Ryan's Three-Way with Harry Styles

Plains, October 2016

In search of celebrity dating and hookup stories, I've been asking all the gay men I know, with little luck.  But I got a good one last night, from of all places, Ryan H., the college track star I met two weeks ago while driving through small-town Illinois on the way back from a funeral.

Last night we were chatting on Facebook's instant messenger:

Ryan:  I have one for you.  Me and Harry Styles.

Me: For real, or a fantasy?  

Ryan:  Real.  Summer before last.

I quickly wikipedia Harry Styles.  Born 1994, member of the boy band One Direction from 2011 to 2015, five albums, five Brit Awards and four MTV Music Video Awards, "Live While We're Young" hit #3 on the U.S. charts, and "Best Song Ever" #2.  Just signed with Columbia as a solo artist.  

Google images shows Harry at several points in his life.  Rather cute in One Direction, but now he has androgynous long hair and a body-full of gross tattoos.


Me: So summer of 2015.  You were...17?  

Ryan:  Right.  Just after my junior year in high school.

Me: So how did you meet Harry Styles in your small town in Illinois?

Ryan: No, LOL, it was in Indianapolis [two hours away].  My family goes down for the weekend several times a year.  We go to a Pacers game or a concert, go to the Children's Museum, that sort of thing.  Well, this time my friend Sam came along, and there were so many of us that we got our own hotel room.

Me:  Were you and Sam a couple?

Ryan: Sam?  LOL.  He's a year younger than me, and straight!  I just like older guys.  But he's a sweetheart, my cuddly bae.  So we had it all planned out.  After they were all in bed, I snuck out -- Sam covered for me, right -- and I walked about seven blocks to the Metro [a gay club on Massachusetts Avenue].

Me:  You got in ok?

Ryan:  I had a fake id, and besides, look at me!  I've been flashing a smile to get whatever I want since I was little.

Me:  Well, you are rather cute.

Ryan: Def!  So I'm into silver foxes, hot ones like you, and this one really hot guy piques my interest -- in his fifties, tall distinguished, white hair and beard, nice muscular chest.  But he's already hitting on this cute, long-haired twink.  I don't care -- I go up and flash my smile anyway.

Me: Planning to steal the Silver Fox away?

Ryan: I don't know.  I thought maybe a three-some -- I never had one of those before. So I flash my smile, and Silver Fox gets that dopey grin -- the one you got when you saw me, right?  And the guy he's with looks a little jealous.  And I see it's Harry Styles from One Direction.  I was never a big fan, but every girl in school was into him, so I recognized him instantly.

Me: What was Harry Styles doing in Indianapolis?

Ryan:  I didn't ask.  I pretended I didn't even know who he was.

[A quick look at One Directions' website reveals a concert in Indianapolis on July 31st, 2015.]

Me: Did Silver Fox invite the two of you home?

Ryan:  We went to the Sheraton -- the same hotel my family was staying in!  So we waste no time -- the minute we get inside, Silver Fox and Harry start kissing.  I unzip Silver Fox and -- OMFG!  #Hung to his knees  #Super-stud.  Almost as big as you.  Can I see a cock pic?

[I send him one.]

Ryan:  Hot!  So I go down on the Silver Fox -- I'm really, really good at oral, by the way.  My mouth and tongue are legendary.  I unzip Harry, too, and go down on him to be polite.

Me:  How big was Harry?

Ryan: Kind of small, but nice anyway.  Very firm.  When you tell the story, make him a Mortadella, ok?

Me:  Ok.

[This bulge pic suggests a probable Bratwurst]

Ryan: Anyway, I decide I want some kissing action -- so I stand up and try to kiss them both at the same time, you know.  But they ignore me, strip off their clothes, and Daddy turns Harry over onto his stomach and starts topping him.  I take off my clothes and sort of hang around.  Daddy reaches out and gives me a feel.  Come on, I have the biggest cock in Champaign County.  I deserve more than that!

