Monday, June 26, 2017

13 Reasons Why/Tape 3: When An Experiment Fails

When I’m with a man . . . when I’m inside a man . . . I’ll often tell him he’s beautiful. I don’t have to praise anyone’s looks to flatter my way into his pants. With a single photograph, usually the size and proportions of my dick do all that work for me. I don’t tell a sex partner he’s handsome to fluff his ego. In fact, I won’t tell him he’s good looking if he’s not.

No, when I tell a man he’s beautiful, it’s solely because he deserves the praise. It’s because he’s opened up for me—legs, hole, and soul—and put himself into a vulnerable position. When men are at their most vulnerable, they’ll believe truths about themselves they might not otherwise.

But this story is not so much about fucking, as it is about a friendship. Hamilton, welcome to your tape.

A long time ago I had sex with a man in a Manhattan hotel room.

Okay. I know, given the number of men I’ve fucked in Manhattan hotel rooms, that my opening sentence doesn’t exactly narrow anything down. But this guy was different. We had—I thought, for a while—a connection.

His name was Hamilton, and his photos were deceptive. I don’t mean those words in their shadiest sense. That is, he didn’t post photos of an Adonis and show up looking like a slightly less comely Wallace Shawn. The pictures he unlocked for me on Manhunt were sexy as hell, admittedly, featuring a lightly muscled, narrow-waisted body decked in a leather harness, and an impressive and rigid cock jutting out with menace from a pair of slick black chaps. All the photos had been taken, it looked like, lit solely by the red glow from a police car light. The effect was devilish.

He listed himself as a top, but he wanted an experienced man like myself to show him the pleasures of his hole. I was only too glad to oblige.

When I met him for our afternoon together, I was greeted at the hotel door not by the sex demon I expected, but by a perfectly respectable man dressed in a natty tweed suit and tie, beaming from ear to ear finally to see me. He was a good-looking guy, absolutely, but for a short time that afternoon, the dissonance between the sexy little clean-cut man who looked like the host of an HGTV decorating show, and the raging Prince of Lust from the Manhunt profile, was difficult to reconcile.

Until I got his clothes off, that is, and buried my dick deep into his tight, hairy hole. That’s when the spark ignited in his eyes, and the flames between us flickered white hot. I banged him three times on the mattress of that four-star hotel, holding him down while I talked about how pretty he was, and how hot his hole felt, what a pleasure it was to fuck a hot boy like him, and how I was going to paint his guts with my seed.

A bucket of sweat and cum later, he surprised me by climbing on top of me, flipping me over, and spitting in his hand and spreading it over his dick. “You want my cock, faggot?” he growled in my ear.

Yes, sir. Yes, I did.

That fuck was primal. I melted, looking into that handsome face as he drove into me again and again. That’s when I realized those Manhunt photos weren’t deceptive at all. Hamilton might’ve dressed in a particularly dapper way when I met him, but behind closed doors, he unleashed a beast that got what it wanted. Anything it wanted.

Afterward, we lay on top of the bed, still and quiet, covered with rivulets and exhausted, seemingly worn out. “You are a hell of a good bottom,” he wheezed, trying to catch his breath.

Maybe it had been true in that moment. Maybe, after torturing myself for years over my inability to enjoy taking dick in my ass, it was a truth I needed to hear after I’d opened my hole and exposed my vulnerable underbelly. Either way, it made my dick stir into hardness once again.

“No, no, I think I’m worn out,” he protested with a laugh when I positioned myself over him on the bed, one palm flat against the mattress to either side of his shoulders. He chuckled weakly when first one knee, then the other, pried apart his legs. Then, when my rigid dick probed his dripping pussy, he moaned a little, and allowed me to slide inside.

I looked in the face of Hamilton, that satyr, that man of many facets, and parted his hole with my dick until it hit the base. My own seed squished around my rod in its slippery home. “You are fucking beautiful,” I told him. He shook his head, nay-saying the compliment. “You don’t know how attractive and sexy you are, do you?”

At his shy non-response, I shook my own head and began picking up the pace with my thrusts. His body responded as it had before, with hunger. He might have thought he was done, but his hole now told him differently.

“You are incredibly good to look at, Hamilton,” I whispered to him. “You truly are beautiful.”

His lips parted with a small sigh of contentment. Happiness, even. “You make me feel beautiful.”

“Because you are.”

“But you make me feel it,” he said, smiling.

“You need to give yourself permission to feel it more often,” I suggested. Then, with my hands cupped around his sweet face, I pounded another load into him.

We met again a couple of months later when he was again in the city. For the first part of the excursion, we spent several hours in bookstores, talking and catching up. In the interim we’d established a friendship via email. We’d talk about the holes we’d fucked—you know, the way we do in the rarified enclosure of The Tops’ Lounge—and reminisce about the afternoon we’d shared. We exchanged dozens of emails about reading and art, and about writing and our own feelings of being oddballs in the sexual culture.

I’d even come out to him about my blog, and asked permission to write about our encounter together. He’d granted it—and when my post about him came out, he was furiously shy about his appreciation.

When it comes to afternoons out, I can’t think of one that was more delightful. Even now, when I think about it, it’s cast in a rosy glow—giving each other books to look at, laughing about topics dear to my heart in which none of my other friends have any interest, discussing the difficulties of writing. Several times during the afternoon, I noticed other men cruising Hamilton as we walked toward them. I’d nudge him. “That guy is totally into you,” I’d say.

“No,” he’d laugh. “Absolutely not. He’s out of my league.”

“Bullshit! He’s checking you out! Look!”

