In the dark, in the dirt, where all identities dissolve, I stumbled upon a new life<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His name turned out to be Alan, though I didn\u2019t know that when I first met him in Brooklyn\u2019s Prospect Park on a sweaty Saturday evening. The sun had set, but the sky still held a swath of purplish light. I was cruising the Ravine, a stand of old-growth forest in the middle of the park, decorated with man-made waterfalls, hills and crumbling stone steps. Guys would perch on those steps like Olympian gods looking down at the mortals who approached and deciding their fate. The less confident ones would pose outside a cluster of bushes with a hand on their crotch. If they looked at you and dashed behind a bush, you had an invitation. If they looked at you and turned away, you had instant rejection. Cruising wasn\u2019t really my preferred method of engagement, but I\u2019d been dumped by my boyfriend of ten years that summer, so in solidarity with the spurned, the jilted and the categorically repudiated, I sought solace in the streets, the bars, the interwebs and, if need be, the bushes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was standing by one of the bridges, his hands jittery in the pockets of his cargo shorts. He had short grey hair and a matching goatee. In 2008, everyone from hipster to homo had a goatee. It was the necessary baby step before we all committed to full beards in 2014. He stared at me as I passed, and I sauntered back and asked, \u201cHow\u2019s it going?\u201d We struck up a conversation while checking each other out: hair, teeth, nails. Pecs, abs, delts. Shoes, watch, belt. Whatever cursory qualities one held essential to deem another desirable. Though, generally, if one found oneself in the bushes, one\u2019s standards of desirability had already waned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He had thick legs and bony shoulders, with a little belly stretching out his T-shirt. The kind of natural frame not built at the gym but on the soccer fields of youth. We were both in our forties, though he might have been in the latter half and I in the earlier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soon, I was leading him to a spot that someone else had shown me. It involved hopping a fence that enclosed the old-growth trees and moving deeper into the forest, out of sight of anyone on the paths. He seemed nervous but also quite excited. He trembled when I reached under his shirt and pulled him close to me. We kissed for a while and explored each other\u2019s bodies. He shivered with every caress. It seemed like he hadn\u2019t been touched in a long time, and this added a layer of sadness to our meeting: my recent loss and his great need, discovering each other among the branches and leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterward, we gathered the clothes that we had flung on the bushes, and made ourselves respectable. As we walked out of the Ravine, he said, \u201cI\u2019d like to see you again.\u201d I told him I\u2019d like that too. We stopped by a fountain, took big gulps of water, then rested on a bench near the park exit. Neither of us was in a hurry to leave. He told me he had been married for 16 years and had a 16-year-old son. He\u2019d always known he was attracted to men, but except for some casual flings in his youth, he hadn\u2019t acted on it until his wife stopped having sex with him. She\u2019d been clinically depressed for years and he didn\u2019t know how to help her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can\u2019t divorce her,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to leave my son with her.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I told him that my ex and I hadn\u2019t had sex in the last year of our relationship, and it was a sure sign we had drifted out of love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s more to love than sex,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I agreed, but wondered how much more. Sure, love contained many working parts, but sex was the lubrication that kept the parts running smoothly. Without it, things tended to stick and grind and became hard to manoeuvre. How could anyone actually endure the mind-numbing vagaries of another person without being attracted to them? Or at least without sharing orgasms with them? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We met a few more times. In a cheap hotel in Queens or in the park. I couldn\u2019t afford to move, so my ex and I had divided our apartment into two separate living spaces with the agreement that we wouldn\u2019t bring home \u201cguests.\u201d I certainly didn\u2019t want to run into his new 28-eight-year-old boyfriend on the way to the bathroom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around our third or fourth meeting, Alan told me he didn\u2019t want to have anal sex anymore. He still wanted us to keep seeing each other, but didn\u2019t enjoy the anal as much as the oral. For me, oral sex has always been more of an appetizer rather than the main course. One was either servicing or being serviced; never mutually engaged. Maybe for him that distance was comfortable, or what he was used to, but for me, it always felt somewhat disconnected. We gave it a go a few more times and then agreed to be friends, which, in reality, meant strangers. The last I heard, he had resumed marital relations. His wife had found a new medication and was interested in sex again. I presumed, in giving blowjobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shortly after we parted ways, I met another man in the park. He was standing by the gazebo in nylon running shorts and a tank top. He had obviously just finished a late-night run and the astringent smell of his sweat permeated the space. With his big arms and flat stomach, I thought he might be decidedly out of my league. He asked: \u201cDo you fuck?