My Nephew Fixes Me Up with His Central Asian Friend

Every year my father celebrated his birthday by hosting a barbecue for his family and friends, held on the Saturday afternoon closest to June 6th.  I always tried to schedule my summer visit to Rock Island or Indianapolis to coincide with it.

Dad died last year, so I assumed that the barbecues were over, until I got a Facebook Instant Message from my sister's son, Joseph, age 27, a doctoral student in Central Asian Languages, at Indiana University.

"I'm continuing Grandpa's tradition of Memorial Day Barbecues.  At my house in Bloomington.  Can you make it?  I want to talk to you about something."

"Sure, no problem," I responded, curious.  What could he want to talk about.  Maybe he wanted to come out!

I figured that Joseph had to be gay, or at least bi.  He was flamboyant and theatrical, swishing and limp-wristed, with that nasal "gay accent" voice.  He wears bright pastel shirts and tight bulging jeans and plastic bracelets. He belonged to an LGBT news group on Facebook, and he drove his Dad's vintage 1969 car in the Indianapolis Gay Pride Parade.

Definitely coming out.  Or -- had he turned fundamentalist, and wanted to quote Leviticus at me?

Better skip the staying-over invitation.  "Thanks, but I already accepted an invitation to stay with Tyler."  A friend in Indianapolis.

And I brought along David from San Francisco for moral support -- an ex-Baptist minister with a master's degree in Classics, an expert on the Biblical passages used to promote homophobia.

We arrived on Wednesday and saw my mother and my sister and brother-in-law, but not Joseph, not until Saturday afternoon, the barbecue: hot dogs and hamburgers grilled in the back yard of Joseph's 100-year old house just outside of Bloomington.

How did they afford it, when he and his roommates were all graduate students?

We said hello to Joseph and gave him a gift, then pushed our way through the crowd, saying hello, getting introduced.  I counted over 20 adults, plus kids.  All relatives, all heterosexual as far as I could tell -- with one exception.

A young guy on the far side of the yard, talking to someone I didn't recognize. Shorter than me, dark-skinned, square head with heavy eyebrows and a big smile, a v-shaped torso, a hard smooth chest with prominent nipples, a little belly, and heavy, square workman's hands.

"Dibs," I whispered to David, and walked over to introduce myself and cruise him.  Heavily.

Then Joseph grabbed me.  "Can I talk to you for a second.  Without David?"

He took me onto the screen porch.

Uh, oh -- this is it! I thought.  He's either going to come out or pull out a Bible!

But he said "Is David your boyfriend?"

"Uh -- no,"

"Ok, good.  I didn't expect you to bring anyone...um...so I got a date for you."

"What?" A blind date?

"I know what it's like to feel out of place at these family gatherings, so I invited Ravi, from Kazakhstan.  He's just come out, and looking to meet people.  And he likes older guys."  He grabbed my knee.  "I got you tickets to a dance concert tonight -- but I didn't know David would be here, so I just got two."

"Oh, no problem, he sounds great."

Kazakh, the language spoken by the Turkic tribes that descended on Central Asia a thousand years ago:

I like to eat big sausages.
Turkish: Büyük sosisleri severim
Kazakh:Men ülken şujıq jewge unaydı

"But won't David feel left out?"

Apparently Joseph had never heard of the gay community custom of "sharing."  It's not common on a first date, but not unheard-of.

Ravi (real name Ravil) turned out to be in engineering, not in Central Asian Languages: 23 years old, in the U.S. only about a year. He always knew that he liked guys, but only acknowledged that he was gay a few months ago.  He had never met any older gay men before, and peppered us with questions about how we came out, how we formed romantic relationships, if we ever wanted to get married and have kids, if we knew any gay Muslims.

Oddly, David refused to come along to the dance concert ("Dance is a Contact Sport", about dancers pretending to be football and baseball players, not very interesting), or cruising at the Metro afterwards.  Maybe he didn't want to horn in on "my territory."