Hamilton would at last raise his eyes and briefly meet those of the man giving him the once-over. Then he’d blush like a schoolgirl. “Well, fuck,” he’d mumble.

“It’s because you’re totally hot,” I told him.

“I’m not. Seriously. I’m the scrawny little ninety-eight-pound weakling who the hot guys hate. They’re only looking because—well. . . .”

“You’ve got this notion of yourself in your head that’s totally at odds with the reality of you,” I said.
“You’re getting all this feedback from the real world that should be telling you I’m hot! I’m hot! But you keep repeating to yourself, I’m not, I’m not.”

“I’m not hot,” he mumbled. Then, as concession, “But you make me feel like I am.” It was an echo of the afternoon we’d shared.

I also echoed back to that afternoon. “Give yourself permission to feel it more often.”

We returned to his hotel shortly thereafter, stripped down, and repeated our first session—although I did all the topping. The entire time I kept telling him, you are beautiful, you are beautiful. I fucked like I was trying to pound the message home—or at least silence that inner critic who kept telling him otherwise.

It was afterward, when we were panting and sweaty once more, that he looked me in the eyes and said, “I never think of myself as attractive. But you make me feel like an entirely different person.”

“So why don’t you allow yourself to be?” I asked him quietly. “Let yourself be an entirely different person. Do it as an experiment. Just for a day. Try it on and see how you like it.”

He nodded, and I let the subject drop.

I’ve written about this incident before. I received a letter from him not long after in which he confessed that the question I’d asked—so why don’t you allow yourself to be?—resonated with him so much that the very next day he gave himself the assignment of getting through the day, assuming he was sexy, and hot, and handsome, and attractive.

So he looked at himself in the mirror, and liked what he saw there. He went out into the streets, and for the first time noticed men and women admiring him. He flirted with a barista and got a cookie. He kept repeating the experiment, day after day, and found his confidence growing.

It was one of the few times in my blogging career, honestly, that I felt I’d made a concrete difference. Oh, I have readers write to me and tell me I’ve changed their lives, and it makes me so happy to hear those words. It genuinely does. But I don’t personally, in the flesh, know any of the fine men who make these assurances.

I knew Hamilton. We were friends. He was one of my rare friends who didn’t make a big deal about my blog, or treat me any differently because of it. Knowing I’d helped him a little, as a friend . . . well, it was everything to me at the time.

The problem was, subsequently, that as Hamilton’s confidence grew, the less he seemed to need me as a confidante. We continued to exchange emails for a time, but while mine were full of chat about books and sex and theater and sex, his grew more and more terse. Just got your email!, he’d reply to me. I’ll send one back after I finish this lecture I’m preparing. When I didn’t get anything, I waited a week or two, then sent another. I owe you an email!, he responded. I’ll be doing it this weekend!

After the third reply in which he told me he would write back to me as soon as possible, I conceded defeat. I got the message. I stopped writing. I commented only rarely on his many Facebook posts, knowing that my contributions there were being drowned out in the flood of chatter from his thousands (yes, thousands) of social media followers.

Hamilton would come to town. I’d hope for another invitation to meet him—if not in his hotel room, at least at a bookstore, or for lunch or coffee. The invitations never came. Again, I got the message.

Friendships wax and wane, I sadly know. I try not to take friends for granted, because I know that they’re just as likely to vanish without warning as they are to arrive unheralded. Friendships are meant to be enjoyed while they persist, and to be remembered with fondness later if they’d been cultivated well. Maybe, I told myself, Hamilton’s friendship was only supposed to last for as long as it took for me to deliver that one message from the universe: You are beautiful. Why don’t you allow yourself to be?

It was small solace, that thought. But it helped me let go. I clung to it for a while, as I seemed to become more and more invisible to my former friend.

What consolation I derived, however, was short-lived. Hamilton’s self-dislike began to creep back onto his social media postings. One day he’d post a screed about being the ugly guy being pushed around by the muscle gods of the gym. He’d follow it up a couple of weeks later about feeling freakish and ugly around groups of gay men. Last year, he wrote a couple of Facebook posts that revealed such depths of fury toward his self-image that for weeks after I had to let my eyes skip over anything he subsequently had to say.

That experiment I’d proposed had obviously failed.

Again, as I’d had to do with the friendship that Hamilton and I had once shared, I forced myself to concede defeat. Letting go for the second time, though, hurt. I thought I’d made a difference. I hadn’t. Not a lasting one, at least. If I couldn’t contribute lastingly to someone I’d once considered a close, dear friend, how the hell could anything I said, anything I wrote, make a difference with a total stranger? A blog reader?

This Faggot, from my previous entry, had claimed I’d changed him. It’s how he approached me. My words, he told me, had made a concrete difference in the day-to-day quality of his life. But in the end, was I able to change him enough to get his dick out of his hand long enough actually to meet me? Nope. Was my writing, my ethic, enough to convince him to act toward me with the same good faith to which I’d extended him? Not in the least. If that’s the kind of change I’m making in readers—no thanks.

At a low point in my life, I was forced to confront the fact that perhaps, despite what men told me, my words, my advice, the very things I believed about sex and love and life, meant absolutely nothing. Nothing I had ever done had felt so futile. Why write at all? Why create?

Self-image issues often run deep. They can’t be erased by a simple encomium or a quick platitude. Years of hearing how ugly one is from other people leads to even more years of one telling oneself the same falsehoods, until the pattern is so deeply engrained it feels impossible to fight against. I know all these things. I’ve struggled with them, myself. I still do. Daily. But sometimes I can get through a day in which I allow myself to be foxy as hell, to all and sundry. Sometimes I can make it two days. A week. I give myself that permission.

