Captain Ernie and his First Mate

 

Back before Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, Netflix, and DVDs, you got your dose of kids' tv in two places:

1. On a sugar-rush five hours of cartoons every Saturday morning.

2. Weekdays after school, on local kids' tv shows hosted by an army of clowns, hobos, cowboys, and pirates.

The Quad Cities was on the Mississippi River, so we had Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat.

The tall, commanding Captain Ernie (Ernie Mims) stood on the deck of the Dixie Belle, to announce Bugs Bunny and Hanna Barbara cartoons and Three Stooges shorts.  Then he opened his "Treasure Chest" and passed out prizes to the kids in the studio audience.

When I was in fourth grade, my boyfriend Bill and I were in the audience.  I got a plastic "pirate cape," and he got a cardboard sword.

The cartoons and prizes weren't the only attraction: Captain Ernie was cute, with squarish hands, a hairy chest, and a pleasant suggestion of muscle.

Sometimes he performed skits with his "First Mate," Sidney.

I didn't know what a "first mate" was, but it was obvious that Captain Ernie and Sidney lived together on the Dixie Belle, and neither had girlfriends or wives.  Obviously a gay couple!

I found out that they weren't really a couple in fourth grade: one of the kids in my class at Denkmann was Captain Ernie's nephew.  Turns out Ernie Mims had a wife and kids after all, and Sidney was just an intern, a student at the Palmer College of Chiropractic, up the street from WOC TV.

Still, many of the iconic moments of my childhood took place in front of Cartoon Showboat, or with Captain Ernie: a local celebrity, he appeared at the Celtic Festival, the Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Festival, the Pow Wow, the annual Christmas parade, and various ribbon-cuttings and supermarket openings.

During the 1970s, our first PBS station brought the competition of the kinder, gentler Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and frenetic but non-violent Sesame Street, and in 1974 Cartoon Showboat was cancelled.  By that time, I was in junior high, too old to watch.

Ernie Mims went on to become the weatherman.

The last time I saw him was in the spring of 1979, during my freshman year of college  I was working at the Carousel Snack Bar when Captain Ernie -- not in character -- came up and ordered an ice cream cone.

As I passed it to him, our hands touched.

I wanted to say "Thanks for a great childhood," but I played it cool.

David's First Gay Sexual Experience, at a Gas Station in Arkansas

Of all the hundreds of coming out stories I've heard, the one told by my friend David in San Francisco is the most remarkable.  A conservative Baptist minister in small-town Arkansas, married with children, figuring it out on his 43rd birthday, with not a hint before!

Fort Smith, Arkansas

Dave was born on January 6th, 1953 (Three Kings' Day) in Memphis, Tennessee.  When he was five years old, his family moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas.  He had an idyllic childhood, swimming in Creekmore Park, buying comic books at Coleman Drugs, having sleepovers with his friends from Sunnymead Elementary School..

"Sleepovers?  Lots of opportunities for seeing guys in their underwear, cuddling with them, maybe some groping?"

"Not that I remember."

In high school he started dating girls, but prided himself on treating them "like a gentleman," rejecting even a good-night kiss.  He often double-dated with his best friend, Steve.

"I'll bet you couldn't wait to drop the girls off so you and Steve could..."

"Not that I remember."

Fayetteville

At the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville from 1971 to 1975, Dave majored in Classical Studies and became competent in Latin, Greek, and German.  He first became aware of same-sex desire when he translated Virgil's Eclogue 2:

Corydon the Shepherd was in love with beautiful Alexis.

How could Corydon be in love with Alexis, when they were both boys?

The professor explained that the ancient Romans sometimes practiced "the unnatural vice."

"A little frisson of recognition?"  I ask. 


"Nope.  I don't remember feeling any strong emotion about it.  It was just something weird that the ancients did."

In college he kissed a girl for the first time.  It was ok, but he didn't see what all the fuss was about.

New Orleans

From 1975 to 1977, Dave studied for his M.A. in Latin at Tulane University in New Orleans.  His master's thesis was on Ovid's Metamorphoses.

"Lots of same-sex practices in there!" I exclaim.  

"Sure, I read about Zeus and Ganymede, and Hyacinth and Apollo.  But it was all way-out, exotic stuff, with no connection to my world at all.  

"Well...what about New Orleans?  The French Quarter, one of the hottest gay neighborhoods?"

Sometimes he and his friends went to the French Quarter to gawk at the  "fairies,"  They were all outrageously feminine, swishy, drag queens, with no connection to his world at all.

Louisville

David thought about going on to a doctorate in Classics, but worried about the job prospects.  Instead he spent 1977-1980 at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, getting his M.Div. His research project was on the interpretation of the Koine Greek of the New Testament.

"What did you think about the so-called homophobic passages in Romans and Colossians?"

"I don't remember thinking anything at all," David says.  "I took all of my examples from the Gospels."

In order to get a church, you needed a wife, so Dave got engaged to Karen, a girl from a local church.  They waited until their wedding night to have sex.  It was ok, not disgusting or anything, just sort of mechanical.

"Did you fantasize about guys while having sex with your wife?" 

"To be honest, I didn't fantasize at all.  My body did all the work.  I was planning out my next sermon, or wondering what we were having for dinner tomorrow night."

Conway, Arkansas

In 1980, Dave and Karen moved to a church in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and in 1983, to a much bigger church in Conway, Arkansas.  Karen got a job as a high school English teacher, but quit when she became pregnant.

The 1980s was a period of rampant homophobia, but Dave didn't berate gay people in any of his sermons.  In fact, he started the first AIDS buddy program in Arkansas.

The first gay man Dave met was a guy whose partner of ten years was dying of AIDS.  He couldn't figure out why God would punish them for falling in love.

"So, realizing that gay people aren't monsters -- that helped you come out?"

"No, but it put me at odds with my congregation in my fellowship.  I was criticized as too liberal, as not really a Christian.  Someone wrote 'fag lover' on my office door."


Fayetteville

In 1990, Dave and Karen moved to a church in Fayetteville, near the University of Arkansas.  It was slightly more liberal, with many more cultural activities.  They started going to concerts and the theater, including The Nutcracker every Christmas.

Dave found himself noticing the bulges and butts of the hot ballet dancers.

"Men are beautiful!  Why didn't I ever realize that before?"

When he turned 40, worried about his health in midlife, he joined a gym, and started doing cardio and weight training.  He looked at the other guys, stripping down in the locker room....

He wanted to touch them, to kiss them, to feel their butts and cocks against him.  Sometimes he became aroused just thinking about it.

His fundamentalist roots kicked in. Could hanging around with gay men be "turning him" gay?

"You can't turn gay.  You are or you aren't."

