Notch 25: Mateo

Sometime around now, I discovered the Natural Bears Classification System, a code based on astronomical classification schemes. It was designed to let one identify various, optional physical and social attributes, each on a scale of 0 to 9 (9 being extreme). For example, “B” was the letter to describe beard quality; I gave myself a B3 for a closely trimmed beard.

I had previously seen a few of the codes posted on chat boards (this was a few years before the World Wide Web), and came up with my own: 

B3 t+ g e r

 

Just because it appeared to spell "tiger," I deliberately arranged the letters out of alphabetical order. (The complete NBCS can be found online, if you want to look up what mine meant.) 

NBCS was, for me, a mostly intellectual distraction and I didn't get to use my bear code very often, though I did occasionally hear someone refer to a man by an estimated “B” beard number—all in good, cruisy fun.

 

Even though I had discovered bears and the DC Eagle in real life, I was also still using GLIB and often logged on to see what was new on the bulletin board and especially to see if anyone had left me a message.

One day I did have a new message and excitingly, from a bear who lived fairly close by. We exchanged further messages and a couple of photos and before too long set up an in-person meeting.

Mateo turned out to be really handsome. He had a thick beard, bright eyes, and a broad muscular chest. I was (quelle surprise) instantly interested. As we got coffee and settled down to chat, we found we shared many interests such as biking and movies.

Over the next several weeks, we got together for coffee or dinner several times. But one afternoon he invited me back to see his place. Mateo lived in a high-rise condo with a long, narrow floor plan that made you think it was bigger than it really was. His bedroom was “way down” the hall from the living room and somehow felt very private, almost like a lair.

While he was showing me around his place, I started to grab playfully at his clothes and peel them off. By the time he finished the tour of his bedroom, he was down to his shorts and his dick was making a decent effort at trying to poke its way out. Mateo had a muscular hairy chest that I instantly loved and as we laid on his bed gently kissing, I kept running my hands over his chest, his hips, his legs. Oh, right; and I wasn’t wearing much of anything by this time, either. In fact, Mateo, while keeping his shorts on, had managed to get me completely naked.

Mateo was a top he said, and really wanted to fuck me. I still wasn’t sure I was into that, but Mateo was hot and anyway, I had been curious about bondage play ever since Brad Sir.

I got an idea.

I asked Mateo if he had any rope, and he did. Smiling, I laid back naked on the bed and explained what I was thinking.

Mateo more than got my idea.

Following up on my suggestion, Mateo smiled and gently turned me face-down on his bed, grabbed my ankles, spread them very wide. He tied each ankle to a corner of the bed and finished by tying my wrists behind my back with a bandana. Picture now, if you will, me as the face-down, living embodiment of the letter “A” and very conscious of my spread-wide ass.

And now that I was spread wide, Mateo took charge. He ran his hands slowly all around me, feeling his way under my hips, tugging my dick down between my legs and repeatedly snapping his fingertip on my sensitive cockhead or on, as he said with obvious delight, “your poor nuts.” I winced a little, unable to escape the bondage (I cannot tell a lie: I was in playtime heaven) as Mateo continued to dish it out. Yes, Sir, may please I have another?

And yet Mateo was anything but careless. Even as he unrolled a condom over his cock, he checked in with me, gently asking in my ear if I was OK and if I really wanted to keep this going. I said I was OK and (I didn’t say) I wanted his stiff manhood to just burrow in and take whatever pleasure it wanted.

Mateo moved over my back, and I felt his stiff cock poke against my ass, then press firmly as it found the right spot. His cock popped suddenly into me, then pushed in deeply, all the way up to his balls, then out, then in and out as he fucked me. His breathing got heavy, his hairy chest scrubbed into my back, until his body stiffened and his cum filled the condom inside me.

Mateo untied my wrists so I could stretch out my arms, but stayed there on top of me, his cock still buried between my spread legs, his chest warm on my back as he slipped his arms under my shoulders, his breath in my ear. Maybe it could be very nice, I thought, getting fucked, even with cleaning off the santorum.

Mateo and I dated for several months and having fun with sex, though our sexual relationship began to fade as he or I found others to play with. However, we stayed friends for many years. He turned out to be smart and creative, interested in the arts and theater, and also biking around DC or going to the Eagle for a drink and a chit-chat. I came to like Mateo a lot and might have even carried a bit of a torch for him.

After Mateo moved away, we occasionally heard from each other. I liked him and missed hanging out with him. In retrospect maybe I should have been smarter and tried harder with him—he was funny, witty, sexy, and loved the arts. In retrospect maybe I should have been smarter and tried harder with him. Years later I found out Mateo was married to whom I think is a lucky guy.

 

Aside: I want to add that I let myself get tied up in a vulnerable situation like the one described above only because Mateo and I had already spent some time together, emailed a lot, and I had gotten to know him.

Notch 24: Ross

Once again I was in the DC Eagle on a Saturday night, in the upstairs bar. I smiled at a tall thin guy in a cowboy hat who smiled back at me and said his name was Ross. We chatted for a few minutes and tried a few kisses, and I began to hope that we might end up back at his place. He must have been thinking the same, because we did.

Ross’ apartment was on the top floor of a building way up in DC’s Chevy Chase neighborhood, and he had a large collection of absolutely fabulous Roseville pottery lining one wall. As best as I can recall, we didn’t waste much time getting naked on his bed and getting our cocks hard, playing with each other and jerking off after considerable penis-sucking enjoyment. Ya can’t go wrong sucking a guy’s dick.

