Call Me (2 page)

Gay prisoner, good looking,
straight-acting, seeks contacts. It's a lonely life, I need cheering up. Any age will do. Curious? Get writing! Photo please. ALA with SAE. Box PP2006

Group fun your scene?
Sunday afternoons come alive just north of M25! (20 mins Kings Cross.) Photo gets reply. Box DIY3801

Pretty boy, 18+,
unwashed in dirty underpants, sought by attractive uncle, 40. Raunchy safe fun, poppers, toys, videos. Expenses. ALAWP. Box SP351

Jewish Y-fronts enthusiast
WLTM discreet non scene young guy (18-35) wearing white Y-fronts. ALA. London/Anywhere. Uncut welcome! Box LR3139

Scottish guy, new to London
and lonely, looking for cool mate to hang out with, club with. Also: concerts, museums, discovering London's parks. Friendship first. Box 003739

Steve. Horny blond boy, 20,
seeks beautiful sexy lads in frocks for divine London romance. Photo? Box 003783

Nappies? Plastic pants?
Sounds exciting? 28 years old. Box PP 5041

Rubber Alien.
Completely concealed inside heavy-duty black frogman's suit and full head mask seeks fellow aliens into similar gear to explore magic of total coverage. Bournemouth/Anywhere. Box NS3096

Distracted by the arrival of a gang of fellow disco sodomites making a Big Entrance replete with tasteful tattoos, jolly piercings and jism-spattered combats (dressing up as men but totally Nelly in that khaki drag), screaming their blissed-out tits off and almost losing their gum in the process (a little bit Dean, a little bit Cruise), boys who measure their pleasure in beats per minute but still share their ol' mum's taste in music, boys with heads for business and bods for sin, (stripping off their D&G an' Arsenal away strips at the drop of a clapper-board), boys who just wanna have fun fun fun—goatee beards and sheep mentality—nothing like a little bit of empty-headed hedonism, eh?… but, oh … shouldn't queerbash the sweethearts or plagiarise the odd fag hack with a big nose who knows … When my eyes went back to the page before me, I focussed on a grouping of 0898+ titles in the XXX rated
American Style
phone sex section howling in chorus just to the left of a selection in lavish italics entitled
Specials:
Intercity Sex, Toilet Trio, Hole Sucking Slave, Hung Like A Donkey,
just to the right of a block boasting
Active:
Building Site Erections, Young And Easy, Sauna Room Sex, Shoot Over My Face,
just above a collection teasing with
Hot Sex Only:
Skin-Tight Jeans, Prxxks On Parade, Inflatory Bum Stretcher,
and just below the whispered
Non-Scene South:
City Cottage Cruising, Don't Tell My Wife, Cross Dress And Confess.
Alongside each title sat a six digit sex code number in neat double sets of three.

The grouping of titles that really caught my eye came under
Lycra:
Sportswear, Bulging Pants/Bulging Weapon, Boys On Bikes, Thick Muscular Legs/Thick Muscled Meat.
I'd only bought my mountain bike a few weeks before this, so
Boys On Bikes
had a certain appeal. Sure, the titles were real dial-a-cliché but better designed to provoke a reaction than the contact ads. My eyes scanned, intent.

Bouncing heavily on the springboard of fantasy, I thought I'd paint a horny picture to turn them on out there. I decided it should be very visual, thirty dirty words reading more like a phone-sex line description than a personal ad. With just a little browsing through the queer image bank I was ready. From the moment my ball point touched the paper serviette I'd entered the arena. Lopping four years off my age and pouring myself into a pair of cycle shorts I didn't possess, I wrote the ad all in one go.

Bike Boy:
delicious derrière under shiny black skin-tight cycle shorts. (Long smooth muscular legs. 22/Slim/Safe/WE/Wicked smile.) Horny devil seeking adventure. Any time/Any place/Anywhere. Genuine.

Genuine my arse. Cycle shorts, lycra: how naff. And how fabulous. The ideal hook for provincial schoolboys and hideous queens.

