Bennington's Place Read online

  I was 18 years old and a senior in high school the first time I had anal sex. He was twice that age, so I doubt that I was his first at anything. This event in my life was the first for many things. It would be the first time I ever went to a gay bar, where I met him. It would be the first time I ever heard a song from the Pet Shop Boys, whose album would later become my coming out anthem. It would be the first time I ever saw a drag show, and the first time I ever went home with a man who I had just met for the very first time.

  This bar prided itself on being the oldest gay bar in the city, and it showed. It was a small concrete room filled with neon beer signs and smoke. A pool table took main stage next to the bar, while the actual stage itself was smaller than the pool table. I went to the bar with a lesbian friend and her questioning girlfriend, and a wanna-be drag queen who was actually younger than me. The queen charmed his way past the doorman with a bit of sassiness. Next, it was me and the confused lesbian's turn. She sauntered in ahead of me leaving me to pay for both of us.

  "Can I see your ID?" The man at the door asked.

  "Uh, I don't have an ID. I got a DUI, and it was taken away." It was a lie I'm sure he had heard many times before, this being the oldest gay bar around.

  "What about her?" He pointed to the girl, who was already walking into the bar.

  "She has a DUI too. Both of our ID's were taken away. So, no drinking for us tonight." I was a quick thinker, but a horrible liar.

  "Well, you can at least have a coke. Enjoy yourself." He took my money and I walked in. My lesbian friend was right behind me. She had a fake ID so she was covered.

  We planted ourselves at a table for four next to the stage to wait out the night until the show started. Our own sad drag queen, dressed in his Mama's black night gown and his Daddy's back brace for a corset, proceeded to work the room in hopes of making out with someone or at least scoring a free drink. He had success on the dance floor, occupied only by a few world-weary men with wandering hands and no teeth.

  Into our ears, the DJ piped music I had never heard before. They didn’t play this stuff on the radio back home. It was a repetitive techno beat with bass and thumps that shook the wall. Muppet-like voices told me to “Go West,” while a chorus of rusty men chanted in the background. Mixed with the refractions of light from a small mirror ball overheard, the music seduced me. Like every gay man with a sacred song they claim as their own, my song was born.

  “Give me a dollar,” our queen said to me returning to the table.

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to beg the DJ to play that song again.”

  “Okay. Find out who sings that song. I have to buy their album!”

  We learned the song was called “Go West” and the group who sang it was called The Pet Shop Boys. None of us had ever heard of them, but I made a mental note of it and planned to visit our music store back home as soon as I could to buy their CD.

  Our lesbian leader made trips to the bar to get Cokes for us, while she enjoyed a wine cooler. I was too scared to attempt my first alcoholic beverage tonight. It was enough that I had just lied myself into a bar, three years before I was legal to drink. I was a pubescent senior in high school who had just learned how to drive a car. I had never been in a "gay" establishment, much less been in the presence of so many gay people at one time.

  There were drag queens and transvestites (although I didn't know the difference), drugged out people who looked homeless and dangerous, rough looking bikers and truckers who were drunk and chewing on cigars, gorgeous young boys (not too older than me) in tight jeans and white tank tops, and butch lesbians that looked so much like men I found myself attracted to them until I noticed they had breasts. It was an odd array of carnival-like wall flowers that I imagined froze in place when they turned the lights on early in the morning.

  Two middle-aged men who could have passed for brothers stood next to the stage. They were both tall with broad faces and thinning crew cut hair. One was a bit skinnier than the other, and one had a nicely trimmed beard. The one with the beard had scorching blue eyes that pierced through me so deeply I couldn't even maintain eye contact with him. He kept his eyes on me while I smiled and chatted with my friends, savoring the fact that someone across the room had taken interest in me.

  I would soon learn that this game of heavy eye contact was expected at gay bars and clubs, played by all, and a way of communicating with each other. It was how you told someone you were interested, and found out if they felt the same way you did, without having to actually speak to them. Every time I caught the glimpse of the bearded man across the room and our eyes met, I think my heart skipped a beat. It was a fuzzy feeling from deep inside me that must have felt like love.

