2001-11-01 - 9:14 p.m.
Vicarious Clarity

Imagine my surprise Sunday morning at the sight of three beautiful young men asleep in the living room.

Interesting, I thought. Looks like Enrique had a good night!

I tip-toed into the kitchen to make coffee, continuing to stare at the hotties sprawled out on the hide-a-bed. Enrique opened his eyes, grinned at me sleepily. I gave him two thumbs up.

Since he moved here about a month ago, Enrique has been crashing at my place two or three nights a week. We have been hanging out a lot, and have gotten to be close friends quite quickly. There aren’t a lot of people I could—or wish to—spend that much time with.

Internet addict that I am, every morning I make a beeline for the computer which is up against the window in the living room. When Enrique sleeps over he doesn’t pull out the pull-out couch, finding the sofa a big enough bed for his small frame. But this particular morning, of course, his guests necessitated the bed coming out of hiding.

All of this meant that it would be almost impossible for me to get over to my computer. There are about six inches of space between the pulled-out couch and the TV stand. So I whispered to Enrique that he should take his “friends” into my bedroom.

The two gentlemen roused themselves. I’d never seen either before. The one petite guy had shoulder-length tawny colored hair, olive skin. What a babe. He grinned at me sleepily as Enrique led them into my room. The other guy, a bigger, less-exotic looking fellow, was nonetheless also pretty damned cute. Although it was difficult to tell, given Enrique’s dark Latino complexion, I thought he might be blushing.

***

Saturday night, Joey, Brad, Enrique and I went out. I hadn’t been out to any gay bars since Joey was last here almost a month ago.

We started out at the big queer tavern I like. I quite liked it again. Lots of folks were dressed up for Halloween; up on stage, a huge, hilarious drag queen (genuine wit is so crucial to a drag queen’s success; in its absence, the charade is more than a little pathetic…) presided over the audience-applause to select the winners. I’m racking my brains here; I cannot quite remember who won. The runners-up were Dirk Digler (grabbing his big—no doubt, just like Marky Mark’s, prosthetic—schlong each time the drag queen mentioned his name), the Wizard of Oz Scarecrow, the gold-faced Queen of Sheba, an Asian queen, a quartet of wonderfully scary-looking punk drag queens. I think the Scarecrow won.

Soon after we arrived, we were in the smoky smoking lounge when I noticed a guy across from where we were sitting; he looked vaguely familiar. “Hey,” I said to Joey, “I don’t know who that is, but I’m pretty sure you slept with him ten or fifteen years ago.”

At first affronted by yet another of my slurs upon his so-called virtue, Joey glanced over at the gentleman in question, only to sheepishly reply, “Yeah, I’m not completely sure, but I think you’re right.”

(grin)

The guy looked cute in a 40-something way; I was curious about him, could not place him in my memory. He gave off an interesting erotic energy; I saw him kissing and holding hands with several of the attractive guys standing there with him. Finally, just before we left that particular tavern, Joey went up and talked to him. After they’d chatted for a couple minutes, Joey came back and told me that the guy had lived in the small city where we’d both come out in the fall of 1986. Joey said he still didn’t remember this guy, and wasn’t at all sure they’d slept together. Then he told me the guy’s name: Justin.

“Oh my god, it’s Justin!” I exclaimed. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him.”

Justin is the ex-lover of Bruce, the guy whose apartment I now live in. I knew them both slightly in the late eighties, had the hots big-time for Justin and wrote out this memory here:

Now I knew Bruce slightly, years ago: we’re talking the mid-to-late eighties, when I first came out in the dinky little university town I lived in then. Bruce was a well-known homosexual about town: dashing and popular and forever on the arm of his even more gorgeous lover, Justin. Let me tell ya, Justin was to die for.

I’ll never forget my 21st birthday party. I was dating Colin at the time, who rented the upstairs suite at Bruce and Justin’s house; that’s how I got to know these two slightly. So they came to my party, at which I got rip-roaring drunk. I begged Justin to dance, and I’ll never forget the couple slow songs I staggered to, pressed up against that lean, muscular body, his thigh royally-bumping my woody.

Sheesh.