When we got back to the apartment, David and Tyler were already asleep, so we took the guest room.

Ravi was very passionate, into kissing and fondling, with a very thick cut Bratwurst.   I went down on him until he spurted, then moved into the interfemoral position, which he had never done before.

In the morning Tyler -- but not David -- joined us.  I went down on them both while they were kissing, then fondled Tyler's testicles while they moved into the 69 position.  Then Ravi went down on me while Tyler pushed into my mouth.

David interrupted us.  "Hey,  I hate to ruin the party...."  He reached out and fondled Ravi.

"No, it's ok, join us," Ravi said.  "I would love your cock in my ass."

"Sounds tempting, but no time.   We should get going if we're going to make it to church.  I'm be waiting in the living room."

Ravi seemed a little put-out by David's reluctance.  He let me go down on him until he finished, then quickly dressed and left.  When I called later, he claimed to be too busy to get together again.

I never found out why David didn't want to "share."  Maybe Ravi wasn't his type, or maybe he was just tired after several days of Indianapolis cruising.

But I got to hook up with a beautiful guy from Central Asia, and hear the Kazakh language!

Later I instant messaged Joseph:  "Thanks for introducing me to Ravi.  He was very nice.  Too bad we won't have time to see each other again before I go home."

"You're leaving soon?" Joseph responded.  "We never had a chance to talk."

I thought Ravi was the talk!  "Ok, I have some time this afternoon."

Coming out, finally?  Suggesting a three way with Ravi?

We met at a little restaurant on the south side.

"I have a job offer at the University of Amsterdam," Joseph said. "I know you go there every year, so I wanted to ask your advice about living there."

Two years later, Joseph came out as transgender.  Sorry about the deadname and he/him pronouns, but that's what they used at the time.

Joseph and I Hook Up in a Haunted House

Terre Haute, Indiana

One day the July after my first year in grad school at Indiana University, my friend Joseph called: "You up for a road trip this Saturday?"

"Where to?"  I asked, hoping he wanted to go to one of the gay bars in Indianapolis. 

"I gotta go to Terre Haute to pick up some stuff, then drop it off at my parents' house in Broad Ripple [a suburb of Indianapolis]."

"How much stuff?" I asked suspiciously.  I didn't want to be conned into helping him move.

"Not a lot, just a few keepsakes.  My parents are selling my great-aunt Rose's house, and they want me to go get what I want before everything gets packed up and sold."

"Are other guys coming, too?"

"There aren't a lot of guys around Bloomington during the summer, so it will be just you and me."  He paused.  It's a pretty long trip, so we'll probably have to spend the night in Broad Ripple before heading back."

Spend the night!  I know what that meant!

 Joseph was  one of the first gay guys I met in Bloomington: an undergraduate history major, with black curly hair, a baby face, and a lean tan physique.  And short -- Definitely my type!  But he was also very popular, dating Rick the philosophy major, then Mark the optometrist, then a medical student named Manfred (really!), so I never managed to squeeze in.

Obviously I wasn't his first choice, but who cared?  This was my chance to get intimate!

Saturday after lunch we set out for Terre Haute, about 1 1/2 hours away.  Joseph said that he grew up in Broad Ripple, but they drove out to visit his mother's aunt Rose almost every weekend.  He had fond memories of fishing in the Wabash River, drive-in movies, dinner at the Pizza King, and drinking hot chocolate at Christmastime

"Aunt Rose is in a nursing home with dementia," he told me. "She fades in and out.  Some days she's almost normal, and others she thinks it's 1961, and I'm her brother Oscar.  But she can still name all of the U.S. presidents, in order, up to Richard Nixon."

"Did she know about you [being gay] before her dementia?"

"No.  I'm not out anyone in my family, and I sure wasn't going to come out to a hard-core Methodist lady.   She was always worried that I wasn't dating enough.  One of the last things she said to me before her dementia began was 'You shouldn't be so picky, or you'll never find a girl."