"That's what my friend at the AIDS Foundation said.  He told me that straight guys sometimes find themselves attracted to men.  It doesn't mean anything.  It's who you love that counts."

And he loved Karen.  He liked hanging out with her, discussing old movies, playing with the kids. He didn't even mind the sex.  It was warm and comfortable, like sleeping under a quilt on a cold day.

January 6th, 1996 was Dave's 43rd birthday, a Saturday.  He and his family celebrated with brunch (his favorite meal) at the Cracker Barrel.  They gave him presents.

He spent the afternoon in his study, working on his sermon for the next day, "New Beginnings."  It was going to start with the story of Saul on the road to Damascus, who had a transforming vision of Jesus Christ and became Paul.

At 3:00 pm he drove to Planet Fitness to work out.  On the way he stopped at the Shell Station to get gas and a Gatorade.

The most beautiful guy in the world was sitting behind the counter.  In his twenties, with thick, almost shaggy black hair, a scruffy beard, deep soulful eyes, and a bewitching half-smile.  He was wearing a red t-shirt that accented his slim, tight physique.  His name tag read "Shawn."

Dave stared open-mouthed.  Shawn smiled.

"Will that be all?" he asked, pointing to Dave's Gatorade.  He didn't have a Southern accent.

"Um...um...today's my birthday," he stammered.  "I'm 43."

In retrospect, not the best pick-up line.

"Well, happy birthday!  I'll have to give you a present.  What would you like?"

"I'd like to kiss you," Dave admitted.

This wasn't a gay neighborhood.  It was redneck, homophobic, Bible-belt Arkansas.  But Shawn said "Sure."  They went into the restroom and locked the door, and Shawn wrapped his arms around Dave, and they kissed.  It was a long, deep, eager kiss.  Their bodies and cocks pressed together.  Shawn lifted Dave's shirt to feel his chest, unzipped his pants to work on his very hard Kielbasa.

"What about Shawn's penis?" I ask.

"Nice.  But it was mostly about the kiss."


It took only a few minutes for Dave to spurt into Shawn's hand.  He washed off in the sink and said "Well, I better get back to work."

Dave caught his arm.  "Can I see you later?"

Shawn smiled.  "Sure thing, babe.  I get off at 7:00.  But I didn't get your name."

"It's David."

"I was Dave for 43 years.  I don't know why I said David.   Except that Shell Station was my Damascus Road."

See also: David's Top 20 Hookups and One-Night Stands; a Glimpse of Supreme Beauty at a Rest Stop in Iowa.

Grandpa Prater's Banjo

This is the second erotic story about my Grandpa Prater.

It's the day after Christmas in seventh grade;  I just turned 12.  We're visiting my parents' relatives in Indiana.  Today we drive out to the farmhouse near Garrett to visit my Grandpa Prater, my mother's father, and bring him his Christmas presents.

Grandpa Prater is 70 years old, but still big and rugged, with thick arms and shoulders and huge hands. He wears overalls, sometimes with a white t-shirt underneath, sometimes without, so you could see his hard round pecs dusted with white hair.

He moved from Kentucky to Indiana with his family in 1942, to take advantage of factory jobs during World War II.  Now he is widowed, and all of his kids have moved out except Uncle Edd, who acts more like his brother than his son.

There's no car in the driveway, and no one answers when we knock, so we figure that they're out, at the store or visiting friends in town.  We drive down the road about half a mile to the Trailer in the Deep Woods, to visit my Cousin Buster and his parents and wait for them to return.

Cousin Buster shows me the guitar he got for Christmas, and tries to play "Your Mama Don't Dance," by Loggins and Messina.  He doesn't do well.  "I should have asked for a banjo," he says. "Man, I could really howl on that box." 

"Why don't you ask Grandpa if you can borrow his?"

Somehow we decide that it would be a good idea to sneak into the farmhouse while he's gone and "borrow" the banjo.  

We walk through the woods until we come to the side yard.  There's still no car in the driveway.

We climb onto the porch and go in through the parlor (country folk don't lock their doors).

I've been there a thousand times, but never when the house is deserted.  There's something eerie, even sinister, about the two overstuffed sofas, red with clawed legs, the old console radio with a black-and-white tv on top, the picture of Jesus on the Cross that changes to an Ascended Christ if you look at it right.  

The kitchen is familiar, too.  I've been there many times.  But there's something sinister about the plate of half-eaten toast and jar of Sue Bee Honey left on the kitchen table, as if someone suddenly rushed out.  Or was kidnapped.

I've never been inside Grandpa Prater's bedroom.  

First there's an anteroom, with some coats on hooks and shoes on the floor.  Then a big oak door.

More after the break

A Glimpse of Cousin Joe's Shame

Rome City, Indiana

When I was 7 1/2 years old, we moved from Racine, Wisconsin to Rock Island, Illinois.  My parents didn't want my brother and me  in the way during the move (yes, "me" is correct), so on July 18th, we left a fully-furnished house in Racine, and on July 28th, we returned to a fully-furnished house in Rock Island.

We spent the ten days in Rome City, Indiana, with my Aunt Nora.  She was a big, jolly woman who baked pies for a living -- we got pie every night for dessert! -- and who let us watch all the tv we wanted.  She and Uncle Henry (who died a long time ago) liked tv so much that they named her kids after popular tv stars:

1. Ed (left), 18 years old, after the star of The Ed Sullivan Show.
2. Eva Marie, 16 years old, after Eva Marie Saint, star of the The Phillco Television Showcase
3. Joe (top photo left), 14 years old, after the star of The Joey Bishop Show

Their house was only two blocks from the Limberlost Library, where kids could use the main room, not just the children’s room, and Cousin Joe let us check out books on his card. It was three blocks from Sylvan Lake, where we went swimming and fishing and rode pontoon boats.

Aunt Nora's house had a living room, dining room, kitchen, and three bedrooms downstairs (for Aunt Nora, Joe, and Eva Marie).  Upstairs there was one bedroom for Grandma Davis whenever she came for a visit (Kenny and I slept there), and an attic "pad" for Ed.

One night I woke up late and had to go to the bathroom, so I climbed out of bed and pieced my way gingerly downstairs and through the unfamiliar hallway. The bathroom door was ajar.  I shoved it open.

Cousin Joe was standing in front of the sink.

I saw him only dimly, in the silvery-black moonlight and the glow of a nightlight attached to a wall outlet, and only for an instant, but 40 years later, the image is still vivid:  a nude, muscular backside. A smooth chest visible in the mirror, and a belly -- thin, no abs.  A dark patch of pubic hair.  And what the grownups called his shame

I had only seen two shames before, my brother's and my Uncle Paul's.  I would see another two years later, at the Rock Island Pow Wow, but by that time I would know the correct term. This one was huge, a monster, a garden hose.  I wondered how he could fit it into a pair of pants.

