Threesomes

“Why don’t you jerk us both off until we cum in your face?”

This is what Keith told me he told The Guy.  My buddy Keith and I were at the bar, and I couldn’t believe what Keith was telling me – that he had propositioned The Guy and included me in as part of the bargain.  As Keith told me this, two things went through my head:  first, I’d never been part of a threesome before.  Second, Keith was my friend.  Was I now about to be in a sexual situation with him?  Keith went back to The Guy and a deal was struck.  The Guy didn’t want to be seen leaving all together (why?) and said he would get in his jeep and pick us up on the street corner outside the bar, like a couple of hookers.  The Guy was hot and I was in.  Keith and I left the bar seconds after The Guy did, and true to his word, The Guy was waiting for us at the corner and we hopped in his vehicle.

He drove us to his place, and led us to the basement, to an unfurnished, unfinished room with just a bare mattress on the floor.  We all began to make out, but something became clear right away – The Guy was more into me than Keith, and from the start, Keith was already taking second billing.  Clothes off, we ended up a trio on the mattress, the only light coming from a bare bulb in the hallway outside the room.

This would be a night of firsts for me:  my first threesome, my first time being sexual with a person who was previously simply a buddy, and the first time I would try poppers.  “Do you want a hit?”  The Guy asked me.  “What are those?” I asked.  “Poppers,” he told me.  “What do I do with them?” I asked.  He answered by demonstrating, and then passed them to me.  I did my first hit, and waited.  For the first second or two, I felt nothing.  But then....oh then....a rush through my whole body unlike anything I’d ever felt.  I was immediately on fire and instinctually offered up my ass.  Who invented poppers?  And could I thank him personally?  The poppers turned my sexuality into sharp relief.  I was so horny, I felt like one big giant cock.  The Guy took my invitation, rolled on a condom, lubed me up and entered me and it was bliss.  Keith offered his cock to The Guy to suck, but The Guy was concentrating on fucking me and Keith was on the sidelines once more.

When The Guy pulled out to go and piss, it gave me and Keith a moment to touch and caress and give each other “I can’t believe we’re doing this!” looks to each other.  I wanted to make Keith feel secure.  When The Guy came back, he resumed fucking me, and Keith took charge and started fucking The Guy.

I don’t remember how it ended – this was some years ago – but I do remember Keith and I leaving and tumbling into the street, laughing and half running, as if we’d just robbed a bank, not believing that we’d had our first threesome, as apparently it was Keith’s first time too.  I wondered if this was true.  After all, Keith had been so brazen at the bar, propositioning The Guy as he had.  What we did say was that we were so glad that we had experienced this together.

Threesomes are a blast.  The more the merrier.  And ironically, it feels like less pressure than a one-on-one sexual experience.  In a one-on-one experience, I feel I have to be all things to my partner, while in a threesome (and later, foursomes, fivesomes, and so on), one can hand over the reins to another person and be a voyeur for a moment and still not feel you’re letting anyone down or ruining the momentum.

The issue often becomes one of:  Do I like one guy more than the other?  How can I make it appear not so in order to satisfy all egos?  Because I haven’t been in a relationship since the Stone Age, I usually have been the third party to a coupled pair.  Therefore, in those situations, I get to be the centre of attention, around which the fun revolves.  But what is the experience like for the couple, especially if they intuit that I’m hornier for one than the other?  Does it show?  Or am I a good enough play partner that I make all feel equally attractive and desired?

When I look back at that first threesome, I think first and foremost of that bare mattress in that unfinished room in that dank basement.  It was a decidedly sordid environment.

How wonderful...

Amsterdam

Amsterdam.   The city famous for its red light district.  However, one lane over, and you are in the blue light district – the gay section.  Picture it – Summer of 2002.  I was wrapping up a three month run in a production of “Singin’ in the Rain” at a theatre in Western Canada.  Just the chorus, nothing to get excited about.  I decided that I was long overdue to have a Summer (or at least three weeks) in Europe.  (My last time in Europe was at age 16 as an exchange student in France.  This time, I would be seeing and experiencing it through adult lenses).   Being the slut that I am, I was going to hit two of the biggest gay meccas Europe had to offer – Amsterdam and Berlin.  From the tour guides that I read, it seemed that every bar in those two cities had backrooms, and I intended to get to know each one.  So I packed my sexiest clothes, my leather, and those tour guides, and flew across the Atlantic.

