Marcus's Beneath-the-Belt Mystery

West Hollywood, July 1985

Even in a gay community as big as West Hollywood, the new kid in town always gets noticed.

I arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday, July 3rd, 1985.  Before July 10th, when I started my new job at Muscle and Fitness, I was cruised many times, received six phone numbers, and went out on two dates.

Marcus was Date #2.

We met on Friday, July 5th, in the Human Resources Department at Paramount Studios; I was waiting to be interviewed for an administrative assistant job, and he was dropping something off.  We chatted, and cruised, and exchanged phone numbers.

Marcus was in his 20s, shorter than me, muscular but a little chunky, African-American with very light skin, freckles, and a hairy chest.

Sounds great, right?  Three of the five traits I find attractive.  I just needed to check on his religiousity and his beneath-the-belt gifts!

Our date was on Saturday, July 6th:

An insider tour of Paramount Studios, followed by dinner at the French Quarter and cruising at the Gold Coast.

Marcus grew up in Kalispell, Montana, a hotbed of white supremacism, machismo, and homophobia: a horrible place for a kid who was quiet, shy, artistic, African-American, and gay.  He found solace in  the Episcopal Church, the the old movies they showed in downtown Kalispell, and the drama club at Glacier High School.  Before the ink was dry on his diploma, he headed out to Los Angeles to become an actor.

Sounds great, right?  I could certainly relate to being a shy, quiet, artistic kid in a terrible small town.  And he was religious, #4 on the list of traits that I find attractive. I just needed to check on #5, his beneath-the-belt gifts.

I can't count Marcus as a celebrity friend.  He had some tv guest spots and some live theater on his resume, but mostly he made do with temp jobs.  Currently he was working as a production assistant for Gimme a Break! 

At the end of the evening, we drove up into the Hollywood Hills, to a weird, eclectic house that Marcus shared with a film producer who may or may not have been his ex-lover.  We sat on the couch by a picture window that looked down on the lights of Hollywood.

Sounds great, right?  Exactly what I thought West Hollywood would be like: gay people everywhere, and lots of connection to the film industry, and a room with a view!

That's when things went wrong.

Time for the end-of-the-date activities!  I leaned in for a kiss.

Marcus pushed me away.

"No one knows what causes AIDS," he said solemnly.

Rather an odd nonsequitor! "Sure they do.  It's the HIV virus,  transmitted in semen and blood."

"They're not sure. Could be any body fluid, like saliva. We have to be safe."

"I'm always safe!" I announced, somewhat offended.  "I always use condoms."

"Condoms for anal and oral both?" Marcus asked pointedly.

"Um...no.  There's really no evidence that HIV is transmitted through oral alone."

"And what about French kissing?  If saliva doesn't do it, a tiny nick or puncture in your mouth will!"

No kissing?  "I've been tested!," I protested. " I'm HIV negative!"

"Those tests are inconclusive."  He touched my shoulder.  "Look -- I used to be out there cruising with the best of them, but when this whole thing stated, I vowed to be celibate until they find a cure."

Celibate?  Suddenly I felt very foolish. Was this supposed to be a just-friends outing?  "Does that mean...um...no dating?"

"Oh, no, we can date," Marcus said.  "There's a lot of fun things to do -- we can play tennis, go bowling, go to movies.  We can even spend the night together.  But no sex or kissing, until they find a cure.  Um...that's ok, isn't it?"

He was talking to the empty space left after I zoomed out of the house, leaving a me-shaped hole in the wall.

I didn't get chance to investigate his beneath-the-belt attributes.

But Marcus and I stayed friends, and he introduced me to several celebrities, including an old buddy from his acting class, Michael J. Fox.

Later he forgot the celibacy thing.

See also: My Date with Michael J. Fox; Marcus Hooks Up with One of the Hollywood Squares

More Joy of Abs

If you have well-developed abs, you can skip the pec and delt exercises.  You have it all.

Ok, not really, but abs do work on your posture, strength, stamina, cardiovascular vitness, and overall health.  But you're turning heads, regardless of what you're packing.

Plus they're so hard to work on that they're more emblematic of physical fitness than the much easier muscles of the chest and shoulders.   It's the abs  that get masculine heads to turn at the beach.

















If you saw this guy on Grindr, would you really ask for a cock pic before sealing the deal?



















Ok, bad example, he has a beautiful face, too.

Take this guy: kind of a dorky expression and weird hair, but I'm still inviting him over, due to his precision-cut eight-pack.

More after the break.

The Boy from My First Three-Way

Omaha, July 1980

During the summer of 1980, just after my sophomore year in college, I was 19, stupid, and completely infatuated with my first boyfriend Fred.  So when he finished his ministerial internship and got a job as a youth minister at a Methodist church in Omaha (actually Gretna, Nebraska, about 20 miles away), I dropped out of college and moved with him.

It was awful.  We lived in a horrible apartment, I had a horrible job as a glorified paperboy. The people were rude. I had to pretend to be Fred's "cousin."

He had never had a live-in boyfriend before, so he became controlling and weird.

 After six weeks, I packed up my stuff and left.

My only positive memory from those six weeks is Michael Stevenson (not his real name), a boy from the youth group at church.  A high school jock, about my height, very short brown hair, square face, nice chest.  The other members of the congregation were standoffish and rude, but he always said "hello" to me and asked how I liked Gretna -- and one night Fred brought him over for dinner and "sharing."

