Struck Out

Struck Out

So I've been debating with myself for some time whether or not to mention here that I was (kinda) seeing this guy, and matters have somehow come to a head with him dumping me. Because of the blog. Apparently, my "lifestyle", as eschewed in the blog, does not appeal to him.

I'm showing a thousand middle fingers to him in my head right now.



What gets me is the summarary judgement. I mean, hell, get to know me, go out with me some more, and then if you think I'm not the right guy for you, that's fine, I'll fade away as gracefully as I can. Instead, the guy goes through my blog, and decides that it's the Ultimate Story of My Life, and I'm just way too something for him...! So he'd love to have me as a "friend" but hey, it's gonna take a miracle (his word, not mine) for things to work out otherwise between us. This, a day after he's merrily holding hands with me in a dark movie hall.

This, after a conversation I have with him, explaining to him why I hadn't wanted him to read my blog earlier. Because I was afraid that he might think the blog was 100% me, and vice versa, and that might affect how he saw me. But he argued he wouldn't judge me on that basis, and I somehow thought he might actually be the 'mature one', who would not make that fatal mistake, so I said 'yes'. My mistake, really. He's not the only ass as far as judgement is concerned - I'm obviously not much better, for thinking he'd be mature enough.

His reaction kinda got me thinking: are all guys like this, prone to judgemenalism, and incapable of being open-minded and neutral, when they read a blog that they think reflects 'me'? I mean, though I started out with this grand pseudonym and all, I was idiotic somewhere along the way, and became close friends with some readers, with the side effect that some of their friends, etc, know who it is pushing the mouse here, without knowing absolutely anything else about me. Is that a recipe for disaster, with people like this guy I'm talking about, who knew me through not one, but two, readers of this blog? In short, is this blog a serious hazard to me meeting sensible guys, and should I perhaps scrap it and restart it somewhere else?

While I did consider the pros and cons of that, I decided otherwise. I'm being optimistic here (perhaps unduly so, but nevertheless...) and recalling that I want to end up with a 'sensible' person, as I said up there. And, I'm still hoping that a sensible person will realize where Closetalk the pseudonym ends and where I begin. I'm not ashamed of who I am and what I am. I love my life and the way I live it. I'm trying everything I can to be better, to do better, and I'm hoping that I find the love of my life somewhere along the way, and I'm having fun. If you can't handle it, it's not my fault. And no, I don't want to be fiends with someone who can't see beyond a blog.

Jo Dikhta Hai, Wo Bikta Hai

Jo Dikhta Hai, Wo Bikta Hai

Ok, so this was originally supposed to be a post by SnowWhites's Stepmother, but he got stage fright at the last moment. Saturday night, and we're all mighty high, and that's when SS announces a select soiree at his place the next night, to watch Koffee with Karan and Rakhi Sawant.

Two petite birds (Ok, so Karan is more petite than Rakhi) with one limpwristed stone. Fabulous, dah-lings!

But K.Jo is, as usual, brilliant. The man is quite simply Bombay's favourite queen, ever since he (almost) came out in the first episiode of his second season: when interviewing SRK, Kajol and Rani Mukerji, and heading into a break, he grins saucily at the camera and says, "We'll be right back for more chitchat with the king and his queens... and I don't mean myself...!"



Ooo, and with all that weight lost in the last few weeks, I for one think he's looking quiite de-lish! :)

But this time around, I was taken more with Karan's guest than the man himself. Enter the Queen of Item Kitsch, in a coffee coloured silk Manish Malhotra sari, skillfully arranged so that her left boob practically hung out, her shoulders and neck gleaming in some artificial bronzing goop, and the Playboy-perfect pout. I am avowedly a Rakhi Sawant fan. I love her candour, the way she shoots from the hips, and her deliciously ghaati accent when she speaks in English. On the show, she happily chirps that she's going to speak in Hindi because no one can understand what she says in the Queen's Language - though of course, K.Jo did quite a great job of that! :) But even he was at a loss for words when Rakhi gushed in her Marathi accent how honoured she was, over and over again, to be at Karan's show. Until, of course, K.Jo had to go over and hug her... and pray she left him after that. :)



Because, quite frankly, Rakhi has what it takes. When she goes and says lines like "Jo dikhta hai, wo bikta hai" (Whoever exposes the most, sells the most) that get the moral brigade all into a tizzy, she's doing nothing but telling it like it is. That's why she's unarguably the most-talked about Item Girl. Call her publicity-hungry or whatever, she knows what she's got to do to make it to the top, and she's completely unapologetic about doing it - both her, and her self-confessed idol, Mallika Sherawat, another gal whom I can completely gush over. They're the women in the Big Bad Man's world, and the best part is: they don't complain about it... or if they do, like Rakhi and her 'kiss' controversy, they scream from the rooftops and all hell breaks loose! :)

When Karan grins mischievously and asks her whether she thinks she can ever become a mainstream Hindi film herone, Rakhi looks flummoxed and asks why not, since she's already got the "main lead" in a movie titled (hold your breath) "Buddha Mar Gaya" (The Old Geezer Died). She hastens to add, it's a comedy. :)



SS and I, rolling in laughter on the couch, already know it is. *grin*

Preen And Tease

Preen And Tease

For a number of reasons, I haven't been doing the GB party scene for some time. For one, many of The Family members pooh-poohed the idea of GB, so we didn't go. Then, my Calcutta trip happened. Then, after I came back, SnowWhite's Stepmother and I ventured to a GB party, only to discover a strange and horribly disconcerting situation: in the middle of the absolutely packed room, the crowd would miraculously dissipate to form a one-arms-length space all around us, so that we were quite, quite alone. After that distasteful scene, we went to Voodoo's a couple of times, and actually had fun. So that encouraged me again. But since Bombay only has fortnightly parties and not weekly ones, like Delhi, I waited and waited till finally, on Saturday, I hit the Razz in Juhu, with Guppie and DiamondChokerBaccha in tow.

Razz gets a mixed response from me. On the one hand, it has a hideously tiny dancing floor, which means that one wll automatically sweat great rivers after 20 minutes of arriving there. But then there's the sea right outside, and it's really romantic if you have a suitable 'love interest' to stroll the grounds with. But then, seeing that I've never actually been there with such a suitable love interest, I shouldn't set too much store by this factor, and there's also the awful Juhu traffic jam to give you a rethink. O, and the music is... ummm... 'music'? :) So, all in all, the Razz is not really my favourite GB venue. Nevertheless, I went. It's just been way too long, I told myself, you'll get atrophy in your limbs: and you have to break the vacuum jinx that visited you at the last party with SS.



So, I went.

Thought I'd wear my new JAILBIRD tshirt, but to my shock and awe, I realized that a tight white tshirt would be a better idea minus a couple of kilos, so I settled for the 'straight college-boy look' instead, or as close to that as I could manage. Enter big sneakers and tattered, baggy jeans. (I draw the line at bubble-gum.) Didn't have a date to go with, but then, I haven't had a date for a GB party in ages, so that wasn't really a problem - the Family was good enough, and I reminded myself of my old rule: never hook up at GB, only Preen and Tease.

