Monthly Archives: December 2002

[Milksop still here, but barely.]

The downside of all this intensity, of course, is I end up feeling not unlike Jennifer Connelly in Requiem For a Dream. Which means I should take home the Oscar next year.

The upside is I seem to have lost almost five pounds.

Why is it anything seems justified if it results in weight loss?

[A much more rested Milksop here. Faustus still at large…]

Since I have no idea where to begin this story, I think I’ll begin in medias res.

There are three guys, lying on the floor naked, but then again, everyone is, so there you go. The Puerto Rican guy has “I Am Beautiful” tattooed on his arm, and all I can think of is the new Christina Aguilera song. Another guy, Lucky Brand underwear around his ankles (“What can I say? I like the feeling of underwear around my ankles…”) is on the receiving end of what might just prove to be the longest blowjob in the history of the art form. (It went on, not kidding, for almost four hours while I was there. And they were still at it when I left.) The third guy – the minister of said blow job – is an Unbelievably Tall Guy with a skin condition on his legs and a jaw apparently made of rubber. He rests only once that I witness, when his knees start to hurt. (Lucky Underwear applies actual Ben Gay to Unbelievably Tall Guy’s legs when this happens, a gesture I find oddly touching.) I like to think they’re still at it even now, a full 36 hours later. “I Am Beautiful” and Lucky Underwear arm in arm, discussing Jackie Kennedy, and Unbelievably Tall Guy just going down, going down, going down…

Welcome to my first after-hours.

There really isn’t a whole lot of difference between an orgy and an after-hours, although I think after-hours tend to have more drugs. Certainly, everybody I encounter is tweaking. (Appropriately enough, given the “I Am Beautiful” tattoo, the primary highway of choice here seems to be ‘Tina.) To give you an idea of the scope, probably about 30 or 40 guys wander through during the 15 hours (15 hours!) I am there. However, with everyone generally piled on top of one another, the one-bedroom apartment of the host (and drug dealer, I’d venture a guess) does not feel overcrowded.

I arrive at midnight. I have never done anything remotely like this before. I mean, I’ve been stinkin’ drunk on occasions, and I’ve gone to stranger’s apartments looking for sex, and once I even ate a pot brownie. But I’m generally a clean living Sodomite. And this is utterly outside my realm of experience. So much so that writing about it now feels strangely like fiction.

There’s no way I can give this experience any sort of an arc, so I think a more Dada approach is called for. (That’s “Dada” not “Daddy.” Otherwise, we’re talking a completely different kind of after-hours.)

Around 8 in the morning, a Frizzy Blond Southern Boy arrives. He says little by way of introduction, but proceeds to strip down and give himself a “Booty Bump.” This is a complex procedure involving a plastic syringe-like, turkey-baster implement filled with liquid ‘Tina. (I think. Most of this I glean from other people’s conversations. At no point is a pamphlet or glossary distributed. Although, for all his ingenuity, the Drug Dealer/Host could teach one hell of a course at the New School.) The Frizzy Blond Southern Boy inserts this plastic syringe-like, turkey-baster implement into his own ass, and fills himself quite literally to the brim with the liquid T. The turkey-baster, however, once inserted, doesn’t want to be removed. After struggling for several uncomfortable minutes, the Drug Dealer/Host comes to the rescue. An actual round of applause erupts from the onlookers as the Frizzy Blond Southern Boy is unhoisted from his own petard.

There are not one, but two birthday boys in the house. One wants to bottom for me. One wants to top me. Both (at different points) ask me to leave with them. There just might be something to that whole Zodiac thing after all. (I decline to leave with either, incidentally, out of some strange fealty towards the Drug Dealer/Host and his minions who have taken me so generously under their collective wing.)

The shower is in constant use. There is an enema-like hose attachment, for, I suppose, the ill-prepared. Most boys shower quickly upon arrival or before departure. (A kind of decompression chamber, if you will.) One boy arrives at the party, spends slightly over an hour in the shower alone, then leaves. During this extended scrubbing down, men actually resort to peeing in empty Gatorade bottles. (Gatorade abounds. Something about the electrolytes, I gather. Whatever the reason, I stay away from all Gatorade for the remains of the day.)

The phone does not stop ringing. (“I Dream of Jeannie.”) The highest turnover rate is definitely after the bars close (4 in the morning-ish) and post-brunch (1 in the afternoon, I have no idea why). For some reason, I am not on everyone else’s timetable. When I arrive around midnight, there are three guys there, plus two napping in the “No Sex Allowed” bedroom. (Said bedroom is also sans bed.) When I depart, around 3 in the afternoon, I am definitely the only one on my way out the door. In fact, as far as I can see, this party only tends to grow. Very few people leave, but a relatively steady stream arrives and stays and stays and stays. Roaches check in, but they don’t check out.

