Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2018 15:12:10 -0500 From: Wilde Wilde Subject: Finding My Tribe, Chapter 1 This is a work of fiction. No resemblance to any person, living or dead, is intended. Copyright reserved by Wilde, 2018. FINDING MY TRIBE 1. A few weeks after my 17th birthday in the summer of 1962, I had our family's house to myself for the first time. My younger brother was away at camp and my parents had driven up to New England to visit him there for parents day. They made a long weekend of it, leaving me at home with a refrigerator full of food, a note with the phone number of every place they'd be, and no adult supervision. I'd been thrilled that I was about to have the freedom of being home alone, but the reality of that was falling a little short of the fantasy. The day after my parents left, I was home and feeling bored. Sometimes, when I didn't know what else to do with myself, I'd head into the city with no particular plan in mind and just find something to do. That's what I did on this particular Saturday. We lived in the New York City suburbs and since I was eleven or twelve I'd often gone to the city alone or with friends, to see a Yankees game, visit the Museum of Natural History and the planetarium, or -- especially if I was alone -- just play tourist in my own home town. New York was a familiar, comfortable, and fun place for me. A couple of hours after leaving the house, I found myself walking down a street in Greenwich Village when I came upon a low building with blacked out windows. Next to the door was a small sign that read, "The Oak Tavern." What, I wondered as I stood there, was all the secrecy about? Why the blacked out windows? The strangely small sign? Something about the mysterious Oak held me where I was that hot summer afternoon and I stood on the sidewalk staring at the place without really knowing why. Now and then as I watched, men of different ages went in and out of the place. Sometimes they were in pairs or small groups, but I only saw men, never women. Those in pairs or groups seemed, by their talk and body language, to be easy and intimate with each other in a way that was different from all the men I knew. Some of the single men, though, had a wary look about them, glancing up and down the sidewalk before opening the door. It all began to fascinate me, but then, guys had always fascinated me. All through junior high and high school I'd wonder all summer who would be in my gym class in the fall. There were a few really handsome boys with nicely developing bodies in my class year, and I'd hope that at least one of them would be undressing and showering in front of me twice a week throughout the school year. I must have been pretty conspicuous, standing there staring like that but not knowing what else to do with myself, because after a while two men about 30 years old, I guessed, who had been standing a few yards away while having a brief conversation, approached me and asked if I'd like to join them for a drink inside. The openness with which these guys came up to me, and the mystery surrounding the place, scared me in spite of their friendly smiles. I bit my lip and found it difficult to make eye contact. Despite my anxiety, though, the idea of actually going into a bar and ordering a drink for the first time in my life, intrigued me. That's what adults did, and an adult was what I very much wanted to be. "What's it like?" I asked. "It's a gay bar," one of them answered, sensing my fear. "Nothing scary. Just some guys having a few drinks with their friends. Come on!" I had only heard the word "gay" once or twice before and I'd never heard of a gay bar. I didn't know what to do. On the one hand, I WAS scared. On the other, these were the kind of men I sometimes fantasized about as I stroked my dick and I wanted so badly to be with them. Both guys were clean cut and preppy, as so many men were then, both of them medium height to tall, with slim, tight, lightly muscled, builds -- if their bare arms were anything to go by. But it was their eyes and their smiles that drew me as much as their hotness, and these gave them a warm, open, look that went some way toward allaying my fear. I could hear a small voice inside my head say, "This isn't going to happen again. Don't fuck it up." I could also hear another small inner voice, this one much scarier, telling me that if I did go in, I could never be the same person again. I squirmed a little longer, my heart pounding, before finally saying hesitantly, "Yeah, maybe," and looking around to make sure that no one I knew could see me. I was only a year short of the legal drinking age in New York at the time, and a tall solid kid who looked a couple of years older than I was. Whether nobody noticed or nobody cared that I was under age, I wasn't asked for ID and that was fine with me. Coming in out of the bright summer sun, The Oak was cool and dark but not so dark that I couldn't clearly see a room full of men and they were not what I had expected -- whatever that was -- based on the little I'd heard about "homosexuals" up to that point. For one thing, most of them seemed so reassuringly normal. So average. Just a bunch of guys enjoying being out with their friends for a few drinks. I'm sure there must