Was he peeing in the sink?  No -- that was a trickle of water from the faucet.  He was washing it!

Why didn't he do that at bathtime?

Noticing me, Joe swung around, hands dripping, shame swaying from side to side. "What the hell are you doing!" he yelled.  "Get out of here!"

But I was transfixed.  I couldn't look away.

Suddenly the light came on in Aunt Nora's room, and I heard Cousin Ed's voice from upstairs -- Kenny woke up and started crying when I wasn't there.  Grunting, Joe brushed past me, and ran to his own room to put on a bathrobe.

Before long, everybody was gathered in the kitchen, talking furiously while Aunt Nora made hot chocolate.  Eventually it was decided that, though I had embarrassed Joe by seeing his shame, it was his own fault.  You should shut the bathroom door, even late at night when you think everyone is asleep.

I don't understand why they called it a shame.  It was certainly nothing to be ashamed of -- I'll bet it would win first prize at the Gay Horsemen's Club in Amsterdam, where I would find an A+++-sized boyfriend years later  -- and it provided me with a fond childhood memory.

Besides, I got hot chocolate.

I Fall Asleep in a Sailor's Arms

On a train near Norfolk, Virginia

When I was 10 years old, my Grandma Davis took me on a train trip from the station at Garrett to Washington, DC, and then to Walterboro, South Carolina, to visit my uncle and aunt and cousins.  We didn't get a sleeping car; we just reclined our seats with blankets and pillows.

I was too excited to sleep.  We went through so many interesting cities -- Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, all lit up at night.  And people kept walking through the car -- the conductor, porters, passengers bustling about with suitcases.

About midnight, a cute boy in a sailor suit stumbled into the car and plopped into the seat across the aisle from me.  He was still a teenager, with brown hair and thick hands.  I still remember that he wore a class ring.

He looked over and noticed me staring at him.  "You should be asleep, little man," he said, smiling, in a distinctive Southern accent.  "You know what?  I just saw Santy Claus in the next car, and he told me you should go to sleep or he won't bring you any Christmas presents."

Did he think I was a baby? "I'm ten years old," I said stiffly, offended.  "Too old for Santa Claus."

"Sorry.  Hey, you want to see a magic trick?"

Sure, if it involves you taking your shirt off.  "My Dad was a sailor," I said.  "He went to Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Hawaii."

"That's great!  I just enlisted, so I haven't been anywhere yet.  I never even been on a train before.  My name is Beau.  That's B-E-A-U.  It's spelled funny because it's French."  He reached out his big hand with the class ring.  It enveloped my small hand.  I didn't want to let go.

"My name is Boomer.  I'm visiting South Carolina with my Grandma Davis."

Grandma Davis had roused and was watching us with her weird knowing smile.

"Howdy, Boomer's Grandma.  I'm Beau Reynolds, from Morgantown, West Virginia, home of the Fighting Mountaineers."

"Pleased to meet you," she said politely.

I was briefly distracted by a skyline through the window.

"Hey, why don't you sit over here by me? It's a window seat, so you can look out."

"Can I, Grandma?"

"Sure, if you want to. But you should try to get some sleep.  It's late."

"Don't worry, ma'am.  Putting boys to bed is my specialty.  I'll get out my guitar if I have to."

I leapt across the aisle, squeezed past Beau's legs, and climbed into the seat next to him.   I pulled up the armrest so I could cuddle against him.  Our arms touched.

"I...um...I...have a little brother about your age.  He plays football on his junior high team, and he likes hunting and fishing. I bet you'd like him."

"Is he cute?" I said without thinking -- I was too tired to guard myself.

Beau gave me a quizzical stare.  "Well, he's big and tough.  You like hunting?"

"No."

"Fishing?"

"No."

"Playing football?"

"No."

"Um..watching football?"

"No.  I like to watch The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family.  Do you like Peter or Greg best?  Everybody says they like Greg, but I think Peter is way cuter."

"Yeah, The Brady Bunch, real cool show," he said in a weird hesitant voice.  "Hey, want to hear a dirty joke?"

"Ok," I said with a grin, feeling very grown-up.

Beau said something like this:
Dick Butkiss walks into a bar.  He's like a big, muscular football player, so all the girls think he's cute.  And there's a sissy at the other end of the bar.  So Dick Butkiss sits down, and he's like, got his shirt off and everything, and the sissy can't take his eyes off him.  So Dick Butkiss says, he says, "I'm so lonely I could kiss a cow."  And the sissy, the sissy chirps right up.  "Moo!  I say, Moo!"

He laughed and slapped my knee.

I didn't know that Dick Butkus was a real person -- later I discovered that he was a football player, for the Chicago Bears.  

But I liked the part about the "sissy" wanting to kiss him.  I didn't know that there were grownup men who wanted to kiss men.

I was getting sleepy.  I nestled against Beau.  His chest was pleasantly firm.  He smelled of some kind of sweet cologne.

He reclined the seat, and put his arm around me, then wrapped his blanket around us both.  "You got to be careful of them sissies.  Don't make friends with them, or sooner or later they'll try to kiss you."

"Did a sissy ever try to kiss you, Beau?"

He pressed me close.  "Don't worry about me -- I'm all man.  If any sissy tried anything with me, I'd knock his block off!"

Soon after, I fell asleep in Beau's arms.  He got off the train at Norfolk, never knowing that he had spent the night with a "sissy."

I've been trying to understand this memory from my vantage point of 44 years.  A lonely sailor, away from home for the first time, tries to bond with a boy who reminds him of his little brother.  But the boy doesn't like any "manly" activities, just girly stuff like The Brady Bunch.  So he tells him a cautionary tale about sissies trying to kiss you.

But the cautionary tale is about a lonely guy -- like Beau -- meeting a "sissy" -- like me.  Was the Beau trying to remind himself to avoid letting guys get too close, because they might stir uncomfortable desires?

The tale doesn't have an unhappy ending.  We aren't told Dick Butkus's response to the "moo" request.   Maybe he was, indeed, perfectly willing to kiss a man.

I like to think that, when Beau got to his naval base in Norfolk, he was perfectly willing to kiss men, too.

Sausage Sightings of Adult Devon Sawa and Jonathan Taylor Thomas

Vancouver, Canada

Cal me Rick.  In 1999, I was a a senior at King George Secondary School in Vancouver, a Glee Club geek, pale, skinny, eyeglassed, kind of homely, with a pretty good voice but no social skills.  I knew I was gay, but I wasn't out yet.

Then my buddy told me about auditions for minor parts in Final Destination (2000), starring Devon Sawa (the 21-year old star of Casper, The Boys Club, Wild America, and Idle Hands).   I figured it would look good on my uni apps, and I had a little crush on Devon, so off I went.

