2001-09-27 - 1:41 p.m.
Duck To Water

The afternoon before J.C. flew home, Colin took us on a whore-tour of the cruisy park. It’s a huge expanse—miles and miles of forest—about fifteen minutes from my apartment. Handy. Colin used to slut it up there a lot before he met his new boyfriend Chang about three months back; his nostalgia was palpable as he pointed out the area where daytime sex happens, the other nearby section where queers fuck in the dark.

As we wandered about that afternoon, I was surprised at how intrigued J.C. was. In the past six months he has let his hair down to the point where he can enjoy a one night stand for what it is, but the whole anonymous, public sex arena had remained foreign territory. For months in advance, I’d teased him about the erotic adventures I’d expose him to during our week together here; he would always laugh it off, my threat to take him on his first visit to a bathhouse. “We’ll see…” he would sing.

Well, on Sunday, September 9th, we saw.

There was no action that afternoon. Or at least none that appealed. But J.C. was obviously excited by the possibilities of sex happening right there, deep in the forest. I got a kick out of his enthusiasm.

We came back here to my place late that afternoon. Colin hung out for a bit, we ate leftovers from the Jamaican feast J.C. had cooked up Saturday for a dinner party we had for some other friends, Chris and Ty. (More, much more, on Chris and Ty sometime later…)

After Colin went home, J.C. made it known he was itching to go back to the park. Wow, thought I. Gone was his embarrassed, let’s-change-the-subject response; he was raring to go. “After all,” he said, “It is my last night in the big city.”

Fair enough.

Our pockets stuffed with condoms, lube samplers and Kleenex, we headed back down the street. J.C. skipped and sang along, giggling at what he was about to do.

“I guess you’ll finally be able to call me a slut,” he said, collapsing—and I mean that literally—onto the sidewalk in sing-song glee.

The park was pitch black; not being able to see fuck all, we were a little frightened. I remarked that I would never come down there at night, alone. We made our way to the cruisy spot Colin had pointed out to us. More and more lone men could be made out walking slowly along the trail.

One by one, many of them ducked off the main path and into the brush. J.C. and I could barely see anything on the main trail, were too freaked to wander into the dense, darker forest. I predicted that our eyes would adjust eventually, which proved somewhat true.

Finally, we stepped off the path. J.C. led the way; I held on to his shoulder as we inched in, stepping over big fallen branches down into a clearing. Up against a huge tree there, a threesome was just finishing up. We could make out the shadowy figures as they disengaged, could hear the zippering up of three flies. A dozen or more men traipsed by, many of them disappearing into the still denser brush. J.C. wanted to follow them. We did. The terrain was precipitously uneven, strewn with branches and big rocks. We held onto each other for dear life as we made our way along.

We came upon an old man leaning over a big log, pants and underwear around his ankles: milk-white, saggy butt offered up for the taking. We moved on. In our travels we saw many other congresses of flesh, the silhouettes of some looking more interesting than others.

J.C. grabbed onto my hand, held it as we navigated a new route through bushes and over logs and rocks. The warmth of his big hand comforted me, strangely. I hadn’t known I wanted comforting. We haven’t held hands since we ‘dated,’ I thought. And it felt different. His touch did not arouse, but I was somehow loved by it. Protected, even.

Who’s introducing who, here? I asked myself, And to what?

I grew more wide-eyed and unfathomably emotional with each hand-held step into the dark landscape of lust.

Back in the clearing, we discussed leaving. “But I at least want a blow job before I go,” J.C. said.

“Well,” I whispered, laughingly, yet aware of a strange creak in my heart, “All you’d need to do is stand over there, alone, just across the way. I’ll stand right here, close enough that you can see me but far enough away that you’ll have privacy, eh?”

J.C. wandered about ten feet away. All I could see was his dim outline. My heart was pounding. Sure enough, within moments a man approached him. I strained my eyes, attempting to read J.C.’s body language. Such interpretation was impossible; I could not know he was okay without walking closer. I stood where I was, hoping he would have the sense to simply walk away from a scenario if he was freaked out by it.

A new bunch of men appeared out of the dark. Two or three stood near me; the rest walked up to J.C. and his partner. I couldn’t see much, but enough to know several men were now vying for a slurp of him.

I got angry at my dick, stiffening in memory of the taste.

And then someone reached out and grabbed my reminiscing rod. I flinched. I was not in the mood. I stood there impassively in the dark. The hand was persistent. So was my woody.

