My First, Second, and Third Time with David from San Francisco

San Francisco, June 2018

One of the problems with being an academic is constantly moving from job to job, which means you make a lot of new friends, then move away, then make more friends, and so on and so on.  Every summer is a flurry of activity, as you fly across the country to visit them, and they fly out to visit you.

This summer I was in Indiana (Tyler and my relatives), New York (Troy and his relatives), Virginia (Jonathan), North Carolina (Verne), and San Francisco (David).

David is 65 years old, a bald, buffed Daddy with craggy features, a moustache, a tight hairy chest, thick biceps, and extra-thick beneath the belt gifts.  A Baptist preacher from conservative small-town Arkansas, married with children, he  didn't have his first same-sex experience until his 43rd birthday, January 6th, 1996.

Within a week he had come out, resigned from his pulpit, filed for divorce, and moved out of the parsonage.

Within a month he had moved to San Francisco, the only place he had ever heard of with gay men. He got an apartment, a job, a new wardrobe, and a gym membership, and began cruising.

David vowed to have "make up for lost time" by having sex with 5 different guys a day until he reached the goal of 5,000.  Soon that proved impossible, even in San Francisco, if he wanted to do anything else, so he reduced the goal to two, then one.  The rules were:

1. It had to be a new guy, one he hadn't been with before.
2. He couldn't go to a sex club or bath house and get a whole week's worth at once.  One per day.
3. Except if he was too sick to have sex, he could make up for it later.
4. Any oral, anal, interfemoral, or mutual masturbation counted.  No orgasm was necessary.

During my visit in June, I asked David if he actually kept track.

"Absolutely!" he exclaimed.  Every night, or if the guy spends the night, the next morning, I record his name and pertinent details in my Little Black Book."

"It must be a Big Black Book by this time."

"Actually, it was written at first, but around 2000 I moved it all to an Excel Spreadsheet.  I record the guy's name, where I met him, and any pertinent details."

"Rating, on a scale of 1 to 5?"

He laughed.  "No, nothing like that.  Just their size, what we did, that sort of thing.

"What if it's a sex party or a bathhouse?  Do you record a dozen guys?"

"No, just one guy per day."

Suddenly I had an idea.  "Hey, let's look up me.  Our first time together, back in 1996.  See what you said."

He agreeably opened his laptop, pulled up his spreadsheet (it really was titled Big Black Book), and searched for Boomer.  15 entries, mostly guys annotated with lines like "Shared with Boomer" or "Boomer's roommate."  But the first Boomer entry, the first time we had sex,  was Tuesday, June 25th, 1996:

Boomer.  Met at work. Nice chest.  Interfemoral.



.












"I remember that night," I told him.  "It was first week at the AIDS Foundation.  I was working in publications and publicity, and you were in prevention services.  You offered to take me out for "a drink" after work.  We ended having dinner, talking about the deprivation of a fundamentalist childhood, then having sex."

"Interfemoral," David says.  "With me on top."

"But I didn't spend the night -- I went home after.  I don't remember why."

"You were babysitting your friend Buzzy's dog."

"Right...he was going away for the weekend."  I thought for a moment.  "For the weekend...it must have been a Friday night, not Tuesday."  I checked the spreadsheet.

"Oh, I must have mixed up the dates when I was transcribing all this," Dave said.  "Maybe the sex club Daddy was on Tuesday, and you were..."

"Or I was the previous Friday."

Friday, June 25th.  Haldor.  Waiter at Almost Home.  From Denmark.

"That was our dinner!  Almost Home, because you wanted to be reminded of home.  Haldor was our waiter.  He was from Denmark, and I went to a Swedish Lutheran College, so I won him over.  Did you go back after our date and pick him up?"

"No, of course not." David said.  In San Francisco, as in West Hollywood, you have a rule: if you start off an evening together, you stay together.  Your only end-of-the-evening option is to go to bed, together or separately.

"I ran into Haldor at the gym that morning.  I topped him in the sauna, and he told me that if I came to Almost Home, he'd give me and my date a free dessert.  That's why I suggested Almost Home in the first place."

"And probably why he was so nice to us, not the Swedish thing," I added  "So, why did you record Haldor in your Big Black Book instead of me?  Because he was the first you were with that day?"

He stood up and walked into the kitchen, leaving the laptop.   "So, do you want to go out?" he called.  "There's a sex club..."

I looked back at the spreadsheet.

Saturday, June 22nd: Bryan.  Picked up at Twin Peaks.  Small cock.  Good kisser. 

David returned with two cans of soda.

"I remember June 22nd, too!" I exclaimed.  "It was the night after our date.  We went cruising together, picked up Bryan, and brought him back to my apartment to share.  I went down you while you were kissing Bryan, and then you topped Bryan while he went down on me.  We all spent the night, and had brunch the next day."

"That sounds about right.  So, if you'd rather stay in tonight, I can fire up Grindr and get us some hookups."

"Why didn't I get entered that time?" I asked.  "You didn't enter me until the next Tuesday, which was actually the third time we had sex.."

"Um...well, remember, Boomer.  I made these entries a long time ago. I didn't know that we were going to become friends."

"So..."

"We've been friends for over 20 years.  That's what counts, right?"