I have that dance on videotape, actually; I haven’t watched the video of my 21st birthday party in years. Colin and I are going to watch it together sometime, whenever I can locate it in all my junk.

Now that I knew it was Justin, I went up and tapped him on the shoulder. He didn’t recognize me either, but once I told him my name he knew who I was. Turns out that he and Bruce are still good friends, so he knew I’d taken over his ex-lover’s apartment. Small world.

We only chatted for a few friendly moments; my pelvis tingled at our proximity, at the lust I’d felt for Justin fourteen years ago, now dwindled down to curiosity. I walked away, besotted by memories, how the years change everything and nullify nothing.

I expected that once we left this tavern—it was about 11 pm—Enrique would want to go out to the gay dance club. I certainly didn’t want to. It turned out neither did he. So he was happy to tag along with us older guys; Joey and Brad wanted to go to the kinda-sorta leather bar which is quite near where I live. I had never set foot in the place, so was curious to check it out. While it’s not a hard-core leather bar, it certainly caters to such proclivities. More than that, it caters to an older, raunchy crowd. Weather-permitting, the windows open onto the street; the sign posted for passers-by on the sidewalk reads Please do not feed the bears.

Minutes after we walked in, Enrique said he was going to go check out the dance club after all. I guess a room full of leather daddies just wasn’t his scene. I wished him well; he had my spare set of keys, so he could come home whenever he wanted.

Two interesting things happened during the twenty minutes or so I hung out at the leather bar. First, there was a sexy young man wearing nothing but tight leather shorts who was selling his services at the back of the bar. Which services, you ask? His shoe-shining services. Not very interesting, you think? Get this: for a small fee, Leather Boy would cosy up on your lap, his butt grinding into your no doubt engorged crotch as he leaned over and shined your boots.

Sheesh.

But given my sorry state of financial affairs, I did not feel I could afford to splurge on such pleasures, contenting myself to watch him swivel and polish one gratified-looking older guy.

Second, later on I was standing up against the wall with Joey and Brad, near a table where a chunky, older black guy was fondling an older, white, nice-bodied guy as they talked. Every time the black guy leaned into the white guy to yell-whisper into his ear, he would cruise me overtop the guy’s head. The dynamic turned me on totally. His dark brown eyes were mesmerizing. I was all set to meet up with him in the bathroom and gag on his dick in the washroom stall, or slip him my number, or something. I could not see how much of a gut he had from where I was standing; his butt was huge, rounding out his tight blue jeans almost obscenely. I wanted to suck on his forehead.

But then, suddenly, I grew bored. The eros drained out of the cruisy dynamic. I bade goodnight to Joey and Mark and left without meeting the black guy’s eyes, happy to return to the stimulating solitude of my empty apartment.

Wondering how Enrique was faring.

***

While the three boys slept—the absence of any incriminating noises made me presume they were sleeping—in my bed later Sunday morning, I smoked cigarettes and drank coffee and gradually awoke while surfing the net. I hasten to add that, quite recently, I have drastically cut back on my nicotine intake, limiting myself to one cigarette every 30 minutes. Scary to admit, but that’s a third of what I usually smoke. [It’s now a couple days since I began writing this entry, and I’m now down to one every 45 minutes – yay!]

I watched the World Trade Center memorial on CNN that morning, tears streaming down my face. I noticed how embarrassing I sound, the spluttering, the gags and gurgles as I nearly but not quite give way to the sobs wanting out. I blanched at the thought of Enrique or one of his boys walking in on my hiccup-like pseudo-cries.

Thankfully, it was over an hour later when I heard the first signs of life coming from my room. Soon, out traipsed the boys: grinning bashfully, Enrique introduced me to his “friends”. It turned out that the bigger guy, whom we’ll call Damian, went to the same high school Enrique did. The exotic-looking smaller guy, Micah—who, I soon realized, looks a bit like the druggie Backstreet Boy AJ—was Damian’s friend. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Micah, warming up to him immediately when he admired the profusion of Keith Haring artwork on my walls.

