Risk Exposed

 
There were moments of extreme clarity amidst the swirling confusion of drugs, booze, and exposed cocks, but the moments weren't enough to actually snap him back into safety. They actually made the swirling and risk even more fun because it meant he was really loaded. He needed to be trashed. A black eye from a fight he broke up earlier ached as a reminder of the risks of his job. He reached out and grabbed the man next to him. All he wanted was to not be protected.

They walked to a back corner away from the prying eyes and heavy panting. Flashes of the flash mob descending on the cafeteria played like slides in his head. Mixed between the fists violently raised, screaming taut faces, and black and white uniforms were stills from skinhead bareback porn filled with bashings and rape fantasies. He pushed his companion against the wall and removed his pants. The man shocked by force hoped for more and pushed back. A young man, tears streaming down his face, in the middle of the mob screamed, and as he ran to his aid a kneed connected with his eye. He fell to his knees and opened his mouth.

There was more tossing and punches and flashes and anonymity. There were riskier risks and blacker blackness. He left crying and sticky.

A Good Clean Towel

  
I was drunk and desperate leading to impaired judgment and lowered expectations. He had been cruising me for years. Alarm bells rung every other time thanks to his standing-in-shadows staring. All I wanted was some rough, throw-me-around sex. The kind with bruises, bites, and pulled hair. My alarms ringing meant potential violence. Tonight, I stalked him.

The back ally of Powerhouse with its dim lights and smoke-laden air provided enough cover to try him out. He threw me against the wall and bit my neck. I moaned excited by the prospect of unintended consequences. He unzipped my pants assuming permission freely given. The tequila swirled in my head. Permission was gone that night replaced instead with instinct, need, and power. Momentarily, it was exactly what I wanted: escape beyond the boundaries of borders and control.

I followed him out of the bar to his car parked in the alley. He threw me against the rust and continued his forceful passion. I succumbed letting him push me into the messy car strewn with used napkins, bits of food, and stacks of text books. The smell inside was the first moment of recognition that something might be amiss. I opened the window, and we drove to his Alamo Square apartment.

The stench of rotting meals reached my nostrils as he opened his apartment door. I pretended it was the smell of stale tequila on my breath and entered dreaming only of the bed and hopeful for fisticuffs. I found both. The sex was disruptive-to-neighbors hard and loud and messy. The kind that requires a shower and clean towel. I only got the shower.

I stumbled towards the bathroom guided by a small path of empty floor. Magazines, journals, more scientific text books, clothes, empty chip bags were strewn beside the path. The dizziness of booze and sexual release made navigation amongst these obstacles nearly impossible. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the grimy bathroom and turned on the shower. The glaring florescent light amplified the dirt and mess and specks of toothpaste on the mirror and walls. More alarm bells were silenced by the pitter patter of water hitting my scalp and running down my back. He joined me in the shower for more sex and bruises.

The water turned off, it was time for the clean towel. Instead, he rummaged through the crisp, crunchy, crusty towels on the floor.

"This is the best I have," he said as he handed me a towel that once was white and now was a leopard print of coffee, cum, and piss-yellow stains. It was molded into the shape of discarded hope. I tried to dry myself, but the towel was so hard I only spread filth over my clean body.

The sheets crunched as I laid down. I put everything - the smells, the textures, the ache from the bruise on my arm, the dreams of more - from my head and fell asleep to him sitting up staring at me. I was woken up by his loud snoring and put my clothes back on. Quietly, I tried to exit. The alcohol worn off, the place was even a bigger mess. This night of uncontrolled, violent release was the only night we'd share. While not a neat freak, I needed a clean towel.

He woke up as I was opening the door. He wanted to see me again, to be animalistic again, to share a relationship. I only smiled and left.

He continued stalking me, but this time it was no longer kept to the shadows and alleys and back rooms. It was open and hostile filled with longing stares that lasted past the point of comfort and to the point of invasion and uninvited touches all over my body. At first I was polite smiling and accepting his advances but clearly defining boundaries by stepping backwards and pushing hands away. He didn't understand these subtle signals, so I moved to a more direct approach: telling him to "fuck off", my default phrase for assholes.  That didn't work either. He heard it more as a challenge, so his advances became even more intense.

