Sparkle: The Queerest Book You'll Ever Love (11 page)

“But…?” Sparkle asked.

“Butt is right. Pretty soon I felt a finger creeping towards my love-hole (snickers all around). Now, I don’t mind telling you all that every now and again I like getting my butt plugged, and one little finger wasn’t going to stop the festivities, but one finger quickly led to two fingers, and when he started in on finger number three, well, let me tell you, cut, print, that was a wrap.”

“You asked him to stop?” asked I, taking mental notes should the same situation present itself to me in the hopefully near future. (Yes,
that
story is coming up, too. Don’t get your panties in a wad.)

“I asked him to leave,” Tim answered, emphatically. “Lord knows what else he had up his sleeve, and I for one was not going to find out. Needless to say, he wasn’t at all thrilled at the prospect, but quietly got up, got dressed, and got the hell on out.
Phew
!”

Now, a little side note on this whole story to show you just how strange and wonderful gay life is. See, Tim has stayed in the periphery of our lives for the past eight years, popping up at a party or a brunch or a chance run-in in the streets or a bar, and let me tell you, the vanilla Tim you just met has blossomed into a man of many colors. (Hanky colors that is.)

In fact, soon after that brunch, we ran into Tim at The Eagle for their beer bust, and he was wearing jeans and a leather vest. Nothing strange there; it was The Eagle, after all. But September rolled around and we ran into him again at the Folsom Street Fair (The biggest leather street fair you’ve ever seen. You should make it a point to check it out.) and he was utterly transformed. His clean-shaven face now sported a full mustache and thick side-burns. Again, he had on a vest, but this time he was shirtless and we could see that his left nipple was pierced and his right arm had a brand new tattoo. And, to top it all off, he was wearing tight, tight chaps and nothing but a codpiece underneath. We actually walked right past him before he called our names out and we turned around. It took us a few seconds to figure out that it was actually him.

A few years later, we heard that he’d made several fisting videos, both giving and receiving, and in 1998 he was voted
Mister San Francisco Leather Boy
. So you see, friend, gay life is ever-evolving. I certainly am not the same man I was all those years ago, or even three years ago, for that matter. How many straight men get the chance to change personas, careers, fashions, lovers, etc. like your average gay man does? Not many I’d imagine. 

Anyway, back to the brunch…

Our meals were served and we were all on our second round of drinks when the conversation again turned to sex. Sparkle had noticed Millie’s t-shirt and had commented that he never realized that lesbians fisted each other.

“Sure. I mean, it makes sense,” Millie said, very matter of factly, “what else do we have to stick up there, right? Plus, look at my fist. Girls have much smaller hands than guys do and they fit rather nicely in pretty girl pussies.”

“Gee, thanks Millie,” Slim said, looking rather green around the gills, “that was certainly, um, a visual.”

“Please, Mary, it’s no worse than any conversation I’ve had to listen to from you queens over the years. Bruce, watch this,” she said, looking at me with a grin and a glint in her eye. “What is the strangest thing that any of you have ever had up your asses?”

“Ooh, I like that one,” said Tim, rubbing his hands together as he licked his lips. “Okay, me first, me first. Let’s see. I was dating this guy, Hobart, about a year ago, and Hobart had this thing about dildo fucking. I don’t know if it was, well…”

“He had a small one, right?” Sparkle the Sage guessed.

“Well, yes, he did, actually. Maybe that was it. Anyway, he really got off on stuffing this enormous array of dildos up my ass. Every time I went over to his house, he had a new one, and no two looked alike. It got to be that I would get really excited each time I made my way over to his flat just to see what he was going to stick up my butt. Then one night he came over to my apartment and things were getting kind of hot and heavy, and he asked me if I had any
toys
for him to play with. ‘Well, actually, no I don’t,’ I told him. Man, you should’ve seen the look on his face. It was this mix of surprise and sadness. I actually felt sorry for him.”

“So what did you do,” Jim asked, “or do I want to know?”

“Mmm, um, no, not really. See, having nothing in my room that would satisfy Hobart’s fetish, I went to the bathroom…”

“The bathroom you and I share?” Jim interrupted.

“Yup. And since I use spray-on and you use roll-on…”

“You let him fuck you with my deodorant?” Now Jim looked peeved.

