Brian
art by Jorin Bossen
The summer I met Brian, was the summer we were always going out to brunch, and we were all so queer and liberated and open that we became a little conventional. I was 23 and unsatisfied. I said “love that” a lot when we’d all compare hook-up stories like gay guy pissing contests.
We were always going out in odd numbers and sitting at square tables when someone’s boyfriend would ask me “so what’s your type?” And I would say “a james dean” and everyone would be a little embarrassed for me. I said the same thing when my highschool boyfriend asked me what kind of gay guy i wanna be and his answer was: “neil patrick harris”.
This was also the summer my bestfriend and I moved to the apartment in Hollywood. When everyone started saying LA will never be 2006 again. LA will never be 2019 again. We saw ourselves like Kenneth Anger movies. Saw ourselves wearing sunglasses inside. Saw ourselves at the Whiskey and all our gay friends being like “yeah, we actually love to be at the Whiskey.” Saw myself with a better jawline.
What really happened was I wore a lot of Zara on the Santa Monica strip and my bestfriend fell in love with the writer of his favorite TV Show. Within a month, he was house sitting in the Hills indefinitely while the writer was on-location for a new project. And I kept stumbling into his room after the bars had closed because I forgot he was gone.
I sat with my venetian blinds and considered just getting a boyfriend. Bringing it to brunch, being open with it, becoming terrorists. I saw a lot of structure in tying identity to aesthetics. But I didn't want to involve another person. It seemed like a cop-out to have your identity be in conversation with another person. So I decided to become a gutter slut, covered up in ripped leather and leopard print, to be used and disposed of.
It was something to do. Something to talk about.
I stopped swapping head and started topping. I never wore deodorant or condoms. I checked Grindr with one hand. I took dick pills to get in the mood and afterwards, I would get back on, dead-brained and dick hard. Looking? I started selling it to an English professor who I told to call me Holden. And when my friends asked how I was doing, I told them I was such a slut!, and I would list each hook-up like merit badges and not a botched dye job.
And then one day, Brian tapped me.
He had one picture on his profile: an open red flannel with his fly unbuttoned. No face. Just a cleft chin. Soft bathroom lighting.
He was shredded. He was six foot three. He was sixty-four years old.
We don’t have to talk about being radicalized by Lana Del Rey at fourteen. It’s boring. No one cares you smoked Reds because she was everything you weren’t. We can talk about how by 23, you are the oldest you have ever been, and I can fuck this 64-year-old man to fill the void at brunch.
“Looking?”
He lived over in Toluca Lake. I parked on a blind turn at golden hour and when I stood at the front gate I felt my phone buzz: “the gate is just for show, push it open.” I looked up at the house and saw the curtains swish.
The first thing I noticed about Brian was the way his eyes sat back in his skull. He had a full head of grayed out hair and moved through the house like I woke him from a nap. His sweatpants sat low on his hip bones and if he was shorter than me, I didn’t feel it. He took me into the guest bedroom and began kissing my face and putting his hands all over my body and I just stood there, unsure. The room was stiff with industrial AC and smelled of synthetic pine. He told me my body was killer, and I remember wanting to bottom with no prep.
I wanna use you.
I turned around and lowered my boxers into downward dog and pictured what I would tell my friends: about our age gap, the size of Brian’s dick, his cum gutters.
I was always smoothing over the edges of my hookup stories. The Vice journalist who left because he sucked my dick after I pulled out and I had his shit on my tip. The bottom with the back tatt of his Gramma. And the too-drunk-to-fuck floppy cocks and the just wanting to cuddle, anyway.
I heard Brian spit and then push into me like a guitar riff. And then after a second or two he said: “no, not like this.”
I wanted to ask why. If it’s because I was ugly. Or because of my jawline. But he was just looking at me. Looking into me. And who’d wanna do that to an ugly boy?
The sun came in gold (the house was too nice to have venetian blinds) and after we caught the silence, he started telling me about how he was only house-sitting. About the actor who was out of the country with his husband and surrogate children. How they all met in New York in the 80s and are some of the few who made it out. And just when i was worried he was trying to get me dressed and out the door, he started draping his fingers across my body and didn’t say a word. In the canyon light, he got this smile on his face like he went somewhere he didn’t plan to.
