| |
Analog
By
Kemble Scott
Steven walked down Castro Street feeling frustrated and horny.
Horny because it had been too long. Frustrated because, well, IT HAD BEEN TOO LONG.
He spied the attractive young men milling about outside the Castro movie theater. Mostly sissies. On the marquee he noticed the theater featured a John Waters retrospective:
Pink Flamingos, Polyester, Hairspray and Pecker.
Pecker, Steven thought. Now that sounds good.
Across the street were working-class types smoking cigars on the sidewalk in front of 440 Castro, the bar also known as Daddy’s for its clientele of older blue-collar men.
Blue-collar, Steven thought. That sounds good, too.
Damn! He tripped on a crack in the pavement. He was horny to the point of distraction.
He journeyed down the hill past Sliders, the hamburger place. In the distance he spotted the lighted sign for The Sausage Factory. Around the corner was the bar Moby Dick. Ugh! Everything reminded him of the fucking he wasn’t doing.
He paused in front of the closed bank branch windows. The dark interior and the glare of the streetlights transformed the windows into mirrors. Steven stared at himself for a moment. The day’s worth of razor stubble looked sexy. He forked his fingers through his this thick black hair. The cut was short, but not a buzz. Perfect.
He couldn’t understand the problem. He was barely thirty, reasonably attractive, and in decent shape – a gay man on a Saturday night in the middle of the gayest place in the gayest city on earth. And he was dateless.
He cupped his hand up to his mouth and pushed air up from his lungs. No, it wasn’t bad breath. He smelled fine.
Turning back to his image in the glass he critiqued what he wore. Blue jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt. Standard uniform for this time of year. The City was always a little chilly at night during March.
The neighborhood swarmed with men. To Steven, it seemed like everyone had someone. They were in groups, or couples. He felt like he was the only person alone.
It looked so easy for all of them. They smiled, laughed, or made witty remarks to one another. He wished he could be more like them, the colorful extroverts. He didn’t have a gregarious bone is in body.
He forced himself to hit the bars. He just never felt comfortable in crowds, and he hated trying to start conversations with strangers. The best he could hope for was to plant himself in the mob and hope someone found him attractive enough to say hello. Steven would never dare be the first one to speak.
Why did he torture himself like this? He was never going be a barfly!
It was his cock that made him venture out. Aching balls and a swollen penis emboldened him to try the scene yet again. Now that he was here, he felt as he always did.
Lost.
He trudged further down the hill, past Cliff’s Variety store with its outrageous window displays. With Easter in a few weeks, the latest exhibit featured a leather-clad bunny swinging a cat-o-nine tails over a pile of
The Passion of The Christ videos. An entire faux bedroom was created out of pink and yellow marshmallow peeps.
Steven smirked. You could always count on The Castro for sacrilege.
Next-door in the window of A Different Light Bookstore Steven eyed a display of magazines featuring barely clad men. He felt a rise of interest below. The message went from his crotch to his brain in a relentless beat: Men. Get. Men. Get. Men. Get. Men. Get. Men.
Stop!
No matter how much his body craved sex, Steven dreaded the idea of another failed night at the bars. He studied the erotic photos on the magazines. He wanted a guy just as much as his dick did, but at the bars he’d only end up MORE frustrated and horny.
He’d rather take matters into his own hands. Literally.
He entered the store and headed straight to the back to the magazine rack. He passed the bestsellers and the “gay interest” table. No time for that. He didn’t need a story arc and character development. He just wanted to look at hot bodies and close his eyes to imagine he was with the men he’d see on the pages. Maybe he’d open a bottle of wine and make an evening of it. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d turned to the comfort of Merlot and masturbation.
He picked up a copy of Freshmen magazine. Too young. He scanned some of the more extreme fetish titles, but he wasn’t into anything involving pain, defecation or kink. His mind flashed back to the scene involving the Easter Bunny at Cliff’s. Silly. Why are people into that shit?
Then he saw a magazine cover featuring a rugged outdoorsy type guy. The model wore a plaid lumberjack-style shirt, unbuttoned to reveal a burly chest with neatly trimmed dark hairs. Steven’s eyes crawled down the photo past the six-pack abs and belly button. His stare landed on the tuft of hair that peeked out of the top of a slightly-unzipped pair of jeans.
Steven used his sleeve to wipe his mouth. He was pretty sure he was drooling.
