My Nephew Fixes Me Up with His Central Asian Friend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He took me onto the screen porch.

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

But he said "Is David your boyfriend?"

"Uh -- no,"

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

"What?" A blind date?

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

"Oh, no problem, he sounds great."

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

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

"But won't David feel left out?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We met at a little restaurant on the south side.

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

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

Cruising East of Alvarado

West Hollywood, September 1993

"Where are all the Hispanic guys?' I asked Lane one day. "The population of Los Angeles is about 50% Hispanic, but you never see any here in West Hollywood.  We don't even have a Mexican restaurant."

"I can buy some Old El Paso at the Safeway if you want," Lane said, "And make tacos tonight."

"I'm serious.  We bring home lots of Asian guys, and lots of Anglo leather bears, but no Hispanic guys"

"What do you expect, when you cruise at Mugi, and I cruise at the Faultline?  If you want to meet Hispanic guys, you have to go where they are."

He was right.  The Hispanic gay population of L.A. had its own distinct culture, pre-dating West Hollywood.  If I wanted to meet them, I had to head east of Alvarado.

So on Saturday night, I dropped Lane off at the Faultline for his weekly cruise, and drove a mile farther to the corner of Sunset and Hollywood, and a bar called Basgo's.

It was not like the semi-darkness of Mugi: it was loud and gaudy, the walls painted an effervescent pink.  There were murals of naked Aztecs, plastic palm trees, stuffed parrots.

Pumped-up bartenders in their underwear gyrated to salsa music:

En la vida hay amores
que nunca pueden olvidarse
imborrables momentos
que siempre guarda el corazón

Drag queens made the rounds, flirting and kvetching with their huge brandy snifters sloshing with ruby-red margaritas.

Rent boys slouched by the pool table, displaying sock-enhanced mega-bulges.

The cruising protocol was closer to Catch One than Mugi.  Few Anglos, no English being spoken, few people by themselves except for rent boys and drag queens.  You saw someone you liked and drew him away from his rowdy group of friends to the dance floor, where the pre-hookup conversation occurred.

Con los anos que me quedan
Yo vivire por darte amor
Borrando cada dolor
Con besos llenos de pasion
Como te ame por vez primera

I was drawn to a very handsome young guy with an impish grin, talking nonstop with his friends.   Shorter than me, dark skin, a round face, and black curly hair.  Frayed jeans with an enormous bulge and an yellow shirt with most of the buttons undone, revealing a hard smooth chest.

I approached and asked -- or rather yelled -- "Quires bailar?"  He grinned and nodded.  I took his hand and led him to the dance floor.

We spoke -- or rather yelled -- in  clipped Spanish.  His name was Dario.  He was 23 years old, from Peru.  He came to L.A. last year with his brother and two cousins.  He worked in a warehouse.



Nice background story.  Time to seal the deal.  I led him to the bar and ordered two tamarind-flavored Mexican sodas.   He grinned.

"Que quieres hacer en la cama?" I asked.  What do you like to do in bed?

"Oh, me gustaria que tu me maman!" Dario said, eyes gleaming.  "Y otras cosas, por supuesto.  Y cojerte..." 

Getting oral, topping, and "other things," not bad.

I knew that closeted guys were sometimes only into the act itself, not the preliminaries, so I specified:  "Pero, mi amigo y yo, nos gustan besando y abrazando, tambien."  Kissing and hugging, full body contact, making out.

He nodded.  "A mi me gustan muchas cosas."

And one more thing: "Y es absolutamente necessario que tu duermas con nosotros."  No grab-and-go.  You have to spend the night, or no deal.

He nodded.  "Si, si.  Dormiremos."

Dario didn't have a car, so he drove with me to pick up Lane at the Faultline, then to the French Quarter, and then to our apartment in West Hollywood. 

We sat in the living room.  I ran my hand over his chest, cupped his crotch, tried to kiss him.

No besando.

WTF?

Well, maybe he was shy.

We brought Dario into the bedroom, stripped off his clothes, and put him down on the bed.  He had a beautifully curved, uncut Bratwurst.  I went down on him while Lane fondled his chest.

Were they kissing?  I looked up.  No.
  

I gave Lane a turn at the cock and tried to kiss Dano.   No.

Well, could I at least fondle his balls?  Ok.

 He pushed Lane's head down on his crotch, jerked his hips, and finished with a groan. 

Ok, so how about mamando us?  No.

I wasn't particularly into anal, but he said cojerte, so I turned over onto my stomach and asked "Hay condones?"  Do you have condoms?

Dario was pulling his shorts on.  "Hey, I thought you were spending the night!"  I exclaimed.  "Dormiremos juntos!"

Nope.  "Tengo que venir a mi casa.  Necessito levantarme temprano."  I have to get up early.

So we left Lane in bed and got dressed, and I drove Dario home -- to Silverlake, eight miles away.

"Why did you tell me that you are into besando y mamando?" I asked in frustration.

He stared out the car window at the glittering lights of Santa Monica Boulevard.  "I told you I like many things," he said.

"And spending the night.  You said voy a dormir contigo."

"Dormir...tener sexo, si?"

I smelled a rat.  Dario had played me, agreeing to anything just to get into my bed.

Then we arrived at the address he gave me -- a glass-and-steel building on Hyperion, in the heart of Silverlake's gay neighborhood.

This was the tiny, rundown apartment that Dario shared with his brothers and cousins?

"Could I come in to use the bathroom?" I asked.

It was a beautifully furnished one-bedroom, with hardwood floors and antique furniture.  A framed print of a bullfighter.

A coffee table book about painter Joan Miro.

"Porque me dices que eres pobre?" I asked.  Why did you tell me that you were poor?