Ross had a lean and wonderful hairy chest and a trim beard and being as tall as me, he was great to hug and kiss without me having to lean over. He remarked a couple of times that he thought I was good looking, which was nice.

He invited me to his upcoming Christmas party, and I went. But after that, even though I saw him occasionally at the Eagle or other parties, we didn’t get together again.

Notch 23: Chuck

Ernest had once told me about a certain, recurring party in Baltimore he had gone to where, as he put it, there were “lots of really hot bears.” The way he described jerking off twice as he drove back to DC after the party made me think this was something I had to see for myself, and before Ernest moved away, I got the phone number of the organizer. I called and got myself on the mailing list and before too long, got an invitation to an upcoming “Bear Hugz” party.

So one Saturday evening I was once again driving through Baltimore, nervously going in circles trying to find some warehouse loft apartment somewhere near some goddamn railroad bridge. I finally decided a large plain building was, in fact, it, and parked. The door of the building didn’t look exactly inviting, and I pictured Madeleine Khan stumbling up the steps of the warehouse in What’s Up Doc.

Inside the stairs led up to a long hallway, a set of wide-open double doors, and then a large room already crowded with bearded men, a few of whom turned to look as I walked in.

I found the beverage table, made a Cape Cod, then slowly made my way around the room, chatting with a few guys I recognized from DC or saying hello to other guys I didn’t know but maybe wanted to.

The invitation had said the doors would be locked at 11 p.m., though I don’t recall any announcement when that time came. As the evening wore on, I noticed that guys were gradually clustering into twos or more, sitting or standing, many of them with their shirts open, some with their pants open, and even a few off to one side getting completely naked. Mostly there was a lot of good-natured groping of manly chests and manly groins, lots of manly kissing and hugging, and some good, old-fashioned, on-your-knees, manly cock-sucking.

I myself was standing with three others and in particular, trying to stand very close to Evan, a very handsome bear whom I had met once in the DC Eagle. Evan was friendly, had a melt-your-heart smile, a make-you-cum baritone voice, and a chiseled beard with white corners.

Now I was finding out just how friendly Evan really was, as I took advantage of the moment to chew on his beard and run my hands across his chest and finger his groin. Evan kept himself busy by fiddling my pants open and hauling out my as-usual wet, pre-cummy, mostly hard dick, gently stroking it. Nice to be me!

But someone or something had arrived on his knees in the middle of us, and I felt a warm Mouth From Nowhere replace Evan’s hand on my dick, consuming my erection. I was already pretty hot and bothered from feeling up Evan and had to make the cocksucker quit it before I lost it in his mouth (not that there would have been anything wrong with that. I just wanted to enjoy it all a little longer).

After a while of this cock teasing and stuff, our foursome began to break apart due mainly to some steering-away of Evan by a guy that appeared at Evan’s elbow, whom I gathered was his lover-partner-person. I stuffed my saliva-wet self back into my pants and tried once or twice to find another group to fit into. Failing that, I tried to strike up a conversation with a couple of other cute bears, neither of whom I could get interested enough in me to expect a sleepover invitation.

Around 1 a.m. the crowd began to thin and I leaned against a wall, shucks, feeling somewhat frustrated. A short, kind of round-shaped but mostly cute bear was standing to one side, also just watching the crowd. I still felt really horny and wanted to sleep (read: cum) with a man other than myself, so I said hello. He introduced himself as Chuck, and after talking for a few minutes, we decided to go back to his place.

I followed Chuck across an incredibly confusing maze of streets (Baltimore!), parked in front of a set of row houses, and followed Chuck into one of them. He ushered me downstairs to a finished basement and an already opened (oh, expecting someone?) sofa bed. We laid down on the sofa bed and started playing with each other’s bodies, and after relieving our respective big loads of post-Hugz man tension, fell asleep.

Good morning! Chuck got me up off the sofa bed and going rather early because he, too, had to get going early. I re-dressed in my stale, last-night clothes, accepted a quick glass of juice, and left with his instructions how to get back to the highway to DC.

I didn’t give Chuck much thought again until I ran into him several weeks later at some other bear event. He surprised me with an air of such indifference, perhaps unintentionally but I couldn’t tell, that I was unable to say even hello.

Notch 22: Jake

The back rub invitation was becoming my standard and generally successful ploy to get a man naked and between my legs. It permitted the sacred object of my carnal desire to remain passive yet enjoy himself while I did “all the work,” earning me a few gratitude points and also buying me time to find out more about his body to map out the rest of the conquest. (It’s really not as complicated as that makes it sound, as I’ve found that most men once beyond “hello” let their cock start doing the doing; I just wanted to write it like that.)

By now I’d gotten a lot more comfortable doing gay things “in public” such as going on group trips as part of the Adventuring group or when friends organized a fabulous movie outing. One long weekend in the fall, friends rented a rustic cabin in the hills of southern Pennsylvania, and I went.

I fell into immediate lust with Jake, a tall, dark-haired, and hairy guy. Jake and I, both being six-foot or taller, preferred a bed without a foot board if we were to sleep comfortably. As soon as we arrived, I had claimed one of the two beds on the cabin main floor, the only beds with no foot board, and was quite pleased when Jake claimed the other one.

