Troy and My Friend with Benefits

Upstate, September 2011

The problem with being a twink magnet is that younger guys aren't really experienced in the vagaries of sharing and three-way relationships, so hookups can easily turn into romance.

Sunday, September 18th
In Upstate New York, my partner Troy and I go to a Bear Party thrown by the Satyr.  When Riley comes in, I'm thunderstruck.  My jaw literally drops.  He is the most beautiful guy I have ever seen.

I wait while he strips -- slim body, average beneath the belt gifts, but who cares?  We chat.  I vageuly remember hearing that he is 19 years old, spent a year at the University but had to drop out due to lost financial aid, and now has a job at a party store. But I keep thinking "Why are we talking when we could be kissing?"

We spend an hour lying on a mattress in the Satyr's playroom.  The sex is over quickly; just touching him does the trick.  We spend the rest of the time kissing.  Afterwards he returns to our apartment for more kissing, and probably sex.  Who can remember?  Troy technically "shares," but mostly he just lies there.

Tuesday, September 20th.
We make an appointment for a hookup while Troy is at work.  Riley calls the night before, saying that he caught a cold at the Bear Party and feels miserable, but we can get together anyway as long as we don't do anything physical.

We end up picking up Chinese food to eat at home, then cuddling and talking for about an hour.

"Are you sure Troy is ok with us?" Riley asks.

"Oh, sure.  We have an open relationship.  We can have sex with other guys.  We just have to get together for the socializing."

"Isn't that the opposite of how open relationships usually work?"

During the next three days, Riley and I text constantly, friend each other on Facebook and Gay.com, and find out about each other's lives.  I begin thinking of a three-way romance.

Friday, September 23rd.
It's our third anniversary, so Troy and I invite the Gang of Twelve and some people from work for an anniversary party.  In the end there are 24 people in our small apartment, standing room only.  Riley is there, feeling better.   I try to be cordial and not touch him very much.

But some of the guys are suspicious.  I see the Satyr eyeing me, and the Klingon, who wasn't at the Bear Party, asks, "So, how do you two know each other?"

"Oh, we've known each other for a thousand years," I say.  And I really believe it is true.  We've always been together, and are just now reuniting.

After everyone else leaves, I invite Troy and Riley into the bedroom.  Troy says "No, thanks, you guys have fun."

Riley and I go into the bedroom and start kissing.  "Are you sure it's ok, making out with another guy on your anniversary?"

"We'll be together later, no problem."

We spend about an hour kissing, and then get around to the sex.

The next day Riley texts me: "Are you sure this is ok?" he repeats.

"Three way relationships are quite common," I tell him.  "As long as we don't date, Troy is fine with it."



Tuesday, September 26th

Riley and I make an appointment for a hookup at 11:00, just before lunch.  But he has to work late, and doesn't arrive until 1:30, and I'm so hungry that I insist we go out to lunch at a barbecue place first.

Then we spend our usual hour kissing and gradually getting around to intimacy.

"You had lunch?"  Troy asks later.  "That's a date!"

"We just grabbed lunch before jumping into bed.  Not really a date, just hunger."

"I don't like it!  He's younger and cuter than me, and a lot better in bed."

"That's not true!  Anyway, who cares?  You're my partner.  Riley is just a friend.  But I want him in our lives.  We're taking him out for his birthday Friday."

"What..birthday?  But doesn't he have real friends to do that with?"

"They're going out on Saturday.  Friday is for me.  Us."

Friday, September 30th
Riley comes over about an hour before Troy gets home from work, so I can give him his present, and we can make out.

"Troy is a little jealous," I tell him.  "We should try to include him more."

"I don't want anybody to be left out," he says.  "But whenever you ask him to share, he refuses."

"He wants to share in the socializing, not in the sex.  Just be sure you're really nice to him tonight."

We go out to dinner and then for frozen yogurt.  Back at our apartment, Troy and Riley discuss video games for about an hour, while I sit there, bored.  Finally I say "Who wants to go into the bedroom?"

Riley does.  Troy does not.

Afterwards I say "I can't wait to see you again.  When are you free?"

"Um...very busy week at work, getting ready for the Halloween rush.  Not until Thursday."

Wednesday, Oct 5th.

I spend the next week texting and facebook messaging Riley, with only a few, curt responses.  On Wednesday I don't hear from him at all.  Finally at 10:00 pm I text him: "What time can I expect you tomorrow?"

"Can't tomorrow.  Can we reschedule?"

"But...we made an appointment!  I've been waiting all week!"

"Sorry, the Klingon asked me for a date."

The Klingon!  That chubby nerd?  I roil with jealousy.

"But...you had a date with me!  I understand you wanting to back off -- things were getting very intense.  But you have to meet your commitments!"

Thursday, October 6th.

Troy says: "I've been thinking it over, and I don't want you to see Riley anymore.  Even if it's just for sex, sex can lead to falling in love."

"No problem," I tell him, "We broke up."

"You weren't dating, so how can you break up?"

I don't know.

See also: Troy's First Video Booth; Our Date with the Teenage Beach Boy.

My 12 Christmas Boyfriends

After my 15 Reasons to Skip Christmas post, you may think that I've had nothing but dreary, depressing, heterosexist holidays.

Actually, only about 30% of the Holiday Seasons I recall have been traumatic or otherwise unredeemably awful: getting sick, getting dumped, being bored to death, hearing that "Merry Little Christmas" song a thousand times, my dad yelling at us, the year my sister gave me office supplies.  50% have had a few redeeming moments, and 20% have been rather pleasant.

