I have been traveling all over the country with a film shoot for the past two weeks. It has been the single worst traveling experience of my entire life. It‘s been like Road Trip meets the first fifteen minutes of Saving Private Ryan with “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” playing on loop as the soundtrack.
In the past two weeks, I had my lap top bag stolen out of a cargo van (the lap top contained everything I had ever written. Ask me if I backed it up? I did. The back-up was in my bag.) I lost my grandfather’s lucky ring in another city. A crew member had a death in the family. A hotel in another city lost my dry cleaning. And I also discovered that the asshole who stole my computer ran up five hundred dollars in iTune purchases.
I’ve been pretty positive about everything. In fact, I’ve been damned near zen about the entire experience. When I discovered the lap top (along with my keys and iPod) had been stolen, I said, “well… it’s just stuff. That’s why people have insurance. And I can recreate the writings. I can get a better iPod. I have a spare car key and I can get a new house key cut.”
When my dry cleaning went missing I said, “well I wore those shirts for a long time and now I have an excuse to go shopping.” I concluded that Visa would help me with the purchases and my bank cut off my checking account.
The death reminded me how precious life is and what is most important to me. I bought a new computer, a new iPod and I got my music back. When I lost my grandfather’s lucky ring, I was very upset at first, but I got to the point where I was very Nicholas Sparks about the whole thing. He found it in some change when he came back from World War II. It brought him luck. It brought me luck. Now it will bring someone else luck.
I’m just not sure how much longer I can hold up trying to be a little ray of light.
When we last left off, I had just seen Chris, my ex from eight and a half years ago. It was awful. I felt like I had spent the day with a pod person.
It didn’t help that during the shoot, we spent three days in the city where Chris was currently living with his new girlfriend. I didn’t tell him I was in town. I went from seeing Chris in Los Angeles to being in Boston, the same town where Adam grew up and lived most of his life.
If Chris was the “first” one, Adam was the most important “one.” Adam and I had such an unusual relationship that it would take an entire book to explain.
We hadn’t seen each other in three years. The last time we did, it ended in a showdown at midnight in a Dunkin’ Donuts near Boston. I’m still very close to his sister and mother (which he loathes). I’ve never had a connection with anyone like I had with Adam. We had that almost psychic link that you know what they are thinking three thousand miles away. I could read him like “Green Eggs and Ham.”
After the Boston shoot, we found ourselves in New York, where Adam currently lives with his new partner. I felt like I was visiting the haunted stomping grounds of the men who had meant the most to me in my journey as a gay man. The ones who I loved the most and the ones who hurt me the most.
You can’t help but think, “this is where he grew up.” “This is where Adam had breakfast every morning.” “That’s the subway stop he goes up and down every day.” “And that’s the street he lives on now, where he has sex on a regular basis with his new partner.”
But this column isn’t about Adam or Chris. In fact, I don’t know the name of the man for whom this column is about. There were no names. That was the point.
My countrywide tour ended with a few pick-up shots in Chicago, which has to be the most beautiful city in all the land. I can’t believe my friends who grew up there never told me how beautiful and clean it is. With all that had happened… included but not limited to robberies, deaths, losing things… I needed to get laid. I needed hardcore, unadulterated, raw, naked, man on man action. I needed it like Halle Berry in Monster's Ball. I needed to feel good. I needed to feel good. And I needed someone to make me feel good.
I was on the phone with my dear friend Kitty while the taxi drove me from my hotel to “boys town.” I explained to her, “I’m on a mission. I am going to have sex with a total stranger.” She was concerned that I had been drinking, as I normally don’t do something like this. I’m usually far more passive with my lusts. I haven’t gone after someone, snapped my fingers and said, “follow me” in a long time. I also explained that I’ve been on this damned shoot for two weeks and my column was due Wednesday and I really couldn’t take my editor sending me e-mails asking “where is your column? It was due yesterday.” So I needed material.
I needed to get off and I needed to write. So this was really about work. As Dylan Vox says, “It’s always work doing pleasure with you.”
The cab dropped me off. Since I hadn’t done this kind of thing in a while, I had to remind myself how it’s done.
I remembered that line from Memoirs of a Geisha: “a true geisha can stop a man in her tracks with a single glance.” Kitty asked if that worked for the geisha and I said, “duh, she had memoirs.”
While on my jaunt up Halstead, I stopped six men in their tracks. Two double backed around. One smiled and said “hi.” One had really bad breath. One was actually a lesbian and the last one asked me if I had seen his boyfriend. I gave up. This whole “in the field” seduction thing was too much work.
I decided rather than walk around and window shop, I’d just order on-line and have it delivered to my room. So I hit up the one website that allows you to find a job, sell your futon, buy a collectible elephant figurine, find an apartment and find a naked companion for the evening. Craigslist.
I’m not a prude by any stretch of the human imagination, but I do have my turn ons and turn offs. Like I’m not attracted to a photo of wide spread ass cheeks or just simply a flaccid penis. That’s probably not a normal gay trait. I need to see a guy’s face. A good face trumps a smaller dick in my book every day. You can have a huge dick, but if you look like that Leatherface, you’re not getting up on this.
I’m also not into anything involving the words “pissing,” “piggy” or “pnp.” I’ve already discussed the whole internet sex trade with Connexion.org. Connexion disguises itself as a dating site. A coy “let’s grab coffee” can turn to “my address is” in four easy exchanges back and forth. When you go to Craigslist.org, you know what you are looking for. There’s no “what’s up?” with a smiley. With Craigslist the first question is simply, “stats?”