The groping man stepped closer, came into focus. An extremely cute young Asian fellow, smiling at me. I loved the look of him; I was furious anew, realizing how easily I could forget all about J.C. I grabbed his swollen crotch, leaned into his ear to whisper “I can’t get too carried away, eh? My friend’s over there getting his first outdoor blowjob; I need to keep an eye on him.”

The Asian boy smiled, said nothing as he unzipped me and freed my obtuse throb of memory and fresh desire. He played with me for a minute or two, then walked on.

I was relieved to be left alone, but I did not zip up. I stood there, gaping and palpitating, watching the blurry buzz around J.C. My nether pulse felt like a wound, healing. I did not touch myself; the cool night air gradually softened me. I did up my pants.

Moments later J.C. rejoined me, dragged me out onto the main path. Breathlessly, he shared his story. “Wow, it was so exciting! I think three different guys sucked me. But I was too uptight, couldn’t get a hard-on, not really. But it was so exciting! Wow!”

I giggled with him, felt light again. We walked up and down the trail, now teeming with solitary, questing men.

J.C. soon wanted to go back into the forest. He grabbed my hand, again, and we re-entered the maze. Within minutes he saw two guys going at it up against a log, told me to “Wait right here”. I waited, watched him confidently insinuate himself into the dyad. All I could see was his body’s bold brim. I pleaded with myself to relax, to enjoy this for what it was, his rite of passage into that wondrous debauchery that has given me so much joy.

Whither that joy, for me, now? Why do I feel like I might cry?

J.C. broke away from that grouping soon enough. “It was fun,” he reported, “but the one guy was too weird.” The weird guy had barked gruff porno dialogue into J.C.’s ears: as much of a turn-off for him as it is for me.

Within minutes, J.C. saw another guy plunked down on another log. “Wait right here,” I was told again. I stood perhaps four feet away from the log-plunked fellow. J.C. walked right up to him. Hands began to rove. My dick spasmed again; I got angry at it again.

But I couldn’t see much more than that. The next cue was auditory: a minute or two later, I heard J.C. tear open a condom wrapper.

And I remembered our first night together. “Do you want me to fuck your ass?” he had asked. “Sometime, yeah, sure,” I had replied. Sometime never came. As I heard—and dimly visualized—him unrolling latex in the dark, my prostate quivered regretfully.

Then the beam of a flashlight bobbed through the trees. Everything fast-forwarded: J.C. extricated himself from the guy, ran over and grabbed my hand, whisper-shouted “Someone’s coming! Let’s get out of here!” and we fled. I was not particularly frightened by the flashlight-wielding intruder; even if it was some park security guard, there was nothing they could pin on us for walking around in the dark. I communicated my lack of concern to J.C. The flashlight disappeared farther into the wood.

J.C. was now ready to go. But not home: emboldened, he wanted to check out the bathhouse. I agreed, but I wasn’t really into it. My body was confused. Partly it was envy of the attention he was getting and giving; I was also weirded out by a growing sense that this anonymous sex scene was not what I wanted or needed right now; on top of all that, I felt insecure about the fuddy-duddyness such thoughts and feelings implied. I kept all this to myself, instead listening to J.C.’s intoxicated enthusiasm.

“I can’t believe I did that! Wow, you’re right: it is addictive.”

I calmed myself down as I listened to his glee, recognizing in it much of my own past—and, no doubt, future—delight. Also calming was the assurance I had that, no matter his choice of words just now, J.C. did not have an addictive personality, would not likely get fucked up by the allure the way I once had. That there was something deeply “right” about me introducing him to this milieu at this stage of our odd and beautiful friendship. And that it was perfectly natural that—at such close proximity to his sexual body—leftover blips of discontentment about that friendship’s platonic nature would rattle me. All of this, compounded by my own ageist insecurities at not being the fresh meat everyone wants to taste, even in the dark, and my even more recent questioning of what it is I want from men now, anyway.

As we walked up towards the bathhouse, I laughed at J.C.’s hilarious comments and began to make some peace within myself. It was like every strand of my erotic and interpersonal experience over the last couple years was called up; this evening was a condensation of sex and love’s many perplexities.

We told the attendant at the bathhouse that we wanted to share a room, but he charged us for a room ($22) and a locker ($15). I did not put up a fuss, but I was pissed off. J.C. and I adjourned to our room and changed into our towels. It being a Sunday night, around midnight, there weren’t many patrons.