My top 12 have all involved boyfriends.

1. Dan.  In junior high,  Dad gave in and let me buy a naked man for Christmas.  Actually a statue of a naked man.  My brother got me pile of new comic books. Dan came over in the afternoon to help me read them.  Best Christmas ever!

2. Verne.  On the Christmas Eve my first year in high school, the Nazarene youth group went caroling all night, ending with a big breakfast at the church.  It was my first time staying out all night, and a lot of fun to be dashing through the snow with high school hunk Verne, who I would start dating soon.  The only problem was, my brother and sister were angry at having to wait until I got home at 8:00 to start opening presents -- usually we started around 4:30.

4. Brian.  In twelfth grade, Brian, who I used to babysit, showed up at my brother's Christmas party.  I kissed him under the mistletoe, then gave him a ride across the bridge to Iowa, hugged him, and asked him to call me.  Back home, I told my brother that, kiss or no kiss, I wasn't a "swish," then went upstairs and listened to the BeeGees on my clock radio.  At the time it was rather traumatic, but since it's become one of my most iconic memories.

5. Fred.  My first date with my first real boyfriend, Fred the Ministerial Student, was on December 21st of my sophomore year in college.  You'd think that would be too late for Christmas presents or to "meet the family," but no, he invited me to his parents' farm in Aledo, about 30 miles south of Rock Island, on December 26th.

6. Viju.  When I was in grad school in Bloomington, my friend Viju came home with me.  I had never actually had a "coming out" conversation with my parents, so I was nervous about how they would handle a rather flamboyant gay guy in the house.  But when we brought our suitcases upstairs to the room that I used to share with my brother, I saw that they had pushed the two twin beds together.  They not only "knew," they were fine with us sleeping together!

We weren't actually dating, but so what?

7. Dick.  During my deplorable year in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, I went back to Rock Island for the holidays, and ran into my old bully.  Back in grade school, he made my life miserable with poundings and punches and a constant stream of slurs: "Wuss! Sissy!  Fairy! Girl!"  Who would have thought that he was struggling with same-sex desire of his own?  Or that, all grown up, he would apologize by inviting me back to his house.  Or that he was so...um...gifted.

8. Lane.  One year I had a job that didn't give me much time off for Christmas, so I couldn't make the trek cross-country.  Lane and I stayed home in West Hollywood.  We went to a Hanukah party and had latkes and Hanukah gelt.  We went to a bear party, with 50 naked hairy guys eating Christmas cookies and then wandering downstairs to the maze.  We went to Midnight Mass at a gay-positive Catholic church, and then stopped for breakfast at the French Quarter. And I didn't hear the "Merry Little Christmas" song once.  Best Christmas ever!

9.-10. Yuri and Jaan. My first year in New York, I brought Yuri to the departmental Christmas party.  He was still claiming to be straight, but I expected him to at least dance with me.  He refused, so I said "Look, I bought your ticket, so you either get up on that dance floor now, or get into my bed later."

He picked the bed.

Suddenly I had two boyfriends, Yuri and Jaan the Estonian Mountain Climber.  Best Christmas ever!

11. Mickey.  When I was living in Florida, I returned to Rock Island for Christmas, and my brother said that my old Sunday School teacher, Brother Dino, had two sons who were working as strippers.  I went to the show, and  got a kiss from Mickey.

Ok, he wasn't really a boyfriend, but my list, my rules.

12. Troy.  Born and raised in small-town Upstate New York, Troy has an extended-extended-extended family.  He usually goes to Christmas dinner at the home of his grandmother's cousin and her family, but one year Lisa, his grandmother's cousin's son's ex-wife, invited us all to her house.  There must have been eighty people there, and Troy was out to every one of them; no awkward "so who is this?" questions.

She sent us home with presents plus care packages full of leftovers for later.

The only problem: some kid kept playing the "Merry Little Christmas" song over and over and over.

See also: 15 Reasons to Skip Christmas.

Troy's Sausage Sighting of My Cousin Graydon

Lots of gay men have told me that their first sexual experience came with cousins: mutual j/o in the bathtub, oral behind the barn, anal during a sleepover.

Not me.  My cousins all lived hundreds of miles away, so we didn't get a lot of contact, at best two visits per year, at Christmas and in the summer.

Still, during my childhood, I accidentally got four sausage sightings and one grope: Joe, Phil, George, and Buster, four of my six boy cousins (not counting the ones from Kentucky).

Leaving Ed, 12 years older than me, and Graydon, 14 years younger (born in 1975, the only son of my Uncle Gus and Aunt Lynn).

When I moved to West Hollywood in 1985, Cousin Graydon was still prepubescent, so there wouldn't have been much of a point to a sausage sighting.

But as he grew up, for some reason he bonded with my parents and sister, and after they moved to Indianapolis, he often drove down to visit, whether he was living in Auburn, Warsaw, Fort Wayne, or Grand Ile, Michigan.  Our paths crossed during several Christmas and summer holidays.

The young adult Graydon was tall and beefy -- he worked in construction, which gave him a presentable physique.  A bright, open face and a shock of dirty-blond hair.  Very cute.  A very visible bulge on the right side of his jeans.

I wanted a sausage sighting.

But whenever we visited Mom and Dad at the same time, I got the spare bedroom, and  Cousin Graydon took the fold-out couch in the study (later the home gym/sauna).

