Barry Hooks Up with Luke Perry

Sayville, Long Island, November 1999

Yuri and I are in Sayville, visiting my friend Barry, the Colonial Williamsburg boy who escaped from his conservative, homophobic roots through drinking, drugs, and anonymous hookups, but has now been transformed into a health-conscious gym rat who practices Zen Buddhism and goes to gay Catholic Masses.

We're watching Beverly Hills 90210, about the angst-ridden lives of Southern California glitz kids.  I've never seen it -- why should I watch a program about the glitz and glamour of a mythical Beverly Hills, when I lived a mile away from the real one?

But tonight, one of the four subplots is about gay bashing: Dylan (Luke Perry) and his friend Andrew (Rob Derringer) are assaulted outside a gay community center in West Hollywood. Andrew doesn't want to report the incident, because if he is outed, he will lose his job.

"California has job protections for gay people!" I complain.  "And who gets bashed in West Hollywood?  I lived there for ten years, from 1985 to 1995 -- it was a small town, quiet, peaceful, where you knew your neighbors and everybody helped each other."

"That's funny," Barry says.  "I moved to West Hollywood in 1995, just as you were leaving, but I didn't find a small town at all.  It was cold and hard.  Everybody wanted to use you.  I didn't know anybody, for real.  I did a lot of drugs, mostly Ecstasy and crystal.  I danced all night, and hooked up a lot, and hustled."

"Hustled?" Yuri asks.

"Prostitute," I explain.

"You were prostitute?"

"Rent boy," Barry corrects me.  "I had a high class clientele.  They picked me up in limousines, took me to the best restaurants, kept me overnight in the best hotels, brought in the best drugs, but then always sent me home alone."


Barry wants to talk about how empty his life was before his transformation, a standard "I was lost but now I'm found" motif, but Yuri will have none of it.  He's been out for less than two years, he's never been to West Hollywood, and he wants everything there to be bright and shining and joyous.  "That is very exciting.  Do you meet any famous people?"

"A couple.  Him, for instance."  He points to Dylan Walsh, played by Luke Perry.

"Yuck!" I say instinctively.  "That long face, receding hairline, squinty eyes.  I'd go with Jason Priestly.  Much cuter, and we know that he has a big one from that photo of him on a nude beach that's been making the rounds of the internet [left]."

"No, Dylan is cute," Yuri protests.  "And I think he has a big one."

"Mega-gigantic!" Barry says.



West Hollywood, July 1997

Barry was not in the best frame of mind -- not much sleep last night, nothing to eat all day but some stale donuts for breakfast and leftover macaroni and cheese for dinner, no Ecstasy to be had from any of his usual sources.  He had been dancing for six hours on nothing but adrenaline and beer, and an occasional mojito sent over by a Creepy Old Guy hoping to get into his pants.

But his rent was coming due, and nobody was getting into his pants tonight unless he had $50, some primo crystal, or a pornstar-sized penis.

He tried all of the gay dance clubs in West Hollywood, and then he went up the hill to Sunset Boulevard, where young, hip, homophobic straights hung out.  Straight clubs were iffy -- you got cruised by women, you couldn't dance with men -- but if you played your cards right, you could go home with some superstud actor wannabes whose girlfriends were "out of town."

Tonight he hit the jackpot -- he had only just walked into Whiskey a Go Go, when he saw Luke Perry!  Sitting in a booth with an entourage of men.

Troubled loner Dylan Walsh on Beverly Hills 90210.

The outsider who resonated with Barry's life, growing up gay in conservative Colonial Williamsburg.

The glamorous world of Beverly Hills, 90210, where the sun was always shining and the guys were always hot.  Friendship.  Freedom.  Community.

An icon of Barry's childhood.  He even had a Dylan Walsh doll (no penis -- he checked).

There was no question about it -- he was going to trick with Luke Perry!

He walked up, started a conversation, got offered a beer but no crystal.  The entourage moved away, as if they knew the routine, as if Luke had done this before.

After some cruising, he followed Luke to the Parc Suites off La Cienega, and waited in the car while Luke paid for a room.