Time for several beers. :)

Closetalk enters the Razz, smiles sweetly at D at the ticket counter and breezes in. Before the several beers are ingested (just two will get me high, by the way!), air-kiss DiamondChokerBaccha and his (ahem ahem) date (?), and then proceed to hobnob with Guppie. We marvel at the relatively low turnout, which means we won't be sweating rivers quite as immediately as we would have otherwise done, but all that talk is soooo loose and quite unnecessary when I see TallBottomBoy. Delicious.

Now, TBB is someone I've chatted with online and planned to get together for some late-night activities, and when I see him with some not-so pretty people here, I flit over to rescue him and say hi. So I rib him and pat his gorgeous ass and whisper wicked nothings in his ears before disappearing for my beer no. X. That's when NiceSexThing is there, and he looks like this mix of Old Man And The Sea and The Devil Incarnate, but he's actually quite nice, apart from being good in bed, so I decide to be sweet and not tell him he's dressed like a Halloween character. Make some small talk, allow him to rub my ass a bit, and then go on upstairs with drink in hand.



Aa, upstairs is whereyou have the Viewing Gallery. That's where DCB and his date (?) are spying on Guppie hitting on the boys on the dance floor, and I join them in some good natured gay giggles, and oohing and aahing as Guppie makes his way around the floor, necking the boys he fancies. Enough fun, CT declares, and we go down again. They start playing Kua maa dub jaoogee, and DCB goes all chhammak-chhallo with a vengeance, and I decide to do the rounds of the floor.

WHOOSH! Passing through the crowd, and I feel a sexy burst of cool air on the back of my neck. CT turns around, and there's this cute creature with long black curls, in a tight-fitting black jumper (unzipped to his waist of course) and tight-fitting black trousers, grinning at me, while performing some pretty fancy dance steps. I grin back, decide to have some fun, and walk back past him, and sure enough, feel the WHOOSH! again. :) This is fun, thinks CT, and turns away now, not looking back at him, but makes his way through the crowd (o yes, it's quite sweaty and sticky by now), traverses the whole arc of the dance floor, till he spies CuteCurlyCreature in his black tights right in front, dancing with some los-ah. WHOOSH! goes CT, and now it's his turn to get a delectable start, and when he sees who it is, the los-ah gets dumped (but of course!), CT and he do the dirty dance for some minutes, and then CT leaves him with a grin when the song gets over... Mmmm... maybe he was worth exchanging numbers with....?

Also spied: OldBaldEx looking quite alone and sad, and o, Ghatiboy from Andheri East, with whom CT had had a one-nighter ages ago. It was quite strange seeing Ghatiboy actually, since Natureboy and I had chatted about him just the week ago, over chocolate tarts. He's actually quite a favourite of Natureboy's, though I've slept with him only once. Left my tshirt at his place too, by mistake, but wasn't very bothered to go back all the way to retrieve it - the boy lives in Andheri East, for cryin' out loud! )

So, apparently Ghatiboy had been chatting with Natureboy earlier, and somehow I got mentioned, and Ghatiboy had commented that he never saw me again even though the sex was great. Aa, well, yea, the sex was actually loads of fun, but the guy was just too... (sigh, it must be said) vernacular for my taste, and all that wrong English thrown at my face continually would have completely ruined my libido, had it not been for his very substantial ummm... apparatus. But here he was, Ghatiboy, dancing on the Razz floor, in this tight white T and equally tight jeans, and in the happy happy state, CT was fast considering breaking the no-hook-ups-at-GB rule, for another one-nighter at (sigh) Andheri East, since Ghatiboy was certainly making all the right moves on the dance floor. Too bad for him, the lights came on right when the song ended, and sanity shone through for CT, who turned around, pecked him on the lips, squeezed his crotch, and said, "We must meet up again sometime, darling", without meaning it in the least...!



Time to catch a cab for home!

Fruit and Nut

Fruit and Nut

Last weekend, SnowWhite's Stepmother and I found ourselves in Bandra picking out t shirts with clever gay-centric slogans. This was the launch of JAILBIRD, supposedly India's first branded gay tshirt, and we were surrounded by cute fags everywhere. :) So yes, while the two of us hemmed and hawed about t shirt sizes, we also sneaked a peek at some of the cute men around. And of course, the lesbians. Aa, the lesbians.

We'd known that the tshirt thing was the brainwave of a couple of lesbians (maybe more) even as we headed out to Bandra, so it really wasn't a surprise to see a whole pack of them there. (Or maybe I'm just being silly and some of them weren't lesbian after all, but straight women.) But they were there, and they were actually utterly sweet. So sweet, that later in the car, SS and I looked at each other and exclaimed about it. Now, why on earth should that be a surprise? Lesbians aren't really monsters now, are they? Are they?

Hmmmm... :)



O gosh, this makes me sound terribly prejudiced, doesn't it? The truth is, I probably don't know enough lesbians in the world. I'm still stuck with the silly stereotypes in my head. And when you come to think about it, lesbians have hardly anything in common with gay men. They're not as drama-queeny as us (are they?), they're not as flamboyant as us (are they?), they're not as sexually active as us (are they?), they're more relationship-oriented than us (are they?) and they're definitely not as pretty as us (full stop!). It's pretty much the Mars vs Venus thing all over again. Limp-wristed Mars and highly athletic Venus. :)

My first brush with a lesbian was through this blog. Well, Mizfit keeps on oscillating between calling herself Bisexual and Lesbian, but for all practical purposes, I always saw her as lesbian. And it's not as if she's one of those stereotypical big women with gruff voices and killer handshakes. She's actually quite shrill, quite pretty, and quite obsessed about her weight - thanks to a certain lovable fag called FreeSpirit. And... she sleeps around, she tells me. Of course, this conversation I had with her was many months ago and now that she's in lurrrv, the sex-phase is probably toned down, but it was quite a thrill for me at that time - seated opposite this smart, witty woman who professed that she hated emotional lesbians and loved hanging out with the boys at gay parties, and I loved her dramatic eye-shadow. She was so... feminine, and while I was tempted to ask her what the gruff-tomboy vs fairy-girly ratio among lesbians was like, I didn't do so. Certainly, Mademoiselle Mizfit was quite apart from any lesbian stereotype.

Then, there was this guy I was seeing for a coupla weeks, with a bunch of art-house lesbian friends. In fact, the first time I saw him, he was dancing at the GB party, surrounded by loads of lesbians. The first thing I noticed was breasts (yech!) and then the cute smile on his face. And as I had just started watching episodes of The L-Word on DVD then, the boy and I bonded... sort of. Again, I had all these questions to ask about lesbians - but again, I didn't, and we just ended up discussing the characters of The L-Word, and comparing them with the QAF boys.



And that was another thing: The L-Word. I didn't quite like the first few episodes: I mean, I probably couldn't identify with them. I hated the hairstyles. I thought women should have bigger breasts than the actors in the serial did - yes, even though I find them yechy, I have silly classical notions about what they should look like! And I was unclear whether lesbians really do sleep around that much - or was it just something they wanted to copy from QAF, the rampant drama about slutting around. But as I watched some more, I found other stuff that I liked: the level of Family Bonding in L-Word is so much more than in QAF, and I could identify with that; the issue of staying in the closet or coming out; even the infamous sex-map on the white board was so hilarious and familiar; and of course the characters, despite some of the awful hairstyles and minuscule breasts, were endearing after a while. On the whole, I thought that the girlie gang of The L-Word was much more fun and coherent than the QAF boys - with the exception of Emmett Honeycutt of course.