So there we were: me with my aesthetic and him with his life, both too tall to fit on the bed, and I just leaned in and asked about him.
He started with his Mom and how she loved him but was embarrassed. How she took him to see Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall. Told me he caught the last wave of punk in LA and started hanging around The Whiskey. The stories took detours to bars that no longer exist and auditions that went nowhere and lovers lost and music he thinks is tacky now. He told me he doesn’t want a husband because he would have less time for his friends.
And once the sun was down, and he became a voice i could only feel with my draped fingers across his body, when we were too content to turn on a lamp, that’s when he asked about me.
I thought about arranging the facts of my life to present as something other than myself--something smoother, punker. But I didn’t.
I told him about the lonely apartment. About my friends. And their boyfriends. The lifestyle I wanted out of. He asked me questions. Said he loves Lana Del Rey and didn’t make me feel bad about living at the end of history, post-Studio 54, post-Les Deux. At a time when being gay is mainstream but still fucking sucks. When you date a boy in high school so you can be one of those gay couples who go to prom, but you break up because he thinks being gay is Neil Patrick Harris and you think it’s James Dean and you’re both the problem.
I don’t remember how the night ended. I remember wanting to stay for a movie, wanting to ask what kinda gay guy he became and if brunch is infinite. I was worried I came across as 23, as unsatisfied. As lost. I know that I did, now, but it’s impossible not to when you’re the oldest you’ve ever been.
He gave me his number. Told me to text him if I ever needed anything. Told me he wasn’t rich enough to be a sugar daddy.
And then I was driving home through the Hills. High Beams on with no light pollution. I was still in my gym clothes. My phone was full of texts asking where I was. I had a whole evening planned that I never bothered to cancel on.
I pulled into my parking garage and deleted Grindr.
I think everyday about texting Brian. Not like I do my Ex. I worried about him. I worried he would feel like a gay guy magic eight ball. I worried we’d meet up again and I’d ask too many questions and use him. You can’t tell yourself that you will live through this apartment, that you will draft the worst novel you’ve ever read. You’d never listen to yourself, anyway. Because you’re just some gay guy.
And maybe he was me once, and maybe I’ll be him one day, but back then I was just the loneliest 23-year-old in Los Angeles who in a week would re-download, down a mimosa, and turn to his friends to slur out: “sso what’ss the oldest u’veever been withh?”
We were always going out in odd numbers and sitting at square tables when someone’s boyfriend would ask me “so what’s your type?” And I would say “a james dean” and everyone would be a little embarrassed for me. I said the same thing when my highschool boyfriend asked me what kind of gay guy i wanna be and his answer was: “neil patrick harris”.
This was also the summer my bestfriend and I moved to the apartment in Hollywood. When everyone started saying LA will never be 2006 again. LA will never be 2019 again. We saw ourselves like Kenneth Anger movies. Saw ourselves wearing sunglasses inside. Saw ourselves at the Whiskey and all our gay friends being like “yeah, we actually love to be at the Whiskey.” Saw myself with a better jawline.
What really happened was I wore a lot of Zara on the Santa Monica strip and my bestfriend fell in love with the writer of his favorite TV Show. Within a month, he was house sitting in the Hills indefinitely while the writer was on-location for a new project. And I kept stumbling into his room after the bars had closed because I forgot he was gone.
I sat with my venetian blinds and considered just getting a boyfriend. Bringing it to brunch, being open with it, becoming terrorists. I saw a lot of structure in tying identity to aesthetics. But I didn't want to involve another person. It seemed like a cop-out to have your identity be in conversation with another person. So I decided to become a gutter slut, covered up in ripped leather and leopard print, to be used and disposed of.
It was something to do. Something to talk about.
I stopped swapping head and started topping. I never wore deodorant or condoms. I checked Grindr with one hand. I took dick pills to get in the mood and afterwards, I would get back on, dead-brained and dick hard. Looking? I started selling it to an English professor who I told to call me Holden. And when my friends asked how I was doing, I told them I was such a slut!, and I would list each hook-up like merit badges and not a botched dye job.
And then one day, Brian tapped me.
He had one picture on his profile: an open red flannel with his fly unbuttoned. No face. Just a cleft chin. Soft bathroom lighting.
He was shredded. He was six foot three. He was sixty-four years old.