They kissed in the elevator -- a soft, warm "first date" kiss, not the aggressive, tongue-swallowing kiss of a trick.

Inside the hotel, they collapsed onto the bed, kissing and fondling. Luke's Mortadella+ became instantly aroused.  But Barry didn't.

"We don't have to do anything right away," Luke said with a frown.  "We can just cuddle."

"No, I'm into it.  I just need a few minutes.  I've never been with such a big star before -- or such a big penis -- I've got stage fright."

Luke didn't have stage fright -- he took off his pants and underwear and lay down on the bed with his legs spread.  Barry went down on him while Luke stroked his hair.

When he finished, Barry went to the bathroom to rinse out his mouth, and then returned to bed.  "Could we just cuddle now?"  he asked.  "I'm really tired."

"Sure, whatever you want."  Luke put his both arms around Barry and kissed him twice, once on the lips and once on the forehead.  Then he turned out the lights.

This is what gay life is supposed to be like, Barry thought.  Not endless nights of drugged-out dancing and tricking, wandering mean streets looking for yet another guy with a nice car and $50, then going home alone and empty.  It's supposed to be about caring for each other.  It's supposed to be about love.

Barry stayed awake all night, not wanting to miss a second of the warmth of Luke's arms, his soft breathing, his heartbeat.

He got up early in the morning, while it was still dark out, dressed, gave Luke one final kiss, and left.  You can't go home again, he thought.  It's too late.  Besides, he really wanted to score some crystal.

Sayville, Long Island, November 1999

 "It was nearly a year later when I encountered the Creepy Old Guy in a hotel corridor and started praying the rosary again," Barry tells us.  He went back home to Williamsburg, where his parents were delighted to reunite with him.  He gave up the bars, went to drug counseling, joined a gym, began practicing Zen meditation, and started going to Dignity, the gay Catholic group.

"Sad story," Yuri says.  "Does it mean that we won't share tonight?"

Barry laughs.  "Not until I get to know you a little better."


Was Barry telling the truth?

The guy Barry hooked up with never once said that he was in fact, Luke Perry the actor.

In July 1997, Luke Perry was married to Rachel Sharp.  Their first child, Jack Perry, was about a month old.  Luke has also dated Rene Zellweger, Kelly Preston, Shannon Doherty, and Yasmine Bleeth.

He's a gay ally who has played gay characters many times, including "himself" as gay on Family Guy.  One would think that, if he were gay or bisexual in real life, he would be open about it.

His penis, as we discovered on Oz in 2001, is not nearly as big as Barry claimed, but maybe he's a grower.

It seems odd that Barry would tell the Luke Perry story just as we were watching him on tv, as if he only just thought of it.

But why make up a story about that particular celebrity, when any icon of his childhood would do?

See also: Barry and the Creepy Old Guy

Trapped in a Dormitory with College Freshmen

Long Island, August 1997

On August 26th, 1997, at 10:00 pm, I got on an airplane with two suitcases, leaving friends, my boyfriend, most of my stuff, and memories of home, to go to graduate school at Setauket University in New York (not its real name)

Eight hours later, after a layover in Chicago, I arrived at LaGuardia.  I had never been to New York before. I expected skyscrapers and subways.  Instead, I found the suburban sprawl of the Straight World.

The admissions guy said that Setauket was 30 minutes from New York City.  He lied!  From LaGuardia Airport it took 2 hours by train, with a change at Jamaica station.

Exhausted after a night with no sleep, I got to the campus at a little after noon, only to find the Housing Office closed for lunch.

When I returned at 1:15, they had no idea who I was.  There was no application for graduate student housing on file.

I was standing in the middle of Long Island with two suitcases, a day before classes started, with no place to stay!

"Don't worry," the housing clerk said.  "We can move you into emergency housing until a graduate student apartment opens up.  It shouldn't be longer than a week or two."

She gave me a key to a room in the freshman dormitory!

Two bunk beds, four desks and chairs, two shared closets, bathroom down the hall. With three freshman boys as my roommates.

