After being in Thailand for a couple of weeks, I moved on to Hong Kong and got a bunk bed at the Chungking Mansions hostel, way up on the sixteenth floor of a dark high-rise. I borrowed a guidebook from another traveler there and furtively looked up “gay” in the index, finding a bar named the Waltzing Matilda Inn. And according to the map, it was just around the corner.
That very evening I went out to find it. I walked around the somewhat confusing streets for at least two frikkin’ hours looking for the place, passing many arm-in-arm straight couples, while the streets of Kowloon got more and more deserted. I finally gave up and a bit before midnight, headed back to my bunk bed at the Mansions.
The next day I borrowed another look in that guidebook and saw that the bar really was just around the corner, but somehow I had walked right by the little side street it was on. With not much else to do right then, I went out to retrace my steps of the night before, saw exactly where I had repeatedly taken the wrong turn, and spotted the Waltzing Matilda Inn.
After a well-earned laugh at myself, I spent the rest of the day wandering around town. I rode up the Peak Tram for the incredible view of Hong Kong harbor, shopped for electronics (I needed a new cassette player), and found a food stall where I had a bowl of pig knuckles for supper (they were meaty and greasy and absolutely delicious).
That evening I headed back out for the Waltzing Matilda Inn. I was nervous again, as if everyone I passed was watching me and knew. But I made myself walk up to the door and go right in, instead of furtively walking back and forth a few times.
It was another long, narrow room (like the Soi Cowboy), but this time the place looked reassuringly more like an ordinary pub, not a sleazy, whorehouse-kind of place (like the Soi Cowboy). I didn’t quite know what I was supposed to do here either, though I noticed several well-dressed, young Chinese men looking at me (I assumed they were Chinese; it was Hong Kong). I found a small booth in the back, sat down, and ordered a pint of beer. Looking around the bar, all the men were clean-shaven and therefore none in particular looked like anyone I would want to have sex with. So I settled into the beer, hoping someone more interesting (read: hairy) might come along.
When I was on my second pint, indeed, a middle-aged Westerner with a salt-and pepper beard walked in. I sat with my eyes fixed on him and his beard, trying mentally to make him walk toward me. He got a drink and stood against the wall across the bar, casually looking around. When I caught his eye, he looked away, and then back a couple of times. I was getting a good buzz from the beer and tried to wave him over with my eyes (floozy!) by looking at him, then looking pointedly down the empty booth seat opposite me.
We went on like this for a few minutes until he finally walked over and I invited him to join me, adding that I thought he’d never walk over. I don’t remember a lot about what we said except that he was from Germany and had been living in Hong Kong for a few years buying and selling antiques. I’m sure I talked all about me-too living in Asia, which was all I knew at the time.
He also explained that the well-dressed Chinese guys in the bar were prostitutes and they worked together to size up the customers and decide who among themselves would have which customer. He felt sure they had already done the same about me, but now we had messed up their system.
By now I was mostly through my third pint, and felt like I wanted to leave―with German Guy. He was reasonably good looking, so I slyly asked if he were interested in going back to his place. He said it wasn’t far, but he hailed a taxi and we rode along, holding hands. I wondered if the taxi driver was watching and knew.
His apartment was almost totally filled with antiques, leaving only paths for walking space. But the place wasn’t just piles of dusty junk; every piece was absolutely beautiful, polished, and placed with care. He obviously knew his antiques.
We kicked off our shoes and sat down on a couch, talking a little, and I mentioned that I’d had sex only once before (Thai Dancer) and even that was just a blow job. I wasn’t sure if he believed me, but whatever. As we sat there, I threw my leg over his lap and I liked how suddenly natural it felt to do that. We sat there necking for a while and I could not get enough of stroking his beard, the first beard on another man that I ever really got to touch. This encounter was turning out to be a lot nicer!
After a little while we went into his bedroom and laid down on the bed. It was nice to feel him push his leg between mine, then reach over to unbutton my shirt. A man was touching my body! We gradually got each other naked, first him and then me. As I was lying on my back, he said to lift my hips and he tugged off my jeans.
From articles in Asian editions of Newsweek or other magazines, I had read just enough (then) about HIV/AIDS to know better than to let him cum in me. Being a little drunk on several beers, I felt relaxed, if not (for me) outright reckless, and I grasped his cock and went down on him. The firm, fleshy rim of his cockhead against my lips and tongue; the warmth of his swelling manhood in my mouth; the feel of pleasuring him with my welcoming slobber. OK, that’s kind of heavy, but it was wonderful and right all the same.
But he pushed my face away before he came and jerked himself off. We traded places and he went down on me, his mouth equally welcoming around my cock, until I was close to cumming. I tried to push his face away but he wouldn’t let me, so I just came in his mouth. It was wonderful. (It has since become clear, according to CDC, that the risk of transmitting HIV via oral sex is very low.)
After we cleaned ourselves off, I had a big drink of water to guard against a too-much-beer hangover the next day and fell asleep in his bed. It was wonderful.
In the morning, German Guy gave me a glass of juice and a kiss and I forgot his name long before I started keeping the list. But I walked the mile or so back to the Chungking Mansions, however again unhappily wishing I hadn’t done it―it’s not who I am!
It wasn’t until years later I learned this is “denial.”