We don’t have to talk about being radicalized by Lana Del Rey at fourteen. It’s boring. No one cares you smoked Reds because she was everything you weren’t. We can talk about how by 23, you are the oldest you have ever been, and I can fuck this 64-year-old man to fill the void at brunch.
“Looking?”
He lived over in Toluca Lake. I parked on a blind turn at golden hour and when I stood at the front gate I felt my phone buzz: “the gate is just for show, push it open.” I looked up at the house and saw the curtains swish.
The first thing I noticed about Brian was the way his eyes sat back in his skull. He had a full head of grayed out hair and moved through the house like I woke him from a nap. His sweatpants sat low on his hip bones and if he was shorter than me, I didn’t feel it. He took me into the guest bedroom and began kissing my face and putting his hands all over my body and I just stood there, unsure. The room was stiff with industrial AC and smelled of synthetic pine. He told me my body was killer, and I remember wanting to bottom with no prep.
I wanna use you.
I turned around and lowered my boxers into downward dog and pictured what I would tell my friends: about our age gap, the size of Brian’s dick, his cum gutters.
I was always smoothing over the edges of my hookup stories. The Vice journalist who left because he sucked my dick after I pulled out and I had his shit on my tip. The bottom with the back tatt of his Gramma. And the too-drunk-to-fuck floppy cocks and the just wanting to cuddle, anyway.
I heard Brian spit and then push into me like a guitar riff. And then after a second or two he said: “no, not like this.”
I wanted to ask why. If it’s because I was ugly. Or because of my jawline. But he was just looking at me. Looking into me. And who’d wanna do that to an ugly boy?
The sun came in gold (the house was too nice to have venetian blinds) and after we caught the silence, he started telling me about how he was only house-sitting. About the actor who was out of the country with his husband and surrogate children. How they all met in New York in the 80s and are some of the few who made it out. And just when i was worried he was trying to get me dressed and out the door, he started draping his fingers across my body and didn’t say a word. In the canyon light, he got this smile on his face like he went somewhere he didn’t plan to.
So there we were: me with my aesthetic and him with his life, both too tall to fit on the bed, and I just leaned in and asked about him.
He started with his Mom and how she loved him but was embarrassed. How she took him to see Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall. Told me he caught the last wave of punk in LA and started hanging around The Whiskey. The stories took detours to bars that no longer exist and auditions that went nowhere and lovers lost and music he thinks is tacky now. He told me he doesn’t want a husband because he would have less time for his friends.
And once the sun was down, and he became a voice i could only feel with my draped fingers across his body, when we were too content to turn on a lamp, that’s when he asked about me.
I thought about arranging the facts of my life to present as something other than myself--something smoother, punker. But I didn’t.
I told him about the lonely apartment. About my friends. And their boyfriends. The lifestyle I wanted out of. He asked me questions. Said he loves Lana Del Rey and didn’t make me feel bad about living at the end of history, post-Studio 54, post-Les Deux. At a time when being gay is mainstream but still fucking sucks. When you date a boy in high school so you can be one of those gay couples who go to prom, but you break up because he thinks being gay is Neil Patrick Harris and you think it’s James Dean and you’re both the problem.
I don’t remember how the night ended. I remember wanting to stay for a movie, wanting to ask what kinda gay guy he became and if brunch is infinite. I was worried I came across as 23, as unsatisfied. As lost. I know that I did, now, but it’s impossible not to when you’re the oldest you’ve ever been.
He gave me his number. Told me to text him if I ever needed anything. Told me he wasn’t rich enough to be a sugar daddy.
And then I was driving home through the Hills. High Beams on with no light pollution. I was still in my gym clothes. My phone was full of texts asking where I was. I had a whole evening planned that I never bothered to cancel on.
I pulled into my parking garage and deleted Grindr.
I think everyday about texting Brian. Not like I do my Ex. I worried about him. I worried he would feel like a gay guy magic eight ball. I worried we’d meet up again and I’d ask too many questions and use him. You can’t tell yourself that you will live through this apartment, that you will draft the worst novel you’ve ever read. You’d never listen to yourself, anyway. Because you’re just some gay guy.
And maybe he was me once, and maybe I’ll be him one day, but back then I was just the loneliest 23-year-old in Los Angeles who in a week would re-download, down a mimosa, and turn to his friends to slur out: “sso what’ss the oldest u’veever been withh?”