The Bisexual Fairy Godfather of the Summer of 1984

Between 1982 and 1984, I was studying for my M.A. in English at Indiana University.  I did not do well.  I couldn't focus on any one topic, or any one department -- I rushed around in the 3,000+ courses taught every semester, grabbing onto things like Mandarin Chinese and Russian Folklore, and ignoring my actual English classes

Besides, who had time to study?  I had just discovered bar pickups.  My friend Viju and I were out at Bullwinkel's, or a a gay bar in Indianapolis, two or three times a week, and we never came home alone.

Sometimes I brought a guy home, had sex with him, then went back to the bar to pick up someone else.

Meanwhile my classes faltered, and I squeaked by with B's and an occasional C+.  In grad school, anything below an A is considered failing. But who cared?   I was going to become a book editor, not a literature scholar.

So I squeaked by, and in the spring of 1984, I sent out resumes:130 publishing companies, 48 newspapers,  34 television stations, and 16 translation agencies.   No openings, no openings, no openings, no openings.

Classes ended. I received my M.A..  No job. I spent ten days visiting India with Viju, then a week in Rock Island, then returned to Bloomington.

I couldn't afford our apartment any more, so I got a room in Eigenmann Hall, and went back to my old job in the snack bar.

It was fun when I was a student.  But as my life's work?.  I imagined myself at age 50, still living in that coffin-sized room with the bathroom down the hall, still selling burgers and fries to undergrads.

All of my friends had graduated and moved away.  And any new friends I made would graduate and move away, again and again, an every-changing blur of faces and cocks for the rest of my life.

That summer was an endless cold, dark night.

53 people died in a mass shooting at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, the worst mass shooting in modern American history.

The lunatic in the White House (not as bad as the Orange Goblin, but still a lunatic) almost ended the world by "joking" that the U.S. had launched nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union.

The AIDS crisis was making national news for the first time, and dubbed "a gay disease."  Fundamentalist churches latched onto it to decry the "clinically insane, disease-ridden homosexuals" coming for your children.

All four of the factories in Rock Island closed, doubling the unemployment rate.  My father and brother were both laid off.  I couldn't even fall back on a factory job.

The movies I saw (by myself) are now hailed as classics, but I found them depressing: Ghostbusters, Gremlins, The Karate Kid, The Neverending Story, Revenge of the Nerds, Bachelor Party, Conan the Destroyer

Laura Branigan's "Self Control" was playing on the radio:

I live among the creatures of the night.
I haven't got the will to try and fight.
I must believe in something, so I guess I'll just believe that this night will never go.

Then came my fairy godfather, aka Ben, who worked in the bank downtown.  He was my teller when I withdrew some money (this was before ATMs), and two nights later I saw him at Bullwinkle's.

About ten years older than me, a chunky redhead with a long face, a smooth chest, and no biceps to speak of.  Not at all my type.

And bisexual -- he mentioned watching Family Ties, not for the hot teen idol Michael J. Fox, but for Meredith Baxter Birney, who played his mother!

I couldn't help imagining Ben screwing the lady.  His butt bouncing up and down while he plowed into her lady parts, squeezing her breasts, kissing her.  Gross!  Complete turn-off.

But I was depressed, and I would have gone home with Boy George just to avoid going back to my coffin-sized room in Eigenmann Hall.

Ben had a house in Unionville, about 10 miles of dark, scary country roads from campus. An old-fashioned wood-and-plaster living room, a four-poster bed with black sheets, a drawer-ful of porn magazines, both gay and straight.  Very cold for July.

We didn't start kissing until we were both under the sheets.  He had smooth, soft chest, a bubble butt, and a big cock, about 8", thick and ruddy.  I went down on him, and he finished with interfemoral.  Then he beat me off while we were kissing.  Not bad.

After the sex, it was too early to sleep, and I didn't want to  leave, so we sat up and turned on Saturday Night Live. I told Ben about my master's degree, my dismal job prospects, and my future at the Eigenmann Hall snack bar.  He said that he was working on a Ph.D. in sociology --- very slowly.  This was his seventh year in the program, and he wasn't nearly ready to start his dissertation.  The job at the bank took up most of his time.  But he still planned to finish, and become a college professor.

"I love being in front of a class -- it's an amazing rush.  Hey, why don't you go to work at a college?  They always need teachers."

"Yuck!" I exclaimed.  "I taught during my first year.  Surly students who didn't read their assignments, didn't know even the basics about...well, anything, and made homophobic comments."

"It beats making hamburgers, I bet.  Besides, just think of the beefcake!"

"But it's July.  Won't they have all the teachers they need for the fall?"

"Let's find out."  Ben walked naked into the next room and came back with The Chronicle of Higher Education.  5 English teaching jobs available in the fall that required just a M.A.

A month later, I was heading for Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, an English instructor. It would be horrible, but later, I would teach as an adjunct, then get my Ph.D. (not in English), and spend the next twenty years standing in the front of classrooms.

