How Matt Began Renting Himself Out

San Francisco, April 1997

One night around 11:00 pm, I got a phone call out of nowhere.

"It's Matt, mon ami -- I'm at the Castro Street Muni Station.  Come pick me up!"

Matt the Cute Young Thing?

Nine years before, my college boyfriend Fred moved to Pomona, California, about an hour's drive from West Hollywood, to study at the Claremont School of Theology.

He brought Matt, 23 years old -- a scandalous age difference!

Plus Matt was an ultra-elitist snob, a graduate of the Andover Academy and Harvard University, who adored the opera, peppered his conversation with phrases in French and German, and complained that everything about my world was bourgeois or jejune:  the Midwest, West Hollywood, USC, Raul, the Greenery, the Different Light, you name it.

Plus he gossiped about everybody and everything, providing the weird voices.

Then Beau told his "Uncle,"  wink wink, "Be sure that yo' get mah new underweah in extra-extra-extra lahge."

But when you got beneath the sarcastic cover, Matt had a good heart.  And he was extraordinarily cute.

In the bedroom, while you were going down on him, he kept up a nonstop monologue of his progress, in three languages:

I'm getting there...un peu plus, mon chevalier.......je vais arriver...Mein Stollen, Mein Stollen...bien, bien...here I go...


We were never friends, exactly.  I only socialized with him -- and shared his bed -- because of Fred.  And that didn't happen often, maybe once every couple of months, and at Christmastime, when we all flew back to the Midwest.

Fred got his D. Min in 1993, and couldn't find a church, so he returned to his old job as a mental health counselor in San Bernardino, about 30 miles east of Pomona.

Ninety minutes from West Hollywood.

"I so envy you, mon ami!" Matt often said.  "So close to the action, the heart of the heart of the gay world, unsere Heimat!"

In 1995, shortly after we moved to San Francisco, Fred took a job at a congregational church in Fresno.

Three hours from West Hollywood

 "This town is even more dreary than San Bernardino!" Matt often said.  "And you're living in San Francisco, the heart of gay Heaven, Paradis."

In retrospect, I should have seen it coming.

I picked up Matt and his backpack at Castro Street Station and took him to Orphan Andy's for a hamburger.  He was 32 years old, no longer a Cute Young Thing, but quite buffed from hours at the gym.

"Fred and I are kaput! Over!  I caught him having sex with a kid in the youth group.  I'm all for sharing, but en cachette?  And I'm pretty sure the kid is underaged!"

"Well, you should at least hear his side of the story."

"No, I've had it.  J'ai trop mangé!  This isn't the first time, mind you, but I've put up with it because of my misguided sense of loyalty. But no more."

We returned to my cramped third-floor walk-up, over a hardware store, which he criticized as "impossibly bourgeois" and "a downscale dump," and spent the night.

It was my first time in bed with Matt without Fred being there.  He still kept up a nonstop monologue of his progress while I was going down on him: "Oui, mon ...étalon...comme ça...it won't be long now...a little more...bien, bien..."

In the morning, I called Fred and confirmed that this was no quarrel.  It was definitely over.  Matt's stuff was packed up and waiting for him in the guest room.

So we just had to get Matt the three essentials of life in Gay Heaven: an apartment, a gym membership, and a job.

The apartment came easy: a very nice second-floor in a Victorian on Dolores, near the Castro, for a frightfully high rent.

The next weekend, my friend David and I drove a U-Haul down to Fresno to pick up Matt's stuff: an antique grandfather's clock, a old secretary-style writing desk, ten boxes of books, and a lot of kitchen equipment, including a breadmaker and a pasta maker.  A second-hand store furnished the rest of the apartment.

The job was a problem. Matt stood to inherit several million dollars when his parents died, in fifty years, but for now his trust fund held only about $20,000.   And his resume was blank.

"I went straight from Harvard Yard to Fred's bed.  I've never actually had a job.  But I'm up for anything.  I'll sell my butt on Polk Street if I have to."  He turned around to display his butt.  It was indeed very nice.  His frontside, too.

"You're a little old for hustling," I said, hoping he wasn't serious.  "And not big enough for a career in porn.  But we'll find you something."