Cabin trips are fun, with everyone helping to prepare meals, going on day hikes, and lounging around the fireplace in the evening, with drinks and dinner. Jake’s and my beds were in the cabin’s common room, opposite the fireplace, and served as group seats during the evening.

Gradually everyone drifted off to their rooms or the sleeping loft upstairs, leaving me alone with Jake and the glow of the dying fire. The room was still very warm from the fire (supplemented by baseboard heaters; it wasn’t that rustic) and we were “forced” to sleep in our undershorts on top of the covers.

Jake was an unusually impressive physical specimen, about six-foot-four, and handsome in a chiseled kind of way. His prominent jaw, deep eyes, and massive chest made him look (in retrospect!) like he’d been drawn by Tom of Finland. In addition, I had also glimpsed Jake changing his clothes and was preoccupied by the memory of his dick, big and fleshy, hanging a considerable part of the way to his knees.

The first night I somehow fell asleep right away in the bed next to Jake and the dying fire. However, second night by the fire was equally warm and Jake and I again laid on our backs in our underwear, outside the covers, me trying to keep a little conversation going. I finally got around to asking him if he’d like a back rub. I really couldn’t tell whether he was interested but he didn’t actually say no, so I rolled him onto his stomach, straddled his ass, and started kneading away.

Remembering Wes’ massage, I worked on more than just Jake’s back, also working over his buttocks, legs, and feet. I was just preparing to finish and lay my chest down on Jake’s back (to recapture some of the energy, of course) when I heard someone coming down the stairs from the loft overhead. I pressed pause and sat up.

Henry, another guy in our group, had padded down from his bed in the loft to pee and on his return, saw me sitting on the end of the bed and came over. I whispered with Henry for a few minutes, too self-conscious to resume my efforts with Jake’s body. But I started to worry Henry might just decide to whisper with me until sunrise, so I faked a yawn and said I was going back to sleep. I don’t know what, if anything, Henry figured out, but he whispered good night and padded back up the stairs, leaving me alone once again with my prospect.

Meanwhile, Jake had not dozed off but had rolled over on to his back and was still awake as I laid back down on my bed. Elated, I got up to nudge my bed a foot over next to his, then laid back down on my side, my arm across his chest, gently feeling his nipple.

I rolled a little closer onto him and began to kiss him lightly and he kissed me back but, I noticed, rather lamely. I wondered (Jesus Christ, dude!) if his lack of enthusiasm meant he really didn’t want to have anything to do with me. But if he wasn’t going to start complaining I wasn’t going to stop enjoying gently touching his body.

As I lay against his warm body, I suddenly smelled something familiar. Very familiar but which I didn’t immediately place. But then, wait a second… I felt for his dick and as I reached down, my forearm smooshed into something wet on his belly. His dick, poking out of his shorts, was big and hard and suddenly I realized my arm was in a puddle.

Jake had cum, silently and without him or me touching his dick. Indeed, besides the backrub, I had hardly touched him at all. I mentioned my surprise but he just shrugged and said that sometimes it happens. I’d never known a man to just orgasm without any obvious stimulation on his penis, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to feel flattered or not.

The next day, our last before the group headed home, Jake was cordial but didn’t show any particular interest in being more than acquaintances despite a few overtures from me. I was a little disappointed but decided not to worry about it.

We shared many of the same friends and I ran into Jake for many years at various parties. He was always but only cordial and looked just as sculptural.

Notch 21: Bert

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.

Notch 20: Douggie-Theodore

I had recently joined GLIB, the Gay and Lesbian Information Bureau dial-in bulletin board in the DC area. My user handle was “cronjob” and my profile included a somewhat detailed personal description of myself with key terms I carefully added, like “beard.” Among messaging and other resources, GLIB had a “match” feature allowing users to search for others by interest or other traits, and I wanted my interest in facial hair to be clear.

After only a few days on GLIB, I received a message from “Douggie” who said he read and liked my description, and wanted to meet for a drink sometime. I looked up his GLIB profile, which probably said something like 40-ish, beard, teacher. I replied that he also sounded interesting, and so where should we meet?

Douggie suggested meeting at The Tombs, a bar in Georgetown I'd heard of but never been to. On the day, I arrived at The Tombs a little early, found an empty booth, and ordered a beer, sipping it and trying to look like I belonged among the many boisterous and (I was sure) straight college students. After a getting up a few times to look around the bar for someone who fit Douggie’s description, I thought I saw someone likely, sitting alone. What, he wasn’t also looking around for me?

I went over to say a quick hello and confirm it was him, then went back to the booth to get my coat and beer. When I returned, Douggie had been joined by a somewhat older man. I wondered if Douggie had brought a date, or maybe a bodyguard.

He hadn’t. But after a bit of conversation with these two, some interesting things became apparent. Both were professors at Georgetown University (teaching what, I forget). Douggie’s friend, Richard, was intrigued and amused to hear me call him Douggie. But by suddenly calling him Theodore in front of me, Richard let Douggie’s real name slip, inadvertently, I was sure. Richard liked to talk about women (not in a creepy way), and it was pretty clear Richard was straight, clearly knew Douggie-Theodore wasn’t, and clearly didn’t care.

Douggie-Theodore, however, didn’t seem comfortable about being out of the closet even this much, even to his friend. He was very good at deftly dropping or diverting the conversation if it got too close to home. (I could relate.)

