Months earlier I had noticed a small, separate building in DC with a sign out front reading “Chesapeake House,” and I learned from an ad in the Washington Blade that it was another gay bar. One Saturday night I decided to check it out, having become bored by the same-old-same-old over on P Street. After walking over from Metro, I paused at the front door of Chesapeake House, surprised to find this bar charged an admission fee. But I was curious and paid the small fee.
The room was long and narrow, extending way back. The bar along the right wall was crowded with customers, and on top of the bar were several good-looking young men dancing to pulsating club music, naked except for gym socks into which customers were stuffing dollar bills in exchange for, as near as I could make out, a few minutes’ of feeling up the dancer’s balls.
But after a few minutes it was clear this place wasn’t going to be all that interesting, as none of the dancers had facial or body hair. Many of them even had shaved armpits and groins. Huh. So I found a stool in the back against the wall and skimmed a copy of the Washington Blade, feeling immune to the snake-like nudity all around me but determined to get some time for my $5.
After about twenty minutes I got up, and on my way out asked the bouncer about another bar I had heard of in the area, something about a “leather” bar. He grinned and said that I meant the DC Eagle up on New York Avenue, just a couple of blocks away.
I headed off to find this DC Eagle, walking up 7th Street in the cool night air, past the Chinese shops, eventually crossing Massachusetts Avenue and then a short way along New York Avenue. The neighborhood was starting to look a little run down, but it wasn’t late at night so I wasn’t too worried.
I was amazed, just stunned, when I walked in the door. Taken aback, even. The DC Eagle was completely unlike any other bar I had ever been in. The room was open and mostly empty, the floor a bare concrete slab, the light dim, the walls plain, and the music rock. There was a TV mounted on the wall showing porn with men in leather vests fucking each other. The bartender and the patrons were dressed down in jeans and T-shirts and vests and work boots, like they just got off their shift at a gay steel mill.
But what else got me was the smell. In addition to the ubiquitous cigarette smoky smell, there was another distinctive, almost sweet, mechanical odor that was somehow really familiar but I could not place it.
I got a beer and still smelling that smell, took a stroll around the bar. The main room was long and narrow, and extended back to a row of pinball machines a large, glowing digital clock face, and restrooms. On one side there was a staircase leading up to a second floor where there was another bar plus walking space all around, a pool table, and country music instead of rock.
After another beer, I caught Metro and headed home in a glorious daze but feeling like I never, ever wanted to go home again. (Weeks later I realized that sweet, mechanical odor was just like, of all things, railroad stations in Asia. The strange looks I got when I mentioned this, however, made me stop mentioning it.)
Now that I discovered the Eagle, I only ever went back a couple of times to the hairless attitude bars on P Street. The Eagle had the men and the feel I had been looking for but never knew it: the guys with beards and hairy chests and sometimes, friendly hands. Blue jeans or leather clothing seemed to come with the hairy territory and that was OK.
One drizzly Saturday evening (winter in DC is mostly dreary) I was bored, so I braved a little wet, cold weather to go out to the Eagle. After I arrived and got a beer, I noticed a tall, bearded guy talking with some people, a man more good looking than any I’d ever seen in person. I could not take my eyes off Oh. My. Man. God. He was absolutely calendar-model hot. Tall. Lean. Thick beard. Deep eyes. Handsome face. A period after every noun. And a slightly open shirt offering a glimpse of a perfectly hairy chest. I was instantly inadequate.
But who knew pinball is my best friend? When I noticed Man God later, alone in the corner playing pinball, I took a chance, screwed up my courage, and sidled casually over to say hi. Turned out his name was Hunter and he had beautiful eyes and a really shy smile. Yikes.
After chatting a while over his pinball games, he said he was leaving and OH MY GOD invited me back to his place. I was still dizzy with Eagle-ness and leather-ness and denim-ness and then a man like Hunter invites me back to his place.
It was now lightly snowing (an actual dark and stormy night!) as we drove to his house. We sat down on a rug in front of the fireplace, which he lit. Can you believe this? A cold, snowy night sitting by the fire with a genuine Man God. Hunter approached getting-to-know simply but very sensuously. As we sat there, face-to-face talking, he pulled off his shirt, then gently pulled one of my feet into his lap and tugged off my shoe and sock, running his fingers over my bare foot and around my toes. I’m only a little ticklish on my feet but somehow what Hunter was doing was anything but ticklish. It was trusting. It was nice. I never felt anything like it before, this much being with a man.
At one point Hunter pointed out that the crotch of my jeans had a very large wet spot, which I had not noticed. He expressed his amazement, asking if I had already cum, and cum so much I soaked through my jeans. I hadn’t. I explained that I was a very good pre-cummer and it was just pre-cum, a lot of pre-cum. Still, even I was impressed that I was so turned on I produced enough pre-cum to soak a huge spot right through my jeans.
Hunter asked to see, so I got up on my knees and unbuckled my pants. Yep, my boxers in front had a huge, sopping wet spot fairly dripping with my pre-cum, like I painted it on with a brush. I moved to pull my pants back up and Hunter stopped me, saying to just take them off the rest of the way. He took off his pants and pulled me into a big hairy naked roll on the rug. In front of the fire. On a winter night. In his arms.
We eventually moved to his bed and had orgasms of course though I― sorry, folks!―forget the specifics now. I fell asleep with my arm around him, woke up with his chin on my shoulder, and he drove me home in the morning. Hunter smoked, and kissing him was kind of like licking an ashtray; the tradeoff was that he had no morning breath. I assumed whatever was in the smoke had killed off the halitosis bacteria.
As I was giving him driving directions to my house, at one intersection I said, “OK, now straight ahead.” He coughed and said, “You mean gaily forward.” He also referred to the flag man on a road construction crew we passed as a flaggot. (I was learning.)
Besides the best-ever sensuous, playful, barefoot, evening-by-a-fire a guy could have, Hunter also gave me something that turned out to be very important to my developing identity: what a “bear” is. Hunter was a bear and he was into bears. I was into bears too; I just didn’t know there was a word for it until Hunter explained that a bear is a bearded hairy guy (for me, the opposite of twink).
He also had a few copies of a magazine named Bear, a black-and-white publication with cheerful taglines like, “naked hairy homo smut” or “the finest in one-hand reading.” Bear was filled with erotica about hairy guys having sex, personal ads by hairy guys and, BEST OF ALL, pictures of naked bearded hairy guys. Really good looking naked bearded hairy guys, lean and muscular. Like they stepped off the cover of Men Loving Men.
Hunter was most enthusiastic about the cover model of Bear Number 10, Jim Donohue, a very pretty, bearded man―bear―with his bright smile, perfect chest, and as displayed in the centerfold, an impressive pair of low hangers.
Hunter eventually moved on to a new guy and we drifted into separate circles. But I never had another fantasy moment like that first, barefooty, cuddly, snowy evening in front of Hunter’s fire.
And many, many years later I discovered Hunter had passed away. I’m not sure of what, but I remember most of all is his gentleness.
Aside: If you want a better idea of why I was so gaga over Hunter’s looks, search online for the book The Bear Cult by Chris Nelson. A photo of Jim Donohue, whom Hunter resembled quite a lot except with better eyes, is on the book cover [image below].
Venite adoremus.