Ideas #1 and #2: Matt was fluent in French and German.  He could be a translator, or a guide for European tourists.

It turns out that everyone in the world was fluent in French and German -- I was fluent in French and German.  Aand European tourists usually came with guidebooks in hand.

Idea #3:  He was a Harvard alumnus, with lots of contacts in the City.  He called Santa Claus, aka Bearnard, the fantasy writer, and landed a job as his personal assistant.  But Matt's habit of criticizing everybody and everything did not sit well with Bearnard, and a few days later he was scanning the want ads again.

At least he got a hookup out of the deal: "Bien, bien...soon, soon...mon choux...comme ca...ich komme...."

Idea #4: I brought him over to "share" with Kevin the Vampire, my sort-of boyfriend, in the hope that he might have some supernatural suggestions.

"What have you being doing with yourself for all these years?" he asked.  "Sitting around watching soaps and waiting for Fred to come home, like June from Leave It to Beaver?"

"Basically," Matt admitted.  "I did all of the cooking and cleaning.  The marketing.  The laundry.  I was sein Hausmädchen, ja?"

"So you should get a job as a housemaid."

"Me as a housemaid?  That's hardly suitable for a graduate of the Andover Academy and Harvard University."

"And they only make about minimum wage," I added.

Kevin the Vampire smiled and touched his arm.  "But you could give it a Castro Street twist."

"What do you mean?"

"There are plenty of old queens in the City with more money than they know what to do with and absolutely no chance of bedding a Cute Young Thing.  They would pay premium rates for you to vacuum, dust, and prepare their afternoon aperitifs.  With your spectacular butt and sausage open for them to gawk at."

"A nude housekeeping service!" Matt exclaimed.  "Sounds like a way to syncretize my housekeeping skills, my entrepreneurial skills, and my physique.  And I could hire some twinks, in case clients like them younger.  A whole stable."


"Just be sure to specify that no sex is permitted, so San Francisco Vice stays off that spectacular butt of yours."

I moved to New York a few months later, but I understand that Matt soon had three assistants to handle about 20 clients per week.  His most popular service was "nude waiter" for dinner parties.

No sex during the housekeeping, of course, but nothing in the contract said that workers couldn't make a date for later.

"Mon etalon...a little more...ein bischen, ein bischen...almost there..."

See also: Fred and the Cute Young Thing; 8 Harvard Boys in My Bed; and Matt Gets on His Knees Behind the Bar

Lane's Bear Boyfriend and Infinite Chazz

West Hollywood, January 1995

Lane was a big fan of a gay comic that appeared weekly in Frontiers, about an assimilated couple: they lived in a straight neighborhood, had mostly straight friends, and had problems involving kids and in-laws.

"That's what life should be like," he said one night. "If the world wasn't so homophobic, we could move down to Anaheim, buy a house, and adopt a couple of kids, just like..."

"Just like our oppressors?"

"Just like straight people.  And look -- one of the guys is short, slim, and Jewish, and the other is tall, goy, and muscular, just like us!"

"Must be a sign," I said, busily channel surfing.

One Sunday night in January, we went to a book signing of gay cartoonists at the Different Light Bookstore.  Tim, who drew Lane's strip, looked nothing like his characters: he was about 40, and big, bigger than me everywhere:  6'8 to my 6'1, and about as wide as he was tall, with impossibly wide shoulders, thick heavy biceps, enormous hands and a big belly.  I swear if he lay down on a bed, he would take up the whole thing!

Add a thick black beard, leather chaps, and a leather vest festooned with silver skulls, and you have a cross between a heavy-metal rocker and a Hell's Angel.    No wonder there was no line at his table.

Lane rushed us over.  "I love your work!" he gushed.  "Does it reflect your real life?"

I expected a big, booming voice, but Tim was actually soft spoken.  "No, it reflects what I want life to be -- a 'normal' life, with a house, a job, a partner, and kids, where gay and straight don't matter."

Ugh!  I came to West Hollywood to escape the "house, job, wife, kids" cage!  I left Lane to gush some more and headed over to meet Donelan.

When we reunited, Lane didn't talk about Tim, but he was very energetic in the bedroom that night.  I was certain that he was fantasizing about Tim

Lane liked his men big, the bigger the better: tall, massive, muscular, fat.  I was much taller than him -- we looked like Mutt and Jeff walking down the street -- but I couldn't compete with Tim.