"I didn't say I was poor," Dario answered -- in respectable English!  "You heard what you wanted to hear."

The brothers and cousins came to the U.S. with him -- they didn't live with him.

And his job in the warehouse?  He was the general manager, with a salary double what Lane made.

"You wanted a poor little Latino boy who says 'si, señor' and agrees to whatever you say, and I wanted a hot, built Anglo to go down on me.  We both got what we wanted, right?"

The next weekend I returned to Basgo's and met Manuel, from Nicaragua, who spoke almost no English -- I checked.

And I made sure we were besando and abrazando before we left the bar.

See also: The Waiter in the Mexican Restaurant; I Bring Home a Teen Hustler.

The One Thing Kerry Wants in a Guy

West Hollywood, December 29th, 1998

I'm back in West Hollywood for New Year's Eve.  Lane and I are having breakfast at the French Quarter, catching up on the gossip of who dated who, who moved in, who broke up, during the 3 1/2 years I've been away.

"And guess what?" Lane says in a confidential hush.  "Kerry finally found a boyfriend! He moved into his apartment about two months ago!"

We met Kerry at the gay synagogue in West Hollywood several years ago.  He was 21 years old, a theater arts major at UCLA, sharing an apartment off Melrose with two roommates and working in a video store, where he always found a gay-themed movie to promote as his "Pick of the Week."

He stood out in the crowd: tall, a boyish all-American face, smooth sculpted physique, and a shock of red hair beneath a yarmulke decorated with little shamrocks.  One doesn't meet many redheaded Irish Jews.

Turns out that Kerry grew up in an Irish Catholic household in the Boston suburb of Braintree.  On his 16th birthday he shocked his family by going downstairs for breakfast in a yarmulke and announcing that he was converting to Judaism.

AND that he was gay.  In the same conversation.

That's chutzpah!

No wonder he moved 3,000 miles away to go to college.















We bonded over our outsider status, surrounded by guys who grew up kosher.  Lane and I had him over a few times for dinner and sharing: an oral bottom, average sized, surprising for a redhead, but with that face and physique, who cared?

He was very popular at the synagogue, at the gym, and at the twink bars. Some of the most desirable guys  in West Hollywood were asking him out.

There are six traits that make a guy stand out as boyfriend material in West Hollywood: movie industry connections, an extraordinary knowledge of the arts, a handsome face, a bodybuilder's physique, a gigantic penis, or money.   Kerry was being asked out by Cecil B. DeMille, Leonardo Da Vinci, Leonardo DiCaprio, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jeff Stryker, and Richie Rich, or the West Hollywood equivalents.

BUT: lots of first dates, rarely a second, but by the third, he was shouting "Next!"

No matter how hot the guy was, Kerry always found something wrong with him: bad breath, weird tattoo, unmade bed, a yapping dog, ordered the most expensive item on the menu, said something bad about Boston, lived outside the gay neighborhood.

Maybe he didn't really want a boyfriend?  Maybe he just liked meeting new guys, going out, and the bedroom activity after?

But he kept complaining: "I want to find my soul mate, the one I was destined to be with.  I want there to be fireworks the first time we kiss!"

We lost contact after I moved to San Francisco, and then New York.  Finding out that he has a boyfriend -- and they're living together --  is huge!

Who is this Adonis who has risen above all other mortals, with their snoring and farting and eating peanut butter right from the jar, to become "the one" for the extraordinarily picky Kerry?

"I don't know.  Kerry doesn't bring him to synagogue, and he won't tell us anything about him, except his name is Mat with one 't'."

"Well, I've got to meet this Mat with one 't'!  Do you have their phone number?"

He doesn't, but he has a friend from synagogue who does.  I call, and get us an invitation to visit after dinner tomorrow night.

I wonder which of the six traits Mat will have?  Maybe all six!


December 30th

We drive to a rundown apartment building, brown adobe with bars on the window, on Willoughby, where West Hollywood meets the Straight World.

Kerry is a few years older, of course, but still has a boyish all-American face and a pale, tight physique.  Mat is about 30, thin, rather scruffy looking, with unkept black hair and a three-day growth of beard.

I check the six traits, one by one:

1. Wealth.  No -- the apartment is small and cluttered, with no dining room and just one bedroom.  They serve us cake on mismatched plates.

2. Movie Industry Connections.  No -- Mat has a clerical job in an office on Wilshire.  Kerry has given up on his acting ambitions, and is taking classes in human resources management.

3. Knowledge of the Arts.  No.  We discuss Ricky Martin.  the Matrix, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

4. Handsome Face.   No.  His face is long and narrow, his eyes too small.

5. Bodybuilder's Physique.  No.  Mat is rather thin.

Then he must have #6, a Gigantic Penis!

Sharing with two guys is rare, and neither of us find Mat particularly attractive, but we start cruising him anyway, just to see what his beneath the belt gifts are like.

We go into the bedroom.  I kiss and fondle Kerry, and he kneels and goes down on me while Mat goes down on Lane  -- without taking his pants off.

Mat doesn't stand up until Lane finishes.  Seeing my opportunity, I kneel in front of him, unzip him, and find -- average, maybe a little small.

But...Kerry is an oral bottom!  He likes them big!

Kerry kneels beside me.  "Can I help you with that?" he asks.

Ok, I can't figure it out,  So I invite Kerry to lunch a couple of days after New Year's and ask.

January 3rd.  

"What sets Mat apart from the other guys?  What was the initial attraction?"

"Oh, his face, his personality, his wit," Kerry answers.  "And his penis, obviously."

"It seems a bit on the small side to me."

"Who cares about size?  It's uncut!  Didn't you notice when we 'shared' that  was all over you and barely touched Lane?  I love uncircumcized men!"

For Kerry, it all boiled down to a foreskin.