But despite this, the inherent vagueness about lesbians remains. Most gay men treat them as behenji comrades, something which seems to me so completely formal and put-on. Somehow, it's easier to behave with straight women - or is it again because of my silly classical notions about what women should be like...? Aaa, but the straight women I'm closest to are hardly stereotypes themselves: Chimneypot and the Wicked Witch of the West would blanch in horror if either of them were described as 'classical'. But then, there was this lesbian friend of Natureboy whom I met briefly the other day, did a quick (and silent) yikes when she shook my hand very tightly, and promptly hightailed it out of there. Something about the leather wristbands and the chains and the nose rings and the tattoo on her unnerved me - though I would probably find them all highly erotic on a six-foot tall man.

And that's something I can't really understand about myself: why I have this strange wariness about lesbians. I mean, SS and I crack jokes about butch gals and pansy us, and the fact is, there's something reassuring in laughing about lesbians and gay men. A way, perhaps of assuring ourselves, that there are other freaks in the world, albeit at the other end of the sexual diameter? Or maybe it's just your classic case of (gasp, shudder, shake) Shyness?

2nd anniversary Post

Thought I'd include some sexy snap of a semi-naked guy with a chocolate cake here, but couldn't find any as good as I imagined, and decided to go in for the barcode after all. Exactly two years ago, TalkingClosets made its debut. That's when I said that this would talk about "the emotional, ethical, sexual, spiritual, hilarious parts of being gay". Two years later, I hope to have remained true to that resolve.

What's happened in these two years? Friendships have got cemented. Relationships have been built, broken, built up again, broken down once more. Hope has been lost and regained. And the closet remains. To be sure, I have come 'out' to a whole lot more friends since I started this blog - and I'm thankful and ever-so grateful that they accepted and loved me, no matter what. But I'm still in the closet, like so many other Indian gay men are, to my family. Thankfully, I haven't been bugged by the Marriage Question, as so many other Indian gay men have, and to be honest, staying away from home has helped. It has helped build myself and my gay identity. I'm not quite the flaming queen that SnowWhite's Stepmother accuses me of, but I am a proud gay person. :)

And then there's the Anonymity question. Two years back, when I started this blog, only a handful of people knew who I was, really. This silly pseudonym, Closetalk, held the rest. A ditsy creature who went on and on about gay parties and lack of men and lack of love and the crazy things that gay men do/think/are... Closetalk stood in for all of that. And then, I made the silly mistake of giving in to my curiosity and my vanity, and I began to interact a bit more with some of the people who came here... and while that was gratifying, I also came to realize, this meant a kind of paradise lost. A lot of people knew who I was. And they knew Closetalk was a sham. Or, in the worst case scenario, they felt that Closetalk was all I was...!

I'd love to be like Rhett Butler and sneer, Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn...!



Anyhow, this afternoon, while chatting on the phone with SS, the conversation veered onto Shakespeare. We yakked on about how stupidly moribund Hamlet was, and how kinky Portia seemed with her 'pound of flesh' and Shylock fixation (even though I looove her 'mercy' solilquy), and how amazingly close to our gang the Three Witches of Macbeth were (bubble bubble, toil and rubble...), and then SS ended with his declaration of love for A Midsummer Night's Dream.

SS: I completely adore it. It's so utterly dreamy and ditsy...

CT: Gossamer fairy wings and organza skirts and slim legs...

SS: Ooo, yes, I adore fairy wings... and the lovely way in which they all fall asleep, and suddenly wake up with some one else, change partners...

CT: You know, that's quite like the GB party scene...

A makes a date to go with B to the party... but B is delayed, so A ropes in C instead, and walks into the disc with him... when C goes off to fetch a drink, A is whirling around in the music and bumps into D, who locks eyes/hands/crotches with A, and they begin dirty dancing on the floor, but just when D and A are about to leave... D gets lost in the crowd, and A comes face to face with E, who grins rakishly and asks him home... but then, while they are driving back and drinking some more on the way, E gets horribly drunk and inept, so his friend F who was driving them home, helps A carry D to his apartment... and A wakes up in the morning in bed with F.



I'm not saying it does happen.. I'm saying it could... *sigh*

Talking about Tarts...

Talking about Tarts...

Now and then, at lunchtime, Natureboy and I meet up for a tart or two at Piccolo's at Fort. And there, amid bites of chocolate, lemon, apple or pineapple cream tart, we talk about our flagging/raging love/sex lives and the general ire that pooor single gay men have to go through. (And even though Natureboy had accused me and SnowWhite's Stepmother ages ago of sitting around and discussing/dissecting the men we do and their techniques/dimensions, I find that I do far more of that with Natureboy these days, than with poor much-maligned SS ever.)



:)

So, on this occassion, Natureboy and I order a Dutch Truffle and a Chocolate Tart, and broach the subject of his recent on-hold relationship.

Closetalk: So, you're saying that you've broken up, but still do each other, when he's in your part of town or vice versa?

Natureboy, slicing a part of the Truffle: Yep. Because I don't see us getting back together in a relationship, but he says he wants to. So this is the middle way out - since I still have some feelings for him, but not strong enough to get back together. This way, I told him, we should both be free to do our own thing, and not get jealous.

CT: Hmmm.. and does it work?

Natureboy, grinning: Not sure. He says he still feels jealous.

CT: And you say you still have feelings? How is it 'mindless sex' if there are feelings involved here?

Natureboy: O, well, I just don't think I'm the sort who's cut out for a monogamous relationship. I mean, there are just too many expectations involved, and I don't want to feel guilty and all. So, this way, we both can have fun, and I don't have to feel responsible, because I've told him all this outright."

I know he gets very needled when the Wicked Witch of the West and I call him 'commitmentphobic', and when I do so now, he predictably argues he's not. "No, no," he says, waving his chocolate-coated spoon, "I don't have anything against a commitment. It's just that I don't think I'm very good as far as commitments go with him! There's a difference!"

So that's when I decide to go for broke, grin and declare "Gosh, you're a playa!"

Natureboy, shocked: I am not a playa!

Closetalk grins some more and doggedly goes ahead: O yes, you are. You're not the sort for a monogamous thing, but you like getting emotional with your men. So you'd like to have an emotional fling with a guy, move on when you're a bit tired or he's tired or whatever, and then find a new guy to have great emotional sex with. Ergo... you're a playa.

Natureboy blinks: You make me sound like this... this... horrible old schemer who plots in bed about who to corrupt next! That's... awful!



CT shrugs nonchalantly and finishes the chocolate tart: O well, if you stopped being all Drama Queen about it, you'd realize that that's exactly what you are, and it doesn't involve 'plotting' so much as just a simple series of unconscious manuevres.

***

So now, I'm wondering whether I'm a playa as well. And though I said very matter-of-factly to Natureboy that there really is nothing 'scheming' or 'plotting' about one, it's true that the word playa doesn't have very nice connotations.

