All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, (12 page)

Dave started working on Peter's dick, pulling and stroking, pulling and stroking with his usual studied finesse. Peter threw his head back and moaned.

"How about tonight?" Dave asked.

Peter didn't say anything but he kept letting Dave play with him, pulling and stroking, pulling and stroking. A few more minutes passed, and then Peter moaned again and whispered, "I'm close."

Dave reached for a couple of cocktail napkins with one hand and kept jerking Peter with the other. He looked around. The bartender remained on the far side of the bar, and no other customers or dancers were nearby.

Peter leaned forward with a shake and shot his load into the folded stack of napkins, all the while whispering, "Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit."

Hearing Peter swear was almost as unexpected as having him cum on the bar. From then on, Dave began calling what they did together "Oh shit."

"Can we do 'Oh shit' tonight?" he'd ask when he saw Peter.

They started doing it almost every night Dave came in, and Dave even saved the napkins that Peter spunked in.

"Are you serious?" I asked, when he told me this.

"I know it's weird. But they're kind of like mementos. There's a personal experience behind them. If I knew that Peter would pop a load for anybody and everybody, then it wouldn't mean anything to me. But it means something to me because he's told me that I'm the only one he does this with. And I believe him.

"And maybe," he continued, "I keep them because I really like him. I mean, I think I'm ... I don't know if I should use the word love,' but maybe I am a little. Yeah, I mean, I do love him."

"OK, so if he wanted to move in with you, would you let him?"

"He's got it."

"You wouldn't go to the clubs again?"

"He's got it."

When Dave left that night to see Peter, he looked the happiest I'd ever seen him. At least somebody's night was going well.

The only other customer I knew that night was a classical musician from Baltimore, which was about a forty-minute drive away. I'm sure he told me his name a dozen times, but I just thought of him as Symphony Dude. He came to D.C. from time to time, when he was playing a nearby venue, and I always remembered him because he was one of those split-personality-type customers. When I talked with him between sets, we'd converse about film and art and what made him decide to be a musician. But whenever he'd stroke me on the bar, he didn't say much but a bunch of variations on "Your dick is so hot," "That's such a hot dick," and "Your dick is so fucking hot." It wasn't that I wanted him to rhapsodize about Brahms while he was jerking me off, but I would've preferred silence to having my genitals subjected to a barrage of clichés.

I also felt like he wanted me to talk dirty to him and that just wasn't happening. I was fine with a stranger paying a couple of bucks to stroke my cock in public, but adding expletive-laced commentary pushed things past my comfort zone. Still, that night I was grateful to see him. Symphony Dude was always easy to spot. In his early forties, he was younger than most of the customers, and he often wore a stiff white button-down shirt and slacks.

"I just played at the Kennedy Center," he explained when I asked why he was in town.

We talked for a few minutes about the concert, but he seemed a little more anxious than usual. He then abruptly changed the direction of the conversation by saying, "I'll give you fifty bucks if I can watch you cum."

The instant he said that, I felt like I'd entered a frozen-in-time moment, one of those occasions when someone says or does something so unexpected that you have no preconceived way to respond. It might seem like I would've gotten these types of requests all the time, and to some extent I did. But usually, customers asked something like, "Do you do private shows?" or "Do you do any work on the side?" To those questions, I had a stock response: "Sorry, I don't do that."

I always said it with a flattered smile, trying hard not to come off as judgmental. I thought of myself almost like a particular model of machine, Boy Stripper X-5000, and my model wasn't equipped to do anything outside the club. Like maybe I hadn't been upgraded with lubricated orifices or my power source stopped working when I was removed from the club.

It's not that I had anything against prostitution. In fact, I'd been obsessed with prostitutes since I was a little boy, riding with my parents down Fourteenth Street, D.C.'s most notorious sex strip in the seventies and eighties. I loved looking at the working girls in their shiny tight outfits, showing off big hair, big shoes, and big attitude. They seemed so tough and unafraid—hands on hips, lips glossy and red, asses switching.

