My Dayton Friend with Benefits

Dayton, February 2006

In the fall of 2005, I moved to Fairborn, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton, to take a job at the University of Dayton.  After 20 years in gay neighborhoods, it was a shock.  Dayton had only a tiny gay presence: a bar, two welcoming churches, a gift shop with gay-themed cards, and two organizations, one with the oddly closeted name “Friends of the Italian Opera” (“we do not go to the opera or discuss the opera”).

There was a gay neighborhood in Columbus, about an hour away by car.  But I could spend only about 10 hours per week in a gay neighborhood. 95% of my life took place in the Straight World, where everyone and everything was heterosexist.  Most people were completely unable to understand that gay people exist:

Grocery Store Clerk: "Here's your Super-Valu Discount Card.  Do you need another one for your wife?"
Me: "I'm gay, so I don't have a wife.  Can I get one for my partner?"
Clerk: "Anybody in your household.  Just tell her to sign it on the bottom."


Sexual Harassment Trainer: "Sometimes students of the opposite sex will approach you for dates, but you should refuse."
Me: "Could I date a student of the same sex if he was not taking any of my classes?"

Trainer: "No.  She might enroll in your classes in the future."

Me: "Could you have my car finished by 5:00?"

Auto Mechanic: "Hot date, huh?  Is she cute?"

Me: "As a matter of fact, he is quite attractive."

Auto Mechanic: "Yeah, I'll bet she's cute."

And my classes!

My apartment in Fairborn

Mostly to soldiers from the nearby air force base.

Classrooms full of muscular soldiers may be visually appealing, especially while it's still warm enough for chest-hugging t-shirts, but the opinions they expressed were uniformly 1950s conservative: “homosexuals” are very sick, too sick to enlist in the military, most likely conspiring with the pedophiles and terrorists to take away our freedom.

I burrowed into the womb of my apartment.  I didn't go into Columbus.  I didn't go to gay venues in Dayton.  I taught my classes and went to the gym.  On weekends I ordered Chinese food, watched Seinfeld, and hung out in internet chatrooms.

My only social life came from Chuck, a "friend with benefits": one of those guys who visit you for awhile and then leave, with only minimal contact information and no personal biographies.

Chuck was in his early 30s,  very muscular, with short brown hair and a round, appealing face.  He visited every couple of weeks -- I would call him, or he would call me.

It wasn't much of a social life.  We never left the apartment.  We didn't talk much.  Chuck never volunteered information, and he responded to questions with a noncommital grunt.  After six months of regular visits, all I knew about him was that he coached a Little League Baseball Team, he liked folk dancing and Seinfeld, he hated Chinese food, and he visited his mother on Christmas Day.  And he was "straight."

One Thursday morning in the spring of 2006, I went to the gym as usual and tried to run on the treadmill, but for some reason it was too difficult.  I walked about a mile, then went to my office to wait for my 11:00  class.

Soon I started feeling light headed.  Ok, I was getting sick.  I would go home right after Juvenile Delinquency.

At about 10:00 am, I realized that I would never make it to class.  In fact, I would never be able to drive home.  I stumbled down to the department office and told the secretary, "I'm not feeling well.  Can you find someone to give me a ride home?"  While she was on the phone, I collapsed.

At the emergency room, the doctor told me that I was severely dehydrated from the flu, I should stay in bed a few days, and could I get my girlfriend to come pick me up?
"You mean my boyfriend?"
"When can she pick you up?"
"Well, actually, I don't have a boyfriend."
"A friend or relative, then?  Somebody has to pick you up. You can't drive yourself."

I checked my cell phone.  Friends and relatives from California, New York, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, plus Austria, Belgium, England, France, and Estonia.  They wouldn't do much good.



I couldn't admit to the doctor that I had lived in Dayton for almost a year, and hadn't made any friends.

My only Dayton number was for Chuck.  But he wasn't actually a friend....

Well, any port in a storm. I called and said "I'm in emergency room.  Severe dehydration -- it's not contagious. I just have to stay off my feet for a few days, and I can't drive.  Can you come over and pick me up?"

"Why me?" he asked, understandably.

"Um..all of my other friends are at work, and I don't have their work numbers."

"Um...I guess, ok.  Sure."

It took him over an hour to show up.  "Sorry, I made a couple of stops first.  Got you some get-well presents."  He handed me a bouquet of flowers and the Seinfeld Season One DVD set.

We drove back to my apartment, and Chuck helped me inside -- I was still shaky -- and into my bathrobe.  By this time, it was 3:00 pm, and I hadn't had any lunch.  "Could you get me some soup?" I asked.

"Soup?  I think we can do better than that!"  He went on a grocery run, and returned to make gumbo, garlic bread, a salad, and bread pudding.  We ate on tv trays and watched my Seinfeld dvd, and then Everybody Hates Chris and My Name is Earl.  

"Well, thanks for staying with me," I said, "But I'm really tired.  I want to go to bed."

"Ok, no problem.  Let's go."  He helped me into the bedroom, pulled down the covers, and started unbuttoning his shirt.

"Oh...sorry, but I'm not really in the mood to do anything tonight."

"Not a problem.  Tonight you're a patient, and it's my job to deliver TLC.  We can just cuddle."

So he held me in his arms all night.

In the morning I felt well enough to walk around by myself, and Chuck went to work.  He returned in the evening to make cheese burritos and a taco salad, with flan, and we watched a DVD of Murder on the Orient Express.  

As we were preparing for another night of cuddling, he said, "When you're feeling better, maybe you would like to go to a ball game.  I have season tickets to the Columbus Clippers."