Swallowing my tea in gulps, I loaded my pannier with a shove. My admirer gulped down a rear view. Gay love is not blind. He would have recoiled at the sight of a concave chest, double chin or absence of copious bulge in the dong department. He wanted prime, pumped, waxed, tanned, moisturised boy-flesh. A nice bit of muscle drag. No short-dicked man. I gave him a wink and a winning smile as I left, hoping it would make his day, fuel a noisy wank or two.

*   *   *

When I got back to the gloss-stinking flat, I checked the wording, filled in the word-space boxes in capital letters as requested, ticked the ‘No Strings' box and tucked it in an envelope with a first-class stamp.

Then I rolled the dustsheets away and removed any lingering drips of pink and apricot paint with a dab of turps on my newly retired
Nobody Knows I'm A Lesbian
teeshirt. I like things tidy: balanced chequebooks, punctuality, polished shoes lined up under the bed, shoelaces exactly even. Well-maintained graveyards.

*   *   *

Up till then I'd led the average life of the average unhealthy young man. With my camera I froze people, proclaimed ownership over their images, put words into their mouths then sold them to tacky fashion and music magazines. I'd done well for myself, made quite a name for myself. I didn't care. I was bored.

Work had become uninspiring and undemanding but not financially unrewarding. Fashion and music in the giddy, topsy-turvy, pervy Nineties: always changing, always moving. Fashions adopted then discarded. Knowledge gained then outdated. Ideas created only to be burned up. At twenty six, the curvaceous rises and falls of the record sales charts no longer gripped me. I no longer wanted my place in that world of mass hypnotism with ever faster pulsing cycles of nostalgia, buzzwords and panty-dampening boy bands with unbroken voices in leather chaps and nipple rings. I didn't even find Vivienne Westwood funny any more.

I had some money in the bank, not a lot, but enough to glide by for a while, so I decided to pack my cameras and portfolio away and glide on by—just for a while. Having at long last got the flat into order was my only accomplishment in months. I'd finally boxed away Ray's bits and pieces; what had once been his flat, then ours, was now all mine. My few friendships were all worn down and Ray's friends had stopped checking in to see if I was okay. Nobody had a clue about the mood percolating in my seventh floor flat.

It was as if whole sides of myself were shutting down. Taking life five times slower than the national average, I wasn't up to much except sleeping. I am a man who has slept years of daylight. The invitations and press passes piled up, then dried up. That's what happens if you fail to RSVP. Sometimes, for light relief, I'd make popcorn, have a wank or shop at Sainsbury's for exotic items never sampled before. I was at that stage in my life where a quick read of
How To Be A Happy Homosexual
might have proved inspirational. I felt I had two options, emigration or suicide.

*   *   *

Waking later and later each day a sadder self arose to make the tea. Eventually I'd manage to be up around eleven, having rarely slept well. Mornings were worst.

It happened the day after I'd shampooed the carpets in the hope of turning over a new leaf. The overstuffed envelope didn't fit the letter-box but my plodding, polyester postman wasn't going to ring, wait and deal with someone, especially someone like me. He had a round to get done, letter-boxes to violate. After noisy pushing and shoving it finally landed like an abandoned origami effort. The letterbox let in a chill, smelly breeze which swept into the bathroom, directly opposite the front door.

The thin, brown stationery tore easily and Bike Boy replies cascaded to the bathroom floor. As with exam results and private letters I sat naked, on the toilet, to read sackfuls of desire, a whole pot pourri of emotions, stamps licked by the psychologically wounded, the emotionally bankrupt and
fun seeker
s. I was to become a receptacle for first impressions to all sorts making life-directing bungee jumps.

Counting the small envelopes contained within, thirty eight, I felt quite a thrill. I classified the envelopes before opening, stacking the coloured envelopes in one pile, the cheap little crushed envelopes in another, leaving the fine quality Queen's Velvet sort of stuff to one side. As I read, I sorted the letters into
Yes, No
and
Maybe
piles around my feet. I felt like an impartial party sent to observe. Bike Boy had hit the crackpot jackpot.

