(Second in a series that need a trigger warning: If you aren’t in a place to read about sexual assault, this might not be the piece for you).
“I’ve hidden my heart too many times beforeNow my aching heart knows that we’re apartAnd I can’t hide it anymore” – The O’Jays “Let It All Out” (1965)
I note that I’m highlighting a lyric more commonly associated with Nina Simone. Eddie LeVert and The O’Jays got to it first, tho. Unlike Simone’s early 1966 cover of the song, The O’Jays version of the Van McCoy dirge builds to a full bodied boulder of near Wall of Sound portions almost immediately. It is ominous from the start. It just stays there for a full 3 minutes and change. The tears are shimmering descending chimes on some triangles before a subtle, consistent swell of the strings ride slowly thumping drum licks and juicy horn riffs.
It bothers to let the tragedy marinate in your ears far better than the slapdash, uptempo Nina version. Her take on the tune avoids the core of the issue with all of her Billy Goat warbling taking center stage.
I was warned to walk away nearly 2 years before it happened. Like The O’Jays song, I’m good at carrying an air of foreboding presence. I also have a tendency to linger in sensations in a consistent manner before dismissing the mood. Sometimes it’ll be sneaker waves of emotion I’ll feel crashing on shore for over a decade. If you wonder why I cling to certain relationships, chances are those are the ones that tried to save me before I drowned. Those bonds help me fully understand the full scope of truth.
The problem is, I don’t really get how something or someone is truly dangerous until I get up too close. Sometimes I gotta feel the burn or the snap myself before it becomes “real.” Sometimes the horror is suddenly in my face because I am that close, the reality to clearly in front of my face. In some cases, the environment is so tangled with collective chaos that I have to find myself at the eye of the storm.
You can spend over a decade trying to process whether any individual is to blame. Sometimes all that is ill in a social setting unfortunately funnels through a single being. Realistically, smaller social structures and those that say you should participate in them have long had their brains warped, their souls sullied, that they no longer don’t know what’s good for others, never mind themselves.
…..Sometimes due to their direct actions.
…..Sometimes due to their avoidance.
Most often it’s a combination of both.
I’ll, perhaps unfairly, carry some of the blame as well. I know a bit better now one shouldn’t try to conform to someone you love’s world if it constantly gives you the ick. You may hold literal peer review data in your mind, yet your flesh hopes you’ll have a different outcome with the experience. As wise as another man might be, you’re still prone to rely on your own pride. You’re quick to tell someone they’re wrong about the right answer without asking them what deduction, what analysis of language, what math or experiments they’ve run to arrive at a set conclusion.
I can’t even remember the exact dates of either or which East Bay Poetry Summit this tale begins. I forget whether it was the 2013 edition or the 2014 version. There’s assorted photos of earlier evenings of both, scampering between Luka’s or Nick’s Downtown Oakland to the Lorin Streetcar district. I knew and was known well enough in the crowd, yet towards the tail end of the evening one of those Friday nights at Nick’s, I had faded to the background. I sat off to the side. I’m sure there was some version of detachment, melancholy about my being that lead Theo and Ted towards my little aloof corner of the bar patio. Theo had curiosity on his face, Ted had fascination on his face. The question they both had about me seemed the same, however (?).
The question landed in the duality of “why the fuck was my Black ass around all these white people” folded into a little bit of “how is somebody this dapper and/or fine all by themselves all alone in a bar on a Friday night?” It is weird to revisit their concerns of safety as the news of whatever happened to Nolan Wells permeates the little bit I’m paying attention to the news these days. Kinfolk not always being skinfolks is the other side of the adage.
I have to assume that’s what was racing through their minds. Ted admits more than a decade later they were both ridiculously drunk that night. All I can remember is Theo started the interrogation, the ‘why’ of the scenario. The relatively silent intensity of Ted’s eyes felt like they were gonna leave laser burns through my shoulders. There was a riddle to be solved. I was homework decidedly not on a school night.
I can’t remember exactly how Theo asked about my relationship status. All I remember once I divulged that I was in a relationship with a Rad Fae, the response was an immediate flash of horror. The composure that immediately followed sobered the vibe. There was fear that something had already happened. If I were to be honest there had been.