 I got the part -- one line and crowd shots, took about an hour -- but somehow Devon noticed me.  We went out to lunch, and then to the Aquarium, and before I knew it I was coming out to him -- the first person I told!  And that weekend he escorted me to my first gay bar.

We never hooked up -- he said I wasn't his type.  But I never forgot the emotional connection and support.

One night he asked me, "Of all the actors in Hollywood, other than me, who would you most like to sleep with?"

Without a blink I said "Jonathan Taylor Thomas."

I watched every episode of Home Improvement (1991-1999), even though I despised that awful, homophobic Tim Allen, and the "real men" grunting, playing sports, and talking about tools.  I had enough of that growing up in Vancouver, thank you.  But Jonathan Taylor Thomas (1981-), a teen dream fave rave, an androgynous prettyboy with soulful grey eyes and puckered lips.

How could you help putting his poster on your bedroom wall and kissing it every night?

Even though your parents misinterpreted your interest in Home Improvement and kept giving you tools for Christmas.

"Jonathan's pretty cool," Devon said.  "We've been friends for years.  Tell you what -- come visit me in L.A. sometime, and maybe I can arrange a meeting."

When filming ended, he went back to L.A., and I went on to the Victoria Conservatory to study voice, but we stayed in touch.

I finally did visit at Christmastime in 2001, and was disappointed by two things:

1. Devon is straight, or maybe bi. He was dating Danielle Fischel of Boy Meets World!  I did get a date with Ben Savage out of the deail, but that's a story for another time.

2. Jonathan Taylor Thomas had left Hollywood to study philosophy at Harvard, and wasn't in town for a hookup.

The next few years of my life were rough: I flunked out of the Conservatory, broke up with my boyfriend, lost my brother, tried to make it as a singer, and finally went back to uni for my teaching credential.  I got my degree in 2008, and became a high school music teacher, first in Hamilton, Ontario and then in Toronto.

Devon and I became "Christmas and Birthday Card" friends.  I was invited to his weddings, to Jessica and Dawni, but didn't go.  The last time I saw him in person was in Montreal in 2006.

My schoolboy crush on Jonathan Taylor Thomas dimmed a bit when I saw his gay-themed movies, Speedway Junkie (1999) and Common Ground (2000), and read his homophobic response to the reporters' standard question: "Does playing a gay character mean that you are gay?"

JTT: "Of course not!!!!!   I've played murderers.  Does that mean I'm a murderer?"

In his interview with The Advocate, his response was just as vociferous: "It's a blatant lie."

I didn't see him in any more movies, and assumed that he had left Hollywood for good.

[According to Popsugar, he graduated from Columbia in 2010 and left Hollywood, returning only to direct three episodes (and guest-star in four) of his pal Tim Allen's sitcom, Last Man Standing (2013-2016).  I don't know who the boyfriend is,]

Last summer, I had to go to Los Angeles for a conference, and I emailed my friend Devon to ask him to lunch.

"Lunch, nothing!" he responded.  "You're staying with me in Calabasas.  That is, if you don't mind a houseful of kids and cats."

Calabasas, California, July 2017

I flew into LAX on Thursday, rented a car, and drove up to Calabasas, in the San Gabriel Valley about an hour's drive away.  Nice house, very rustic, with mountains visible in the distance.

Devon was 38 years old, no longer blond, tall and tattooed and craggy -- but we've all gotten older, haven't we?

It was a little awkward at first, like you might imagine with someone you haven't actually seen in a decade, but soon we were talking about Vancouver in the 1990s, and coming out, and it was like old times.  Dawni was nice, but kept in the background, mostly running around with the kids, a toddler boy and a babe in arms.

"Are you going to be here Saturday afternoon?" Devon asked.  "We can go up into the mountains.  And I might have a surprise for you."

I had a couple of presentations to go to at the conference, but I promised I would be.

When I arrived on Saturday afternoon, Jonathan Taylor Thomas was sitting in the living room!

I didn't recognize him at first: he was 36 years old, no longer puppy-dog cute, more scholarly, like that cool philosophy professor who introduced you to existentialism and jazz.

Was Devon setting us up?

I played it cool, not sitting next to him, not gushing, and absolutely not bringing up Home Improvement.  Jonathan was quiet, a bit reserved.  Later Devon told me that they hadn't seen each other in about ten years.

After we chatted for awhile, Devon said "Ok, it's pool time.  Men only -- no wives, kids, or cats."

Jonathan shook his head.  "You're not going to get me that way again!  We're not fifteen anymore!"

"Maybe you're not, but I plan to stay fifteen forever!" Devon exclaimed.  "Rick, help me with grandpa here."

I didn't know what was going on, but I obliged.  We each took one of Jonathan's hands and pulled him through the living room and dining room, and out through the French doors to the pool.

"No!" Jonathan yelled.  "You jackass, I've got my smartphone in my pocket, and my wallet!  And I don't have a change of clothes!"

Devon laughed.  "You heard the man.  Get him out of his clothes, and don't be gentle!"

We quickly stripped Jonathan of his shirt, undershirt, shoes, pants, and underwear -- yes, I "accidentally" got a grope -- average size, cut.   Then we took him by his hands and feet and threw him into the pool.

"You jerks!  I'm going to get you for this!"  He hoisted himself out of the pool, naked and gleaming in the sun, his cock bouncing about.  Devon tried to run away, but Jonathan grabbed him and pushed them both into the pool.

Soon all three of us were naked, dunking each other, roughhousing like kids. Devon is quite well hung, by the way, a thick 4" soft.

There was no sex -- a bit of casual groping, maybe.  I never even found out if Jonathan is gay.  But being naked in the pool with my old friend and my childhood crush -- what could be better?

My Five Minutes as a Cub Scout

I was never a Boy Scout, but I was a Cub Scout -- for about five minutes in the winter of fourth grade.

They promoted it heavily in school, with film strips and guest speakers, and a giant assembly where they extolled the wonders of the Loud Thunder Boy Scout Camp.

Lots of cute boys hugging in swimsuits.

It sounded like a good way to increase our cruising options, and get more cute boys for our sleepovers, so Bill, Joel, and I joined.

I liked the cool blue uniforms, the Indian lore, and the various guidebooks that demonstrated how to win merit badges: swimming, diving, life saving.

And our  pack consisted mostly of boys we didn't know from class, so we did get some new opportunities for meeting cute boys.

The pack leader was cute, although I never saw him like this.

Bill and I always cut out just before the final song, "God Bless America," and ran home through the dark winter night to catch The Partridge Family.  It was fun being out after dark by ourselves.

But the benefits were far outweighed by the horrible arts-and-crafts activities!

First, we had to glue something together.  How was I supposed to know that new tubes of glue need a pin-prick?  I squeezed and squeezed, and the whole thing burst all over my scout uniform.