So no covers kicked off the bed.  No morning wood.

No "accidentally" running into him during a late-night bathroom visit.

When I suggested that we go jogging, Cousin Graydon went in there to strip down and change clothes.

This was getting frustrating.  How hard should it be to get a sausage sighting of your kid cousin, when he's sleeping in the room right next to you?













Indianapolis, December 24th, 2010

My boyfriend Troy and I have driven out to Indianapolis from Upstate New York.  We arrive bearing presents for my parents, my brother and sister, my nephew, and...sure enough, Cousin Graydon.

36 years old, unmarried but heterosexual, still working in construction.

Bearded, with a tattoo on his bicep, but still buffed.  Still with a very visible bulge on the right side of his jeans.

One of the dogs leaps onto his lap and accidentally lands on his bulge.  He grimaces and runs his hand over it.

I really want a sausage sighting.

So this year I go all out.

 His Christmas present is a retro Hawaiian swimsuit, so I can watch him change "to make sure it fits."

He changes in the bathroom.

Well, at least I get a bulge sighting.

That night I try to stay awake, waiting for a late-night trip to the bathroom, a half-opened door, and an "accidental" sausage sighting.  Eventually I fall asleep.



December 25th

We always open our presents on Christmas Eve, so there's nothing to do on Christmas Day but have dinner.  

In the afternoon, Troy and I work out in the home gym, and then hit the sauna.  Cousin Graydon joins us -- in his underwear!

It's a small home sauna, very cramped with three people.  I can see his bulge very clearly.

But that's not a sausage sighting!

"You know what they do in Finland after a sauna?"  I tell him.  "They take off their clothes and run around naked in the snow."

"No way I would do that!"  Graydon exclaims.

It's no longer about the sausage sighting.  It's the principle.  I've seen four of my six male cousins naked without even trying.   Why is this one such a pain?

Later I "accidentally" leave a book in the home gym, so I can go to retrieve it when Graydon is already in bed.

No sausage sighting.

This is getting urgent.  Graydon is going back to Michigan tomorrow!

Again I stay awake into the night, waiting for a bathroom visit.

No bathroom visit.  Eventually I fall asleep.

December 26th.

After breakfast, Graydon leaves for Michigan, and my parents go to church.  Troy and I say that we're going to hang around the house, playing with the dogs and working on our laptops.

The moment we're alone, Troy takes my hand.  "Guess what?  I accomplished something that you've been trying to do for years.  All it took was a little luck."

I listen with increasing consternation.

In the middle of the night, Troy woke up with indigestion, and went into the kitchen to look for some Alka-Seltzer.  Graydon was there, standing over the sink eating a turkey sandwich, while the dogs looked on, begging.

One of the dogs thought that the tassel on Graydon's bathrobe was a toy, and started tugging on it.  The bathrobe fell open.  

Troy couldn't help staring.    

Graydon quickly wrapped up again.  "This never happened," he said with a grin.

"So, how was it?" I ask dismally.

"Fantastic!  Cut Kielbasa.  Low-hanging balls.  You should have been there!"

Well, there's always next year.

See also: Sausage Sighting of My Cousin Buster; My Uncle Gus's Wiener

Philadelphia: My Return to the Gay World

Philadelphia, Fall 2012

In 2005, when I moved into the straight world after twenty years in gay neighborhoods, I swore that I would soon be back home again.

But gay neighborhoods tend to be in the heart of fabulous big cities that everyone on Earth is desperate to live in, so academic jobs are extraordinarily competitive.  Every opening gets 300 or more applications, not only from the U.S. but worldwide, not only from new Ph.D.'s but from experienced, even tenured faculty.

Still, I kept trying, sending out applications to colleges near gay neighborhoods year after year, occasionally getting an interview but never being offered anything.

Finally, in 2012, my seventh year in the straight world, I got an offer: a small private college near Philadelphia had been stymied on its search for a tenure-track opening, so it needed someone to teach the Freshman Seminar, Research Methods, and "Law and Society"courses for a year while they were looking again.

A one year temporary position.  But in Philadelphia!

Philadelphia's version of West Hollywood is Washington Square West, an 8x12 block square bounded by Walnut, South, Lombard, and Sixth.  It is cluttered with gay bars (The Tavern on Camac, The Bike Stop), bath houses, restaurants, retail outlets, a Community Center,  and Giovanni's Room, one of the oldest gay bookstores in the world,

I was there!

I moved down in August 2012, leaving Troy and most of my stuff in my apartment Upstate. There seemed no point for him to move down for just a year.

I hated it at first, but figured that all new cities take a little getting used to.

Three months later, I was still hating it.

Six months later, I was desperately applying for every job I could, as long as it was nowhere near Philadelphia!

What went wrong?

1. The Expense. I got a frightfully expensive apartment that took up 50% of my take-home salary.

But my apartments in San Francisco and the East Village were frightfully expensive too. 

2. The Crime. It was in a high-crime neighborhood.  I always heard about robberies, assaults, shots fired.  I was afraid to go out at night.

But I used to walk down Santa Monica Boulevard at Highland without giving it a second thought.

3. The Commute.  My college was 11 miles away, about an hour by train, there and back every day.  Seemed like I spent my whole life on that train.

But when I was in grad school, I regularly took the train two hours from my apartment in Manhattan to Stony Brook, took classes, and returned with no problem.

