Hooking Up with Three Guys, Smoking Meth, and a F*ck Deferred

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 3 Part 2

Warning: Graphic descriptions of drug use.

Manhunt message: “Three guys here, hanging out, PNP. Want to join?”

Two weeks after returning to New York City after 42nd Street, the whole “participating in my own life” thing had pretty much stalled out. I had rearranged the furniture, I had welcomed a new roommate into Danny’s room, I had gone out with my friends a couple of times, but I wasn’t doing anything productive or forward looking. Like getting a fucking job.

With my parents helping me out with some post break-up assistance, the only thing I was really doing was scrolling through Manhunt.

I was newly single. Clearly, I thought, I should go out and have some dirty sexcapades of my own.

Danny had introduced me to Manhunt, showing me a profile of a guy he was fucking on the regular with the screen name “Brickhouse.” By the look of his profile pictures, the screen name was well deserved.

I created a Manhunt account shortly before everything turned upside down. I never hooked up with anyone. I just messaged back and forth with guys until they realized I wasn’t serious and stopped responding. I didn’t know it then, but I was a “game player,” stringing guys along for the attention with zero intention of following through.

Now that I was single, now that I could really start exploring, now that I could fuck as I pleased, I logged onto Manhunt…and continued the exact same “game playing” bullshit.

One reason: I didn’t know how it pleased me to fuck.

With my limited sexual experience I didn’t have the vocabulary to talk about sex, not even to have a basic “what are you into” conversation. So when I logged onto Manhunt, I’d get offers to connect and hook up only to leave them hanging or put them off with “I can’t right now” or “I’ll take a rain check” till they would inevitably lose interest.

The other reason, the much bigger reason, the glaringly obvious reason, was that what I really wanted to do was smoke Tina. I had been dreaming of it ever since leaving for South Carolina, but I didn’t have the first idea how to find it now that I was back.

I called Jerry once, but when I started asking him questions one simply does not ask a dealer over an unsecure line, he yelled at me and quickly hung up, never to be heard from again.

So when I received a Manhunt message about PNP, I didn’t know what PNP meant, but I was pretty sure it was what I was looking for. This gave me enough motivation to stop playing games and finally walk out my front door.

It helped that the invite came from the next neighborhood over, only a short walk away.

When the apartment door opened, a stunning ginger greeted me. Randy had crystal blue eyes and a bright, Puckish face. His skin was warm cream, and his red hair was cut short with a fade. He was like a human candle. And I loved candles.

I was struck immediately by the smell of books. The living room was lined with full shelves, hundreds of spines in just as many colors creating an abstract mosaic which, like Danny’s collage, covered every inch of wall. There’s something comforting about the smell of books, of paper and leather bindings with just a hint of dust. At some point I hoped to take a closer look at this collection, but I had more pressing priorities.

Randy led me back to the primary bedroom where I was greeted by Matthew, the host and librarian of the evening. He lay in repose on his king size bed as if it were a divan. He was Latino in his early 40’s with a pleasant round face and wavy salt and pepper hair. Only wearing shorts, his light brown body was lean with just a few gray hairs on his chest to match his head. He greeted me warmly and said “Please, come in.”

Across the room, another man sat on a window sill. Phil looked to be pushing 50, a bit taller than me with light brown hair. He had a handsome, chiseled look like an aging Cary Grant. Shirtless, his thick muscular torso with tan skin was just beginning to fight its age. He smiled at me as he shook my hand. His grip was firm and noticeably lingered.

Not a bad looking group. I wasn’t mad at all.

“May I smoke?” I asked.

“Please do,” Matthew said. “Let’s all smoke. Phil, would you crack the window?” We lit our cigarettes and began a “getting to know you scene” more akin to a group chatting at an outdoor café in the West Village than the gay orgy I had been expecting.

Matthew was an academic, which explained his extensive home library. Phil had once chased the dream of being a photographer, but now worked more as a fix-it man, an off-the-books maintenance guy for the building he lived in.

Randy had danced on Broadway, which clearly peaked my interest. It also explained his light, straight-backed carriage and fey yet edgy personality. I regarded him with immediate respect and a kind of reverence as if he knew the secret to making it on the Great White Way and might, perhaps, share it with me if he so deigned. But after a couple of questions of “when” and “what show,” the conversation moved on.

And on.

And on.

And on.

While being the polite guest, I was starting to get impatient. I thought I had at least had come over for some sexy times, but maybe I was wrong about what PNP meant.

Finally, filling a lull in the conversation, Phil changed the subject. “Well!” Grabbing the room’s attention with a dramatic gesture, he swept aside a magazine that had been sitting next to the bed. “We’ve been partaking of Miss Tina. Would you like to join in?”

Phil had revealed a deep blue opaque glass plate holding the white crystal substance I had been fantasizing about for the last two months. Feeling a throb of adrenaline, my anticipation bringing me to a light simmer, I smiled. “Yes. Yes I would.”