Aunt Rose used to be a professor of American history at Indiana State University.  She lived in a big, two-story house in West Terre Haute, just across the Wabash.  It was painted a depressing shade of grey, but it had a wide porch and a big, carefully mown front lawn.

As we walked up to the house, I saw what looked like a face in the attic window.

 "Who's that?"  I asked. 

"Who's who?"

But it was gone.

I didn't want to turn him off by being leery of an old house, so I said "Does anyone else live here?"

He shrugged.  "No, but about a dozen members of the family have keys.  We drop by to do housework, pay Aunt Rose's bills, and such.  Why?"

"Oh, um...it's just well kept up." 

The living room was mostly packed up and ready to go, all of the pictures taken from the walls and the furniture all carefully marked with the name of whoever had claimed it.  Joseph took a candy dish and a ceramic figure of a dog.

The kitchen was cluttered with pots, pans, dishes, and various obscure implements in piles on the counters and tabletops.  Joseph took a fondue set, a long-ago Christmas present that had never been used, and the cup his Aunt Rose used to serve his juice in.

It was very warm.  He turned on the air conditioner, but we still had to take our shirts off.

Next came the study, heavy laden with books from a career as a college professor: a three-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Bruce Caxton's Civil War trilogy, plus mystery novels, literature, folklore, music, and about a hundred books on gardening.  Joseph and I filled five boxes with books to argue over later.

He left Aunt Rose's bedroom alone.

Upstairs was a storage room that was pack rat heaven.  50 years of Christmas and birthday cards. Stacks of report cards and school papers. Old magazines, carefully bundled.   Old wrapping paper.  Slide carousels.  Souvenirs of long-ago trips.  Joseph took a nativity set, some Christmas tree ornaments, and a painting of the house.

He left the first bedroom alone and zeroed in on the second, where he stayed whenever he slept over.  There were two twin beds with flowered comforters, a night stand between them, an old-fashioned dresser, and a little card table with framed pictures of Aunt Rose's family.

"Help me get this comforter.  And I think I want the lamp, too.  I used to fall asleep with the light on, and Aunt Rose would come in and turn it off.  Sometimes I just pretended to be asleep, so I would know when she came in..."  he stopped short.  He was trembling.

"Are you ok?"

"She joked that I liked this room so much, I should spend my honeymoon here.  I just... wish Aunt Rose could know about who I really am.  I'm sure she'd be ok with it...I'm so much happier now then when I was trying to be straight, with all the friends I've made...and .."  He started to cry.  I rushed to put my arms around him.  Then somehow we were kissing.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

The Best Friend of Terry the Homophobe

Rock Island, July 1989

I'm in no mood to be back in Rock Island: I just got back to West Hollywood after my semester in Turkey, and I just started dating an amazing guy named Lane.  If I'm gone for too long, someone else will snatch him up.

But it's my baby sister's wedding, and I have to be in the wedding party, even though I detest the heterosexist ritual, and I'm not too fond of her fiancee Terry.

He's definitely cute: curly blond hair, round face, glasses, hard biceps, Bratwurst+ (yes, I got a sausage sighting).  But he is intensely boring, all about cars, sports, repairing things, and girls, girls, girls!.

And he drifts easily from heterosexist "She's every man's fantasy" to blatant homophobia, telling "fag" jokes, making limp-wrist gestures, exclaiming "Everybody with AIDS should be shot!" and "Why don't we just put the homos on an island and be rid of the problem?"

Tammy tries to squash him, not always successfully.  Hasn't she told him that I am gay?  Doesn't she know? We never actually had a coming-out conversation, but she met Fred and Viju, and she's heard all about Alan, Raul, my celebrity boyfriend, and most recently Lane.

Terry and Tammy dated during their last year of high school, a disastrous year of college, and a year in the workforce at the same auto dealership in Davenport, so I've seen him lots of times on Christmas and summertime visits.  I've met his parents and his three friends, who I call the Three Jerks.

They're rather hot also.