I know what you're thinking -- were they cute?  Did you get a sausage sighting?

The answer is, it never occurred to me.

1. I was not yet a twink magnet, not used to the idea of guys who were substantially younger.

2. I was already feeling self-conscious about my age, being the oldest graduate student in my program by about ten years. And now I was surrounded by 17 and 18 year olds.  They would think I was a freshman, too.  I was too humiliated to think of biceps and bulges.

3. Twinks were uncommon in San Francisco -- the money and energy it takes to live in Gay Heaven were beyond the means of most 20-year olds.  So I had spent the last two years surrounded by guys in their 30s, 40s, and 50s.  From my perspective, a 17 year old looked a little kid.

Sniveling homesick babies crying into their pillow and getting various fevers that made them go to the nurse constantly.

Rambunctious Bart Simpsons wearing "Dare to Misbehave" t-shirts as they skateboarded down the hallways at 2:00 am.

 The staff treated us like kids, too.  Nightly room inspections to make sure we don't have any contraband -- including free weights, musical instruments, open food containers, and porn magazines.

Daily "hall meetings," required even for me and the 10 or so other grad students put in emergency housing.  With required ice breaker activities like "You're going on a picnic.  Everybody has to bring something starting with the first letter of your last name."

I'm bringing dynamite.

The next day I went to the housing office to see if an apartment had opened up.  And the next.  And then it was Saturday; I took the train into Manhattan, but had to be back by the 11:00 pm curfew.

Yes, freshman dorms had curfews, even for 36-year olds.

Monday was Labor Day.  Campus offices are all closed.

On Tuesday I went to the housing office again -- nope -- and then started my classes: two graduate seminars and teaching assistant for an intro class.

Two of my roommates were my students!

Then I went back to the freshman dorm to sit at a table full of rambunctious kindergarteners for dinner, followed by a required "hall meeting" with  ice breaker activities for little kids.

"Write down three things about you, two lies and one the truth.  We have to decide which is true."

I had a four-way with Brad Pitt.
I went down on a guy with 11" backstage at the Hollywood Bowl.
I can suck a golf ball through a garden hose from 50 feet away.

No, I didn't use those.  I said something about having studied 10 languages, owning a pet iguana, and having starred in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

After the ice breaker they served ice cream sandwiches, but I wanted to high-tail it back to my room to hide from the humiliation of being treated like a 17 year old. But on the way, one of the freshman coat-tailed me.

His name was Jesse, and his true statemnt had been "I spend summers on a ranch."  He was tall and slim, with thick black hair, pale skin, and a snarky grin.

"Hey, sir, do you really speak 10 languages?"

"Studied, not speak.  Ni hau bu hau?"

"That's cool.  Want to play pingpong, sir?"  He emphasized the "sir" in a snarky way.

Why not?  It beat hiding in my dorm room, with no computer and no tv, for the next four hours, until lights out.

Still, as we played, I couldn't help thinking of the humiliation.  Having lived in my own apartments for 14 years, I was playing pingpong in the lounge of a freshman dorm with a little kid.

"If you don't mind my asking, sir, how old are you?" Jesse said.

"17, Sonny.  I stopped counting birthdays in 1978."

He did the math.  "You're only two years younger than my Dad.  Cool!"

Jesse also found it "cool" that I was from California, that I had studied Comparative Literature at USC, and that I knew a lot of celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise, and Brad Pitt (ok, so I made some up).

"I never met anyone yet.  I'm just a farmboy from Ulster County."

"How old are you?" I asked.

"42.  I'm young looking for my age.  So I guess you have to call me Daddy.  So, what brings you to college, sir?  Senior citizen tuition remission?"

"I like little boys, and this is the best place to find some," I said with a leer.

He stared at me for a moment, then laughed.  "You got a good sense of humor on you, sir.  Hey, do you want to see something cool?  I've been here for a week -- baseball practice -- so I know my way around.  Meet me in the 3rd floor bathroom at 11:30.  They don't do dorm checks until 1:00, so we'll have about an hour."

