Wednesday, May. 22, 2002 - 9:18 p.m.
Thwarting Most Foul

As I was thinking about crawling into bed Sunday night, a dog yelped loudly. It sounded berserk, as if it was being attacked. Then that smell. That awful smell. The strongest eau de skunk I’ve ever smelled in my life. My eyes watered and I actually panicked for a few minutes that, somehow, the varmint was in my apartment. The stench was that bad.

I didn’t think I’d be able to fall asleep. I was horny and had planned to do something about it, but dammit all, the aromatherapeutics were all wrong. I read in bed for a while; I yawned once, and I could actually taste the fetid air.

Thankfully, upon waking, my environs were much less malodorous.

***

Monday night, Cyrus and I went to a movie. Afterwards, it was my idea to go for ice cream. I don’t usually have much of a sweet tooth, but for some reason whenever we’re together I get these cravings eh? Analyze that one…

The ice cream place (which I’d never been to before) was staffed by two high school guys, both blond and wearing white slacks and t-shirts, one shorter and cuter, the other taller and gayer. A young woman was on duty too. The guys were goofing off with such merry rambunction that I almost hated to interrupt. The shorter, cuter one served me; he was friendly and patient with me as I took my sweet time deciding on a sundae: hot fudge on toffee ice cream, topped with whip cream and a cherry, no nuts. It was difficult not to swoon over his piercing blue eyes.

Cyrus and I sat down at the only available seating in the place, a wee counter which faced a mirrored wall. I didn’t really want to see every fucking line on my face as I pigged out. Cyrus hadn’t wanted any ice cream of his own, but he did accept a few spoonfed mouthfuls of mine. That started turning me on, and I wished I’d brought him and the sundae home so I could lick all that whip cream off choice spots on that lush anatomy. But it was late, and I had to work in the morning, and besides, we’d already had loads of fun earlier that afternoon.

As Cyrus and I were making goofy faces at each other in the mirror, the ice cream boys were getting more carried away, giggling and horsing around and whooping it up.

And then, thwack!

“Ouch!” exclaimed the short little hottie, mock frowning with dancing eyes. To his female colleague, he cried: “He spanked me!”

Let’s just say this announcement got my full and undivided attention.

Cyrus and I began whispering and giggling about the ice cream boys. I said I imagined the taller one was already out and proud, with a serious crush on his co-worker. Adding, “But the young spanked one: he probably doesn’t have much of a clue yet. I mean, he’s obviously delighted, but I don’t think he knows what it is that’s delighting him so.”

It all reminded me, I suddenly realized, of the first gay porno video I ever rented. The scenario was slightly similar: two blond boys were goofing off at work, and their older male boss catches them. As punishment, he puts the misbehaving employees over his knee and paddles them. The narrative unfolds from there. Rather predictably, of course, but back then for naïve little me, nothing was predictable in the visually graphic gay sex department.

***

Now, I’m not sure whether it was the boisterous eye candy behind the counter, or maybe being regaled by my reminiscences of porn movie plots (if you’ll permit me the oxymoron), or perhaps the spoon-fed dollops of hot fudge and whip cream. Whatever it was, Cyrus turned into an animal on the walk back to my place.

I’d made it clear I wouldn’t be inviting him in; it was time for me to get to bed, by which I meant ‘alone’.

We’d started holding hands a block and a half from my apartment; as we turned the corner, suddenly I was accosted by a panoply of gropes and fondles and deep kisses that caught me completely off guard. In a good way.

(The whole being gay in public thing is all fairly new for Cyrus, and he’s been shy about holding hands, etc. Or, so I thought…)

I mean, the force of this display was such that I got self-conscious, eh? That’s hilarious.

“I learned from the best,” he said, laughing at my flustered state.

I wasn’t just self-conscious. As we approached my building at the end of the block, I scoped out every nook or cranny in search of enough privacy and darkness to take this further. Cyrus knows full well my al fresco fetish, and oh my lord, I was provoked!

I didn’t find any nook suitable for nooky, not until we got right up to my place. The building has little-used, unlit walkways along both sides, and I’ve wanted to christen them since I moved in here. So I dragged Cyrus over to the west side, my heart racing at the prospect of ripping open his clothes moments later.

But wait, a voice inside me warned. I stopped cold, just before we entered the dark pathway. “Shit!”

“What?” Cyrus asked.

“What if we run into a skunk back there, eh?”

And that was the end of that.

I tell ya, those smelly beasts are out to ruin my sex life.