by Неизвестный
When on Fire Island. . . A Polyamorous Disaster
Nicholas Garnett
My wife, Rachael, and I stood by a Jacuzzi on Fire Island with a dozen gay men. We were all watching Jason have at Mandy. Again. It was sex, but it wasn’t particularly sexy—more Animal Planet than Spice Channel. Mandy had braced herself against the edge of the blue fiberglass tub, her ropy black hair spilling down in front of her. And with each of Jason’s thrusts, a swell of water cascaded over the lip of the tub to the deck below. The sound of water slapping wood blended with the couple’s moans in an oddly syncopated rhythm. It was a pretty slick groove, actually—somewhere between bossa nova and Barry White.
The men gathered around were rapt. Who could blame them? This was at least as good as any porn movie. And it involved a real man with huge muscles and tattoos. But Rachael sighed and walked by me in a huff, slid open the screen door leading to the living room and shut it loudly behind her. A sinking feeling pierced the haze of my high. Jason and Mandy showed no signs of letting up, so I headed inside to find Rachael.
It was Rachael who had opened the door to this world. Before I met her, I’d been floating through life, brooding, adrift, like the down-on-his-luck male lead in a film noir, nursing his drink in some saloon, wondering what was next. But Rachael was beautiful, smart and driven. So were her friends—witty, confident gay men who reveled in their success and flaunted it with cool cars, beautiful clothes and impeccably decorated homes. Rachael loved them, and so did I.
It was the mid-’90s, the era of Clinton, boom times and surplus. Over cocktails and cocaine, there was talk of Human Rights Coalition fundraisers, hot tech investments, the cost of kitchen renovations, vacations to Tuscany, and second homes in Rehoboth. In this world, Rachael and I were the exotic ones—the hot straight couple who partied like rock stars with the boys. There were group vacations to Provence, Cancun and Istanbul. There were parties in Miami, New York, Amsterdam, Montreal, Mykonos and San Francisco. We became a major subculture’s minor celebrities.
In one important aspect, though, we remained outsiders. Most of our gay friends, even the ones in committed relationships, were having sex like it was the last days of the Roman Empire and they were Caligula. We heard about threeways, fourways, orgies, sex parties at home, sex in sex clubs, sex in cabs on the way back from sex clubs, sex in public bathrooms and in truck stops.
Rachael and I were curious. Everything else about this lifestyle seemed to be working for us. Could promiscuity? Not according to our best friend, Christian.
“I’m telling you,” he said, “you’re asking for trouble.”
“You manage just fine,” Rachael said. Christian and his male partner of nearly fifteen years had avoided the emotional minefields of playing the field by employing a policy of full participation when they were together and discretion when they were not. It was an arrangement I referred to as “don’t ask, don’t smell.”
“It is different when it’s boys,” Christian said. “Most of us have a knack for separating our heads from our penises. My advice: Treat it like live porn. Or a yoga class with a happy ending. Keep your emotions out of it. Set some ground rules and talk about them before you go there.”
“Damn,” I said. “Should I be writing all this down?”
Christian patted my cheek. “Laugh now, but you’re getting privileged information here. Hard-earned, too. Truth is, straight or gay, it’s a crapshoot. Everything’s going along fine, then someone sticks his willy somewhere and the damn thing blows up like an exploding cigar.”
Still, we were determined to find out for ourselves. The opportunity to do just that came in the form of Jason and Mandy, two personal trainers we met at a club during gay pride celebrations in Boston. Jason was straight; Mandy was bisexual. Most of Jason and Mandy’s clients were gay, as were many of their friends. It seemed so perfect.
Then came Fire Island.
Narrow boardwalks wound through pine forests and connected the houses together like the yellow brick road. Trees reverberated with the clickity-clack of big men pulling little red wagons full of groceries and luggage to and from the ferry terminal. There were miles of desolate sand dunes and achingly beautiful sea grass–lined beaches. Then, shoved into this bucolic utopia were New York City sensibilities, as over the top as William Shatner reciting Shakespeare: designer-decorated homes where a summer share cost the same as a three-bedroom rambler in most parts of the country; huge, lavish parties; smaller, yet more lavish parties; social climbing galore; one-upsmanship; balls-to-the-wall, 24/7.