4. The Size. It was one room, only big enough for a futon that doubled as a couch, a small table/desk, and a bookcase.

But my first apartment in West Hollywood was one room, with no bed, a built-in desk, and a microwave but no stove.  

5. The Boyfriend.  Troy was back Upstate, so every weekend I drove up to him, or he drove down to me.  So half the weekends I was out of town.  It's hard to maintain friendships or relationships that way.

In West Hollywood, I spent a semester in Turkey, and another in Nashville.  Then I returned and started right back, with no awkwardness or lost connections.

6. The Lateness.  The bars and bath houses catered to the after-midnight crowd.  Go at 9:00 pm, and you could hear the crickets chirp.  I had to get up at 6:00 am to get to work, and I was too tired to go out.

But I got up at 6:00 am my whole life, and I was never too tired to go out.

7. The Emptiness.  West Hollywood, New York, and Florida had organizations for black, Asian, and Hispanic gay men, gay doctors, lawyers, fathers, runners, Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics, Jews, gardeners, movie buffs, football fans, Republicans, Democrats, atheists, pagans...you name it.  Philadelphia had a Community Center and some self-help groups.

In West Hollywood I belonged to some groups, but in New York and Florida I didn't.  You could meet men anywhere. 

8. The Heterosexuals.  I lived right down the street from a straight bar with pictures of 1940's pin-up girls on the ceiling  There were heterosexual couples in my building.  I saw boy-girl couples on the street all the time.

There were heterosexuals in West Hollywood and New York, too.  We always shared our community with a few daring yuppies and a few oldsters who had been living there since before the Flood.

9 The Twinks.  There were a dozen gay bars, restaurants, and retail outlets within a few blocks of my apartment, all entirely occupied by twinks.  I rarely saw a guy over 30, and almost never over 40.  No matter where I went, I was the oldest person in the room.

But I was a twink magnet.  All of those 20-year olds wanted to get with me.  I got a LOT of action, more penises than I knew what to do with.  

But only three dates the whole year.

Remember "Hey, Nineteen"?

No, we got nothing in common
No, we can't talk at all
[But] please take me along when you slide on down.

10.  The Tourists.  The streets were crowded with guys who drove in from small towns, to spend a few hours or a few days dancing, drinking, doing drugs, and hooking up.  We had tourists in West Hollywood, San Francisco, the East Village, and Wilton Manors, especially on the weekends, but then they went home, leaving small towns populated by guys who were survivors, who had escaped from the homophobia of the straight world.  We called it Oz and Heaven, walked around smiling, unable to believe, year after year, that we were finally home.

In 2012, the homophobia of even the most backwards of towns was nowhere near as fierce, and as universal, at the homophobia of 1982, 1992, or 2002.

You could come out to straight people without being lectured at, screamed at, or asked "What do they think causes it?"

You could come out at work without being instantly fired.

The sense of community, the belief that "we are all survivors" was gone.

It was just a neighborhood with a lot of gay people. It wasn't home.

See also: Hookup Hell in Philadelphia

Cooking and Cruising: Restaurant Hookups and Pickups

My memories of places often center on restaurants.  The food, the people I went with, and the waiters.  

A cute waiter can make the most miserable meal appealing, and haute cuisine loses something when served by a waitress.

And sometimes the waiters do more than flirt.














Rock Island

Harris Pizza.  Harris Pizza, no question, the best in the universe.  We ordered several times a year when I was growing up, and I always insisted on getting it when I returned for a visit.  Once I tried to pick up the college boy who worked at the counter, but my friend Dick did instead.  They've been together ever since.

The Hasty Tasty Shop, a pancake house where I had my wild night of debauchery in fifth grade.  Before the night was over, I got to give a massage to a high school boy and feel a wiener.

Sandy's, a fast-food chain where the waiters all wore cute Scotch tartan kilts, I assume with nothing on underneath.


Bloomington.

Bob's Burgers (no relation to the tv show).  Viju and I used to go there after an unsuccessful night of cruising at Bullwinkle's, and sometimes with out hookups after a successful night.  You could get a hamburger with a fried egg on top.  The waiters were paid extra to get enthusiastic over the food.  And they never gave us weird looks for being two (or four) men together.

Texas
 I didn't go to Houston very often, but when I did, it was to Baba Yaga, for wall to wall gay men and couples.  I took my clueless friend Bruce there when he was visiting, and he still didn't figure it out.





West Hollywood.  

The French Quarter, our go-to place for brunch, lunch, and an occasional dinner.  Remarkable for their 8" long fried zucchini sticks.  And for their cute waiters who flirted for tips.  If you sat at the little tables outside, sooner or later everyone you knew would pass by.

I never hooked up with one of the waiters, but my on-off boyfriend Raul did -- a buffed but rather feminine Afro-Cuban guy.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to share.

La Azteca, a Mexican restaurant beyond the boundaries of West Hollywood.  Lane and I only went there once, but we managed to start a three-way romance with Mauricio, our waiter.

Hamburger Hamlet.  Burgers and fries rivaling anyplace in the world.  Marshall the Virgin and I used to go there after working out.

San Francisco.

Orphan Andy's, with a diner atmosphere, cute waiters, and even cuter clientele at the beginning of Castro Street.  It was also cruisy -- my friend David hooked up with a lot of guys there.  I didn't.












New York

Thai Palace. There were about 10 Thai restaurants in a 10 block radius of my apartment, but I always went to a little Thai restaurant near the Flatiron Building that's not there anymore.  Stuffed, deep-fried chicken wings with a sweeet sauce!  Never found them anywhere else. I brought Yuri there every time he visited me in Manhattan.

