Cruising East of Alvarado

West Hollywood, September 1993

"Where are all the Hispanic guys?' I asked Lane one day. "The population of Los Angeles is about 50% Hispanic, but you never see any here in West Hollywood.  We don't even have a Mexican restaurant."

"I can buy some Old El Paso at the Safeway if you want," Lane said, "And make tacos tonight."

"I'm serious.  We bring home lots of Asian guys, and lots of Anglo leather bears, but no Hispanic guys"

"What do you expect, when you cruise at Mugi, and I cruise at the Faultline?  If you want to meet Hispanic guys, you have to go where they are."

He was right.  The Hispanic gay population of L.A. had its own distinct culture, pre-dating West Hollywood.  If I wanted to meet them, I had to head east of Alvarado.

So on Saturday night, I dropped Lane off at the Faultline for his weekly cruise, and drove a mile farther to the corner of Sunset and Hollywood, and a bar called Basgo's.

It was not like the semi-darkness of Mugi: it was loud and gaudy, the walls painted an effervescent pink.  There were murals of naked Aztecs, plastic palm trees, stuffed parrots.

Pumped-up bartenders in their underwear gyrated to salsa music:

En la vida hay amores
que nunca pueden olvidarse
imborrables momentos
que siempre guarda el corazón

Drag queens made the rounds, flirting and kvetching with their huge brandy snifters sloshing with ruby-red margaritas.

Rent boys slouched by the pool table, displaying sock-enhanced mega-bulges.

The cruising protocol was closer to Catch One than Mugi.  Few Anglos, no English being spoken, few people by themselves except for rent boys and drag queens.  You saw someone you liked and drew him away from his rowdy group of friends to the dance floor, where the pre-hookup conversation occurred.

Con los anos que me quedan
Yo vivire por darte amor
Borrando cada dolor
Con besos llenos de pasion
Como te ame por vez primera

I was drawn to a very handsome young guy with an impish grin, talking nonstop with his friends.   Shorter than me, dark skin, a round face, and black curly hair.  Frayed jeans with an enormous bulge and an yellow shirt with most of the buttons undone, revealing a hard smooth chest.

I approached and asked -- or rather yelled -- "Quires bailar?"  He grinned and nodded.  I took his hand and led him to the dance floor.

We spoke -- or rather yelled -- in  clipped Spanish.  His name was Dario.  He was 23 years old, from Peru.  He came to L.A. last year with his brother and two cousins.  He worked in a warehouse.



Nice background story.  Time to seal the deal.  I led him to the bar and ordered two tamarind-flavored Mexican sodas.   He grinned.

"Que quieres hacer en la cama?" I asked.  What do you like to do in bed?

"Oh, me gustaria que tu me maman!" Dario said, eyes gleaming.  "Y otras cosas, por supuesto.  Y cojerte..." 

Getting oral, topping, and "other things," not bad.

I knew that closeted guys were sometimes only into the act itself, not the preliminaries, so I specified:  "Pero, mi amigo y yo, nos gustan besando y abrazando, tambien."  Kissing and hugging, full body contact, making out.

He nodded.  "A mi me gustan muchas cosas."

And one more thing: "Y es absolutamente necessario que tu duermas con nosotros."  No grab-and-go.  You have to spend the night, or no deal.

He nodded.  "Si, si.  Dormiremos."

Dario didn't have a car, so he drove with me to pick up Lane at the Faultline, then to the French Quarter, and then to our apartment in West Hollywood. 

We sat in the living room.  I ran my hand over his chest, cupped his crotch, tried to kiss him.

No besando.

WTF?

Well, maybe he was shy.

We brought Dario into the bedroom, stripped off his clothes, and put him down on the bed.  He had a beautifully curved, uncut Bratwurst.  I went down on him while Lane fondled his chest.

Were they kissing?  I looked up.  No.
  

I gave Lane a turn at the cock and tried to kiss Dano.   No.

Well, could I at least fondle his balls?  Ok.

