Not a Matter of Choice
Chapter 4: Introduction to the Bars
Throughout my years in college and into the first half of my medical school career, my sexual experiences were limited to furtive anonymous sexual encounters in the bathroom, or my "counseling sessions" with David. I knew that there was a gay community in Houston, but I never knew where. I didn't find out until I was invited to, of all things, a bachelor party.
My Rice friend Matt and his roommate Adam along with a couple of their friends were throwing a bachelor party for our mutual friend Yuval. As a gag thing, they made Yuval wear a spiked dog collar, and we piled in the car. It was a short distance to the dance club, and when we got out, there were guys everywhere! We were in the infamous Montrose District, which unbeknownst to me was only two miles from my grandmother's house where I had been living for the past five years.
Adam thought it was so funny that they were taking Yuval to a gay dance club, with a spiked dog collar on no less. None of them were gay, and they had no idea that I was. But, we all played the part, went in, ordered drinks, and danced a bit. JR's was an eye-opening experience for me. There were guys of all shapes and sizes, along with a few women. Some were dancing, but most were milling about. There were some really good looking guys, but most were just average. Some were flaming queens, but others didn't walk with a swing or lisp or say "honey" every other word. I saw tall guys in jeans, cowboy boots, and broad brimmed hats, looking for all the world like a younger version of the Marlboro Man.
My introduction to JR's was really the first time that I met gay men who were butch and masculine and "normal." I don't really count my trysts in the bathroom, since I never said anything to the guys other than "I'm cumming," and never really saw anything of them more than their cocks underneath the bathroom stall. My only other example of a gay man was a high school class mate named Chris who was everything I didn't want to be: fey, petite, lispy, and limp wristed. I was absolutely not attracted to Chris in any way, and I was horrified that if I accepted my homosexuality, I would start dropping my wrists and swinging my hips. Chris's example was just one more reason I did everything I could during high school to distance myself from everything gay. But at JR's I saw that being gay didn't mean you had to be effeminate. Sure, there were very effeminate guys there and even drag queens, but just as often there were masculine men who I found to be quite attractive. Seeing those guys really put my heart at ease.
The bar also employed very good looking male dancers scattered throughout the area. Some were on box platforms, flexing their sizable muscles, shaking tight asses and large packages wrapped in a skimpy G-string pouch. Guys were coming up to the dancers holding out dollar bills, and the dancers would shake their meat in the guys faces or allow a quick grab before stuffing the dollar bill along the side string around their waist. At that time I didn't have the guts to come up to put a dollar into their pouches or talk to them. Later on though, I did talk to a few of them, and all the ones I happened to talk to were all straight. They had nice bodies and big cocks, and they knew it. Every night, they pulled in hundreds of dollars of tips, so it was really easy money. One guy admitted that when he first started, he had to get really drunk before he could get on stage. Now he was ok with it. Another really cute guy was in college, and he used his money from JR's to pay for his tuition. So, I think most of the dancers were "gay for pay," but I didn't care, because they were just so good to look at.
We all had a good time at JR's for that portion of the bachelor's party. Adam got hit on a couple of times, since he was quite handsome. Playing along with the whole theme, I even grabbed his ass a time or two, much to his chagrin. We migrated out of the bar after an hour or so, and we went back to Matt and Adam's apartment to finish the festivities, including making Yuval drink a very strong mudslide out of a dog bowl without using his hands. I never mentioned our excursion to the gay bar to the other guys after the bachelor's party, and I'm sure they never went back. But I sure did.
Since I was still struggling with the whole Christianity vs. homosexuality thing during this time, I couldn't just drive to the gay bars. So, I used it as a running destination. I ran from my grandmother's house to the bar two miles or so away, asked for a drink of water, milled around for a while, and ran back. That way, I wasn't really going to the bar, I justified to myself, I was taking a run. Boy, I was really messed up back then.