There’s nothing that I can say that will repair anyone. I know this, too. Every man gets to haul out the self-help toolbox and treat himself as a fixer-upper. It’s the individual’s responsibility to look in the mirror, daily, and say, Today’s the day I’m allowing myself to be all the good thing things I wish for.

Every time I climb into bed with a good-looking man and I tell him how beautiful he is, I’m going to wonder if he really hears the message I’m trying to tell him. Judging by my spotty track record, I’m going to guess not.

But I’m going to keep on saying the words, anyway. And I’m going to hope that some day, someone will listen, and believe me.

Afterword

During my hiatus, I’ve received from readers a lot of very sweet emails wishing me well. Most of them have recognized the amount of work I’ve poured into my blog and have expressed their thanks. I’m so grateful for those sentiments.

Many people who’ve written, however, have made the assumption that the reason I have decided to take a break is because of the so-called haters—that is, the men who leave nasty comments on my blog, and those who go out of their way to make sure I understand how contemptible I am to them.

I’ve had plenty of haters over the years. They wear me down, yes. But more than anyone, the men who have sucked the joy out of my writing (and to a certain extent, my life) are those who meant well. They’re men who claimed to admire me, who wanted to meet me—and many of them did—and who then, whether out of clumsiness or fear or whatever, failed to recognize they’d gone too far. A man can only withstand so many successive blows to the ego (even an ego as Jericho-sturdy as mine) before it begins to tumble.

What’s more, every single one of these men read my blog. They’re men who subscribed to my point of view, who enjoyed my writing. Or read my writing, at least. Some of them wanted to be written about. Others never intended me to know they were blog fans.

Maybe one of these men is you.

If it is you? Although there’s a small and petty part of me that wants to flip a finger in your direction, I’m not going to. I’m moving on as I write this series. A friend of mine shared with me something his grandmother used to say that I truly believe: People do the best they can. If they could do better, they would.

My advice, if you think you recognize yourself . . . or even if you don’t: do better.

All of us could stand to do better.

Monday, June 19, 2017

13 Reasons Why/Tape 2: This Faggot

Some men seek sexual adventure. They love the thrill of the chase, the electricity of two men making eye contact across a crowded room; they relish the prickle across their skin when a man sprawled on a park bench lazily lets his finger drift across the hardened bulge in his jeans. I am one of these men. I enjoy sex. I’m good at it. I make it happen, enjoy it to the fullest, and gird up for the next exploit.

Many men—most men—only dream of sexual adventure. When the real thing presents itself, they retreat, snail-like, and hope that it goes away. This Faggot was one of those men . . . and This Faggot, welcome to your tape.

A month ago, our brief encounter happened. My April allergies were unusually severe, this year. My eyes had been so itchy and red that I couldn’t wear my contacts. My nose ran like a faucet. For about three weeks I stumbled around looking like a bespectacled professor who’d fallen face-first into a barrel of pollen. For most of that time I kept to myself. Spit, piss, and cum are acceptable bodily fluids for an encounter, but most men don’t care to be sneezed and snotted on.

Then came May, and relief—I could step outdoors again, and breathe fresh air, and sit on my front porch with my tablet in my hand and . . . of course, cruise for hole.

I was on the bareback site when a young fellow sent me a message there. Hi, this is out of the blue, Sir, and you don’t know me. But this faggot wanted to testify that you and your blog have changed its life. This faggot has to thank you for that. There are reasons why you are revered in the community of bloggers by faggots like this one, and converting this faggot from celibate into cum dump is just one of them. Also, if it’s not too presumptuous for it to say so, you are extremely, extremely handsome, Sir. Anyway, thank you, and this faggot will understand if it is not your type.

I checked out the kid’s profile. He was in his early thirties. Lightly-muscled body. Save for a patch of sparse fur between his pecs, he was mostly smooth. Fat dick, for a bottom. Lean and round ass. His face, though. When I get a message from a guy who says something along the lines of ‘I’ll understand if I’m not your type,’ I usually expect some kind of extreme—extreme scrawniness, extreme stockiness, or extreme butterface.

This Faggot—as he called himself—was starkly handsome: cheekbones like scalpels, wide green eyes, a sharp chin and the brow of a scholar. He lived in Manhattan, so he was local to me. In his photos he carried a certain air of entitlement—the good young professional looks and grooming of a stock broker, maybe, or a high-earning finance guy. I could’ve been reading into it, though; there’s only so much about a person’s character you can tell when in most of his pics he was kneeling on beds with an arched back, in obvious heat, while a series of black dicks stretched and gaped his holes.

Ivy League graduate gone wrong is totally my type, you know.

Like Wile E. Coyote over the Road Runner, I licked my chops over his photos for a moment. I sent a short reply, thanking him kindly for the copious compliments, then said, If I had anything to do with those amazing photos of yours, I’m happy to have been inspiration.

He wrote back within a minute. Oh Sir, just hearing from you makes this faggot so happy! Short history: this faggot used to be a condom nazi. This faggot even read your blog pretending to disapprove of it, but you just write so beautifully that I broke down. Your beautiful words made this faggot realize that it wasn’t having good sex at all the way it was. Or ANY sex. You made this faggot admit to itself that all the hating it was doing was a cover-up while it pretended to be committed to its boyfriend. All this faggot’s secret sexual fantasies were of being a cum whore who never refuses a load from ANYONE, Sir. So this faggot got itself on PrEP and started taking loads from strangers. This faggot guesses it was secretly trying to make you proud all along, Sir.