In Amsterdam, I had booked a bed and breakfast, The Golden Bear (men only).  I was staying on the top floor, and like you see only in Europe, I had to ascend up the narrowest staircase I had ever seen.  After freshening up, I headed out on to the street to get acclimatized to my new neighbourhood, where I would be staying for a week.  I found a quaint cafe nearby and had dinner on the patio.  Next to me sat a gentleman of Arab descent, and seeing the tour guide in my hand, asked me where I was travelling from.  He himself was a student in London and said that every now and again he took the short flight to Amsterdam to have a good time.  Did he have any advice on where to have a good time? I asked.  He pointed across the street at a bath house, saying he’d had many a good time there.  And so I thought about it:  I was really keen to hit the blue light district’s bars and backrooms and dungeons, but evening was upon me.  I hadn’t yet figured out how to get to the blue light district, and so, even though a bath house wasn’t new for me, it seemed right for tonight, at least, to stay close to the B&B.  I thanked my first of many angels on this trip for his advice and excitedly went back to the B&B to get ready.

As I headed to the bathhouse, I felt like Dorothy in Oz, and I knew that this was the beginning of some type of sexual adventure.  Who would I meet, both tonight but also throughout this European vacation?  What would happen?  Would it all be sunshine and lollipops, or was trouble lurking?  There is no walk longer than the walk to a bath house.  You are filled with a mixture of excitement, embarrassment, dread, and again excitement.  By time you reach the door, you are often whacked out with panic and a racing heart.  If I can just get myself through the door, I’ll be ok, you tell yourself.  And once you’re in the door, you feel as if you’ve reached Everest.  And to reference Oz again, I felt like the cowardly lion approaching the door to the bathhouse.  I had come to Europe to experience sexual freedom.  Was I going to abandon that goal due to nerves and just visit museums?  No.  (Well, I did visit the torture museum, so there).

Once safely inside the bathhouse, I noticed that it was A-1 quality – modern and big, with at least three levels.  But unlike any bathhouse I’d been to before, there were no rooms to rent, just lockers.  I soon understood why.  Instead of rooms, there were loads of cabins, with beds that didn’t have sheets, just vinyl coverings.   The cabins had no ceilings, and the walls were so low that by standing on the bed, you could look directly into your neighbour’s cabin and watch them – an exhibitionist’s paradise!  This worked for me, but I wondered about those for whom privacy is a must while having sex.  I assumed that those folks would just not choose to frequent this particular establishment.

After showering and cruising a bit, I met a guy named Marco – a cute blond Italian who had once been to my home city in Canada.  And into a cabin we went.  A great guy, Marco and I talked as much as we had sex.  I topped him, using a condom.  He came, but I didn’t.  I wasn’t ready for the night to end – I wanted more.  Marco seemed disappointed that I didn’t come with him, and I had a hard time explaining that I wanted to stay longer.  I still wasn’t owning up to my sluttiness and couldn’t just be forthright and say I wanted to cruise around some more.  We left the cabin, said our goodbyes, and I showered and carried on.

I headed into the movie theatre, and upon entering, encountered a hot guy with dark, curly locks.  When he saw me, our eyes met and he straightened up, and I knew he was the one.  I sat near him, with just one theatre seat between us, and had one eye on the porn playing on the screen, and him in my peripheral vision.  Ladies and Gentlemen, what comes next is an age-old mating ritual between two men at a bathhouse.  It goes like this:  I inch my foot casually closer in his direction, so casual that it’s almost imperceptible.  Then he does the same.  That is my cue to move my foot a bit closer to his.  And he does the same.  Finally our feet touch.  Then what?  Well, someone has to do something.  And what he did was get up and leave.  I instinctually followed, and hoping he would, he turned back to check if I was following.  Wordlessly, he lead me to a cabin and in we went.

I found this Dutchman incredibly gorgeous, and his soft, curly dark locks in my hands made me crazy.  We rolled around on the bed, kissing, touching, exploring.  And then he turned me onto my stomach and got on top of me.  He began to thrust, but it was simulated fucking – he never entered me.  Really, he just rubbed his cock against my ass.  After we both eventually came, we lay there and talked, stroking each other all the while.  I decided that I loved Amsterdam.