I never initiated any conversations when I was at the bar, but I could talk with people if they came up to me. One person who did so was Andy. He boldly walked up to me one night and said, "Man, you're really cute. Can I buy you a drink?" I said sure, and we hung out for a few hours at the bar. For a few months, we spent some time with each other, more as casual friends with the occasional bout of sex thrown in. Andy was a trial lawyer, and he fit the stereotype well. He was several years older than me, taller, big boned, and a bit of a gut which he said he was working to get rid of. Everything about him was loud. His laugh cut through the crowd. He drove some sort of sports car (I think it was a Mustang) and topped it off at 180 on the Houston highway once when I was riding with him. He was constantly wired and worshipped coffee besides. When we first started hanging out, he took me out to eat all the time and paid for all my meals. I enjoyed the attention, even if he did grate on my nerves at times. Still, the sex wasn't bad. Andy was the one who introduced me to frottage. He had me bend over, and he put his six inch cut cock in between the upper part of my butt crack. Then he would go back and forth, just riding the crack. After a while, he would cum over my back. After a few months, we stopped hanging out with each other and went our separate ways. I didn't have any feelings for Andy, but it was nice to have a gay friend, particularly one with money who was willing to spend it on me.
I did meet some other people at the bar, one or two of whom I had sex with, but many of whom just became friends. I'm not really a big bar fly, so I was glad to hear from one of my new gay friends that there was a gay bookstore/cafe nearby where a person could hang out, have a coke and snack, and study. And they also had gay magazines like the ones at Bookstop (where I got into trouble) that were not shrink wrapped in plastic, so people could look through them at their hearts' content. So, I started spending more time at the Crossroads cafe to do my studying and what not. It was at the cafe that I met Thomas. That particular night, I was at the cafe wearing a Christian t-shirt, I think mostly to prove to myself that I could be a Christian and be gay. When I went up to the counter to buy a pastry, Thomas came up to me and introduced himself. He was so excited that I was everything he had ever been looking for. I was a Christian and I was likely gay since we were in a gay cafe. And to top it all off, I was Asian, a nationality Thomas was particularly attracted to. He offered to get my pastry and asked if he could sit with me.
So, Thomas and I struck up a conversation. He was in his early forties and working for the Blood Bank at the time, but he had been a church youth minister for around fifteen years before that. He said that as he got older and stayed single, more and more questions were asked. "So do you have a girlfriend? When are you going to settle down? Would you like to go out with this friend of mine?" And then there were fewer questions and more whispers. He decided to leave the ministry to avoid any embarrassment. We talked for a while about faith and sexuality and our personal life stories. We exchanged phone numbers and promised to call each other. We ended up becoming good friends and still are.
To prevent any thoughts, no, we didn't hook up. Well, that's not completely true. I did jack him off once. Thomas was in my room at my grandmother's house, and I decided to give him a back rub. He was sitting at my desk chair, and I came up behind him and started rubbing his shoulders. "Oh, Minh, that feels really good. Don't stop."
So, I continued rubbing his shoulders and neck. I decided to make it a more complete rub down, so we moved to my bed. He lay down after I bid him to take his shirt off. Then I kneaded between his shoulder blades and lower back, digging deeply into the small of his back with my thumbs and knuckles. I wanted to move further down, but his pants were in the way, so I asked him to take his pants off. He slid his pants off but kept his underwear on. I then pulled the back of his underwear down below his buttocks to work on his glutes but I pulled them back up when I was done and moved to his legs. After a while, I told him to turn over so I could work on his front. I rubbed lotion onto his chest and massaged his pecs, running my hands lightly over his nipples, which made him shiver. I'm a fairly good masseuse due to practice at the art starting in high school and throughout college, coupled with an intimate medical knowledge of anatomy. Thomas received the full benefit of my tens-of-thousands-of-dollars worth of education boiled down into a half hour of muscular pleasure.
For me, it was an act of friendship and a desire to make him feel good, not necessarily sexually. But, he got turned on by what I was doing to him as evidenced by the obvious bulge in his underwear. So, I asked him if he would like for me to finish him off. I've heard it called a massage with a release, or a massage with a happy ending. Whatever it's called, Thomas wanted it. He had told me before that he wasn't really long, but he had a pretty big head. Of course, I was a bit curious; what gay man wouldn't be? I wasn't disappointed by what he had hiding behind that thin piece of cloth. He was accurate in his self assessment. He wasn't all that long, maybe six inches if that. But he had a huge mushroom head topping his cock, the glans flaring way out from the shaft and rounding out at the end. I squeezed a generous amount of lotion onto my hand and stroked up and down on Thomas's rigid cock. I enjoyed most the feeling of my hand running past the corona of his glans and having that head completely fill my hand before I ended my stroke at the very tip of his cock. I used all four fingers wrapped with my thumb to give him the most surface area for pleasure, going up and down, varying my stroke every now and then. He asked me once to put him in my mouth, but I declined. I liked Thomas a lot as a friend, but I didn't want to cross the line from friend to lover. He didn't ask again, but he continued to enjoy the expert hand job I was giving him. After several minutes, he warned me, "I'm going to shoot," and he quickly came. Several spurts went up to his mid abdomen, and the rest landed into his pubic hair. I helped him get cleaned up, and we got him dressed again. This whole time, my grandmother was in the house. Fortunately, she always respected my privacy, and she never barged into my room. Thomas and I never repeated our little mini-sex encounter, and he never reciprocated, which was fine by me.