A few days later, I came home from work to find Lane and Tim sitting on the couch. Not kissing or fondling, but Tim was so big that he couldn't sit on a couch without pressing his leg and thigh against the guy next to him.

I was certain that they had been in the bedroom!

I roiled with jealousy.  We were allowed to see other guys, as long as we brought them home to "share" the bedroom activity. Sex without sharing was cheating.

"Having fun?" I sniped.

"We were just waiting for you to get home," Lane said with a guilty grin.  "We're going to go out to dinner."

Grumble, grumble.  Ok, I guess.

We piled into Lee's hatchback -- Tim was too big for the back seat, so I had to take it.  On the way to the restaurant in a straight neighborhood, we stopped at the 7-11 for something, and Tim almost slammed the door on me!

"Sorry -- I didn't know you were getting out of the car."

Yeah, right.

After dinner, we returned to the apartment, but Tim didn't come in for sharing.  He looked around to make sure no one was looking, then hugged us both at the same time and gave us each a wet, gross kiss.  I reached down to grope him and found Lane's hand already there.

That night Lane was less than enthusiastic in the bedroom.  Because he had already had some bedroom calisthenics earlier in the day?

About a week later, Lane announced: "Tim has invited us out to visit him in Temecula on Friday."

Temecula?   

A far, far southern suburb, about 1 1/2 hours away from West Hollywood, where Tim lived in the house he inherited from his parents, where he had three cats and belonged to a gardening club and saw his two daughters from a heterosexual marriage on weekends.

Ugh!  Sounds like what I moved to West Hollywood to escape.  Besides, I had a vested interested in keeping Lane as far away from his boyfriend as possible.  I was pretty sure that ten minutes after Tim said "Move in," Lane would have the U-Haul rented and the "Dear John" letter written.


"Driving all that way in Friday night traffic?  No, thanks!" I said.

"Well, how about if we leave here at 2:00, and get there at 3:30, before rush hour starts?"

What?  Lane knew that I worked at JobTech from 8 to 5 Monday - Friday!

"We can't make it.  I have a job, remember?"

"It's contract.  You can take the day off whenever you want."

"Sure, if I don't want to make any money that day."

Lane paused.  "Hey, do you mind if I drive over by myself?  I'll be back by 10:00 pm, I promise."

I glared at him.  "Sure, no problem."

As Friday neared, I became more and more apprehensive.  Lane would probably be spending the afternoon in bed with his boyfriend!  Plus he would be experiencing the sedate Straight World lifestyle of the comic strip.  Mowing the lawn, calling the plumber to fix the sink, planning the garden club picnic, bringing a casserole to the hetero couple next door, advising the daughter over her boy trouble.

Ugh!

In a year or two, they would be inviting me to visit them in Temecula, to meet the in-laws and the kids.  They would serve coffee and cake in the living room, with a picture window looking across to the neighbors' house across the street, where the kids were playing catch in the front yard....

Friday, February 4th

I went to work as usual, but couldn't concentrate, worrying about Lane dumping me to go suburban with the motorcycle bear Tim.  Finally I decided to drive out to Temecula and catch them in the act!

I claimed to not be feeling well and left at noon.  I didn't want to drive all the way down to Temecula myself, so I called Infinite Chazz, who was from Orange County and knew his way around the suburbs.

We met three years ago, when I was working at a camp for juvenile delinquents.  Now he was living with his parents and taking classes at Cal State Fullerton: 20 years old, slim with short brown hair, a long face, a tight smooth chest, and an impressive Bratwurst beneath the belt.

We called him Infinite Chazz because he was infinitely attractive, sure to cause jaw-dropping stares in every gay guy who came within five feet of his dazzling smile and even more dazzling bulge.  He visited every couple of weeks, to "share" and make the guys at the synagogue or MCC die of envy.

At 1:30, I picked up Chazz at his parents' house.  We stopped to grab lunch at a Carl's Junior, then and drove another hour to Temecula, arriving at 3:00, at just the right moment for Lane and Tim to begin their illicit bedroom activity.

