I always thought that would be so cool. To be a singer with an amazing voice and to sing fucking cool songs that people would totally dig and through which they would define parts of their lives. I love how music has that intangible power; how just hearing the beginning of a song can conjure up all sorts of memories and emotions and sometimes even physical reactions like tingles or shock. It fascinates me that you can love a band and then never want to hear them again because the memory it brings carries too much pain; or conversely how you can listen to the same band over and over and over again because you think every word they sing was written just for you.
For the most part, for me at least, I associate music with relationships. Not always romantic ones, but ones with friends and family too. That’s why the song that Lizzie put on, which used to be a favorite, but had then become the song symbolizing my ultimately unrequited love for Jack, was now verboten. Sometimes the power that music has can really suck though. You know, you have a few bad relationships and that can totally render a previously enjoyed album as contraband. Come to think of it, if you fall in love like three times you can totally kill an entire band. If you’re really into music and you have a favorite band that not a lot of people know about, and you introduce a boyfriend to them, and then you listen to it all the time together and then he dumps you, you’re just not going to enjoy the band as much after that. And of course if the whole band isn’t killed, he’ll inevitably have a favorite song on the album, which you of course love, because you kind of love them all, and then you break up and that song makes you think of him every time you hear it.
Well, shit, it makes you want to date musically illiterate people. Like this guy King Kong I used to date. If you’ve ever read my blog you’ve heard all about King Kong. But in a nutshell he was a hot, smart guy with a massive dick and we dated—and fucked really, really well—for a long time. He was the longest post-Jack relationship I ever had. And he was also the relationship I took the furthest. We really got along well together but we both also did some stupid shit. I think he was ready for a more serious relationship than I was. The thing was I didn’t think I’d ever be really ready for a serious relationship again. It was hard: I was still, years later, stinging over Jack and I seriously doubted that I wanted to go through all the potential hurt again. I wanted to have fun, get a regular fuck buddy and still sleep with other guys, and never have to put myself out there like that again.
King Kong made overtures toward a more exclusive, serious dating relationship, and I tried to put them off. He even told me that he loved me once. I didn’t know if I really loved him; in retrospect, I think that I could have if I had let myself, but I wouldn’t let the walls down. As he moved forward with our relationship, I gave him vague assurances that I was in it too, but I held off being serious for a while. I think I held off for too long. I did finally come around and commit to him more than I had to anyone else, but by that time he was bitter that it had taken me so long and he tried to hurt me just to show that he could. And he did. And we fought. And like a moron, I still thought it was worth trying again.
When I sit back and think about King Kong I don’t know if he was really an asshole all along, or if, more likely, my behavior drove him to that end. I wasn’t cruel to him and didn’t lie to him or anything; I was just non-committal when he wanted a pledge. And his downfall was immaturity; he couldn’t handle my nonchalance about our relationship and so he acted out to fuck it up. And he did.
Anyway, the good thing about King Kong, taking this whole ramble full circle, is that he had horrible, seventh-grade musical taste, so when it was over I didn’t lose any of my favorite music. No joke—he loved Debbie Gibson and if I never heard her bubble-gum lyrics again I wouldn’t be too sorry. So maybe the lesson I should take from this is that I should date people with poor musical taste. But since that isn’t all that likely, because King Kong was a total exception, and I can’t usually respect people without some decent musical leanings, maybe I’ll try to limit relationships to albums. And then I’ll only listen to the other albums when I’m alone. That way if we break up and it’s devastating I won’t have to stop listening to the band entirely, just one album.
Anyway, back to the car, “Black” by Pearl Jam was still playing, I turned to Lizzie and said, “Thank God he won’t be here this weekend.”
10
Coach
I mean, how could it be a gay sex book without a story about a coach? It’s like almost a prerequisite, right? But it’s not what you think. Unfortunately.
The three of us were in the main college center building and we were registering for reunion weekend. We got these cheesy plastic bags filled with crap we’d leave in the hotel rooms and name tags: I hate name tags. Well, actually I have a love/hate relationship with name tags. I hate them because I feel like a nerd at an electronics trade show when I have to wear one, but I love them because I’m not always so great at remembering people’s names. Sometimes I can be a walking oxymoron. Anyway, we registered and were looking around, waxing nostalgic and all that, when Lizzie practically punched me in the ribs.
“What?” I said and I looked at her. She was staring straight ahead with a look of horror and titillation on her face. She was staring at the profiles of two men we all knew: John Doyle and the college tennis coach. I’d fantasized like mad about one and slept with the other. Shit, I thought, between seeing them and running into Liza in the hotel lobby, all the drama was starting too quickly. I wasn’t prepared.
Back before I met Lizzie I was on the tennis team. And let me tell you, Coach Donnelly was a stud-fucking-muffin. He had an ass that wouldn’t quit in his tight, white tennis shorts and he always wore a shrunk-too-tight college T-shirt or polo shirt on top. He had an incredibly well developed chest and thick biceps and amazing legs. He would stand to serve and you could see the muscles of his body working to get the ball over the net and all I wanted was to get his balls in my mouth. But Donnelly was straight.
Oh, and John Doyle was on the tennis team too. Still quite handsome, tall and lithe, lean with those great green eyes, the dirty blond hair, and that pert ass, a ton of memories were flooding back. He was the stud of the locker room after practice and he looked like he could still play that role today. But he was straight too.
I looked back at Lizzie. She had her own issues with these guys, and we both turned a one-eighty and walked the other way, content to deal with seeing them later. Tommy just followed, lost in his own memories.
11
The Zoe Story
I first heard the complete Zoe story from Lizzie. I mean, I had been involved as it had been unfolding; it took more than a year for the whole thing to play out. So I got some of the details—not realizing they were important details at the time—over the year. But it wasn’t until the shocking conclusion, and its aftermath, that Lizzie formulated a way to tell the story in its entirety, relatively succinctly, to those who didn’t have the balls to ask Zoe herself. The funny thing is, that if Zoe is anything—other than materialistic, shallow, and overweight—she’s a self-promoter and anyone could have asked her for the story themselves and she’d have gladly told them, ad nauseam.
In all honesty, I didn’t write this part of the book (I did edit it a little). Lizzie and I talked about it and she asked me to let her try writing the story since I’d decided to include it and since it was “hers” to tell. Even though we both knew it was really Zoe’s to tell, but I certainly wasn’t going to ask her. Zoe doesn’t know anything about the blog, or the book for that matter, and hopefully it will stay that way. So if you happen to know the real-life Zoe, and this story sounds familiar to you, don’t tell her you read about it here! So without further ado, here’s how Lizzie tells it.
Zoe and Todd dated in college for a while,