 

 

A pre-war Remington had typed the first man's desires. The capitals jumped into the course above on all three sheets of expensive cream coloured Conqueror paper. A first class stamped addressed envelope was optimistically enclosed. Also enclosed was a photograph, taken against a white wall reflecting noon sunlight. His face wore an expression of determination to look good on photographic paper but the overhead light cast shadows which didn't do any favours. His plain body was dressed sensibly.

The sample of pubic hair attached to the left of his address, brown to ginger, was crudely attached with a strip of sellotape bearing one clear fingerprint.

—, —— ——,

Market Bosworth,

Nuneaton,

Warwickshire

Tel: 01455———

Hi, handsome Bike Boy—my name's Michael and as you can see I live in Market Bosworth near Leicester. I see from your ad in BOYZ that you're “Any place/Anywhere”, so I hope this letter isn't a complete waste of time.

Isn't it difficult to know what to write: too tame and one can seem boring, too “exciting” and one can seem a pervert. I'm neither by the way. A little about me now. I'm 39—young looking with blue eyes and brown hair. Reasonably handsome, 5′9″, smooth-skinned. I'm well travelled, quite well educated, have a solid job, own house, car etc. (dull, eh!).

I have a large number of interests from wine to local history, from trying to learn Dutch to fell walking. It was the fell walking which triggered my interest in your ad. I don't go mountain biking but I know the Lake District, Pennines and Scotland very well and am out walking at least once a week. I don't have a partner, am non-scene and definitely non-camp. I've plenty of holiday left this year, and I fancy taking the station wagon up to Scotland to do some walking. If we clicked, so to speak, maybe you'd like to come with me. I usually just pitch a tent—I like the open air life. I fancy a few days in Sandwood Bay, a remote sandy bay facing the Atlantic. You can see gannets diving offshore and the sea gets beautifully rough. I love to watch a stormy coast. I don't suppose Scotland is much of an adventure but it beats London any day! (I'm guessing that's where you're from.) Those cycle shorts sound nice and if we did get you up to Market Bosworth I could find quite a few uses for that delicious derrière you advertise so nicely. I haven't rode a bike for years but I daresay I could ride your bum quite well. After leaving the pub we'd go back to the campsite. Your groin would be aching with expectation. In the tent I would slowly take off your clothes under a large duvet that I use. I would gently ease your legs apart and kiss the inside of your leg as I gradually moved closer to your prick.

I suck your balls and lick your groin before taking your prick deep into my mouth. I suck your balls again and let my dribble run down to lubricate your arse which I have been delicately easing with my index finger. I lift up the duvet and put your legs onto my shoulders and move forward to put my tongue into your mouth. As I do so, my 7″ tool slips easily into your arse and I move rhythmically to and fro until I come. We cuddle up and fall asleep.

What a fantasy—what an adventure! Actually, it's all perfectly possible. Just get yourself up here and the rest is my treat. Well Bike Boy, you horny devil, I hope to hear from you soon. Do write a frank letter and if you have a phone number let me know that too. Just the thought of my stiff prick sliding into you for the very first time is making me so excited.

Please phone—I shall be waiting.

Best wishes

Yours,

Michael

Verdict:
Take a chance? My intuition told me this was a sure way to end up in a shallow grave with my head simmering nicely on the stove.
No.

*   *   *

From Hampstead came jagged writing on a single sheet of grey. Matching envelope. Stapled top left was a black and white mug-shot.

—, —————— ——

Hampstead

0171 433 ——

Hello Stranger!

You sound great. It gives me a hard-on just thinking about those shorts, or what's in them.

Horny devil? Welcome any time!

Best wishes,

Jack Hanley

Verdict:
Without the photo Jack would have been a
No.
But he could have been my twin.