But while Douggie-Theodore was a bit shy, Richard was a delight. He was one of those classic, white-haired, college-professor types: observant, funny, and probably the life of any party. As we talked more, I began to wish it were Richard I was there to meet.

We finished our drinks at The Tombs and said good night to Richard. (Oh, c’mon! Didn’t Douggie-Theodore suspect Richard suspected why much-younger-guy-me was there at all?) That evening one of the Bush-Dukakis presidential debates was on TV, and Douggie-Theodore and I used that as an excuse to head to his house across DC. As we drove, Douggie-Theodore talked about how he figured that Richard knew about him being gay, but they had never really talked about it. I tried to say kindly that it looked like Richard didn’t care either way and was clearly a good friend.

At Douggie-Theodore’s house, we watched the debate a little, taking turns sitting on each other’s lap and doing a little touching. Being literally in the arms of academia, I was trying to think of with-it political comments (which I’m not very good at, did I say?).

But I was also feeling like Douggie-Theodore was losing interest in me. He got up to go to the kitchen when the program ended and after a moment, I got up to follow him. I happened to be standing in the doorway when I trapped Douggie-Theodore as he walked by. We started kissing and I slipped my hand inside his shirt.

We stood in the doorway feeling each other up for entirely too long, and finally we wandered over to a bed in a side room. We got naked, cuddled a while, and probably jerked off; I don’t remember. But I do remember deciding I didn’t want to stay the night, so Douggie-Theodore kindly gave me a ride home (it wasn’t far).

I was still (can you believe this?) having pangs about not being comfortable about gay sex and even less happy that here I was, once again, feeling like I was using, then running out on someone, even someone who didn’t seem very interested after all.

But I guess it didn’t make much difference as I never heard from Douggie-Theodore again. I wondered if Richard asked him about me the next day… who in hell, old chap, was that?

Notch 19: Jack

Ernest had rarely talked about any other lovers or even his friends, like it was a dangerously private part of himself. But he had mentioned a “Jack” once or twice, so I was curious about who this Jack could possibly be, I mean, someone SO GOOD he had attracted Ernest. Before moving away, Ernest shared Jack’s phone number with me, so one day I called Jack to say hi and invite him out to dinner for a blind date.

Jack and I met in a suburb near DC and after we ate, we walked around the neighborhood getting more acquainted. Jack wasn’t quite the hottie I was expecting, given Ernest’s highly developed taste in male appearance (if I say so myself), but Jack certainly wasn’t bad looking either. The main thing we had in common turned out to be a fondness for things Ernest liked to do. I manipulated the conversation toward my ploy of back rubs, and we agreed to go back to his place.

Jack’s apartment was decorated with antiques, sideboards, fabrics, and other finery meant to be tasteful but was also a little cluttered. He shared his place with a tall guy who was funny and personable and whom I liked right away. We three sat around for a while, chatting and starting to yawn, and finally Jack and I wandered off to his bedroom and took off our shirts. We did, in fact, trade back rubs, though I was only about half into it. Jack turned out to be rather hairier on his back than I liked.

After taking turns massaging each other, Jack suggested I sleep over, which was fine as I didn’t feel like waiting late at night to catch Metro home. The sex we had was mainly some warm cuddling (aways nice), a little cock touching and sucking (always nice), and then jerking each other off (always nice). Ya can’t go wrong fondling another man’s penis.

I ran into Jack once or twice after that and returned his phone calls out of politeness, but we didn’t go out again. However, I did regret not trying to follow up with Jack’s tall, funny, personable roommate.

Notch 18: Wes

A few weeks later I was pretty much well beyond the contagious stage of mono and starting to recover my strength, but still weakened after moderately strenuous activity. So when some friends went on a camping trip, I went along just for the night-before sleepover party, intending to come home the next day when they left for the camping. Our host had invited a few others to stay over for the party, too, including a guy named Wes, who arrived on a motorcycle.

I could not take my eyes off Wes, from the moment he walked in the door and took off his helmet. He had a rugged, square face with deep-set eyes, a smiling personality, and just enough facial hair to make me want to fly off the roof. Later, as the sleeping arrangements got settled, the sofa bed in the living room, Wes, and I remained unclaimed. (Mental note to thank host.)

Wes and I opened the sofa bed and undressed to our undershorts, Wes revealing a gorgeous hairy chest. We laid down, chatting lightly in the dark, and I could feel the warmth of his gorgeous hairy chest barely one I-wanna-rub-my-face-all-over-you inch away. I forget if our bare shoulders were (pant, pant) touching but I want to think so.

I asked Wes if he’d like a back rub, deciding this was worth the risk of tiring myself out. I really wanted to ask if I could spend the night on his gorgeous hairy chest. He agreed (back rub, remember) and before I could mentally pump my fist, he whipped off his undershorts and rolled over onto his stomach. I got up and felt my way up astride his bubble ass (like buttah!), leaned forward, and began to work on his shoulders.

I was getting very turned on very fast, my dick becoming thick and heavy as it rested comfortably atop the crack of Wes’ butt. I’m sure that being mine, my dick was pre-cumming like a flood in an irrigation ditch (I suppose that’s a slight exaggeration). I did my best massage for about fifteen minutes after which I leaned forward and laid down against his warm back, explaining I wanted to “recapture some of the energy” (but not explaining also to bury my nose in his hair).