I had accepted it as a ‘normal’ part of courtship.
It had landed softer, with a smile, a twinge of innocence despite the on-paper older age of the hands that suggestively landed on my thigh. I had no clue that the ask for office supplies that I was ‘middle finger’ bequeathing to an Astrology project weren’t necessary donations. I had ignored a bit of the ‘just one look’ that established the relationship earlier that spring. I didn’t want to believe I was being preyed on.
Granted, under the circumstances of that ‘first look,’ I still joke that I thought I was being pursued by a pair of Marin County Swingers in their early 40’s. In a lot of ways, I was actually accurate. The only facts that I had incorrect were the county of residence and the projection of the pair holding a marriage license. One of y’alls favorite pop Astrologers has her Mars in Taurus conjunct my Venus. She made a huge point of saying so with a cougar’s growl.
She was just shy of 40 at this time. I could smell the just past prime, the desperation that she wasn’t white enough, or funny/talented enough to cross over from being anything else but a yoga instructor to the stars in Los Angeles. San Francisco always holds the most delusional flesh failures that can’t meet the rigors of what ‘fame’ is in the collective consciousness. I can breathe a sigh of relief that before she extracted too much out of me, I drew a pretty clear personal and professional boundary.
I had no motivation or desire to build an ‘astrology empire.’ I was not desperate. I had health, dental and vision and, as above, access to the office supplies budget of a decently funded non-profit. I had Sheryl Lee Ralph in Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit chastising me as much as Lauryn Hill in my head. The impact of that warning about chasing ‘shoulda-coulda-wouldas’ haunted me 20 years on. I especially had no desire to do this with a white woman that couldn’t figure out how to not write run-on sentences.
Her ‘date’ for the night seemed the more innocent. He perhaps actually was. There’s a point where I’d say his misdeeds and darkness are ancestral and perhaps common. One community forced to survive on the margins is more likely to exploit the community further down the ladder than themselves in the United States. So goes liquor stores in Black neighborhoods once upon ran by not-yet-white Europeans. These businesses still exist now. They are ran more often than not by MENA and Asian populations. There’s good business in providing cheap access to the relaxation, if not disassociation that alcohol can provide to the most caged population in this godforsaken project.
I’m gonna buy myself a bottle of ginAnd then I’m gonna call my buddyOn the telephone and sayLet’s go get stonedNow listen
Somehow the pouring of low grade libations built enough wealth to push out west from South Carolina to Los Angeles in particular. It gained a foothold in ‘Western’ apparel in SoCal in the 1970s. Drunkards to denim decked posteriors built a minor financial empire that, when exhausted, found itself translated into formidable real estate listings in Santa Monica and beyond. I clearly have the clout to catch my fair share of trust fund brats. I don’t know if they’ll ever have the skill set to be truly caught up to their benefit with someone like myself.
The internet dies. It’s just under 10 years since we’ve looked each other directly in the eye. As ‘social media’ fades into hopefully just picking up the damn phone and talking to who you want, I appear by the side of this man more often than any other existing photo of me that you can associate me with someone else in. I chose the supposed safety of being at his left in the first photo, and it almost never stopped. I kept hoping that there’d be reason to trust him even if I could still feel the burning discomfort of him sliding his hand down my thigh, towards my crotch, as he insisted we ‘talk’ in his Passat Station Wagon.
All I could do was intake all of the emotional reactions the concerned face continued to sober up while assessing the word problem in front of him. There’s the irony that the forecast came with perhaps a lot more sobriety than the actual weather produced. This all happened while he immediately got to the point of his displeasure about the information I gave him.
“Radical Faeries? Yeah I don’t know you but you know better. If you can’t tell stories, I can.”
There was still some disbelief then some mutual shading of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. I wonder, to a degree, was I already considered a lost cause? The conversation led into some more heavier discussions of how much could go ‘wrong’ when you put a bunch of white men off on private property in the woods that have access to a lot of money. These ones had the trump card of being able to weaponize a marginalized identity. I knew everything being said was ‘true.’ The problem is I had been in worse scenarios than what was being hinted in the forecast in the days ahead of me.
