The logistics of gay male sex are supposed to be pretty simple — straightforward, even, if you can forgive the pun. You’ve got two dudes, two dicks, two mouths, and four hands in the mix — it’s very easy to conceptualize what sexual reciprocity looks like.
You make out with each other. You give each other hand jobs. You give each other blowjobs. You top. You bottom. You switch. It’s not that challenging.
That’s what I thought — until I learned the hard way (the very, very hard way) that sometimes the ground rules of sexual reciprocity need to be explicitly established. Should I start carrying a diagram in my pocket?
It was just past midnight on Wine Wednesday, and I was on my third glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, floating with an appropriately mild mid-week buzz. The boy on the couch and I had hooked up once before, and I was proud of myself for being back for Round 2 — somewhat because the boy was cute, but mostly because it was one date more than I usually got out of cute boys.
We had been talking for two hours, not touching, but I was getting tired and he was jabbering on about something positively uninteresting. I decided to subtly let him know that I was ready to go to bed by swinging my leg over his lap, straddling his body, and saying, “That’s so interesting,” just before cutting off his next thought with a kiss.
We quickly found the couch to be a choreography nightmare and moved to the bedroom. His playful but deliberate push landed me onto the bed, and soon, he was in push-up stance while I craned my neck up to his lips and kissed him. I fingered each of the buttons on his red plaid shirt and pulled it off, continuing to run my hands down his back and around his waist.
I waited for him to take off my shirt, ready to move on. I paused for an awkward amount of time and gave him a look that said, this is the part where we get naked, before realizing that he had no intention of taking my clothes off.
I gave him a second hint by unbuttoning and unzipping his pants, revealing his large, not-quite-straight penis. No underwear. He smiled, muttered, “Surprise!” and I did one of those half-smiles that attempted to hide my inner cringe.
He reached up his hands, pulled my face toward his, kissed me, and then pressed two fingers on both of my shoulders. You know, I wouldn’t mind a blowie, he implied.
I gave in, reaching down to his waist and getting to work.
And damn, this shit was work. His natural curvature was an unwelcome visitor in my mouth, forcing me to uncomfortably rock my head back and forth. After a few minutes, I came up for an air break and switched to my hand, which he permitted for a few seconds before eagerly pressing me down again: “Come on, dude, I’m almost there.”
OK. Home stretch, I thought. The Little Blowjob Machine That Could chugged along for another few minutes before he half-whispered, “I’m gonna come.”
With my mouth still occupied, I rolled my eyes. What are we, 16? Is the warning thing really still necessary? Your legs are insanely tensed up, you’re making strangely restrained groaning sounds, and I’m already tasting salt. I think I know that you’re “gonna come.” I get how it works — I have one, too.
He rested for a minute before getting up, wiping himself off on an old Cats T-shirt, slipping on a pair of shorts, and getting back into bed.
“Wow. That was amazing,” he said, letting out an enormous sigh. “I definitely owe you one.”
I was still sitting in bed and I couldn’t believe my ears. “What? Owe me one?”
“I am fucking exhausssssssssted,” he said with a dramatic flourish that only the most self-centered of gay men can muster. “Tomorrow for sure.” He smiled, trying to reassure me with his eyes.
Unable to produce words, I got up to leave. I pulled on my underwear, grabbed my coat, raced to get my shoes on, and went to leave in an offended huff.
It wasn’t until I picked up my car keys that I remembered I was still drunk. Fuck. I had to stay the night, sleeping next to the guy who was too lazy to follow the basic rules of reciprocity.
“Tomorrow for sure” never worked out. I woke up early, muttered goodbye and left. His room was clean, and I left no trace of the night before. My mouth was like a cheap condom — use it once, make sure there’s no messy clean-up, and throw it away.
I’m never going first again.
This will be the first issue of Buzzsaw that this writer doesn’t show to his parents.