Wes rolled over onto his back, but just as I was getting into stroking and exploring that gorgeous hairy chest and nipples with my fingers and tongue, he said it was my turn for a massage. Well, OK, if you insist.

Wes rolled me onto my stomach and started in with efficient technique that had a deep, relaxing effect in my back but required very little motion on his part. He didn’t stop with my back but kept moving down my body, finding wonderful, unexpected pressure points on my buttocks, legs, and feet. He knew how to manage his strength (massage can be tiring if done with a careless energy).

Then he rolled me back over onto my back, my legs in the air, and wriggled his arms down under my thighs and in one smooth motion, lifted my hips up, my cock warm and wet in his mouth. He held me like that for some time, sucking and mouthing my cock, then lowered me and swung himself around on top of me for sixty-nine, his cock bumping encouragingly against my chin. I slobbered my mouth around his fleshy cockhead, delighting in the pleasure I was giving this man. We both came sometime along the way, and I fell asleep next to the gorgeous hairy chest.

I don’t remember anything about the next morning other than I was dying to get a ride back to DC on Wes’ motorcycle but (darn!) he had only one helmet. I got his phone number as my consolation prize.

I called him a couple of times, and once invited him to lunch with my gay group at work so he could do some networking for possible jobs. But apart from job openings, it seemed that he was not interested in me further, like we had never met.

For years I occasionally saw Wes at the DC Eagle, walking around shirtless with that gorgeous hairy chest. But all we ever said was hi and we didn’t play again. Pity.

Notch 17: Brian

A week after the Assateague camping trip, I flew out to California for ten days to visit friends but also for San Francisco gay pride, including my first (and still biggest ever) gay pride parade. But I wasn’t going to watch the parade but to be in it, marching with friends in their group. The parade turned out to be huge, much bigger than I had imagined. It took a long route, over two miles up the long hill of Market Street toward the Castro. Two miles doesn’t sound all that long, but it is at parade speed.

About half-way through visiting my friends I began to feel very tired, just exhausted. It wasn’t for lack of sleep but more like how any minor effort just drained the life right out of me. Also, I had a low but steady fever which I tried to ignore or treat with aspirin. This was odd because I was usually in good health and fairly energetic, so I just assumed I had a cold coming on.

By the day of the parade, all I really wanted to do was sit unmoving at my friends’ house. But I also really wanted to be in the parade, so I pushed myself to get up and march. I probably would have skipped the parade entirely if I had known the route was THAT LONG. After the parade I went back my friends’ place and collapsed. Somehow I made it through the rest of my visit and flew home.

On my first day home and back to work, I suddenly felt even worse. I took off work and went to my doctor who said I had mono. Mono! I thought mononucleosis was that thing (straight) people get when they reach the age when they begin kissing and dating: a teenage coming-of-age badge.

Wait. When they begin kissing. If you’ve been paying attention, that “when” is just about where I was in my social life at the time. I mean, over the past couple of years I had started kissing a lot of different men. It was now just my turn for mono. Mono can’t be cured but fortunately it runs its course all by itself which, for me, was a six-month period during which I couldn’t drink.

After that realization, which I have to say was not entirely without some pride at hitting a normal, social-disease milestone, I wondered if I might have picked up mono from Leif. Leif at Assateague a few weeks ago was the only man I had kissed a lot right around the time that would have allowed the disease to incubate.

I tried to call Leif to ask him if he too had been sick but like before, he never called back. Was this why he had repeatedly rejected my advances? To spare me? Couldn’t he have said something?

Whatever. I spent the next four weeks home sick from work, not able to do much more than get out of bed and go lie on the couch, eat chocolate frozen yoghurt (a recent discovery), and avoid the horrors of daytime television except The Rosie O'Donnell Show. (I loved your show, Ms. O’Donnell; you helped me make it through the long days.) I asked friends to pick up a few things from the grocery store for me; later and to my surprise, I actually had to explain I would pay them for my groceries, that I wasn’t looking for begrudging gifts of food.

In the meantime, the most wonderful boss in the world let me (a friend drove me) borrow my office computer and a telephone modem. I passed the days at home playing games or compiling an impressive long-distance phone bill by dialing into gay bulletin boards around the country. (Remember, this was on my work computer, but long before employers monitoring “appropriate use” became a thing. Don’t tell!)

 

One thing I did was join CompuServe, a large online system that included email, bulletin boards, and other resources. I pretty quickly discovered the human sexuality chat forums (fora). One evening I was on (still my work computer) CompuServe for a while, on a flirty, sexy gay group chat (read: typing frantically before the thread moved on), then logged off, not giving the chat another thought.

A day or so after that, I got a private message from Brian, one of the guys who was also on that group chat. Because messages and email were still kind of new (beside email at work) and Brian was someone I knew only online, it was fun and new and different to have someone gay to email with. Brian and I had yet to exchange pictures so I could only imagine how handsome he might be.

Being home these weeks with mono and having nothing to do every day besides wait for Rosie to come on, I logged into CompuServe often and especially to write to Brian. He patiently wrote back, understanding I was sick and very much helping me keep from getting too bored.

Brian was an assertive but also imaginative email pal, and at one point he suggested we collaborate on a porn story by taking turns writing the next paragraph of the story. We wrote mainly about having sex with each other but also tried a scene in which Brian tied and suspended me naked from the ceiling. (I’ve long since lost that story, alas.)