I don’t know how to say that I wasn’t good enough, that I was being ‘groomed’ by the first men that were actually bold enough to act on their desires to have sex with me. I understand it now as the inherent predatory extraction nature of this culture as a whole, not something that can assign to non-heterosexual men. I was 18, the first, 23. The next one, a miserably married man a smooth 36, double my age who could honestly be my father.
I was younger than his actual son. The house he lived in in San Jose was large enough for him to have a full on intimate life with highly inappropriately aged partners without seeking a divorce. His wife still got to have the house, the kids, the brand new car and the social standing. All he wanted was dick. The pursuit of such meant he could only go after those further down the ranks than him. Broke youth is such an archetype that we see in human trafficking stories all over.
I was without a car at this point of transition between high school and college, the power dynamics were directly in his favor. He would insist that I didn’t dress properly, didn’t cut my hair to meet the (his) standard of masculinity that paradoxically, he still desperately wanted to penetrate lubeless and condomless. I was a problem because I asserted at least those boundaries in the bed. I made it worse by noting he still was aroused by me the way that he found me. My feistiness will forever keep me in trouble but I relish being a troublemaker far too much.
There should have been something I truly got about how completely off that I was so young in contrast. All I could do was halfway detach, wishing my initial intimate moments were with one of my age peers. I closed my eyes, wishing the mixture of pressure, pain and pleasure was anyone I had hugged or kissed in high school. The clusterfuck of suburban conformity denied all of us any opportunity to explore it. I was locked in not being at a college dormitory like so many insisted I’d do. They never asked how I was going to be able to afford to be myself all on my own. I’ve spent the better half of 26 years figuring that out.
I don’t want to think of what happened to all of those that followed me. How many of them didn’t have the courage to question why that old man picked on us instead of someone literally his own size. I come into my 40’s knowing how resolutely common it is for there to be queer men in dead heterosexual marriages. Laughably so. I can literally have the cream of the crop of the more mature members of that demographic these days. The first one that agrees to having a fish fry wedding will have me sending y’all invitations for late summer or early autumn.
They still, for some reason, think I’ll settle for being the side piece when I clearly play for keeps. I think of the sadistic sorrow of the ones that chase after targets younger and fresher to the world, hoping to find something rejuvenating about themselves. They could be honest about all the time they’ve wasted with those mature enough to understand. This economy relies on mid-life crisis obsessions with fading youth, tho. There’d be no Corvettes and decidedly no Speedo sales for waistlines above 36 if that wasn’t true.
There was another time two years later where I just gave up the fight. There were two funerals I had to attend to that week. A year later, I couldn’t trust the sanitation worker picking up trash as I washed my Chrysler for his word, even if I had his phone number. I didn’t understand, was far too innocent to get that I might have been dealing with someone in the throes of a Meth addiction. It took retroactively reading A Density of Souls to hone in on the truth.
I moved to San Francisco, thinking it would be easier than the horrors of suburban Bay Area queerness. As it rolled into Scorpio season, I did my best Diahann Carroll in Julia. I was 160 pounds then, a good weight at 5’10 to fit into a purple brocade A-frame dress with embroidered daisies. I pressed my hair, then pretty long, into a nice flip. I perched a pillbox hat on my head and silver pumps on my feet. One Black queen in a group of white queens asked if I were ‘Geraldine’ from the Flip Wilson show. I clocked some of their insecurity because I was aloof, alone, and fairer skinned. Beauty, beyond those factors, are in the eye of the beholder.
In my dejection of feeling lost at what was supposed to be my own stylishly delusional debut at Halloween at the Castro, I was grabbed by a mysterious arm. I was held close by a stranger that took advantage of the fact that I had forgotten than Nylons were an essential part of a ladies 1960’s wardrobe. As aloof as someone else found me, I had left myself way too accessible, and perhaps a bit too passable as someone acceptably desirable for someone else to contain their desires.
I’m happy that I was at least strong enough at this point to wrestle myself away and run for the comfort of my Delta 88. I’ve learned ever since to make a scene out of running, even if I don’t confess in the immediate what actually transpired. Too often, there’s not a receptive audience. Too often, nobody wants to face the misdeeds of their peers. I haven’t done any form of drag away from my home ever since. By the time I was confronted with the future, I was so unfazed by the diversity of demons I had already experienced before I was 25. Whatever was going to be couldn’t have been as horrifying as what I had already experienced.
