One Friday afternoon I saw an ad in the Washington Blade for a Bare Bear Chest contest at the Baltimore Eagle, which sounded like promising fun. So, Saturday evening I got on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway from DC and made my way up North Charles Street toward this new (for me) Eagle. I passed the place, looped around the block, and found parking nearby. As I walked down the block to the bar, I was struck by how undangerous the neighborhood seemed compared to the run-down area around the DC Eagle.
The entrance to this Eagle was a small dark door on a side street off North Charles. Just inside the door on the left was a little kiosk selling leather magazines, clothes, and various sex toys. On the right were a table with HIV/AIDS literature and some smiling, bearded guys looking me over. For admission they collected a couple of dollars and a kiss (was a kiss really part of the admission? I didn’t argue), and one of them also kissed my hand, which I thought was an odd thing to do. They pointed me at a little bucket. I looked in and picked out a tiny toy bear, about an inch tall, as my party favor. I was barely inside the door and already having fun.
The Baltimore Eagle turned out to be much smaller than the DC Eagle. First there was a long, narrow room with a bar partway down the side, and then a second, darker room in the back also with a bar. Part of one wall in the first room was brightly lit, with some drawings and carvings on display for, a sign said, a silent auction.
There were already quite a few bearded and leather guys standing around holding drinks or laughing. I didn’t see as many really cute men as I hoped, however, it was still early. At the bar I got a tonic-and-lime and walked it closer to a UV light to see the blue glow of the drink (which I’d only recently discovered). After looking at the items for auction, I wandered back to check out the dark bar, nodding hello to this or that stranger, partly out of politeness and partly to see what second glances I might get in return.
As I settled against a wall in the back room to watch, the place began to fill steadily with men until it was quite busy. After a while there was barely room to get through the crowd without a lot of body contact (not that this was a problem). It was also very warm and humid in the bar now, and many men had taken their shirts off. For all the times I had seen shirtless guys in the DC Eagle, I had never thought of taking off my shirt.
But now I decided what the hell. I rested my drink on a little shelf, stripped off my shirt and like many others I saw, tucked it under my belt so it hung down in the back like Tarzan’s loincloth. I had finished my drink, so I squeezed my way to the bar for a beer, feeling somewhat self-conscious at my new-found half-nakedness.
A guy with a thick blond mustache and an absolutely dazzling smile at whom I had smiled earlier, came over to me at the bar and started chatting me up, giving me some serious scrutiny. This time he introduced himself as Bert and quickly took an interest in my pierced nipples, brushing his fingertips over them. I duly pushed my chest out and looked Bert in the eye, and he grasped my right nipple, giving it an increasingly firm pinch until I winced, he smiling that dazzling smile all the while, silently daring me to take it.
Pulling me down by my nipple, Bert leaned up to kiss me and we started necking harder (yes, tongues). I stepped closer and pinned him firmly against the bar, one of my legs thrust between his, my swollen cock feeling tight inside my jeans. I’d kissed in bars before and even though this bar was dark, noisy, and absolutely jam-packed, I’d never before felt so like a public spectacle. But also, it didn’t really bother me. In fact, being a spectacle was kind of a turn-on, especially after a quick glance around and I saw no one else was getting any.
When we came up for air, I took my beer and Bert’s hand and we squeezed through the crowd to check out the real Bare Bear Chest contest in the front.
By turns, the contestants went up on stage. Each had to answer essay-type questions, mainly about masculinity or sexuality, with witty or profound statements being the most valuable. To enhance their chances of winning, the contestants solemnly showed themselves off, front and back, sometimes loosening their pants to wave their bare bear asses at the judges and wildly appreciative audience, or twirling in different outfits, like a full-dress leather uniform or even just a jock strap.
The winners, in three different categories of age and size and clever answers, were of course all pretty good looking and very hairy. After the contest, the winners wandered around the audience greeting their friends, lovers, and wanna-bear admirers.
It was after 1 a.m. and I said to Bert that I had a long drive back to DC. He invited me instead to stay at his place and so I pulled my shirt back on and we left the Eagle for our respective cars. I followed him out to suburban Baltimore, to a townhouse where we went upstairs to his bedroom and got naked. My clothes reeked of stale smoke as I pulled them off.
I don’t remember Bert’s body, what the sex was like, or whether he snored. But I definitely remembered his dazzling smile.
The next morning we gradually came to life until he realized he was running late for work. We threw on our clothes, and he raced off down the road with me following as fast as I dared until he lost me. I managed to find my way back to the B-W Parkway and got back to DC, my night-before clothes still reeking of smoke and a few traces of Bert.
I ran into Bert a few weeks later at another party in Baltimore; but even though I thought he was a good guy, I didn’t hang out with him. However, I heard later from a friend at work who also knew Bert, that he was now feeling pestered by Bert who was calling a little too often. I wondered if I lucked out.