  I noticed that the trick or date was about my height, compactly muscular, sandy-haired, and sleazy -- sweat-soaked face, greasy hair, dazed eyes, too much to drink.

"Boomer, what are you doing here?" Lane asked suspiciously.

Thinking fast, I said "Visiting Morty.  He invited me for dinner -- what a hoot!  Nothing sexual, of course." I would call later and ask him to corroborate my story.

 I held out my hand to offer the trick/date a friendly grope. He obligingly arched his back to display his basket. "I'm Boomer."

"This is August," Lane said.  "He's a bartender at the Gold Coast."

The Sleaze Bar!  The one place I hadn't checked.

So Lane thought that the three-night, two-day marathon was a single date, and had moved on to someone else...."Well, you guys have a fun..." I began.

"Boomer!"  August exclaimed, in a gruff slurred voice.  "The guy who spent a sex-and-sleaze-filled three day weekend with Lane, then dumped him?  I should punch you in the nose, but I'm too happy to be getting a chance at him.  Thank God for rebounds!" 

"I didn't dump him!" I exclaimed.  "I thought...I mean..."

"You didn't call," Lane said, "So I figured you wanted to break up, and I called you to say I was going out."

"Could we not have this conversation in the hallway?" August asked. "I have to go, bad."  Lane led us upstairs and unlocked the door, and August raced to the bathroom.  Lane and I sat down on the couch and listened to the sound of urination from the next room, and an "Oh,yeah!", followed by the toilet flushing.

"So...you didn't want to break up?" Lane asked.  "Why didn't you call?"

August appeared, wiping his hands on a towel.  He had not zipped up -- his cock was hanging down, enormous.  He squeezed in between us.

"Clearly there's been a misunderstanding between you two, but personally, I couldn't care less. I'm just here to have some fun.  Either one of you is welcome to suck my cock.  Or both of you. So why don't we all go into the bedroom, and you can tease out the problem of who asked who for a date later."

With a footlong in your face, who's going to say no?

Lane and I took turns going down on August and kissing, and then Lane went down on August while I went down on him.  Poppers were produced, which we both refused.  After he finished, August left, but I stayed.

For the next seven years.