 He pushed Lane's head down on his crotch, jerked his hips, and finished with a groan. 

Ok, so how about mamando us?  No.

I wasn't particularly into anal, but he said cojerte, so I turned over onto my stomach and asked "Hay condones?"  Do you have condoms?

Dario was pulling his shorts on.  "Hey, I thought you were spending the night!"  I exclaimed.  "Dormiremos juntos!"

Nope.  "Tengo que venir a mi casa.  Necessito levantarme temprano."  I have to get up early.

So we left Lane in bed and got dressed, and I drove Dario home -- to Silverlake, eight miles away.

"Why did you tell me that you are into besando y mamando?" I asked in frustration.

He stared out the car window at the glittering lights of Santa Monica Boulevard.  "I told you I like many things," he said.

"And spending the night.  You said voy a dormir contigo."

"Dormir...tener sexo, si?"

I smelled a rat.  Dario had played me, agreeing to anything just to get into my bed.

Then we arrived at the address he gave me -- a glass-and-steel building on Hyperion, in the heart of Silverlake's gay neighborhood.

This was the tiny, rundown apartment that Dario shared with his brothers and cousins?

"Could I come in to use the bathroom?" I asked.

It was a beautifully furnished one-bedroom, with hardwood floors and antique furniture.  A framed print of a bullfighter.

A coffee table book about painter Joan Miro.

"Porque me dices que eres pobre?" I asked.  Why did you tell me that you were poor?

"I didn't say I was poor," Dario answered -- in respectable English!  "You heard what you wanted to hear."

The brothers and cousins came to the U.S. with him -- they didn't live with him.

And his job in the warehouse?  He was the general manager, with a salary double what Lane made.

"You wanted a poor little Latino boy who says 'si, señor' and agrees to whatever you say, and I wanted a hot, built Anglo to go down on me.  We both got what we wanted, right?"

The next weekend I returned to Basgo's and met Manuel, from Nicaragua, who spoke almost no English -- I checked.

And I made sure we were besando and abrazando before we left the bar.

See also: The Waiter in the Mexican Restaurant; I Bring Home a Teen Hustler.

The One Thing Kerry Wants in a Guy

West Hollywood, December 29th, 1998

I'm back in West Hollywood for New Year's Eve.  Lane and I are having breakfast at the French Quarter, catching up on the gossip of who dated who, who moved in, who broke up, during the 3 1/2 years I've been away.

"And guess what?" Lane says in a confidential hush.  "Kerry finally found a boyfriend! He moved into his apartment about two months ago!"

We met Kerry at the gay synagogue in West Hollywood several years ago.  He was 21 years old, a theater arts major at UCLA, sharing an apartment off Melrose with two roommates and working in a video store, where he always found a gay-themed movie to promote as his "Pick of the Week."

He stood out in the crowd: tall, a boyish all-American face, smooth sculpted physique, and a shock of red hair beneath a yarmulke decorated with little shamrocks.  One doesn't meet many redheaded Irish Jews.

Turns out that Kerry grew up in an Irish Catholic household in the Boston suburb of Braintree.  On his 16th birthday he shocked his family by going downstairs for breakfast in a yarmulke and announcing that he was converting to Judaism.

AND that he was gay.  In the same conversation.

That's chutzpah!

No wonder he moved 3,000 miles away to go to college.















We bonded over our outsider status, surrounded by guys who grew up kosher.  Lane and I had him over a few times for dinner and sharing: an oral bottom, average sized, surprising for a redhead, but with that face and physique, who cared?

He was very popular at the synagogue, at the gym, and at the twink bars. Some of the most desirable guys  in West Hollywood were asking him out.

There are six traits that make a guy stand out as boyfriend material in West Hollywood: movie industry connections, an extraordinary knowledge of the arts, a handsome face, a bodybuilder's physique, a gigantic penis, or money.   Kerry was being asked out by Cecil B. DeMille, Leonardo Da Vinci, Leonardo DiCaprio, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jeff Stryker, and Richie Rich, or the West Hollywood equivalents.