1. Rod, Terry's oldest friend (far left), a grinning, round-faced Augustana student (biology major) and jogging enthusiast.

2. Anky, his next oldest friend, a history major at the University of Illinois.  He is short and tightly-muscled, with swarthy Mediterranean looks (second from right).

3. Paul, a tall Nordic blond with a swimmer's build, slicked-back hair, and beady eyes, Terry's most recent friend.  He's a little older, about my age, and works at the car dealership.

Regardless of their hotness, the Three Jerks are loud and boisterous and way, way heterosexist.  The minute they burst into the house for a Christmas party or into the back yard for a Fourth of July Barbecue, they bore me with talk of cars and sports, and pepper me with questions about the "hot girls" of California, and how many have I bedded, and could I get them the telephone number of Heather Locklear?




Two Days Before The Wedding

Tammy is out somewhere. Terry and his three friends, aka the Three Jerks, still damp from swimming at Longview Park, descend upon our game room to yell loudly while playing foosball.  Then they settle down to watch a VHS tap of Big Trouble in Little China.

I join them, squeezed onto the couch between Anky and Paul -- it's rather fun to sit with hot guys, heterosexist or not, and  I can ignore the hooting at Kim Cattrell's breasts.

Paul nudges me.  "Is she as hot as your girlfriend in California?"

 I should respond according to the rules of survival drummed into my head in West Hollywood:


Never come out.  When asked about your girlfriend or interest in girls, lie. Make something up.

But I'm tired of being mistaken for straight. "Gross!  I don't have a girlfriend!"

"No girlfriend!" Anky exclaims.  "With all those foxes around in California?  Well, maybe you just need some Midwestern talent."

"You just leave everything to us," Paul says.  "We'll check out the guest list, and make sure you get laid tomorrow night -- right, Terry?"

Terry shoots him a pained look, but says, "Sure, I'll see what I can do."

The Day Before the Wedding

We gather at the United Methodist Church for the rehearsal.

The wedding is going to be entirely heterosexist, with the men filing down the church aisle, arm in arm with the women, separating for the ceremony, and then coming together, arms around each other in heteronormative bliss, for the photo.  Then we're going to be seated together at the reception.

Sure enough, the Three Jerks have fixed me up with Charlene, one of the bridesmaids, Tammy's friend from high school.  She's heavily made up and stinking of perfume.

"You are so lucky, bud!" Paul grins at me. "Cream of the crop!  A lot better than those fags in California, right?"

Terry shoots him a pained look.

Anky presses his hand on my back.  "And I hear she puts out.  You'll definitely have a story to tell all your friends back in California."

We start down the aisle:

Anky, the Best Man, with a girl.  Then: Paul, me, Rod, and my brother Ken, each of us arm-in-arm with our corresponding girl.

But instead of grabbing onto Charlene, I take one step back and latch onto the arm of Paul!  He looks stunned, but walks a few feet with me until the preacher stops us and tells us to try again.

This time I take a step forward and latch onto Rod!

"Boomer!" My mother commands.  "Do it right, or don't do it at all."

I grudgingly comply.

Later, at the rehearsal dinner, Anky buttonholes me.  "What's up, man? It looked like you were deliberately trying to ruin Terry's wedding."

I am sick of hiding.  "Oh, no, I just have a hard time figuring out the moves.  I'm not used to boy-girl pairs.  Back in West Hollywood, it's all boy-boy pairs."

"Boy-boy pairs?"  He repeats, staring.  Then he breaks into a wide grin.  "I had no idea you were...we'll talk later, ok?  After dinner."

After dinner Anky walks me out into the parking lot and reveales that he is gay!

"I've seen you maybe eight, ten times over the last three years.  Why didn't you tell me before?  I ask.

He shrugs.  "Why didn't you tell me?"

Well, why didn't Terry tell me that his best friend was gay?  Or tell his best friend that his fiancee's brother was gay?

Turns out Terry didn't know.  Neither of us lisped or swished, so he couldn't "tell" from visual clues, and everybody who did know was following the rule:  Never come out. 