I didn't know anything about sharing  -- I had only been with a few guys, and never more than one at a time.  And Fred didn't explain anything in advance.  After dinner, when I finished putting the dishes in the dishwasher, I went out into the living room to find Michael on his knees, going down on Fred!

"It's ok," Fred said, noticing my shocked expression.  "Michael is 17.  Yesterday was his birthday, in fact."

He thought I was worried about that?  No -- I thought that being gay was illegal for everyone.  I was worried about my boyfriend cheating on me right in front of my eyes, with a member of his youth group!

"I'm his birthday present," Fred continued.

Michael giggled.  "So are you."  He stood, walked over and kissed me.

Suddenly I was up for sharing.

I'll always remember that kiss -- warm, passionate but assertive, demanding.

And Michael's penis, small but thick, uncut, an iron shaft yet easy to go down on without gagging.  Not like Fred's monster cock

I went down on Michael while he was standing there in the entry-way, thrusting energetically up and down until he finished.  Then we went into the bedroom.  He had already sprang to life again, so I went down on him a second time while he was going down on Fred.  Then Fred tried to top him, but he was too big.  He made do with interfemoral.

My first sharing experience, and the best ever, with one of the nicest guys I've ever met!

We spent the night cuddling, and in the morning Michael showered and went to school.  He continued to chat with me in church, but he never came over for "sharing again."  After I left Omaha, Fred and I stayed friends, but he never mentioned Michael.

Maybe he was just a hookup, a one-night stand.  But I still remember him fondly, 36 years, 8 boyfriends, and 130 hookups later.

Plains, July 2016

I was successful in finding the Mormon missionary who I chatted with briefly in Beaver, Utah.  Why not try to find Michael?

I had even more clues than with the Mormon missionary: a first and last name, a United Methodist church, a high school and a birthday.

His last name is not as common as "Stevenson": there were only five in the Omaha area.  No Michael.   He wasn't listed in the alumni roster of his high school, which means he never checked in -- a bad experience with bullying and homophobia, no doubt.

 No doubt he moved to the nearest gay neighborhood as soon as he could.  That would be Chicago.

But maybe I could dig up a relative.

A search of Omaha newspapers revealed a Mike Stevenson who won a fishing contest in 2006, and took a school tour of Washington DC in 2010.  Maybe Michael's nephew or...gulp...son?

When he won a civic scholarship as a high school senior in 2013, Mike said that he was planning to attend Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota.

Wesleyan...fundamentalist...double gulp.

I found his campus address and sent him an email, saying that I was looking for an old friend with his name, who belonged to the Gretna United Methodist Church and graduated from Gretna High School in 1982.

He emailed back.  "Sure, that's my Uncle Michael!"

Success!  "Do you have his email address?  I'd love to get back in touch with him."

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but Uncle Michael died a few years ago.  Cancer.  I have mementos I can show you.  Can you come out to Mitchell?"

I didn't want to drive an hour and a half to meet with the nephew of a guy I had a one-night stand with 36 years ago, but I kept thinking of that night, that passionate, intense kissing, that penis standing hard and firm...so ok.

Mitchell, South Dakota is known for its Corn Palace, a castle-like building with Moorish-style domes and minarets, the walls covered with murals made of corn.  I took some photos, then met Mike at a brew pub a few blocks away.

Mike Stevenson was 21 years old, the image of his uncle: same short hair, same square face, same muscular torso.  I almost reached out and kissed him, but caught myself and shook his hand instead.

"How did you know my Uncle Michael?" he asked.

I don't usually come out to strangers, especially those attending Wesleyan colleges, so I talked about spending the summer of 1980 in Omaha.  Michael befriended me, showed me around, really made me feel welcome.

"Was he your boyfriend?"

"Um..."  Ok, I guess I could come out.  "We sort of dated.  It was complicated."

"He never talked about high school.  I don't think he liked it very much -- it was probably hard, in those days when you had to be in the closet. So I was hoping you were like the one bright spot."

No, I was a one-night stand, I think, embarrassed.  "Sounds like you were pretty close to him."

 "He was like a second father to me.  I used to spend summers out in Sayville with him and Uncle Max.  After he died, Uncle Max gave me some old photos and stuff."

Photos, playbills, his passport, a certificate for winning a fishing contest, the contours of a life.

A photo of Michael and his partner in Sayville -- they were there when I was living on Long Island, but our paths never crossed.

Michael and his former partner in New Jersey.

Fishing trips and ski trips (with Mike in tow), the Tower of London, Gettysburg, Colonial Williamsburg.

The New York Gay Pride Festival.

An autographed picture of Barry Williams, Greg on The Brady Bunch.

"Uncle Michael said he knew he was gay when he saw The Brady Bunch as a kid.  He had a crush on Greg."

"I was more into Peter, myself."

The program of his college graduation.

A photo of Michael in college, his arm around his roommate (I assume).

A photo of Michael in high school.

And....a photo of Michael and me!

I didn't even remember that Fred took a picture that night: a 17 year old and a 19 year old, hugging, smiling at the camera.

It never occurred to me that this was Michael's first "sharing" experience, too.  An experience that bolstered him through the horrors of a homophobic adolescence.

A memory of a warm summer night that never faded.

For either of us.

See also: Fred and the Teenager Downstairs.