Where other boys wanted to be firemen, baseball players, and astronauts, I wanted to be a sassy, streetwise hooker. I still lament that there were no action figures for boys like me. Imagine my joy upon rushing downstairs on Christmas morning and unwrapping a twelve-inch-tall package containing Lola, the hooker with a heart of gold. I'd dress her up in various polyester and pleather outfits and accessories, and play with her in the optional streetscape playhouse that came complete with a working red light.

Looking back, I think my childhood obsession with prostitutes had to do with how uncomfortable I was with my own burgeoning sexuality. I envied those who seemed so confident about their sexuality that they could stand out on a street corner and sell it. I later learned that my perception was probably far from the reality of the situation. But that's how I felt at the time.

My pro-prostitution attitude stayed with me into adulthood. It didn't make sense that you couldn't sell something that you could give away. It also seemed like prostitution was the wave of the future, because, let's face it, it's now accepted that most love affairs don't last. Why should we be denied sex while we're in between relationships? Wouldn't it be better—and far more efficient, given the time it takes to pick up someone at a bar or even online—to be able to turn to a trusted professional in our sexual time of need?

In some ways, it's even a health issue. Research shows that there are all sorts of benefits associated with sex: increased energy, stress relief, reduction in headaches and joint pain, lower cholesterol levels, weight loss, reduced risk of heart disease, healthier teeth, firmer muscle tone, balanced hormones, and even an enhanced sense of smell. Why should these benefits be limited to those who are lucky enough to be getting some for free? Decriminalizing prostitution would allow us to use money to take care of our sexual yearnings the same way we use it to take care of other basic needs: food, shelter, clothing, spa treatments ...

But even though I felt strongly about this, I wasn't quite ready to become a full-fledged working boy myself.

I decided to go back into the dressing room and ask Mikey about the private show issue: "Have you ever done one?"

"Sure, I've done them," he said, while doing push-ups on the floor. "But I don't really do them anymore. It kinda fucked me up mentally. I mean, you find yourself doing shit you never imagined you could do."

"So, you strictly keep in the club now?"

"Well, I didn't say that. I mean, I'll still let a guy suck me off. But I want an envelope with at least one hundred bills in it, and I want it in advance."

Well, if Mikey got a hundred bucks for receiving a blow job, then fifty bucks just to spunk off didn't seem so bad. But was cumming for money the same thing as prostitution? The prospect gave new meaning to Cole Porter's "Love for Sale": "love that's fresh and still unspoiled / love that's only slightly soiled." Not to mention "Who would like to sample my supply?"

It was a lot to process. I think when people talk about what they would or wouldn't do for money, they imagine that they'd get an offer and have time to ponder it, consult a few experts, read their horoscope in the morning paper, get a tea leaves reading, and then finally come to a decision. But life doesn't work like that, at least mine didn't while I was stripping. A decision in those circumstances had less to do with the grand scheme of who I thought I was than simply what I needed at the time. And all I was thinking of when he offered to pony up $50 for a spray of my man milk was that this money would allow me to make my regular tip quota, and it would mean that I was still a successful stripper on the come-up and not on my way to becoming a has-been.

"So, how would it work?" I asked him during my next set, leaning closer. He had a clean smell, like bar soap.

"We could go to a booth next door," he said. Next door meant Glorious Health and Amusement, a suck-and-be-sucked porn joint more commonly known as the Glory Hole. I'd never gone there except between sets to buy Certs when my breath was questionable. But I knew enough about the Glory Hole simply from local gay lore.

The place was split into two sides. One side housed a theater—well, actually a stand-up projection screen and some wooden pews—and an elaborate wooden maze that had holes strategically carved within its walls. You could stick your dick through one of the holes and be fully serviced without ever having to deal with something so distracting as a face.

The other side of the Glory Hole, which required separate admission, consisted of aisles of private video booths. You paid a fee to go back there, and then once you were inside your booth, you put tokens in the machine to play your video of choice. This was where Symphony Dude and I headed after I told him yes. I made this decision mostly because of the $50, but I also didn't feel that what he was asking me to do was all that much of a change from what I did at the club anyway. The only difference was that I got to give myself a happy ending.