To this day, Thomas and I remain friends, although we don't communicate much since we live so far apart. He has never been able to find a life partner, and now is in his late 50's I think. He's given up on finding anyone at this point. He's convinced the gay community is completely stuck on young guys and hot bodies, and he sees himself as an ugly duckling. Which, as I have told him a number of times, is not true. Appropriate for his age, he has a bit of a gut and a receding hairline. He's 5'7" or thereabouts. Although he won't grace the front cover of a calendar, I wouldn't say he's ugly by any means. Plus, he has an incredibly generous spirit, is a world traveler, has a great head on his shoulders (and in his pants), and is loyal to a fault. I think anyone who ends up with him would be very fortunate. So, if anyone is reading this and would like to get more information, I'll be happy to play match maker. Bonus points go to Asians, Hispanics, and blacks. :)
Thomas wasn't the only person "of the cloth" I had a bit of a fling with. There was a former Catholic priest as well, whom I also met at the Crossroads cafe. I was sitting at a table trying in vain to study whatever esoteric medical factoid I was supposed to memorize when this guy walked in. Since I wasn't doing a good job studying, I was people watching instead. And this guy was a looker. He was middle aged, likely mid to late thirties (I've always found myself attracted to guys a bit older than myself), brown hair, and these large brown puppy dog eyes that I think I could look into for hours and not get bored. Unfortunately, he took a seat facing away from me, so I got a good view of his back. Still, it seemed like a strong broad back. He was cleanly dressed and shaven, and seemed well put together. Disappointed that he was facing away from me, I tried to get back to my studying. But I just couldn't get those puppy dog eyes out of my mind. After a bit, I gave up trying to study. I used the excuse of walking to the cashier to get a coke to turn around and face him. He caught me looking at him, but he didn't turn away. We met eyes, and I decided what the heck, so I went over to him and introduced myself.
Jim was a history teacher, and he was preparing lessons for the following week. I sat opposite him at the two-seater table and we talked for a bit. He told me that he had been a Catholic priest and had tried to lead a celibate life, but he was unable to see himself leading his parishioners in mass when he was struggling so much with his sexuality. So, he left the church and started teaching. I felt sorry for him, because I knew intimately what it was like to have a conflict with one's faith and one's sexuality. But for me, it was just a personal struggle. Jim had dedicated his entire life to the church, and the church was telling him that all the things he felt inside were wrong. I can only imagine what a daily torture that was for him. I really felt a connection with him, so I got up and stood behind him. I put my hands on his shoulders and gently massaged his traps. He immediately stopped talking and put his head down, quietly enjoying my shoulder rub. I told him I could give him a better rub if he was willing to come over to my place. I didn't have to ask him twice! He packed up his few books, and we were off. I drove my car, and he followed in his.
I wonder what my grandmother thought when I said to her that my friend and I were going to be in my room studying. Jim was obviously at least ten years older than I was, so what exactly would we be studying? It was a lame excuse, I know, but my grandmother never questioned me, bless her heart. So, we went into my room, and I closed and locked the door just in case. I had Jim sit at my chair without a shirt on, and I rubbed his shoulders and neck. I moved down to his pecs next, and they were quite nice. It was clear that Jim worked out on a regular basis, because his pecs were rounded and firm, with a dusting of hair fanning his upper chest. His nipples were quarter sized and dark brown with a nubbin right in the middle. I really enjoyed working those pecs of his. As I was giving him his impromptu massage, he told me that he noticed me when he walked in the cafe, but he wasn't thinking when he sat down facing away from me. He spent the first five minutes of his time there cursing himself for not sitting in a more strategic location, but there was no way to suddenly change his sitting to face me without being totally obvious. It was clear that I was trying to study, and he didn't want to interrupt me. So when I came up and introduced myself, he was tickled pink. I told him that I thought he was really cute when he walked in, but when he sat facing away from me, he probably just wanted to do his own thing. But, I just had to take a look at those eyes again, so that's why I came up to him. Jim craned his neck back to look up at me. Without a word, he got up out of the chair and took my hand. He led me into the bathroom adjoining my bedroom, and stood me there. He popped the buttons on my jeans, knelt down, and took my manhood into his warm mouth. Would it be sacrilegious to say I was in heaven as he knelt down and worshipped my cock? I was thinking, for a priest who likely was celibate for years, he sure knew how to suck a cock well. I didn't last long as he bobbed up and down on my cock, and although I warned him, he still chose to take all my sperm down his gullet. I was out of breath and weak kneed when he was done. Jim then got up from kneeling, put on his shirt, thanked me for the good time, and left. I never got his phone number, and we never saw each other again, even though I looked out for him a number of times at the cafe.
