Carnivorous Butterflies - 3. Chapter 3

1983

I pulled my collar up against the stinging wind and blew warm, condensed air onto my hands, rubbing them against my thighs. It was as cold as a witch’s titties, and I was annoyed for not wearing gloves. Winter in London had crept in, and like a long journey across oceans, never seemed to offer much respite. Once it had its grip, it was not one to let go. The nights grew longer and the days flat, grey, and bleak. For weeks the sky was choked with low hanging clouds, pressing close to the roofs of the Victorian and Edwardian houses lining St Johns Wood and Maida Vale. The maples along Elgin Avenue were pruned back so hard they resembled angry stumps. The songbirds of summer, long gone, were replaced by knots of hungry sparrows and tribes of magpies, fighting for scraps among the wheelie-bins. Waking up in the dark in my Maida Vale squat, which I shared with a bunch of students, and lumbering off to drama school each morning on an empty stomach, dreaming of springtime, a time when the wind whispers down the avenues, bringing warmth and promising clear blue skies, made me question my rash decision to move to London. The pale, flat light in November depressed me. ‘Thatcher’s London,’ the kids at college would chorus, with much sarcasm, as if Downing Street controlled the weather.

I was no stranger to the biting cold. Growing up on the east coast of America I was used to weeks of deep snow and driving storms raging off the Atlantic coast, but nothing had prepared me for London, where the chill factor seemed to get beneath your skin. Back home I rarely felt the cold, but then again, I never left home half-starved and dressed in inappropriate attire. Winters along the wild coast of Nantucket and Newport could be brutal, but you always came prepared. Here, in London, the wintery sun poked shyly between the ancient low-rise buildings and above the forest of chimneys, offering little warmth. In fact, if I was brutally honest, when walking the lonely streets of London, I occasionally missed home. Perhaps distance made the heart grow fonder? During the long winter months in Philadelphia and Rhode Island, when drifts of wet leaves clogged the drains, when low hanging silvery grey clouds smudged the horizon, when the Atlantic Ocean blended into the sky and when icy red mud clung to my boots, there was still a beauty to be found in every nook and cranny, windswept sand dune or forest glade. I laughed at the thought. Fuck, I felt such a fraud, such a goddam phoney. It was my choice to flee across the ocean, despite the protestations of my family. The propensity to find oneself ran deep and even if New York City was exciting and hedonistic, it was still too close to home. Like that old, scratched vinyl, London was calling.

My dad was positively cool about my decision. Glacial in fact. Fair enough. After wasting money on college, he wasn’t exactly charmed with the idea of his only son moving away to try his luck at becoming an actor. It wasn’t even a real job he lamented. His grumbling fell on deaf ears. I was too young to understand his concern. Foolish, impetuous, and harbouring a reckless adolescent anger, my homosexual urges were a far greater pull than the sage advice of an aging father. In short, I was young, fun and full of cum. Something had to give. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts seemed a good place to begin.

In my formative years — by which I mean, my early teens — I had stealthily explored my sexuality with both excitement and trepidation. I had a cousin who ‘went away’ for twelve months. The family shut down and refused to talk about Cousin Eddie. It was in all the local papers and whenever we drove past his house, I would stare out of the window towards the walls of that wicked dwelling with excitement tinged with fear, knowing that beyond those clapboard walls and chintz drapes, that manicured lawn and those wrought iron flamingos, lived a man with like-minded thoughts. My summer breaks, often spent with my flower power auntie Dee, who had a shambolic red brick townhouse off West Broadway, allowed me the freedom to explore the gay beaches on Fire Island and the decadent streets of New York’s Chelsea and West Village. The idea was to drum some culture into me by teaching me about the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright’s modernist masterpiece, The Guggenheim, or to stand and wave her hands in wonderment at the Lichtenstein’s, the Rousseau’s, and the Warhol’s at the MOMA or how everyone with a heart should fall in love with the Titian’s, Vermeer’s, and Michelangelo’s at the Met. But in truth, she rarely knew of my whereabouts and allowed me the freedom to roam the streets of New York City. Hampered by strict age limits, I forfeited the bars on Christopher Street for less salubrious places, settling for an occasional fumble or grope down at pier 45, in a public toilet, or behind the dunes on Fire Island. This was dangerous and unsatisfactory. New York, at the start of the 80s was blighted by crime. It was also full of lonely men desperate for sex. Mostly this involved some intensely deep staring from across a smoke-filled waiting room at the subway station or mastering the perfect gay walk, a kind of code only known to faggots, where the eyes lock as you pass each other on the street, then five (not six) seconds, then pause, and look back. If the other man does the same, you know you are in business. Mostly this form of cruising left me frustrated and angry, neither person brave enough to make the first move, or with nowhere to go for a quick fuck. My loins aching with lust, my balls about to burst, I would invariably end up in a shameful dash down to the public toilets on Washington Square Park or Grand Central Station, for a sticky session from some equally horny anonymous man, resulting in a sense of disgust, revulsion, and certainly little gratification.