Now, I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t eating up his story. Friends, I was gulping it down like a pig at the trough. If there’s any trend you’ll notice in these entries, it’s that when a reader of mine throws down a few compliments and peppers them with some Sirs and Dads and some gestures of submission, this revered blogger’s response isn’t to keep the guy demurely at arm’s length. Fuck no.

If you want really to picture my reaction to that kind of approach, imagine me injecting a horse hypodermic of Viagra directly into my veins while I roar, BRING ME ANOTHER!

When This Faggot asked if there would ever, ever, ever be the slightest chance that a superior top like me might want to hook up with him, I gave the guy my cell phone number so we could take the conversation to text. He was a local, after all. I’ve hooked up with guys from BBRT with less interaction.

SIR, you are so beautiful in all your photos. This faggot has fantasized about you for years, he texted immediately. Jerked at your escapades. Admired your ability to communicate the emotions of your fucking along with the feelings in your body. This faggot only wants to please you and be your pig, if you give it the opportunity, Sir.

A faggot’s role is to please a man, I told him. You’re already pleasing me.

This faggot hopes to be a pig to make you proud, Sir. Right now it is just another basic faggot. It will do what you want it to do and wear what you want it to wear. This faggot prefers to keep its useless faggot cock covered so it does not lose focus on worshiping your beautiful breeder dick, Sir.

I was hard as he texted me. Shit, what top wouldn’t be? This hot little cunt wasn’t just striking the right notes . . . he was whacking them over and over again with an enormous Looney Tunes-sized cartoon mallet. What about that boyfriend of yours? I asked. Is he going to have a problem with a stranger dumping loads up your hole?

This faggot is a cheating faggot, Sir. It is its pleasure to help you release that cum into the world. And Sir, you are not a stranger! You are a man who helped a faggot find enlightenment. A teacher. A mentor. A man I've admired for so long.

Jesus, I texted. That’s humbling to hear. And from such a handsome boy.

Never be humbled, Sir. Your exploits have helped scores of faggots find themselves. That fact should make you swagger even more than that fucking huge and perfect breeding stick between your legs. And honestly, most guys don't even acknowledge this faggot. It did not expect a God like you to even respond to it, let alone show interest. This has already made this faggot’s day.

BRING ME ANOTHER!, roared my ego again.

I’m ashamed to admit that at this point I let the guy phone me. Ordinarily I don’t like talking on the telephone. From childhood it’s always seemed unnatural, listening to disembodied voices at the other end of a magic stick (or these days, at the other end of a square of glass). But this guy wanted to discuss when we could meet. When I warned him in a text that I wouldn’t be doing phone sex in any form, he said he completely understood and didn’t want that from me. He simply wanted to hear my voice and negotiate a fuck date.

This Faggot had a sexy voice, actually. I could tell he was nervous, when I called his number. “Oh god,” (or maybe O God, referring to my status with him), upon answering. “It’s really you. I—I mean, this faggot—didn’t think you would call for real, Sir.”

“Well, I wanted to arrange our first fuck.”

“Before we figure that out, Sir, please let this faggot express how sincerely attractive and hot it finds you. It has jacked off to your photos so many times, and even more times to the words you write so amazingly beautifully in your blog. This faggot messaged fifteen guys this morning before I—it—worked up the nerve to say hello to you, and you are the only one who responded.”

“Aw, shucks, son,” is what my mouth said, but inside my rampaging ego was brandishing the wad of compliments like a thick stack of dollar bills at a strip club and making it RAIN, baby. (On myself. Because I deserve it.)

We talked about the timing of our tryst, and decided that I’d come to his place two days following. I had a meeting that day near Chelsea, where he lived. “This faggot will do everything and anything you tell it, Sir. It will take your cum, your piss, even your snot, because it all comes from you, Sir, and it will all make this faggot stronger, better, complete.”

“Well sure,” I said, not wanting to argue with that caliber of offer. If only I’d gotten it during allergy season, right?

“May it make a request, Sir? Will you wear your special metal BREEDER cock ring? This faggot wants to feel that BREEDER cock ring touch its teeth as it swallows your cock. It wants to lick the word BREEDER. Knowing how many men have seen it before this faggot when they kneel and worship you and take you inside them. It will remind you that you are this faggot’s God and its reason for being.”

I thought it over a moment. I mean, who am I to disagree with that kind of persuasion? “Yeah. I’ll do that,” I said. My voice might have been a little husky with lust.

“This humble faggot wishes you could fuck me today, Sir.”

“I wish I could too. But you’re a pretty boy, son,” I said. “Fucking handsome as hell. If you’re so horny, why don’t you get back on BBRT and find a dick to stretch your hole . . . just to cool you down until day after tomorrow? You want to do that for me?”

“Oh god yes, Sir,” he moaned. “It will do it right now. It will take all the piss and cum it can all DAY for you, Sir. It wants to make you proud!”

“Good boy. And then you’ll tell me about it.”

“Yes SIR. This faggot will tell you about every dick that unloads in its cumdump ass!”

“That’s what I like to hear. I’m hanging up now. Goodbye, son.”

“Goodbye, Sir. I love you, Sir.”

The last three words took me aback for a moment. During the trip from my porch to my desk, I thought about them. He hadn’t said the words automatically, the way someone might rattle them off to their talkative old dad at the end of a call. Nor had he alarmed me; he hadn’t made the declaration sound dangerous and stalker-like. It had come out sounding fairly unconscious, and sincere.

Thank you for letting me hear your voice, he texted as I sat back down at my desk.

I hesitated before typing my reply. Were you aware of what you said to me, when you said goodbye on the phone?

Yes, Dad, he replied. It slipped. This faggot hoped you had not heard it. It was excited.

Say the words now.

