The Pleasure’s Mine: A Night at Basic Plumbing Sex Club

There are mobs of people at this party. I know most of them, though it’s hard to tell because it’s so dark. The wooden walls are painted black with cross beams all around like a massive Louise Nevelson installation.

All night, I’ve been eying a dark-haired fellow with a charming smile. Suddenly, he catches me in my gazing, and I willingly plead guilty.

Could this unfold as I’ve not dared dream it?

Now this guy is breaking away from the group in the shadows he was never really a part of to begin with. I counter with a step toward him. We’re face to face, but we don’t touch. We’re so close the slightest movement will seal us. His shadow engulfs me, and he seems so—I seem so small. But he’s not much taller than I. He smiles as his fingers muddle with mine. We stand there suspended eternal seconds, radiating more than warmth onto one another. Back and forth.

Subtly, everyone present is put on alert. Something’s happening here. We’re noticed, then quickly forgotten, as the party’s ebb begins to festively flow once more.

With our hands clasped—not quite in the Interlocking Wrist Grip, the strongest grip known to mankind, but this is a good start—we glide across the black floor and brush past couples and whispering groups on the way to a bedroom in the dark, dark back. I’m smiling too now because everyone we pass is scooping on how I’ve nabbed this hunk. For once, I’m the topic of some envious gossip!

This couldn’t be going any better…

That dream was so amazing that I meant to write it down in my journal, but in my aimless state, I figured, Why bother?

I was preoccupied with waiting for a call from Dell, who was awaiting a call from a friend of a friend, whom I hoped knew the location of a Hollywood sex club. By then, the baths were passé and shuttering quicker than front doors on Jehovah’s Witnesses. Dell’s connections finally came through with the intel, but my best friend respectfully declined to join me in my search for distraction from my going-nowhere acting career and my nonexistent love life.

Once I arrived at my destination, I got the lay of the land of Basic Plumbing. I loved getting turned around and lost within its dark passages and gave myself over to this labyrinth that offered surprise and exuded possibility around every unexplored dim corner, especially when I’d suddenly realize I had just been around the same corner a few minutes before. Becoming a local has its comforting and expeditious perks, but nothing can replace the childlike wonder offered by a new sex club’s meandering black byways. There also was a Minotaur of malaise haunting those inky alleys, but I was too infected with folie a deux to be focused on any sickening syndromes.

Much later—I didn’t know how much because Vegas casinos and sex clubs don’t feature clocks—I walked up to a man poised against the painted black wall. I knew his aloof anonymous-sex expression. I was in the process of perfecting my own.

“What time is it?” I asked in a hushed, masculine tone. Okay, a bit too Brenda Vaccaro for Playtex tampons, but I’d butched it up ever since I’d arrived.

Without removing his hand from his pocket, the man with the resting bathhouse face cocked his wrist to check the time. “It’s twelve twenty-four,” he replied with the same minimal effort.

“Thank you,” I said and leaned my body back until it also hit the wall. But why was I lingering? I’d already cum once, and there weren’t any more guys I was interested in. I may as well just go…

Wait. What’s this I spy? He looks tasty. And he’s coming my way.

I corrected my slouch into the upraised chest that’s beneficial for proper diaphragm functioning. Should I cross my arms or put my hands in my pockets like the timekeeper? Just as he passed, I tensed my stomach for maximum draping of my T-shirt.

The cutie in question crossed and (Did he look at me like I think he did?) slid into stall number 2 / 6. I heard the little bolt clatter closed, and I waited.

Why of all places did he choose this stall right across from me? But he locked the door, so he doesn’t want me to go in there with him.

I had to act quickly because the other guys were scattering to their places. Most stalls had orifices on three sides, raising the odds against my conquest. I ducked into stall 3 / 7, next to McDreamy and hurriedly bolted the door.

Right away, the occupant of number 7 / 3, directly behind my stall, was ready for me. At the same time, someone on the outside pulled on my door, and the bolt gave way. I lunged for the handle, pulled it closed, and relocked the flimsy door.

I peered up at the mirrored ceiling. The lighting was so bad—or good, depending on your point of view—and the mirror so distorted by grime, I could hardly see the number in number 2 / 6.