Paris.  

Suam Thai.  Speaking of Thai restaurants, during my summer in Paris I went to Suam Thai almost every night, and I tried to go back whenever I visited later.  No Angel wings, but good pad thai to go. I managed to hook up with Prasert, the chef -- while he was still working.

Florida.  

The Courtyard Cafe, Wilton Manors' answer to the French Quarter, with a huge patio where dozens of gay men gathered for brunch every Saturday.  Lunch was ok, too.  My friend hooked up with a waiter here, and dated him for six months.

Thai Sushi.  I'm not a fan of sushi, but I am a fan of cute waiters, and it was near The Club, the bath house of Wilton Manors.  Sometimes the guy at the next table ended up at The Club a moment later.

Amsterdam.  

Indrapura, an Indonesian restaurant notable for its chicken and beef satay, was on Rembrandtplein, just across the street from the guest house I always stayed in, and less than a mile from the Horseman's Club.  I never hooked up with any waiters, but I did get a date with a regular.

 Dayton.  

Lone Star Barbecue.  We always went to the Lone Star Barbecue for breakfast.  Pancakes, "cowboy potatoes," and brisket-omelettes.  Plus Josh a long-haired hipster waiter with a ripped chest and huge biceps.  I saw him naked at the gym, too. (See my Sausage Sighting List).

The Dragon Palace, my go-to place for Chinese food.  Usually I got it delivered.  I tried to hookup with the delivery guy, Bobby Chan, but ended up with his Anglo friend instead.












Upstate New York


The Neptune Diner, one of those old-fashioned glass and steel diners that advertises "steaks and chops," whatever those are, but has a menu 30 pages long. I liked the gyros, the moussaka, the pancakes, and the chicken.  Chad, the housemate of the Satyr , who I dated in the fall of 2008, was a waiter there.

Applebee's.  Yes, the chain.  Troy always wanted to go to the one in the mall for lunch Saturday, because the bartender/waiter was his type: older, muscular, hairy. Unfortunately, he wore an apron that kept his bulge hidden.

The Plains

The Pizza Ranch. A horrible fundamentalist Christian pizza chain that offers gut-busting deep-fried chicken and Bible verses, but the hottest waiters imaginable.  I managed to hook up with a gay guy going undercover.

Rainbow Coffee.  There are no gay bars or restaurants in town, but there's a gay-friendly, lesbian-run vegan coffee house where you can meet lots of bohemian artistic gay-friendly types, like the cute English major Warren from the fundamentalist college on the hill.  I haven't actually seen him like this yet, but he's just a sophomore, so there's plenty of time.

Indianapolis

Charlie's Bar and Grille, a crazy retro restaurant where I got picked up by a waiter named Mike.

See also: My Top Sausage Sightings.

Troy Returns to Hell-fer-Sartain

Upstate, March 2011

Troy, my boyfriend in Upstate New York, was a high school French teacher and soccer coach -- rather an anomaly in a town obsessed with baseball --  25 years old, tall, slim, athletic  very handsome, except for the big black earrings and a pink triangle tattoo.

He had never been farther west than Buffalo, so in the spring of 2011, I offered to fly us to West Hollywood and San Francisco.

"That sounds cool," he said, "But you know where I'd really like to go?  Texas.  Cowboys, sage brush, cattle ranches, oil barons, all that glitz and glamour.  You know what they say: 'they grow them big in Texas."

"But...after 210 miserable days in Hell-fer-Sartain -- um, I mean Houston -- I vowed to never set foot in the state again!"

"I know -- you've told me lots of horror stories about your year in Texas.  But that was in 1985, before I was even born.  I'm sure it's changed a lot since then. Being gay is even legal now."

It took several conversations, but finally I agreed: three nights in Austin, Texas, a liberal, bohemian college town nowhere near Hell-fer-Sartain, and then March 15-19 in West Hollywood.

When the plane landed at Austin International Airport on March 11th, and the blue sky of Texas enveloped me, I began to feel anxious, almost panicky.  What if we were trapped here?  What if we could never escape again?

"Relax!" Troy said, taking my hand.  Wary of homophobes, especially in redneck Texas, I jerked it away.

The highway into town had tall barriers on either side.  I couldn't see anything.

We stayed at a gay bed and breakfast on Lavaca Street, just south of the State Capitol, near the Mexi-Arte Museum, a gay bar called Rain, and a sushi restaurant.  Adequately Bohemian.  I could stand spending three nights here.

But then Troy had another surprise: "I want to drive out to Houston.  It's only 165 miles."

"What?  Why?"

"The Montrose is one of the oldest gay neighborhoods in the country.  And besides, I've heard so many stories about Hell-fer-Sartain that I want to see it for myself.  We'll drive up tomorrow, spend the night, and drive back the next day, ok?"

"No way, Jose!  You talked me into coming to Texas, but no way I'm going near that place!  I haven't been there in 25 glorious years, and I'm up for at least another 25 years without setting foot in Hell-fer-Sartain."

"Ok, ok!  But would you mind if I go myself, just for curiosity's sake?  I'll keep a complete log of what happened.  Oh -- and carte blanche for cruising?"

"Sure, whatever.  You won't find anybody in Hell-fer-Sartain, anyway.  Lord knows I tried."