So, look, let's examine Closetalk: he's a guy who can usually be found on the gay chatrooms every day or every other day. indulges in a fair bit of dirty online chat, exchanges some numbers for some dates that usually turn into sex-dates more often than coffee-dates, and has been resolutely single since mid-December. Is he monogamous? Not at all. Is he monogamous in a relationship? Ummmm.... let's not get on the witch-hunt here. :) Is he a playa? Oops. I wonder, now.

The thing is, and I was tellng this to an anonymous stranger on a chatroom just twenty minutes back, I have regular sex, because sex is easy. It's freely available. Like a movie to watch when you're bored. That's how I treat mindless sex. And even though sex is definitely better if it's with someone I'm interested in, I don't wait weeks/ months to meet the 'right guy' to have sex with. As far as sex is concerned, I'm more in search of Mr. Right Now. But I don't mix emotions with my one-night stands. And though I've been slightly worried at my great rapport with my Nice Sex Thing, I've also consciously made the effort to pull away and meet him just once a week or so, for some nice sex and a nice date. The point is: I can't manage to be emotional about someone I'm in bed with, and not think/hope of a possible relationship with him. If I'm going to get into bed with someone I'm interested in from a standpoint of other than just sex, but I know he's not very interested that way, that's when I put the brakes and tell myself it's Just Sex, do the dirty with him, and walk away without looking back. As simple (?) as that.



So there: the whole myth of Closetalk the Playa comes crashing down, to reveal Closetalk the Pansy. :)

OK, so I was never this bad, but....

OK, so I was never this bad, but....



o come on, wasn't this funny...?!

Rent Boy

Rent Boy

So my landlord looked at me and the Flatmate in turn, and pronounced in his slurred voice that there was no way on hell that he'd let us stay on in the apartment for the third consecutive term. Nada. And the great House Hunt has begun again.

Anyone who's ever come to live in good ole Bombay will know that this is one of the most vexing, irritating and (just simply) hateful aspects of the city. Getting a house to live in - a nice house to live in, as you think you deserve and need - is terribly hard to come by. You call up brokers and they inform you outright that you were a duncehead to ever think of being able to find a house for the price you're willing to pay. So, a bit nervous, you jack up that price by a couple of thousand or so... and then start the search. And that leads to phase 2 of the process, after phase 1, that was the Goosebump Stage.



In phase 2, the goosebumps disappear altogether, to give way to Humiliation.

That's when the wily broker takes you on a long and tiring search, showing you house after house, slum after slum, and you wonder why on earth you ever worked so hard day in and day out, if all you can afford in the city is a miserable little hovel. And the broker's false staccato laugh doesn't help any, either. House after house, failed hunt after failed hunt, you experience phase 3, Despondency.

Phase 4 is usually when you do come upon the house you eventually buy. That's called Compromise. And as the months go past, first two then three, you start thinking that maybe this is your dream house after all, and that's phase 5, False Hope. Till, soon enough, the eleven months of the contract run out, and you find yourself at the start of a new hunt, all over again.

And that's where I am, now.

The broker laughs at me and says there's no way I'll be able to get another apartment in my present locality for anything less than 15k. 1-bhks here are hard-put to come by cheap, he says, and I have to agree. What's the alternative? Bandra and South Bombay are equally pricey, if not more, so those are out. Kalina has absolutely nothing around - though Natureboy did suggest: "The Grand Hyatt! So much easier to get firang sex that way!" Aaa, but then I declined.

So, then there's Andheri. East is in the boondocks - nothing for miles but BPOs and dust roads. West is not bad - and here's where we encounter another problem. Andheri, the land famed for its gigantic multiplex movie halls and its popcorn-coke combos, seems to be too prudish for the Will-and-Grace combo.

So, this broker informs me very apologetically, that despite all his best intentions and the ample availability of flats, he will not be able to help me because we are an "unmarried couple", and the building society will throw a fit, and how it would be so much easier if we were a boy-boy or a girl-girl combo instead.



Wow, I think wryly to myself, what an unexpected benefit for same-sex couples - where they least expected it, probably!

So, there you go - I'm stll searching for a place: preferably for both me and the Flatmate, or if not, then just for myself but at a reasonable rate. Suggestions from my friends have involved the YMCA, or moving in with one of my other single (and straight) friends. And, of course, the venerable Natureboy suggested this afternoon over chocolate tart, that I end every GB party standing at the door when the lights come back on, with my best Lost Puppy-dog look on my face and a cardboard in my hand, assuring "WILL FCUK FOR ROOF".

And, no, though we had a good fit of the giggles imagining the subtleties of my outfit and expression during such a venture, I cannot say that the idea is particularly appealing.

:(

The Fox and the Material Girl

The Fox and the Material Girl

Hopped over to the Sports Bar this evening on a date with a cute guy whom I shall call NextDoorBoy, and they were playing amazing songs from the Retro Age. :) And that's when I thought about Samantha Fox.

NextDoorBoy: "I am so completely blown away by the fact that you remember Samantha Fox! I mean, my brother had a huge poster of her in his bedroom!"

Closetalk, grinning happily (this is beer no.2 and I get drunk fast, rememember?): "What's so strange about that now? I loooooooooooooved her Touch me song!"

NextDoorBoy patting CT's legs (was he hitting on me?): "Just that I haven't even met too many straight men who remember her - even though they may find her name familiar!"



Whereupon, I got up and proceeded to do a very ditsy Samantha Fox version in his ear, while he couldn't stop chuckling -

Somewhere in the city, and the night is young,
I was hungry for love, I was hungry for you...
... take my body like you wanted to....
This is tonight - touch me - touch me
I wanna feel your body - your body on me toniiiiiiggght!

But while NextDoorBoy thinks it's all pretty amazing that I remember Sam Fox, she was pretty much a life-sized idol for me, during my pre-teen years - kinda like Madonna. I remember that video of Sam's, where she wore this tight black swimming costume kinda thing, with black stockings and a jewelled belt and a black jacket, and did all these outrageous pelvic thrusts! Not even the fact that she did that gross Chicken Fry song with Bappi Lahiri for Bollywood could dim the awe in which I held her in. She was just - ethereally hot in those big, 36 D (ugh) boobs. :)



CT, in beer-induced academic frame of mind: "Sam was soooooooo much hotter than Madonna from the very beginning. I mean, don't get me wrong - I loooooove Madge. But whereas Sam pushed her sexy image from the very start with those nude photos and all, Madge came off as the rebellious gal in her early years!"

NextDoorBoy: "The Papa Don't Preach Gal, you mean."



CT nods, triumphant: "Exactly! And even later, when she got all glamorous and sexy, it was always like this good ole romantic sexy - not the trashy slutty thing that made Sam such a rage among all the straight guys!"