Honestly, I feared that if I listened more sincerely, the more likely this future would come to pass. I have to ask forgiveness for the (initial, and sort of long term) distance I put in front of those curious and fascinated by me. I hope there’s understanding that I got that both realms of feelings actually came from deep, immediate concern, recognition and care. I’m hard headed in the sense that I was, still am to a degree, too used to people not caring about my well-being. There’s a certain level of cynicism I’ve always had that befuddled some of the biggest campus bullies into being my most staunch supporters. I’ve gotten my fair share of passionate kisses from right wing republicans, I’ll tell you that.
It wasn’t until 2 years later when I even bothered to cursory re-engage with only the fascinated participant in our beloved dynamic duo. It was after what curiosity hinted at might happen if I didn’t listen to the warning given to me. I didn’t exactly know who I should belong to. I’m just now being honest about how much apathy I had developed. I assumed that I wouldn’t ever have absolutely autonomy over how my body was interacted with.
This seemed glaringly fixed when intimacy with it was desired. I assumed that I had to relent, silently, to the desires of the other party if I wanted them to be close. I’m sure most of you have experienced me as distant as if to cool off your jets, not necessarily mine. I grew up driving Torqueflites and Turbo Hydramatics. Motion is meant to be smooth, effortless with a mysterious wall of power behind it. Never rush. It’s most likely that I’m bracing for turbulence because of what is unsaid.
It’s taken me a decade to forget which county Saratoga Springs is in. I forget, as you ascend California Route 20 eastbound from U.S. 101 whether it’s in the Mendocino County side or across the county line for Lake County. This past December’s meander through the Redwood Empire was more about a more direct type of pain relief. The mineral baths at Vichy do help with arthritis flares. I had some epically painful ones this holiday season. They weren’t strong enough to prevent me to do a drive to go soak and hope for the best. I hadn’t even intended, after adding a couple of days in Fort Bragg to stay anywhere along Clearlake.
Then I remembered how much I hate New Years Eve fireworks.
They’re only second worse to 4th of July fireworks.
At least the containment of the clock striking 12 means the Gregorian Calendar’s pyrotechnics show normally comes to a close within an hour. I spend so much time trying to diffuse my cortisol levels from the constant barrage of stimulus from the immediate world that I do a pretty stellar job at burying my deeper post-traumas and anxieties about what possible harms the future may hold.
We are thrilled to invite our community, once again, onto this historic land. Right now, the comforting breeze rustling through the giant valley oaks makes the warm sun glitter. Oh, the pool is an absolute jewel. We have so missed the vitality, creativity and delight that you all bring to this special place.
Our doors are open and we are taking group reservations (min 20) for stays from 2-10 nights.
Come play, breath deeply and remember your joy again!
The website hasn’t changed at all in a decade.
Chances are it was built sometime in the late 90’s. I wouldn’t be surprised if the booking email doesn’t go to an AOL or Earthlink Account. That goddamn pool beckons as the only other image beyond the “Heart Lodge” to give reference to the settings. There was absolutely no cell phone reception a decade ago. I think it was even a requirement to relinquish yours to afford yourself entry into the space a decade ago too.
“It’s not as bare bones as Wolf Creek…”
Apparently at Wolf Creek, I would have had to shovel my own shit into a hole in the ground. I have to admit, if I’m supposed to be bolstering my queer identity, then and now, having access to keep my ass clean is of upmost importance. There’s one huge disconnect; I don’t think I need to return to the land of cholera being common. Then again, at the core of Radical Faerie culture is this bizarre fascination with purity and virility that seemingly, is devoid of the wisdom of time and biodiversity. The pursuit of youth is legendarily toxic, going back to founders of the ‘movement’ like Harry Hay.
I should have known, being stripped of all my documentation devices, particularly my film cameras that I had paid for one of the gravest mistakes I had been warned against. My 280 SE 4.5 was not up for the drive solo, so I carpooled with my then beloved that insisted that I should choose this retreat, under a Venus retrograde, to draw us closer. That $300 or whatever dollars definitely could have went to either the valve cover gaskets or the starter solenoid the car desperately needed. I was so so close to just giving up on the beast.
