Page 36 of Torn
I managed to force myself out of bed, onto the L, and up to Evanston. AJ was thrilled to come home, and despite my sickness, I found myself happy to have the little guy around. He always sensed when I was ill, and once back at home, he installed himself next to me on my bed, a furry, purring hot-water bottle and sympathetic nurse all in one.
So what was the issue that plagued me? Those of you who are in the medical profession might have guessed, but those not in tune with yellow eyes, dark urine, aching joints, and a horrid malaise may not have surmised that I’d contracted hepatitis somewhere along the way. Whether it happened before I’d left the country or during some of my “adventures” across the pond, I found myself the proud host of a new guest, Mr. Hepatitis A, for which the only treatment, really, was resting until it chose to stop torturing me.
After a week off from work that I could ill afford, I returned to my job ten pounds lighter, lacking energy, but on the road to recovery.
And although I was still pining for Walt and shamed by an infection I had surely acquired sexually, I was also on the road to a new—and unexpected—love.
I found him in a leather bar.
1995
Chapter 13
I METhim at a leather bar called the Cell, just off Halsted, known for its backroom shenanigans and its strict dress code. The Cell was laid out in a three-room format. As one progressed through the three rooms, one shed inhibitions.
The first room was a regular bar, its interior echoing taverns, both gay and straight, all over the city. It contained a long wooden bar with black leatherette stools. The mirrored wall behind it reflected a fantasy land of bottles containing every color and liquor imaginable. Oblivion in rainbow shades.
The room had a worn wooden floor and TV monitors mounted high above the bar. There was a pool table in the big space at the back, and behind the pool table, a small store, set up to look like a cell, sold a few pieces of leather fetish wear, lube, poppers, and sex toys.
You could smoke back then in bars, so everything in the room wore a gauzy haze, outlines blurred in blue-gray.
The difference between the Cell and straight bars, though, was immediately apparent if you were not dressed properly to come inside. Come inside? A Freudian slip if ever one were writ. Anyway, the primary difference between the Cell and other, nonleather, establishments was that its doorman was responsible for checking IDs,as well asattire. No gym shoes. No cologne. No khakis. No shorts. You were permitted entry if you had on at least one (but preferably more) of the following black leather accouterments: chaps, harness, bar vest, collar, armband, or cap, usually a brimmed biker hat. You might also gain entry if you wore something made of latex or rubber. On your feet, you needed something like biker or combat boots. The doorman didn’t give a damn how expensive your Nikes were!
Secondly, the TV monitors were not tuned to sports as they would be in one of the straight bars a stone’s throw away, over by Wrigley Field. Nor were they broadcasting classic show-tune movie excerpts, as they would have been at the nearby Sidetrack. Dance videos? Go to Roscoe’s. No, even in the front room of the Cell, you were immediately thrust (Freudian slip again? Seriously?) into the world of hard-core pornography. At any given moment, you might walk in and be treated to seeing a guy being gangbanged in a sling, or someone being fisted or pissed upon.
It was not the thing a guy like me, who’d grown up withThe Wonderful World of Disneyon childhood Sunday nights, was used to. Although I must admit I would have creamed in my jeans if Tinkerbell had shown up in any of these films to bless a come shot or two with her sparkling fairy wand.
Clap if you agree.
That was just the first room of the Cell.
The second was for the dancers. And yes, Virginia, leathermen do dance, albeit without quite the same grace as their feyer counterparts at the nearby Roscoe’s. Here, the beat was heavy, techno, bone-jarringly percussive. Back then, you’d hear beats by The Prodigy, Paul Oakenfold, the Chemical Brothers, or Fatboy Slim. The room was smaller than the front bar and bright enough only to see your hand in front of your face. There was a small bar next to the glassed-in DJ booth. Dancers on the floor were mostly shirtless, with brown bottles of poppers held to their noses.
Sometimes sex broke out on the dance floor. No one seemed to mind.
Sexalwaysbroke out in the back room. Here, there was no bar. What you’d find was dark red walls (you’d only be privy to the color if you were here when the lights came up at the end of a night, as I’d been many times in the past) and a large leather web upon which one could offer various parts of one’s anatomy to a hungry spider type. There was a St. Andrew’s Cross. A sling graced the corner. And there was lots and lots of wall space against which one could lean while getting blown or cling to while getting fucked from behind.
The floor probably had enough DNA soaked into its concrete to populate an entire country. Maybe the whole world.
The pulsing techno music from the room next door would filter through but couldn’t compete with the language of sighs, grunts, groans, and murmurs being spoken fluently back here.
The Cell is where I met the man who would confuse me, thrill me, appall me, and cause me to be, as the song says, “Torn Between Two Lovers.”
His name was as common as he was. Tom Green. Now, if you’re hoping we met in the back room, two shadows become one among a crowd of like-minded fuckers, well, darling, I’m sorry to disappoint you.
We actually met in the front bar late one night. If it’s any consolation, shortly after meeting for the very first time, when Tom mistook me—bless his heart—for an adult film star whom he’d lusted after, we made our way to that very same back room. It was a way to, you know, get better acquainted. It was what one did back in the day.
But I need to tell this story my way, so we let’s back up to the beginning of that hot summer night so you get a handle on my frame of mind when Tom walked into my life, disrupting and delighting it.
THAT PARTICULARnight when everything changed for me started, as it often did, with a phone call from Boutros. In those days, there was no texting, so we actually had to talk to one another.
“What are you doing?”
“Feeding my pussy.”
“Again?”
“Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m giving AJ his supper—Meow Mix. His favorite.”