So I spent all day Monday and Tuesday by myself in Austin.  Troy returned in time for dinner Tuesday night.  As promised, he kept a log:

Monday 

11:00 am.  I arrive at Lone Star College, where Boomer taught bonehead English to rednecks.  I meet with Cammie, the head of the Gender-Sexuality Alliance, who prefers not to use gender pronouns.   "It's not a gay club," they tell me.  "Most of our members are transgender or genderqueer.  We have cisgender straight members, too. And a couple of gay guys."

12:00 pm.  Several members of the GSA -- two gay, two genderqueer, and one straight --  take me to lunch at the China Bear, near the campus.  They're going to be on a panel in a sociology class at 2:00, and ask me to go along.

2:00 pm.  The panel.  We sit on chairs in the front of a room with about 30 students -- not all rednecks (there's a Muslim girl in a hijab).  Each of us tells our "coming out" story (as gay, transgender, and genderqueer). Then the students ask questions, mostly about "what causes it?" and "how did your parents react?"  One asked me if I was attracted to buttholes the way straight guys are attracted to boobs.


3:00 pm.  The other gay gay on the panel, a biochemistry major named Mason, offers to take me on a tour of the area.  We try to find Boomer's old address, but the house is gone.  The streets are now paved, by the way, and have sidewalks.

5:00 pm.  Back to Mason's house.  I expect dinner, but instead he invites me to "share" with his partner Donovan, an older guy, balding but otherwise cute, firm hairy chest, big dick.  I go down on him while Mason is going down on me, and then he tops Mason.   Hot!

7:00 pm.  We shower (together) and then drive into Houston, where I check into my hotel and (finally!) go out to dinner at Baba Yegg, which disappointingly doesn't serve Russian food.  But there are lots of gay guys there, in groups and couples.

9:00 pm.  Time to hit the bars.  There are a dozen within walking distance of my hotel: South Beach, JR's, Blur, Ripcord.  Mostly dancing and drag queens, but there's one leather bar, the Eagle (naturally).

11:00 pm.  Mason and Donovan say goodbye and go back to the suburbs.  I  hit the Eagle, which is in full cruise mode.  Apparently bar life is still important in Texas.

12:00 am.  No luck at the Eagle, and I'm a little tired (and hungry), so I go to Boheme, an artsy wine bar with a pizza menu.  Naturally, I get cruised when my mouth is full of artisanal eggplant-kalimata olive pizza.

1:00 am.  Rolf is a little older than me, in his 30s, with too many scents and too much gel in his hair.  But otherwise he's hot, very muscular, bare hard chest, cut Kielbasa+, into "worship" (where you kiss and lick him all over the body).  I am glad to oblige! For sex, he's an oral bottom.  As Boomer knows, I'm mostly an oral bottom, too, but I don't mind getting a blow job every now and then, especially if the guy is hot.

Tuesday

8:00 am.  Breakfast with Rolf, then jogging through the Montrose.

10:00 am.  The Museum District: Museum of Fine Arts, Natural History Museum, then cruising at Rice University.  A cute college guy seems to be flirting with me, but I don't have time to stop.

1:00 pm.  Lunch, then a stop at the gay sex shop to buy Boomer some souvenirs, a 9" dildo and some nipple clamps (he'll use them on me, hopefully).  They have video booths with glory holes, so I stick around for awhile.  Soon a 9" penis comes through the glory hole at me.  I don't know who it belongs to -- it's dark, maybe Hispanic.  Who cares?

Later a college-aged guy puts his very hard average sized penis through.  Is it the same one who flirted with me before?  I can't tell for sure.

2:00 pm.  Time to leave Hell-for-Sartain.

"What about you?" Troy asked.  "What did you do during your two days alone in Austin?"
 
I visited the State Capitol and  the State History Museum, which was kind of boring.  I cruised at Oilcan Harry's but didn't meet anyone, worked out at the Gregory Gym at the University of Texas but didn't seen any Texas penises, bought used books at a public library book sale, not very interesting ones.

"Meet any hot guys?"

"No.  I saw Alvin Rangel's biceps and bulge at a dance recital.

I should have gone back to Hell-fer-Sartain...um, I mean Houston.

See also: Troy's First Video Booth

Bob Hooks Up with Five Guys at the Lake House

Upstate, July 2017

Bob's version of what happened during our three nights with my ex-boyfriend Troy and his current boyfriend Charles:

I've never had a boyfriend before -- I only was with one guy before meeting Boomer -- so when he asked me to come along on his visit to his ex-boyfriend and his current boyfriend, I didn't know what to think!

But it was a chance to see mountains, and Cooperstown -- the Baseball Hall of Fame! -- and spend 12 nights in bed with a guy.  If you've never slept -- just slept -- with a guy before, try it out.  I'd rather do that than get a blow job!

Friday

We have dinner in Cooperstown with Troy and Charles. Troy, Boomer's ex, is your standard twink, about 30, short, hairy chest, big cock.  But Charles is amazing, exactly my type: about 50, tall, broad-shouldered, thick slabs of muscle!

After dinner we go to the lake house, where they invite us for a midnight boat ride.  Boomer doesn't want to go, but I do.  We take this 8-seater motorboat out around the lake, Charles driving while Troy and I grope and make out (Boomer said I could go with other guys).  Then we stop, and Charles drops his pants -- biggest, thickest Mortadella+ I've ever seen!

Troy and I team up to suck him and lick his balls, and then Troy and Charles go down on me at th same time.  It's intense, in the dark, with the boat bobbing up and down.  Afterwards we go skinny-dipping to wash off -- the water's cold, but we don't care!