However, do you recall that I said the walls of these cabins were so short that people could watch what you were doing?  Since I was on my stomach with my Dutchman grinding against my ass, I hadn’t noticed that we had a silent audience. Nor did I realize that Marco was a part of the audience.  The trouble with exhibitionism comes when you can’t control who’s doing the watching.  The Dutchman and I left the cabin, and there was a naked man sitting by the door of the neighbouring cabin, and he looked at me as I passed and said “you should use protection”.  Dumbfounded, I carried on, only to be accosted by Marco, who grabbed my arm and berated me for fucking him and then apparently having unprotected sex with someone else, saying that he’d have never allowed me to fuck him if he’d known I have unsafe sex.  I said that he had it wrong, I hadn’t been fucked, it just looked like that.  But he was having none of it and stormed off.

I was due to meet the curly-haired Dutchman on the street to get his phone number, so showered again, dressed and left the bathhouse.  Once on the street, still reeling from Marco and his accusation, I took the Dutchman’s business card.  “Do you really want me to call you at work?  Wouldn’t it be best if I called you at home?” I asked.  But no, I couldn’t call him at home – because his boyfriend might answer.

I went back up the street to the B&B and instantly threw the Dutchman’s business card in the trash.  Was my whole trip destined to be full of this melodrama?  Would this fun frolic through Europe devolve into something negative and difficult?

Three weeks later, after touring Europe, I was back in Amsterdam, just for a night, to catch my return flight back to Canada.  Terribly heartsick over a guy I had met in Berlin, I wandered to a bar for one last taste of European nightlife before I had to say goodbye to the Continent.  And there, at the bar, was the Dutchman, standing with whom I assumed was the boyfriend.  The Dutchman and I awkwardly exchanged hellos and goodbyes. With a plane to catch in the morning, I didn’t stick around to hear him explain me to the boyfriend. 

Bartending at The Anchor

My bartending interview at The Anchor, a gay bar in my hometown, circa 2000, went like this:

“Jason, we`d totally love to have you bartend here......you already know half the clientele, it`s perfect.  Plus, we don`t care how good you are at pouring drinks.  You`ve got what a bartender really needs – likability.”

“This sounds awesome,” I said. “When the fuck do I start?”

“We’re gonna re-jig the schedule, but you’ll train with Brent on Thursday and Friday.  You’ll work the main bar from 8-3, then we do cash out and you’re outta here by 4, unless you wanna hang and party.  Thursday, Bera Breast is hosting the wet underwear contest.  And Friday is underwear night – are you cool about working in your underwear?”

“Uh – no.”

Back up.  I had just returned from three glorious years living in Manhattan.  My last year there had been one of sexual exploration, and then it all came to a crashing halt when my work visa finally expired.  I had the choice of living in New York City under the table and forfeiting health care, or coming back to Canada.  I couldn’t live life as an illegal alien, and, with very little money, I had to make the unsexy decision to bunk with my parents in my semi-small hometown.  I thought this would be a pit stop on to a better Canadian city, but ended up there for ten years.

Happily, my parents lived right next door to The Anchor, one of two gay clubs in town.  The other was The Savoy, where I had worked as the door guy/coat check guy back in ’97.  I likely could’ve gotten a job at The Savoy again, but for the simple detail that The Anchor was right outside my parent’s door, I chose The Anchor.

My last year in New York City had opened up sexual vistas to me that enlarged my sense of my sexual self.  So can you believe that I hesitated when the manager of The Anchor told me I’d have to work in my underwear on Friday nights?  This is like a porn star balking at going to a nude beach.  But I didn’t yet have a full comprehension of my exhibitionist side.  Also, from my year working at The Savoy, I knew the gay population of my hometown well.  Did I really want to open myself up to their scrutiny of my body?  And psychologically, I knew my parents lived right around the corner.  Their best little boy in the world would be mere steps away shaking his ass behind a bar, nearly naked.  The mental dissonance had me reeling.

I made a deal with myself.  I would give it a shot this coming Friday.  If it reduced me to trembling tears and embarrassment, I would quit.  I called the manager, Lloyd, and said I was in.