"You mean...um...like a date?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Well, for the last six months, you haven't wanted to do anything except...you know."

"Yeah, but...you know, my whole life has been devoted to my family.  My parents, my sister and her kids.  I thought gay guys were only about sex.  Until you called from the emergency room."

"You didn't know that gay guys got sick?"

"If you asked me, intellectually, I would have said, 'sure, gay guys must get sick sometime.'  They must watch tv, and eat dinner, and go to ball games.  But I never realized..."

"That gay people exist outside of bedrooms?"

"Right!  Exactly!" He clapped me on the back.  "I bet they even go on dates!" 

Easter 2007 at the Bathhouse

When I was growing up in Rock Island, Easter was a big deal, second only to Christmas.  We decorated eggs, went on Eastern egg hunts, and awaited our baskets of chocolate rabbits and marshmallow chicks with the eagerness of Christmas morning.  There were lots of Swedes in town, so houses were decorated with feathered tree branches, and kids in witch costume knocked on the door, begging for candy.

In West Hollywood, New York, and Florida, Easter got lost in the flurry of Passover, the Oscars, the Film Festivals, and Spring Break.

There weren't a lot of naked guys wearing bunny ears, or double-entendres about "Easter baskets."

There was an Easter Parade downtown, where one displayed one's best bonnets, but drag queens did not usually participate..

 Maybe it was the religious significance of the holiday: many gay people don't want to be reminded of the childhood religion that rejected them.

So I have a lot of good stories that take place around Easter, in March or April, but none that actually have to do with Easter.

Except this one:

Columbus, Ohio, April, 2007

My boyfriend Paul was devout Catholic, so he did the works: Ash Wednesday, then Lent, for which he gave up soda.  Then Palm Sunday and Holy Week: services on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.

Fasting on Friday, which meant only one meal, in the evening, after church.

Having had nothing to eat all day, we drove to Columbus, to the Holy Cross Catholic Church on Fifth Street, in the gay neighborhood of Germantown.  It wasn't exactly gay-friendly, but there were lots of almost-open gay people in the pews.

The Good Friday Service is almost as painful as the Jewish Rosh Ha-Shanah, two hours of brow-beating, followed by the Veneration of the Cross in a darkened sanctuary and a silent communion.

Very dark and depressing.  I think I would prefer the live-action crucifixions they hold to celebrate Easter in the Philippines.

When the service ended at 9:00, we rushed about a block west to the El Camino Inn for cheese burritos and avocado salad, and then drove up to Club Columbus, a bathhouse near the Ohio State University campus.

It had a gym, a video room, and a very large steamroom-maze where guys often met.

I rented a small "cabana room," and Paul got a locker.

We hung around the video room until a tanned gym rat in his 20s removed his towel and displayed a huge aroused Mortadella.  I went down on him for awhile, then tried to push Paul's head down.  He refused.

Hmm, must not be Paul's type, I thought. He likes older guys.

Then, while I was still going down on the gym rat, a chubby bear in his 60s approached and started fondling Paul beneath his towel.  Paul pushed his hand away.

The gym rat finished and walked off.  I opened my towel and let the bear go down on me.  Paul watched.  I tried to draw him into a kiss, but he refused.

Too old?  Too fat?  I wondered.  Paul usually isn't this picky.

The bear tried to push his hand under Paul's towel, and was rebuffed again.  Offended, he moved on.

Just what I need -- a stick in the mud who won't do anything, following me around and offending all of my hookups.

In the steam room, I kissed and groped a smooth, toned black guy in his 30s, but only for a few minutes.  He saw Paul watching us from a little way away, got "freaked out," and moved on.

"I'm going to wander around by myself," I told Paul, pointedly.  "If I find anyone to share, I'll come and find you."

"Sure, that would be great," Paul said absently, looking at the clock.

Going past the rooms with open doors, I stumbled across Gerry: very muscular with a little belly, a thick mat of chest hair, and a thick Bratwurst+ already aroused and waiting.

I went down on him for awhile, then lay on top of him for kissing and full body contact.

 "Do you mind if my boyfriend joins us?" I asked.  "I'll just go find him."

Paul in the video room by himself.  ""Ok, I found a guy who is absolutely your type, probably the man of your dreams.  This might be the beginning of a three-way romance."

Sighing, he allowed himself to be led to the room, where he sat on the foot of the bed, watching while Gerry and I kissed.  He didn't touch either of us, so we got into the 69 position.

After awhile, I raised my head.  "Ok, enough is enough, I don't care what's bothering you -- are you tired, or depressed, or suffering from Catholic guilt.  The cure is the same.  You're young, you're hot, you're surrounded by naked guys.  Get busy!"

"Sure, sure," Paul said.  "Just a minute."  He ducked out into the hallway, and returned a moment later, grinning.  "Ok, which of you studs wants to be first."  He literally pounced on Gerry, and they became a blur of mouth and hands and baseball bats.  Soon I was drawn in, too.

When we were both drained, Paul said "See ya" and rushed like a hurricane through the bath house, flirting, fondling, groping, kissing, leaving a dozen orgasms in his wake.

We finally left the bath house at 2:00 am and stopped at Denny's to get a bite before the long drive home.

"What was that all about?" I asked.  "Nothing but Attitude for an hour, and then suddenly you became the life of the party."

"It was Good Friday," Paul said with a shrug.  "That means fasting -- no food, no sex.  I had to wait until midnight.  Why do you think I kept looking at the clock?"

See also: Hooking Up on a Job Interview;  Liam Gives Me an 18th Birthday Present; and The Catholic Priest in My Bed.