The only nightclub, the Pavilion, was a wooden sweatbox. In the morning, a stream of clubbed-out zombies shuffled shamelessly along the walkways looking for an after-party and sex.
The owner of the house in which we stayed was Ramon, also known as the cha-cha-doctor of Chelsea, who specialized, ironically, in the research and treatment of AIDS. (Though Ramon was not really his name. I’ve changed all the names in this piece, for what I assume are obvious reasons.) He was the perfect host. Anything you wanted—as long as what you wanted was sex or drugs. There were vials of everything, everywhere, all the time. If it wasn’t in front of you, all you had to do was ask: K, G, X, poppers, weed, Viagra, crystal—especially crystal. Snorted, smoked or shot up, only crystal could keep the party, and the sex, going full-tilt for days.
The first people we met were the Porn Boys, feature acts in a series of videos. We nicknamed them Tweaked and Chipper. I kept forgetting their real names. This was awkward considering how often I ran into them traipsing around the house naked. The first time I walked by the Porn Boys’ room with the door open, I saw what looked like a naked rugby scrum. Based on what I heard, it was a high-scoring game.
Rachael and I saw the last translucent veil separating us from our friends ripped away. We hung a welcome sign on our bed. Jason and Mandy jumped right in. High as I was, the sex had a dreamy quality, as though I was watching myself perform pornography through a Vaseline-coated camera lens.
Then, just as Christian predicted, things came undone. I happened upon Rachael and Jason having sex in the poolside shower. I tried to ignore the stab of jealousy and resentment. But I couldn’t. Mandy, jacked up on nearly everything, woke me up in the middle of the night to see the stars. We jumped in the pool and had sex as the sun came up. Mandy’s sex with Jason was raw, animal-like, but with me she was tender and sweet, a perfect counterpoint to her rock-hard body.
I fell into a crush. And that’s when, with the two of us standing in the shallow end of the pool, her legs wrapped around my waist, she made a confession:
“You know, I think I’m a little gaga.”
My heart raced. “That makes two of us,” I said.
“It’s not just his looks. I’ve dated plenty of guys built like him—you know other trainers and bodybuilders.”
Oh.
“I see,” I said.
“He’s so good to me. A genuinely nice guy. Slide back a little.” I did. She swiveled her hips and lowered herself onto me. “There,” she said, “that’s better.”
“Does he know?”
“Oh, he knows, all right. But I just can’t get him to make a commitment. At least not the way I want him to.” Her thigh muscles pulsed against my hips.
“So, you’d be willing to be exclusive if he agreed?”
“Sure. I’d be monogamous in a heartbeat with him—and with you and Rachael, of course. Pull my hair. Harder.”
In the midst of having sex with an acquaintance, Mandy was proposing a monogamous relationship involving four people: two couples—one of them married—living in different cities, a union composed of two heterosexual men and a couple of bisexual women.
Then, things got really complicated.
Rachael, Ramon and I walked into the guest bedroom and found Mandy pancaked between Jason and Ramon’s boyfriend. Ramon played it off as though it didn’t bother him. Rachael was mortified that our guests had appropriated our host’s partner. It did strike me as bad form.
/> The next evening, we all went over to the neighbor’s pool to watch the sunset. Rachael and I left Jason and Mandy, who gave in to the urging of the crowd and had sex on a lounge chair. The applause carried all the way over to Ramon’s house.
Jason and Mandy had become the show. My crush had been crushed. Rachael’s anger was smoldering. Behind my hurt feelings and Rachael’s indignation hid another emotion. We were jealous—and not just of each other. We were used to being the hot straight couple in this scene. After having the spotlight for so long, neither of us was okay with second billing.
