The constant reader may recall that I had two less than perfect homosexual encounters while in high school. Three years were to pass before my next experience. I was a VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America) in Aurora, IL. A man who worked next door was ten years older, smart, clever and a lot of fun. I was pretty sure he was gay. That's an important statement, for it marked the first time in my life I had that thought. I didn't think my earlier friend, with whom I had those encounters, was gay. We did something queer, but we weren't ourselves queer, right? And, believe it or not, there was a time in America when not every other put-down in public school was faggot-this or queer-that. Not only did I not consciously know a gay person before 1968, I had never even thought much about it. Yeah, I was naive, but a lot of us were. It was a gentler, less-informed time.
So to this assumedly-gay friend I said "what would you say if I asked you for oral sex?" (I in fact phrased it a bit differently, but let me not scare away my more gentle readers). He said he'd be glad to help if that's what I wanted. So we entered into this totally one-sided sexual relationship that ran parallel to our mutually giving friendship. We hung out, went to movies and restaurants or just talked far more than we "had sex." I was -- obviously -- being selfish, but, in my defense, I just wasn't ready to commit. (Men are so bad at that). He understood and never pushed.
Within a year he moved 60 miles away and it was while visiting him for a weekend that I met the first man after whom I lusted. Michael was younger than my friend, slightly older than I, and a Latin teacher. He was Italian or Greek -- something Mediterranean that gave him a dark and sensual look; I thought he was beautiful and I let him know. He wouldn't touch me because I was too young and confused and so I spent a melodramatic night crying myself to sleep -- alone.
By 1970 I was living in New York City and determined that I would sort out this gay thing once and for all. I mean, if you can't come out in New York, where can you?
Didn't happen. I was there from June through November and had only one, very minor, gay encounter. During the whole time I was still dating women and in fact asked one to marry me. Thank goodness she had the sense to say no.
The next summer I was back in NY, working on Long Island; there I met Matt. Beautiful, sexy, long-haired Matt. Who dated beautiful, sexy, long-haired Sally. At an all-night party Matt and I went for a walk and he opened up, saying "I've never told anyone this, but I've started to have these feelings for men and I want to have sex with a man and I want that man to be YOU." OMG! I was stunned, both with surprise and glee. Here was this totally hot straight man who had just told me he wanted to sleep with me. We went back to the party, which was a moveable feast heading to Boston at daybreak. There we stayed with a friend of mine who, when assigning sleeping arrangements said "Walter, why don't you and Matt take the bedroom on the third floor" -- I'm not making this up; he gave us the only private spare room in his house. You can guess what happened next.
Matt and I had a passionate affair that lasted oh, three weeks maybe. I thought things were going well but he was a cauldron of turmoil inside and eventually screamed at me that he wasn't gay and that he hated me for making him think he might be and that he never wanted to see me again. Jeez!
I took it really hard. It was the end of a very intense summer in New York, I was about to head back to Richmond to pick up the shreds of my academic career, I was in love with my first man -- and it all came crashing down. I drove down 95 listening over and over to Graham Nash singing "When your love has moved away / you must face yourself and you must say / I remember better days" and to Cat Stevens: "Now that I've lost everything to you / You say you want to start something new / And it's breaking my heart you're leaving / Baby, I'm grieving." It was a tortured return home, but at least I had taken a couple of big steps on the coming out journey.
(For anyone who might not know, the Greek letter Lambda above was adopted as a Gay Liberation symbol in the early 70s).
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