At age 36, having lived on my own for 14 years, I was in a freshman dorm, having a late-night adventure.  I just hoped Jesse wasn't taking me on a panty raid.

Jesse was carrying a blanket and a pair of binoculars.  He led me to a stairwell, up two flights of stairs, down a hall, up another stairwell, and we were on the roof.

It was a warm, clear night.  We lay side by side on the blanket, and Jesse handed me a pair of binoculars and pointed.

We could see directly through most of the windows of the dorm next door.  It was for upperclassmen, who had no curfew, so most of the windows were lit.  College guys sitting at desks, lying on bunks, roughhousing.

Bare chests, once a bare butt.

"It's like a dozen little live theaters. I keep hoping I'll see someone beating off, but it hasn't happened yet."

"The night is young."

I overcame my humiliation long enough to go down on Jesse (the age of consent in New York is 17). Small with a mushroom head, cut, big load.  He called me "sir."

But mostly from that night I remember the "live theater" of a dozen lit windows.

The next day an apartment opened up, and I met the roommate from hell.

See also: My Date with the Teenager and his Mom; Gay Panic and the Obnoxious Roommate; My Most Embarrassing Date

A Student Invites Me to Share His Bunk Bed

Jamaica, New York, February 2000

In the spring of 2000, I was living in the East Village,  taking classes at Setaukt University (two hours away) and teaching as an adjunct at Hofstra University (1 1/2 hours away), which took a little logistic planning.  Sometimes I spent the night with Yuri or a date to avoid going all the way back into Manhattan.

 That Thursday was one of my long days: up at 6, classes at LIU, teaching at LIU, gym, an hour train trip from LIU to Hofstra, teaching a three hour night class, and then an 1 1/2 hour train trip back to Manhattan.,

 By the time I got on the campus shuttle to the Hofstra train station at 9:30 pm, I was exhausted, and not looking forward to the next 1 1/2 hours.

Standing on the platform on a cold, snowy February night didn't help matters.

I wanted to doze or read.  I was in no mood for cruising or small talk.

No matter how cute the guy was.

So when Mason got on the train with me, I was not pleased.   He was one of the nondescript students in my introductory class last semester: a freshman, tall and thin, pale, with thick brown hair, glasses, a sharp nose, a weak chin, and acne.  Sort of cute, in a fresh-faced innocent way, but nothing spectacular.

He plopped down across from me and didn't say anything.  I saw a sizeable basket that I hadn't noticed in class.  Bratwurst, at least.

"Hi, Mason!" I said with my best smile.

"Hi, Mr. Davis," he said politely.  "Where you headed?"

"Penn Station.  "You?"

"Hey, me too!  I'm going to meet some friends at the Tunnel.  I've never been there before." 

A mixed gay-straight club on 12th Avenue, a few blocks from Penn Station.  Could Mason be gay?

He moved over next to me and started describing the club and his friends.  A few follow-up questions should reveal if Mason was gay or not.

But I didn't get anywhere.  Mason may be gay, but he wasn't open about it, and he wasn't cruising me.  I was too tired to press the issue, basket or not.

Another hour, with a change of trains at Jamaica Station and a short subway ride, and I'd be home in the East Village, where there were plenty of open, active gay guys around, most with sizeable baskets.

As we chatted, I found myself ignoring Mason to gaze out the window at the thick-falling snow.  It was coming down hard.  I wasn't worrried - trains can plow through anything.

At a little after 10:30, we stopped at Jamaica Station to catch the train to Penn.  Usually it was a five minute wait, or less.  But tonight, as we stood shivering on the platform for five, ten, fifteen minutes...

Could we have missed it?  It only came once an hour after 10:00 pm.

And the snow kept falling.

Just my luck.  Waiting on a freezing train station platform in the middle of the night with a nondescript, straight student.  

"Screw this!" Mason said suddenly.  "I'll go to the Tunnel some other time.  I'm getting a taxi, and going home."

"Ok, see you later."

He started to walk away.  Then he turned, saw me alone on the platform, shivering in the cold, and called "Hey, would you like to come home with me tonight?  Mom and Dad won't mind,  You can sleep in the guest room."

