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Specimen 5 My Story Plans had been made for the three of us – Him, Her and Me – to go to Easter
Services somewhere in New York.
I had done research as to which services would be good to go to.
Though
I had been to the Easter services at Black Harlem Churches in the past, the last time I went, 2001, there were busloads of
Japanese tourists with cameras and they felt like an invading army and I a part of that invasion.
Since I “grew
up in the Church,” (love that phrase), this put Me in an awkward emotional place. Being an outsider in a place that
used to be a home.
I decided that if it were some sort of connection I was seeking and not just
good, “exotic” music, I should pick a service that was more like My own community. And His and Hers.
That
was another issue I faced in the past at the Harlem churches, showing up with a group of mostly White friends made Me feel
suspect. A spy in My own house that wasn’t My house anymore.
Mid-week, She announced that She was going away for a
job interview that weekend but that He and I should go to Church anyway.
From that moment
there was never any question that He and I would sleep together. We’d been surreptitiously flirting for weeks. The clichés
were flying. It felt wrong and wonderful at the same time.
I decided on Middle Collegiate Church because My research
told Me it had an arts and queer positive profile and it was nearby in the neighborhood.
There was a performance
art show in a gallery the night before. I’d already planned to see it with some friends and I asked Him if He’d
like to come along, which I was sure He would. I invited Him to dinner before the show. I made pasta with black olives, artichokes,
capers and spinach (without tuna because He’s a vegetarian.) He brought a bottle of red wine and a huge loaf of artisanal
bread. We ate.
We went to the show after getting lost looking for it. It was in a tiny gallery
on the Lower East Side and we sat on the floor right down front. The show itself was raunchy, sexy, fun, a little scary. Will
probably use those adjectives later. Where He and I sat on the floor we could look up the two performance artists’ dresses
and see their vaginas. At one point we were instructed to hold up marshmallow Easter peeps as one of them did target practice
by squirting the peeps, and us, with her breast milk. The other artist peed into a baggie; then they tried to squeeze a raw
egg up one of their vaginas. I’m thinking, “this is the best first date ever.”
After the show,
we go with My other friend to his apartment. This friend knows something’s up and he doesn’t approve. This is
the first time since our initial drunken making out two months ago that He and I have been publicly intimate. We’re
sitting on My friend’s sofa, arms around one anther, or was it just My arm around His? I sense My friend’s annoyance.
We leave. He and I walk back to My place, arm-in-arm up Avenue B, which makes Me nervous.
Back at My place
we kiss. Is this the first time since February? Probably.
I’m lost in His mouth, His hands, the feel of His body through our clothes.
We
are not technically drunk this time.
I’m so turned on I ache.
I wonder what
the Hell I’m doing.
For a while we make out like a couple of horny teenagers, which technically
he was just a year and a half ago.
I probably put on some music.
There was the
potentially awkward moment when the Murphy bed had to be lowered, but that action was seamless. Our fates were sealed.
I’d never seen Him naked before.
He
has a great ass.
Big bush of pubes.
Uncircumcised penis.
His nipples are
flat to His chest like a little boy’s.
He smells like sex.
The foreplay is
agonizing and amazing. It seems so easy. We go there. I can put My mouth anywhere. He is responsive. We are ticklish in different
places. I like the taste of Him. Everywhere.
I remember licking His armpits and tasting His deodorant.
I remember sucking on His big toe, but maybe that came later. Tonguing His nipples gets almost no reaction. Licking His anus
makes Him squirm.
He sucks My penis like a pro. I finger His asshole and feel bumps and grooves
on His insides.
I have an ancient packet of KY Lube Warming Jelly that I got mailed to Me
as a free sample. I open it and finger His anus with it and ask Him how it feels.
“Weird.”
I roll on a condom and turn Him onto His stomach and try to enter Him from
behind. It’s not working. I can’t squeeze myself into Him.
He rolls onto
His back, puts His ankles on My shoulders and tells Me to try it “this way.”
I do.
I
love watching His face.
Now it’s a little slack-jawed. Now a little wide-eyed wonder. Then raised
eyebrows questioning “what?”
But it works and I’m in and I am amazed by the sensation and by the
success.
I ask repeatedly if He’s all right. He tells Me repeatedly that He is.
It
doesn’t last as long as I’d like.
I cum inside the condom inside Him.
I begin to suck His cock. Like a pro? I don’t know,
but it’s the perfect fit for My mouth and throat. He cums down My throat but I don’t taste His semen. I ask if
He has cum and He assures Me that He has.
Have I reversed the sequence here?
He tells Me this
was His first time being penetrated, which I’m glad I didn’t know.
