OK. I'm pushy. I'm an abrasive, irritating, know-it-all. 'Asshole', I guess would be an appropriate - strike that, PERFECT - term for me.
I'm that guy at the party you see talking in the corner, wearing a beatific smile of intellectual arrogance you want to beat into jelly. Then, as the evening wears on, I become louder and louder, drowning out everyone else. At some point, you either want to kill me or do so.
I'm still alive, so you missed.
Sometimes, I get thrown out. But... dammit... I make my point
And I can be hurt. Bad.
Some time ago, I managed an apartment building in San Francisco. It was on the frontiers of the Castro, toward downtown, and most of the residents were gay, like me, or were heading for the hills. The Castro was in that "transitional" phase moving from Irish-Catholic working class to Hungry Man.
There was a collection of youngsters, also, who came and went - students at surrounding universities like Berkeley, easily accessible by then-new BART train. Some were gay, most were straight, and all of them short-termers. They avidly took advantage of rents that were still low around Upper Market neighborhoods.
Boy, did that change...
Anyway, one day this kid moves in who looks real good. Lean, tanned, blond - a gangly yet somehow graceful guy I took to be early-20s, but found out to my amazement was only 18. He was attending school at UCSF, the medical school above the Haight, learning to be a nurse, of all things.
Something about him told me he was a straight as they come, but he had an infectious enthusiasm and charming naivete I usually found absolutely grating but in him was... cute.
There was very little about him that wasn't cute, in fact. His body was covered with nothing more than peach-fuzz, the same blond as his head, so it blended away into his skin in a way that made him seem almost feminine. High cheekbones, happy blue eyes that squinted when he smiled. A big dimple in his chin.
Terry was gorgeous. The kind of natural sexy that's impossible to fake. But something even more attractive about him was that he wasn't a bit put-on or arrogant about it. He really was friendly and caring. In big cities, in this country, many times that's taken for dumb, and he certainly wasn't that, either. In fact, it amused him that some took him that way.
After I helped him move in, and he helped me paint an apartment for showing, Terry and I became pretty good pals.
Sometimes, when I went to the roof for my daily sunbath, he'd be there, stretched out irresistably naked. When I sat down beside him, he'd roll over and put on some of drudgy boxer-style swim trunks. He was honest about being bashful, telling me he was from the conservative Midwest. Nevertheless, he seemed at ease with me, even when I stripped down to bust-out nakedness and sat on my towel like a paunchy, bearded Buddha. At first, he was reluctant to let me oil his back, but finally relented. I was careful not to get carried away as I spread lotion over his warm, tawny skin. Everything businesslike, I'd tell myself, never drifting too low on his hips, never getting to suggestive with my touch.
Occasionally, when I'd approach the roof and see him there, alone and naked, I'd pause to watch him awhile. He lay in the sun with utter abandon, unaware of how delectable he appeared in the sheen of tanning oil. More fit than athletic. Firm shoulders and upper arms, same for pecs. But a kind of arousing fragility began to set in around his nipples. Somewhat more prominent than usual, they appeared flush and supple, dotted with the central nubbins, little cylinders of flesh. They were extraordinarily... perky for his sex. And as torso dropped lower, it seemed to become more delicate. Not so much soft as tender. Long lean belly, slightly mounded in an alluring way, punctured by the gaping socket of his navel. A sensual sinkhole poked into smooth abdomen, it riveted attention simply by its size - a sexy recess so pronounced it seemed to wound his belly with vulnerability.
And I think he was aware of me watching him; I could tell he was growing to like my attention. Maybe it was imagination, but it seemed at times he proffered his body to me. He'd arch his back slightly, toward the sun in absolute surrender, the smooth bow of chest and belly a dazzling prize. He made breathing a hard-on.
I had no real designs on him. But I was beginning to like Terry. He had a real no-nonsense kind of approach to problems and was, for lack of a better term, nurturing. He helped me through a summer cold, and soothed a bad sunburn with red cider vinegar, believe it or not. And his shyness was somehow alluring, too. I comforted myself that I was a big-brother figure, even though I knew in my heart my emotions were setting me up for what could be a huge fall. As the summer wore on, I began to wonder if I was developing a crush on him. And, of course, I wondered how he felt.
Since we were in a sunny part of town, on the fringe of the Mission, we got a lot of sunshine in that foggy city. We spent a lot of time on the roof, and gradually, as we got to know one another, Terry began wearing less and less. First smaller trunks, then a brief Speedo. Finally, he was down to bikini underwear that seemed to get successively more miniscule.
I couldn't take my eyes off him.