What followed next was a naked version of a comedy of manners—minus the comedy and the manners. Rachael confronted Mandy in the kitchen. Mandy burst into tears. Jason confronted Rachael in the bedroom about confronting Mandy. Rachael burst into tears. I confronted Jason in the living room about confronting Rachael. Rachael and Mandy burst into tears. When I confronted Rachael about cavorting with Jason, things got personal.
“You’ve got nerve,” she said. “After that late-night stargazing session in the pool?”
“Why don’t you go and snort up a few more lines,” I said. “It brings out such a lovely side of you.”
Our experiment had gone haywire. Someone in charge needed to pull the plug. The problem was that no one was in charge of anything.
Jason and Mandy began staging special command performances in various venues, including the living room, the pool deck, the second floor balcony, the outdoor shower, the kitchen, and most recently, the Jacuzzi, where Rachael had just left me—high and dry.
I turned the corner into one of the guest rooms. There was Rachael sitting on the bed with the Porn Boys. She was just about to inhale white smoke from the end of a small, glass water pipe. Privately, Rachael had been deriding the Porn Boys for smoking crystal, which she said hit too close to the utterly un-fabulous act of smoking crack. I had to admit, the distinction was lost on me.
Rachael saw me, lowered the pipe a few inches and shrugged. “When on Fire Island…” I sat on the edge of the bed in the Porn Boys’ bedroom and watched Rachael press the glass pipe to her lips.
Except for the muffled moans coming from the hot tub, the hiss from the small butane lighter was the only sound in the room. A thin tendril of smoke streamed into Rachael’s mouth.
Tweaked said, “Hold it in.” Rachael puffed up her cheeks and waited. “Now,” he said. She exhaled a small plume, like breath on a frosty morning.
Chipper pointed the pipe in my direction. “You want?”
“Yes, he does,” said Rachael.
“I do?”
Rachael said, “If this is the highway to hell, I’m not riding it alone.”
I tried to think of a reason not to. A good reason wouldn’t be good enough. Not here. Especially not here.
Tweaked snapped on the lighter and maneuvered the pale blue flame under the crystal. It melted and was transformed from powder into a white haze.
“Draw,” he said. “Not too hard.”
I touched my lips to the tip of the warm glass, inhaled and watched the smoke disappear until it emerged again as a frail, white wisp. There was only the slightest chemically tinged aftertaste. A wave spread through me, euphoric, but much more. There was clarity—perfect, doubt-obliterating clarity.
From outside, Mandy’s voice spiraled up, signaling her orgasm. I looked up to the ceiling. The image there was as plain as it was unambiguous: it was me and Rachael, sharing the first car on our fantasy roller coaster—a ride with no rules or limits, our arms held over our heads as it came right off the rails.
Rachael came up to me. She placed her arm on my shoulder. “You okay?”
I took a deep breath. “I think it’s time to go back.”
“Back?” said Chipper. “You can’t go back. Not now.”
Chipper was right. Rachael and I returned home, where our sleep-and-food-deprived bodies finally teamed up with our ravaged nervous systems and our bruised egos to let us have it, right in the old cerebellum. The whole damn country seemed to join us in a spectacular crash, as markets collapsed and planes smashed into buildings. Some of our friends ended up sick, others in rehab. It had been one hell of a party, but the party was over.
And so were Rachael and I. After Fire Island, a black shroud descended over us. We burrowed down into a grinding disillusionment and mutual resentment from which our relationship never really recovered. There was an affair—mine—followed by divorce.
“More is more,” Rachael used to say. Maybe so. But on Fire Island I learned that, sometimes, more is just too much.
Cherry Picking
Julia Serano
The first time I learned about sex was in fifth grade. It wasn’t by way of a sex education class or a Mom and Dad birds-and-the-bees speech, but rather a joke. A completely unfunny dirty joke little kids tell to pass along important information. I think the punch line was, “Mommy, Mommy, turn on your headlights! Daddy’s snake is about to go into your cave!” Now, granted before hearing the joke I already had a strange relationship with my penis. I used to draw pictures of myself naked with a needle going into my penis, imagining that it contained special medicine that would make the thing disappear. Every time I used the urinal in the little boy’s room, I had a sneaking suspicion something wasn’t quite right. That night, after hearing the joke, I remember looking down at my penis, knowing what it was supposedly for, and I felt absolutely detached and dumbfounded.
