So now that he’d convinced himself to finally visit one, he stayed in the bathhouse in Old San Juan for hours, pacing the halls, exploring every room and alcove, always watching, silent, not talking to anyone — whether they spoke English or not. He just wanted to be there.
Hours later, in a back room that was pitch black, Simon did let them touch him. He didn’t know how many men there were — he couldn’t see them, couldn’t see anything. Somehow, as long as he couldn’t see them, it was OK. It was like his friend Eric who talked faster and faster whenever he lied, as if he hoped that somehow God wouldn’t hear his falsehood if he spoke so quickly.
It didn’t make any sense, Simon knew, but he stopped thinking about it. When a hand had touched him in the darkness, he did not jump back. He let it explore, slowly working its way down his chest to the barrier of his towel, tightly wrapped around his waist. The fingers pulled on the flap tucked away, and Simon grabbed the towel before it fell to the floor, clenching it in his hands — to give him something safe to hold on to as the fingers continued to explore, and touched his cock.
Because he couldn’t see anything, Simon was able to imagine whatever and whoever he wanted. He was too afraid to do anything to anyone else, although he did from time to time reach out with one hand to feel the bodies of the men around him, the invisible men whose hands and mouths were touching his body, and there were always too many hands or mouths on him, always more than one man. His fingers would venture forth (the other hand still tightly clutching the towel like his own version of Linus’ blue security blanket) and touch flesh, drop down to feel the man’s cock, then retreat back to the safety of the towel, wiping off the droplets of pre-come that clung to his palm.
Simon had wanted to pull back, before he came in someone’s mouth — he didn’t know whose — thinking, This is unsafe, you shouldn’t do this, you don’t know who I am. But it was too late. Before he knew it, he had crested over into orgasm, his hips bucking his cock deeper into the stranger’s mouth, and the man grabbed his ass, pulling Simon towards him, not letting go until his body had quieted again and his cock had begun to grow soft in the guy’s mouth.
Stumbling over the bodies around him in his hurry to get out of there, Simon had practically run to the showers and scrubbed his body pink, then went back to his hotel. That was all nearly two years ago now, and he had never been involved in any sort of group sex before or since. Until tonight.
Because he was nervous and had built up this moment in his mind for so many days now, Simon was sure that everyone could tell that he was on his way to have sex.
He was also horny. He hadn’t jerked off for the past two days, even though he normally jerked off at least once a day. But he had this sort of superstition about not jerking off on the night before he was going to have sex, or when there was the possibility of his having sex, such as if he were on a date. Or going to a sex party.
Part of it was simply performance anxiety. By “saving up” he felt more secure that he would get hard quickly, no matter how nervous he was, and also that he would have an impressively thick come.
He arrived at the building and stood before the door. This was his last chance to turn back.
But Simon wanted to be here tonight. For all his wanting a boyfriend, looking for a mate who’d be his life partner, for all his reticence at the sauna in Puerto Rico, Simon knew that he could easily become addicted to such promiscuous sex. There was a part of him that craved that wild abandon, to have sex with many men in a single night, to not know or care who they were or if he would ever see them again.
He hoped that tonight, among these men he knew and who, moreover, were his people in so many ways — fellow Jews, all with the same sexual desires he felt — that he’d be less nervous, more willing to let himself try things he’d only fantasized about. To be part of the groupings of bodies he had only witnessed last time.
Simon cleared his throat, hoping his voice wouldn’t crack when he had to say his name, then pressed the buzzer. After a moment of waiting, he heard the click of the door being electronically unlocked, without anyone asking him who he was.
This made Simon a little more nervous. Just how many men were invited to this party that they let anyone up? Or was he simply the last invitee left to arrive?
As he rode the elevator he wondered if men were already having sex or if they’d waited for him before starting. Staring at the floor numbers going up and up, he shifted his hard-on in his jeans, willing it to go down. He thought it would seem improper to have one before he arrived and disrobed, as if he were so hard up and desperate that he couldn’t control himself.
Arrows indicated which wing each set of apartments was in. He pulled the invite from his pocket and checked the number, then put it away again. He stood before the door and rang the buzzer. Simon could hear men’s voices inside, chatting. He wondered if soon the neighbours, anyone passing by the doorway, would be able to hear their sounds of sex.
Simon heard the flap on the eyepiece being lifted. He smiled, although he always felt he looked ridiculous through those warped fisheye lenses. He took his hands out of his pockets. Uri opened the door.
It’s strange to be greeted at the door by someone you know only casually who’s wearing nothing but his BVDs. Especially when you’re not used to seeing the person in this state, such as if you went to the same gym and saw each other in the locker room all the time.
Simon couldn’t help looking him over, up and down, staring at Uri’s body. He was short but solid, with thickly muscled arms and legs. His skin shone like burnished bronze, and he had wiry black hairs in a line down his chest and covering his legs, like sparse grass poking up through desert sand. He’d grown up on a kibbutz in Israel before moving to the US five years ago.
“Shalom!” Uri cried, leaning forwards to kiss Simon on the lips in the typical gay greeting. “The party’s just getting started,” he continued, “come on in.”
Simon reached out and kissed the mezuzah on his way into the apartment. Uri lived in a nice one-bedroom condo. He had a large abstract painting over the living room couch, under which sat three men, also naked except for their underwear. They all looked sort of nervous, sitting separate from each other even though they were all on the same sofa; nowhere did skin touch skin. Simon nodded to Benji, who he knew, and then looked away, blushing because of how Benji was (un) dressed and what they were planning. He had to suppress a barely controllable urge to giggle.
There were other men, also in only their underwear, standing with their backs to Simon, looking at the books on Uri’s shelves. Two of them had kipahs on, pinned to their dark hair.
Uri led him into the kitchen. “Take your stuff off,” he said, pointing to the stacks of neatly folded clothes on the countertop. “What do you want to drink?”
At other apartment parties, everyone took their coats off and left them in the bedroom, then congregated in the living room. But tonight, the bed was going to be put to better use. And so, for that matter, was the living room.
There were six other guys there so far besides Simon and Uri. Simon knew three of them from shul — Howard, Stanley and Benji — although he’d never seen any of them naked (or nearly naked) before. They hadn’t been among the guys he mentally undressed that night Uri gave him the invite, but they didn’t look bad without their clothes on, just sort of average: dark-haired, dark-eyed, Slavic Jews who didn’t get much sun.