And he still won't know.  Anky makes me promise not to out him.

He still goes to Terry's bachelor party.  I claim a headache and bow out.






The Day of the Wedding

Anky and I sit together at the reception, and then visit my ex-bully Dick for dinner and "sharing."  He has a slim but firm physique, nice hands, and an average-sized but beautifully shaped penis that presses straight up against his abdomen.  He goes down on Dick and me at the same time, and then he lies on his back so I can go down on him while Dick is topping him.

We get together a few more times, when we're both back in Rock Island for Christmas or the summer, but eventually we lose contact.

Terry stopped being homophobic,by the way.  In 2016, he lent his son his vintage 1969 Chevy Camero to drive in the Indianapolis Gay Pride Parade.

See also: How We Survived the Homophobic 1980s; My Date with the Groom's Grandson at a Gay Wedding; and Sausage Sighting of My Parents' Contractor

Nephew Sausage Sighting #5: "Do I Measure Up?"

After my parents moved to Indianapolis in 1995, I stayed with my brother on my visits to Rock Island, so I've had ample opportunity to get sausage sightings of his sons (I only count those after they turn 18, of course).  But a sausage sighting of my sister's son, Joseph, was much more difficult to accomplish.  Here's why:

Indianapolis, June 1996

Every summer my parents celebrate Dad's birthday with a barbecue for their family and friends, held the Saturday afternoon closest to June 6th.  My sister and I always try to plan our summer visits to coincide with them.  This year it should be easy for her, since Mom and Dad have moved to a small town south of Indianapolis, less than 10 miles from Tammy's house.

But she doesn't come to the birthday barbecue.

"Oh, they're busy," Mom says.  "[Her husband] Terry is working a lot of hours at the car dealership."

I call to suggest that we get together for lunch during my visit.  I get the answering machine.

I try again.  She doesn't return my call.  After I fly back to San Francisco, I try a third time.  No answer.

I ask Mom what the problem is.

"You'll have to work it out between you," she says.  "Don't drag me into it."

No birthday card in November.

I stay in San Francisco for Christmas.  I send Tammy a present, but she doesn't send me one.  I call on Christmas Day, but after a "Hi!  How are you?", she makes an excuse and hangs up.

No more contact.  Tammy and Terry and their son cease to exist.

As far as I can tell, they figured "it" out, and they recoiled in homophobic horror.

My family practices a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.  They never actually use the "g" word, or refer to my boyfriends as boyfriends ("This is Lane, Boomer's...um...friend").   Still, after meeting Viju, Fred, and Lane, and hearing about Alan, Raul, Peter, David, Corbin the Gym Rat, Kevin the Vampire, and Michael J. Fox, you'd think Tammy would get a clue.

Apparently not.

Oddly, my brother, the fundamentalist Nazarene,  always invites me to stay at his house, and has no qualms about putting me in the bedroom next to his teenage nephews.  Not a problem.  It's Tammy, the liberal Methodist, who freaked out, who didn't want me around her kid.

Silence.  I hear about Tammy and her family from my mother's weekly telephone calls, but I have no contact.  

Indianapolis, June 2002

Then, after six years of ostracism, Tammy shows up at the 2002 Birthday Barbecue, bearing gifts, asking if I have met "a special guy," chatting and joking as if nothing has happened.

Approaching 40, she has become plump, almost zaftig.

Her husband Terry is bald and buffed, almost ready to become a leather daddy.

And Joseph, age 12, is slim, fey, and theatrical.  He has done some modeling for magazines, starred in a local tv commercial, and now he is starring in a community theater production of The Little Prince.

"Oh, you have to come!" Tammy exclaims.  "It would mean so much to him!"

I hate The Little Prince, and I doubt that the fey, theatrical blond cares very much about a guy he hasn't seen since he was five years old, but I go.

The next day, Tammy invites me out for pizza.  "You have to tell Joseph all about your life in New York!  Didn't you meet a lot of Broadway stars?  And Andrew Lloyd Weber?"

