all in dark blue, he might have been on parade. Robert wore his customary white—baggy yoga pants and a loose madras shirt. He moved more like a robot on skates, his feet sliding forward while his legs followed unbending and his torso glided without torque. They drew more than the average number of glances for the attractiveness of each was compounded by the presence of the other. For most of the way, it was Martin’s erotic turf, for the warm night had flushed thousands of scantily dressed women onto the streets, and they now minced, pranced, strode, strolled, marched, and ambled past, in skirts, jeans, shorts, and dresses. Martin could not control his eyes. The lurch of breasts, the sway of buttocks, the bulge of cunts rubbed images against his brain like the eardrum-raping klaxons of fire engines blasting their way through traffic. His cock stirred and grew stiff enough to provide an embarrassment and he forced himself to stare at the sidewalk until the tingling tumescence had been strangled at its psychic root and starved into submission to social reality.
But when they turned onto Christopher Street, the number of women on the sidewalks dropped to practically zero. The change was so abrupt that one might expect it to be more noticeable to a casual passerby, in the same way that the shift from concrete to grass at the edge of a park impresses itself upon the attention. But Martin had already retracted his sensors, and so remained oblivious of the shift of gender.
Now it was Robert’s turn to run the gauntlet. This was the most notorious homosexual neighborhood in the country, the place where the historic Stonewall riot had lit the torch which flamed into the movement known as gay liberation. Here, to be heterosexual was to be out of place. Every half block a bar spilled its particular variation on the subculture into the streets, so that one passed clusters of men dressed in levis, or in leather, or as cowboys, or others whose clothes suggested those of women. Bookstores offering homosexual literature and movies and backrooms where orgies took place served as beacons of identity. Men held hands openly, and late at night it was not uncommon to find men necking in hallways, sucking one another in parked cars, or screwing each other behind the trucks parked near the river.
Robert’s eyes were magnetic mirrors, attracting and reflecting glances all up and down the narrow boulevard. He was well known here, and within a few minutes had acknowledged looks from five men he’d had sex with during the past month. But such was the attraction of the strip that hundreds of new faces appeared each week, from other neighborhoods, from New Jersey and Connecticut, from Europe and California. This was the support that Robert had spoken of earlier when he explained why he had decided on the gay life. A man arriving in a strange city usually ended in a sterile hotel room without company or knowing where to find conversation, food, sex, or relaxation. But a gay man had all that prepared for him. The bars, the baths, the special neighborhoods, all guaranteed that unless he were very old or very ugly or very contankerous, he would be able to find all the necessities and a few of the luxuries within a few hours of arrival.
By the time they reached Hudson Street and began walking south toward the twin towers whose lights had begun to blaze in the polluted gloom of twilight, Robert was more than a bit nonplussed, his nerve endings twanging deliciously. Martin, unconscious of the ambience he had just passed through but no less affected by it, asked, “What does Babba say about sex? I thought that people who became spiritual had to be celibate. Or at least monogamous.”
Robert smiled. “See that church over there?” He pointed to a small, neat stone structure next to a large garden. “Every Thursday night about a thousand people gather to listen to a wacky old woman cackle about God. She talks like Archie Bunker’s wife and claims
But when they turned onto Christopher Street, the number of women on the sidewalks dropped to practically zero. The change was so abrupt that one might expect it to be more noticeable to a casual passerby, in the same way that the shift from concrete to grass at the edge of a park impresses itself upon the attention. But Martin had already retracted his sensors, and so remained oblivious of the shift of gender.
Now it was Robert’s turn to run the gauntlet. This was the most notorious homosexual neighborhood in the country, the place where the historic Stonewall riot had lit the torch which flamed into the movement known as gay liberation. Here, to be heterosexual was to be out of place. Every half block a bar spilled its particular variation on the subculture into the streets, so that one passed clusters of men dressed in levis, or in leather, or as cowboys, or others whose clothes suggested those of women. Bookstores offering homosexual literature and movies and backrooms where orgies took place served as beacons of identity. Men held hands openly, and late at night it was not uncommon to find men necking in hallways, sucking one another in parked cars, or screwing each other behind the trucks parked near the river.
Robert’s eyes were magnetic mirrors, attracting and reflecting glances all up and down the narrow boulevard. He was well known here, and within a few minutes had acknowledged looks from five men he’d had sex with during the past month. But such was the attraction of the strip that hundreds of new faces appeared each week, from other neighborhoods, from New Jersey and Connecticut, from Europe and California. This was the support that Robert had spoken of earlier when he explained why he had decided on the gay life. A man arriving in a strange city usually ended in a sterile hotel room without company or knowing where to find conversation, food, sex, or relaxation. But a gay man had all that prepared for him. The bars, the baths, the special neighborhoods, all guaranteed that unless he were very old or very ugly or very contankerous, he would be able to find all the necessities and a few of the luxuries within a few hours of arrival.
By the time they reached Hudson Street and began walking south toward the twin towers whose lights had begun to blaze in the polluted gloom of twilight, Robert was more than a bit nonplussed, his nerve endings twanging deliciously. Martin, unconscious of the ambience he had just passed through but no less affected by it, asked, “What does Babba say about sex? I thought that people who became spiritual had to be celibate. Or at least monogamous.”
Robert smiled. “See that church over there?” He pointed to a small, neat stone structure next to a large garden. “Every Thursday night about a thousand people gather to listen to a wacky old woman cackle about God. She talks like Archie Bunker’s wife and claims
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