One boy, napping when I arrive, tries for awhile to fuck me, then abandons that quest for the internet. He is obsessed with internet chat rooms, although he is so high he can barely type or work the computer. (I cannot say why, but he always turns to me for help when he cannot do something extremely technological like, say, open Internet Explorer.) Throughout the course of the evening, the Internet Boy lures 5 or 6 various boys from various chat rooms, only to discard them once they arrive so he can go look for the next one. Fortunately, his taste is consistent, and his reject pile, almost to a man, ends up into and all over each other. When life hands you lemons …

‘Tina is irony in powder form. (“Tina’s such a bitch” I hear more than once.) She makes you soooooooo horny, and hyper-sensitive, but then, nine times out of ten (by my crude reckoning) takes away your ability to have an erection. (It’s like rain on your wedding day…) The three or four boys who can maintain wood are not only popular, but essential. They are oxygen. They are unbelievably busy.

Safe sex is not only absent, but alarmingly so. (Footnote: I make no judgments on this issue. I strongly believe that anyone has the right to put anything in their bodies they see fit, rubberized or not.) Two different times I inquire two different potential suitors about condom-age. Both fellows are eager to comply, but I end up feeling rather like a teacher giving out homework on the day before Christmas vacation.

A Rugged Spaniard (from actual Spain) enters around noon, lured and abandoned by the Internet Boy. He is unspeakably beautiful, and, as he is Spanish, is drawn to me. (I have learned over time that, for a white boy, I got back. And say what you will, this renders me as popular as J-Lo in gay Hispanic circles.) He follows me around for nearly two hours, repeating “I am yours.” Yada, yada, yada … He gets paged by his hospital (he’s a cardiologist, but asks me to not tell any… whoops…) and has to leave. He tells me he wants to see me again. He tells me he wants to fuck me, but he also wants to make love to me. (Actual quote.) He tells me his dream is to have a three-way relationship, and he wants me to be one of his boyfriends. And, as appealing as most of this sounds, it’s all a little much for me (it’s a sex party, after all, and what an impossibly awkward “Meet Cute” story to tell the grandkids…) and I give him a bogus e-mail. (Footnote: There is not a direct cause/effect relationship here. I actually didn’t realize I gave him a bogus e-mail until after he had left. Swear to God. But two minutes after he was out the door, my over-tired, over-accelerated brain processed that the e-mail I had given him was bogus. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. And I’m not sure what all this portends, but as I also believe that there are no accidents, I’m gonna assume it’s all part of some grand design.)

Last story: Porn plays endlessly on the crappy TV. Everyone is glued to the porn at all times, even when the exact same sex act is being performed in front of the TV. (It’s similar to the sensation of going to a concert, and only being able to watch the large screen projection hanging above the stage.) Nobody can figure out the VCR, and as I’ve already proven my resourcefulness in regards to the internet, every time a tape ends, the room looks to me for help. This makes me feel like Gandalf. When I do decide to finally leave, the Drug Dealer/Host corners me to thank me “for all I did for the party.” He then gives me a price list, in case I ever “need anything.” I suddenly am overwhelmed with the reality that there is a gay agenda, and it’s remarkably similar to a tupperware party. Leaving without buying anything is certainly frowned upon. I slip him $40. (Is this enough? How come there’s a cover charge at the exit door? Is this why nobody leaves?) The Drug Dealer/Host also tells me he can tell I’m a good guy, and asks for my contact info, which he enters into his computer. Being a seasoned liar, I change just enough digits so as to render me, thankfully, out of the loop. I do, however, inexplicably give him my actual cell phone number. Why I always choose to lie when I oughta be truthin’ (and vice-versa) is beyond my comprehension. But every time my cell phone rings, I wonder if it’s someone from the endless after-hours, wanting me to come back over and change the videotape.

[Milksop here, still subbing for Faustus.]

All I have to say is that I had the wildest night of my ENTIRE LIFE last night. I also think it is dangerous to write about it right now. So consider this the world’s shortest blog entry, which is really a preface to tomorrow, the world’s longest blog entry.

Must sleep now. Tune in tomorrow.

[Faustus has expressed some concern that his soul mate might fall in love with the wrong blogger, so … be warned, soul mate. This is Milksop speaking. I think we might be allowed to mess around, but Faustus has clearly put the whole true love thing off limits. Whatever.]

I am newly bespectacled.

This is much more enormous than it seems, as I today realized I have had four (count ’em … four) pairs of prescription eyewear in my entire life. My first pair of glasses came, appropriately enough, in first grade. They were faux-gold-framed, and looked disturbingly like a smaller version of my father’s. Then, Dr. McGowan, eye doctor to the suburbanites, had the bright idea of fitting me for contacts. In second grade.

Pretty much kicked ass that day at show-and-tell, let me show-and-tell you.