Lumberjack fantasy. That sounds good.
He reached up and grabbed the magazine. As he took it off the rack a small white card fell out and dropped to the floor.
He bent over to pick it up, expecting to find one of those annoying subscription cards that are stuffed into every magazine.
It wasn’t.
It was a note.
Hand-written in cursive on a lined three by five card.
11pm tonight.
Caselli Mansion.
Go up to the south side by the trees.
I will open my shades and give you a show.
The note was signed with one word. Analog.
Analog? What the hell does that mean?
Steven read the card again. And then another time. Could it be true? He’d heard about exhibitionism before, but he’d never seen it in person. Would the man be as hot as the one featured in the magazine? Maybe that’s why the card was put in this particular magazine, because that’s how he looked: rugged, hyper-masculine and woodsy.
Steven’s heart pulsed faster. He felt a sudden flush.
Or could it be? Maybe the mysterious note is from the actual guy on the cover of the magazine!
It’s possible. Steven knew many of the men involved in gay porn lived in San Francisco. Putting on a window show might be just another way they get off. Obviously these guys love showing it off or else they wouldn’t be in magazines.
What a thrill! He knew Caselli Mansion. It was only a few blocks away. He’d heard it was once a real mansion, but had since been divided into several apartments. And maybe in one of those apartments lived a porn star…the lumberjack guy!
Hold on, Steven chided himself. How long has this card been here? Possibly for weeks. There was no reason to believe that “tonight” meant
this night. It could have been several nights past. Hell, there was no reason to believe any of this was true. It might just be some sort of hoax.
Or it might be true. Perhaps the window show happens every night!
What the hell. What did he have to lose? He idea of facing the gaggle as the bars was deflating. All he planned to do was go home and beat off. He could still do that if nothing happened at 11pm. And if what the card said was true, then…
A sudden tingling went up Steven’s body, starting at the crotch. His whole body shivered as the sensation reached his face.
He paid for the magazine and started walking toward Caselli Mansion. In his mind he envisioned the lumberjack guy naked and ingratiating himself. But a nagging thought kept interrupting those seductive images. That word.
Analog. What a bizarre way to sign off a note. What did it mean?
A couple blocks later it hit him.
Analog.
Not digital. Old-fashioned.
Like…a lumberjack!
It all made sense. The gay world of San Francisco moved at lightening speed, too fast for someone like Steven. If the bar scene wasn’t frenetic enough, many men made their connections online. Websites boomed where men found partners and hooked up for sex without ever speaking. Steven had done it a few times, but found the ritual too cold and passionless. You didn’t get to see the guy until you got to his door. If he turned out to be nothing like his photo or profile, you usually ended up fucking anyway. It was so mechanical.
By comparison, a window show was so simple. The curtains would open and there the man would be – on display in real time and in the flesh. No modem required. No digital camera. No chat. No instant messaging. All set up by putting a piece of paper in a magazine. It was downright primitive in such a high-tech town.
Or as someone might put it these days: analog.
The excitement grew in Steven. It is the lumberjack. It is the lumberjack. It is the lumberjack.
He just knew it.
When he got to the front of Caselli Mansion he stood for a moment to appreciate the enormity of the place. The massive light gray Victorian remained a beauty, even if it was cut up into apartments these days.
He moved up the hill into the tree line on the southern side of the building. Many of the windows of the mansion showed lights on inside, but all the curtains were drawn. He wondered which one would open at eleven.
He checked his watch. It was time.
There was movement in a huge floor-to-ceiling window on the upper floor. Slowly the curtains parted, nudged just inches at a time. A tease? This guy really knew how to taunt his audience.
Steven felt a stir in his jeans. He looked around the dark, wooded patch. No one else was there, and he was sure no one could see him any nearby homes. Once again he was completely alone, although now he was grateful for the solitude. He reached down to unbutton his pants and unzip his fly. His jeans dropped to the ground. He peeled down his briefs and grasped himself in his hand. He was already hard with anticipation. The cool breeze hitting his bare behind was a sensation he’d never felt before. The show hadn’t even started yet and he was already close to climax.
A man walked into the window. He was naked and fully aroused, stroking himself. It was not the lumberjack Steven desired.
It was an elderly man.
Ugh!
Analog wasn’t a name chosen as a statement against the tech-driven mechan |