We stayed in touch long after I recovered from mono and in the meantime, bought my first home computer (a Dell, which I loved).

Eventually Brian and I traded phone numbers and when we finally talked, Oh! He had a slow, sensual, Southern drawl and I felt rather seduced by his velvety voice. One night I felt really horny and impulsively called him. We had once emailed about what phone sex might be like and he, being a smart guy, picked up right away on why I was calling.

Brian took charge immediately. Following his instructions, I laid down on my bed and tugged my pants down, obediently trying to stroke my cock while balancing the phone on my shoulder. He ordered me to play slowly with my cock until I was close to cumming, and to describe every inch of flesh as I stroked. Then he had me roll over onto my knees and lift my ass high into the air. I complained but-but-but how difficult it was to hold both the phone and my ass up while jerking my cock, but he said I’d just have to figure it out and obey.

I was starting again to get close to cumming. Brian told me to just keep jerking and that I had to hold my cum in. I gasped that I couldn’t, but he said only that I had to keep jerking slowly and had to obey and hold my cum until he said I could cum. After only another minute, I started to get even more desperate, wanting to obey but knowing I was not going to be able to contain myself much longer. My cum started to rise and straining hard, I begged into the phone, I can’t hold it! May I please cum?

He paused, silent for just a moment, then said to let it go. I relaxed, feeling my unleashed, hot cum rise slowly every inch up my swollen dick until it gushed out in one, long stream into a massive puddle on the bed. It was like I turned on a faucet. Brian made me describe the faucet feeling and the mess on the bed in as much detail as I could. After a few minutes, we said good night and hung up.

We tried phone sex again awhile later, during which I tried to follow Brian’s orders to get down on the floor and tie myself up. But that didn’t work very well and gave me a rug burn.

We were email and phone pals for a while a couple of years more but suddenly all emails and calls from Brian ceased and I never found out why. And as best I can recall, we never even traded photos.

Notch 16: Leif

In early June I led my first and all-male Adventuring trip. Look how “out” I was becoming: To lead a trip, along with the trip description, I had to include my name and phone number published in the essentially public (then by paid subscription only) Adventuring group newsletter, so that interested persons could contact me for more information or to sign up for my trip. At the time it felt like a big step gaily forward for me in coming out.

My trip was hiking and camping on Assateague Island National Seashore off the coast of Maryland. Assateague is a long, narrow barrier island between the mainland and the Atlantic, featuring an undeveloped, remote seashore and just enough fresh water and dune grass to sustain a herd of wild horses that have the run of the island.

The National Park Service, which manages the area, had closed public access to the northern end of Assateague Island due to extreme storm erosion, so nesting birds could have undisturbed habitat on what little land remained. Accordingly, I led my group from the parking lot to a primitive camp site a few miles south from the main parking lot.

This area is still beautiful but is a bit less desirable due to the relentless but NPS-approved presence of four-wheel-drive beach motorists (demonstrating how much they love nature by driving over it). I warned the people on my trip that we might have vehicles near us, but we’d give it a try.

My group of eight managed the three-hour, after-work drive from DC that Friday night and stayed in a motel in Salisbury, intending to get a very early start to hike into the remote camp area to maximize time for cavorting on the beach on Saturday and Sunday. One guy on my trip, Leif, had a handsome, bearded face and a good body that was tanned, lean, and hairy.

It was not entirely by accident that Leif and I ended up sharing a hotel bed that night (OK, I totally arranged it) though nothing happened except that he gently touched my nipple ring and asked if hurt to get it pierced. (It had. Imagine a really hard pinch with a pair of pliers.)

The next morning at the hotel, as asked, everyone got up very early. We drove the short rest of the way to the beach parking lot, then hiked the four miles south to the camp site. We set up our tents, then spent the afternoon enjoying the hot sand and mild surf (going in naked when Park Ranger Dick wasn’t around) while trying to ignore the regular passing of obnoxious-but-we-love-nature vehicles. We discovered a picnic table that storms had buried in sand up to the seats and dug it up, giving us a group project and then a useful bit of furniture. In the evening we scrounged up enough driftwood for a campfire on the beach. It was really beautiful.

As people started drifting away into their tents after a long evening by the fire, I remembered Leif didn’t have a tent so I offered him to share half of mine, at which he shrugged. That particular night the air was annoyingly mild and bug-free so Leif decided, to my disappointment, to sleep out under the stars.

Very early in the morning and still dark, maybe 4 a.m., I was awakened by the sounds of wild horses snorting and wandering around our camp site. I laid in my sleeping bag hoping horses don’t attack tents and staring out through the screen at the shadow of Leif’s lean, naked body just a few feet away. I don’t know how long I laid there fingering my erect cock when I saw him get up and begin poking at the fire embers.

I pulled on a damp T-shirt and gym shorts and went out to join him, trying to hide my boner, saying that he could have joined me inside. Leif just shrugged again and repeated that he had wanted to sleep outside. But then he turned to me and said that he was going for a walk down the beach. I took his direct look as an invitation and, perhaps mistakenly, joined him.

We chatted and walked along the dark beach for fifteen minutes or so, then stopped and sat down by the water’s edge. Leif suggested going for a night swim, so we took off our clothes but when we went down to the water, he backed away saying it was too cool. I tried to be playful, grabbing him and trying to wrestle his lovely body into the water but he resisted just a little too much, so I backed off.