And, actually, that's why I think why soooo many women and gay men love Madge even now - perhaps more than straight men do. Madge appealed to the romantic or the breakaway, and only rarely did she try to be outright sexy. When she did, in Erotica and all, she always came a controversial cropper, not a runaway success. It was always Material Girl and Like a Virgin and Frozen and Hung Up where she hit paydirt. And she's not really a slut in those - just the hot gal in yards and yards of fabric loosely wound around her, which threatens to unravel. :) Madonna is the gal in the Venetian gondola dancing with the guy in the lion-mask - something which all fags and hags sigh over. Madonna is the gorgeous gal in red, choosing among chocolates and diamonds, a la Marylin - and no, straight men aren't likely to find the prospect of a lighter wallet very sexual.

Noticeboard: Trip, Fling, Ex, Party

Noticeboard: Trip, Fling, Ex, Party

Nothing really to talk about, but it's just been ages (read: five days) since I last posted here, so the fake heartstrings called and I decided to come back and write some crap. In bullet form, one by one -

• G4M is getting terribly boring. I know I've said that a million times already and I find myself going back online every evening nevertheless, but here I'm saying it again. Forget guys to have relationships with, there aren't even cute guys to fcuk anymore in Bombay. SnowWhite's Stepmother is right: why on earth did I leave the Jat/ Punjabi boys in Delhi? *wails*
  
  
• Ok, so that was the usual whiny where-are-all-the-men moment. What else is happening to me? A) Am going to the motherland next week; B) Am having a sort-of-fling with an NRI here in Bombay; C) The ex sent me flowers on V-Day and is now quiet. One by one, then -
  
  
• Calcutta beckons. By next week, this time, I shall indeed be in the land of poor Bongs and uncouth Marus and all the other stereotypes people have about us. Yes, I hate rassagullas, and yes, I'm not very fond of ilish (hilsa) either, and no, I don't go about wearing a starched dhoti all the time. They say I speak with a funny accent, and I'm the most non-Bong Bengali you ever saw. Wat-eva. :) I'm going home for a week.
  
  
• The fling with the NRI. Began as a Sex Thing, like they all do. Chatted online, when he was still in NRI-land, and knew from beforehand that he has this boyfriend he's been with since Donkey's Ears, so it was clearly gonna just be a Sex Thing. Well then, what happened? - Oops. Not to mean, it's still not a Sex Thing, but it's a nice Sex Thing - with dates and laughs and great romantic sex and stayovers and coffees/ brunches the day after. Dangerous territory? I know it is. I told him the other night, "You're a Boyfriend Proxie for me", and he found it amusing, I think. I think he feels very tenderly towards me too, but like I said, he's got a boyfriend, and I'm not interested in being a LTR creature again. Definitely not a Boyfriend No. 2 in a LTR. So it remains a Sex Thing - a nice Sex Thing - for the five-odd months he's got in amchi Mumbai. That's the whole NRI story.
  
  
  
  
• And yes, the ex sent me flowers for Valentines Day. He has been messaging me a coupla tmes since we broke up, and I've been terse with those, but three days before V-day he sees me online and tells me that he's realized what he's been missing, and that he was a fool to let me go, so can we please Get Back Together? Confusion. So I tell him, dahling, I'm not a yoyo you own, and no I'm not going to 'come back', because frankly all the problems that we had earlier (familial, professional, long distance etc etc etc) are still very much there. So I said, maybe it's all just a "O, look, it's V-day tomorrow and I'm all alone" thing, so just get over it. But, floozy that I am, I succumbed when he asked if he could call me the next day and talk some more. He did, we talked, yadayada, and he told me that he didn't want to pressurize me (wateva!) but would like to be in touch. I said exactly that - wateva. :)
  
  Two days later, I get the flowers. Nice ones, really, but SnowWhite's Stepmother thinks they're hideous Gujju things and I should have thrown them out ten seconds after the delivery man left. But I didn't - cuz I'm a floozy who's never received flowers from anyone before. So I kept them. And I actually let myself wonder, after that mandatory "thanks for the flowers"sms-and-reply, why there hasn't been any word from him yet. Yes yes, I know I sound like Pathetic Relationship Rani, and I daresay I am, despite all the random fcuking. Fact of the matter is, it's quite obvious to me that I was right at the very beginning - that this is just that "O, look, it's V-day tomorrow and I'm all alone" thing and he did get over it. And while I'm glad I got the flowers (my first, yay!) I'm also glad that he's not smsing me anymore. The problems really are still there - and they're even harder now, because of the break-up. I don't know how to deal with this, even though I know I'll probably always remember the great times we had.
  
  
• OK, that was the PRR showcasing herself again, so we'll just take a break here.
  
  
• O, and I'm having a party this weekend. The OTTT party - Over The Top Tarts Party, if you must know. Nothing really out-of-the-box - basically a variation of my Slutty Bloggers Party last year. Promises to be fun, so watch out. :)
  

Thong Throng

Throng = To crowd, press into, gather around
Thong = Sexy little number
Think the similar sound is a coincidence?

I had a Samantha moment the other night with my friends, when I was recounting my experience at the g-string shop.

"G-STRING shop????!!!!" exclaimed the Penguin, whirling around so hard from the front passenger's seat, I was half-afraid he might get whiplash.

"Yes, yes, you heard him right," said SnowWhite's Stepmother in a bored voice, composed only because his jaw had already dropped open three hours back when I'd told him about my purchase then.

And suddenly, I felt like I was Samantha Jones. That one who always talks about blowjobs and advises random sex with no commitments to her friends and is well informed about what grade vibrator to buy and what kind of workout one should get during sex, and so on and so forth. A Samantha moment, because SS says I apparently shock him on a routine basis.



But as far as I'm concerned, a gstring/ thong is hardly that news breaking. I mean, sure, it's racy - but then, it's meant to be! It's meant to liven things up in the bedroom when you're bored of good ole cotton boxers between crisp ole cotton sheets. That's when you want to don that black mesh gstring that exposes your butt and you wanna buckle on a great big belt on your waist and slip into those boots. Sure, it's not PG, but then, isn't everyone an A over here?

My first time in an 'exotic underwear shop' was in Calcutta, at the tender age of 17. I had seen an ad of this shop in a magazine, traced it down, and decided to pay it a visit. There was a mousy looking Gujarati man behind the counter, and I walked up and down in front of the store, but wasn't brave enough to actually go in. Finally, the next day, I summoned up my courage and walked in to buy something. And there, next to the mousy Gujju guy, was this complete hunk who was o-so totally droolworthy. I go over and ask him to show me some 'fancy underwear' - I need it for a party, I say - and the mousy fellow gives me a wink and takes a catalogue out. He probably thinks I'm a stripper who's going to perform or something, but I don't really care - I'm too lost in that brochure he's showing me - picture after picture of hot European/ American men in the tiniest and kinkiest of underwear, and I actually asked the mouse whether I could purchase the catalogue, as I had 'lots of friends who also want somethings for the party'.



The things I come up with!

Anyhow, so I buy two pieces from the mouse and his hunky assistant (probably a brother or brother-in-law), and leave. Over the next two years, I use my two purchases (1. black mesh, and 2. leopard print - yes, corny, I know) to my utmost advantage. When you have it, you thong it, dah-ling! :)

***

Coming back to the recent past, there I was, in this shop at Bandra, face to face with some more Gujaratis selling gstrings. (What is it with Gujjus and g-strings now? :) The G-connection...!) The old lady asks me whether I want the 'regular' or the 'fancy' stuff, and when I erm...erm, she shows me Chromozome. That's when I stop being shy and ask for something a bit more 'exotic', and then the old man pipes up, flashes me a big grin with 28 teeth and 4 cavities, and says that what I need definitely is the 'fancy' stuff! So out come the reds, blues, blacks and yellows in nylon, mesh, knit and leather, and I'm sorting through them.