Me: Then what happened?

Ryan: I kind of kneel over Harry, and he tries to go down on me.  But it's a weird position, and he gags.  So I kiss him while he's being topped by the Silver Fox.  Really nice, by the way.  Are you into kissing?

Me: Sure, I love kissing.

Ryan: I can't wait until Christmas.  I want to spend Christmas Eve on the couch with you, wearing fuzzy sweaters, drinking eggnog and cuddling and kissing.

Me: Sounds great.  So, what happened next?

Ryan:  Nothing much.  I kind of crawled under Harry and went down on him while he was being topped. Then Daddy finishes with a gigantic roar and goes into the bathroom to wipe off.  I keep going down on Harry, but he pushes me away and goes into the bathroom, too.  I figure he's going to pee and will be back in a few minutes.  Then I hear the shower going -- Silver Fox and Harry are taking a shower together, leaving me alone on the bed, aroused, all by myself!

Me: Not cool.

Ryan:  I mean, I think I'm pretty hot, don't you?  And I have a gigantic cock.  Why weren't they into me?

Me: I don't know.  I'm into you.

Ryan: So I got out of there and went down to the fifth floor to my room, and sort of started crying in Sam's arms. #Miserable.  #Jealous.

Me: Not a positive experience?

Ryan:  Not at all!  I'd rather have the guy all to myself.  I want to take my time, kiss him, fondle him, get to know him.  And cuddle!  If you don't spend the night, what's the point?

Me:  I hear that.

Ryan: I can't wait until Christmas.  There'll be a package for you to open under the tree.  [Sends me a selfie, aroused.]

Was Ryan telling the truth?

Harry Styles was in Indianapolis in the summer of 2015, and he has been the subject of gay rumors, but there's no evidence that he's into older guys, or is in the habit of hooking up with random strangers in bars.

Ryan's story was obviously a cautionary tale about what to do and not to do on our upcoming Christmas date, and an attempt to pique my interest with references to his penis size, proficiency at oral sex, and attractiveness to men.  But he could have used any sexual experience -- why invent a liaison with Harry Styles, who I don't find attractive in the least?

Unless he really did have a three way with Harry Styles and a Silver Fox the summer after his junior year in high school.

See also: Picking Up a College Track Star; West Hollywood Stories of Dating and Hookups with Celebrities; My Christmas Date with the College Track Star.

Do Levis Show Bulges Better than Armani Wool Slacks?

Wolcottville, Indiana, July 1983

When I was a kid, my family was distinctly working class.  Dad worked in the factory, and Mom worked at the mall.

Our house was about the size of small apartment.

90% of dinners consisted of spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, tuna casserole, fried eggs, or -- shudder -- chipped beef on toast.

My parents' relatives were distinctly working class, too.  Not a college graduate among them.  A lot of pick up trucks, country-western music, and Goodwill t-shirts and jeans.

Fundamentalism.

Country western music!

So it came as a shock to discover that I am related to one of the wealthiest families in the world.

In 1982, when I was in grad school in Bloomington, I found out that Dad was adopted.  His biological father was the "black sheep" son of a wealthy northern Indiana businessman.

More research revealed a connection with the McCormicks of Chicago.

You know, Interntional Harvester, the Chicago Tribune, McCormick Place, McCormick School of Engineering, McCormick Theological Seminary, the Art Institute of Chicago, Villa Turicum, the House-in-the-Woods?

A vast dynasty of industrialists, publishers, politicians, and philanthropists descended from the eight children of Virginia inventor Robert McCormick (1780-1846)?

It's a complicated genealogy: I can give you the details if you're interested.  But it turns out that I had a 3rd cousin named Justine McCormick Grossman, 73 years old, daughter of a senator, granddaughter of the U.S. ambassador to Russia and France, living on a farm near Wolcottville, Indiana.