I sat here at my computer; Micah was in the easy chair across the room; Enrique and Damian chatted amongst themselves on the couch. Micah was inquisitive and bright-eyed as he peppered me with questions about my video and book collection. Something began humming in the space between us. I felt an infatuation coming on as I learned he’s 19, has been in Canada only three years but has already “un-learned” his Italian accent. (I could still hear a bit of a lovely Jewish accent, but was amazed—maybe even a little disappointed—at how thoroughly Micah has eradicated the Italian; “It took a lot of practice to sound like a Canadian,” he said.)

Did I mention that he’s stunningly beautiful?

Now knowing the high school connection between Enrique and Damian, I presumed that the three of them sharing a bed was mere platonic friendliness. Inside myself, I began honing in on Micah.

Especially when he said he liked movies that made him cry, that spoke to him emotionally. He’d never seen my all-time favorite, Six Degrees of Separation, said “Well we should all get together and have a movie night sometime soon.”

I liked the sound of that.

Meanwhile, Enrique was showing off my collection of homoerotic art books to Damian; they were engrossed in George Platt Lynes photographs, and Micah moved over beside them on the couch to have a peek.

This gave me a chance to catch my breath. My eyes never leaving his cherubic face, I began to think. About how much I love meeting gay guys this way, through friends of friends, through tricks of friends. Socially. It is so rare, so exquisite, to meet gay men this way.

How easily I get infatuated with cute, intelligent young men. How often in my not too recent past I’ve led with my dick in such scenarios, only to regret it later. How, more recently, I’ve had more success at befriending younger guys, leaving sexual expression—but not the joy of desire—out of the equation.

How confused I am by that dichotomy: how exciting it has been, having sex with nubile bright beauties, how much joy their friendship bestows.

That if I had to pick—and as a 30-something, easily-bedazzled, often sexually-impulsive, occasionally open-hearted gay man, I do—I more and more choose the ongoingness that platonic affection makes possible.

And I watched him, Micah, delighting in every lustrous wave of his hair, every bat of his dark eyes.

Then, after an hour or so, Damian and Micah left. Micah reiterated his interest in a “movie night” at my place; I gave him my card, told him to get a hold of me anytime. Damian and Enrique exchanged numbers too.

No sooner were these boys out the door then Enrique gave me the scoop: in fact, there had been a lot of naughtiness in my apartment the night before. It started out between he and Damian—they’d had a shower together here soon after the three of them came back from the club—and then invited Micah to fool around with them on the pull-out couch. Micah accepted, but the threesome portion of the evening lasted only a few minutes before he passed out cold. Damian and Enrique continued their tryst dyadically while he snored beside them.

“He’s got a really hot body,” said Enrique, referring to Micah.

“I could see that,” I said.

It seemed that Enrique was more into Damian than he was Micah. So I made no bones about being attracted to the luscious, bright Italian boy.

(By this past weekend, Enrique was giving serious thought—and has since definitely decided—to move back to the city he and I just moved from, to save money before beginning fashion design school here next fall; I will be sad to see him go, and have teased him that while my ethics have thus far prevented me from making a move on any of these tasty-looking young men he’s introduced me to, once he leaves, all bets are off.)

Later that night, Colin and Enrique and I were sitting around talking. Colin and I were teasing Enrique about his slutty threesome. We laughed and giggled about his adventures.

“Actually I’m pissed off at you,” I said to him, winking at Colin.

“Oh? Why?”

“Because. You’ve had sex in my apartment and I haven’t, you bitch!”

Once the laughter died down, Enrique teasingly urged me to “go for” Micah. Something more serious began pronouncing itself in me. I caught Colin and Enrique off guard with what I said.

“Well, um, I think he’s a lovely young man, totally hot eh?” I began, characteristically enough, “But, you know, I don’t think I’d sleep with him until we had a solid friendship. I guess I simply cannot handle having beautiful young men disappear out of my life.”

I paused, glanced at them to see if I was getting too heavy, making them uncomfortable. They were right there with me.

“It’s like, if I want young gay men in my life, I’ve got to act differently.”

“Wow,” said Enrique, beaming at me.

“Yeah,” said Colin.

I sat there among friends, tasting the moment’s deep clarity.