BUT: lots of first dates, rarely a second, but by the third, he was shouting "Next!"

No matter how hot the guy was, Kerry always found something wrong with him: bad breath, weird tattoo, unmade bed, a yapping dog, ordered the most expensive item on the menu, said something bad about Boston, lived outside the gay neighborhood.

Maybe he didn't really want a boyfriend?  Maybe he just liked meeting new guys, going out, and the bedroom activity after?

But he kept complaining: "I want to find my soul mate, the one I was destined to be with.  I want there to be fireworks the first time we kiss!"

We lost contact after I moved to San Francisco, and then New York.  Finding out that he has a boyfriend -- and they're living together --  is huge!

Who is this Adonis who has risen above all other mortals, with their snoring and farting and eating peanut butter right from the jar, to become "the one" for the extraordinarily picky Kerry?

"I don't know.  Kerry doesn't bring him to synagogue, and he won't tell us anything about him, except his name is Mat with one 't'."

"Well, I've got to meet this Mat with one 't'!  Do you have their phone number?"

He doesn't, but he has a friend from synagogue who does.  I call, and get us an invitation to visit after dinner tomorrow night.

I wonder which of the six traits Mat will have?  Maybe all six!


December 30th

We drive to a rundown apartment building, brown adobe with bars on the window, on Willoughby, where West Hollywood meets the Straight World.

Kerry is a few years older, of course, but still has a boyish all-American face and a pale, tight physique.  Mat is about 30, thin, rather scruffy looking, with unkept black hair and a three-day growth of beard.

I check the six traits, one by one:

1. Wealth.  No -- the apartment is small and cluttered, with no dining room and just one bedroom.  They serve us cake on mismatched plates.

2. Movie Industry Connections.  No -- Mat has a clerical job in an office on Wilshire.  Kerry has given up on his acting ambitions, and is taking classes in human resources management.

3. Knowledge of the Arts.  No.  We discuss Ricky Martin.  the Matrix, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

4. Handsome Face.   No.  His face is long and narrow, his eyes too small.

5. Bodybuilder's Physique.  No.  Mat is rather thin.

Then he must have #6, a Gigantic Penis!

Sharing with two guys is rare, and neither of us find Mat particularly attractive, but we start cruising him anyway, just to see what his beneath the belt gifts are like.

We go into the bedroom.  I kiss and fondle Kerry, and he kneels and goes down on me while Mat goes down on Lane  -- without taking his pants off.

Mat doesn't stand up until Lane finishes.  Seeing my opportunity, I kneel in front of him, unzip him, and find -- average, maybe a little small.

But...Kerry is an oral bottom!  He likes them big!

Kerry kneels beside me.  "Can I help you with that?" he asks.

Ok, I can't figure it out,  So I invite Kerry to lunch a couple of days after New Year's and ask.

January 3rd.  

"What sets Mat apart from the other guys?  What was the initial attraction?"

"Oh, his face, his personality, his wit," Kerry answers.  "And his penis, obviously."

"It seems a bit on the small side to me."

"Who cares about size?  It's uncut!  Didn't you notice when we 'shared' that  was all over you and barely touched Lane?  I love uncircumcized men!"

For Kerry, it all boiled down to a foreskin.

The Music Major's Top Turn On

Plains, January 2017

First day of the semester.  A day of anticipation and dread.  Will my new classes be a pleasure or a pain? Which students will be eager to participate?  Which will be taciturn?

But today I'm feeling a little off:  I got no sleep last night, and somehow I pulled a muscle doing bicep curls, of all things.

Plus I'm teaching an overload this semester, so it's class nonstop all morning, with no breaks.  I have to dash out to get lunch and eat it in my office during my office hours.

It's exactly noon, and very crowded at the Student Union Food Court.  I get into the line at the Grille for my regular lunch of chicken, vegetables, and a fountain drink.

The line moves sideways, cafeteria-style.  The guy next to me turns and smiles.