Number 7 / 3 was still on the prowl, and the oval hole in the partition between us was at times filled by the gorge of an open mouth or the prick of an eye. I was about to accept his offer when, just like Thing from The Adams Family, out reached the beckoning hand of the prize in number 2 next door. I oh-so-willingly responded to his baitless hook. After I unbuttoned my pants, I proffered the conqueror worm. But who’d caught whom?

As he began to give me head, it mattered not.

It wasn’t the deftest blow I’d received, but it was hard to concentrate, what with the many gentlemen callers at my door, that damned door with the faulty bolt. Each time I started to get into this guy’s sucking, I had to pull the door closed and hold it tight to retain my privacy. This was ridiculous, and this sucker was definitely worth closer inspection. So I eased my way (careful– of– the– teeth) out of his mouth and crouched down next to the glory hole to whisper, “Wait. I’m coming over there.”

I flipped the elastic of my BVDs back to my waist from its holding pattern beneath my balls and fastened only my top jeans button. I slinked out of my chamber and rap-tappy-tapped on the boy next door’s door. It bounced open with the force of my hand. How thoughtful to have unlocked it for me!

Behind the green door I went, and I made sure to secure it behind me. My trick was standing before me with a serious look on his face. He was taller than I, also dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. He put his palms on my arms and slid them down the length of me as he descended to his knees. He opened my pants and pushed my garments down to my thighs. I watched him as he took me in his mouth. I put my hands on his head and began to guide it back and forth, but mostly I enjoyed caressing his short black hair.

Not more than a few minutes passed before words sprang from sheer impulse, unencumbered by my customary, wearying premeditation. I saw myself halting the movement of his head and crouching again to hear myself ask, “Wanna to go to a room?”

“Okay,” he mumbled. So we ventured into the dusky corridor, past black walls, and up some stairs to a free room, one of few, to our left. We entered and locked it. I was sure I was dreaming.

We were in close quarters. On a waist-high black wooden base, a white-sheeted mattress, questionably clean, laid in front of us, nearly taking up the entire room. I sniffed the air and could identify 7½ scents: sweat, poppers, lube, leather, mildew, booty, bleach, and just a hint of fairy dust.

We stood looking at—not looking at—each other. Then we both began removing articles of clothing. My blue tee with the badly faded Heaven Can Wait logo silk screened on the back (I was great in that play!) I’d had since tenth grade was off and cast to the floor, along with my favorite pastime of waxing nostalgic. My brother’s Jordache jeans, commandeered for the occasion, started to come off, then were pulled back up so I could sit on the edge of the bed and carefully untie my shoes. By the time I looked up—Woof! Something reached down my throat and pulled the air right out of me—he was naked. I finished stripping completely, and our bodies gravitated. We hugged and began to taste each other’s neck and jaw.

An intense passion propelled us, but we treaded carefully, in case the other wasn’t “into kissing.” Many times, we came close to mouth-to-mouth contact but kept travelling. I was silently chanting my college diction exercise, “Lips, teeth, tip of the tongue. Lips, teeth, tip of the tongue…” until we simultaneously relented and began sucking face in earnest. A release washed over us, as we crashed onto the bed and got down to the business of pleasure.

This sex act is still a blur of abandon, a balance between savoring and surrender, each equally enjoyable. Safe sex was a given. Yet with my lack of experience, this was more of a comfort than a condition. No need for this young pup to learn any new tricks tonight. I was still working on the old ones.

The only preamble my partner offered was his hushed query, “Are you a Gumby or a Pokey?” I hadn’t heard that one, before or since, but I knew without knowing what he meant. Boudoir camp is the hardest type to pull off, and I was thoroughly impressed.

“I’m… neither,” I murmured, and truer words were never spoken.

I kept my eyes closed and let nature and nurture take their course, but I couldn’t resist stealing glances at my lithe lover. His teeth seemed okay, and I loved his nose. As if things weren’t going well enough, from on top of me and with an awe that’d only once been imparted to me, he told me how handsome I was…

I demurred, of course. I never thought to tell him how lovely he was. Because he had to know already. Why state what’s self-evident?

Be forewarned, Wyn. If you let tonight become any more special, prepare yourself for the precarious realm of expectations. Recall that you’ve yet to become the “wynner” you presumed yourself to be, both in career and in love, no matter how you’ve pretended that those things no longer matter to you.