We sat down again on the sand, still naked, and once or twice froze as a truck with massive headlights drove slowly up the beach (loving nature at four in the morning). After the truck was well past, I tried taking Leif in my arms to kiss him though he was rather unresponsive. (Jesus Christ, dude!)

We sat there a while longer, me still hoping to break through, until the sun came up, then pulled on our clothes and headed back to camp to join the rest of the group. Leif went off on another walk and I, apparently still determined not to get it, followed him again. (“Look how out I was becoming”— maybe a little too much now?)

This time we cut westward through the dunes from the ocean to the western, bay side of the island. Before we left, we had doped ourselves up with bug repellant, which turned out to be a good idea, as we were met with thick clouds of mosquitos. We walked around, swatting at the air, and found a secluded clearing with a picnic table.

Leif paused next to the table and I reached up and gently scratched his back. I don’t know what I did that was so different from before, because Leif turned to face me and in another moment, started kissing me and tugging my pants down, feeling my balls and running his fingers along my rapidly stiffening dick.

I didn’t waste any time getting him out of his shirt and feeling my way across his broad, marvelous, hairy chest. I pushed him backwards onto a picnic table, chewing on his nipples and getting his shorts down so I could suck on his dick. It struck me right then, for some reason, that this was the first time I was having sex outdoors, in full light of the morning sun and under the infinity of the universe.

We got to our feet and began to jerk each other off, standing with our arms around each other’s shoulders and our chests pressing together (which I loved). I was amazed to find he jerked my dick exactly as I would have done to myself, his hand gripping and moving like it was my own. The feeling he gave me was absolutely perfect and I came in just a few moments. I guess I did it right for him too, because he also came quickly.

As we walked back to the camp, I took his hand affectionately and he smiled back at me which made me wonder if I had somehow, finally gotten through. But I hadn’t. Even though later I tried a couple of times to call Leif, he never called back and I never saw him again.

 

Aside: It might seem like I spent the entire trip relentlessly chasing Leif. In fact, I spent most of the time with everyone in the group, talking, eating, floating in the Atlantic surf, or hanging out around the evening campfire. Nevertheless, Leif, I’m sorry if I was an annoying pest. I hope you enjoyed the trip anyway.

Notch 15: Brad Sir

Leather bars such the DC Eagle occasionally held contests generally touting some masculine superlative of beards, chests, or other physical, fetishy attribute (but never poetry; I wonder why). Contests were advertised in advance and were supposed to be entertaining, but also served to increase patronage (more people buying more drinks), not to mention the chances for a hook-up.

So, one Saturday night at the Eagle there was some contest or other (it was hard to keep track of them all), and I went. Like a lot of others, I dressed appropriately, like, work boots, jeans, and a flannel shirt.

I had also started stuffing a bandana in my back pocket if I went out. In old-school gay culture, a bandana by its color could be used to indicate one’s sexual proclivity of the moment. I didn’t really think about that, but only of how certain accessories enhanced the look of whatever bar-wear I (floozy!) had on.

Before too long a rather handsome bear, a few years older than me, in full leather started chatting me up, the brim of his cap pulled low over his eyes.

He was quite assertive in suggesting that he wanted me to come home with him that night. As we talked, he also became quite interested in pinching my nipple rings that he discovered by feeling up my chest, and wanted to find out how far I’d go in letting him play with them.

Hunter had taught me, along with what a bear is, that when a man reaches for your nipple, you don’t wince or pull back. You push your chest out and look him in the eye. So, I pushed my chest out and looked this guy in the eye, adding that under the proper conditions, Sir, how far I’d go would be up to him. (I was learning the talk as well as the walk.)

He said his name was Brad and he flew into town for a while on business but also to do a few DC things if time permitted, like going to the Eagle. (Who flies with full leather clothes if time permits? That shit’s heavy.)

He also informed me that since I had already used the word, I would continue to call him Brad Sir. After doing a little preliminary making out, occasionally glancing at the leather contest goings-on, Brad Sir and I left. He had parked a couple of blocks away and I walked with him to get a lift back to where I had parked.

In my car I followed Brad Sir back to his hotel, somehow found parking on a typically crowded DC street, and went up to his room. I stood quietly, assuming he wanted me to wait until he gave orders. Brad Sir pulled the mattress onto the floor to give us a little more room, he said, to play without toppling off the bed. I couldn’t imagine what he had in mind that would risk falling off the bed, but OK.

In a few minutes we were rolling around on the mattress and getting out of our clothes. But once he had my shirt off, his smile vanished and he got serious about manhandling my nipples again, rubbing or pinching them hard, and in another moment produced a pair of nipple clamps.

Before he could apply the clamps, at my suggestion, Sir, he took my bandana and tied my wrists behind my back, getting more into our impromptu scene. With me bound, he wrenched my belt open, yanked my pants down, pushed me onto my back, straddled my hips, and with his balls resting on my cock, slowly and deliberately put a clamp on each of my nipples.

It was the first time someone had played hard with my piercings and tied and bound as I was, trapped on my back between Brad Sir’s knees, I couldn’t do much about it besides “enjoy” it. My wrists tied under the small of my back forced my chest to arch upward, my nipples on high, an offering to Brad Sir’s strong fingers.