When he'd get up to retrieve a drink from a cooler or just survey the city splayed out below, I'd drink him in. Sometimes resting on an elbow, ogling him behind my shades, I'd consider attacking him with a kiss. We'd lay side by side, our upper arms pressing together, our sweat intermingling there. Once in intimate conversation, I felt him trembling when our talk turned sexual. He told me he was straight. Then he said something odd: "Gay sex is for the brave."
Without much thought, I categorized Terry. He was just friendly eye candy. That's all. I tried not to think of him when he was out of sight, and mostly I was successful.
Then I saw the photographs.
Walking downtown, I passed a camera shop with a large poster in front advertising an exhibit by a well-known, avant-garde photographer. The poster was illustrated with a huge black and white photo of what looked like two men posed in rough sex play.
With an almost sledge-hammer jolt, I realized one of them was Terry.
He was kneeling in the foreground on what looked like an endless field of black vinyl, wearing only a pair of black-leather chaps slung so low most of his pubic hair was exposed. Terry's very familiar mid-section arched out in surrender. A naked man behind him gripped his arms to his sides and was sucking on his neck, vampire style. Terry's head was turned upward in what looked like terror - or ecstasy - and for a long time I couldn't tell if it was him or not. But as much as I tried to deny it, I knew it had to be.
Another guy came up and gave a low whistle and jealousy washed over me. I was about to turn, to shake it all off, when I saw it: a tiny mole just beside his left nipple.
No doubt now. It was Terry.
The long stalk of his body seemed to glisten with sweat or oil. This is an innocent seduced, the photo screamed. In shadowed perfection was the midline of his torso, running from the bottom of his neck, between his pecs, through the small of his stomach and down the smooth plane of his abdomen to infinity - a furrow broken only by the fragile cavity of his unprotected navel.
So... I took in the show. Photo after photo of grinding bodies, and, finally, another of Terry; this one in full color, shocking in its naked intimacy, but relaxed, almost innocent. He looks down, one arm up as if he was scratching the back of his neck. His trousers are splayed open and his naked torso bursts out of them as he leans against a doorjamb. He seems at once unaware and beckoning.
I was furious. I raged for hours. Finally, I realized the futility of it. I was angry at Terry the same way I would be had he betrayed me with another man, but he wasn't a lover. We weren't intimate. I didn't own him. Yet the obsession wouldn't cool. I found myself going back again and again to the photo shop. It seemed each time I did, I found something new in the image, like his attacker's finger extending to press into Terry's nipple. His nakedness seemed to ripple, inviting violation.
The next time I encountered him on the roof, I guess my feelings gave me away. He asked me what was wrong. First I denied anything was wrong. After a moment, he let it go. He chattered on about how, as he lay in the sun, soaking up the rays, he felt a new, direct warmth in his body. The sun seemed to pour over him, filling every part of his body with moist, warm heat. He began to see his body as a map of jumbled wiring with the most senistive spots - where nerves clustered in sensitive readiness - centered in anatomy that either jutted out or sank into depressed hollows. A knee, or the bowl-like dimpling at the bottom of his throat, suddenly became rich in erotic sensation.
I growled him silent, since the monologue was beginning to get to me. I begrudged the sun for working him over the same way I wanted to.
He asked me if I'd like a backrub. I hesitated a moment without really knowing why. Terry gave great backrubs, covering almost everything, but concentrating on the back, of course, and never straying down to my bare buttocks. His touch was... magic.
That day, he began working my shoulders, sitting on his calves, his knees bookending my head. My sunglasses shielded my eyes as I studied his belly only a few inches from my face. As he pressed the heels of his palms into my shoulders, his body bowed out slightly, arching toward me, and he made slight grunts of effort. His tawny skin had a light sheen of sweat in the warm sun. I stared into the pit of his navel, that erogenous basin that so enticingly marked his abdomen. In a rounded v-shape, it was an impossibly sexy inverted triangle. It was shallow enough to see a tiny bud of flesh at its pit, deep enough to require thorough exploration. Just about perfect, and it was all I could do to keep from spearing it right then.
"May I join you?"
We both were startled at Diego's voice. He sat down and began rubbing his beefy body with oil, chatting happily. We chatted back. I was grateful for the chance to break away from my flesh fantasies. We talked about beer, we talked about sports. And... we talked about sex. At one point, Diego mentioned that he'd seen the photographs of Terry as well.
"They were incredible," he said, burning a gaze through Terry.
Shifting a little, nervously, Terry explained the photographer literally had snatched him off a streetcorner and offered him $500. How could he refuse? Besides, he noted, it was an ego trip to be considered so attractive to be a model. Sexy is more like it, Diego replied. Terry smiled. It may have been my imagination, but I thought I saw their eyes lock a moment.
There were times, studying the photo, when I considered Terry may have been into some... scene somewhere. Orgies. Men. I tried not to go there, since the idea of other men fucking him, especially in some Babylon nightmare, almost drove me over the edge.