Thursday was a homecoming of sorts.  People let me know that I’d been missed while in the Big Apple.  They also wondered why the hell I was back in the sticks.  I milked the truth that my visa had expired for all it was worth, and while a valid excuse, I still felt ashamed.  Ashamed that I hadn’t found a way to stay in New York.  They knew that I’d gone there to go to a performing arts school.  Why did I need to bartend here half naked after all of that?  I wondered the same thing.

The drag queens were the true players at The Anchor, and I loved them all.  Crystal Meth bussed tables, and Charity Case, Dora Dumpster, and Iona Sextoy hosted shows, like the wet underwear contest that first Thursday that I worked.  Brent, who trained me on the till that Thursday night was a hot, young guy with a son and a girlfriend and was bisexual (I think).

Friday’s were The Anchor’s big night, while Saturdays belonged to The Savoy.  This was before the internet had emptied the bars, and The Anchor on a Friday night was wall to wall men.  Good ol’ prairie boys.  So cowboy hats, jeans, and flannel shirts.  I got to the bar on Friday night, only my second night there, with my heart in my throat.

Brent and I set up the bar fully clothed, but at around 7:40, Brent said “Ready to get ready?”  We headed to the kitchen (during the day, the bar served finger foods) where there was a staff bathroom.  I was getting prepared to do a job that required me to get partially naked.  Who the hell was I?  I was raised to be Prime Minister of Canada. Or, better yet, a minister, in the religious sense.

Brent was a pro – he was wearing a cock ring.  Therefore when he undressed down to his skivvies and his army boots, he was a beautiful sight to behold.  I, on the other hand, had not had the foresight to wear a cock ring and would have a deflated-looking package next to Brent.  I took that as a bad sign.  There is an art to everything, evidently.

Then it was time to march back to the bar.  Folks, this has to be done proudly, like you own the place.  I knew that much.  I could act, I’d spent 2 years at a NYC performing arts school honing the craft, so I went into automatic and followed Brent.  We got to the bar and there were the requisite whistles from the already drunk patrons who lined the bar.  It was 8 o’clock, and still pretty empty in there.  I was sure my mother was going to walk in at any minute.  Or that god was going to strike me with lightning.  My life as the best little boy in the world flashed before my eyes.  And then, fifteen minutes later...

Nothing.  Fifteen minutes is all it takes to forget that you are working in your underwear.  You banter with the customers, you get slapped with a rag on the ass by Brent, you starting serving drinks, and it’s like being in a bathing suit at the beach.  By time eleven o’clock hit, when the men really started to pour in, I was an old pro.  And then when the customers see a new guy working the bar (or in my case, the dimly remembered guy who worked the door at The Savoy three years ago), the curiosity is piqued for them, and the compliments come.  And my ego grows.  And though legally Brent and I aren’t supposed to drink while working, we do.  And I think “I’m gonna like this”.  I liked it for 3 years.  And the truth?  I was bored the nights I had to work fully clothed.  All week in the gym was for Friday nights.

I also never worked a Friday night without a cock ring again.  And I often worked shirtless, even on the other nights of the week, simply because it felt good (and prompted better tips and shooters bought for me by the customers).  Did I mention that underwear night also applied to the clientele?  Anyone in their underwear got a discount.  Truthfully, not many guys took advantage of it, and I understood why.  Everyone in that town knew everyone else, and it felt vulnerable to really go for it, let loose and drop your pants.  It was the reason I had hesitated in taking the job.  But being behind the bar gave me a certain license that I don’t think our customers felt.  However, I found ways to give discounts on drinks.

One cute guy whom I’d never seen before came to the bar and said right out “If I show you my cock, can I get a free drink?”  I’m all about supporting others people’s exhibitionism, and I also just plainly wanted to see cock.  He showed me.  He got a free drink.  He showed me his cock numerous times.  I used change from my tip jar to keep drinks in his hand.  It’s called reciprocity.   This is the homofuckinsexual equivalent to “show me your tits!”

On a leather themed night, a good friend loaned me the leather I didn’t yet own myself:  A harness that connected to a cock ring under my jeans.  I remember feeling particularly sexual and left a few buttons of my fly undone.   The cowboy sitting at the bar that night was fucking cute.  I’d gotten his name, so I naturally felt that I knew him well enough to let him slide a hand down my jeans.  Which lead to a short-lived affair.