I'm so revved up that I can't wait to get back to the house and make out with Boomer.  He lets me go down on him, as long as I'm quiet.

Saturday

In the morning we drive into town to go to the gym, and then find a coffee house loaded with wall-to-wall college guys.  Then back to the lake house.  In the early afternoon, guests start to arrive, until there are over 40 people crammed into the small house and on the decks and in the boats.

Score!  Charles' relatives are incredible.  I figure most of them are straight, but who cares?  I'm around straight people all the time.

I go swimming with Charles' cousin, a chubby bear with a big basket and trunks that keep riding down his butt.

Pontooning with his nephew Trace, a little older than me, smooth and very muscular, with a tattoo of a bull smelling flowers on his chest.

And I go kayaking with Aram, who is a real musician!  

Later Trace and Aram invite us to meet up with their girlfriends and some other people in town.  Boomer stays home.  We go to this coffee house that has live music, and Trace introduces me to Rick, a very cute black guy in his 30s who used to sing backup for Rihanna!

We end up at Trace's apartment, making out, and Rick and I go into the bedroom.  He has a smooth, hard chest and a 8" uncut cock. He goes down on me for awhile, and then he pushes me onto the bed and thrusts between my legs while we're kissing.  It's called interfemoral -- Boomer likes it, too.  It's intense!

Suddenly Trace is knocking at the door.  "You guys about ready to go back to the house? Janine left already, and it's after midnight."

"Hold your horses," Rick yells.  "Or come in here, and I'll hold them for you."

Trace comes in, takes off his shirt and pants, and straddles me, pushing his cock into my mouth while Rick is still doing interfemoral.  He's not very big, but he's hard as a rock!  Then we switch positions, and Rick tops Trace while he's going down on me.

Trace is bi, in case you didn't notice.

Back at the lake house, I try interfemoral with Boomer, my first time on top of him.  It's great!  You're feeling his whole body, not just his cock.

Sunday

Aram invites us to breakfast at his house.  Then we go into Oneonta to church and to meet a couple of Boomer's friends for lunch.

In the afternoon, we go to the Baseball Hall of Fame -- incredible!  I could spend all day there.  I start up a conversation with a high school boy named Jesus (Hay-Zoos), from Mexico, but he doesn't look Hispanic.  I mean, he has light skin and light brown hair.  I didn't know they played baseball in Mexico!

He's staying with his family at the Otesaga Resort, and he invites us to go swimming.  Boomer doesn't want to go, so we go by ourselves.

Except we never make it to the swimming!  The minute we get inside his room, we start kissing and groping.  Jesus goes down on me, and then I push him on the bed for interfemoral -- he's never done that before.  When I finish, I beat him off while kissing him.

He's on snapchat.

In the evening Boomer and I have dinner with Troy and Charles, then return to the lake house.  We watch tv for awhile, and then Charles and his grandparents go out onto the deck. Boomer goes to bed.

"I haven't been with Boomer yet," Troy says, "And tomorrow you guys are leaving."

"He's nervous about doing anything with Charles' grandparents in the next room," I tell him.

"Well, they're not in the next room now.  Let's go surprise him!"

We go into the bedroom, and I start kissing Boomer while Troy goes down on him. But he takes a long time, so Troy and I start working on him together.  Finally he turns over and goes down on me, then Troy.  Then Troy leaves, and Boomer and I cuddle.


Monday

Charles and Troy have to get up very early to go to work, so we get up early, too.  We're on the road before the sun rises.

"Sorry you had to go through that ordeal," Boomer says. "Charles' family was nice and all, but so darn heterosexual!  I can't wait to get to the Flex Club in Cleveland, and get some action."

"What are you talking about? It was nonstop action.  I can't even remember all the guys who went down on me. Five or six guys, not counting you!  I had a blast!"

Unfortunately, I was too tired to go to the Flex Club later.

See also: Boomer's Version; and 13 Guys in One Night in Cleveland.

Three Nights with Troy and His Boyfriend: Boomer's Version

Upstate, July 2017

Every year I go back to Upstate New York. I didn't actually like my four years there -- too remote, too isolated, too rustic.  But I liked my Troy, the SUNY French major who was my boyfriend for 3 to 5 years (depending on how you calculate).

Troy has a new boyfriend, Charles, a 49-year old ex-Marine who runs the sanitation system of the city of Canajoharie.  It is apparently rather lucrative, since they have a very nice house there plus a cabin on a lake near Cooperstown.

I hadn't met Charles before this trip, but I saw some photos: round face, hairy chest, thick biceps, square workman's hands, an uncut Kielbasa hanging down.

"You and Bob [the 19-year old economics major] can stay with us," Troy said -- a godsend in baseball season, when every hotel in a 50 mile radius of Cooperstown jacks up the rates.  "Can you come for Charles' 50th birthday party on July 8th?  Every gay guy in the state will be there -- it will be intense."

Just as we were driving into Otsego County, I got a text from Troy.  "Change of plans -- we're spending the week at Charles' grandparents's lake house.  But don't worry, we told them the situation, and they said it's fine for you to be there."

I didn't want to spend three nights in the home of elderly heterosexuals I'd never met, but it was too late to back out -- every decent hotel nearby was sure to be booked solid.

There are two versions of what happened next.

Boomer's version:

Friday

We have dinner with Troy and Charles in Cooperstown, and then follow them to the lake house: 10 miles on narrow dirt roads.  I'm completely lost.