And Brad Sir was clearly enjoying making me enjoy it, also making me call him Sir more as he tugged on the chain connecting the nipple clamps, our cocks (especially mine!) firmly erect. To make sure I felt the clamps, he repeatedly removed then replaced each clamp, each time making me recoil from the pain as the blood and feeling rushed back in.

Shifting himself down my legs, Brad Sir further explored his captive, lightly tracing his fingers around my balls and tickling the shaft of my cock, he said, just enough to make me want more but not about to let me have it, unless I behaved. The pre-cum drooling from my cock was more than enough to tell him his torments were having the desired effect.

To make sure I had ample time to behave, he kept me tied on my back for quite a while. Brad Sir was clearly enjoying keeping me pinned down and helpless, teasing my begging cock or tweaking my upthrust nipples, making me wait, a faint smile on his face as he took pleasure using my body as his play toy.

After a while my nipples had had, please Sir, enough of being abused and he unclamped them, flooding them with pain again. He finally relented and slowly jerked me off, barely touching my cock, eventually granting me a (I thought) well-earned cum. Then he jerked himself off all over me and used his cock like a spatula to paint our cums all over my chest.

He untied me and we (mostly me) wiped ourselves off and fell asleep naked under a sheet on the mattress still on the floor, the tip of my cock still wet from my cum and my nipples red and sore from the abuse.

Besides the BDSM play, Brad Sir turned out to be a nice guy, gentle and good natured when not torturing my nipples, and we stayed in touch for a quite a few years.

Notch 14: Anchor

Months later I was again visiting in Maine and went out into the chilly night to find a bar, a beer, and a bear. (Another great book title!) Of course, I headed right to my old go-to, Cycles. But inside, I discovered since my last visit the place had been renovated into what now looked like some sort of punk-lesbian hangout: women in severe haircuts and clothing, a few of them glaring what-are-you-doing-here at me.

I asked a small group of not-so-glaring women, What happened to Cycles, and they suggested that I try a different bar, Blackstone, if I was looking for the old Cycles crowd. They told me where Blackstone was, so I made the short drive uptown to Pine Street, parked, and went in.

Blackstone was a small bar, compact and lit with a warm glow, cozy on a cool night. It extended a little way back from the door, with the bar on the right and a large, well-lit pool table area on the left. Men were in the typical bearish uniform of jeans and flannel, and to my but-this-is-a-small-town surprise, there was a small group of guys in leather shirts, each with a “Harbor Masters” pin on his chest.

After all the times I had been to the DC Eagle, I was accustomed to, if not expecting bars with men in leather clothing. I liked it and over time, let myself become increasingly attracted to the look. But it still seemed like a big-city thing, not something found in areas without big crowds or leather-themed events.

Getting over this pleasant surprise, I noticed and started chatting up a good-looking bear who called himself Anchor, which I took as some kind of maritime nickname. Sure enough, Anchor explained that he was a "pledge" in Harbor Masters, the local leather club. (I made a mental note. And I thought Harbor Masters was a great name for a leather club in a town where the harbor is the dominant feature. And maybe an anchor lies on the bottom? Clever.)

Well, whatever it was about, Anchor had a lean body, a trim but full beard, and looked pretty hot in his tight, white T-shirt, chest hair peeking out, and a black leather vest. As we chatted about leather clubs and bears in Maine, I started looking for an opening to invite myself back to his place.

But before I had a chance, Anchor shifted the conversation to suggest we go someplace else, the Underground, a nearby dance club for straights or gays or whatever-you-ares. I’d heard once long ago it was the best dance club in the area, but I wasn’t a club guy and had never gone. But if Anchor wanted to dance, maybe I could play along and get another chance to invite myself home.

The Underground turned out to be rather small (about one-twentieth the size of DC's Tracks, if you remember that), but there was a good crowd dancing it up and clearly having fun.

Anchor however didn’t want to dance after all (wtf?) and after hanging around for a while trying to be sociable, I started to lose interest in finding out what he did want to do. Shades of Teacher! He suggested we come here why? He didn’t seem to want to talk about what he wanted, or to do much of anything at all. I made my best guess and with what I thought was undue patience, started to make out with him as we sat on the stairs in the corner. (Yes, you’re right; maybe I should have gotten the message that he wasn’t interested. I can even hear the voice of Stan from South Park scolding me with, Jesus Christ, dude!)

Anchor didn’t push me away, but he didn’t exactly seem enthusiastic either. I began to suspect the evening really wasn’t going to go according to any plan I had in mind. I said I was getting tired and would catch him some other time (actually, I was tired of being horny and wanted to go jerk off). But then he said he lived in the next town over, um… which I was supposed to take? as an invitation? to go home with him?

I didn’t bother figure it out. I knew how far away the next town over was, and I just didn’t feel like another road trip with this guy, all that way and back, only to risk more Unenthusiasm.

So, I got up and told Anchor thanks, maybe another time, and left. I didn’t feel like going back to Blackstone either, so I just went home to my motel (and jerked off).

I was curious enough to look for Anchor in Blackstone on my next couple of visits to Maine, but I never saw him again or for that matter, any member of Harbor Masters. Maybe I dreamed it.

 

Aside: Yes, OK, there’s another encounter without sex (and again in Maine; what was it about Maine guys?) but it was such an annoying letdown, I hated to leave it out.

And because “Harbor Masters.”