New York Nights

I don’t know if it’s still there, but just before the turn of the millennium, there was a leather bar in New York called The Lure.  On Wednesday nights, usually a slow night for a bar, The Lure had the smarts to make that night their Pig Night.  You would see the ad in the gay magazines of a pig in fetish gear, underscored by the tagline “Men Are Pigs”.  Enough said.  Wednesday night is the new Saturday night.

Entering the Lure was like entering another universe – one filled with the smell of poppers and sweat, the sounds of thumping music, the feel of hot air, the sight of gorgeous leather men, and if you stayed a while, a taste of them too.  You could check all the clothes you wanted to check at the coatcheck (where do I put the coatcheck tag when I’m half naked?).  With all the bartenders dressed in leather and/or fetish gear, I decided to order from the one with huge muscles and nipple clamps.  Not intimidating in the slightest, he proved to be sweet and smiley. 

Two drinks later, I’m still not ready for a trip to the backroom, so I cruise the place.  So many dark corners.  In one, I chat with a guy who eventually moves behind me, wrapping his arms around my chest.  We keep talking and his hands slide slowly to my pants, and then in them.  And this is how I know that part of being a homophobic straight male comes down to jealousy, since this welcomed groping could never happen in a straight bar between a man and a woman (or could it? does it?).

This groper was the opening act, and now, I think I’m ready for the main act – the backroom.  An area of the bar is partitioned off, and almost dark, with just a few dim red lights to cast an appropriately sleazy glow.   What time is it?  It must be late, because the backroom is at its peak, packed shoulder to shoulder, cock to cock, with men touching each other as they squeeze by.  Along the walls, men are on their knees, servicing others, some of them being fucked.  I watched two men playing and they notice me and beckon me to join them.  They are standing, and I fall to my knees to worship both their cocks at once. When I glance up, they are either smiling at me, or kissing each other, both beautiful sights to behold.  This communion makes me cum.  I’m not sure if the two guys I’m servicing even know I have.  I release their cocks and smile and say thanks, and lead my dizzy self out of the darkroom towards the light of the bar, itself still so dim.  I’ve cum, I can still taste two men on my lips and am ordering another drink from the same nipple-clamped bartender.  He knows I’ve been around the world and back in the backroom.  He smiles knowingly at me.  Is he at that stage in his career as a bartender where he thinks this is heaven, this den of lust, or is he at that place where he’s seen it all before and longs to leave the bar and find romance rather than pigs?  I know both feelings are possible, and valid.  I too have been a bartender in a gay bar.

I get back what clothes I’ve left in the coat check and ready myself to leave the bar and enter the real world.  It’s dark still, and I leave a bit of my heart and soul in the bar.  I feel more naked in the real world, even though I’m fully clothed.  On the subway platform, waiting for the train to come, I steal glances at the few people around me.  Can they smell the sex of the night on me?  Can they sense it?  Being New Yorkers, they probably don’t care if I smell of sex.  At this hour, they probably do too.

I crumple into a seat on the subway and look up to see an attractive man across from me with eyes closed, sleeping.  It sounds like a good idea and I too close my eyes.  But when I open them again, he is eyeing me.  He grins slightly before closing his eyes again.  We pass this flirtatious ball back and forth until I realize that I’m coming to my stop.  At my stop, the door opens and I take a last look back at my sleeping beauty.  As I step off the train, he jumps up and leaps off the train just as the doors are closing shut.

Sleeping beauty is a dancer with an esteemed dance company, and he was heading home, but up for hanging out.  He follows me as I lead him up the steps from the subway into the street, and in the time it took to get home, a miracle has occurred.  The light has arisen on the city, and it is that holiest of moments in New York, when the streets and even many of the pigeons are still asleep at dawn and it’s just you and the City.  And in this case, a beautiful dancer.

In my single-room-occupancy room, the dancer undresses and lay on the bed.  His balls are hairy, a rare gift in this waxed age, and I cup them in my hand.  He breathes deeply and teasingly shows me how flexible he is by stretching a leg so far back that his heel nearly reaches his head.

My cock is done – what happened at the Lure was all it had the energy for, but I do have the energy to worship this dancer with my tongue, all over his body until I reach his cock and take it in.  When he cums, we lay together silently.  His energy is at peace and I instinctively sense that he is a nice person.  This is meaningful to me.

When he goes, I lay down, placing my head into the indentation on the pillow where the dancer had rested his head moments before.  My window is open, and I hear the sounds of civilians starting their Thursday.  As I lay there, I don’t worry that straight people, and many of my gay brethren, would think that I’m a stereotypical example of the promiscuous gay male.  I don’t worry whether I’ve got an STI.  I can worry about that tomorrow – and I probably will.  I don’t worry that I was seduced by men and booze.  Instead, as the machinery of capitalism begins to churn on the streets below, I simply fall asleep.