Nicely cheap, at Rs 200, and I'm happy. So is the old man, when he sees my final choice, and he compliments me on my kinky taste and offers me his business card - "Give it to your friends. Spread the word."

From the Penguin and SS' reaction, though, I'm guessing that my friends would prefer I keep the word - and thongs - to myself!

A little bit of Tiffany's in the closet

A little bit of Tiffany's in the closet

So the other night was spent alone, owing to a freakish asexual mood, and the romantic 'mean reds' took hold of me. After a conversation with Sin, in I popped the VCD of Breakfast At Tiffany's, and immersed myself in Audrey's amazing Holly rendition.



And even though the movie-ending deviates from the book's, to embrace a totally soppy a la Bollywood happy ending, I'm so glad it does. I couldn't bear to see that yummy George Peppard losing out on the love of his life, and I couldn't bear to not see Audrey finally save herself. All said and done, the movie is terribly sweet, in a way that the book is perhaps sore, so I took the liberty of jotting down my favourite lines from the script.These are the funny lines, the gruesome lines, the quirky lines, the Holly lines. And some of them, are even the Closetalk lines.

:)

Sid Arbuck: Come on baby, you like me.
Holly: I worship you, Mr. Arbuck. Goodnight, Mr. Arbuck.

Holly: Listen. You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul: The 'mean reds'? You mean, like the blues?
Holly: The blues are because you're getting fat. Or it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Don't you ever get that feeling?
Paul: Sure.
Holly: When I get it, what does any good is to jump into a car and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness. The proud look. Nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then... I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name.



Holly: A girl can't go to Sing Sing with a green face.
Paul: Sing Sing?
Holly: I always thought it was a ridiculous name for a prison, Sing Sing, I mean. Sounds more like an opera house!

Holly: You could always tell what kind of a person a man thinks you are by the earrings he gives you... (tries them on and looks in the mirrr, and the blanches)... I must say, the mind reels!

Holly: I told him, "Look darling, you've got the wrong Holly Golightly." I do as well on trips to the powder room. Any gentleman will give a girl $ 50 for the powder room. And cab fare - that's another $ 50.

Holly: 300. She's very generous. Is that by the week, the hour, or what?
Paul: The Party's over. Out.
Holly: O red, darling Fred, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I was just letting you know I understand. I understand completely.



Holly: I suppose you think I'm very brazen. Or tres fou or something.
Paul: You're no fou-er than anybody else.
Holly: Yes, you do. Everybody does. And I don't mind. It's useful being Top Banana in the shock department.

Paul: Too dirty? Yea, I... suppose they're dirty, too. But only incidentally. Mainly, they're angry, sensitive... intensely felt, and that dirtiest of all dirty words - promising!

Holly: Do you mind if I just get in with you for a minute? It's all right, really, it is. We're friends, that's all.

O J Berman: Come in! It's a party - lot of characters come who aren't expected.

Holly: O J's a great agent. He knows a lot of phone numbers.

O J Berman: Answer the question - is she or isn't she?
Paul: What?
O J Berman: A phony.
Paul: I don't know. I don't think so.
O J Berman: You don't, huh? Well, you're wrong. She is. But on the other hand, you're right, because she's a real phony. She honestly believes all this phony junk.



O J Berman: Know how long it took me to smooth that accent? One year. Know how? We gave her French lessons. Figured, once she could imitate French, she could imitate English.

Paul: He's all right - if you like dark, handsome, rich-looking men with passionate natures and too many teeth.

Holly: Rusty Trawler! He happens to be the ninth richest man in America under 50.
Paul: Now, that, indeed, is a remarkable piece of information to have at your fingertips.
Holly: I keep track of these things.

Holly: It's a mistake you always made, trying to love a wild thing. You were always lugging home wild things - a hawk with a broken wing, a full-grown wildcat with a broken leg, remember? There's something - you mustn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to fly into a tree, then to higher trees, then to the sky.

Holly: You know the terrible thing, Fred, darling? I am still Lula Mae - 14 years old, stealing turkey eggs and running through a briar patch. except now I call it having the mean reds.



Holly: Do you think she's talented? Deeply and importantly talented?
Paul: No. Amusing and superficially talented, yes.

Holly: Anyway, every Tom, Dick and Sid sinks-thinks, if he takes a girl out to dinner, she'll just curl up in a litle furry ball at his feet, right? I have, by actual count, been taken to dinner by 26 different rats in the last 2 months. 27, if you count Benny Shacklett, who's in many ways, a Super Rat.

Holly: It should take you exactly four seconds to cross from here to that door. I'll give you two.

Holly: Just a minute. Do I have my nightgown on? No, I don't. Would you turn around for a second? Never mind. That's corny anyway. I'll turn around myself.

Holly: It turns out, he owes $ 700,000. Can you imagine anyone owing $ 700,000? Anyway, that's why he decided to marry the queen of the pig people.

Holly: Well, I've got a wonderful idea. We'll spend the day doing things we've never done before.



Holly: Personally, I think it would be tacky to wear diamonds before I'm 40.

Tiffany's Server: Do they still really have prizes in cracker jack boxes?
Paul: O, yes.
Tiffany's Server: That's nice to know. It gives one a feeling of solidarity, almost of continuity, with the past. That sort of thing.

Paul: Tooley, you're a very stylish girl. can't we end this stylishly?

Paul: Is that what you really think? That I'm no different from all your other rats and super rats? Wait a minute. If that's it... If that's what you really think... there's something I want to give you -
Holly: What's that?
Paul: $ 50 for the powder room.



Holly (out of jail at 10 am): Quel night!

Holly: Hand me my purse, will you, darling? A girl can't read that sort of thing without her lipstick.

Holly: I'm not hotfooting it after Jose, if that's what you think. O no, as far as I'm concerned, he;s the future president of nowhere. Only, why should I waste a good plane ticket?

Paul: You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken. You got no guts. You're afraid to say, "OK, life's a fact." People do fall in love. People do belong to each other. Because that's the only chance any body's got for real happiness. You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing. You're terrified somebody's going to stick you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded by Tulip, Texas, or Somaliland. It's wherever you go because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.



Moon River, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you're going I'm going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end--
waiting 'round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.

- music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Johnny Mercer

The Date-A-Base

The Date-A-Base

Sometime back, I found myself jobless at Bandra in the middle of the day, thanks to a client meeting that had finished way too early, and a mind that balked at the thought of going back to work before time like a good li'l lamb. So I roamed Hill Road, picking up lampshades and wondering if I could drop by somebody's place for a quick encounter. A glance through my phonebook showed me, however, that I was in a dry zone indeed as far as my personal acquaintances were concerned, so I called up Vivian for assisstance.