It is hard to describe the thrill when you hit jackpot, when a complete stranger, often one who was quite unsuitable, stopped and looking back. Hormones would kick in and the chase was on, down the streets of lower Manhattan, catching his reflection in front of a shop window, mirrored in the glass, blocks away from home, your trousers bursting with your young, uninitiated throbbed cock, your mind racing. And in the rare instance you were lucky, a fumbled, slippery session in a cold parking lot, sliding him out of his jeans and sucking his cock, the exotic taste of him, and a sudden messy orgasm after hours of tension and nerves.

I must tell you that I was somewhat ashamed to know all the best cottages between China Town and the Meat Packers district. It’s not something to be proud of, but it is what it is. Sex was risky and illegal and the chance of an undercover cop, or pretty policeman arresting you was all too real. My ears became accustomed to that all too familiar crunch if hob-nailed boots on the stairs. My parents would be incandescent with rage, and in a strange sort of way, I wanted them to be angry, to feel my anger, to share my torture. My parents were always way too busy travelling the world to spend any quality time with their son. And when they were at home, I would hide myself away from their drunken arguments and subsequent weeping hangovers. My mother could down fifteen dry martinis in one night and still stand on her feet. By dinner time she would be raging at father like a Tennessee Williams drunkard. I hated them for it and this was my own private vendetta. Known as ‘cottaging,’ this somewhat sordid business is integral to gay culture. Oddly, and I am certain about this, it’s some feral instinct we develop in adolescence. I realise it's something many people would regard as horribly grubby. As indeed it is. Most of us start out in life wanting to become someone’s number One. That is ambitious. Sadly, it is sweet and naïve and rare. Besides, I was far too young to be wanting a relationship. And, if I cannot have that, then the next best thing was to plunge myself into the world of anonymous sex. And here’s the catch; it is a world where I am noticed, where I can act and behave without judgment, where I am desired, even if for only a few brief passionate minutes. I was fifteen, beautiful and available.

I don’t have a distinct memory now of the first time I cruised or the first man I met, but I do remember the first time I understood what cruising was. Once again, auntie Dee had taken her eye off her favourite nephew, and I found myself wandering around downtown, exploring SoHo without any particular aim in mind. I needed a piss and inadvertently found myself in a subterranean world of silent, grunting strangers. Even that first time, standing for what seemed like forever, washing my hands over and over, whilst spying the antics in the filthy bathroom mirror, was intensely erotic. The men standing at the urinal, would turn and look at me, some would smile, some would grimace, some would ignore me entirely. No one spoke. Yet somehow, I understood their secret language. Undetectable pheromones in the air made me realise that I was not alone in wanting to be with a man. I was suddenly an expert, each man I saw communicating by nonverbal codes that was far easier for me to understand than I gave myself credit for. I would find a cubicle, lock the door and read the graffiti scrawled across the soiled walls. The desperate messages men left for one another, profane notes and bawdy drawings across the stained stalls, a kind of diagrammatic out-pouring of lust and desire, induced an excitement I’d never felt before. There were rough drawings of large erupting cocks and spread-open asses and scratched promises and dreams, dates and times and even phone numbers and the occasional plea in a tone whose urgency I recognized: I sucked you off here last Thursday, I have to see you again, please call me. Those notes cannot be underestimated. Evidence that the world might offer some answer to the craving I felt. I was keenly aware that for every scribble looking for love, there was an even cruder warning scratched on top: die faggot! You filthy fucking animals. I went back to SoHo again and again, each day choosing a different toilet block, reading the walls and feeling, as I jerked off, the easing of a deep loneliness. I became a pro at spotting these cottages. Cruising suddenly functioned as a vital, singular means for me to not just get off, but to discover other men and prove to myself that I wasn’t alone in my sexual perversion.

Poets and authors have described these brief encounters for hundreds of years, these tete-a-tete rendezvous between men; men of privilege and poverty, sharing a common goal, irrespective of race or religion or social standing. Encounters that take place within hearing distance of the outraged gaze of the authorities and often, at least initially, under the unshackled bliss of anonymity. I don’t intend to romanticize these spaces — or maybe I do, a little, and maybe they deserve a little romance after decades of vilification. They can be dangerous, people are assaulted in them, or robbed, or used in instrumental or dehumanizing ways, all of which is to say that they’re spaces where human beings act in human ways. It was the most natural thing in the world, always followed by an uncontrollable sense of shame and anger.