“Uh-huh. And I replaced it, so stop your freaking.”

“And how was it?” Jim asked, calming down as his curiosity got the better of him.

“Well, they could have called it
Arrid Extra-Wet
after we got through with it; and, not that I’d do it again, probably, but I’ve had worse things up there.” He smiled and looked at each of us in turn. “Okay, so who’s next?” he inquired, finishing his drink and ordering another one. I noticed that the drinks were going faster than the meals, by the way.

“I’ll go.” This time it was Sparkle’s turn, which should’ve be interesting, I thought, and, needless to say, was not disappointed.

“Do you all know Benny Turner?” he asked, taking a healthy swig of his drink.

“Hey, isn’t that the guy you’re always calling Batboy Benny? Why is that anyway?” Jim asked.

“Um, because, like, he was a batboy when we met, duh,” Sparkle responded, in his usual endearing way.

“Oh, wasn’t he kind of old to be a batboy?” This time it was Tim asking the obvious. (Slim, by the way, was working his way up my leg with his dexterous fingers. By that time, I was on my third Bloody Mary and was becoming one rather
horny
Mary. Not surprisingly, I was getting very little eating done. But, to be fair, no one likes a cold omelet.)

“Actually, yes, he was too old to be a batboy, but he’d entered this stupid contest that
The Examiner
was running, one that they obviously forgot to put an age limit on. They probably thought that no one over the age of ten was going to enter the contest. They, of course, were wrong, because Benny entered one hundred and fifty times. Seems it was his dream when he was a little boy. So for one full season,
almost
, he was Batboy Benny. The fans loved it, and Benny got way more than his fifteen minutes of fame.”

             “Fine. Got it. So what was the strange thing shoved up your ass?” Jim asked, rolling his hands to indicate that my friend should continue to the juicy parts.

“Hold your horses (Slim was holding mine by that time), I’m getting to that.” Sparkle was not one to be rushed, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet. “Anyway, one night, Benny and I were driving around looking for something to do and we were coming up with nothing. You know how sometimes this city can be so small and you’ve, like, done everything five times and there’s just nothing left to do? (Everyone nodded except me.) Well, that was the kind of night we were having, until Benny had an idea.” He took a big gulp of his drink, as did the rest of us, and continued. “See, Benny knew of a way sneak into the ballpark, and, it just so happened, the Giants were at an away game that night.”

“And how exactly does one sneak into the park?” Millie asked. (I think she spotted Slim’s wandering fingers, and so we switched to playing handsies beneath the table.)

“Well, the night cleaning crew sometimes leaves one of the side entrances open so they can have easier access to the park and their vans,” Sparkle explained.

“And why, pray tell, do they need that?” I think Millie liked pestering him, and it was working.

“Because, and that had better be the last interruption or I’m stopping here (Millie saluted an okay), because they went out to their vans to get stoned, which they couldn’t do in the park, because they didn’t want to get caught. Anyway, back to the story.” He ordered another drink first, and we all followed suit. We let the waitress take the food; by then it was kind of pointless. “So there we were, creeping around in the dark outside the park looking for the entrance, and having little luck. Probably the night crew had gone home or they weren’t working at all, because there were no lights on whatsoever. Well, that made us both incredibly horny for some reason and, before I knew it, we were pressed hard up against the wall with our pants down around our ankles surrounded by nothing but pitch blackness. Benny started going down you know where and I braced myself on the wall. That’s when I felt the doorknob. Of course, I waited to tell this to Benny for a few minutes.”

“Why’d you wait?” I asked, stupidly, and sat there as everyone at the table looked at me like I was the dumbest thing since Milli Vanilli (maybe not that dumb, maybe more like Right Said Fred). They kept looking and I kept staring, and then, “D’oh. I get it. You were getting head. Sorry, please continue. Very funny. Go ahead.”

And he did, “Anyway, I opened the door for us and we were inside in a flash. We followed the dark corridor down to the visiting team changing room and turned on the lights. All in all, not a bad set up. Kind of like a really large hotel bathroom. It had that ultra clean look and you got the feeling that no one was going to stay there for very long. Still, they couldn’t quite get rid of the pungent odor of sweaty men. That, combined with the excitement of the break in, made for two horny boys. Meaning, before we knew it, we were both naked. Benny had my back on a long bench and my legs up in the air before I could even say
play ball
. That’s when he spotted the jar of Vaseline sitting next to the baseball bat…”

We all screamed at one time, “Oh my God, you didn’t!”