I kept that first pair of glasses until sixth grade, when my head got too big for them. (Insert joke here.) Since I only wore them from bedroom to bathroom, the need to upgrade was not pressing. This set was a slightly larger set of the faux-gold, father-emulating pair. But still smaller.

This pair stayed with me through my sophomore year of undergrad, when my Mom got remarried, and my StepFather (how the heck do you capitalize that and not offend any family members?) brought in a replacement optician. McGowan, out. Johnson, in. Remarkable fellow, this Johnson. Convinces me to go with faux-gunmetal-silver instead of faux-gold. (At least, I assume it was faux-gunmetal. Growing up in the South, anything is possible.) These glasses stayed with me until today, when I picked up my hip, hep black-framed faux-Weezer-lead-singer glasses.

So, class, if I had the first pair five years, and the second pair eight years, and the third pair thirteen years … how old will I be when I retire pair number four?

The problem with having an entire day to yourself is how easily it can become a day for no one.

Case in point: yesterday, the day was (supposed to be) mine, all mine! So I logged on to a local cruise-y chatroom hotspot. (I don’t know how Faustus feels about unpaid-for website endorsement, so let’s just say it rhymes with “Neigh Fraught Prom” …) And I was popular. I’m talking Faustus levels of popularity, here. 100% flyer cheerleader popular. And then, it happened.

Some guy sends me a picture of himself, but I’ve seen the porn it’s from.

Epiphanic moment moment here. Boys in chat rooms lie. Who knew? (OK, I realize everybody knows this, but give me a break. You can take the boy out of the suburbs, but you can’t take suburbs out of the boy…) Always priding myself as a glass-is-half-full, make-lemonade kind of guy, I immediately decide to channel this whole lying thing to my advantage. You know, as a kind of gay sociological experiment. So I alter my profile to become a 19-year-old college freshman fratboy swimmer with a girlfriend and a nine-inch dick.

Much more popular than before.

So I change my profile again. Leather daddy. Closeted Hollywood actor. Bi-curious Abercrombie model twins. (That one was a real hit.) And suddenly, it’s 4:00 in the morning, and I haven’t had sex with anyone. (Well, the twins watched each other masturbate, but I don’t think that really counts.)

Lying is fun! And safe! And not very messy!

There’s a big bottom deep down inside me that desperately wants to be whatever it is that the person I’m talking to wants me to be. Don’t like tall guys? Prefer men from Oregon? Looking for someone with a Prince Albert? I can do that. Let me alter my reality to fit your fantasy.

Whoops. Life lesson, here. Damn life lessons. All I wanted was to get laid.

Anyway, after my second epiphany (sadly, not a euphemism), me and the twins and the leather daddy and the fratboy swimmer and the closeted Hollywood actor all crawled wearily into bed together.

And the bed felt really, really empty.

(The twins kept hogging the sheets, though.)

Zzzzzzzzzz.

I have decided to post ze very first entry with zees outrageous French accent, so as to show off ze complete functionality of my keyboard. I will also make references as often as possible to Zefirelli, Zagat’s, Leon Czolgosz, and zat hirsute 80s favorite, ZZ Top. Sad how much pop culture is cut off in ze absence of a single 10-point Scrabble tile.

A little Milksopian trivia: At the age of 11, I lied about my age to get a paper route. (My mother, ever a conspirator with fraudulent doctor’s notes, et al, backed me up on this.) With the proceeds from this child labor, I began the deliberate and methodical purchase of each and every Barbra Streisand album. (Note to Faustus: I am not encoding her name, because she’s a public figure, and this story doesn’t end with me having sex with her, anyway…) After a time, my mother forbade me to use my earnings to buy any more records. But I kept buying them anyway – one a week until I had acquired all 39 – smuggling the contraband (contraBabs?) into my house via taking the screen off my window, tossing them them (gently) through said window into my room, and then making a grand (read: theatrical) entrance, declaring how I had purchased nothing at the mall that day.

My life has only become gayer and more deceitful with time.

My Christmas had the most miserable beginning of any Christmas in my life.

I got home from midnight mass at about 1:30. (I know, I know, I’m Jewish—but I have a job singing in a church choir. I figure it’s my duty to my people to take the goyim for as much as I can.) I decided to give myself a nice Christmas present by setting up my punching bag. This particular kind of punching bag, rather than hanging from the ceiling, stands on the floor, resting on a very heavy base. The base is very heavy because it is filled with water or sand. So setting up the punching bag really just required filling the base with water.

You can already see where this is going, can’t you?

Earlier in the day I had bought 30 feet of hose from the local hardware store. It was a tough call—buy the narrow hose and risk its not fitting over the faucet, or buy the wide hose and risk its not fitting into the base? In the end I went with the wide hose, which was the right choice, as it just fit into the base, and the narrow hose would most definitely not have fit over the faucet.

