In the mild California winter of my freshman year at Stanford, I answered an ad in the Daily. A grad student in Sociology was writing her thesis on gay male behavior during the late '60's. I met Rachel at a particular bench on the Quad and liked her immediately. While she had some written material for me to look at and a list of some questions, most of the material she was gathering came by way of an extended interview. She was ready to listen, and was I ever ready to talk! Not a tortured conversation about whether and how to come out to my family. Not even a "gay rights" oriented set of queries. Rachel wanted to know about how I was negotiating within and outside the closet.
Two hours flew by. I felt so grateful to be able to share my story, not as a set of problems but as an adventure! Before we parted, making sure we had all of each other's contact info, Rachel gave me a quizzical look and then burst forth with a question. She'd just the day before interviewed a local high school Junior named Tom and --- her yenta eyes sparkling --- would it be okay for her to give Tom my number? She was sure we'd like each other! What fun!
Those who have perused past posts here will know that, though I'd had a lot of experience during the previous three years making out with men, I'd yet to meet, let alone get it on with, any gay guys my age. So I had my fingers crossed.
Three days later Tom called. Cute voice. Yes, let's meet. No, I don't have wheels, either. His friend was egging him on in the background. Tom conferred with his friend, Deborah, who did have a car, so it was settled: they'd come pick me up the next day, Saturday, at the top of the Oval.
Ah, the glory of one, big front seat! Deborah's car was a big convertible. Tom smiled and open the passenger door. He was a bit shy and so was I. Deborah made that better right away. With a great sense of fun and a major dose of 'Why not?' Deborah knew she'd done good.
Tom looked to me like the prototypical cute high school boy, a bit of Brylcreem in his combed dark blond hair and a full set of shiny braces on his teeth. We drove into town, headed to Peninsula Creamery. Our manly pheromones seemed to pull us into spontaneous kissing in no time. I mean, we had just started to chat as we drove down Palm Drive, Deborah merrily keeping up a happy patter when, before Tom or I knew what was up, we were kissing like neither of us had before. We didn't even come up for air until Deborah was parking the car.
I don't think it was until we were sitting in the diner, still wanting to kiss but willing to briefly sublimate with milkshakes, that I even had a thought about the happy spectacle we'd been making, gliding down the avenue in a gold convertible with the top down, making out like bandits. Both Tom and Deborah were good conversationalists. And as we got down to the slurpy part of our shakes, Deborah could read on our happy faces that the siren song of testosterone was calling to Tom's and my eager mouths.
And so, as winter blossomed into spring, the three of us went lots of places and Tom and I did lots of kissing. I learned to work around the braces. As Deborah's convertible was our one and only place to date, several months of driving all over the place meant miles of smooches, neck nibbles, tongue tips in ears, and deep, long longed-for, unabashed kisses. One of my fondest memories with dear, eager Tom is crossing the Golden Gate Bridge on a top-down kind of afternoon TWICE, passionately kissing a boy named Tom all the way.