  He and his friend disappeared and my moment of glory faded as I thought my eye candy had left for the evening. However, my bearded blue eyed friend soon returned to the table and caught me alone. My drag queen was flirting with a man at the bar, and the two lesbians were escorting each other to the rest room. He asked if I would like to accompany him outside to talk. Taking me by the hand, he led me down a dark and crowded hallway making a brief stop by the doorless rest rooms to take a piss. We passed the lesbians in the hallway on our way out, and they pointed to him holding my hand and leading me outside. I smiled and shrugged. They gave me a thumbs up and returned to our table.

  There was a small trashy patio at the back of the club where we made our introductions and he proceeded to light up a joint. I lied and told him I was 21. His name was Roger and he must have told me how gorgeous I was at least a dozen times, leaning there against the railing and holding me close in front of him. His deep look into my eyes confused me as being either lust or love. I was too young to know it was just a hazy look people sometimes get when they are drunk and high.

  I pretended to be interested in the few people coming and going from the patio, although I was really just a bit shy and was avoiding his magical stare. He pulled me closer in front of him and slid his hands down into the back of my pants to cup my buttocks. I tried to pull away for fear that someone was watching, but we were the only people on the patio again. It would still be years before I knew anything about voyeuristic intent or the sordid sadistic pleasure of sex in public, so Roger’s advances made me a bit uneasy. I wanted him to touch me though. I wanted to feel the comfort of his hands on my skin, so I let him.

  He pulled me to him, massaging my ass with his large warm hands, and then he kissed me. His kiss was warm and I accepted his tongue into my mouth. I liked the scratch of his beard against my face, but the taste of pot on his breath was strange to me. Its metallic flavor soon faded as our saliva mixed. It was my first "real" kiss with a man, with anyone for that matter. Like wild animals, introductions and coupling happens fast, with the objective of sex before a long-term relationship. This was a lesson I’d learn fast tonight about being gay. It was knowledge that would last a lifetime which we all seem to learn the hard way, especially the first time.

  We went back to the table and I introduced him to my friends. We sat through a few numbers of the drag show, but Roger and I wanted some time alone. He convinced my friends to let me go with him to his apartment. I was willing. He lived within walking distance, just a few blocks behind the club. He gave my friends the address and his phone number, and they agreed to pick me up in an hour or so.

  We left the club hand in hand, Roger leading the way. He didn't own a car, so we would be walking to his apartment. At the time, the city was new to me. But later, after I moved there to go to college, I would learn that the street we had to walk down to get from the club to his apartment, though only four blocks, was extremely shady. It was a haven for black transvestite prostitutes and cocaine dealers. Although there were two gay bars on this street that I would later frequent after moving here, I couldn’t believe I had actually walked down that street holding the hand of another man. It was the first time, and now one of the few times, I had ever held a man’s hand in public. But I'd never walk d
own that street again.

  We rode the elevator up to his floor to his studio apartment. I don't remember much about the conversation that ensued, only that we made out during most of this time we had together. I melted with each and every kiss. He wanted me naked, so he pulled off my shirt. I tried not to look too inhibited by my pale hairless chest which lacked definition. He remained fully clothed. Sitting on his sofa, with him on the floor between my legs, he pulled down my jeans and briefs. He fondled and sucked my cock briefly before pulling me down lower on the sofa so that he could raise my legs into the air.

  My ass was now exposed to his face. Like a flexible contortionist, I held my knees to my face, totally unaware of what Roger was going to do to me. He kissed and gently sucked my buttocks, moving closer and closer to my ass hole. He flicked it with his tongue and began to thrust deep into me, rimming my ass. This was the very first time I had ever been rimmed. I worried about my personal hygiene for only about five seconds, and then I was overcome with the feeling of pure rapture brought on only by someone performing this act. I had never experienced sex like this before. Outside of groping and sucking, I never knew men did things like this to each other. The tingling sensation that shot through my body and my shortness of breath were the best feeling in the world to me.