Vivian: "Sorry, darling. I just deleted all my numbers. I'm stepping away from the Slut Stage now, I've decided. At least for some time. What about you? Hard to believe you don't have Bandra numbers!" *shock and awe*

CT, groans in despair: "I'd gone through that silly phase myself sometime back, you see, and that's when I deleted all my Bandra numbers. Now the only Bandra contacts I have left are hard at work in some boring office in Fort or Nariman Point. Think I should go over and take some dick-tation under the desk?"

Vivian squeals: "Oooooo, you must, dah-ling!"

CT sighs again: "Naaa, if I'm going back to South Bombay, I may as well go back to work. Looks like this is going to be a no-hookey day after all. What we need is a safeguard against such silly situations that crop up because of a moment's deliberation of virtuousity!"

And that's where the idea of the date-a-base was born. Think about it. It's so deliciously simple, really. I mean, every single gay boy goes through those phases, those ups and downs. Those times when we decide we've had enough of searching for heartbreaking love, and sex is the only real thing out there in Gay Bombay, so then we hunt and hunt and hunt some more, collecting numbers like locusts and screwing throughout the city like good ole Bathsheba (actually, she was much maligned, methinks), until, somehow, we get all tired of it all, and arrive at that silly Sanyas Stage.

No sex. No casual sex. Suddenly, all those columns of delicious numbers, arranged in As, Bs, Cs and so on, from Cuffe Parade to Borivili (some even go as far as Dahisar!) , and likes and preferences and body types... those marvelously detailed databases are erased at the press of a button. 57 CONTACTS READY FOR DELETE... DELETE? blinks that foul blue indicator in your phone, and you tell yourself that you are headed for greener pastures, love and longing, to hell with mindless sex, and you get seduced enough to press the button. DELETE.

You exist in your fool's paradise for all of three weeks. Maybe five at the most.



And after those three weeks are over (five, at the most), you find yourself slapping your forehead at your momentary lapse of reason and over-reaching principles that made you think that love will come drifting down to you in Gay Bombay as soon as you stop slutting around. But the hormones are still roaring like crazy and you're left high and dry. Without numbers. Without contacts. And you go back to work on a day which could have included a wonderful mid-afternoon lay instead, if you had never been so sodding stupid!

CT: "We need a date-a-base! A technological network equivalent of a Black Book."

Vivian gurgles on the other end: "Oooooo, I like, I like. Go on, go on."

CT, seeing the light of Sudden Inspiration: "Yes, yes.... it will automatically get filled in as soon as any of us - the Family - exchange numbers with any one out of the group. And it stays there, even after we cut ties. Like a reference book, for the rest of us!"

Vivian claps his hands: "And we can label them according to types and preferences!"

CT: "Of course. Top/ bottom/ versatile, hairy/ smooth, old/ twink/ middle ages/ thirties... the works!"

Name	Location	T/B/V	Age	Remarks
Ashish	Bandra	T	28	'pure top' - no oral sex, likes being sucked
Raj	7 Bungalows	V	32	excellent head, anal sex not a specialty

Vivian: "Can we rate them too?! On a scale of one to ten?!"

CT screws up his face: "Well, I dunno about that. That might not work too well. One man's prince is another man's pauper, you know. But maybe we can work things out as we go on.... what do you think?"

Vivian whoops in joy: "I love it! We must spead the word! To SnowWhite's Stepmother and the Penguin and to Helen of Troy and the Guppie and to Diamond Choker Baccha!"

***

We're putting out the ad in the papers tomorrow, so all you top-notch computer geeks out there who want to make Gay Bombay a cozier place, feel free to apply.

Closetalk preens in front of the poll-mirror again...

Closetalk preens in front of the poll-mirror again...

So, after my last online poll revealed me to be 60-some-odd per cent histrionic, I got on the poll-wagon again, after hittin on some quirky ones on a friend's blog. So there, you go - candid answers to some hilarious questions which revealed some (ahem ahem) interesting insights...

Your Porn Star Name Is...

Jack in the Box

What's Your Porn Star Name?

You Are 82% Sexy

Your Sex Appeal Is: Off the Charts! Let's face it... you're one of the sexiest people around. And you don't let anyone forget it. You're crazy hot, and you deliver on what you promise. You are definitely one wild ride.

How Much Sex Appeal Do You Have?

Your Love Type: ESFP

The Performer In love, you relish every moment and tend to get caught up in passion. For you, sex is how you get in touch with all your senses. Overall, you are creative, popular, and flexible. However, you tend to dislike criticism and avoid any conflict. Best matches: ISTJ or ISFJ

What's Your Love Type?

Some Sane Advice

Some Sane Advice



After being subjected to yet another bout of moaning and groaning about how beautiful love is, SnowWhite's Stepmother bursts out: "O, all you silly gay boys do all this whining for something totally useless - don't you know, the one thing worth living and dying for is a gorgeous Louis Vuitton bag???"

Who's hosting the chat show here?

Who's hosting the chat show here?

Many moons ago, when Allygatorlover had asked me how often I blogged, I replied confidently enough that it was at least two to three times a week. He'd seemed impressed back then. This evening, however, over a late-night coffee conversation with SnowWhite's Stepmother and the Penguin over the online chat phenomenon, I realized, that was hardly the case anymore. The fact is: my blogging activities have been taken over slowly but surely by the rather more lurid promises held out by the Late Night Chat.

I've always looked at online chat as the best form of cruising. No more the roundabout-walkathons of my sallow youth in Minto Park in Calcutta or CP in Delhi. Bombay has been a coming-of-age for me on more counts than one - and Cruising Methods also falls in this category. Listing user profiles, uploading pictures, writing some (hopefully) fun and witty introductory remarks, and then the usual shit about body type, sexual preferences, yadayadayada... The idea of screening who you meet before you meet them was so much more appealing that walking round and round the proverbial mulberry bush, making furtive eye contact, and then probably finding out that the guy you fixed your glare on doesn't know a word of English.



But the thing is, the damn thing is addictive. The thrill of logging in to the website and seeing that popup window scream out NEW MESSAGE is racy, to say the least. That prompts SS to log in regularly from home, even when his assistants are working in the very next room. That prompts me to regularly sign on and chat till late into the night. I've become so regular on a certain chatroom, I can pretty much predict who I'm going to see there, and who I'm not. That place now holds only one novelty for me - chatting with the foreigners who drop by from time to time, looking to chat with an Indian guy, because as I've told SS, I've somehow come to the conclusion that most of the Indian men in Bombay who're online are thoroughly boring or not my type or both. Somehow, it's the foreign guys I prefer to chat with - not just in the hope they're coming to Bombay soon on a little trip that might mean some great sex, but there's also that fantastic thrill that comes from flirting even when they're not coming anywhere close to the subcontinent...



Am I the new Gay Jane Goody?

The Penguin asked us this evening, whether we didn't find the entire situation a tad boring. He had profiles of his own on all three or four major sites, but has deleted them lately, citing 'boredom'. (Boredom, by the way, is a common phenomenon with the Penguin. *grin*) But both SS and I replied that we were anything but bored, really.

"You can leave it, if you make up your mind, after a point, that you've had enough of it, and don't want anymore of the whole stuff," said SS, "But no, I don't think there's a situation boredom sets in. It's like CT said - addictive. Quite addictive."