The first time I had the courage to go with a man was when I was sixteen. I did not choose him. He chose me and I was overwhelmingly grateful to be selected. He was much older. Perhaps in his forties. His sideburns were thick and grew down towards his mouth, like the strap on a centurion’s helmet. A New York Yankees cap hid his thinning hair and bald spot. His stomach pushed against his plaid shirt and his cock, which he held as an offering, was thick and short. It was perhaps not the romantic deflowering I had hoped for and once in the cubicle, I succumbed to his strength and allowed him to use me as he pleased. It would be sometime before I would have the courage or confidence to call the shots. But for now, I simply yearned for that older, father figure, that strong, masculine body, willing to inflict both pain and punishment. It was sore, uncomfortable and reeked of piss and body fluids. As horrified as I was, I knew that I would be back for more.

That ever so deviant life did provide some memorable experiences down at the public urinals, once being given a blowjob from a Lickety Split ice-cream man. I could hear his iconic jingle when his van pulled up. Next thing I knew, a man in a white coat was on his knees giving me head. I remember reading the embroidered Lickety Split Creamery across the back of his coat as I shot into his mouth. You never knew what to expect. By the time I was eighteen, I was an expert at seeking out all the best joints in the city. Occasionally it got so busy at those lavatories you could barely move for the writhing bodies, smell of sweat, sharp tang of urinal deodorizer and the smelly sock pong of amyl nitrate, old piss and stale breath. It was like a drug which I both despised and craved at the same time. Anonymous sex in public toilets was distasteful for certain, but the danger and the pungent effluvium had an unbearable, if not worrying erotism to it. Cottaging was such an enigma to me. Dirty and uncomfortable, it drew me back time and again against my better judgment. It pulled at some feral cords writhing inside you. Something untameable and savage. In the early 1980s, for those of us too young to go to bars, or for the hundreds of men living double lives, it was essential if you wanted to have sex with other like-minded men. The experience of seeing three, four, five guys all knotted together excited me at first, but I always loathed himself afterwards. Strangely, I didn't mind the seedy side of it. Even the assault on my nostrils seemed to provoke a rush of blood to my cock. I just hated myself for being a queer. For being lured into something so vile, like flies to a Venus flytrap. It was all so unnatural and grim.

You must think my entire existence was consumed by sex and cottaging? It’s true that should you ever ask a teenage boy how many times a day he thinks about sex, his answer might surprise you. It’s a lot! Thinking about sex and actually performing the activity are entirely different things. I did have other, normal things to occupy my addled mind. At eighteen years of age, I enrolled into Brown University, spending my days trying to get my head around lectures and time-consuming assignments. My unhappiness and lack of academic know how, left me wanting for more. Once again, London beckoned. I thought that if I could get away from the temptation that was New York, I would find love and live happily ever after. I would become that elusive Number One. I have said this before, and I will say it again; my naivety truly astounded me.

And so here I am. Living the dream. Braced against the cold, penniless and hungry, making my way every day across town to Bloomsbury where the RADA halls are situated. It was always worth the walk, for in truth, I enjoyed exploring the city and my time amongst the actors and artists expanded my creativity. The school was over-flowing with liberal minded people. I was a natural at acting and for once in my life, I felt I was finally amongst like-minded friends. I joined as many clubs as possible, from the a cappella to the modern dance, the film club that offered cheap seats and the theatre design club where we were allowed backstage to see the plays. I spent hours at the galleries and museums, all free of charge, teaching myself about Turner and Bacon, Hockney and Freud, about Sir John Soanes and Christopher Wren. A middle-class American boy coming of age, determined not to be dwarfed by this ancient city. And all the time, I searched for the man with whom I would fall in love. My Number One. In time, I grew to accept the weather and to love the long walks, where every street was a snapshot of a bygone era — Georgian, Queen Anne, Victorian, post-war, post-Modernism. It drew me in. I met Hannah and together, we conquered the night life and cheap flea-markets and seedy music bars in Soho. We dressed up in the latest New Romantic fashions, all frills and frock coats, and talked our way into all the best clubs, cadging drinks and drugs from stoned punters, sometimes paying my way with a quick blowjob in the cubicles. It was all too easy. And still I searched, yearning for the one man who would love me unashamedly and unconditionally. I found that London had an abundance of cottages, which I tried to avoid, unsuccessfully. When walking past a Victorian toilet block on my way to class, I was conditioned to pop down the stairs just to see if there was any action. It seemed that our tribe was truly global. Boys came and went in my life. Their names escaped me. No-one was interested beyond a night of fun.

I was ill-suited to a world of penury and was determined not to sponge off my parents. Hannah had been working at a busy American restaurant in Covent Garden. She cajoled me into taking a position as a cocktail barman. It was a seminal moment that would change my life, for as ironic as it might seem, in the end, my need to find work to supplement my lifestyle, would lead me towards meeting the man I would come to love.

His name was Julian.