Within 5 minutes we were in the steamroom. I sat on the top row against the long wall facing the door, J.C. against the shorter wall to my left. The air was opaque with humidity; I began to cough uncontrollably, as I always first do. An immensely burly older guy walked in, stood up against the wall beside J.C. and began staring at him. I could not make out J.C.’s responding expression. The massively-chested man reached out a hand for J.C.’s knee.

“No, higher,” I heard J.C. say. Wow, he’s really bold! How long have we been here, five minutes? And he’s already giving orders. Wow…

The man slid his hand up to J.C.’s exposed right thigh. “No, higher!” J.C. again commanded. The man reached under J.C.’s gaping towel. I sat there, stunned, unable to diminish the steam with my squint. Remembering the feel of the hard beauty I could not see.

After a minute or two, the muscle man left. J.C. and I vacated the steam room soon after. I wanted to go for a jacuzzi; J.C. too hung up his towel and began to follow me into the tub but embarrassedly admitted the water was too hot. He said he was going to walk around, would meet me back here.

I sat alone in the hot tub collecting my thoughts. I realized I was over that intense confusion from the park, but that I still did not want to be here. I wanted to go home. This had little to do, now, with J.C. and everything to do with me.

I soon felt poached, so left the jacuzzi and waited outside for J.C. He did not reappear. After ten minutes, I assumed he’d hooked up with someone so I began to wander around. I saw no one of interest, nothing to distract myself from this dissatisfaction so completely displacing my usual horniness.

This is a place to find fun. And I want more than fun. I remembered the 12-step slogan, one of the few that has always rung true: Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

These thoughts were discomfiting, liberating. I felt dizzy and confused and freaked out. Knowing I was not about to pledge allegiance to some monotonously conventional lifestyle, that I would never ever disavow this milieu—it’s “treasury of essential impressions”—but that something beautiful and long-ignored in me was crying out for a new stretch.

J.C. caught up with me ten minutes later. “Where were you???” he demanded, almost scared. Turned out he’d been looking for me ever since I’d left the hot tub; we’d been circling around the bathhouse’s perimeter, moving in the same direction, so never encountering one another. He needed to touch base with me, calmed right back down once he had. Then he said he wanted to go lie down in the room. I thought that was odd, assuming he meant ‘go have a rest’; it was only later, when I walked by our room and saw him sprawled out on the wee bed, the door—and his legs—wide open, that I realized he wanted to try the “come hither” variety of bathhouse cruising. Seeing him thus made me smile; I walked on.

And I sat down on the comfy leather couch in front of the big TV, thinking, thinking, thinking. A part of me shrinking back from this, from every toweled, bare-chested man who walked by and checked me out; but another part widening, testing this strange inchoate resolve, tentatively open to a dimension of erotic meaning not to be found here.

And so it was all good. And I simply had to get out of there. I went back to the room, told J.C. I was going home but that he should stay, that I’d go check with the attendant to make sure he was allowed to have the room after my departure. J.C. frowned at my intention to leave, but did want to stay behind. So I was furious with the attendant when he refused my request to give J.C. the keys to the room I’d rented for us both. It was not allowed; my friend could have the locker, but the room was in my name on my membership card so I could not sublet it. Stupid fucking rules!

So J.C. decided that he would leave too. We dressed. We left. It was probably about 2 am.

As we walked along the big gay street towards home, J.C. shyly admitted that he’d hooked up with the burly, muscled fellow again while I was hot-tubbing. They’d met up in the darkened labyrinth room. Mr. Muscle had sucked on J.C.’s big dick; his voice was ridiculously deep and gravelly. J.C. imitated the man’s dirty talk, collapsing on all fours to the sidewalk in laughter. “And then he put my hand on his dick,” he added, “And it was so big—I mean SO SO big—that I got freaked out. So I walked away after that.”

I felt something reconnect inside me, between us. I began teasing him about his brash commandments to Mr. Muscle in the steam room.

“Huh?” J.C. exclaimed. “What do you mean?”

I repeated the “No, higher!” demands I’d heard him bark at the guy.

“I did not!” he laughed, incredulously. “I didn’t say one word to him! He just reached out and grabbed me. I can’t believe you thought I ordered him around,” he laughed, “My god, as if I would ever do that: I was so nervous!”

It was my turn to laugh. How on earth had I heard what he did not say? “Must have been the lyrics to the music blaring over the speakers or something…maybe The Moody Blues were playing.”

Traipsing towards home—this last night together before he exited my quotidian—we patted each other affectionately, walking along in silence as confusing new knowledge settled into our separate, porous bodies.