It's not a big house: 3 bedrooms, a living room, a small kitchen, two decks, and a dock.  No wifi, which means no course prep, Facebook, or Grindr.  A TV that is turned constantly to CNN, unless it's off, and a cd of whiny female vocalists is playing instead.  Charles grandparents, retired professors in their 80s, tell us about 50 years of happy memories in this house.  When Charles was a boy, he and his parents would come out almost every weekend during the summer.

"Hey, we should go for a midnight boat ride!" Charles exclaims.  "Like when I was a kid."

I'm not a fan of swimming or boating.  I don't even like driving over a bridge.  In Florida I lived four blocks from the beach and never went into the water.  And I especially don't want to go boating in the middle of the night.  I politely refuse, but Bob exclaims "Cool!  I'm in!"

After they leave, I sit up for a few more minutes, then go to bed.  It's a room right next to the grandparents, which means no sharing with Troy and Charles!  I'm not even sure I want to have sex with Bob here: the walls are very thin.

A few minutes later, Toby the golden retriever scratches at the door.  Turns out this is his bed.

I fall asleep, and wake up about an hour later when Bob slides into bed between me and the dog and puts his arms around me.  "We went skinny dipping!" he whispered.  "Wow, is Charles ever hung!  You should see him!"

"I hope to."

Bob's mouth moves down my chest to my crotch.  "There's a dog in bed with us," I protest.

"He won't care."

"Plus Charles' grandparents are just next door."

"I'll be quiet."

Saturday

In the morning we drive into town to go to the rather spartan YMCA, and then find a coffee house with wifi so I can do some work for my online summer school classes.  Then we go back to the lake house.

In the early afternoon, guests start to arrive, until there are over 40 people crammed into the small house and on the decks and in the boats.   I introduce myself one by one, trying to figure out who the gay ones are

Charles' brother? A chunky bear in a red shirt.

His cousin?  Muscular frame going to fat, and trunks that kept riding down along his butt, big basket.

His nephew?  Mid-20s, short hair, muscular frame, with a tattoo of a crow figure in a loincloth stomping on a lion, and another of Ferdinand the Bull.

A coworker?  guy with red hair, beard, ponytail, and a smooth chest?

An unidentified bearded hipster in his 40s?

The guests, male and female, child and adult, go swimming and boating and sit looking at the lake.  A three-person band plays John Denver songs.  We are invited to view a powerpoint photo montage of Charles through the years, including photos of him and two ex-boyfriends.  Apparently he's been out for a long time. His family seems to be ok with it.  But where are all his gay friends?

At 5:00 pm we eat barbecued chicken.

 At 7:00 pm there are presents and cake.

I feel out of place amid all this heterosexual nuclear family business, but apparently Bob doesn't.  He goes swimming with the Nephew, pontooning with the Uncle and Cousin, and kayaking with the Bearded Hipster.  When it gets late, he goes outside, helping set off fireworks.

Around 9:00, he says "The Nephew is meeting his girlfriend in town, and he wants us to go.  Are you up for it?"

A late night heterosexual rendezvous in a sleazy dive bar?  "I'm a little tired.  But you go ahead."

After awhile, I go to bed.  Toby scratches at the door, and I let him in.  Eventually Bob comes in, slides into bed, and puts his head on my chest.

"How was it?" I ask.

"Great!  We went to this coffee house that had live music, and the Nephew introduced me to this guy who sings backup for Beyoncé!"

I know who that is, sort of.

Sunday

The Coworker invites us to breakfast at his house, with his wife, two kids, and an unidentified guy named Erik.

Then we go into town to the Unitarian Church and to meet a couple of gay guys I knew for lunch.  I am hoping to be invited to "share" afterwards, but they don't suggest it.

In the afternoon, Bob and I go to the Baseball Hall of Fame: tacky, expensive, and only for baseball fans.  Afterwards we split up: I want to go to the used bookstore, and he wants to check out the tacky souvenir shops.

When we reunite, Bob has a high school boy in tow.  "This is Jesus, from Mexico.  He's staying with his parents are staying at the Otesaga Resort.  He invited us to go swimming."

More swimming?  We're staying at a lake!

"No thanks -- you go ahead.  I'll meet you at the Otesaga in about two hours."

In the evening we have dinner with Troy and Charles, then return to the lake house.  It's quite late, so I go to bed, leaving them watching CNN.

Before I can fall asleep, Bob and Troy come in.

"You're not getting out of here without a little sharing," Troy says with a grin.

"Be quiet -- grandparents in the next room."

"Oh, they're out on the deck, talking to Charles.

"And that's much better?"

Troy goes down on me while Bob and I kiss.  But the situation is too weird, and I can't finish.  He gives up and goes down on Bob instead, who finishes very quickly.

Monday

Charles and Troy have to get up very early to go to work, so Bob and I get up early, too.  There's not even time for morning sex.  We're on the road before the sun rises.

"Sorry you had to go through that ordeal," I tell Bob.  "Charles' family was nice and all, but so darn heterosexual!  I can't wait to get to the Flex Club in Cleveland, and get some action."

"What are you talking about?" Bob asks.  "It was nonstop action.  I can't even remember all the guys who went down on me.  Not counting you, six -- no, seven!  I had a blast!"

Obviously I was at a different lake house.

Next: Bob's Version

See also: 13 Guys in One Night at a Bathhouse in Cleveland