The Foot-Long of Bourbon Street

New Orleans, March 1985

When my Grandma Davis died in 1975, she left $5,000 to each of her 12 grandchildren, as a "wedding present," to be bestowed upon them on their wedding day.  Their parents invested it.

In the spring of 1985, I was telling my mother about my difficulties making ends meet in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, and she said, "It doesn't look like a wedding is going to happen, so why don't we give you your Grandma's money now?"

The check came in February. The $5000 had become  $12,428, the equivalent of $28,000 today!  Enough to pay my rent for the next six months, get my car repaired, visit Europe, move to Los Angeles next summer -- and, right now, Spring Break to New Orleans!

The minute my last class ended, I got into my car and drove the six hours to New Orleans, and I didn't get back until an hour before my first class began.

Years later, after living in the gay neighborhoods of West Hollywood, San Francisco, and New York, I found the French Quarter inadequately gay, but in 1985 I loved the old French architecure of the Vieux Carre, the Voodoo Museum, and the bright, cheery gay bars, especially Cafe Lafitte in Exile (great name!).

 It wasn't Mardi Gras, so guys weren't flashing their equipment to the crowd, but I still saw my fair share of penises.

On my first night, I went home with a hairy, muscular bear in his 40s.  While I was going down on him, he talked nonstop about New Orleans' ghosts and hauntings.

On my second night, I went home with a short, compact University of Michigan undergrad on spring break, who loved the "fact" that I was from Texas.

On my third night, I somehow attracted the attention of a Cute Young Thing. I don't remember his name, so I'll call him Jasper.

Jasper was cute: fuzz-headed, blue eyes, long tan muscles, wearing a yellow t-shirt and tight jeans.  He had a soft Southern accent that I found attractive.  But I was 24 years old, too old for him.

Besides, he had a dopey, dazed expression, his shirt was dirty, and he had a weird-looking sore on his hand that was an immediate turn-off in the first days of the AIDS crisis.

He started talking to me at the bar, when I was cruising someone else.   The other guy soon scrammed.

"Let me buy you a beer!"  Jasper said.

"I don't drink."

"Two beers!" he yelled at the bartender, ignoring me. When they came, he reached in his pocket.  "Whoops, I left my wallet at home. Can you cover me?"

I refused.  The bartender took the drinks away.

When I left the bar, Jasper followed me out onto the street, talking nonstop.  He was from a small town in Arkansas.  When his family found out that he was gay, they kicked him out.  Now he was living with friends and planning to enroll at Tulane University.

"That's very interesting," I said.  'Well, bye!"

I turned into Dante's Pizza.  Jasper followed me in.

"Bedtime snack for your boyfriend?" he asked.

"You're not my boyfriend."

"Trick, then.  You have no idea how good in bed I am.  Give you a hint -- I call it my one-eyed monster!"  He giggled.

Jasper didn't get a pizza slice.

Next I went to a little convenience store, where I selected a bottle of mouthwash and an ice cream sandwich.  Jasper appeared at the check-out counter with a foot-long hot dog and a bottle of a vile blue liquid that looked like Windex but was labeled curacao. The clerk started ringing us up together.

"No, I'm not with him," I protested.  "I just want the mouthwash and ice cream."

"And the hot dog and curacao!" Jasper exclaimed.  "Curacao is the best!"

"I'm not buying you booze!  Ok, the hot dog."

Pouting, he returned the curacao.

We walked out into the street.  Jasper wrapped his arm around my waist and offered me a bite of his hot dog.  I refused.

"Don't you like eating hot dogs?  This one isn't as big as my hot dog, of course."

"I like hot dogs, but I just had pizza."

His hand moved down to my butt.  "Well, we'll just have to go home so you can eat something else.  Which way to your place?"

"I'm not bringing you home!" I exclaimed.

Jasper stopped us and started fondling my crotch, right in the street!  I backed away.

"Come on, you're not going to leave me hanging after all we've been through together!"

Well, it was late, he was cute...