Not the best way to attract the attention of a cute boy.  My mother never did get it clean again.

And we were supposed to build cars out of a block of wood, and paint them.  Smelly, messy, disgusting.

But the worst was the Boy Scout Jamboree that we had to attend downtown.  Boy Scouts demonstrating inane skills, like gardening and being nice to old people.

The one I remember the most vividly is "how to build a fallout shelter" for nuclear war.  Way to put a damper on the afternoon!

The opportunity for cruising wasn't worth it.  Bill and I dropped out.  Joel stuck around.

A few years later, Harvey comics featured a series in which Casper becomes a Cub Scout.   Spooky and Hot Stuff join, too.

Apparently they are all eight years old.

I couldn't figure out why someone who regularly fights mad scientists, monsters, and aliens would want to spend his evenings glueing things together and carving cars out of wood blocks.

Unless Casper was looking for new cruising opportunities, too.

My Boyfriend and My Satanist Ex-Boyfriend at Thanksgiving Dinner: A Kelvin/Keefe Adventure

 

"Thanks again for inviting me to Thanksgiving dinner with your family," Kelvin, son of world-famous megachurch pastor Eli Gemstone and youth pastor at the Salvation Center,  told his boyfriend Keefe as the "Welcome to Richmond Hill" sign appeared.  It was an elegant suburb of Savannah, new-looking, with trendy shops and cool-sounding restaurants like the Himalayan Curry Cafe.

"Well, you invited me to dinner with the Gemstones last year,"  Keefe, a reformed Satanist turned assistant youth pastor, said.  "So it's only fair to make you endure my family's craziness.  Have you been studying the family tree?"

"I have it memorized.  Your Mama, Beth.  Don't ask about your Daddy.  Your sister Liz, age 45, and her husband Henry.  She's a child psychologist, and he's a dentist. Henry's son from his first marriage, Austin, who teaches high school English, and his wife...um..."

"Becky."

"Right, Becky.  Liz and Henry have another son, Jimmy, age 8.  Boy, I hope our heart-healthy green bean casserole will be enough."

"It will be fine.  No one in my family eats heart-healthy anyway."

"Ok, who else...Your uncle might be coming.  He's gay, but you only found out a couple of years ago.  He was closeted when you were growing up."  He paused.  "You don't mind letting them think that you're just the assistant youth pastor? I'm not ashamed of us or anything...it's just...well, I'm a Gemstone."  

"I don't mind," Keefe said, lying a little.  It took the family years to accept him -- his sister still didn't like to talk about it much -- and now he had to hide?  Pretend that the love of his life was a buddy?  It felt wrong.  

But Kelvin was always skittish.  He didn't even realize that he was gay until he was over 30. Everyone else knew the moment they saw him in one of his flamboyant outfits.  Keefe suspected that he would prefer to identify as a masculine-presenting demiboy, but they could save the gender-identity conversation for later.  Much, much later.

The full story is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends

A Sleepover, Sausage Sighting, and Fondling of My Cousin Phil

When I was growing up in Rock Island, we traveled to northern Indiana once or twice a year to visit my grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins.  Mostly on my mother's side of the family and my Dad's sister Nora.  We evern stayed with her sometimes.  My earliest  sausage sighting was of her teenage son, Joe, when I was 7 1/2 years old.

But Dad didn't get along with his other sister, Aunt Edna, so we never visited her, and saw her only rarely, at an occasional Thanksgiving Dinner.  I knew only a little about her family: her husband, Uncle John, fat and blustering; a grown-up daughter, who moved to California; and Cousin Phil, about ten years older than me.

As far as I can remember, I've only met Cousin Phil five times in my life.  One of them resulted in a sausage fondle.

Thanksgiving 1966

I was six years old, and Cousin Phil was a slim teenager with long hippie-hair, wearing a white t-shirt that displayed two pinprick nipples (I wanted to squeeze them).  He sat at the table looking at his hands.  When Grandma Davis told him to "dress properly and show some respect," he ran into the bedroom and wouldn't come out to eat.

Christmas 1968

I was eight, and Cousin Phil was in high school, old enough to drive a car, still thin and pale and long hair.  He wore a plaid shirt and frayed jeans, and three strands of love beads.  He flashed the peace sign at me, but otherwise we didn't speak.


Thanksgiving 1971

I was eleven, and Cousin Phil was a college man, majoring in one of the sciences (I think physics) at Tiffin University.  A little thicker in the arms and the chest, cute but not "dreamy," with short brown hair and dark blue eyes.   He was wearing an orange leisure suit.

He brought a friend, an Ethiopian guy named Malcolm.  They nudged each other and giggled all during dinner.  I assumed that they were boyfriends, that they had escaped the trajectory of job-house-wife-kids that the adults were plotting for us and found joy in each other.

I kept in contact with Malcolm for a few years, even going swimming with him the following summer, always assuming that he was my cousin's boyfriend.

Thanksgiving 1974

I was fourteen, and Cousin Phil was an adult, a college graduate who had a job working for the city of Montpelier, Ohio (I think in the waste water management plant).   His hair was long again, a little scraggy, and his face was pale.  He was thicker still in the arms, almost muscular.  He had a smooth heavy chest and a little belly.

Malcolm was not in the picture; instead, Phil brought a girlfriend!

I was devastated to discover that they weren't "best men," a gay couple, after all.

After Thanksgiving Dinner, Aunt Edna and her family stayed in Rome City with Aunt Nora, and my family drove back to Grandma Davis's farmhouse, about twenty miles away, to spend the night.  My brother and I were sent up to bed at 9:00 pm, while the adults stayed downstairs, playing Yahtzee and watching tv.

Around 11:00 pm, Dad burst into our room and turned on the light.  "Get your clothes on!" he barked.  "We're going home!"

"To Rock Island?" I asked.  "But we're supposed to stay until Sunday."

"Shut up and get into the car!  Hurry up!"

We pulled on our clothes, dumped our pajamas into our suitcases, and rushed down the stairs.  I stopped to use the bathroom.  Grandma Davis wasn't around.  Mom and Tammy were already in the car.  I could tell that Mom had been crying.

Adults never told kids anything, but I surmised that there had been an argument, and Grandma Davis ordered Mom and Dad out, or they decided to leave.

Dad gunned the engine, and we roared down the dark country roads.

"We can't drive all the way back to Rock Island!" Mom exclaimed.  "We wouldn't get home until dawn!  Besides, I want to visit my Dad and sisters tomorrow!"

"Well, where are we supposed to go?" Dad asked.  "To a hotel?  They won't rent us a room in the middle of the night!"

"Let's go back to Nora's house.  I can't wait to tell her about this.  She'll take my side, I guarantee."