Clean up the bed,
put the soiled comforter aside. Set the clock for the early service. Curl up next to Him and fall asleep.
Content
but a little scared as well.
Several hours later I wake up, grind beans, boil water, make coffee for Him
and Me. I’m embarrassed because I don’t have milk. Or rather I only have buttermilk.
We drink the coffee
black then start making out again.
We’re naked and hard and grinding against one another. I know that I
came, I can’t remember if He did as well.
We lie very still for a while then I notice it’s
about ten minutes before the service is to begin. He asks if we should rush to make it. I say that we should just go to the
11 o’clock instead.
I don’t know how long we lay there or if there was more sex. We get dressed without showering. We get to the church but the early service hasn’t let out yet. We go to the coffee shop
next door where a semi-famous actor is there with his two young children. I love sitting there with Him, eating a muffin or
whatever, preparing to go to church for the first time in a couple of years.
When we go back
next door to the church they have already begun letting people in and it’s packed. They are announcing that the overflow
will be sent next door to the Activities Room and the service will be broadcast there. I don’t want to go to the Activities
Room and I spy a space on a short pew where two middle-aged gay men are already seated. An usher has seen those seats as well
and has begun directing some other folks toward them. Having spent formative years on the Saint Paul’s Baptist Junior
Usher Board I know the signals and signs. I jump ahead and He and I press in before the other worshippers can get there. I
am proud of this maneuver.
On the pew in front of us are two other gay men, probably in their early 30s
with their tow-headed toddler. I joke to Him that we’ve been seated in the Gay Section of Middle Collegiate Church.
The toddler has lots of little toy trucks and is adorable.
The singing is great from the two choirs (one classical,
one gospel.) The minister is a Black woman with a somewhat confusing sermon, “Some people called Mary Magdeleine a ‘Ho.’”
There is a “hat parade” for the children; one of the gay dads takes their toddler down the aisle as the other
takes photos. Two babies are dedicated.
I’m aware that He and I smell (of sex).
At the end of
service we shake hands for peace with our neighbors and file out.
We head for the Russian-Turkish Baths on East 10th Street, passing someone we know on the way.
The Baths are
moderately empty, probably because of the holiday. I love showing new people the ropes there.
I love looking
at His naked body. What a butt!
We make the rounds of the different hot rooms. At one point I come out of
the Russian Room and He’s in conversation with friends of an old friend of Mine. I’m proud that He’s My
friend.
I get a platza and He watches as I get beaten with an oak leaf broom and doused
with cold water on the top level on the hottest room.
We dress and leave and go back to My place. He picks up
His bag and most of the huge loaf of bread He brought.
On some ridiculous level I want Him to stay.
He
leaves. I wave good-bye as He walks down the hall. I wonder what He’ll tell His lover, who is also My friend.
26 June 2009 
His Story What
kind of wine? Red, certainly, it’s Easter, but that didn’t narrow it down enough. I hate buying gifts. I always
realize the weight of how much I feel for someone when buying them something, and I always pick hard things to choose like
books, or clothes or wine. I got flustered and tried to calm myself down. I settled on a Pinot Noir. I paid and felt a familiar
twinge of accomplishment at not getting ID’d. I reentered the street, the bustling, but still somehow slightly suburban intersection of Ditmars and 31st
where the N and W trains terminated. The end of the line. As far as we go. As I walked towards the train I stopped on a whim
at Rose and Joe’s Italian Bakery. This is the best thing about living in Astoria, I thought. I brought him a large white
loaf. Something big and rustic, a taste of Queens, I thought sarcastically. A few weeks after it all I spent a night drinking alone in Queens trying to digest it all. It was Orthodox
Easter in Astoria, which is about a week after the Catholic/Protestant version. Greek families parading down the sidewalk,
banding together and fanning out holding candles, me lunging back and forth towards thirty first avenue, torn between thoughts
of the woman I’d moved here to be with and the man I’d slept with a few nights ago. Fireworks lit the East River
as my depth perception became less and less reliable. I felt the need to be alone. I felt the need I often feel in New York
for a bench just when there isn’t one. A place to sit and digest what had happened the week before. Out of nowhere I
smelled him. On the air with the fireworks. Something a little like the tea tree oil I remember from the hippie convenience
store I went to as a young boy, but less preserved, more alive, more savory. I remembered the moment right before we kissed
at his apartment, where I write from now. I paused and turned around. It was cold this near the water, and having reclaimed enough of the sensation of having been with him to hold
it inside myself I headed home. Back to (her). Back to reality, and my first real adult relationship... June 29, 2009
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Specimen 5: My Story and His
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