It definitely beats making hamburgers.

And Ben was right.  The beefcake is amazing.

Climbing into Bed Naked with Richard Grieco

I am a strong supporter of your right to be as masculine, feminine, or androgynous as you want to be.  Slide some ladies' rings on those long, slender, fingers, get some lovely dangling earrings to accentuate your lovely face, splash on that makeup, get your glamour-queen do on, and work that room, girl!

But I don't find people who look like girls attractive, regardless of their gender, so Richard Grieco has always been a turn-off.   I tolerated him on 21 Jump Street (1988-89) and in If Looks Could Kill (1991),  but I haven't seen him in anything else.

I understand that he has been in relationships with a number of women, including Yasmeen Bleeth and Christina Applegate.  Kudos to them for not being straitjacketed by masculine expectations.

In the 1980s and 1990s I assumed he was gay, but only because of my internalized homophobia, the belief, drilled into me through childhood, that all feminine men were gay.  I never heard any rumors or hookup stories about him.

But wouldn't you know it, a sausage sighting story appeared in my email box.

Montreal, Fall 1990

You can call me Jason.  We're about the same age, but our tastes in men are completely different: I like androgynous types.  Rings are ok.  Ascots, no problem.  Back in the 1980s, when I was a Cute Young Thing, I used to hang out at the Toy Tiger, getting drinks sent to me by old rich guys.

We do have something in common.  I remember your story about dating Roger Rees.  Well, I dated him in the late 1980s.

Roger had a partner, Rick [Rick Elise], but they didn't live together, and in fact they were usually separated by a continent.  So they had an open relationship: each could date, and even have romances, as long as the other partner was there in body or spirit.
Every morning, Roger called Rick and gave him a blow-by-blow (or blow job by blow job).

 It got so I felt like I was in a relationship with them both, even though I had never met Rick in person.

In the fall of 1990, Roger was cast as the criminal mastermind Sterenko in the James Bond spoof If Looks Could Kill.  Richard Grieco starred as a high school student mistaken for a spy during a field trip to Paris.  The writer, the director, and a lot of the cast members were gay, and there were a lot of gay subtexts in spite of the boy-girl plot.  I thought it was great fun, though it bombed at the box office.

They all had to fly out to Montreal, a stand-in for Paris, to do the location shots, and Roger said "Why don't you come up for a few days?  I'll invite Rick, too, and we'll make an event of it."

I had never been to Montreal before, and I was anxious to meet Rick in person, so I eagerly accepted the invitation.

Montreal was great!  The Basilica, the Oratory, the theaters, the Rue Ste.-Catherine (best bath houses in the world!).

Rick was great, too.  Very smart, sophisticated, knowledgeable about Montreal -- he took me to some "off the beaten track" sights, like  Habitat 67, an architectural marvel designed for the 1967 Expo.

Plus he was in his 30s, tall, built, with a hairy chest, a bright open face, big hands, and a big...you know what.  We shared two nights in a row.

But on to the Grieco sighting.

On our last night in Montreal, the "three of us" went out to dinner at Ile Flotante with Darren [Star], Linda Hunt, and their partners.  All gay, as far as I knew -- we didn't really discuss such things in the Straight World back then.

Richard Grieco came alone.  Rick told me that he left his boyfriend home in L.A.

I didn't mind the three-way relationship when there were just three of us, but at a tableful of gay and lesbian couples, I felt, frankly, like a third wheel.  So I latched on to Grieco. I figured I could go back to his hotel room for some one-on-one action.  Besides, maybe Roger and Rick would like some alone time.

Grieco wasn't really my type, but you know what they say -- in a pinch, any cock will do.

We talked, cruised a bit -- I put my hand on his chest.  Nice definition!   He was was talkative, energetic.  He was a smoker, which I didn't like, and high on something.  I didn't have any aversion to a little coke now and then myself, so it wasn't a turn off, but his manner was a little aggressive, and he made a joke about AIDS -- not homophobic, but in poor taste.

As dinner progressed, Grieco added alcohol to his cornucopia of substances -- he downed an entire bottle of wine by himself.  His voice started to slur, and he said off-the-wall things like "You're all a great bunch of machines."

I have no idea what he meant.

I was getting a little turned off, but my mind was set on my goal of going to bed with Grieco.  So I told Roger and Rick that I was going to help him back to his hotel room.

When we got to the hotel, Grieco was all but unconscious.  I pulled down the covers and helped him undress and get into bed.  Then I took my clothes off and climbed into the bed next to him and turned off the light.

I started kissing his chest and reached down to fondle his cock -- average sized, cut, not aroused.  Big balls.

"Hey, what you doing?" he murmured. "Get off me."  He pushed me aside.

"What's wrong?"

"Wanna sleep.  Hands off."

Ok, I figured, he was too tired -- he wanted to wait until morning.