"Come on!  You've never been with a guy as big as me, guaranteed!  And I know how to use it.  Greek, French, you name it, I'm up for it!"

Well...a big one...and if it was the only way I was going to get rid of this guy....

I agreed to bring Jasper back to my hotel room.

We didn't kiss much -- his breath smelled of alcohol.

We took off our clothes and fell down onto the bed.

Jasper was, indeed, enormous, a Kovbasa++++.  When he was aroused, you could rub it against his pecs.

But he wouldn't stay aroused.  He softened and hardened intermittently, no matter what I tried with my hands and mouth.   It was like going down on a very big, very limp garden hose that occasionally stiffened.

Eventually I heard snoring -- Jasper had fallen asleep while receiving oral sex?

I pushed his arm around me so we could cuddle, and fell asleep myself.

I awoke a couple of hours later to see Jasper getting dressed.

"It's been fun," he said, "But I gotta go. Could you spot me a fiver?"

I spent the next week looking over my shoulder to see if Jasper was approaching, with his hot dogs and curacao and limp garden hose.

See also: Marco, the Gay Cannibal of Colombia; My Sausage List

Sharing a Bed with Mary's Brother

Chicago, March 1979

Shortly after my 18th birthday in 1978, my friend Mary, a member of the bookstore gang and big Andre Norton fan, told me that she suspected her kid brother of being gay.  She invited me to visit her home  for spring break in March 1979, shortly after I revealed my boss's "trouser snake,"  to "check." I had not yet met any gay people, so I eagerly agreed.

Mary's family -- blustering Archie Bunker father, mousy devout-Catholic mother, hippie older brother (away visiting his girlfriend), and possibly-gay kid brother Jake






They lived in one of the dull, faceless suburbs of Chicago, in a small two-story house surrounded by thousands of other small two-story houses.

Her father needed the car to drive to work, and there were no buses in the suburbs. Mary’s friend drove us to the Mall and for pizza, and one day we all drove to Axehead Lake.  Otherwise we were stuck in the house  for five days and six nights.

Mary’s "kid brother" Jake was sixteen (all models are over 18), slim, lightly tanned, with short blond hair.  He had a naturally tight, hard physique that would, with a little weight training, develop into something spectacular.

Don't worry about his age: a 16 and an 18 together were legal in Illinois in 1979.  At the  the time, I thought that all same-sex activity was illegal everywhere.

When I asked in private,  Jake told me that he had a girlfriend, a cheerleader with very large breasts. Her name was Tessa, or maybe Tina, and she lived in Aurora, or maybe Naperville (the details changed from day to day). Of course they  had sex, frequently and enthusiastically, whenever she came to town to cheer for her team.

Today I would find this story suspect, but in 1979 I took it as proof positive of heterosexual identity.

At night, we shared a room. We stripped down to our briefs and lay atop mussed sheets on single beds, separated only by a nightstand.

Just after midnight on Saturday, my last night in Chicago, I awoke to a door slamming, footsteps, and a furious discussion between two voices, then three, then four. I surmised that Mary’s older brother (I don't remember his name) had come home unexpectedly after a fight with my girlfriend. Not willing to be kicked out of my bed,







I kept my eyes tightly shut and pretended to be asleep. After awhile I heard footsteps, a whispered conversation with Jake, and then scuffling and bed-creaking. When I dared open my eyes, a big, thickly-muscled jock in white underwear lay in the opposite bed, cradling Jake in his arms. Both were facing me, asleep or pretending to be. Their legs were intertwined.

“Jake,” I murmured. “Move over here.  More room."




A moment later Jake was under the covers, his head against my chest.  Then our legs intertwined. After awhile there were mouths and hands, and a murmured “Don’t wake up my brother."

At some point during the night, Jake returned to his brother's arms.

After an egg-and-bacon casserole, roasted potatoes, and rolls with orange marmalade, our friend Rich and his girlfriend picked us up for the three-hour trip back to Rock Island.

In the car, I announced that Jake was definitely straight.  He even had a girlfriend.