Suddenly Manhattan seemed an eternity away, and a warm bed in Mason's house sounded like a godsend.  

We got into a taxi and chugged about two miles through the snow to a duplex on 126th Street.  Mason paid, and led me through the front porch, instructing me to take off my snow-covered shoes at the door.

Mom and Dad were sitting on separate chairs in the tiny, old-fashioned living room, watching the 11:00 news on tv.

"I thought you were going into the City?"  Dad said, ignoring me.

"Snow is too bad out there -- we're almost snowed in."  He took my arm -- the first time we actually touched.  "This is my old professor, Mr. Davis -- I ran into him on the train, and I promised him Calvin's old room, if that's ok."

"Well -- it would be, ordinarily," Mom said, "But Aunt Joy's in there tonight, remember?"

"Oh, yeah."

I started to panic.  Another taxi ride back to the freezing cold train platform, for a train that came once an hour, maybe not at all..."I can sleep on the couch, no problem..." I began.

"How about I just put you up in my room?" Mason said.  "Don't worry, I don't snore."

I tried to remember the last time I shared someone's bed who wasn't a sex partner.  Not since I was a kid...or would he be a sex partner after all?

I wondered if Mason had planned all of this in advance.  A random encounter on the train -- the night his brother's room is occupied -- but how could he arrange for the snow, and the train that didn't come?  No, of course not...I was just goofy with fatigue.

"Sure, that will be fine."

Mason led me upstairs, past two bedrooms -- one with the door closed, presumably where Aunt Joy was sleeping -- and to the third.  Small, bookshelves, desk, dresser, posters, baseball mitt, dormer window looking down on the street.  And bunk beds.

"Um...would you like the top or bottom?" Mason asked.

I was too tired to answer.  "Be right back, got to go to the bathroom."  I found my toiletry kit in my knapsack and headed down the hall to brush my teeth.  When I returned, Mason was lying in the bottom bunk, shirtless, reading a book by a desk lamp.

"Hi, I thought I'd give you the top, since you're..." Mason began.  He didn't have time to say anything else.  "F* climbing," I thought, tearing off my shirt and pants and pushing into bed next to him.  "Scoot over, I don't do tops.  You like cuddling, right?"

"Sure."  He turned off the light and scooted down and held me.  Suddenly he was kissing my chest.

We didn't do much that night, but in the morning I found my way around Mason's firm, smooth physique and  uncut Bratwurst+.  I went down on him, and finished with interfemoral, with a lot of kissing afterwards, before his Mom called us "sleepyheads" and roused us to make the train back to Hofstra.

We ended up dating on and off for about six months, including "sharing" with Yuri and a weekend in Manhattan.

 I still sort of felt that Mason planned the whole thing.

See also: The Man in Black on Christopher Street.

My Embarrassing Date with the Teenage Farmboy

Long Island, September 1997

Friday, September 12th, 1997.  The end of the my first week of classes at Setauket University, my 10th day in New York.

10 days after moving to West Hollywood, I found a gay bar, a gay gym, and a gay church, I had about a dozen friends, and I had been on about four dates.

On Long Island, there are no gay bars, gay gyms, gay churches, gay anything.  There is nothing in walking distance of Setauket University but a hardware store and an Indian restaurant.  Unless you want to take the train two hours into Manhattan, you're stuck on campus, where all of the events and activities are for undergraduates.

I've met about 50 people: roommates, fellow graduate students, undergraduates, faculty.  But only on who is "openly" gay.

After 12 years in California, where I rarely saw or spoke to a straight person outside of work, I assume that all of the men are gay, except for those who mentioned wives or girlfriends, or who asked me if I had a wife or a girlfriend.  But we're not going to come out to each other in the Straight World and risk a homophobic assault or a stupid question like "Are you the boy or the girl?"

The only "openly" gay guy is Jesse, the 17-year old farmboy from Ulster County who I met while in "emergency housing" in the freshman dorm.  Tuesday night I went down on him while we were lying on blankets on the roof (see Trapped in a Dormitory with Freshmen).