The addiction in my case, of course, goes an extra step than it does for SS. He doesn't find himself awake at 3 am, chatting with NYC-HotBoi (or whatever they're called), a smart, hot 27 year old doctor from New York City, laughing about the lack of edible Bombay boys, and trying to convince him to come over for his next vacation. I do. And he doesn't have a list of five men who've made tentative plans to have sex with him over the weekend. I do. And he doesn't suddenly bump into an ex online in the dead of night. I do.

This morning, after my sex-date left, and the flatmate was finally free to come out of her room, she asked, very matter-of-factly, while pouring out some water for herself, "So, how was it?"

And I thought - Is this routine? Do the flatmates of all gay men ask them this when a sexual encounter has ended?

Or is it because of my apparent addiction?

Diplomatic Immunity

Diplomatic Immunity

On my way to town Saturday morning, and I'm on the phone with the Penguin. As the train courses its way along the Western Line, he and I end up talking about, well, men. I tell him about the extraordinarily hot Australian guy who I'd met the night before (and who's legacy - chapped and sore lips - are still with me, even as I write this), and the Penguin was guffawing as I described why I like Australians... and it's not just because of their terribly cute accents and the fact that they love kangaroos.

Penguin: "You know, you could become a Gay Cultural Ambassador or something for us, CT..."



CT, grinning modestly while the train chugs along: "Well, if you think that I can help good ole gay folks in any way..." *giggles*

Penguin: "So, is there any country you haven't done? Do tell!"

CT, exercising weak memory cells: "Well, of course there are loads of countries I haven't seen, you know....

I mean, I was glad I did the Pakistani at the Sheraton the other week because that was really really fun and good for neighbourly affection and all that - plus, cuz he was a Punjabi Tiger (if ever they exist!) in the sack - but I haven't really done a Bangladeshi. In our immediate circle of influence, I've also done a Sri Lankan - during the Chennai years, you know - but not up north. No Nepali or Bhutanese...

Never thought I'd be attracted to Chinese men, but then there was that hot guy from Hong Kong who was here on an exchange programme in Andheri West, and he was a pretty vigorous top. Then there was the American of Chinese descent who was a completely great bottom, very smooth, very energetic, very... yummy. And I'm sure it doesn't really count, but then this Aussie fellow lives in Jakarta, so maybe that covers a bit of South East Asia, though not as much as I'd like to...

Americans are the easiest of them all, of course. I mean, they travel to India (and especially Bombay) like anything. Spiritual Upliftment or whatever upliftment - *giggle* LA boys are cute and hot, hot rugged men from the north are very sexy, NYC guys are bindaas like Bombay Boys, and hell, one meets tonnes of Canadians online also - so, am sure I'll do one of those pretty soon.

London's like the S&M capital of the world, you know. It's quite overtaken Amsterdam and all. I mean, I did have this beefy German flight attendant who liked a fair degree of BDSM, but I looove the Brit boys for their sheer versatility - they love it hard and fast, and they also like a good amount of vanilla. The French are pretty sweet and gentle - this one I went out on a date was like the most generous ever - and no, I'm not a hooker... yet! There was the cute Spanish guy in Delhi - very adorable accent, and a powerhouse between the sheets (as if either of us covered up during our encounter - hah!) And the Italian that time in the Hyatt was also damn sweet - and very long lasting too! *shy grin* Had this Swede once, living in Australia, and yes, they are right about colder climates and longer appendages, you know.

O, and did I forget the cute guy from Dubai who was down here from London? The word is Y-U-M-M-Y. :)..."



Penguin, chortling now: "I repeat my question: Is there any country you haven't done?"

CT, ponders: "O, well, of course I haven't done anyone out of Africa, you know. Never had the opportunity to try 'Once you go Black, you never go back', so I don't know about that. And like I said, I want to expand my South East Asian horizons. Russians - now, that's a breed I'd like to examine in detail - Russians and East Europeans. I mean, let's try some Bel Ami for real now! and o, yes, South America... Any country would do. Peru or Brazil. I think Cuba would be nice too."

Penguin agrees: "Cuba would be nice!"

CT sighs: "A nice long puff on a smouldering Cuban cigar... oops, was I profane now?" *grin*

Anyhow, so later that evening, I meet the Family for dinner at Lokhandwalla, and the first thing I do on seeing the Penguin is grin and amble over to him. "You remember that list we discussed this morning? Well, you can scratch Africa and South America off that list, da-ling!"

Penguin looks speculatively at me, a bit afraid of what to expect, but delightedly thrilled as well.

Closetalk, grinning broader now: "African descent from Venezuella! Two birds with one stone!"

'Slap Him, He's French!'

'Slap Him, He's French!'

Natureboy is standing opposite the Lion Gate at Kaala Ghoda, and I'm panting as I reach him. Of course I'm late.

Closetalk: "Terribly sorry. Had to stop off at the Taj for some work. Shall we walk it then? Not too far away."

Natureboy, absentmindedly: "Aaa, it's ok. Was standing and cruising a very cute specimen here while waiting for you."

CT, whirling around, but we're already quite some distance away from where we met: "Where, where?"

Natureboy, chuckling: "O, he's gone now, I think. Very cute. I was looking at him while chatting on the phone with you, and then he looked back, and when I walked ahead and turned around, he'd turned too."

CT, sighing: "Bad luck he cruised on ya now - anyway, maybe he'll be there at the concert. He may like French."



Natureboy shrugs. We're on our way to the latest installement of the Kaala Ghoda Arts Festival, and a French rock band named Merzhin will be performing at the *cue to laugh* Horniman Circle. Twenty minutes later, Natureboy and I are in the thick of a noisy concert, surrounded by a mix of corporate executives and runty collegians, all head banging away to glory.

Natureboy, shaking head: "Ummm.. did you know it was going to be this... loud?"

CT, shrugging: "Well, it is a rock concert. But... no. I didn't. Are we just getting older, or are other people getting younger?"

Natureboy screws up his face now, and makes me promise to leave after the next song. The next song starts and finishes, and just when I think we should be heading back, Natureboy brightens when the guitars and the pipes start again, and says, "O, this sounds much better now. Let's stay for this song."

So the song is actually quite fun, and then I spy this paan-vendor type some way ahead going wild at the group with his hands in the air and all, and I nudge Natureboy: "Think he knows French?"



But my companion screws up his face again, and pronounces a "O dear" when a college kid a little way off screams bloodcurdlingly. While he gazes at the girl in wonder, I groan and say, "I would never act this demented for anyone - except maybe Madonna and Kylie. But only those two. "

The cute frizzy haired frontman for the band announces that they're gonna do a loo-oove song, and the crowd goes crazy again. On cue, a relic from the 70s whips out a lighter, which lasts about ten seconds before it goes off. I'm sniggering, but also enjoying the song. Strange.

Meanwhilel, Natureboy is gazing at a gang of French teenagers who're going wild at the songs, and he's quite intent on the three boys in the group. I follow his line of vision, and wonder aloud, "Do you think they're gay?" as they start dancing with each other. Natureboy sighs, and says, "Naaa, they're French."

Closetalk giggles, but assents.