Finally, one Sunday afternoon at The Eagle, I had enough. He had been following me for hours, and the packed Beer Bust provided cover and excuses for his staring and "accidental" fondling as he tried to squeeze by me. On one pass, he tried to start a conversation. It was my opening.

"Stop fucking stalking me. I will never sleep with you again. You couldn't even offer me a clean towel. Go away and leave me alone! You have no chance in hell. You're filthy!"

He finally moved on.

And I still have a very deep appreciation for clean towels.

The Not So Silent Signs

He came all over my retainer when I was 11. Right after, my dad caught us doing the deed. None of us have ever spoken about the incident ever again. These are the not so silent signs that your life is queer.

First Grade Fondle

   
We first fondled each other when we were in kindergarten or the first grade at a sleepover when everyone else was asleep. I was excited. He was excited. It felt good.

We continued fondling each other through the eighth grade. Then puberty stopped it. It was no longer childhood innocence and exploration. It was sex and sin.

We ended up at the same college. One afternoon, he knocked on my door and asked to talk. He wondered if what we did as children made him gay. I said, "No. It was just childhood innocence and exploration." He smiled and asked me not to talk about it ever again. And we never spoke of it or to each other again.

My First Gay Kiss

 
He wasn't my first boy-boy kiss. He was my first gay kiss. I was researching a project on LGBTQ discrimination for a sociology class and ended up at the queer center at the University of Minnesota. He was the receptionist or something like that.

We sat on the couch in the lobby surrounded by windows passionately making out. In retrospect, our degree of making out on that couch was tacky. At the time, it was hot. We were both exhibitionists.
We exchanged numbers, and eventually I went over to his house to continue our passion. I mistook passion for love.

He opened the door and led me upstairs. We immediately picked up where we left off. Suddenly, he was on top of me, condom over his prick, my pants around my ankles, ass in the air.

"No. No! NO!" I screamed.

He didn't listen. My ass burned. It was my first time.

I wish I turned and slapped him.

Hot Tub Terror

 
The hot tub was large filled with tepid water and small coves for hook-ups. The lights were dim covering everything in a fog that blurred distinguishing features. The music was typical gay house music played at a level that made conversing impossible. None of us were there to talk.

He approached me from across the hot tub. He wasn't the first of the night or the last in the hot tub.

We kissed and caressed. He slipped inside me. His cock unsheathed. He came and slipped out.

I waded over to another cove shaking. Everything I knew about safer sex gone. I was in ecstatic terror.

It took me months before I could muster the strength to get tested.

Tighty Whities

 
I've only been paid for sex a handful of times. I've had sex for food, drugs, and booze more often. There is something about the exchange of money that made and makes me uncomfortable. I am always uncomfortable around money.

We answered an ad on Craigslist. He wanted a couple with a bisexual man. He was willing to pay a lot of money for me to put on some tighty-whities and fondle me as she watched whispering forcefully in his ear. He was older, discreet, not gay, full of turmoil. We were desperately poor and needed some spare cash. Halloween was approaching. Marilyn and Ling needed some new clothes and make-up.

We drove to Albany late that night when there were barely any cars on the Bay Bridge. His apartment complex was a left over from the 60s or 70s with lots of mirrors, glass, gold, brass, and chandeliers. I caught my reflection looking tired, stressed, strained. She was tentative and reserved. We rode the elevator up to his apartment surrounded by these reflections, unable to escape until the doors opened and they greeted us in the lobby of the twelth floor. We were in a maze of mirrors constantly reminded of the distortion of these events.

I knocked on the door, and he opened revealing a pitch black room. He was even older than he told us, somewhere in his 70s.

"Put these on," and he hel out a pair fo 36" Fruit of the Looms. I took them to the bathroom, stripped down, and obliged. I was a 28" waist. They were saggy and looked like a cloth diaper.

The apartment was sparsely furnished. Only a futon lay on the floor of the bedroom. He was in the same Fruit of the Looms patting the large, hard pillow.

"Don't touch me," were his only instructions to me. "Tell me how dirty I am," were his instructions to her.

About 20 minutes later, we were done. He handed us around $200 and said "I don't live here. don't even thing about coming back." We left.

I kept the Fruit of the Looms until I fit in to them. Then, I threw them away.