Calling it Tina somehow made it less dirty. Not less sexy-dirty, but less messy-dirty. Drug-addict-dirty. Strung-out-homeless-on-the-street-dirty. For me, a nickname like Tina conjured up divas like Turner and Aguilera, appropriate for a substance that would have me feeling fabulous, sexy, powerful, fuckable.

Meth was what middle-American white-trash kids did in abandoned houses on the wrong side of town or in their cars in dark parking lots after breaking into their parent’s homes, stealing grandma’s jewelry and selling it to get their next fix.

Tina is what New York gays did to feel on the fun side of naughty, freeing us, relieving us from decades of boundaries and fear, allowing us to fuck with abandon, empowering us to experience our own sexual revolution after years of sexual puritanism.

It was all bullshit. Bullshit covered in glitter, but bullshit nonetheless.

Randy cut a small bump from the pile of Tina and went to hand me a straw.

“I’ve only ever smoked before. Don’t suppose you have a pipe I can use?” This was a smidge presumptuous of me, but I had been dreaming about a white smoke filled pipe for so long that I took the chance.

Dreams do come true it seems.

“Sure,” said Randy. He produced a glass pipe, carefully scooped a little bit of Tina into the bulb, and tried to hand it to me.

“Oh, um, I’m still pretty new to this,” I said, slightly embarrassed. “Would you mind?”

Randy helped me out, holding the pipe as Jerry once had, heating and rolling the bulb. I watched the Tina melt, producing that thick, white, billowing smoke. It filled the bulb more beautifully than I remembered. I inhaled, watching the thick smoke rush toward me through the glass tube, tasting its cool sweetness. I gestured for Randy to lean in and shotgunned him, meeting his lips perhaps a bit harder than necessary. He helped me with another hit, took one for himself and then passed the pipe around. I sat back and lit another cigarette, excited yet trying to play it cool.

Then I felt it, a tense pleasure, a warm awakening growing in my core, beginning to slither through my limbs. I closed my eyes and savored it, like I had just sipped a well aged brandy, breathing deeper as my heart began to pick up speed.

“That’s the melody,” I said, another line from Interview with the Vampire.

With that melody came the intense desire to shed my clothes and start exploring everything and everyone around me, including myself. But I was a guest, so I kept the lid on and waited for a cue from my hosts. Time and conversation sped up, we continued to talk and smoke and take the occasional hit from the pipe, but the cue for the group to tip over into an actual hookup never came as the coffee house conversation continued.

Early in the morning hours, Randy and I did finally slip into another room and began discovering each other, but we had barely made it to 2nd base when a neighbor dropped in, providing enough distraction to call me out at 3rd.

This new addition was a big bear of a gay, heavier, bearded, and over six and a half feet tall. His appearance was set off by his very upper class, old-money personality. His grand entrance and entertaining flare for pontification lassoed us back into an upper-fueled conversation marathon.

Though I could have sworn I had only been there for a couple of hours, the rising sun shining in through the windows let me know the truth of it.

“Well, gentlemen,” Matthew said, scooting off his bed. “It’s been a lovely evening, but I need to get ready for work.” He excused himself to his ensuite bathroom and began his morning routine.

Still decently jacked up, I couldn’t comprehend being around people let alone going to work after having been up all night, let alone enhanced. Wouldn’t someone notice?

Matthew’s bear neighbor came around with the blue plate, like a waiter with canapés, which held several freshly divided lines of Tina.

Grinning, handing me a straw, in a playful high-brow tone he asked, “Some candy, little boy?”

“Why, thank you, kind sir,” I said, equally playful. I took the straw and snorted a line for the first time.

It was like snorting a line of salt. The shit burned!

“Oh shit,” rubbing my nose, jumping around the room. “Shit. Shit,” repeatedly sniffing. “Damn, fuck,” sniff, “shit.” sniff sniff.

“I know, lovely isn’t it?”

As the burn subsided, I could feel the re-energized high already hitting me. “Yes,” sniff, “yes it is,” I said. I tasted the Tina as it ran thick down the back of my throat, bitter this time yet still sweet. My engine was revving even harder. I looked up at him with wide eyes full of want, asking the question without being able to form the words.

He smiled and made a short growling sound in his throat. He leaned down and kissed me. Our mouths opened and our tongues met. But he just as quickly pulled away. “I would love to tear you up, honey,” he said, his hand caressing my face, “but I have to head to work, too.”

God fucking damn it!

“Rain check,” I said playfully.

After everyone else had left, Randy asked, “You want to hang with me today? I got a couple errands to run around the city.”

“Sure…are we,” I was having trouble with words again, all of them wanting to come all at once. “Are…we…are we going to end up back here?” And do more Tina and fuck, being implied.

“Most likely,” Randy said with a smile.

Next Chapter

Chapter Guide

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