And then there were the shows.  Whenever a drag queen needed a guy to dance in a cage wearing just a g-string, I volunteered.  No, this was not Broadway.  And inwardly, I shook my head at how far backwards I had reeled from the theatre aspirations that had guided me to New York.  But something else was happening, and it wasn’t ominous in the least.  I was getting to exhibit my inner exhibitionist.  And while you may think that my ego was likely growing at too fast a rate, believe you me, there are always a few drunk patrons who stagger up to you to remind you that you’re not all that.  Egos actually are kept in check and a sense of humour about the whole blasted thing is necessary.

But after three years, I began to feel that I had stayed too long at the fair.  It got harder to muster up the sincerity, and I wasn’t as great any longer at entertaining the customers.  The internet was truly drawing the crowds away – and my tips reflected that.  But in the good times, it was heady fun to be the centre of a party, at the main bar, around which the fun circled.

At the time of this writing, I am back in my hometown after a few years of living in a much larger city out East.  Three nights ago, I went from my parent’s place to The Anchor to see the old gang.  Lo and behold, the door to the main club downstairs was locked.  Only the pub above was open.  I learned that The Anchor was now closed on Sundays and Mondays due to lack of business.  Upstairs, in The Anchor’s adjacent pub, I stepped into a time capsule.  I saw some dimly remembered faces, but the place was quiet, with one patron sleeping at the bar’s counter.  And as much affection as I have for the faces that I remembered, they too seemed to have stayed too long at the fair.  There was the undeniable air of hopelessness – and loneliness – enveloping the air.  The few patrons left seemed out of a movie called “The Last Chance Blues”.  Where were all the gays?  At private dinner parties?  In the closet?  If I had stayed in my hometown even a year longer than the ten that I did stay, I believe a cancer would have begun to grow.  A cancer created by loneliness.  I needed a bigger centre, with a gay Village, to feed my need for life and adventure.  And so, leaving after one beer, I thanked the gay gods for my years at The Anchor when it was hopping, and thanked the gay gods for also bearing me to the big city I now live in before the quiet of my hometown caused me to implode.

Berlin Leather Sex Party

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Anonymous Sex and Soccer Moms

Religion screwed me up about sex.  Celibate priests and sexless saints.    Feeling compelled to wash my hands obsessively just at the thought of arousal.  Terrified because I found Jesus attractive.  The lessons I learned in those days led me to see the sexual realm as somehow “dark”, while religion was supposedly the bastion of “light” (and therefore necessarily divorced from sexuality).  I recall reading a book that told me that masturbation was an affront to god, and that the only sex deemed holy was that had in the sanctity of marriage.

I got to thinking about the soccer mom who might, on a Saturday night, accidentally stumble across my blog while looking for a blog on knitting.  What would she possibly make of it? Would she cluck her tongue at male sexuality, especially gay male sexuality and its supposed excesses?  And on Sunday morning, as she sings “Alleluia” from her pew, does she silently pray for me, that I will turn from my sinful ways?  Does she pray that I’ll recant?

What would she think if I told her that I’ve seen videos on Xtube of anonymous sexual encounters?  You know the kind – someone posts an ad on craigslist and waits, ass up, for a stranger to walk in and fuck him.  When I clicked on these videos, I expected something dark, something frightening, but found them often...friendly.  It often started with a Hello, and ended with a Thanks (and sometimes See You Next Week).  Does our collective conscience deem such an experience as dark only because it falls way out of the realm of “normal” sexual contact?

Because what about our soccer mom, who after church, comes home where she and her husband have loveless sex.  Loveless because of twenty odd years of emotional wounds inflicted and resentments harboured.   Her husband hired a new, young secretary two weeks ago.  She’s noted that he takes longer in the morning to get ready for work and she is not a stupid woman.  And now, with her husband on top of her, she prays again, just as she did at church, but this time for him to climax and just be done with it.  But it’s all within the sanctity of marriage.  Am I supposed to see this as “light”?

Am I promoting anonymous sex, like the kind I described above?  Absolutely not.  It would be irresponsible of me.  I was robbed once by a trick.  I’ve had friends who have invited strangers over for play and ended up physically assaulted.  What I am suggesting is a paradigm shift, an awakening to the idea that if it’s safe, sane and between consenting adults, we might find sexual beauty in the unlikeliest of places, scenarios and kinks.  Alleluia indeed.