10 days without talking to a gay person other than Jesse the 17-year old. No gay friends, no dates, no sex except for that night with Jesse.    I latch onto him as a beacon of hope, and ask him out, in spite of our monumental age difference.

Mistake.  Most embarrassing date of all time.

1.   Dinner at the Indian place, down a country road with no sidewalk.  You dress nicely for a date, but Jesse shows up in a white t-shirt with stains on it, short pants, and shoes but no socks.  I am embarrassed to be seen with him.

Then he orders the hamburger platter.  At an Indian restaurant!

2. A grad student mixer.  Ok, at 17, he is the youngest one there, but he doesn't have to go out of his way to call me "sir."

He introduces himself to the department chair as "a freshman in Mr. Davis' class."

He's not in my class -- he just wants to embarrass me.

The chair gives me a nasty look.

I think I just got outed.

3. A walk through the quad.  Jesse keeps trying to hold my hand!

I don't hold hands in public.  It's a sure way to get a homophobic jibe yelled out of a passing car.

Besides, it looks silly, and it's not necessary.  You don't need someone to guide you in the proper direction.

4. Back to my apartment.

We squeeze uncomfortably onto my single bed.  It is hot, and we are sweating.  We get naked.

I try kissing him, but he is facing away from me, and he won't turn his mouth around.

"Um..would you turn around so I can kiss you?"

"Oh, sure..."  We kiss for a moment, and then he turn around again, facing away from me.

Does he want me to do anal?  Forget it!

I scoot down, pull up his rather small cut penis, and start oral sex.  He gets aroused.

I've had guys ask all kinds of silly or even insulting things during sexual encounters (see What Not to Say During Sex):

"Do you like that big cock?"
"Who's your Daddy?"
"You do that better than my girlfriend."
"You're a dirty boy, aren't you?"

But Jesse is the worst.  After about five minutes, he asks:

"Are you having fun?"

In the middle of a sexual encounter, he's bored?

I've never been so insulted!

I immediately pull my head up, and lie there fuming while he uses his hand to finish.  I say no  more than two or three words as he wipes off with a kleenix, pulls his clothes on, and leaves.

For several days, the kleenix stays on the floor where he missed the waste basket.  I don't want to touch it, or Jesse, again.

Yuri and the Sausage-Size Contest

Long Island, June 2009

In June 2009, Yuri flies back to the States for a two-week visit. He hasn't been back since he moved to London in 2005, although I went out to visit him two years ago.

I want to see Yuri again, of course, but I also want to see some of my old friends and go to some of my old haunts in New York. Even though Upstate is only five hours away, I haven't gone back.

We meet at JFK, and then drive to a townhouse on Powers Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where we will stay with his ex-boyfriend Daniel, a history professor into Beat poetry and jazz.

Daniel is a buffed daddy in his 40s, balding, bearded, with thick hard muscles and a few piercings.

He has two roommates:

Brandon, a tall, slim twink with a round face, a bright smile, and olive skin, maybe Hispanic or Asian, a nurse at a hospital nearby.

Tighe (pronounced Teeg), a gym rat in his 30s, rather short with curly red hair and a short beard, who doesn't have a job but does all of the cooking and cleaning to cover his share of the rent.

   

On the first night, we're too tired from our trip to do anything more than go out to dinner, watch tv, and go to bed. We share with Daniel, but not much sharing goes on, just a little kissing and some oral without completion.

In the morning, Yuri and I take the subway into Manhattan to check out the Strand Bookstore, my old gym, Christopher Street, Central Park, and the Museum of Natural History. We return in time for some brief cruising at the Metropolitan before the dinner party.

Daniel and the two roommates are there, plus:

Liam, the boy who gave me a present on his 18th birthday back in 2000, still a cute blond twink, slim and a little swishy.

My friend Barry, the Colonial Williamsburg boy, in his 30s, with a slim compact frame and a square Eastern European face.

His boyfriend, another Daniel (sorry), in his 50s, short-haired, very buffed, with a hairy chest.