“Didn’t what?” Sparkle asked, surprised at our outburst, and then, “Oh… OH!… like, gross… what kind of freak to do think I am? Have you
seen
the end of a baseball bat? Get real, people.”

“Well what then?” Jim asked, with all of us nodding, waiting for the answer.

“As I was saying, and you people are sick by the way, he spotted the jar of Vaseline sitting next to the baseball bat, which was leaning on a big, black dildo…”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Millie shouted, standing up, “what in the world was a big, black dildo doing in the locker room?” (Good point, I thought.)

“Um, oh, well, you see... okay he fucked me with the baseball bat. There, are you happy now? Batboy Benny fucked me with a baseball bat!” (It figured.)

“William Astan,” Jim procalimed, shaking his head back and forth, “you never cease to amaze me. So who’s next?” he asked, but looked like he knew that the game was over and that there was no way anyone was going to top that one, short of a Buick up someone’s behind.

“Wait,” Sparkle interrupted, “the story isn’t over yet.”

“What, was there a second baseball bat lying around?” Tim joked. (We hoped.)

“No, smart-ass, there wasn’t a second baseball bat lying around. One was plenty.” Sparkle smirked, and I could tell that he thoroughly enjoyed shocking the hell out of us. I, for one, am still shocked to this day, but, c’est la vie. “See, unfortunately for Benny, though it’s true there was no one in the park that night, there were surveillance cameras situated throughout the locker room. The evening’s events were taped for posterity’s sake and poor, ignorant Benny was quietly relieved of his duties as batboy.”

“God, he must hate you,” I surmised.

“Actually, the last thing he said to me was, ‘If I ever catch you alone, I’m going to take that baseball bat and smash you over the head with it until you’re a bleeding pile of flesh. Even your own mother won’t be able to recognize you.’ I may be paraphrasing, but you get the idea.
Now
who’s next?”

“How about Bruce,” Slim shouted, quickly cooling any feelings I may have had for him up to that point.

“Um, well,” Sparkle knowingly interjected, “how about Jim?”

“No, how about Bruce?” Slim was adamant.

“It’s okay; I’ll tell them,” I said, dreading my straightforwardness. Damn Bloody Marys; I should’ve just made something up, but… “Well, you see, I’ve never been with, um, anyone before, and have only used the port-side for withdrawals, not deposits. Not yet. Sorry, so who’s next?” I hoped that would be it and that Jim or Millie would go next, but, of course, that was too juicy a tidbit to let slip by.

“Wait a minute. Let me get this straight, if you’ll pardon the expression. You’ve never made it with a guy? Never?” Slim looked shocked. Actually, everyone looked kind of blown away, except, of course, for Sparkle. He was taking long swigs from his drink and was looking around the room, anywhere but at me.

“No. Not yet, but I hope to soon, and, besides, twenty-one is not too old to be a virgin, right?” I was hoping for a
right,
but I was not to get one. No one answered, in fact. They all just stared at me in disbelief. Like I’d farted at a funeral or something. It was that awful, really.

Then Sparkle jumped in for the rescue. He looked at me and said, “Hey, don’t we have somewhere to be at three o’clock?”

“Oh my goodness, is it almost three already? Yes, we do have to get going.” Saved by the bell.

That woke everyone out of their shock, and they all agreed that it was getting late and that they had other places to be as well. So we paid the bill and said our goodbyes. All the while, Slim was giving me the strangest looks. I don’t know if he was repulsed or mystified by my admission, but he did give me a nice kiss as we walked out the door. All in all, it was a perfect way to end brunch.

***

“Thanks, Sparkle,” I told him as we made our way down the block

“You’re welcome, Secret. No sweat.”

“Sparkle…?”

He sighed. “Yes, Secret, I really did get fucked by that baseball bat.”

“I thought as much.”

We started walking toward The Castro. I had no idea why, but it looked like Sparkle was headed to somewhere in particular. “Where are we walking to?” I asked.

“Secret, Honey, who do you work for?” Not exactly an answer, but I knew where he was going with it.