To help keep drivers off the roads over New Year’s Eve, DC’s Metro ran until around 2 a.m. instead of its usual, become-a-pumpkin midnight end (a pretty lame schedule compared to the serious-about-it New York subway). I usually took Metro to the Eagle anyway, but for New Year's, I decided especially to take advantage of the later run time to stay out longer (and also to avoid being on the road among after-party drunks).
After being at the Eagle for a while, wondering if (hoping) I’d see Ernest, I noticed a nice-looking bear with a thick black beard quietly standing in a corner. He wasn’t talking to anyone, so I sidled over and casually said hello. We chatted for a moment, and he said his name was Marty.
We talked for a while longer, and Marty turned out to be quietly likable. Thinking he would be nice to sleep with, I slyly broached the subject of going (to his) home by saying I would have to leave the Eagle soon in order to get Metro. He countered as I hoped by asking me back to his place (gee!) and pretty soon we were driving across town to his house.
His room was on the top floor of a house he shared, his bed nestled into a cozy little alcove off to one side. We sat on his couch for a while, snuggling and making out and slowly taking our clothes off. Marty had a hairless chest, so not fully a bear in my estimation, but he made up for it by being quite muscular. When I mentioned how great he looked, he explained he’d been working out for months with his home gym machine. Running my hands over his creamy, massive chest and ripply back muscles was an absolute turn-on.
I forget the details of the sex we had but remember in general it was very good.
I was also learning that “last night’s” contact lenses felt just slightly grubby when I put them back in after a sleep-over. It wasn’t so bad I couldn’t see but it was just enough to make me wish I could go home pretty soon and take the contacts out. (This was a few years before Goddess gave us―thank you―a soaking solution that both sterilized the lenses and removed the protein buildup overnight.)
The next morning Marty and I and my slightly grubby eyes went out for breakfast. At the restaurant he told me about his rather long and slow coming-out process, about feeling very shy the first few times he went to bars, not talking to anyone. (I could relate.) After breakfast he dropped me off at a Metro station near his house and I went home (and promptly took my contacts out).
The next Saturday night I went out to the Eagle and ran into Marty again. I was surprised but pleased when we ended up going back to his place, though later I had the feeling he asked me back because he wasn’t comfortable simply saying no. We snuggled in the alcove again and this time I ended up doing frottage on his chest muscles, which I don’t think he liked much.
We didn’t get together for sex again after that, though we did have dinner a couple of times and once went camping with a small group during which I tried to do snuggly things like sit between his legs around the fire or push up next to him in the tent for some much-needed body heat. However, he seemed to have lost any interest in being close.
We chatted a couple of times by email after that but didn’t get together again and I didn’t see Marty at the Eagle or anywhere.
Strangely, a few years later I ran into Marty again, this time right in my office. He had just started a new job doing computer support in my building and was making his rounds, and I was next on his fix-it list. Our chat was friendly, and he admitted he was relieved that I was being friendly, adding he thought I would be mad at him for not wanting to be a couple with me. A couple? Marty was a nice guy but being a couple hadn’t even crossed my mind; I didn’t ask how he made that leap.
But it didn’t matter. Maybe he changed jobs soon after that, for I never ran into him again.
Aside: Inspired by Marty’s well-built body, I joined a gym near my office. I’d never belonged to a gym before, but by watching others, I began doing chest presses, bicep curls, using the stair-climbing machine, and all the other stuff one does at a gym.
After a few months I noticed a little improvement in my appearance but only a little because, as I discovered, I just don’t get big muscles and would never look “built.” But I took it in stride. Hitting the gym after work became a routine even if not a physically enhancing one. I told myself it was good for me, so I kept at it, and was usually glad of it after. I mean, no one likes going to the gym, but everyone likes having gone to the gym.