It was only a few miles from Rome City, but Aunt Nora, Dad's older sister, didn't know her.  I guess when you're adopted, you have enough trouble keeping up with your biological father, no time to worry about second cousins.

A relative who was wealthy, sophisticated, a world traveler, who listened to Mozart instead of Willie Nelson, who went to the opera instead of Nazarene revival meetings, who served beef bourguignon instead of chipped beef on toast!  And who, I assumed, was gay-friendly.  After all, weren't rich people tolerant of eccentricities?

So I called.  It took a few minutes to impress upon her who I was, but then she began to reminisce about life in the 1930s:

"My cousin Frank, your grandfather was quite a scandal in our family!" she told me in a scratchy voice.  "He ran off to become a singer in a music hall, of all things!  And then he married his...his housekeeper, who was young enough to be his daughter!  My, how tongues wagged!"

"So -- when his wife died, and he wasn't able to take care of his kids by himself, the Davis family adopted them.  Why didn't... um...a McCormick adopt them?"

That is, Grandma Davis is great and all, but why didn't you become my grandma, and raise my Dad and his sisters in luxury, and give me a car for my high school graduation, and send me to Harvard?

"Oh, your grandpa wanted nothing to do with the McCormicks.  He preferred to spend his time with riff-raff, actors and artists and music-hall singers.  Like that Lloyd Davis."

My Grandpa Davis?  Hey, I thought rich people were accepting of eccentricities and foibles!

I was starting to rile up a bit, but I calmed down when Justine began describing her two children and four grandchildren.  Her grandson Cyrus, named after the original Cyrus, was a theater arts major at Indiana University.  He went by his middle name, Michael.

My cousin, the scion of the ultra-wealthy McCormick family, was walking on the same campus as me?

He was probably more liberal.

Maybe we would become friends.  We would hang out in House-in-the-Woods or Cavigny, sail on his yacht, fly over to London and Paris, chat about caviar...

Or we would become lovers.  He no doubt had a handsome, aristocratic face, dark hair, a gym-toned physique, and an enormous Mortadella beneath the belt.  I knew from my doomed pursuit of Richie Rich that virgin wool slacks show baskets a lot more effectively than our working-class Levis.

I fantasized about going down on him as we lay on the silk sheets in the gild-and-wood bedroom where he once prepared for polo matches and studied his Latin lessons.

Cousin Justine was mistaken -- there was no one named Cyrus Michael McCormick Grossman Hawthorne on campus.

"Oh, maybe he graduated already," she said.  "You know how time flies when you get older.  I think he's in Philadelphia now.  Let me look up the address for you."

The address was around the corner from a Philadelphia gay bar listed in my Gayellow Pages.  Michael was obviously gay!

Still, too far to go for a rich relative, gay or not, so I forgot about it until the summer of 1983, when Cousin Justine died.  Her daughter found my name in her address book, and had her assistant invite me to the funeral.

It was an odd prospect, going to the funeral of someone I'd never met and only spoke to twice. But, I figured, it would be a chance to meet other McCormicks, including my fifth cousin, the gay Philadelphia theater arts major named Cyrus Michael.

In July 1983, I drove from Bloomington up to an Episcopal Church in Elkhart, Indiana for the funeral.  The reception was held at the home of Justine's daughter and son-in-law: an English Tudor with sculpted grounds.

As I mingled among the McCormcks, Grossmans, Hawthornes, Dressers, Jacksons, and Bialis, I heard the same right-wing politics as among my working-class relatives.  Maybe worse.

Cousin Michael was tall, lithe, rather feminine, with glasses and a short beard. In 1983 you didn't come out to strangers (or anyone else, for that matter),  But how could he not be gay?

"I grew up on stories of your grandpa's dirty tricks," he told me.  "I always thought it was so cool to be able to do your own thing, without all the obligations that come with being a McCormick.  In fact, I think that's what gave me the motivation to become an actor."

The grass is always greener....

See also: Was My Grandfather Gay?