So at about 2:00 this morning, I attached the hose to the faucet, shoved it into the base (my experience shoving wide tube-shaped objects into tight holes stood me in good stead here) and turned the water on. I couldn’t find the instructions, but I figured, how hard can this be?

All was well for several minutes as water entered the base of the punching bag, splashing mellifluously. Every so often I turned off the water and checked to see if the base was full, but it wasn’t. So eventually there was no more splashing sound, and I waited a while (because water still seemed to be going into the base) and then figured it was time to take the hose out.

This was a terrible, terrible mistake.

Within seconds, my walls were covered with water, a bulb from my lamp had burst, my notebooks were sopping wet, and my brother and his houseguest had run out of towels to mop things up.

Because of course, the water had been going into the base and creating intense water pressure, because there wasn’t any room for it but the faucet was still forcing the water forward.

Eventually, I was able to dry almost everything out and finally made it to bed at around 4:00. The only casualties seem to be the lampshade (irreparably stained) and my computer, which now refuses to type the last letter of the alphabet. This wouldn’t really be so much of a problem, since it’s not a particularly common letter, but the concentration camp I am writing a musical about is spelled using that letter and so I am at a loss.

Speaking of this musical, I am going back to Prague tomorrow to do more research; I’ll be back on New Year’s Eve. In my absence, a good friend of mine will be guest blogging. According to the latest report, he will be identifying himself as Milksop. He doesn’t have a blog, but he has become a devoté of this one and I suspect he will do a wonderful job.

At the very least I bet his computer will type the last letter of the alphabet.

I signed up yesterday for an online dating service at www.gayjews.net. It has the virtue of being far less comprehensive in its questions than some of the other online dating services I’ve signed up with, which means a) it requires far less effort to write a profile, and b) since there’s no room for the profiles to be scintillating, you don’t develop unrealistic expectations of others based on their profiles.

Unless you’re me, of course.

So somebody whose profile I responded to today sent me back an e-mail asking if I had a picture. I went to my profile and saw to my horror that I had somehow managed not to upload my picture. Which means, of course, that anybody who saw my profile between when I signed up and when I posted my picture will think that I had no picture because I am hideously ugly, including a few really cute guys I’d already sent messages to, even though I’m actually rather cute instead of hideously ugly, but it doesn’t matter because they will already have written me off as a gay Jewish Quasimodo and never look at my profile again and I will live out the remainder of my life friendless, unprotected, and alone.

Merry Christmas.

My office crush has decided that I am the perfect person to give him advice about the boy he’s in love with. I sent him an e-mail full of wise but fairly obvious advice. This was, in part, his reply (keep in mind that I am just days shy of 30 and he has just turned 22):

“i REALLY do not mean this to make you feel anything but happiness in knowing that you have helped a friend, but i want you to know that your experience and years have really helped me.”

Clearly I must check myself into a nursing home first thing tomorrow.

Jesus Christ.

Plus, at cheerleading practice tonight there weren’t enough bases for me to fly, so I had to learn base type things, which I was pathetic at, since I am about one inch taller and three pounds heavier than the flyers (for those of you joining us in the middle of our story, I have been designated a “mid base flyer”). So I had to watch other people do what I wanted to do while not even being able to participate competently in any way.

What if last week’s stint as a flyer was a fluke and my entire cheerleading career is like tonight?

Let’s look on the bright side, though: at the nursing home, at 5’6″ and 135 lbs., I will be a terrific base, able to hurl everybody into the air effortlessly without even taking a break from gumming my apple sauce.

I am about to cry. I realized all of a sudden yesterday that I don’t have a single pair of pants or jeans that isn’t too big for me. When I lost a quarter of my body weight a year ago, I bought new clothes, but I didn’t wait quite long enough, and lost a little bit more, so every single article of clothing I put on my legs makes me look like a homeless person.

So I’ve been wandering around New York looking for jeans that fit me (28 waist, 28 inseam) and there isn’t a single fucking pair. Old Navy carries them but they’re out—big fucking shocker, since it’s two days before Christmas. Lots of places have size 28 jeans (H&M, in fact, has size 28 jeans and lots of other attractive size 28 pants) but they all have at least a 30 inseam, which means they cover my feet and make me look like a deformed merman. Of course I could buy them and have them hemmed but I want clothes that fit RIGHT NOW. I’m going to Prague the day after Christmas and if I have to go in clothes that don’t fit I will have a seizure on the airplane.

Don’t ask me why I’ve had absolutely no problem wearing ill-fitting clothes for a year and now all of a sudden I would rather eat my own snot in public than go out wearing the clothes I own. Because I can’t explain it.

Also I bought a great jacket at H&M but it’s too big too.

Being thin again is usually great but right now I want to curse God and die.