But what if he wasn't into me at all?  What if he wasn't even gay, and he woke up with me in his bed?  He might freak out!  I didn't need a homophobic hate crime ruining my trip to Montreal!

I got dressed, wrote him a note with my phone number, and left.

He never answered.

See also: Elijah Wood Dumps Roger for Jason Bateman

November 1999: A Hookup with Barry and the Poz Boy

In the fall of 1999, Barry, the traditional Catholic who had been exorcised from the homophobic demon, invited me to "share" his friend Jared.

"You'll like him," Barry insisted.  "He's from the Midwest, like you.  And an intellectual.  He knows everything about world history.  Just ask!"

"What's he look like?"

He send me a picture -- not my usual type.  In his 20s, tall, thin, pale, with long scraggly hair and a pretty, androgynous face.

"I like my guys with a little more heft to them,  Sorry."

"Well...he's gigantic beneath the belt," Barry said.  "And he really needs this.  He hasn't been with anyone for months."

"Why, what's wrong with him?"  I asked suspiciously.

"Nothing.  He's just been going through some things.  Some health problems.  He can explain."

I was intrigued by the mystery, so I agreed.

On a Saturday in late November, I took the train out to Barry's apartment in Sayville (he had given up on the traditional Catholic community).

Jared was slim and fragile, sitting shyly on the couch.  He had a soft, limp handshake.  I put my arm around him, and he sank against my chest, as if he were cuddling with a lover.

This guy was the polar opposite of the dynamic, loquacious Barry!   I wondered how they had ever become friends.

"So, what do you do?" I asked.

"I work at the Fashion Barn.  But I want to get into design someday."  He held me tightly and nuzzled my chest.  "Sorry if I'm a little forward...it's been awhile."

"That's fine.  I like being the object of attention."

He disentangled himself for dinner at the Sayville Inn.  He ordered only a salad, no dressing.

"How did you guys meet?" I asked.

"At church," Jared said.  "I gave up on the church when I came out, but a few months ago I came back.  Barry got me involved in Dignity [the gay Catholic group], and sometimes I go to Mass with Andre at the Catholic brotherhood."

He returned to the church a few months ago?  And he hadn't been with a guy for a few months?  What happened?  

Back at the apartment, the three of us hugged.  I kissed Barry, and then tried to kiss Jared, but he pulled his head away.  "Before we go any farther, I have to tell you something.  I'm poz."

He meant positive for the HIV virus.

"No problem," I said.  Actually, I was a little curious about what poz guys do in bed.   I had never dated anyone who was poz before, that I knew of, or even had any poz friends.   A couple of guys at the church, who I knew vaguely, and that was about it.

You're probably wondering how I managed to live in West Hollywood at the height of the AIDS crisis and not meet anyone poz.  Literature and film of the period always describes losing most of your friends to AIDS, a dozen in just a few months.

I've wondered about that myself.  I think it was just by accident.

The most common way to transmit HIV is through unprotected anal sex.  I was simply not interested in that, so when I was asked, I refused, and usually didn't see the guy again.  Since we typically chose our friends from among our ex-boyfriends, I built up a social circle of guys who also were not interested in anal sex, and remained negative.  By accident.

I'm not blaming the guys who practiced anal sex -- they had no way of knowing that it was unsafe at the time.

Jared had a huge Mortadella+, but he doesn't get a place on my Sausage List, since I wasn't permitted to do anything except fondle it.

He had sex by hugging me tightly, rubbing things together while Barry fondled his rear, having an explosive orgasm, and then starting to cry because "it's been so long."

We spent the night, had a replay in the morning, and then went out to breakfast.

"I thought my sex life was over," Jared said.  "No one wants to be with a poz guy.  But last night was great."

I hoped he wasn't implying that he wanted to start dating!  Our evening together was nice, but he wasn't really my type physically, he was kind of weird, and what was up with the no kissing?

I can do without oral, but no kissing?  The virus isn't transmitted that way!

A few days later, Jared called.  "I'm coming into the City for my birthday. Free to get together?"

"Well...um...I'm a little busy, with finals coming up and all."

"I want to try something.  I've been too nervous before.  But it's my birthday, and I thought you could help."

"What is it?"

"You go to the New York Bondage Club, right?"

So on Sunday Jared took the train into Penn Station.  We dropped into a diner for a piece of cake, and then went to a meeting.  He asked me to tie him to a St. Andrew's Cross, blindfold and gag him, and leave him open to all comers.

I monitored the situation as he was fondled, prodded, kissed, licked, tickled, teased, edged, and spanked.

Later, I untied him so he could try his hand at topping.

He became a bondage club regular.

Soon I saw him at Ravi's Bear Parties, too, wandering around, fondling, teasing, edging, but no oral.

And still no kissing.

See also: The Homophobic Demon; an All-Nighter at the New York Bondage Club; and The Colonial Boy's First Time.