It said I love you, Sir.

Did you mean it in the moment?

Yes Sir. It meant it.

My boner raged. So you’ll say those words when I’m loading up your little faggot hole on Thursday?

Yes Sir. This faggot will say it and mean it. Thank you, Sir. You deserve to be loved more than anyone.

Yeah, I told myself. I did deserve to be loved.

I was in a good place. I had a commitment for Thursday. I had the guy’s phone. I had his address. He’d gotten my attention, and inflamed my dick, my interest, and my ego to equally grotesque proportions. This was going to be a good experience. I set down to work, hoping my raging erection would subside.

Then. Five minutes later. He texts me again. Your faggot sent messages to a bunch of tops, even ones with ads looking to just load holes. No responses.

Of course you’re not getting responses, I thought to myself. Jesus. It’s been five fucking minutes.

This faggot is sorry daddy. It told you it was not worthy of your attention. You deserve much better, and there are boys out there who always seem to be able to get cum in their holes…and this faggot promised it would do this for you. FUCK, it is such a failure.

I was a little taken aback by this weird, sudden temper tantrum of defeat. I mean, I’ve known, admired, and fucked some pretty successful sluts in my time, and I can’t think of one who would have thrown his hands in the air after ten minutes online (on a weekday morning, no less) and yelled, “SCREW IT, I’M OUTTA HERE.” I tried to sound conciliatory, though, when I texted him, Don’t put so much pressure on yourself. If it’s not going to happen, you can’t force it. It’s okay.

You don’t get it. You could spend you entire day going from hole to hole. Everyone wants a piece of you. I’m just a shit nobody that no one wants to fuck I guess. Plus I failed you. I told you I was a basic faggot.

I was considering the way I should respond to this dark and curious turn when he texted again, mere seconds after the last. Still no takers for my hole. I’ve given up and signed off. I'm sorry. I'm a failure. Nobody wants to use me. To be honest I was going to delete my profile this week. I might as well do it now.

I’m not attracted to failures, I told him. I’m attracted to you. Therefore you aren’t a failure.

I'm so average and you are a part of the top of one percent among gays. You gave me one easy assignment and I couldn't do it in a city like NYC of all places. I think that underscores I should give up on sex for good. And now you know why my boyfriend can't even bother to fuck me or look at me. I’m too average. Below average, even.

At this point, even I was starting to realize that his compliments about me were way too over-the-top to carry any water. Top one percent among gays? Pfff. Top three percent, maybe. Top one percent was just hyperbole. And once again—once again in a succession of many, many encounters with readers who claimed to admire me, claimed to want to meet me—I felt as if I were being punked. This Faggot was suddenly so baffling, so improbable, that I wondered if I’d been set up for inevitable disappointment from the very beginning.

For some god-knows-what reason, however, I decided to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Listen. There are plenty of times I can't find a fuck to save my life . . . and I'm a top. If you knew how difficult it was for me, with my big dick, to get laid sometimes, your opinion of me would do a one-eighty. Failure is not defined by the inability to arrange a hookup at a moment’s notice. Not for me, not for you.

His downward spiral continued, however. By this point, I noticed, he’d dropped the entire ‘this faggot’ schtick. I'm so embarrassed. I feel like if I can't even get regular guys into me how can I get one like you?

At this point, my confusion began turning to irritation. You don’t seem to realize you’ve already got one like me. You’ve GOT me. We’re still meeting day after tomorrow, right?

I sat at my desk, phone in my hand, waiting for a reply. Nothing. After a minute I fired up my browser, and checked the website where we’d met. When I looked in my mailbox, all the messages we’d exchanged had vanished. I searched for his user name there. Nothing.

You deleted your profile, I texted.

I told you I would. And right now I'm laying in bed stroking and reading your blog.

This is the point where I gave up. This faggot could have had me, the real person, in the flesh. Less than forty-eight hours from that moment, he could have enjoyed the fuck of his life. (I’m not so much exaggerating my own prowess, mind you, as marking how sorry his sex life used to be.) Yet there he was, alone, diddling himself in the cold blue light of the computer screen with a version of me that could never touch, taste, or enjoy him back.

My blog is not a real, living thing. He could have had the real me, so easily. It makes me sad you deleted your profile, I tapped out, wondering why I even bothered.

I'm sorry. I won’t bother you anymore.

I looked at my watch. Between the time of our phone call and the time of his last message, a mere quarter hour had elapsed. Over the course of less than ninety minutes, This Faggot had gone from courting me with compliments and promises, to setting up a first date, to promising me outrageous sexual satisfaction, to telling me he loved me, to circling the toilet in a puddle of his own self-despair, to breaking up with me.

I’d jumped all the hoops of a five-year relationship in less than an hour and a half. No wonder I was fucking exhausted.

This Faggot kept his promise. I haven’t heard from him since. On the day we were supposed to meet, I left a polite text saying that the ball was in his court and I’d let him decide what to do . . . but I suspect my number had been long blocked by that point.

Was he depressive? Could be. Was he feeling guilt at fooling around on this boyfriend of his, and decided to pull back? I guess it’s a possibility. Did he simply feel as if he’d bitten off more than he could chew, and that he couldn’t perform up to the the standards of a God who was among the top three percent of gays? (Oh, heck. Let’s make it the top two percent. No need to be over-modest.) Maybe? Or could it simply have been, as I often fear, that he simply didn’t find me attractive enough and needed a way to wriggle out of his commitment?

There’s no justification behind it. No matter what the answer, I’m the one left swinging in the wind when he vanished.