Edinburgh, Indiana, September 2005

I'm living in Dayton, which is only two hours from Indianapolis, so I can visit whenever I want.  Like when my nephew Joseph is singing at a regional glee club competition in Edinburgh, Indiana.

Joseph (never Joe) is fifteen years old, a kinky-haired blond, very fey, swishy and limp-wristed, with that nasal "gay accent" voice.  He wears bright pastel shirts and tight bulging jeans and plastic bracelets.

In spite of his parents' assurance that he is "girl-crazy," he never mentions a girl, but he has a series of male pals.

Definitely gay.

And his parents are always pushing us together, sending us out for pizzas, asking me to pick him up from school, inviting me to all of his recitals, plays, and concerts.

I suspect that they're looking for me to be a role model, showing him that it's ok to be gay.

Without anyone ever saying the "g" word.



Indianapolis, December 2008

Joseph is eighteen years old, still a fey, swishy blonde.  He's a freshman at Indiana University, planning to major in East Asian Languages and theater.

A few days before Christmas, he calls. "Can you come up to the house this afternoon?  I want to ask you something."

While your Mom and Dad are at work?  What for?

"Well, why can't you ask over the phone?"

"No, it has to be in person.  It's private -- I'm a little nervous about it."

I'm nervous, too.  I don't understand what Joseph is planning. Is he just going to come out?  Or does he expect an uncle-nephew sexual escapade?


When I arrive at Tammy's house, Joseph offers me a handshake -- his hand is damp! -- then sits me down on the couch. next to the Christmas tree.  We're sitting very close together.  I put the cat on my lap and start petting her to get my mind off my crotch.

"I'm kind of nervous," he says.  "It's...well, you know, I've never done it...you know, sex...before."

Uh-oh.  He is planning on sex!  

"You're an expert on this sort of thing, so...um...I need your honest opinion."

Before I can respond, he drops his pants, displaying an average sized cut penis and rather small balls.

I stare, very uncomfortable.  I certainly don't intend to go down on Joseph.  His parents trust me around him!  But...are they pushing us together?  Do they expect something to happen?

"What...um...are you showing me your cock for?"

"I might have a chance to have sex next week, on New Year's Eve, and I was wondering, am I big enough?" Joseph says.  "I mean, you've seen a lot of cocks.  Do I measure up?"

Um...I could judge better if I could see it aroused.

No, I don't say that!

"Don't worry, dude, you're totally hot.  Any guy would be glad to go out with you."

"Or any girl?"

"Huh?"

"My date's with a girl.  We've been going out for a couple of months now, and she said on New Year's Eve she wants to go all the way."

Joseph is straight?  Or maybe bi?

Oh well, at least, I got a sausage sighting.

See also: Is My Nephew Gay?; and The Best Friend of Terry the Homophobe

A Hookup with the Closeted Egyptian Professor

Bloomington, April 1984

 I heard a lot about Samir before I actually met him. It seemed that everyone on campus had dated him, or was dating him now.

"A professor of political science," Mark the Optometrist said.  "He's published a ton of books!"

"Thick, thick biceps!" Roy the Farmboy said.  "I don't know where he works out, but believe me, it's working!"

"He's famous!" Jimmy, the Bodybuilder on Crutches, said "The State Department calls him for advice!"

"Total active, mostly Greek," Mark's ex-boyfriend Shaun said.  "And ---"  He spread his hands wide to demonstrate Samir's sausage size.

I had to meet this guy!

"Do you mind if I ask him out?" I asked Shaun.

"Sure, go ahead.  But I don't have his number.  You don't call him -- he calls you!"

Have you ever heard of anything so cool?

I dropped by the Political Science Department, looked up his office hours -- and chickened out.

One day Roy the Farmboy and I were walking down 3rd Street, at the edge of the campus, when we passed an older guy, in his 40s, tall, barrel-chested, olive-skinned, with black hair, sharp features, and a short-cropped black beard,  Very formal, very European, in a dark business suit, carrying a leather briefcase, a newspaper under his arm.