As I stood beside Symphony Dude while he paid our admission, I felt like the girlfriend in one of those films set in the fifties, where the guy is paying for a hotel room and the girl is trying her best not to look like the type of girl who would go to a hotel room with a guy she wasn't married to. At least that was my intention, but, of course, demure was hard to pull off wearing shredded jean shorts and a T-shirt that read "Boys, Boys, Boys."

Once he finished paying, we walked toward the video booths, past the plastic-encased walls of porn box covers, the box cover models bearing witness to whatever it was I was doing. It was like I was watching myself in a movie, because my feelings hadn't caught up to my actions. I didn't know how I would feel about jerking off for him or how I would feel afterward. I was as excited to find out what was going to take place as I would've been if I were watching it happen to someone else. Would this incident be liberating for me, the protagonist, or scary? I wanted to know.

We got closer to the booths, and there was a gate, sort of like the turnstile at the entrance of a subway station. The front clerk pushed a button. A sharp buzzing sound went off and the metal bar relaxed to let us through. Then it made a loud click, locking behind us.

There were about a dozen guys standing around in the hallways in front of the booths. They turned when they heard us being buzzed in, but quickly looked away when they saw that Symphony Dude and I were together. I figured that guys must wait back there until they find someone to take into a booth. It was certainly cheaper than paying for a hotel room.

Symphony Dude and I walked past the men. He chose a booth and I followed him in. The space—about the size of a hall coat closet—was hardly big enough for one person, let alone two. There was a stool built into the floor, but if anyone sat on it, there wouldn't be space for the other person. Symphony Dude moved to the back wall and kneeled down. I leaned, as much as I could, against the wall with the built-in video screen. Time was a concern since I was between sets, so I unfastened my jean shorts and let them drop to my ankles. My dick, already rock-hard from the excitement of it all, jutted forward with a heavy bounce. I dug for the Elbow Grease in my sock, dabbed some along my shaft, and began stroking myself. Symphony Dude hurriedly unbuttoned his dress shirt, revealing a plain white T-shirt underneath. "Cum on my chest," he instructed.

Now this request made things feel weird again. I thought: "Why would anyone want me to cum on his shirt? What was he going to do with my cum? Does Spray 'n Wash work on cum stains?"

These thoughts began distracting me, so I tried to keep them out of my mind. As I kept jerking, he used the tips of his fingers to softly stroke my inner thighs and launched into his mantra: "Oh, your dick is so hot," "That is one hot dick," "Your dick is so fucking hot."

After what seemed like about five minutes, I asked when he wanted me to cum. "Whenever you're ready," he said, opening up his shirt even wider. I saw some gray-flecked chest hair peek out from around his collar. I started stroking faster and closed my eyes. I wasn't really turned on, but I wasn't exactly turned off, either. Jerking off this time was just something I was doing to provoke a physical response, like sticking my finger down my throat in order to throw up. I jerked faster. I felt myself start to sweat a little under my arms, around my hairline, and beneath my balls. More jerking. Pulling on my cock and holding my balls from underneath. Then came that tingly, rising sensation that starts somewhere around my knees. I was close.

"Here goes," I said, before splattering his undershirt with a slew of cloudy white splotches.

"Oh, fuck yeah," he moaned, although I don't believe he came himself. His pants were still buttoned and he wasn't even touching his cock. (Or at least that's how I remember it. Thinking back, it seems weird that he wouldn't have gotten himself off. I wonder if I don't recall him cumming because it feels safer, more like I was giving a command performance and not engaging in a bout of mutual masturbation, which would make it more like sex. I honestly don't know what the truth of the matter is.)

As soon as I came, I felt uncomfortable. What should I do or say next? I pulled up my shorts. "That was really fun," I said flatly. He rose up from his knees, buttoned his shirt, and started fumbling for money in his right pocket. Out came two twenty-dollar bills and a ten, which he handed to me. Both of us were looking down.