Inside The Mind Of a Writer: Real Life Experiences That Shaped My Art

My Sorry Life As a Druggie Kinda Wannabe: II

I had smoked or snorted crystal meth a few times with so-so tricks who wooed me with their stash (as I would woo guys years later) and who were transformed into the loves of my life when we got high. Again, our dicks became useless, but unlike coke or poppers, the high was smooth and sustainable, and made your entire body one highly sensual organ. But I never sought out the stuff until I met Shaw.

Shaw was that hairy stud who I based my character Gil in “The Czar of Wilton Drive” on, the guy with the incredibly handsome black Irish looks and a smile and personality that could convince you to jump off a bridge, who I met on one of the hook-up sites. That first night, he mainlined right in my bedroom, and by the time we met again, I was ready. Here I had silently laughed at my beach buddy Trig for shooting up heroin and here I was, a former Sunday school teacher, hospital executive and college prof, trusting a guy who was virtually a complete stranger to “dart” me, mesmerized both by his male beauty, his infectious smile, and what I had seen slamming Lady M had done for him.

“You got good veins,” he complemented me as he tightened a belt around my forearm.

“I guess working out does have its virtues,” I laughed.

He instructed me to make a fist for a second, then relax.

The immediate reaction was intensive heat running throughout my body, then a total tsunami of utter euphoria. In fact, I shouted “Fuck!” so loud that first time, Shaw gently cautioned me to lower my voice so I wouldn’t wake up the people in the apartment next door. (“These bedroom walls are paper thin,” he quipped.)

Smoking was like kindergarten, slamming like getting your Ph.D.

Now picture this scene: two hairy naked men, high on one another and now high on junk. So what if he was a bottom and I was a top and my Daddy Dick was making an exit?

“It doesn’t matter to me,” he said and I honestly think he meant it. The pure sensuality of the moment as he oh so very, very slowly rubbed his black kid gloves across my chest and we kissed was worth a thousand erections.

At about one that night, after two hours of sensual sex like I had never had in my life, Shaw abruptly left, saying he needed to pick up a buddy at the airport flying in from Australia. Trolling the websites a bit later, I found he had changed his post to “Two total bottoms looking for hot tops,” but no matter. I had had my fun.

After futilely trying to cum, then to sleep (I learned later Benadryl would knock you out), I spent the day cleaning my house and going to the gym. I was still grinding my teeth at six o’clock that night and drinking bottled water like I had been on the Mohave Desert.

Shaw and I got together a few more times – including a once-in-a-lifetime threesome – then lost touch, which strangely is something I’m actually grateful for. He easily could have been my Satan in the wilderness. And I’m no Jesus. In fact, the last time we slammed, he was surprised how relatively calm I was compared to that first wild time.

Was I getting hooked too?

Then again every time since I’ve smoked the shit with another guy, it’s been my feeble attempt to replicate that first time with Shaw, one of the truly handsomest men I’ve ever known in my checkered gay life.

Now, for all its evils, and there are plenty – that you can google – about the only good thing I can say about meth besides the high is that unlike alcohol whose effects you can’t mask, intellectually you can alter your behavior with Lady M if you need to: talk slower, watch your speed and be extra attentive to the road when driving….

But also being, I think, a rational pragmatist, I can see how it can be, ah, so addictive, equating it with total hot sex, though ironically, when you’re on it, you rarely end up cumming.

Crazy, ain’t it?

And at the cost of two hundred fifty bucks for a glassine envelope the size of a packet of Splenda, M can take you down the primrose path of self-ruination quicker than the Titanic sunk. That’s why I’ve met several guys over the last few years who boasted dealing the shit and making three to five thousand dollars a week, only to end up totally broke, living in some flophouse, and looking for another puff from my pipe.

I remember once at his place, Shaw pulled out a Glad bag of junk you could stuff a steak in. There had to be as much as five grand’s worth sitting there conveniently by his bed.

Today, while I have a small stash hidden away in one of the tiny thread drawers of my grandmother’s antique Singer sewing machine, I’ve convinced myself it’s there for that occasional hairy hottie who needs a bit of an extra incentive to come over.

Hey, if anybody could become a meth head, it’s me. I’m retired, have no job I have to go to, am financially comfortable and so have plenty of play money for candy.

But I know better.

Right?

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