So we drove back to Rome City, where Aunt Nora was conciliatory.   There were eight people in the house already, but she put Dad on the couch, Mom and Tammy in her room, and Kenny and me with Cousin Phil in the attic.


"Don't wake him up," she cautioned.  "Just take off your clothes and climb in bed with him.  He won't mind."

We crept up the attic stairs, carefully closed the door behind us, and undressed, dropping our clothes to the floor.  In the orange glow of the space heater, I could see that Cousin Phil was lying on the bed on his back.  He had kicked off the quilt and the comforter.

He was naked!  I could see his thick, smooth chest, his little belly with an innie belly button.  And his penis lying against the dark mass of his pubic hair.   Very thick Bratwurst+.

"I'll give you a dime if you touch it," my brother whispered.

"No problemo!" I climbed onto the bed and slid next to Cousin Phil.  I brushed my hand over his chest, down his belly, and slowly approached his penis.

But I didn't get there.

"Hey...what..." Cousin Phil murmured.  He opened his eyes and stared at me.  "Boomer...what.."

"We have to sleep here tonight.  Aunt Nora said so."

"Mm......hang on a minute."  He jumped off the bed and pulled on his underwear.  "Ok, hop in.  But no kicking, ok?"

I stayed awake for most of the night,  but eventually I got Cousin Phil to hold me in his arms.  I touched his belly and his hand, fondled his chest and his pinprick nipples, and reached down to briefly caress his warm, thick penis through his underwear.  I don't know if he was awake or not.

That was enough for a lot of fantasies during the next few years.

After breakfast in the morning, Aunt Edna and her family left.  We didn't return to Indiana for Thanksgiving again until 1980, and Cousin Phil wasn't there.  One thing led to another, and I didn't see him again for 40 years.

September 2016

We're both back in Indianapolis for a funeral.

Cousin Phil is 65, gray and craggy, shorter than I remember, and quite round in the belly.

He's retired from his job at City of Montpelier, still living in the house he bought shortly after his wedding in 1975.  His wife died last year.  He has two daughters and six grandchildren.

Job, house, wife, kids, the entire heterosexist trajectory.  I escaped it.  Cousin Phil didn't.

"Do you remember the sleepover, at Thanksgiving when I was fourteen?" I ask.  "Up in the attic at Aunt Nora's house?"

He pauses for a moment.  "Sure, I remember that.  I can't believe we were ever that young.  It was a different world, wasn't it?"

I want to say "No.  It's still my world.  I sleep in a man's arms most nights."  But I just smile.

Joseph and I Hook Up in a Haunted House

Terre Haute, Indiana

One day the July after my first year in grad school at Indiana University, my friend Joseph called: "You up for a road trip this Saturday?"

"Where to?"  I asked, hoping he wanted to go to one of the gay bars in Indianapolis. 

"I gotta go to Terre Haute to pick up some stuff, then drop it off at my parents' house in Broad Ripple [a suburb of Indianapolis]."

"How much stuff?" I asked suspiciously.  I didn't want to be conned into helping him move.

"Not a lot, just a few keepsakes.  My parents are selling my great-aunt Rose's house, and they want me to go get what I want before everything gets packed up and sold."

"Are other guys coming, too?"

"There aren't a lot of guys around Bloomington during the summer, so it will be just you and me."  He paused.  It's a pretty long trip, so we'll probably have to spend the night in Broad Ripple before heading back."

Spend the night!  I know what that meant!

 Joseph was  one of the first gay guys I met in Bloomington: an undergraduate history major, with black curly hair, a baby face, and a lean tan physique.  And short -- Definitely my type!  But he was also very popular, dating Rick the philosophy major, then Mark the optometrist, then a medical student named Manfred (really!), so I never managed to squeeze in.

Obviously I wasn't his first choice, but who cared?  This was my chance to get intimate!

Saturday after lunch we set out for Terre Haute, about 1 1/2 hours away.  Joseph said that he grew up in Broad Ripple, but they drove out to visit his mother's aunt Rose almost every weekend.  He had fond memories of fishing in the Wabash River, drive-in movies, dinner at the Pizza King, and drinking hot chocolate at Christmastime

"Aunt Rose is in a nursing home with dementia," he told me. "She fades in and out.  Some days she's almost normal, and others she thinks it's 1961, and I'm her brother Oscar.  But she can still name all of the U.S. presidents, in order, up to Richard Nixon."

"Did she know about you [being gay] before her dementia?"

"No.  I'm not out anyone in my family, and I sure wasn't going to come out to a hard-core Methodist lady.   She was always worried that I wasn't dating enough.  One of the last things she said to me before her dementia began was 'You shouldn't be so picky, or you'll never find a girl."

Aunt Rose used to be a professor of American history at Indiana State University.  She lived in a big, two-story house in West Terre Haute, just across the Wabash.  It was painted a depressing shade of grey, but it had a wide porch and a big, carefully mown front lawn.

As we walked up to the house, I saw what looked like a face in the attic window.

 "Who's that?"  I asked. 

"Who's who?"

But it was gone.

I didn't want to turn him off by being leery of an old house, so I said "Does anyone else live here?"

He shrugged.  "No, but about a dozen members of the family have keys.  We drop by to do housework, pay Aunt Rose's bills, and such.  Why?"

"Oh, um...it's just well kept up." 

The living room was mostly packed up and ready to go, all of the pictures taken from the walls and the furniture all carefully marked with the name of whoever had claimed it.  Joseph took a candy dish and a ceramic figure of a dog.

The kitchen was cluttered with pots, pans, dishes, and various obscure implements in piles on the counters and tabletops.  Joseph took a fondue set, a long-ago Christmas present that had never been used, and the cup his Aunt Rose used to serve his juice in.

It was very warm.  He turned on the air conditioner, but we still had to take our shirts off.

Next came the study, heavy laden with books from a career as a college professor: a three-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Bruce Caxton's Civil War trilogy, plus mystery novels, literature, folklore, music, and about a hundred books on gardening.  Joseph and I filled five boxes with books to argue over later.

He left Aunt Rose's bedroom alone.

Upstairs was a storage room that was pack rat heaven.  50 years of Christmas and birthday cards. Stacks of report cards and school papers. Old magazines, carefully bundled.   Old wrapping paper.  Slide carousels.  Souvenirs of long-ago trips.  Joseph took a nativity set, some Christmas tree ornaments, and a painting of the house.

He left the first bedroom alone and zeroed in on the second, where he stayed whenever he slept over.  There were two twin beds with flowered comforters, a night stand between them, an old-fashioned dresser, and a little card table with framed pictures of Aunt Rose's family.