The first time I dressed as a girl was in sixth grade. I had insomnia and one night I felt compelled to wrap a pair of white lacy curtains around my body. I stared at my reflection in the bedroom mirror for hours. I looked like a girl. Perhaps it should have been no surprise. I was prepubescent and had one of those longish, late ’70s, boy haircuts. But it completely blew my mind. The scariest part about this revelation was that it somehow made perfect sense.
The first time I had a crush on someone was in seventh grade. Her name was Kathy and I thought she was cute. Nancy Phillips told me that Kathy liked me but I was too chickenshit to ask her out. So I fantasized about her instead. I imagined some bad guy had captured us both and as part of his evil scheme he would offer me two choices: he would either kill Kathy or turn me into a girl. He left it up to me to decide and I would always gallantly choose the latter. Kathy would be so impressed that I had sacrificed my maleness to save her life that she would ask me out on a date. I always said yes, and the rest of the fantasy involved different permutations of the two of us sucking face. All of this happened before I ever heard the word lesbian.
The first time I decided to change my sex was in tenth grade. It happened at my baseball league all-star game. I wasn’t playing in the game but I went with a few friends who also didn’t make the team. While we were sitting in the bleachers, a group of neighborhood girls walked by and some of my flirtier guy friends started teasing them in that teenage-boy “I like you” sort of way. Both groups struck up a conversation but I just sort of sat there and stared. It seemed so obvious to me that I should be one of those girls rather than one of these boys. It was so sad because nobody could see it but me. So I decided to get a sex-change operation. I didn’t really know what it was or what it involved; I had only heard about it on TV. Later I realized if I was to pursue such a thing I would have to let all of my friends and family know I wanted to be a girl, and I couldn’t think of anything more frightening. So, instead, I tucked the memory of my all-star game epiphany into the dark recesses of my brain. Like a time capsule, it wouldn’t surface again for another fifteen years.
The first time I had a girlfriend was in twelfth grade. She was smart and quirky and interesting and cute and completely kick-ass. I totally fell for her; she was my first true love. After dates, we would park on a quiet, dark street and make out. Her lips were the first ones I ever kissed, her breasts the first I felt up, her vagina the first I fingered. She was one year younger than me but way more mature. When I left to go to college, she suggested we see other people. I was devastate
d but she said that we were both still really young and had our whole lives ahead of us. She was right.
My first supposed sexual peak came when I was eighteen. It was my first year of college and I didn’t really have any freshman sexual experiences to speak of. Some years are just like that but don’t feel bad for me, I made up for it by having a second sexual peak as a woman at the age of thirty-five.
The first time that I masturbated to orgasm was when I was nineteen. Nobody ever believes that it happened so late but it’s true. Before then, when I’d play with myself, I would push down on my penis and rock my hand back and forth. I’ve been told that that’s how a lot of girls do it. I just did it that way instinctually. It felt really good, but I never orgasmed. Then my college girlfriend gave me my first hand job and I learned the power of the stroke. Granted, I knew about the stroke from watching porn but it never occurred to me to try it out on myself. It worked like a charm. It’s amazing how you can have a body all of your life yet there’s always something new that you can learn about it. Strangely enough, I don’t really remember the first time that I had penetrative sex, the supposedly landmark day when my virginity was officially lost. It’s true. I know it happened when I was nineteen with the girlfriend I had throughout most of college. I’ve lost the particular night we popped each other’s cherries in a blur of dorm-room sex scenes the two of us shared over a three-year period. Eventually she went on the pill, and since we were each other’s first, we stopped using condoms. I could never get over how amazing it felt to be inside her, to feel my genitals inside her genitals. To this day, the feeling is the only part about being physically male that I fondly reminisce about.