When readers approach me with compliments, and with stories of their own about how my writing has been a catalyst to their own sex lives, it feels to me that finally I’m reaping a little of the seed I’ve sown—pun firmly intended. It feels like I’m getting a little love back.

What leaves me so dispirited after encounters like these—and there have been many—with readers is that they’re so damned draining. When readers turn out to be like This Faggot, jerking the rug right out from under me, it leaves me bruised. Worn out. Sour. Men like This Faggot leave me unwilling to engage with any of my readers—even those who sound and behave like totally reasonable people.
I have been bruised so many times, now.

As a writer, and as a sex blogger who has put so much of his private life on display for everyone to enjoy, I find myself stupidly susceptible when one of my readers appears willing to give back to me—and I’m not simply talking about when they want to repay me with their holes. Even if just a little, and even if just once in a while, This Faggot was right about one thing: I do deserve to be loved.

Afterword

During my hiatus, I’ve received from readers a lot of very sweet emails wishing me well. Most of them have recognized the amount of work I’ve poured into my blog and have expressed their thanks. I’m so grateful for those sentiments.

Many people who’ve written, however, have made the assumption that the reason I have decided to take a break is because of the so-called haters—that is, the men who leave nasty comments on my blog, and those who go out of their way to make sure I understand how contemptible I am to them.
I’ve had plenty of haters over the years. They wear me down, yes. But more than anyone, the men who have sucked the joy out of my writing (and to a certain extent, my life) are those who meant well. They’re men who claimed to admire me, who wanted to meet me—and many of them did—and who then, whether out of clumsiness or fear or whatever, failed to recognize they’d gone too far. A man can only withstand so many successive blows to the ego (even an ego as Jericho-sturdy as mine) before it begins to tumble.

What’s more, every single one of these men read my blog. They’re men who subscribed to my point of view, who enjoyed my writing. Or read my writing, at least. Some of them wanted to be written about. Others never intended me to know they were blog fans.

Maybe one of these men is you.

If it is you? Although there’s a small and petty part of me that wants to flip a finger in your direction, I’m not going to. I’m moving on as I write this series. A friend of mine shared with me something his grandmother used to say that I truly believe: People do the best they can. If they could do better, they would.

My advice, if you think you recognize yourself . . . or even if you don’t: do better.

All of us could stand to do better.

Monday, June 12, 2017

13 Reasons Why/Tape 1: Dad

Introduction

During my hiatus, I’ve received from readers a lot of very sweet emails wishing me well. Most of them have recognized the amount of work I’ve poured into my blog and have expressed their thanks. I’m so grateful for those sentiments.

Many people who’ve written, however, have made the assumption that the reason I have decided to take a break is because of the so-called haters—that is, the men who leave nasty comments on my blog, and those who go out of their way to make sure I understand how contemptible I am to them.

I’ve had plenty of haters over the years. They wear me down, yes. But more than anyone, the men who have sucked the joy out of my writing (and to a certain extent, my life) are those who meant well. They’re men who claimed to admire me, who wanted to meet me—and many of them did—and who then, whether out of clumsiness or fear or whatever, failed to recognize they’d gone too far. A man can only withstand so many successive blows to the ego (even an ego as Jericho-sturdy as mine) before it begins to tumble.

What’s more, every single one of these men read my blog. They’re men who subscribed to my point of view, who enjoyed my writing. Or read my writing, at least. Some of them wanted to be written about. Others never intended me to know they were blog fans.

Maybe one of these men is you.

If it is you? Although there’s a small and petty part of me that wants to flip a finger in your direction, I’m not going to. I’m moving on as I write this series. A friend of mine shared with me something his grandmother used to say that I truly believe: People do the best they can. If they could do better, they would.

My advice, if you think you recognize yourself . . . or even if you don’t: do better.

All of us could stand to do better.

Tape 1: Dad

There are some fantasies I can get behind.

Can I tell you something personal and true? he texts me, one hot spring morning.

You know you can, I say.

When I stumbled on your blog, I read your latest entry with the biggest boner, sir. It was hard not to jack off and shoot right there. You write so well, sir.

Thank you.

I’m sitting on my front porch, reading these words. There’s a big plastic cup of ice water sweating onto the table at my side. I reach for it, intending to drink, but my fingertips rest on the dewy surface instead, as another text pops up on my screen.

Then I read more, and more, thinking to myself, could this be . . . ? I thought I recognized you, sir. Something about the way you used your words. It sounded familiar. Then I noticed you had links to your profiles on your page, so I clicked them.

My cock stirs in my sweat shorts. I know good storytellers. This guy’s a storyteller, plain and simple. Between that and the flattery, he’s hooked me from the first line. I’m willing to follow wherever he goes.

Then fuuuuuck, sir. I saw who it was. The man I’d been rubbing myself to, the man I’d been fantasizing about giving myself to—YOU. I saw your pictures, dad. My own dad. The man whose seed made me.

I swallow. I’m still thirsty; my hand still rests on the moist tumbler of water, but I’m so rapt, so aroused, that such a mundane act as lifting the glass to my lips might break the spell.

Do you remember teaching me, dad? At night? In my bed? After mom had gone to sleep?

He expects an answer. I wouldn’t forget that, my fingers tap out. My heart is pounding so fast that I stumble over the tiny letters on my touchscreen. I wouldn’t forget teaching my own son.

It hurt so much that I thought I’d die the first time you opened my hole. Remember? How old was I?

You don’t remember?

I think I was 12 or 13. The fantasy he’s spinning conjures images, imaginary but with the sharp clarity of recollection—the distinct tang of an adolescent’s laundry hamper, the flash of a taut white ass by moonlight, the sound of a moan as my hard dick thrusts into soft flesh. I’d fantasized about it happening, and then you did it. You taught me how to take dick. My own father taught me to take his breedings.