Sure enough, Lane's car was parked in the driveway.  The upstairs window was open.  That must be where they were doing it!

We knocked.  Tim immediately came to the door.  Fully clothed.  "Um....hi?" he said quizzically.

Thinking fast, I said "Hi!  I decided to come out after all."

"Great!  Glad you could make it!  Lane's out in the garden."  He reached out his bear paw to Chazz.  "And this is...."

"My friend, Infinite Chazz."

"Well, come here, let's have hugs all around."  He wrapped us in his massive arms and gave us each a kiss.  I reached down to grope him, and found his hand on Chazz's basket.

That night the four of us hooked up.  Tim had a Mortadella+, beercan thick, with an enormous head.  I got to go down on him for a few minutes before Infinite Chazz took over.  Then he topped Chazz while kissing Lane.  Meanwhile Chazz went down on me.

Tim was quite energetic for a man-mountain.

Turns out that there was no illicit bedroom activity going on.  Tim drew bears in his comic strip, but in real life he liked smooth, slim twinks and Cute Young Things.  He liked Chazz.

See also: I Sneak Chazz into His Boyfriend's Bedroom; Leonard and Larry

Fred and the Cute Young Thing Visit

West Hollywood, February 1988

If you sit at one of the tables outside the French Quarter on Santa Monica Boulevard long enough, every gay person you know will walk by.

David Johnson, son of the Professor on Gilligan's Island.  

David Cameron, whose mother starred him in the classic novel The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet.

And, in the spring of 1988, my first live-in boyfriend, Fred.

We met during my sophomore year in college, when he was a ministerial student.  When he got a job at a church in small-town Nebraska.  I moved with him, but it was a disaster -- he cheated on me with the teenager downstairs -- so I returned Rock Island.

We kept in contact, mostly through mutual friends, and hooked up occasionally at Christmastime.  He stayed in horrible small-town Nebraska until 1982, then moved to horrible small-town Kansas, and in 1985 left the ministry for a job as a mental health counselor in Kansas City.

One morning in February 1988, my roommate Derek, my ex-boyfriend Raul, and some other people were having brunch at the French Quarter, when suddenly Fred strolled by on the sidewalk outside, accompanied by a Cute Young Thing.

The French Quarter

I did a few double takes, then rushed out and grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Boomer!"  He gave me a friendly hug.  "I would have called, but I have your old number listed in my address book."

In those days, whenever you moved, your phone number changed.

I dragged him and the Cute Young Thing back to our table to join us.  "What are you doing in town?"

He was visiting seminaries, planning to enroll in a D.Min. (Doctor of Ministry) program to hopefully land a church in a decent town.  He had already interviewed at Yale and Vanderbilt, and now Claremont School of Theology, out in the San Gabriel Valley.

The Cute Young Thing (CYT), was barely out of his teens, slim with dirty-blond hair, an ostentatious diamond earring, a blue t-shirt, and tight blue shorts with a bulge that caused heads to turn even in bulge-heavy West Hollywood. I don't know where Fred found him.

A CYT

He looked askance at our Crabcakes Benedict, Mardi Gras Omelette, and Strawberry Crepes, called us all "fatties," and ordered the Diet Plate.  Then he criticized the French Quarter as "bourgeois."

You don't often see such an annoying combination of hotness and snark.

We went sightseeing, and then to dinner and to the clubs, while the CYT kept up a constant stream of criticism:

West Hollywood was "tacky," the Pacific Design Center "tired," Beverly Hills "bourgeois."

I had a job at Muscle and Fitness as "a glorified file clerk for narcissists," I was getting a "worthless degree" at a "second rate school," my car was "tacky," and my clothing was "hayseed."

To add insult to injury, the Cute Young Thing kept cruising me.




The next day Fred had to do a sample sermon and have lunch with the committee, and somehow he talked me into taking the CYT out for more sightseeing.  I dragged Raul along to share the pain.

The criticism continued:  I was from the Midwest, "nothing but hayseeds and cows," and a "geezer" at age 27.  Raul was "fat," wore a "glorified pimp" outfit, and should "learn to speak English."

The cruising also continued, and the CYT had the nerve to suggest that we come back to his hotel. Behind Fred's back!

Something had to be done about this menace!

Fortunately, we had a plan.