As a rule, I don’t send nude pictures of myself. Not since that incident in 1998 when my high school English teacher wrote back, “Alex? Is that you?!” I figure at least a face pic can be easily explained later as “someone used my picture.” It’s far more difficult to explain why you are standing in your bathroom mirror holding your hard and throbbing dick in one hand and a cheap digital camera in the other. And as I’ve said before, it’s not a good idea to include that with the caption, “rape my manhole” because those pictures get around once you’ve been recognized.
My request was specific. I wanted someone to come to my hotel for naked fun. Safe only. Drug and Disease free. HIV negative. Making out, massage, body contact. You get the picture. No names. No questions. No mention of significant others. I don’t judge people in open relationships. I don’t judge people who cheat. But I don’t like to share or be shared.
After Chris, I would shut down if I was with someone and discovered they were in a relationship. Some of my suitors asked me if they could suck me off while wearing tennis shoes. Some asked if they could eat my “man pussy.” Again, I’m not a prude. Just don’t call my hot pocket a “man pussy.”
I finally settled on a man who claimed he was 5’10”. He was a runner and did yoga. He had a nice body. He described himself as a “suit and tie” guy. He finally sent a face pic as requested. He wasn’t George Clooney, but he would do at a quarter ‘till midnight.
He arrived. He was not 5’10”. He may have been the tallest hobbit in the shire, but he was still a hobbit. And he was wearing a suit and tie. There was the awkward moment of small talk. “Oh, wow, you really are a suit and tie guy.” I took his jacket. I offered him water. He took a sip, stared at me and I thought, great, I’m going to have to do everything.
I was staying in the corner room of a new high-rise boutique hotel in downtown. My room had wraparound floor to ceiling glass windows. Standing in the room, it felt like you were standing in midair. The room faced a high-rise condo building across the street. We were so close, I could watch Saturday Night Live from the television across the street and read Tina Fey’s lips. There were about 30 other buildings with windows facing mine. Not only was the entire bedroom in view, but the shower was behind glass as well.
I estimate that about four to five thousand people could have caught 'The Alex Fergusen Sex Show" that night. So with the lights on, Duffy playing softly from the speakers and the blinds pulled up, I pushed him onto the bed.
I think the last time I did an on-line hook-up, an intern got Presidential spooge on her nice Gap dress. Hook-ups served their purpose for me in my youth. Get in, get off, get out. But that got old. I got old. I didn’t want “just sex” and I wanted something with more substance. I was evolving. I was maturing. I was growing. And never mind the possibility of catching a disease, you honestly never know if the trick on the other side of that door is a serial killer. So I was also paranoid. And frankly, with the trip I was on, it wouldn’t have surprised me if I had ended up in plastic bags all around Chicago.
This was nothing more than a naked wrestling match with scratching, clawing, biting. Bodies being thrown on and off the bed, onto the floor, against the glass windows. There was one point when I thought “this is how I’m going to die. Crashing out the window of a hotel window and landing on State Street in a bloody, naked mess.” It was Fight Club meets Basic Instinct. We hurled bodies all around the room, onto desks and counters. We both had strong legs that interlocked and stretched and pulled. Arms that intertwined and pulled and twisted in ways God never intended. Was I attracted to him? No, not really. But I think in some sick, masochist way, I just wanted him to beat the hurt, stress and angst out of me. I wanted to get over Chris. I wanted to forget I ever met Adam. And I wanted What’s His Name to hurt me so bad that it would feel so good.
Two hours after the show had started, I was ready to call it a night. But What’s His Name just couldn’t seem to well… finish. I did everything. And I mean everything. I had to dig up old tricks from the recesses of my brain. Nothing seemed to work. I finally gave up, and coyly whisped in his ear, “I want to watch.” Read: “Bitch, do it yourself cause my hand is tired and I‘ve got a flight to catch in five hours.” He straddled my chest. And I watched. And watched. And watched. His face contorted and strained. His eyes squeezed tight as he yanked and yanked. It wasn’t pretty.
I rolled my head, looking out the window. I caught glimpse of someone across the street hiding in the dark, watching. I mouthed, “Are you as bored as I am?” Caught, my audience quickly dropped their blinds. Finally, with a battle cry that made Mel Gibson’s performance in Braveheart look like community theater, he finished. On my chest. Which was, well… I guess it would have been hot if I had been attracted to him. I don’t know where I thought it was going. Instead I was like, “oh. Wow. Thanks. Sticky.” And he rolled off me. He was done. Done. And Little Alex was pissed. So to speak.
“That was great,” he moaned. “Oh, you’re done,” one of those questions that sounds like a question, but isn’t. I wiped his
I scrubbed off his remains and dressed. “Well, thanks, this was fun.” (“FOR YOU!” I wanted to scream.)
As he dressed, he checked his cell phone and softly said, “damn.”
When I asked what was wrong, he said, “my boyfriend called three times.”
You see darlin’, you
I opened the door and held it as he collected all his belongings. I closed the door, looked outside the windows and took a bow. I can’t say much for him, but my performance was worthy of a Tony. Or at least a Gavyn.
I walked across the street to the 7 Eleven and bought a pint of Haagen Daas and a few minutes later, finished myself off in front of Anderson Cooper with coffee ice cream and a plastic spoon. That’s right. I got my groove back with A.C. and 1,080 calories coursing through my veins.
Someday I hope to find a man who I can say, “I’ve found a man with whom sex is better than coffee ice cream.”
Another suitcase in another hall. Take your picture off another wall. Where am I going to? I’ll get by I always have before. Where am I going to?
He’s out there somewhere.
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