have been some cruising going on, and maybe more, but I didn't notice it; though, come to think about it, how would I have? So far, so good. I followed the two guys I'd just met to a corner table where one of them said, "Nice to meet you. I'm Bob, and he's Rick." "I'm Stuart," I replied, still feeling a little awkward. Without waiting to sit down first, Bob asked for our drink orders. I'd only begun drinking a few months earlier when I discovered at a party my parents gave, how tasty a gin and tonic was. So a gin and tonic was what I asked for and what Bob got me. "Cheers!" they said, raising their glasses as soon as Bob returned with our drinks. "Cheers!" I answered. "Ever been in a place like this before?" one of them asked. "Never," I quietly answered, still amazed to be there even then. "What made you hang around outside this place?" I explained how I happened to be standing outside when they arrived, followed by, because they asked, how old I was (which I didn't try to hide), where I was from, and how I was feeling now that I was there. As my drink began to loosen me up a bit, I asked them a few things about themselves and learned that they were both native New Yorkers who were good friends and roommates (that was how they put it) not far away in the West Village. What impressed and flattered me as we began to talk was that Rick and Bob were treating me like another adult. My parents' friends, and especially older relatives, always kept our conversations on an adult-child, or adult-teenager, level. Bob and Rick drew no such distinction. Slowly, the conversation, prompted by their questions, began to turn toward sex. How long had I known that I liked boys? Had I ever done anything with another boy or thought about doing something with another boy? I began to get uncomfortable again. I'd been trying my best to seem as grown up and cool as I could, at least by the standards of well-brought up adolescents who'd just turned 17. I didn't want to tell Bob and Rick that I hadn't ever messed around with another boy, much less that I wouldn't have known for sure what to do with one, beyond jerking off, if I'd even had the chance -- which I hadn't, because as far as I knew I was the only kid in my school or among my friends who checked out the other boys in the gym showers. I'd jerked off a few times with other boys at camp, but that didn't seem to count. They were straight and we kept our hands to ourselves. With porn being illegal then and difficult to find, the things that naked men could do with other naked men were pretty much a mystery to me. On the other hand, I didn't want to lie to them either. Bob and Rick quickly sensed the reason for my discomfort and told me that their mid-teen experiences had been pretty similar to mine, growing up in their different Manhattan neighborhoods. Around age 14, however, that changed for both of them when they began to jerk off with a few of their friends. Most of their jerk off buddies were straight but masturbated with other boys partly because they were still virgins, however unwillingly, and because it was a way for them to check out other boys' cocks without outing themselves. Some, however, weren't straight at all, and Bob and Rick soon figured out who they were and began to get together just with them to explore sex a little further, though they never got past sucking each other's dicks. I finally confessed my complete lack of experience, and even, despite all the gym showers I'd taken, that I'd never even seen another boy's hard on. That's when Rick asked if I'd like to see one now, as he picked up an envelope he'd been carrying when we met. Despite my dry mouth and nerves, I let him know that I would. He opened the envelope and took out a few Polaroid pictures of a naked kid about my age, smaller and skinnier than me, who smirked at the camera while his hard dick pointed out and down a bit. Other photos showed him in different poses, including a nice one of his ass. Time stood still as my unbelieving eyes devoured those pictures. When I finally looked back at Rick, he told me that he and Bob were hobbyist photographers who especially liked shooting nude men and boys, and had many other Polaroids like these back at their apartment. "We can show them to you, if you'd like," he said. "Do you mean that? Can I see them?" "Let's finish our drinks and then you can come over and see all you want." "Sure!" I answered, my heart starting to race. It didn't take long to finish those drinks and soon we were back on the bright, hot street heading over to their place. I couldn't believe I was doing this. I very much doubted that I should be. But the gin and tonic had freed me up just enough, and so here I was. "Too late to turn back now," I thought. ________________________ AUTHOR'S NOTES: Please join me in supporting Nifty in recognition of the unique role they play in bringing readers and writers together. I want to acknowledge and thank you, P., for all of your editorial help with this story. I couldn't have written it without your initial encouragement, and your insightful comments and suggestions once I got started. You've been wonderful! I welcome readers' comments, for better or for worse. Please send them to WildeWilde115@gmail.com. Happy holidays everybody! Wilde