"Help me get this comforter.  And I think I want the lamp, too.  I used to fall asleep with the light on, and Aunt Rose would come in and turn it off.  Sometimes I just pretended to be asleep, so I would know when she came in..."  he stopped short.  He was trembling.

"Are you ok?"

"She joked that I liked this room so much, I should spend my honeymoon here.  I just... wish Aunt Rose could know about who I really am.  I'm sure she'd be ok with it...I'm so much happier now then when I was trying to be straight, with all the friends I've made...and .."  He started to cry.  I rushed to put my arms around him.  Then somehow we were kissing.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

The Halloween Homophobe

Bloomington, October 1983

When I was growing up, my church deemed alcohol the worst possible sin, worse than murder or reading the Sunday newspaper or talking to a Catholic.  We couldn't eat food that once contained alcohol, like "beer batter shrimp."  We couldn't set foot in a bar, a restaurant that sold alcohol, or a grocery store with a beer section.  Some Nazarenes wouldn't let the doctor swab their arms with alcohol before giving them a shot.

 I've overcome many of the strictures of my childhood, but to this day I can't bring myself to drink anything alcoholic.  I've never had wine.  I've had only one and a half cans of beer in my life.

Why one and a half?

It was 1983, my second year at Indiana University, and my friend Viju and I had just moved into an apartment together.  On the Saturday before Halloween, we invited several of our gay friends and their dates to a party. We provided homoerotic snacks like penis-shaped cookies, plus Cokes and Sprites (and some of the guys brought beer).  We planned some double-entendre laden party games, an erotic Chamber of Horrors in Viju's bedroom, and finally the Halloween costume contest at Bullwinkle's.

I was going as Pan, the Greek god, with shaggy leggings and horns, Viju was a cop, and Jimmy the Bodybuilder on Crutches said he was coming as a vampire,  Joseph from the Gay Student Alliance was a shirtless Zorro, Terry from Eigenmann Hall was a drag queen witch, Mark the optometry major was Superman, and his date, a shy but extremely cute undergrad named Scott, was a gymnast.

Jimmy took a long time to get up the stairs, so I heard him coming, and opened the door to say hello.

My jaw dropped.  His  "date" was his friend Tony, who was straight,  and didn't know that Jimmy was gay.

Apparently Jimmy hadn't realized that it was a gay party.

In the 1980s, you simply did not come out, to anyone, except maybe your family and closest childhood friends, and then only after extensive preparation.  But in a moment a straight guy would be in our tiny living room with six gay men who weren't closeting their behavior.

Thinking fast, I yelled at Tony, "Where's your girlfriend?"

Straight guy! Closet time! Mark and his date, Scott, immediately slid apart.   Joseph grabbed the tray of penis-shaped cookies and rushed them into the kitchen, Terry took off his wig and earrings to transform his costume from witch to Uncle Fester, and Viju ran to slam the door to the erotic Chamber of Horrors. Someone turned on It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  



Tony helped Jimmy through the door.  "I don't have a girlfriend," he said, glancing around the room, probably thinking "whoa, sausage fest."  "I was hoping to meet some girls here."

Glaring at Jimmy for being such a dope, I said,  "Sure, sure.  We're going trick-or-treating in the girls' dorm later."

You're probably thinking: why bother to closet ourselves?  It was seven against one.  What could he possibly do?

We soon found out.

Tony asked to use the bathroom.  I pointed the way.

A moment later, I heard his shrill voice: "Boomer, get in here!"

Apparently he had opened the wrong door.  He was standing in my bedroom, where there was a replica of Michelangelo's David on my desk, and the wall by the bed plastered with pictures of naked men torn out of In Touch and Mandate. 

"Where are the girls?" he asked.

"What girls?"

For a moment he just stared, speechless.  Then the tirade began.  "Are you trying to tell me that you're queer?  Don't you know that this lifestyle spreads diseases?  Don't you know that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because they were homos?"

"Um...."

Suddenly he became more conciliatory.  "Look, it's probably not too late.  You could rethink your decision."

Rethink your decision!  I was already angry with him for forcing my party into the closet, and this was the last straw. "Oh, gee," I yelled, "I had no idea.  Thanks for the heads-up!  I'll turn back to straight right away!"  I tore down some of the pictures from my wall, wadded them up, and threw them at his feet.

Then I ran back into the living room.  "Boobs!" I grunted.  "Boobs and football and...um, beer!"  I grabbed a can of beer, popped the top, and guzzled some.  It tasted horrible.

Tony followed, no longer conciliatory. "Did you guys know that Boomer is a homo?  He probably wants to take you back into his little chamber of horrors and do nasty, perverted things to you."

Um...yes, I was counting on it," Joseph said.

"You're queer?" Tony asked.  "Maybe you're all queer! Did you invite me and Jimmy up here to try to turn us that way, too?"

Of course, we should have shown him the door.  But we were not "out and proud."  We were coming from the dull despair of the 1970s Midwest, where gay people, when mentioned at all, were portrayed as utterly despicable.  Some of us were still working through feelings of guilt and shame, the nagging doubts: What if we really are sick?  What if God really does hate us?

"Count me out,  I just turned straight," I said, roiling with rage. "Boobs!  Football!  Beer!  Hey, turn the game on! This show sucks -- Charlie Brown is a fag!"  I drained my beer -- it still tasted terrible -- and started another.

Viju glared at Jimmy, "Hey, psychology major, maybe you should tell your buddy something?"

Jimmy hung his head.

"Oh, no, not Jimmy, too!" Tony exclaimed.  "He's handicapped!  Couldn't you perverts leave him alone?  Stick to the schoolyards!"

"Hey, I've never done it in a schoolyard!  Schoolbus, maybe!"  The room was starting to spin.  Was this what it felt like to be drunk?  "When I was six I married the boy next door."

Tony ignored me.  "How can you do those...those disgusting things?" he continued, this time addressing Mark and Scott.  "Do you hate yourself that much, or are you trying to get back at your parents, or do you just hate God?"

Scott the shy undergrad looked like he was about to cry.

Enough was enough!  I walked over to Tony and calmly poured the rest of my beer on his head.

That's why I've had only 1 1/2 cans of beer in my life.

Surprisingly, Jimmy and Tony stayed friends.  It wasn't Jimmy's fault, after all, that he had been "brainwashed" by a pack of "perverts."

And as my reward, I got to spend 7 minutes in the Chamber of Horrors with Scott the shy undergrad.

See also: Sharing the Optometrist's Boyfriend; Joseph and I Get Intimate in a Haunted House.

Halloween Horror: Cruising in Lynchburg, Virginia, the Scariest Place on Earth

This story has moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

I Cheat on My Boyfriend with a Goblin

Davenport, Iowa, March 1980

In December 1979, when I was a sophomore at Augustana College, I got my first actual boyfriend: Fred, 27 years old, a graduate of McCormick Theological Seminary taking his internship year at the First United Methodist Church in Rock Island.