Dad Takes Me to See Naked Men

When I was growing up in Rock Island, the adults always asked "Is there any girl at school that you like?" but never "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  That was already decided.  I would go to work in the factory.

Rock Island was a factory town; almost every adult I knew, and the dad of almost every kid I knew, worked at J.I. Case, International Harvester, Caterpillar, or John Deere.  They all made tractors, harvesters, and other farm machines.

My factory was going to be J.I. Case Company, with its logo of an eagle digging its talons into the world.  Like my father and grandfather and three of my uncles and two of my older cousins.  Like everyone.

You started on the assembly line, then after a few years got promoted to lineman, and maybe, eventually, to foreman.

I could think of no fate more horrible than getting up at 5:00 am for a day of screwing things into things, then returning, dirty and dripping with sweat, to the small square house where my wife would have dinner on the table.

So, occasionally, in grade school or junior high, I said that I didn't want to work in the factory when I grew up.  Dad laughed.


"Of course no one wants to work.  You probably would rather spend the whole day playing football with your pals.  You have to, so you can make money to support your wife and kids."

"No, I mean, I want to do something else besides the assembly line at J.I. Case Company."

"Like what?  Sell shoes in the mall?  The factory pays better, and you don't have to work nights, so you can spend time with your wife and kids."

Tenth graders at Rocky High were put into "business" or "academic" tracks.  I had high grades, so they put me into the academic track, explaining that it was for kids who planned to go to college.



College?  The possibility had never crossed my mind before.  No one in my family had ever gone to college (actually, my grandmother went to art school, but I didn't know that at the time). Wasn't it just for rich people?

No, there were lot of scholarships.  I could probably get one.

"Don't be crazy!" Dad said when I told him about college.  "You don't need college to work in the factory!  Besides, what are you going to do in college but read books?," he added with a derisive sneer. Nazarenes thought of books other than the Bible as worthless at best, and most likely tools of Satan.

"Yeah, and play the violin," I said, to rub it in: classical music was also suspect, redolent of decadence and effeminacy.  "Maybe I'll major in art.  And grow my hair long, like a girl."

I expected Dad to yell, but instead he just stared at me, open mouthed.  Eventually he said "Why don't you come and take a look at the factory? Who knows, you might like it?"

So the next Saturday, we took a tour of J. I. Case Company in Rock Island.  There were three big buildings, all of featureless gray concrete.  The first building contained offices, with vast rows of desks where secretaries and stenographers worked.

"All ladies up here," Dad pointed out.  "But they never go out onto the floor.  That's 100% men."

The "floor" was a vast concrete hangar where the tractor parts moved on conveyor belts until they were assembled on a gigantic machine and then hauled out.  It was all noise and bright lights and grime, all wires and tubes and pipes and complicated sharp things.  I couldn't understand what anything was for, but I did notice that Dad was right: 100% men.

None with their shirts off, but still....

The third building was for painting, finishing, and licensing. There was also a small tv lounge that stank of paint, a lunchroom with vending machines, and because you got dirty and sweaty during the day, a locker room with showers, so you could be fresh and clean when you returned to your small square house, where your wife had dinner on the table.


Here they had their shirts off.  There were even some naked musclemen walking around, penises swinging -- much bigger than the ones I saw in the high school locker room!

Dad took me back to the car, and we drove up the hill again.  "That wasn't so bad, was it?  It's 100% men.  No girly influences at all.  Do you think you'd like to be down there on the floor every day?"

"No.  This was fun, but I still want to go to college."

Why did Dad bring me there?  I didn't understand at the time, but now I do:

He thought of college as a feminizing influence, a place where I would read books, study music and art, and "turn" gay.

So he was offering a masculine alternative: the factory floor, 100% men, sweat, grime, muscles, and swinging penises.

He hoped that looking at male bodies all day would "keep" me straight.

See also: Dad Explains the Facts of Life; Class Rings and Arabic