"It's my first time here.  Is it any good?"

He's a student, taller than me and rather stocky, wearing a brown sweater and jeans, but no coat.  Reddish-brown hair, short reddish-brown beard, blue eyes.  Reminds me of Alan the Pentecostal Porn Star, my friend in West Hollywood..

"Sure.  I eat here almost every day.  The grilled chicken and brown rice is pretty healthy."

"I'm Wagner[not his real name].  I just started in the graduate school."

This is weird.  You don't speak in line except to complain about the weather, and you certainly don't introduce yourself to someone you'll be standing next to for only about 30 seconds.   You stare at the food, or look at your cell phone.

He's from Bemidji, Minnesota, studying for Master of Music degree, concentration in music theory.

That's why he isn't wearing a coat -- the Performing Arts Building links directly to the Student Union.

He gets my name, my department, where I'm from (I say California), and where there's a good coffee house in town.  Curt, one-word answers.

I'm turned off by his over-friendliness.  Is it that weird "Minnesota nice"?

Wagner's order arrives.  He pays as I give my order.  I expect him to vanish, but he waits for me to finish, and then asks "Where are you sitting?"

Walking away, I tell him.  "I have to get back.  Office hours."

"Ok...nice chatting," I hear in the distance.

I'm starting to feel guilty.  The poor guy probably doesn't know anyone, he's in an unfamiliar city far from home on the coldest day of the year,  he reaches out, and gets Attitude.  I should have been nicer.

It wouldn't hurt to have lunch with him....

I turn and go back to the cafeteria.  There are rows of tables in the front, and some booths in the back.  Wagner is sitting at one of the booths, with three other guys....

He looks up quizzically.  I wave and go through the side door.

Ok, not lonely.  Was he cruising me?

I get cruised by twinks all the time -- I was cruised in a crazy retro restaurant in Indianapolis a couple of weeks ago, and ended up with a New Year's Eve date --  but usually it's the soft, cuddly, passive types.  Wagner is a bit older, stockier, bearded, aggressive.

Besides, I can't attract men with face alone, at least not recently.  My physique draws the attention, and today I'm wearing a bulky coat that hides everything.

I return to my office. Office hours, class, gym (lots of shirtless guys playing basketball!), snack, class.

At 8:00 pm I'm finally ready to go home, have dinner, watch Netflix, and fall asleep.  The route that involves the least amount of time outside in the cold goes through the Student Union and Performing Arts to the north parking lot.

Besides, you can usually find some cute theater majors hanging around in the Performing Arts lounge.

And music majors?

I go into the lounge, pretending that I want to buy a soda from the machine.  Sure enough, there's Wagner, sitting by himself, working on a laptop.

"Hi!" he exclaims, scooting over so I can sit next to him.  "How was your day?"

Almost exactly 24 hours later, Wagner is in my bedroom, going down on me.  He has a firm physique with big nipples and a belly, very furry -- there's even hair on his shoulders.  Nice tongue action.

When I finish, we climb into bed.  I wrap my arms around him.  He lays his head on my chest.

"You have the most spectacular chest I've ever seen," he murmurs.  "You must go to the gym every day."

"Just about."  I move to go down on his very thick beer-can of a penis.   "Question, though.  When we met, I was wearing a bulky coat, so you couldn't see my physique.  What did you find attractive?   Are you into older guys?"

"Well, yes, but that wasn't it.  I get approached by older guys all the time.  Most of them are just pathetic, so needy."

"So...just out of curiosity."

"Your voice," he says.  "Great basso profundo.  I figured you for a music professor."

That's a new one.  

"Most gay guys go to the ballet to cruise bulges," Wagner continues.  "I go to the opera to cruise voices."

 I do have a deep voice, but I can't hold a note.

Fortunately, he doesn't ask me to demonstrate.  My mouth is occupied elsewhere.

See also: Cruised by the Waiter in a Crazy Retro Restaurant; First Day of Class Beefcake and Bulges.