I smiled instinctively.  He gave me a cool look of non-recognition and pushed on.

Roy nudged me.  "That was Samir, my ex-boyfriend."

This was the famous Samir?  "Why didn't you say hello?  He acted like he didn't know you."

"He always does that in public. He's a professor."

"Really?  That's a little weird."   In the 1980s all gay professors at Indiana University were closeted: if the administration found out, they would be fired instantly.  So they refused to research gay topics, they invited lady friends to faculty functions, they avoided Bullwinkle's, our local gay bar -- but refusing to acknowledge your gay friends in public was extreme!

The next day Roy called me.  "You were a big hit with Samir."

"You're kidding -- he saw me for like ten seconds."

"No -- he was impressed.  He asked me to set up a meeting at the Fireside in Indianapolis next Friday night."

Indianapolis was quite a long way to drive for a blind date, but I was intrigued.  I asked Viju to come along.

The Fireside was one of those old-fashioned "romantic" restaurants, with bare bricks, dark wood furniture, and very dim lights, so you could barely see who you were talking to.

I know a dark, secluded place, a place where no one knows your face!

Samir was sitting at a table -- in a sweater and jeans, not a business suit, but still very formal -- with a woman!  He introduced her as his friend Emily.


A date an hour away from Indianapolis, with a "beard"!  Talk about closeted!

 We shook hands, and he offered us red wine.  We asked for Cokes instead.

"I'd love to hear about your research," I said.  "It must be fascinating..."

His eyes shot about the room.  "We must not discuss our work here.  Enough to know that we are both at the University."

What was wrong with talking about your job on a date?  "So, where are you from?" Viju asked.

"Originally I am from Egypt, but I lived in London for some time, and I have been in the U.S. for eight years."

"I love the Middle East!" I exclaimed.  "I'm in first year Arabic now.  I had my first sexual experience with a boy from Lebanon."

His eyes shot about the room again.  "Please, we don't discuss sex here.  And at any rate, Egypt is not strictly in the Middle East.  It is the Maghreb."

This date wasn't going well.  "I thought Muslims didn't drink," Viju said gesturing at his wine glass.

"Another misconception.  About 30% of the people in Egypt are Coptic Christians, myself included."

Um...ok, this guy was a little harsh.  "Do you find it hard to reconcile your Coptic faith with being gay?"

Again, eyes shooting about the room. "Please, I am not out."

What did half my friends see in this guy?

We had dinner -- Samir paid -- and excused ourselves to go cruising at the Varsity Lounge.

A few days Samir called.  "It was very pleasant getting to know you the other night.  Would you come over this evening?  We can discuss the Middle East.  I have some books in Arabic that you might like."

After the frosty experience at dinner, I was hesitant, but ok.

When we were alone in his house, Samir was a different person altogether -- smiling, effervescent, loquacious.

He served homemade basboosa (a sort of cornbread with honey).

He showed me some Egyptian movie magazines, and an Arabic translation of Tom Sawyer that he had since he was a boy.

He talked about growing up in the Ain Shams district of Cairo, sneaking into movies with beefcake stars, his first sexual experience with his boarding-school roommate, coming out to his elderly grandmother.

We kissed while listening to a record of whiny Egyptian pop stars.  He had a very hard, very hairy chest and very, very thick biceps.

Then we went into the bedroom, where I went down on his very thick Bratwurst.  He tried to get me to turn over for anal.  When I refused, he said "It doesn't matter.  Just being with a man is what counts, don't you think?"

Afterwards Samir held me tightly in his arms all night, letting go only when I had to get up for the bathroom.

I left in the morning with my head spinning, swooning with infatuation.  This was the guy I had always hoped to meet!

So I dropped by the Political Science Department around noon, hoping to ask him to lunch.

He passed me in the hall with a cool look of non-recognition.