Flavor of the Week: Ho is For the Holidays

We met them by the pinball machine.

“So are you guys together?” the little guy asked me. I detected the accent immediately.

“Are you Australian?” I said, answering his question with a question.

“Yeah!” I could tell by his big smile and high-pitched inflection that he was glad that I hadn’t said English or Irish or whatever he was used to being labeled. His name was Paul and his friend, Max, whom he was visiting while on holiday, was standard New York trendy, complete with perfectly tousled red hair and scruffy beard. Max lived in the East Village and said he was an “architect.” At least there would be none of the “I live in Bushwick” dealbreakers. Plus, it got my friend Will going since he’d been working at an architecture firm and was always ready to start spouting his building babble.

It was a couple of days into the New Year and both Will and I were so bored we were out looking for fun at Barracuda in Chelsea. I’d just gotten back from visiting my family for the holidays in Illinois. After having to listen to Grandma ask for the 12th time how I was doing in the big city and my little sister complain about her job at a discount retail store, I wanted to put all that out of my mind. And the best way to wash all of that feel-goodness off seemed to dive right into the sluttiest bar on the West Side.

For whatever reason, Will and I were good wingmen, always having more luck pulling a boy when we were cruising together, so I called him up and he was glad to join me for the sport. It was one of those strange, spontaneous nights. The ones that start out so innocently. And you never know where it might take you.

The pinball machine was perfectly placed in the room: You could lean against it and see just about every corner of the bar, plus the newbies as they unbundled from the chill. Will and I had started making a habit of stashing our stuff in a corner (too cheap for coat check) and nursing a vodka tonic in the same spot. After we scored one-half of a set of Venezuelan twins, we were hooked.

Tonight seemed to be going well. Soon we were coupled off: Max with his hands firmly on Will’s ass, as Will kissed him through his light orange beard, while Paul and I snuck off to the toilet twice, where we peed, ogled each other’s dicks and managed to grope for a bit between the door slamming into us. It was enough to make up Paul’s mind.

“Why don’t you guys come with us?” he said.

Will and I had been drinking for a bit, but the night was just beginning, so it seemed like the perfect time for a party. We finished our watery drinks, left the bar and the four us started to search for a cab to take us to Max’s apartment at Houston and First Avenue. We all crammed into the backseat, our hands grabbing whichever appendage was handy. Snow was beginning to fall and the cab inched across town.

“Wait, we need to make a stop,” Paul said. He leaned forward and told the driver to stop somewhere on Fifth Avenue, near Madison Square Park. He jumped out in the middle of the street. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” I called to him.

We were parked at the curb now, and Max was being just as mysterious. “He’ll only take a second,” Max said.

“What’s up?” I was puzzled, but there was something about Paul that was so thrilling. His upbeat, slightly crazy attitude made everything seem like an adventure, so I was willing to wait and see what happened next.

“He’s getting coke,” Will whispered to me. “Just shut up.” Oh, we were in the middle of a drug run. Well, sure, whatever we needed to get the party going. In a few minutes Paul returned and jumped in the front seat of the cab.

“All right boys. Onward and upward we go,” he said, a big smile plastered across his face. Paul climbed into the passenger seat, leaving me pushed up against Will and Max, who remained frisky in the backseat, trying to remind each other what they were waiting for as our cab crawled through the cross streets.

We were stopped at a red light in the East Village when Paul jumped out of the car the second time. Closed in on all sides by trashcans and half-melted mounds of gray snow, I could see boys and girls hurrying between bars, bundled in thick scarves with creative knots. Australian Paul pounced on a dark shape at the curb and rushed back to the car.

He yanked open the backdoor of the cab. “Merry Christmas!” he yelled. And he began stuffing a discarded fir tree in our laps. The needles stung and poked. I was receiving the brunt of the bush and yelped as I tried to push it back out the door.

“Hey! Hey! Stop it!” the cabbie barked. The driver turned around and tried to squeeze his hand through the space between the seats to keep Paul from pushing the tree inside. But there seemed to be a slight hesitation as if he too was taken with Paul’s enthusiasm and was paralyzed from any real action by the stupid glee in Paul’s eyes. “Boy, you stop! Stop!” I managed to keep the tree out of our eyes and laps and push it back into the street, where it lay bashed on the pavement, glittering with tinsel. Paul hopped back into the passenger seat.

“Stupid boy. Why you…?” the cab driver didn’t finish, but we could detect a broad smile through his thick whiskers. Paul started to banter with him as if they were old friends. Why were Aussies able to get away with just about anything?

A few more blocks and we made it to the building, stumbled into the elevator— still picking strands of twisted tinsel from our bodies—and finally safe and warm in Max’s studio apartment. A large bed filled most of the room. Paul pulled out his baggie and got out his keys.

“Here, have a bump,” he offered to me. I’d only had cocaine once before and it had never seemed like a sexy drug, but I wanted to play with Paul, so I snorted what he gave me, and Max and Will followed.

Two big leather armchairs faced each other at the base of the bed. Will sat on Max’s lap, me on Paul’s, and we began to make out. The symmetry of it all felt strange, as if we were two high school girls with their older college boyfriends, sneaking out of the house for a quick smooch. We snuck peeks at the other couple to see what sort of progress was being made. We continued to caress and kiss, fumbling with limp dicks, and soon the clothes came off. Will and Max were nestled up under covers in the bed. And Paul and I found our own place, squirming on the carpeted floor.

Yes, I was glad to be back in the city.

This was certainly the best cure to forget those Midwestern family holiday blues.