We were back at each other for another thirty minutes. While coming up for air, my gaze strayed upward. I filled with the flush of a smile; for above us, twelve heads peered over the walls of our seemingly private room. The walls stopped short of the ceiling, for ventilation, no doubt, not for voyeurism. Yet on both sides, a line of peeping doms and sneaking subs leered at our lovemaking. I gave these onlookers a brazen stare back, challenging them to retreat and went back to work, nudging my co-star to check out our adoring public. He got caught like an inexperienced porn actor, who accidentally looks right into the camera—the camera that’s not supposed to be acknowledged, let alone be in the room—then can’t look away fast enough. We did our best as far as style, but by the time we finished up in a heap of panting, our audience had vanished.

It was time to find out my partner’s name. We changed positions so we were back to face to face. He included his last name along with his first, so that was a good sign.

“Huh? Oh, I’ll be twenty-one in two months,” I answered, attempting to discern if this was all actually happening.

“What day?” asked Jesús.

“October twelfth.”

“My birthday is October thirteenth! I’ll be thirty-three.”

As we chatted leisurely about where we lived and what we did, I fiddled with the silver charms hanging from the chain around his neck. I examined them and asked, “Who are these?”

“That’s Saint Francis, and this is San Juan. Frankie and Johnny. They’re lovers.”

Then he asked if I had a lover. When told him, “No,” he expressed genuine astonishment.

What’s to be surprised? I’d debated answering with “Of course not.”

“I’d like to make you dinner one night, if that’s okay,” Jesús continued tenderly, making the next move.

“That’s fine with me,” I confirmed, barely masking my desperation. No one had shown interest in me since that brief encounter with Anthony three years prior.

Then he kissed me and caressed my face. “You have the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen on anyone! Do you want to go out for some coffee? I don’t feel like going home right now.”

“I don’t drink coffee, but sure.”

“Neither do I,” Jesús admitted with a grin. He reached for his T-shirt, and it cascaded with indifference over his sticky body.

Preparing to reenter reality wasn’t undertaken with relish, but for once, I wasn’t going out there alone. I’d gained a bit of inner strength and would never be quite as weak as I was before. I couldn’t have sunken any lower. I’d written a new year’s promissory note to myself that I kept in my purple nylon-and-Velcro wallet: “If things don’t get significantly better in 1985, I will kill myself.”

It was already mid-August.

Out of the room Jesús and I went. As we passed through the main cruising halls where we’d linked up, my drag name may as well have been Flouncy Du Smirk for how vainglorious I felt.

Then Jesús squatted and unlocked a locker. He pulled out a coarse flannel shirt, put it on over his T-shirt, and buttoned it up straight to the collar.He next yanked out a small burgundy gym bag, and we came to a large, empty exit lobby. I stood at a counter, while he took out some paper and wrote his name and home and work telephone numbers. I did the same for him, hoping that in so doing neither my makeshift calling card nor my heart would be folded, spindled, or mutilated. Then we left the womb of Basic Plumbing, never to return.

Jesús fell for me that night, his eyes drowning me in his lazy gaze with his cheek balanced on his fist. I couldn’t eat anything. I was too hungry. And I was falling, too. 

“You don’t eat much, do you?”

The reality is that I was never obese. I was always just twenty-four pounds overweight. But it may as well have been 600 pounds, as far as I was concerned. I don’t mind a bit of chunk in other men, but I could never abide anything less than perfection in myself. My self-esteem has been an all-or-nothing, love-hate relationship with myself. Still, it was easy to diet on what became our first date, especially with my stomach doing Madama Butterfly.

Much later, I sped home on the empty 101 freeway, sure I was saved. All day tomorrow, which it was already, I was singing “I’ll Tell the Man in the Street” (the 1963 Streisand version) and contemplating how I was gladly about to alter my whole pattern of life to accommodate a boyfriend.

From now, on I’m gonna…

Wait a second! Was it last night? Did I have a dream about him last night? I did! Jesús was the guy at that party. The guy I fell in love with last night is the guy whom I met tonight, whom I just fell in love with. Oh, this is weird…

***

“The Pleasure’s Mine” is an excerpt from Wynward H. Oliver’s forthcoming memoir, Homo-Work.

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