Shoulda.
Coulda.
Woulda.
I should have known something was up with how I was immediately assigned some shifts and duties for helping the retreat run, despite the fact that I had paid an admittance. Given the gruel being served was all lentils and vegan hell, I could see how the shenanigans were pure extraction. Yet I still had to scrub pots, pans and dishes before I was allowed to ‘luxuriate’ in a ramshackle single sleeping bag wide cabin near a pool.
I was told by my companion to go settle in a cabin and not out on the grounds itself to ‘feel things out.’ I was then mostly abandoned by who had counted on having me by their side through so many social settings over the preceding 2 years. I had, shown up as myself, in a pair of early 1960’s swim trunks and a Hawaiian shirt. I was also not fitting the Mad Max meets Powerhouse vibe of the various gay visual stereotypes that thought Doc Martens or Nudity were the best way to deal with heat and Poison Ivy. I failed socially because I wasn’t praying reverence to our lord and savior, (apparently) Tom of Finland.
It was also clear that I was ‘fresh’ you know what.
I encountered some envy, tellingly, from the non-whites that actively sneered at me. I understood, and kept my distance, kept my silence. Despite all the warning signs, I chose the one-two isolation of the nearly empty swimming pool and Saratoga Springs’s clothing optional policy to find some sensory relief from the overload of signs that I didn’t belong there. I had to ride out that I had no outside contact with the world ‘til Monday. I was stripped of my independence. The least that I could do was just hide out in the swimming pool.
I was foolish to think, with 450 or so horny men roaming around, that I’d be alone for long. As if I were 18 again, I was approached in the pool by someone older than me. There was little conversation in the realm of ‘hello, how are you/you’re name is/isn’t the weather glorious?’ direction. Clearly the conversation was pushed along by the assumption that nudity = availability for physical contact. I think I got a ‘you’re hot’ before the immediacy of the hands went for whatever was accessible below water.
I immediately turned on my left heel, forgetting it’s a little bit harder to run in water.
My legs were grabbed as the miniature sea slowed my movement. My haste caught me off balance. I went under. and slid down int0 the deep side of the pool. Again, I only stand 5’10. If memory doesn’t fault me, that deep end of the Saratoga Springs pool is a clean 8 feet deep. In my terror there was a part of me that allowed myself to float listlessly as if to accept whatever came next. A flash of what Christina Hendricks portrayed as Joan Holloway, soon to be Greg Harris’s wife, endured on the floor of Roger Sterling’s office in ‘that’ episode of Mad Men flashed in my mind’s eye.
I had laid there and let it happen between those funerals back in August 2002.
I refused to allow it to fully happen again because the environment conspired against me. I remembered my swimming lessons from 3rd grade, stiffened up my body, tightened up on my back stroke, and swam for the protection of those delightfully clingly vintage swimming trunks. Then I ran back to my cabin on the very edge of the resort, and cried, refusing to do much but walk aimlessly, refusing to eat, until the drive back to ‘reality’ on Monday.
Most of those walks were honestly long walks to do bio breaks. Whenever I would enter one of the buildings, there were 1 to 3 older white men lurking in the corners of vast empty spaces with smiles and a turgid ‘friendliness’ they weren’t shy about displaying. Given some of the environments, this eager delight seemed to come out of nowhere. Nothing about a random dance hall at 11:30 in the morning was ever gonna get me to pop a boner. I got exhausted from having to ignore lascivious stares because I just happened to need to take a shit. I’m not here to interact with others to just get to the throne.
I silently packed up everything I bought in the now Volkswagen Jetta Diesel station wagon on Monday. Surely, I wasn’t verbally saying anything. My ‘vibe’ and my body language said something was tragically wrong. I chose to sit in the back seat, almost taking a full on fetal position. I immediately rolled down the window to get some air. After being left to my own devices I got a clearer perception on the intersections of trauma and addiction that I had ignored in the relationship up to that point. Too much at once came clearer into focus.