At this point I’ve forgotten about the water entirely. My shorts are tented; my dick is rigid and in need. You needed to learn, I tell him in a text. My boy needed to learn.

He starts sending me photos. You haven’t seen me in a long time. Look how I’ve grown, he says, sending me a shot of his big, muscular body sprawled out on his sofa. His legs are spread. His dick, ignored, is a fat uncut log that lies across his hairy abdomen. His hands are spreading the golden-red cleft of fur surrounding his hole; his mouth is open in an expression of ecstasy. In another photo he’s sucking dick, his bearded jaw stretched wide to accommodate a fat black dick, while another white hand reaches from behind to grab his curly red hair. The guy—my supposed son—is fucking beautiful.

He could be mine, I think. More photos come in, each of them increasingly explicit. This ginger muscle bear of a man could have been my spawn. I would have been, well, seventeen when he was born. But it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of plausible belief.

When you and mom divorced and she took me away, I never thought I’d see you again, dad. Then I find out you’re a sex blogger . . . and still so handsome and sexy to boot. I am the luckiest boy.

On my porch, I clear my throat. There’s no hesitation when I tap out my reply. Let me make you happy in person.

I was hoping you’d say that. I’m so happy. You’ve made me so happy, dad. Will you be writing about me in your blog?

Do you want me to, son?

Yes. I want to make you proud. I’m proud that my dad is my lover. I want everyone to know about it.

We meet the next day. He makes it easy for us to connect; he doesn’t have to work during the day, his apartment is a block away from the 7 train. He wants me there. He wants to make this good for me. He wants his dad. The need is apparent in every text he sends, in every lewd photo he shares. Even as I’m taking the train to Queens, he’s texting me every couple of minutes to check on my arrival time. When I’m strolling down the block past the noisy bodega, he’s sending me a real-time photo of his furry hole.

He buzzes me in. I climb up two flights of stairs and knock. There’s a sound of footsteps on the other side. The door opens. He’s standing there wearing nothing but a jock and a pair of white sneakers.

He’s only an inch or two shorter than I. Flat red nipples sit on perfect pecs, surrounded by and covered by his red-gold fur. His beard, bushy and carefully-cultivated, reaches to his collarbone. His green eyes are alight with desire as he looks me over. This boy is so beautiful. I’m already breathless from the walk and the climb and the nervousness of the first meeting; the sight of him standing there nearly naked, his rigid short dick trying to poke a hole through one side of the jock, temporarily knocks out of me what wind I have remaining.

We stand there silently for a moment, each of us framed on either side of the door. “I know it’s been years since mom took me away from you, sir. But have I changed much?” He clears his throat. Maybe he’s as nervous as I. “Have I changed a lot, dad?”

“No, son.” I step forward through the door. I put my hands on the sharp bones of his pelvis, and let my fingers slip beneath the elastic of the band. “You’re still my boy.” When I plant my lips on his, and thrust my tongue into his mouth, he relaxes and melts into my hands.

His apartment is a mess—a narrow warren of hallways and small rooms where suitcases are stacked on top of bookcases on top of cabinets, where clothes are tucked under the desk and in the wardrobes and under the bed. It smells of cigarette smoke and some neighbor’s seafood lunch. I don’t give a fuck about the squalor. I’ve got my boy back at last. I lead him to the bed as if I already know the way, and shove him onto his back. His legs fly up as I kneel on the mattress and separate them with my knees; he links his fingers behind his head to lift it as we kiss even more deeply. He wears no deodorant; his pits smell musky and masculine. “Oh god, dad,” he moans. “I used to worry that all my memories of us were a dream, that you didn’t love me any more.”

“I didn’t forget you, son,” I say into his ear. My lips travel down his jawbone. “I couldn’t forget my only boy.”

“Do you remember when you used to come to my room after fucking mom? Do you remember what you used to say to me?”

He’s clearly expecting an answer. My mouth is more interested in chewing on those broad, flat nipples of his, but I venture a guess. “I know I used to tell you how you were a much better fuck than she was,” I say, as I drive my fingers into that hairy cleft framed by the jock. I find his hole lubed already, slick and ready for my fingers. He groans as they slip inside.

“Yesssss,” he whispers. He unhooks his fingers and grabs the toes of his sneakers to open his ass wider for me. “Did you mean it? Was I really a better fuck?”

“Oh god yes, son. So much better.”

“Was my pussy sweeter?’

“Much sweeter.”

“What was it you used to call me, that special nickname that you’d use when we were naked together?”

My dick is raging in my shorts, and I’ve stood up from the bed to let it loose. The question takes me aback a little. I try to think quickly, despite the fact that the blood that’s usually in my brain is all now located in the eight fat inches emerging over the elastic of my trunks. “Um. Daddy’s little buddy?”

“Yes.” He sighs with contentment as I kneel back on the bed. “You’re going to fuck me now, aren’t you, dad. You’re just going to take me, like you used to. Your right. I’m your boy, after all. I'm daddy’s little buddy.”

“You want to be fucked? You want dad’s dick in you again, little buddy?”

“Please dad. Please fuck me. Just fuck your son. Fuck me. Fuck me. Aaaaaah!”

He yells when I plunge in. He’s pre-lubed, and I’ve added some spit to the mix, but he’s a tight, tight fit.

“Oh god, yes. Yes. I’m so happy.”

I like making boys happy.

He sighs, contented. “So, so happy.”