The End of Bottoming

Writers often fear that they have nothing original to say.  I, on the other hand, steadfastly hope that what I`m writing about is not original.  I want to know that others have tread the same murky waters of sex in all its glory (and unglory).  I don`t want to think I`m alone in my experiences.  An isolation like that would be too hard to bear.  No, I don`t want to be original.  What I do want is dialogue with like-minded travellers on the quest.

This essay describes an embarrassing moment during sex that happened 7 years ago.  It forever changed my sexual behaviour, up to the time of this writing.  Could I ever tell my family, with whom I confide a great deal, about it?  Not on your life. Could I tell my friends, even my closest confidantes?  Never have, and probably never will.  So it’s down to you Dear Reader.  Sorry for burdening you.  The irony is that because we don’t know each other, I can be brutally honest.  I don’t want to write this essay.  And that is why I know I should.

In 1997, I got to know a local gay bar intimately, by working as both the door guy, taking your cover charges, and as the coat check guy, taking your coats for tips.  But it was years later that I met Ethan at said bar, around 2003.  No longer working there, just a patron, I was wearing a sleeveless T, perfect for showing off the biceps.  And it caught the eye of Ethan. 

Ahhh, Ethan.  Unruly auburn hair, freckled, built, about 25 years old, compared to my 29 or 30 years.  He looked jockish.  Our eyes locked and I sidled up to where he was seated.  Imagine my surprise when this jockish guy told me he was in from another province for a month to attend an opera-singing workshop at the university.  He also told me he was imagining what I looked like naked.  We kissed and high tailed it out of there, headed in a cab to his place.

He was staying in a non-descript apartment, sharing it with others attending the same opera workshop.  In his room, there was just a mattress on the floor and his luggage.  I had a soft spot for men just passing through town- no commitments, no fuss, no muss.   We two men stumbled into the ecstasy that two men find when the clothes come off and you begin to explore each other.  That holy moment of first touch.  And coming up for air from between his legs, I looked up at his face.  His eyes were closed.  He revelled in my touch and I looked at that face and thought: beautiful.  I took a mental Polaroid and filed it in a folder in my mind labelled Remember Forever.  To me, he was that beautiful.

 I wanted my hands to touch every inch of his cock, his bush, his balls, and finally his ass.  Eventually, I licked a finger and penetrated his ass.  And my finger was blocked by something hard.  Yes, there was a train in the tunnel.  No sweat, I figured, as I pulled my finger out.  We would forego assplay.  Ethan seemed unaware and continued to revel in the eroticism of our play.

We connected again a few days later, wandering the woods of my city’s river valley together.  And in those woods, he blew his wad on my chin and shirt collar.  He was brave and bold, taking my hand as we walked along the street back towards the university, to search for a cab to take me home.   In the moonlight, I got in the cab, and turned to look at Ethan.  There was the man, smiling at me, whose cum rested on my shirt collar (we’ve come a long way since the 1959 Connie Francis hit “Lipstick on Your Collar”, haven’t we?).  We had made plans to meet again at his place in a day or two.  I couldn’t wait.

We never know when we are about to face down a game-changing moment, do we?  On the way to see Ethan again, I was innocently oblivious to what would amount to a change in my future sexual behaviour.

It was summer time, so it remained light until late.  I arrived at his place at around 6pm, and we proceeded to get naked, the sunlight streaming through the window.  This time, it was my ass that was played with, and this was no problem – I’d bottomed a fair bit and felt comfortable as Ethan slipped on a condom.  He entered me, and it was no more nor no less challenging than any other time.  What I loved was looking in his eyes, and feeling that maybe this was the start of something good.  Just the fact that we had made it to date three was a near-miracle, given my track record of one night stands that never made it to a second meeting.

But the look in his eyes shifted suddenly.  And then the smell hit me.  It was the smell of certain humiliation.  I evidently wasn’t clean.  Dear Reader, in the many times that I had bottomed before, I had never experienced this problem.  I was so unsophisticated, that I didn’t even know how to douche.  How had I remained so clean while being fucked in the past?  Pure, dumb luck.  I looked down, and saw my mess had even gotten on his leg.  He said “Cum now” and I did and he did, quick and efficient, to put an end to this episode gone wrong.