I didn’t want to grapple with what had happened before I came along in his life that made such an environment ‘normal’ to him. I was so frightened what it meant for him to regularly frequent this environment. To this day, I’m so glad that he went off by himself to do whatever ‘ritual’ he needed to do to be in the good graces with the higher up Faes that held the true ‘power’ on that land. For all of my fractured concepts of safety, I’m glad he had the wisdom to leave me to my own devices. Lord knows what would have happened to either of us had he tried to lead me into any ‘ritual.’ Who knows what I would have had to sacrifice.
“…okay, what’s wrong? It doesn’t seem you had a good time?”
“Something happened that I didn’t want to happen.”
That’s all that I could muster.
There was knowing, and guilt in the eyes as I glared to meet his gaze in the rear view mirror. I had become the object that had become too close. It actually appeared. I know that there was no terror in my gaze, just rage. I know there might have been flashes of disappointment too. I still feel, if anything, a ‘how could you?’ about the whole time. Somehow, I stifled it two days later. We had normal obligations as a pair, hosting an event at then Omni Commons, to focus on. Like every other time, it was not discussed again. At least between us.
It came back 8 years later because someone else I love is in their own hell scape. I don’t know what trauma pushes who they say they’re (dubiously) obligated to that makes Rad Fae spaces seem enjoyable or necessary. Then again that other person seems tragically consistently lost in using San Francisco as a Queer Disneyland just as it seems most Queers not-actually from the 9 counties seems to do. There’s no understanding that you are who you are. Curated spaces such as Saratoga Springs or whatever Shibari play group you find yourself in only hoards and holds the most addicted to hedonism to the detriment of everyone around them.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by that person’s attendance at Saratoga Springs given how I’ve consistently overheard that they only seem to know one conversation volume level. That level is scream to be heard and nothing else. I’ve had to issue warnings to others to take it easy on the beloved, maybe crack a joke or two with them, before they enter a room. Too many times I’m giving them a heads up after the beloved faced that constant hurricane. I hoped that it gave them an opportunity to see that obligations that harm are never worth it. I see no signs that the lessons held.
I ran when the conversation turned to a story about Saratoga Springs in early 2024.
I had started to tremble. I was barely able to utter that ‘bad things had happened to me’ at Saratoga Springs years before. Barely five feet away, in the weird admixture of home and office we had created in that cursed graveyard, I couldn’t take being fully honest. The words failed me just as they did in that back seat. Nearly 9 years on, nothing could be done anyways.
I couldn’t cry in front of them.
If I started, I don’t know if I’d ever stop. So I ran again, upstairs, to the roof, facing west. It was one of those ‘will the pain ever end?’ moments where I thought the unbelievable. I was 5 stories up. I wondered what was life if I couldn’t find a moment that wasn’t haunted by having to fight for myself, even if realistically I was ‘safe’ at the time. I was nowhere near a body of water, but I could feel the drowning all over again.
I had to think of who I’d immediately wound with my pain. There’s clearly a path that I’m walking now that can explain this better than the avoidance that I was seeking a few summers before lingering from a summer long passed. I waited until I could sense they stepped out of the room before I gathered my things and went home. They know some of the truth of why I acted that way that afternoon two years ago. They apologized for capriciously resurfacing the trauma. I told them it had nothing to do with who they were. I had just experienced something really bad long before. There’s a moment I wish that I broke down in front of them. It would have made everything all the much more true between us.
If you’ve ever wondered why you’ve probably had the pleasure of seeing me with no clothes on the internet, trust me it isn’t for reasons of hypersexuality. More often than not it is me reclaiming what has been attempted to be stolen from me in this world. That’s a sense of control and autonomy over how I enjoy my body more than anything. It gives a clear opportunity for you to vocalize your desire in response to my frankness for what it is.
It’s often around 190 to 200 pounds.
It stands 5 feet and 10 and a half inches tall, minus any coils of 4C hair in its natural state or styled into stands or waves might add to the visual height of presentation. I more often provide you with a rear view, for there’s too many stereotypes of what the head on view gives you curiosity about. My naked vulnerability is my control against the narratives that are spoken about this body. It’s an old body beyond the confines of this lifetime, with more horror stories that aren’t mine than are mine. In response, I only hope you truly treat it with sincerity and kindness. Chances are it’ll, despite all that has happened to it, find relief, find healing in the warmth that can be generated between us.
Especially since I’ve learned to be more honest about what it is carrying.
Be strong.
Yet be soft.