I slide in an out, establishing a rhythm. He’s hanging onto his ankles like a gymnast; his face is red and flushed with heat and excitement. All this time, every moment of it, I’ve been trying to memorize the details—the hardened glint of his green eyes, the prickles of red on his skin as our fuck intensifies, the softness of his hole wrapped around my rigid meat. He’s giving me so much to remember, to write about. The entry I write about him will sizzle. Entry? Fuck. I’ll becoming back for more of this. Entries. “You still take my dick like a pro, son.”

“Thank you dad,” he says,

There’s a pause. We stare hard at each other, for the last time both perfectly content.

Then. “Remember when mom went away for a week? And you and me were alone?” I nod. Okay. Sure. “After you and mom argued? What did you argue about again?”

I’m still maintaining a steady rhythm that falters one for a split second as I try to grapple with his out-of-the-blue question. “Our arguments had nothing to do with you, son. You were a good boy.”

“I know, I know you loved me. But what did you argue about?”

He could’ve let it drop. Anyone else would’ve let it drop. But this one didn’t let it drop. “It was about money, son.”

“Yes, about money. And then she went away for a week. Where did she go?”

Christ, I thought. Seriously? “She went to stay with her sister.”

“Which one, dad?”

I blinked several times. “Your Aunt Rachel.”

“Aunt Rachel had boys too, didn’t she?” Where in the world was this going? “Didn’t she have two boys? My cousins?”

“Yes, son. She did,” I said, agreeing with him. Maybe it was the fastest way to get him back into the fuck.

“What were their names, dad?”

“I don’t remember, son. We hardly ever saw them.”

“Did you ever look at them, dad? Did you ever want to pound your fat dick into them the way you fucked me?”

I pulled my dick out of his hole. It gaped as I withdrew, and pulsated in need. “No, son. The only boy I wanted to fuck was you. My own beautiful boy. Daddy’s little buddy.”

“Oh fuck,” he says, so softly it’s little more than air. I’ve made him happy again. Finally. After all the damned questions. “Thank you, dad. Thank you so much.”

Okay. We’re back in the groove again. I pick up the pace as I plunge in and out of his hole. He’s shoved a pillow under the small of his back to support himself as he lifts his ass up with every thrust to meet me. I’m leaning down to kiss him when once again he opens his mouth to speak. “Remember how you comforted me when my dog died?”

He’s not doing this now, I think, appalled. Aloud, I say, “Really?”

“Yes, it really meant a lot to me. What was the dog’s name?”

“Bingo?” I blurt out, mortified at how ridiculous it sounds as it flys out of my mouth. A thousand dog names to choose from, and of everything I could choose, fucking BINGO as the name-o?

He didn't even seem to realize how absurd it was, either. “I was really sad when we had to put down Bingo, but you made me forget it all that night when you came to me in my room,” he said, so totally lost in the fantasy that he failed to see the increasing annoyance registering on my face. “You were deep inside me and holding me in your arms and you said. . . .”

What the actual fuck. Was this dude kidding me? Was a fucking camera hidden in the mess surrounding the bed? Was there a smarmy host of a YouTube sexual prank show about to pop out and tell me that I was being punked?

Despite the fact that I was being rapidly turned off at his weird insistence I participate in some weird kind of game of Incestual Mad Libs, I gamely tried to yank his attention back to the here and now. To me and to my fat dick inside him. To what was happening, to what was going on—to get his mind off the baroque fantasy for which he was attempting to enlist me as a mere collaborator. “You’ve got to forget all the bad times, son. Focus on the moment. You like dad’s cock, right?”

Maddeningly, he runs with it and says, “Yes, that’s exactly what you said. And it consoled me so much. You always know the right thing to say, dad. Remember when you got me my first jock? How old was I?”

“Fourteen,” I snap. Maybe if I just fuck and pretend I'm somewhere else, I'll get my nut and then I could plead some excuse to make a quick exit. Like a dog’s funeral, say.

“Right. Fourteen, and you took me to….”

“Dick’s Sporting Goods.” I preemptively add, “Bike brand. Four-ninety-five.”

“And you put it on me, didn't on you. My first jock, and you put it on me and told me I was a man now. You said that the coach would look at my ass in that jock. What was the coach’s name, dad?”

“Hey. Son. I’m not interested in him, or those memories.” I sounded brusque. I knew it. I couldn't conceal my testiness or my annoyance any longer. Having sex with this guy, muscle stud though he was, was like trying to fuck while a swarm of annoying gnats surrounded my head. Maybe a better man—or a more desperate man—might power through, but dammit, those gnats were fucking annoying. This casual encounter was turning out to have more lore than all three hundred films in the Lord of the Rings series. I fucking couldn't keep up.

But he persisted his wheedling. “What was the coach’s name?”

I excused myself to the guy’s filthy bathroom, where I remained until my temper subsided enough to leave politely.

To this day, you wonder why I won't return your online messages. Now you know.

You wanted me to write about you. For the longest time after that disastrous afternoon, I wouldn't. I don't like showing well-meaning souls behaving inanely. But by being deaf to my requests to engage in the present, to leave behind the fantasy, to set aside your complicated agenda—or at least bring it all into the moment—you turned powerful potential into the worst kind of reality.

You took a scorching hot premise for an encounter and ran too fucking far with it. In the process, you shut me down as a writer. If I'd recorded the truth of that hot spring afternoon as it really happened, you'd have hated it. If I'd glossed over your shortcomings, if I'd written puff porn for my blog, I'd have hated myself. So I stayed silent.

I don’t keep a blog to stay silent. Doing so left me a little more dead inside. At least, until now, long after, when I’m addressing a one of many resentments I should have confronted long ago.

Welcome to your tape, son.