After Christmas I started spending two or three evenings a week with Fred -- dinner (he cooked), tv, and sex, then rushing home at 11:00 pm to tell my parents I had been studying late at the library.

By March  I had introduced them to Fred, and was openly spending the night on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

In June we moved to Omaha together.  After an execrable six weeks, we broke up, but stayed friends for the rest of his life.

Fred actually was from the Quad Cities, or nearby; he grew up in the small town of Aledo, about 30 miles south, and got his undergraduate degree in psychology at Knox College in Galesburg.  He was still in contact with several of his Quad Cities friends, some that knew he was gay, some that didn't.

One who did was Dale Schaefer-Shit (his real name, except for the shit part), a nasty little goblin, about 3 feet high, with a very thick, heavy torso, very long, hairy arms, long sharp claws, an ugly, warty face, pointy ears, green skin, prehensile toes, a tail...

 Ok, he looked more like the top photo: Fred's age, tall, buffed, with a black beard and a hairy chest. But I always imagined him as a goblin.

I arrived at Fred's apartment, across the river in Davenport, about 4:30 pm -- dinner was at 5:00 pm, standard for the Midwest -- and at least once a week, often more than that, Dale Schaefer-Shit was there.  Apparently he  had some sort of late-night goblin job with the city, so he got up around 2:00 pm, and came to visit Fred in the late afternoon to do morning-type activities.

Sometimes he was sitting at the kitchen table, slurping on Cheerios.

Sometimes he was on the couch, watching Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat.  

Sometimes he was coming out of the bathroom, toweling off after a shower, naked, his hairy chest glistening, his cock and balls dangling between his legs.

I should have been turned on, but I wasn't.  Seeing Dale Schaefer-Shit made me angry.  I could be in a perfectly good mood, on top of the world, but when I walked in and saw the goblin, my hackles raised.  There was just something about him that seemed unclean, disturbing.  Evil.

I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.
The reason why, I cannot tell.
But this one thing, I know full well.
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.

Apparently the feeling was mutual.  Dale Schaefer-Shit rarely spoke to me.  Usually he pretended I wasn't in the room.  And he never stuck around long after I arrived.  He said "See ya, Flintstone" to Fred, flashed me an evil smile, and slithered off to do nasty goblin things.

Where did Fred, the ministerial intern, the theologian, the trained pastoral counselor, even meet that creepy little gremlin?

"He's my oldest friend.  We grew up together.  We were both in the same Cub Scout troop.  We went to sleepovers together, and trick-or-treating on Halloween."

With that face, he must have gotten a lot of candy...

"We called each other Flintstone and Rubble, because my name is Fred.  He's the first one I told when I realized that I was gay."

I get it...he was your shadow-self, the yang to your yin, the darkness to your light, the squirrelly  snivelly Gollum to your Frodo.

"Well, he strikes me as...um.."  A nasty little gremlim!  "As sort of creepy."

"He's a little on the shy side, but he's a good guy, really."

One wet, blustery day in March, before we took our trip to Des Moines to visit the Priest with Three Boyfriends,  I arrived at the apartment to find Dale Schaefer-Shit sitting on the couch under a blanket, shirtless, eating cereal and...reading one of Fred's Playgirl magazines!

"Um...hi..."  I said tentatively.

"Fred's not here -- something held him up."  He laughed at a secret joke.  "Sit down.  Want some blanket?"

I couldn't think of any way around it, so I kicked off my shoes, threw my raincoat on the floor, and sat down next to Dale Schaefer-Shit.  I pulled the blanket over my legs. He slurped down the rest of his cereal and put the bowl aside.

"Hey, Boomer maybe you can help me.  I've always wondered about something, and Fred's too square to talk about it.  What do gay guys do in bed?  Like rub your cocks together?"

I should have said "None of your business," but Dale Schaefer-Shit had dark mystical powers.  I don't think I had a choice.  "Sometimes we do that. Fred's favorite thing is Greek, which is plowing into your butt, but he's too big for me.  I like French, which means giving the guy a b.j."

He flashed an evil grin.  "No kidding?  You suck his cock? Well, I see why Fred likes that, but what do you like about it?"  I felt a hairy leg brush against mine.  Schaefer-Shit was wearing short pants -- or naked...

Startled, and inexplicably getting aroused, I stammered "Um...I get a lot out of it.  It's totally erotic...getting a guy off."

"Yeah?  Cool!  I've got blow jobs before, with girls, but I never gave one."  He grabbed my hand under the blanket and pushed it against his naked, hairy cock.  I instinctively began masturbating him.

"I'll bet gay guys do it better, though.  You know what it feels like."  He grabbed me by the neck and pushed me down toward his crotch.

I hadn't yet learned about the custom of sharing, and besides, I couldn't stand the little goblin.  But I moved like in dream, depersonalized, watching the events from above.

I got on my knees, stuck my head under the blanket, and took Schaefer-Shit's goblin dick down my throat.  It was  average sized but hard as a rock, and covered with short hairs, like it had just been shaved.

It wasn't pleasant -- like having a hairy rock prodding at me -- so after awhile I moved on to his balls.  They were huge, what they used to call "bull balls."

 I licked and sucked them -- one was a mouthful -- while beating him off, then returned to his cock in time for him to excrete a mouthful of lukewarm, salty goblin semen.

He pulled his pants up and found his shirt, and I returned to my place next to him on the couch.  We turned on the tv and watched a game show wordlessly.  Gradually my will power returned, and I realized that I had just sucked the cock of a vile little goblin.

"Don't tell Fred about this," I said, my eyes on the screen.

"Oh, no problem.  I can keep a secret.  I'm full of secrets."

Soon Fred appeared, carrying a grocery bag.  "You guys been watching tv?" he asked suspiciously.

"I've been keeping Boomer warm for you," Schaefer-Shit said. "But now I have to go to work.  See ya, Flintstone."

"Bye, Rubble."

The next time I saw him, the little goblin went back to his habit of ignoring me.

Good.

In June we moved to Omaha, and after six weeks Fred and I broke up.  I never saw or heard about Dale Schaefer-Shit again.

Good.

I never told Fred what happened that day.

Good.

Many years later, Fred revealed that he had been cheating on me with Schaefer-Shit.  Those times I ran into the little snivelly creep coming out of the shower, he had just been in the bedroom, being screwed by my boyfriend. 

I didn't blame Fred.  Schaefer-Shit had some kind of weird dark magic, and could get you to do what he wanted.

"Sometimes I didn't have a chance to clean up afterwards," Fred added, "So when you went down on me later, my cock had been inside...well, you know."

Yeah, I know.  Inside a goblin's butt.