  The evening would stop there as my friends were calling from downstairs. They had arrived to pick me up for us to drive back home. Roger gave me his phone number and walked me down. He kissed me good-bye and I was shocked at the sweet musky smell of myself on his breath. My friends were hungry for details, which I was happy to give. I even confided in them what Roger had done and how it made me feel. My more experienced lesbian friend assured me there were many more pleasures to come, either from Roger or from someone else in the future.

  Two weeks would pass and I called Roger every day after school, although he didn't always answer his phone. For a young man who had never been in love, you can imagine the mixed emotions I was experiencing from the attention Roger had bestowed upon me. As a result, I came out to my mother a few days later. Another first. Like any parent, she was hurt and she cried and also forbid me to ever mention it again. She basically wanted to pretend none of it was true. Time would change that.

  That was on a Friday because I left right after the heated conversation with my mother, and I drove back to the city on my own to spend the weekend with Roger. This would be my first drive to the city alone. When I arrived, we went back to the club in my car to watch the drag show. The doorman remembered my face and must have known Roger because I was allowed to walk on in while Roger paid for us.

  We stood next to the stage, in the same spot where I had first seen Roger with his friend. Roger held me in front of him in a tight embrace, kissing my ear and neck right there in front of the crowded dance floor for all to see. Suddenly, that Pet Shops Boys song began to play overhead, and just like that, the ideal memory book moment was born. Like a prom, or birthday, or holiday, it was a Polaroid picture I’d keep in my mind forever. It was the one thing I’d take away from all of this. Forget the bar, forget the attention from Roger, and forget the sex. That flash of us standing next to the dance floor holding each other while my song played meant more to me than anything else. And we had not even had sex yet. I wanted to have sex so badly that night after we returned to his studio, but Roger was tired and quickly passed out due to the beer he drank at the bar.

  We slept in the next day crumpled together on his sofa. We had lunch at a seedy Chinese restaurant. Roger constantly reminded me of how young I was, and how innocent. He referred to me as “just a baby” or “a puppy on the porch.” Those were phrases I’d come to hate, hearing them over and over again from different men the next few years. I thought of myself as being way too mature for my age, but because of my actual age I was still “a pup” in gay years for a long time to come.

  We returned to his studio late in the afternoon. At last, Roger was ready to make out with me before I would have to drive back home. I remember the kissing. I remember his tan skin, his hairy chest as he undressed in front of me. I remember lying on the floor of his studio, the setting sun shining in from the sliding doors of his patio which presented a magnificent view of the downtown skyline. It casts a neon orange across the floor of his studio as I lay their waiting innocently for Roger to do things to me that I had never experienced with a man before.

  Roger lay on top of me to kiss and neck. I loved the feel of his hairy chest against my skin. He pinched my soft nipples and bit at them. That odd sensation of pleasure pierced through me again, a feeling I never knew could come from teasing that part of the body. He pressed his cock to mine to rub them together before falling in between my legs to take my cock into his mouth. I remember him turning me over so that I was on my hands and knees, a pillow pushed under me for support and my ass in the air. The familiar feeling of Roger’s tongue on my backside sent a chill up my spine. He buried his tongue in me to lube my ass with spit. I remember the cold cream he rubbed in the crack of my ass, the finger he slid into my tight crevice. Despite the cream meant to ease the situation, my muscles twitched. I grunted in pain at the uncomfortable feeling of Roger’s finger pushing deeper inside me. He told me to relax, but my instinct was to flex those muscles to keep his finger from getting inside me. I remember the ruffling sound of a plastic package as Roger unwrapped a condom. I remember holding my breath. I remember him telling me to just relax.