Dinner is a grilled eggplant salad, lamb curry, and a Mediterranean fruit soup, discussions of the new Star Trek movie, Ugly Betty, celebrity hookups, dates from hell, and bulge-watching.

"Bulges are nice," Yuri says. "But they lie.  Some big guys don't show, and some small guys look like they are showing.  You look at their hands and feet, talk to them, see their face."

"Face?" Barry repeats.  "What does that tell you?"

"Big guys have a look.  They are confident, fearless.  Small guys are shy.  They look down.  They are afraid.  That is how I always know if the guy is big or small."

"Then how do you end up on dates with small guys?" I ask. "Like the Unhung Hippie. Remember him?"

Yuri shrugs. "I always know if the guy is big or small, but sometimes the big ones aren't worthwhile.   In Russian we say luchsheye vrag khoroshego, if you look for the best, you miss out on the good."

"Well -- " Daniel begins, "If I'm counting right, there are five guys in the room that you haven't seen naked."

Yuri looks around.  "Right.  Just you and Boomer. I met Barry before, but we didn't share."

"How about a little game?  You guess the sizes of the other five guys, through their pants, without feeling them or seeing them aroused."

"Hum!  Easy!  What do I get if I win?"

"Every guy you guess right has to buy you lunch or dinner while you're in town."

"And if I lose?"

"You have to go down on each guy you are mistaken about.  Two minutes, orgasm not necessary.  Ok, guys?"

They nod their assent.

"Easy!  No problem.  The only guy I go down on tonight is Boomer!" 

He asks them to stand in a row with their hands behind their backs.

Can you figure out their sizes without looking?

Yuri looks at them each, face and crotch, shakes their hands, smiles, asks them a few questions, while they all try to appear confident and fearless.  He writes his size estimate down in a notebook, quickly changes the centimeters to inches, and announces:

Daniel 2:  9"

Brandon:  7.5"

Liam: 8"

Tighe: 10"

Barry:  6"

Next it's time to measure.  Yuri asks them, one at a time, to take it out and bring it to full arousal, with a fluffer if necessary.   I'm ready with a tape measure.  

Daniel 2: Wrong!  7"

Brandon: Wrong!  5"

Liam: Wrong! 6"

Tighe: Wrong!  7.5"

Barry: Wrong!  8"

"Oh, well.  I am having an off day," Yuri says with a shrug.  "Boomer, help me with these guys.  I cannot do them all myself."

I don't need to be asked twice.  I go down on Brandon and Liam, while Yuri works on Barry, Daniel 2, and then Tighe.

Before long Brandon, Liam, and I are off to one bedroom, Daniel, Daniel 2, and Barry to another, and Yuri and Tighe to a third.  But while Yuri and Tighe are kissing, I grab the notebook from his pocket.

He got every measurement right.

"Hey, you lost on purpose!"  I exclaim.

He shrugs, and his hand moves down to Tighe's crotch.  "Wouldn't you?"

The Boy Who Refused to Leave My Room in the Rain

Long Island, October  1999

I met Ozzie at one of Ravi's Bear Parties on Long Island: a 21 year old NYU undergrad, tall, muscular, with smooth dark skin and an enormous Kovbasa beneath the belt.

He was Moroccan, from in Tangiers, on the Strait of Gibraltar, where his father worked at the Continental Hotel, He spoke Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.

Obviously I wanted to do more than go down on him!

There was only one problem: I had (and still have) an inviolable rule, drummed into me through ten years in West Hollywood: you must end the evening with the same people you began the evening with.  No abandoning them halfway through for a trick.

I always came to the Bear Parties with Yuri, who lived in a graduate student apartment at Setauket University, about thirty miles in the wrong direction from NYU.

The Bear Parties were on Wednesday nights, and I had class on Wednesday and Thursday both, so it made sensee to drive with Yuri and spent the night in his room afterwards, rather than taking the train all the way into Manhattan, and back again.

Besides, there were distinct advantages to spending the night in Yuri's room.