\u201d And soon, we were in my secluded spot with his shorts down around his ankles. His body was nicely bronzed but his ass shone in the moonlight like two magnificent white globes, so muscular that one squeeze could sever my manhood. Needless to say, it didn\u2019t take me long to finish and he asked if I could go again. I went to kiss him but he pushed me away and started tugging on my dick. I lifted up his tank top and put it around his neck so I could watch the muscles in his chest contract into two perfect ovals as he played with me. It wasn\u2019t long before we started up again. I reached around and tried to manipulate his rock-hard member, but he brushed my hand away. A few minutes later, I collapsed over his back, spent and exhausted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stood and stuffed himself back into his shorts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you want to come?\u201d I asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He pulled his tank top back down and put a meaty hand on my neck. \u201cMonday at ten o\u2019clock,\u201d he said. \u201cBe here.\u201d And then he left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Monday rolled around, I arrived at the park a half hour early and waited by the fence. At 10:05 he arrived, sweaty and out of breath from his run. Without a word, we went back to our bower. This time, I was determined to make him come, but every time I reached for him, he swatted my hand away. I lasted as long as I could and he seemed satisfied, as he didn\u2019t ask for another round. Again, he proposed a future date. I asked if we could exchange numbers, and it was then that he told me his wife reads his texts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We met like this for a month, once or twice a week. He would pull down his shorts. I would grab onto the sculpted mounds of his shoulders. And no matter how fast or gentle I moved, he never uttered a single sound. Afterward, I would try to engage him in conversation, but he always hurried away. Finally, when he proposed our next meeting, I said I couldn\u2019t make it. Truth be told, I was getting tired of the arrangement. It was exhausting and mechanical, more like aerobics than sex. And, as far as communication, I\u2019d had more interpersonal feedback from the Stairmaster at my gym. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I started to walk away but something about his presence held me there. He kicked around the leaves at our feet and studied the tops of his running shoes, which were caked with mud from digging in his heels. Finally, he confessed the real reason he needed to meet. He wanted to satisfy his wife, and the only way he could get hard was through anal stimulation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t you just get a dildo? Or a vibrator?\u201d I asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy wife. She is very traditional. She would not allow.\u201d This conversation was the most we had spoken in all our encounters and I finally discerned his Russian accent. \u201cWhat you do work much better.\u201d He grabbed my dick and gave it a brotherly handshake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo you don\u2019t think you\u2019re bi or a little bit gay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI like the pussy. If this is what I have to do to get the pussy, I do it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not sure if this shows how far a straight man will go to have sex with a woman, or how far a homophobe will go to justify taking it up the ass, but it did get me thinking about the significance of identity. Both of these men went to great lengths to preserve their identity as husbands and heterosexuals. Undeniably, marriage is a status symbol. It marked one as chosen and socially viable. And, admitting to being gay, even to oneself, is an immediate loss of status. But, married or single, gay or straight, I no longer wanted to be the scratch to a sexual itch. I was ready to move up the evolutionary ladder to drinks and dinner conversation, dates and sleepovers on firm mattresses with sheets and memory foam pillows.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, I understood the need to hide one\u2019s desires. There\u2019s really no incentive for a straight man who wants to be a little gay. And so they go to the bushes, in the dark, in the dirt, where all identities dissolve. Status doesn\u2019t matter, nor do society\u2019s norms or obligations. In the bushes, we\u2019re all just disparate urges looking for a release, which is the original state of true equality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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