In the shower, I was speechless.  I began with “sorry about....” and he good naturedly said “ Hey, that’s life”.  But something had shifted.  We didn’t have enough of a foundation to truly process a messy sexual experience, and I instantly became deeply insecure, searching for signs that he forgave me and my body for betraying our desire.  I was deeply embarrassed and was not cool about it.  For someone else, this may have seemed minor.  For me, it verged on catastrophe.  I instantly felt betrayed by my body and cursed my ass, as if it should have known better.  The stakes felt high – I really liked Ethan, and my brain was screaming at me that my ass had ruined it.

My plumbing was fucked up, and I needed to spend time in the washroom righting myself.  When I’d pulled it together, we settled on the couch, and cuddled while making a half-hearted effort to watch a movie.  But I was only half present – my other half was obsessively reliving what had happened in the bedroom.

I saw Ethan once more before he headed back to his hometown.  But I was now coming at him from a self-defeating angle, sure that I had lost his desire.  And indeed the signs were there, though I tried not to see it.  He held my hand, but it felt cold.  We said goodbye and he gave me his West Coast number.

Fucking synchronicity being what it is, I remember reading Dan Savage’s column “Savage Love” around this time.  He casually mentioned that if you have anal sex with a new guy, and you’re not clean, don’t expect to see him again.  And so rather than gather what dignity I still felt I had left, and letting it and Ethan go, I lurched forward and called Ethan instead, saying that I was coming out to his city for a vacation.  Could we get together?  Sure he said, but he had to go, it was dinnertime, his family was calling.  Did he call me back?  No.  Did I take the hint? No.  Instead, I bought a ticket with Masochistic Airlines and flew West as the summer (and my ass) was starting to close.

Ethan worked part time at a sports bar in his city’s gay Village, and upon arriving, I went to find him, and find him there I did.  Walking down to the beach, we made plans to meet that night and spend the evening together.  I remember he kissed me, and took that as a sign that he was into me, into this.  I felt I’d been given a second chance to redeem my wounded ego, and went back to the hotel to wait for his call expected at 6pm.

6pm came.  So did 7pm.  I left him a message – “Hey, just waiting for your call, hope you’re ok and looking forward to tonight”. 8pm came.  9pm came.  Finally, reality came.  I had been stood up.

I hit the streets, determined to salvage this ill-fated trip by going out, drinking, meeting someone new.  But any gay Village is small – I ran into Ethan on the street, completely by chance.  I had nothing to say, and was numb to his excuses for not getting back to me.  I suggested we not draw this out any further.  He agreed and wimpishly asked for a hug.  I declined, asking “what for?”, and we parted.  But fate loves to rub our nose in it, and we actually passed on the street once more, a day or two later.  Our eyes met and we both immediately looked away.  This man, to whom I was very attracted, who had cum on me in the woods by a river, who had told me that his friends liked me, who had taken my hand in public, was now to be treated as a stranger.

Another casualty was my ass, now to be treated as a stranger as well.

I recognize that I may have misplaced my anger about what happened with Ethan, but I blamed my ass.  Looking at things now, could it be that the same outcome would have occurred with Ethan whether or not my ass cooperated with our anal sex or not? I only topped from that day on.  Bottoming left me feeling too vulnerable.  I worked on my ass on my own time, thank you very much.  I was no stranger to my dildos.  So I didn’t completely shut down.  But many an hour was spent wondering what it would take to get back on the horse and bottom again.  In all honesty, I gave it a shot, once, but abandoned it quickly, still not ready to go there.  Topping was easy, no risk.  And so while bottoming might be considered by some as the passive or femme or sub position to take, I know the truth – it takes a real man to bottom.  Bottoming takes balls.  And if memory serves, the rewards are stunning.  The prostate should be celebrated yearly by a parade in its honour.

Regarding my ass, I let a mental block form, but now I realize that, as Ethan had said regarding my messy ass, “that’s life”.   And I very well may be underestimating Ethan – maybe he truly meant it and hadn’t been shocked by my body’s lack of finesse.  In any case, I know how to douche now.  So what’s stopping me from giving it another go?  Ass, it’s time for you to head out into the world again.  Ass, you’ve gone unattended to for too long.  This is an ass manifesto.  “The End of Bottoming”, my ass!  I’m going to get back in the game.  Ass, you’ve been so patient.  Ass, you need to meet a partner who’s going to honour you and enjoy you.

Am I ready to be that vulnerable again?