"So..."

"Well...if I get more than one guy in a day, I record...um...I record the one that's most memorable."

See: David's First Sexual Experience

The Naked Man in the Bathtub

West Hollywood, February 1990

When I started dating Lane, I slept over almost every night in his apartment.   I was home in the evening perhaps two nights a week, and my rooommate Derek was never home during the daytime, so we rarely spoke.

So I didn't hear much about his dates, club activities, or visiting friends.

One Saturday Lane started coughing and feeling feverish, so I went on a chicken-soup-and-orange juice run and left him alone for the evening.  I went to the gym, browsed at Different Light, and then headed home to order Chinese delivery and watch Mr. Belvedere, Mama's Family, and The Golden Girls.  

When I walked into the apartment, I heard the water running in the bathroom -- Derek taking  a shower -- but I had to go badly, so I knocked on the door and yelled "Hey, mind if I pee?"

"No, go ahead!"

That didn't sound like Derek's voice.  But  I jumped into the bathroom, pulled up the toilet lid, and unzipped.

Only then did I notice the naked man in the bathtub, just letting the water run to fill it up.

Not Derek.

That wasn't surprising in itself.  Derek dated, he had friends from out of town visit, his friends brought boyfriends.  There were often people I didn't know wandering through the house.

But Derek was a 40-year old former fitness model (you can see him in a 1980 issue of Mandate).  His friends were all 40-year former fitness models and middle-aged gym rats.

And he only dated slim, androgynous twinks.  No one over 30.  Facial hair and chest hair were turn-offs.  No bodybuilders, bears, or chubbies.

The naked man in the bathtub was a bear: older, maybe 50, chubby, with a beard and a hairy chest.  Nose ring and nipple rings.  Average endowment.

Not one of Derek's usual friends.  Certainly not a date.

"Oh...um...excuse me."

"Not a problem," the bear said, smiling as he checked out my package.

"I'm Derek's roommate, Boomer."

"I'm Panther, his ex, visiting for the weekend."

Ex?  I finished, zipped up, and moved to the sink.  "How long ago were you together?"

"Oh, eons and eons. Where were you in '72?  He was still married to Ellen, a scared little gym boy peeking into the Gold Coast for the first time.  I took him under my wing, showed him the baths and the cruising trails in Griffith Park -- this was before AIDS, mind you -- and oh my Goddess!  Did he blossom!"  He stood, dripping wet.  "I was going to take a nice long soak, but you look like you're more fun.  Towel me!"

I handed him the guest towel.  "Where is Derek, by the way?"

"Oh, he took Tyler -- that's my boy as of last month, which is six months in twink years -- they're on a tour of West Hollywood.  They'll be back soon, and then we're all going out to dinner, and then cruising."  Minimally toweled, he approached.  "Up in San Francisco, we say hi to our brothers with a hug and grope."

I obliged.

We didn't do anything but hug and grope, of course -- we had just met, and there was no roommate or or mutual friend around.  We sat on the couch, talking and joking and looking at porn magazines, until Derek and Tyler returned, about an hour later.

Tyler was short, dark, muscular, Chinese-American.  Exactly my type!

I tagged along for dinner at the French Quarter.  Panther monopolized the conversation, telling me about L.A. in the 1970s, his relationship with Derek, and his life now -- he lived in San Francisco, where he worked as an organist in a Catholic church, of all things.  Tyler was one of the parishioners.

"I grew up Nazarene..." I began, to establish a connection.  But Panther moved on.

Tyler glanced over and smiled at me.

There was no way I would see him naked tonight -- any sharing would take place with Derek -- so when we went to Mugi, I redoubled my efforts to find someone, and ended up kissing and groping a guy from Singapore.

I glanced over and saw Tyler smiling at me.

Of course, I couldn't pick him up -- hooking up was frowned upon in West Hollywood in 1990.  But it was nice to get a little action, since I knew what would happen when we got home.

Derek, Panther, and Tyler said goodnight and disappeared into the bedroom.  I disappeared into my bedroom.  I heard shuffling and talking, then squeaking.

I went to sleep.  Anyway, I turned off the light and lay there, feeling left out and miserable.

A while later, I was awakened by the sound of the door opening and closing, then the pressure of someone climbing into bed with me.  I reached over and felt Tyler's hard smooth chest!

"I didn't wake you up, did I?"  He took my hand and pushed it down past his belly.

"No, of course not."  I drew him into my arms.

A while later, the door opened again.  I saw Panther's roundish form shadowed in the light of the hallway.

"Playing musical beds, Tyler?" he said with a laugh.  "Count me in.  I saw what Boomer had to offer earlier in the bathroom, thank Goddess!"

He climbed into the bed on the other side, so I was nestled between him and Tyler.

You probably can guess what happened next.  Derek appeared, naked, in the doorway.  "So this is where everybody went.  Am I invited to the party?"

Panther raised his head.  "Well, Boomer is a little occupied, but I have a free body part or two.  Grab ahold."

In the morning,  I called Lane to see if he was feeling better.  "Sorry for blowing you off," he said.  "It must have been a pretty boring night for you."

"Just an ordinary Saturday night in West Hollywood."

See also: Threesome with a Fitness Model and a Cowboy