  He replaced the finger in my ass with the head of his cock, pressing his waist into me as he gripped my hips with his hands to guide me back onto him. The tight ring of muscle eventually gave way, letting him inside me, letting me catch my breath. He leaned across my back to breathe into my ear, biting at my lobes to take my attention off the pain. The carpet burned my palms and knees as he began to pump my ass from behind with a steady rhythm, pushing me across the carpet, pulling me back to meet his thrusts. I begged him to go slow.

  "Are you a virgin?" Roger asked.

  "Hell no," I lied.

  He was soon done and pulled himself out slowly. I remember looking underneath myself down between my legs and what I saw scared me. His penis dangled their behind me and it was blood red. Roger had fucked me until I bled. I got up to regain my composure, intending to pick up my clothes and go to the bathroom to clean myself up. I soon discovered that I was not bleeding at all, as I watched Roger remove the red colored condom from his penis. I laughed silently within myself. I had a lot to learn. He pulled me back down to the floor. I lay on my back in front of him. He rubbed our cocks together until he shot warm cum across my balls and up my chest. The musky bleach-like aroma of his cum excited me. I spilled my own meager load into his.

  I said good-bye to Roger and returned home to my flustered mother. Several weeks passed and I was unable to reach Roger on the phone again. I graduated high school. A few days later, I planned a day trip into the city with some friends, and was able to reach Roger on the phone. He had lost his job and was depressed, but he agreed to see me later in the day. My friends and I spent the day shopping and visiting places we wanted to see. On the way home, we stopped by Roger's building and my drag queen friend and I went up to his door. A short and strange conversation took place at his door leaving us to believe he was either drunk or high again. I knew that would be the last time I ever saw him. And oddly enough, I was okay with that.

  “Did he fuck you?” My friend asked.

  “Yeah, yeah he did,” I said with a laugh.

  “You lost your virginity? I bet it hurt. I bet it felt good. I bet it was a good hurt, wasn’t it?” He quizzed me, “Well, was it?”

  “Very.” I said with a nod.

  Before leaving the city that day to drive back home, I asked my friends to take me to a music store. I asked an employee where I could find The Pet Shops Boys. He looked them up in the computer and led me to a small section of music in the back of the store labeled “Techno and Dance.” I sifted through the CD's, and quickly found a CD called VERY oddly eno
ugh. It was The Pet Shop Boy's album with that song from the bar. Its bright orange case reminded me of how the setting sun looked that day in Roger's studio apartment. I bought the CD and drove home listening to it, anxious for what it could teach me, eager to hear that song again. I was ready for the next adventure being gay had to offer.

  I was young and fresh out of high school. I was out to my mother. And I was hungry for more of what this big gay life in this big city had to offer. I was growing up fast and ready to experience as much as possible and just as quick. Only now, as I look back on this first and fragile encounter that took place years ago, I wish I would have slowed down. I was indeed a pup on the porch with a lot to learn. Now, I'd never want to go back to the porch, but the yard didn't look so bad either.

  When you are gay, each and every moment in your life is a first. Roger was my first for many things: a first night at the club, a first encounter with getting rimmed, a first kiss, and a first experience with anal sex. A shy and timid boy called "faggot" all through junior high was at last released into the world. Outside in the world, I would have said I knew everything there was to know about being who I was. About being gay. The truth was I knew nothing. But how else is one to learn without throwing yourself full force into it? I was not even close to being prepared for the way the cruel world would fuck me over again and again and again. At least I discovered that actually getting fucked up the ass isn't as bad. The odd and pleasurable pain of it somehow wipes all the other pain away.

  Ghost Dodgers

  Ebbets Field was the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers from the day it opened on April 9, 1913 until the park closed in 1957. The park was located over near Flatbush Avenue, I think, somewhere in Pigtown. Back then, no one had their own cars, so everyone walked to the games or took a trolley. When the park opened, that whole area was serviced by nine trolley lines which connected to thirty-two others. That’s how the team even got its name because all the fans had to dodge trolley cars to get to a game. Not that it matters now, but I hate baseball.