We went back to the hotel, kissed and fondled a bit, and stripped the CYT out of his clothes.  Then we broke away.

"Whew!  That's some gut you got!"  Raul exclaimed, pointing at his six-pack abs. "How did you hide it? Sorry, man, I'm not into fatties."

"What?  I....um..." the Cute Young Thing stammered.

"And what do you call that?" I said, pointing at his enormous package.  "I never saw one so small before."

"Maybe Fred likes them tiny?" Raul suggested.

"How does he even know it's there?  Sorry, buddy, I'm not into pencil stubs."

We got up and left the CYT speechless and staring on the bed.

Later that evening Fred called.  "What did you say to the CYT?  He insisted that I turn Claremont down!  He said the guys in West Hollywood are too fat and ugly!"

As it turns out, Fred and Matt stayed together for about 10 years, and we often "shared."

I never figured out what Fred saw in him.

Maybe you can?

See also: 8 Harvard Yard hookups; Matt's First Night with Fred and His Brother

I Bring Home a Teen Hustler

West Hollywood, April 1994

My boyfriend Lane and I had different tastes in men.  We both liked hefty, muscular or chubby guys, but he liked them older, tall, hairy, and fair skinned, and I liked them my age, short, smooth, and dark skinned.  So we got the idea of cruising separately and looking for our preferred types.

On Friday or Saturday nights, there was usually a party or a dinner to go to early in the evening.  If it didn't end in bedroom activity, Lane went to the Faultline or the Eagle in search of bears and leathermen, and I went to Mugi or Basgo's in search of Asian or Hispanic guys.

We would cruise from about 9:30 pm to 11:00 pm (if you don't meet someone within the first hour, you're not going to).  At 11:30 we met at the French Quarter to have a late snack and make the introductions.  Then we went home to share.

We usually ended up with one guy in our bed, but almost never two.  I don't know why.

That night in April 1994, I was having a dry spell: ever since I got back from Atlanta, nothing. Three Saturday nights in a row, Lane picked up hirsute, hung leathermen old enough to be my father, who might, if I was lucky, let me lick their balls while they were doing 69 with Lane.  I never got to take a load, or give one.

I felt like a third wheel in my own bedroom.

"Ok, that's it!" I exclaimed after the latest hirsute, hung leatherman had his coffee and left.  "I'm tired of the old, hairy guys!  Next Saturday night, I'm going cruising by myself -- you can stay home and watch a VHS tape of Star Trek -- to a twink, bar, where I'll pick up the smoothest, softest twink who ever twirled on a dance floor to the music of Sound Factory."

"That's easier said than done," Lane pointed out.  "You're 33 years old.  Infinite Chazz thinks you're hot, but the average twink wants somebody his own age."

"Not a problem -- I'll just flash my biceps and basket, and they'll follow me anywhere. In fact, I'll do you one better.  Next Saturday night in our bed, there will be a Cute Young Thing."

The youngest, softest, most innocent of twinks, barely legal, too young for the bars, age 18 to 21.

"Ok. Let's make it interesting.  If you bring home someone under 21, I'll do the chore you hate the most for a month."

"That's grocery shopping!" I exclaimed.  "And if I bring home someone over 21, or nobody at all, I'll do the chore you hate the most for a month."

"That would be laundry.  And I think it's about time to wash all the comforters and bedspreads in the house. You'd better stock up on Fab."  He paused.  "But no fair bringing home one of Infinite Chazz's friends.  You have to meet him through cruising."

I knew that I was in trouble.  I'm a twink magnet now in my 50s, but in my 30s young guys usually ignored me.  And how was I supposed to meet a Cute Young Thing, when they're too young to go to the bars?

9:00 pm: Different Light Bookstore.  Maybe they were browsing among the coming out manuals.

9:30 pm:  The Rage.  Maybe they got a fake id to go dancing inside.

10:00 pm:  Mrs. Fields' Cookies.  Cute Young Things like cookies, right?

11:00 pm.  The Cinerama Dome.  Maybe they were hanging out at the video game area of the theater.

11:30 pm. I found a pay phone and told Lee I would be a little late.

12:00 am.  The Toy Tiger, for old guys and their admirers.