As I've been thinking about the random and improbable people I met at Crossroads cafe and hooked up with, the police officer comes to mind. There I was minding my own business lusting after the men in the latest Inches magazine. I saw the police officer at the far end of the magazine rack. Now, it's not uncommon to see police in the store. The place was well known by the gay community, and their pastries were the best around. But what was uncommon was for a police officer in uniform to catch my eye and slowly move his hand to his crotch and rock it up and down slowly. Had I imagined that just happened? Did I read the sign correctly? Was this police officer hitting on me?? I decided to keep it cool and play along. I pretended to read the magazine as I slowly moved my left hand to my crotch and absentmindedly scratch a bit, all the while looking at this guy from the corner of my eye. He reciprocated the motion, again leading me to think he was serious in his unspoken invitation. After a couple of times back and forth, I decided that I had all the confirmation I needed. So, I put the magazine down and came over to him. He was in his mid-30's, with sandy blond hair. We walked out of the cafe together. He said, "So you never thought you would be hit on by a cop huh?"
"No, I never did," was all I said.
We walked to my car, and I got in the driver's seat while he took the passenger side. He asked, "Is there anywhere we can go?"
"No," I replied. "I'm getting late for an appointment. I really can't go anywhere right now. Do you want to just have some fun in the car?"
"Well, we're totally out in the open," he said. "If someone sees me in this situation, I could lose my job."
"I could drive around a bit if you wanted to."
"No, I can't do that. I'm still on my shift, and I don't know how it would look if a cop was in the passenger seat with a civilian."
"Well, can I at least see your cock," I asked. He undid his pants and pulled out his cut dick. It wasn't hard because I think he was pretty nervous about being in the car and everything. But, he was obviously horny, or he wouldn't have gotten my attention to begin with. I reached out and put my hand on his cock, rubbing it a bit. It rapidly swelled up to a nice six inches, of average thickness. I undid my own pants and pulled out my own cock, which was already oozing precum a good bit. We played with each others cocks for a while that way. I asked him, "So do you want to suck my dick?"
"It's too public right here. I'd be afraid of getting caught."
"I can look out for people if you want to lean down for a bit." He was nervous as heck, but I could see the desire in his eyes. So, he bent over and took my cock in his mouth for a few seconds, but he came back up again.
"I can't do it. It's just too out in the open."
"Sure, no problem," I said. We can just jack each other off. You look in your direction, and I'll look in mine. If we see anyone coming close, we'll stop and cover ourselves up." I could tell it wasn't what he really wanted to do, but we were both horny and wanted a release. So, we jacked each other off until we came. I came first, then I worked on him until he did. We cleaned up with some napkins in my glove compartment. He thanked me and got out of the car. I drove off to my class or the hospital or whatever. Again, like Jim, I didn't get his phone number, and it was a one-time deal.
I told this story to my lover once, and he asked me, "Weren't you afraid that the guy was trying to trap you and arrest you or something?" I answered that the thought had never crossed my mind. He was the one that started it, and he's the one who got into my car. But I guess I was just being naive and got lucky. I'm sure that there are many who have been caught that way. Look at Senator Craig. It was probably the same situation. I won, he lost.
I did have a few other opportunities to relieve sexual tension during my years of medical school, but Thomas, Jim, and the cop are the three that stand out in my mind by virtue of their profession and the improbability of hooking up with them.
Still for all the fun I had, it wasn't lasting or ultimately rewarding. I didn't find my first boyfriend until near the end of my third year of medical school. And I found him of all places in a porno arcade.