VIII: TOUCH

Barry, my boyfriend (well sort of; more like erotic obsession), went to Japan in March 1989 to teach English as a second language. His (real) boyfriend joined him there, but they broke up. Barry complained of not getting laid, having poor luck in Tokyo's tiny gay bars. In my letters I hoped to urge him on (and to flirt) by telling bar tales of my own.

This is one, from a letter dated Saturday, June 24, 1989. It followed a bit about going to a too polite garden party the Sunday before.

I'm into talk, real talk like the kind I could have with you after a few beers, not forced social grooming language. In the end I went to The Toolbox. (Not much there either, but what the heck.)

Mind you, there was some of that at The Barn last Tuesday, the 13th -- three years exactly from the night I first met you there (OK, so you don't like anniversaries, I know). It was quiet (it was Tuesday...) and I wasn't really looking -- but suddenly at the end of a cigarette I'd just pulled from the pack and put to my lips a lighter flashed.

Oh god, who is this and what does he want....

Who was called Bill, and what was someone to talk to -- because he had (gulp) never been in a gay bar before.

A very serious if overanxious little man he was: earnest NDP politics; just out of the army; didn't smile for the first half hour -- and when he did I said "Hey! That's nice!" and chucked him on the chin and he was embarrassed.

We talked politics (well, why not?) and AIDS and that let me let him know about my HIV status, and he was flabbergasted but somehow not scared off. "Wow, it must take so much courage," he said, and I said it didn't really feel like that, after a while it's just normal life -- and he stopped, and gulped, and gave me this quick peck on the cheek and said "I've never done that before, either."

Twenty two years old, he told me, with a six year old son....

I didn't really have a good sense of him physically but for his short stature and curly brown hair; his clothes were too baggy to judge much else and -- more to the point -- I hadn't even noticed him until he flicked his Bic at me. So there was no lust at a distance, no longing fulfilled by his attention.

But there was, for sure, all this attention, all this talk, and even though I wasn't sure I wanted anything else, when the music died and he said "I guess they're trying to kick us out," I said we could go to my place and talk more.

And we did. Until 3:30. He told me he'd had sex with guys but had never slept with one.

When he said it was time to go, I said: "How about if I hold onto you for ten minutes and then you go." (You know that ploy....) And he said, "I guess that'd be interesting."

It sure was. He didn't leave until 5:00. Before that he'd got all my clothes off but kept his pants on -- when I tried to undo them he'd say "No, no, I want to do this at my own speed."

And what a speed: slow; sensual; delicate kisses; arching his body as I licked his neck, his armpits, his chest -- such a chest, beautifully developed but boy smooth -- his stomach, smelling so good; letting me tickle with my tongue just the bit of groin I could find by stretching down the top of his jeans and stretching up the leg band of his briefs, tender skin between denim and cotton.

I'd put my arm between his legs, reach up and hold him by the small of the back and he'd press into me, purring, kissing, seeking.

I brushed a finger against his lips and he caught it, then two, then all of them in his mouth, sucking them all the way to the back of his throat, going down on my hand and jerking my cock at the same time. But I didn't want to come without him and he never did.

He fell asleep with my head on his wondrous tits, his heart in my ear. After a while I looked up at his face -- what sweet trust there is in the face of a man asleep -- and said "Billy?" And he started, and looked, and said "Ricky" (not Rick, the only name I'd told him) and put his arm around me.

Twice he'd asked if I'd take his phone number and as he was leaving I did. But when I tried it, twice in the next two days, I got someone who wasn't him and who didn't know anyone called Bill.

Maybe a mistake, maybe not. And if not, I understand why. Still, he's got my numbers, work and home, and who knows?

So, not just a fuck -- not a fuck at all, strictly speaking. But unlike every fuck (loosely speaking) since you, he stayed in my head for a while, preoccupied me. There was something there, a directness and honesty that seemed real to me even given the possible dishonesty of the phone number.

I don't know -- I guess I'm just tired of over cultured middle class types wearing their predictable, stylish angst on their sleeves. I've been telling people I've had enough of boys who think they're special because they have feelings, messy sensitivities, boys who'll take a fuck but won't take any risks -- who are, as a result, fucked up fucks. Boring fucks.

This boy, in his funny way, was a man, and the man he was in bed is, I'd like to believe, something close to the man he really is.

Maybe I'll find out. And maybe not.

And beyond that of course, I simply liked him.

For tales of another wondrous boy with "odd" desires found late one night in a bar, see "Steve / Scott of The Pantyhose," in Other Angels.

Next episode: IX: Vagabond

Go back to: Preface

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Christmas Day, 2000 / Last revised: July 15, 2003
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