1:00 am.  Book Circus, in desperation, to hire a hustler.

Book Circus was a small, sleazy bookstore on Santa Monica and La Jolla, only a few blocks from the French Quarter.  It sold mostly porn, but you could find some interesting other things.  There's nothing like buying a remaindered version of The D'Oyly Carte Picture History of Gilbert and Sullivan at 2:00 in the morning, while bleary-eyed patrons stare.

The patrons: guys who didn't get laid at the bars, eyeing old copies of Blueboy and Mandate to give them ideas before they go home to beat off.  And, if they don't want to go home alone, there were always hustlers wandering around.

Hustlers are not denigrated in gay communities, not looked down up or pitied.  They're merely capitalizing on their special gifts, generally an enormous penis,  How is making money from their penis any different than making money from musical talent or a big brain?  And the activity they engage in is enjoyable, not demeaning.  Why not get paid for doing it?

However, their clients are almost always bisexual, married, or downlow men.  Gay men have so many options for sex that they rarely have the need or the interest to patronize a hustler.

Except in an emergency.

Lane said I had to meet a Cute Young Thing through cruising.  He never said I couldn't pay for him.

It had to be a young looking guy, fresh-faced, innocent, right off the bus -- that's quite a tall order, for a hustler.  And he couldn't be drunk or high -- Lane hated drugs and alcohol.

Paydirt!  A very cute, very young looking guy, short, buffed, with black hair and dark skin, maybe Hispanic, pretending to read The Advocate.  He looked up at me and smiled.

"This place has a great selection," I said.  "I come here all the time."

He smiled.  "I usually wait until I get home."

An old joke.

We talked and cruised for a few minutes. He was Tai, from San Jose in northern California, 19 years old, in town for about six months.  He had a part-time job in a pizza place, but L.A. was expensive, and he was making money any way he could.

Time to seal the deal.  "It's pretty late.  Do you have a place to stay tonight?"

"Not if you're offering yours."

"Sure.  I live just about six blocks from here.  But kust you know, there'll be two of us.  Will that be extra?"

He frowned. "I don't do ladies."

"No, no -- my boyfriend.  He' a couple of years older than me, hairy chest,  cut 7.5."

"Sounds like just my type.  Oh -- before we go, could you lend me $10 for some cigarettes?"

Rather a cheap fee for a hustler, but I figured he'd charge us the rest later.

We went back to the house, where Lane was waiting up.  He was surprised to see the Cute Young Thing with me, but not so surprised that he didn't invite him into the bedroom and go down on him while we kissed.

Wait -- you didn't examine him for crabs! I thought.  But I'd be doing laundry tomorrow anyway.

Tai had a hard, smooth chest and a surprisingly small penis for a hustler.  Weren't they supposed to be gifted?  But when it became aroused, it hit flat against his belly.



I went down on Tai while he went down on Lane.  Soon I was taking his load.  Then I pushed him down onto the bed into interfemoral position, while he was still sensitive.  He groaned, gasped, and became aroused again.

Staying power!  A good quality for a hustler!

Now Lane went down on Tai again, while I entered his mouth from the top.  When I finished, Tai pushed me down onto his penis to spurt for me a second time.

Then we shared Lane's penis.  At the last moment, Tai pushed my head over so I would take Lane's load.

"That wasn't necessary," I said, gasping.  "I go down on Lane every day anyway.  We brought you in to share."

"Ok, then I'll take the next one.  But I'm warning you -- I'm keeping track."

Was he going to charge me by the orgasm?

After Lane finished his second orgasm, he got up and went to take a shower.  Tai lay his head on my chest.  I wrapped my arms around him.

"I should cover your payment now, while Lane isn't around," I whispered.  "How much do I owe you for the night?"

Tai began kissing my chest.  "How much do you owe me for what?"

"For...you know.."  My face began to burn. You weren't supposed to actually mention the contract openly.  "Um...don't you....um...charge?"

He smiled.  "Maybe, if the guy is a crazy closet case who won't kiss or go down on me.  Maybe not.  You'll never know."

And I still don't know for sure if Tai was a hustler or not.

By the way, total score: me 1, Lane 2, Tai 4.

See also: The Teenage Lawnboy; Cruising East of Alvarado.