Monday, October 26, 2009

Ignominy

This story is old. Maybe six or seven year old.

I was thrusting. I remember nothing about the man underneath me.

It was at this place that's no longer there - El Mirage.

"Houston, between Norfolk and Suffolk." I had that sentence memorized so that I could recite even if I were stoned and drunk, which was the state I generally arrived in.

El Mirage was the last of the New York sex clubs. You can still find a couple sad semblances of bath houses. At El Mirage, you would get past the doorman, M*, a gentle giant. "Are you a cop? Show me your dick." Apparently a real cop had to answer the first question honestly and couldn't oblige the second request. The health department reps that shut it down, after witnessing unsafe sex, must not have had the same restrictions.

Everything there was black - the floor, the walls, even the lights.

That night I had been there awhile. The guy beneath wasn't my first...or second.

I was thrusting. Then I started slowing down. Not consciously. I had wanted to keep a pace. My dick needed it at that point to stay interested, but my energy faltered.

"LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE RUNNIN' OUT O' STEAM!"

In a place where everyone spoke in whispers or grunts, this fellow next to me, watching, gave me his review in a too loud voice.

He was an older dark, black man, maybe sixty, who resembled a turtle. Round body. Little head jutting forward. I remember him wearing glasses. He used to wander around El Mirage watching. He seemed harmless. He was harmless. He never interjected himself, just sat back a little observing.

I was running out of steam. I should have pulled out and left.

More likely than not I stayed.