I wasn't going to abandon him tonight to escort a Cute Young Thing back to Manhattan, and I wasn't going to suggest sharing: Ozzie wasn't Yuri's type.  He liked older men with bodybuilder physiques.

But Yuri, always easy-going, said "Not a problem.  If you like him, I don't care.  We will share him."

But what about the sleeping logistics: "Are you sure there's enough room for three?"

Graduate student apartments were nicely appointed, but the bedrooms were quite small.  Yuri had a single bed, a desk, a dresser, and a bookcase, with a single window looking out onto the parking lot.   When I spent the night, we did a lot of cuddling.

He thought for a moment.  "Ok, we will put blankets on the floor."

It was raining when we left Ravi's house.  I thought it odd that Ozzie wouldn't run out to the car with us; we had to drive up to the front door and fetch him.

"I don't like the rain," he said, bursting into the back seat.  "It doesn't rain much in Tangiers."

On the way back to Setauket University, he told us his coming out story.

Tangiers was once a gay mecca, home to William Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, and an army of less well known gay men.  When King Hassan II took the throne in 1961, he instituted a crackdown on "decadence" and "Western immorality," but there were still lots of sex tourists from Europe and America.  They would pick up local boys for afternoon trysts in exchange for gifts or a few dirham.

"I never did anything like that.  I was a good Muslim boy, not a prostitute.  But there was a hot British guy who used to drive past the bus stop every day and smiled at me.  And one day it was raining, so he stopped and asked if I wanted a ride."

He got more than a ride.

Except his mother happened to be out shopping, and saw him getting into a car with a foreign man twice his age.

There were questions, accusations, and Ozzie was outed.  A week later, he was at a private school in upstate New York, exiled as a "disgrace" to the family.

His parents sent him a check every month, and sometimes he telephoned his older sister, but he hadn't been back to Morocco for five years.

"I hate the rain!" Ozzie murmured, staring out the car window.  "The first time I picked up a guy in the rain, I got kicked out of Morocco.  The second time, it was a ghost."

Yuri and I glanced at each other.  Rather a depressing turn to the conversation!

But Ozzie warmed up when we got back to Yuri's room and spread blankets on the floor.  He was too big to swallow all the way, but Yuri and I both went down on him at the same time, and then he turned Yuri onto his stomach to finish with interfemeral.  Then he went down on both of us simultaneously while we kissed.

7:00 am.  Yuri's alarm clock goes off.  Enough time for a brief session, mostly handling Ozzie's morning wood, then breakfast: Cheerios.

7:40 am. Yuri packs up his stuff.  He has a class at 8:00 am, and I want to do some work in my office, so it is time to say goodbye.

"If you walk down that street for about five blocks," I tell Ozzie, "You'll hit the train station.  Take the Long Island Railroad to Jamaica Station, then transfer to Penn."

Ozzie looks out the window.  "It's raining pretty hard.  Could I stay here awhile, until it lets up?"

I glance at Yuri.  He shrugs  "I guess ok."

7:45 am.  Yuri leaves.  Ozzie and I go back into his room and make out.

8:30 am.  Ok,  It's still raining, but I have things to do.  Ozzie turns on the tv.

9:00 am.  I really have to get to the office to prepare for my 11:00 class.  It's still raining.

"You can take an umbrella to the train station," I suggest.

"I'd rather wait until it stops raining, if you don't mind."  He kisses me on the cheek.  "We can find something to do, right?"

Sighing, I go down on him again.  This is becoming less erotic and more like a chore

9:30 am.  I have class soon, and I want to go to the gym, but I can't leave Ozzie alone in Yuri's apartment.   He could steal something, or do some damage, or call his friends for a wild party.

I knock on the doors of Yuri's roommates, hoping that they'll chaperon.  But they're not in.

10:00 am.   I shove an umbrella into Ozzie's hand.  "Ok, you're going to either go to the library and wait for me, or go home, but you can't stay here.  Your choice.

No twist ending.  It was just really annoying that I couldn't get Ozzie to leave, Kovbasa or not."

See also: Ozzie Hooks Up with John F. Kennedy Jr.