The Italian

I noticed the guy when I walked into the bar. In his gray, trimly-cut suit and shiny shoes, he stood out from the crowd of loose-topped women and gay guys of a certain age slathered with tanner and Abercrombie logos. His hair was longish, and curly, and silver at the temples; his nose was an enormous beak. With his dark eyes and sharp features, the overall effect was of a whippet-thin handsome Italian who’d just gotten off work and was slugging back a few drinks before his drive home.

And he was staring at me as I walked in.

His gaze continued to fix upon me as I sat down with my group of friends. Wednesday night I’d arranged for a couple of hours out at a gay bar that’s only a mile from my home, with a bunch of buddies I’ve known a long, long time. The bar itself is modern and updated and aspires for trendiness. It tends to attract a mixed crowd of gay men, straight women, and a handful of straight guys. The Italian was not at all straight, I was guessing as he craned his neck to continue staring at me. It’s not as if I was particularly dressed up. I wore a nice dress shirt and a pair of jeans and the ubiquitous sneakers, but I’d had to run in to the bar through the pouring rain and I felt bedraggled and soaked through. Perhaps, I thought, I looked worse than I suspected, and that he was staring at me like he might a train wreck.

But no. The man was definitely staring at me. How could I tell? Well, other than the fact that his eyes bore down on me without respite, I was pretty sure I was getting the come-on when I looked over and began to rub himself through his trousers. His thumb and forefinger squeezed a lump that ran down his right leg, lasciviously kneading it while his glittering black eyes stared down mine. Then he took the heel of his hand and dug in, rubbing it against the spot where his dick lay. And in case I didn’t get the message, his fingers eased beneath the flap of his fly and moved slowly up and down.

I blinked, then returned his stare. Where I grew up in the South, such kind of cruising is pretty common. It’s not seen much in the land of the Yankees, where men can’t even look at each other in the eye, much less maintain a steady and almost unnerving stare with the object of their interest. My immediate instinct was to rise from my seat, jerk my head at him, and let him follow me to the bathroom, so he could suck me off.

I almost did it, too, but instead I turned my attention back to my friends. There were four of them around our little table. One was investigating his iPhone. Another was looking at one of the local gay rags. And the last two were regarding me with raised eyebrows and knowing smirks. “What?” I asked, already knowing the answer to the question.

“I think you have a new boyfriend,” said one.

“Oh do I?” I tried to look casual. By now the Italian was rubbing his beer bottle up and down the side of his dick. The brown glass left a slick wet spot where it traced.

“Why does this kind of thing happen only to you?” asked the other, dryly.

I narrowed my eyes. “Because I’m tall and handsome?” I asked, hoping it might be taken as rhetorical.

“And easy,” my second friend retorted. Well. I couldn’t really argue with it, so I let it go. “He probably recognizes you from one of your sex profiles.”

That could have been as well. As I looked back at the Italian, I noticed he’d moved further up the bar to display his wares from another angle. He lifted the beer bottle in my direction, took a swig, and then proceeded to fellate the neck.

My two friends burst out in laughter. I couldn’t really blame them. After a solid five minutes or more of his single-minded come-on, the guy was seeming a little bit desperate. Plus it was obvious by now that handsome or not, he was more than a little drunk. I’d already made up my mind that no matter what my dick wanted to do, I wasn’t going to have a restroom assignation with the Italian. Not that night, not under the watchful eyes of my friends. I didn’t want to have to hear about remember that night you did that creepy guy in the bathroom? for the next several months. Again.

My friend Terrence came in to the bar, then. Terrence is a older black guy, one of those social butterflies who makes it his objective to learn the life stories of every single person in every single bar he frequents—and he frequents them all. Immediately he came over and planted his hands on my shoulder on the friend next to mine, greeting us all. Almost immediately, the Italian made a beeline for Terrence. I wasn’t at all surprised that Terrence knew him. Over the bar’s clamor they talked for a moment. Finally, after the Italian shouted a request in his ear, Terrence turned to the table and started introducing people, one by one. I was last. Terrence introduced me by name. “I’ve known him since he was knee-high to a drag queen,” he said.

“Hello,” said the Italian. He actually had an accent. “I am Giorgio.” Though he’d only nodded at the other guys at my table, he reached out and shook my hand. Hard. I mean, bone-crushingly hard. Then he didn’t let go.

“Hi, Giorgio,” I said. Then I repeated his name. He stared meaningfully in my eyes, still squeezing my hand. I didn’t think he was ever going to let it go. After way, way too long, I had to withdraw it with force, and even then he continued to clutch at my fingertips. My friends snickered.

The bar was doing karaoke, Wednesday night, and I had put my name in for a turn. Luckily the hostess called me up right then, so I had a good excuse to scoot away. I sang, received drunken applause from the audience, and then started to sidle through the crowd to return to my seat.

Giorgio was blocking my way, at the end of the aisle. His beer bottle was planted squarely east to his dick. “You sing very well,” he said. I thanked him and tried to push past. “I bet you do other things very well, too.”

“Ah,” I said, caught between laughter and horniness. “Perhaps.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me in close so he could talk directly in my ear. “I have had a bad day.”

“I’m sorry!” I said, politely as possible.

“I don’t want to have a bad night, too.” When he spoke, his breath was laden with alcohol and his speech was slurred. “I don’t want to have to masturbate. Alone.”

“I’m with friends,” I said, pointing in their direction. “I came with them. I can’t just leave.”

His lips brushed my earlobe. “You are sssssso sssssssexy.” I felt a hand grab my crotch and squeeze, hard. I yelped, and jumped back at the unexpected grope, knocking into the nearly-naked shots boy wandering behind me.

I didn’t spill any of his test tubes filled with candy-colored alcohol, but it was a near thing. I did manage to squeeze past and return to my table, however, where by now all my friends had watched me leap a foot backward in the air. They all smirked as I sat down. “Just don’t say it,” I begged.

Save for staring at me soulfully from across the bar for the rest of the time I was there, Giorgio didn’t say anything to me again. Not until I was pulling on my coat and preparing to head out into the bad weather again, anyway. At that point he rushed over. “Goodbye,” he said, calling me by name. He reached out for my hand and covered it with his own. “I hope we are friends now.”

“Um, sure,” I replied.

"Good friends, you and I.”

“Of course.” Because you know, under any other circumstances. . . .

When Giorgio pulled me forward and shoved his tongue between my lips to give me a long, sloppy, and beery kiss goodbye, he and I were the only persons in our vicinity not chortling in laughter. When he was finished, he smacked his lips, pointed his finger at my face, and then winked at me before stumbling off.

“I didn’t realize he was so drunk,” said one of my friends.

“That explains it,” said another.

“Fuck you all,” was my grumpy response.