But I didn’t insist on the money up front, and I barely got paid. I went back to Rounds the next weekend to score another fast 200, feeling pretty cocky. As long as a boy dressed well enough to look like some john’s respectable nephew, nobody cared how old he really was. I didn’t need a fake ID, being well over 21, but I soon learned that the bouncers didn’t care. When I saw Rounds advertised in a gay rag - A bar where entrepreneurial young men mingle with the older, sophisticated men who appreciate them - I knew I had to give it a try. I was very young, very naive, and after a 6-year military career, I had no skills that anyone seemed willing to pay for. If I didn’t do something fast, I’d have to leave New York and beg charity from family. What I felt that night with Roger was apprehension, shame, and fear. My experiences felt altogether different from those of the neighbors who complained to the New York Times that the bar encouraged disruptive street trade and public sex. Through his rose-colored glasses, Rounds was guilty of, at worst, a certain glibness, a vacuous lack of genuine gay culture. My experiences feel distinct from Martin Duberman’s, the gay academic and activist who wrote about the place from the perspective of a reluctant john. My heart didn’t start to beat normally until I’d hoofed it 20 blocks south, on my way back to the McBurney YMCA on West 23rd St, the exact YMCA the Village People once sang about, the YMCA where 200 dollars was enough to pay for a room for a whole week.
Roger was snoring as I ran out of the room. Not desirable, but not exactly disgusting.Īn hour later, I climbed out of bed, threw my clothes on, and made sure the money was still in my pants. As long as he wasn’t arguing about money or telling me what I wanted to eat, he was OK. I tried hard to squeeze my eyes shut and pretend to be somewhere else. When I did, he sucked his breath in like a connoisseur, pulled me down onto the bed, and removed most of the rest of my clothes by himself. He raised a hand, and I flinched, ready to bolt, but he just reached into his wallet and pulled out another bill. I was was lucky to tip the scales at 125. Roger’s six-foot bulk dwarfed my own five-foot-five body. “Give me 200 dollars,” I whispered, angry at how small my voice sounded.
An aggressive step that meant I had to look up to see his face. “Fine.” He pulled out a single bill and thrust it under my nose. “Aren’t you the little business man, then?” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a wallet. I looked around the room that despite the luxury of the neighborhood was just a hotel room. He looked us both up and down, smiled warmly at Roger and gave me a look of disgust - like he was sniffing a cut of beef that might have gone bad. His hotel was one of those understated east-side palazzos nobody’s ever heard of but that cost more money than tourists can afford. I closed my eyes and tried to forget where I was. Before we’d gone half a block, his tongue was down my throat. “Watch your head,” he said in a tender voice. The cab slid up to the curb and I slid into the back seat as Roger opened the door and placed a hand on my shoulder. A police cruiser eased by slowly, headlights picking us out and making me blink in pain. A yellow Ford taxi squealed to a stop and zoomed into an illegal U-turn. Roger hailed a cab on 5th Avenue like a pro.