It was going to be a quick trip to the
supermarket. I didn’t even want to go in the first place but I had visitors
from Cape Town and they wanted breakfast. Luckily it was early and I got parking
right by the entrance of the mall. I zipped through the aisles grabbing the
necessary and as I swept a two-litre bottle of milk off the shelf an Adonis
checking out the nutritional info on the side of a milk carton stopped me in my
tracks. He looked like he just came from a Homotography photoshoot with bulges in
all the right places. He hadn’t shaved in two days and his hair was elegantly
messy in a spiteful kind of way. I decided I also needed long life milk so I
ditched the plastic bottle and headed over to him. “Did you know that low fat contains
more calcium than full cream?†He looked at me and smiled as he scanned the
length of my body. I lifted my shopping basket slightly to mask my growing
desire for the stranger.
“I’m impressed†rolled off his lips and I tried
to top my cheesy pick-up line with something about protein. The words curdled
when I saw his wedding ring. “Shopping with your wife?†I asked, hoping he
would say he was married to a man. It turned out he was straight, i.e. married
to a woman and I felt embarrassed for hitting on him. I made up an excuse, fled
to the nearest paypoint and started unpacking my basket. When I looked up he
was queueing behind me holding a single box of milk. “The scanner she’s not
working,†the woman at the till said with a click of the tongue as she started
punching in bar code numbers. I was stuck…
Quite unexpectedly Adonis extended his hand
and introduced himself to me. We exchanged names and silence set in again. He
was obviously trying to put me at ease after I had overstepped the boundaries.
Then he asked if I came there often and that’s when I became suspicious about
his intentions. “Ooh, eh eh,†the till lady said, echoing my thoughts. She
finally got the bar code for the bacon right and I felt relieved as I headed
out with my groceries. Halfway to the exit Adonis caught up with me. “Put your
stuff in the car and meet me downstairs,†he said, giving me a piercing look. I
got to my car and tried to make sense of the weird invitation. Was he going to
abduct or strangle me; was he part of a organ harvesting syndicate? But he
didn’t look evil. Au contraire! My curiosity and hormones got the better of me.
What did I have to lose, except maybe a kidney? There was only one way to find
out…
I got to the basement where he was standing
anxiously behind a pay station. We started walking towards a storeroom in the
corner and I asked why he had the keys. He told me his wife owned the flower
shop upstairs and this was the chilling room where they kept new deliveries. As
he locked the door behind us he murmured that he had never done this before. I grinned
in disbelief because up until now he had been very assertive for a novice. We
unbuttoned each other’s jeans to let our excitement out – en garde. I had
barely touched him when it was Niagara Falls. Luckily my watch was waterproof
and I realised he must have been telling the truth: it was his first time with
a man. But unlike most satisfied men who generally “roll over†he continued to
pleasure me with his mouth. I warned him when I got close and tried to pull his
head away. But he persevered knowingly and I let him.
As we buttoned up our jeans I said we
should do this again but he was scared to give me his phone number. He thanked
and complimented me nonetheless and said he really would have liked to sit on
my lap – that had been his fantasy since he was a teenager. Maybe there’d be a
next time…
I saw him in the mall a few days later,
this time with his wife. He didn’t look in my direction and I also pretended he
was a total stranger. I’m sure he appreciated my discretion but this got me
thinking. If you’ve been having gay sex fantasies, why get married to a woman
before exploring or establishing your sexual orientation? Maybe we’ve been
brainwashed by decades of Plascon and Ricoffy ads where the perfect family has
always been a man, a woman, two kids and a fluffy dog. WTF! How many men live a
straight lie that ultimately ends in disaster. The 2002 movie Far from heaven and Showtime’s recent
series Masters of sex depict this
with poignancy. The social label you choose to wear should not jar with whom
you’re sexually attracted to or whom you have sex with.
Not all married men who have occasional sex
with men are gay or even bisexual. Whether it is an experiment, an adventure, disclosed,
consentual or not, these men are generally not as informed about safe gay sex
practices as the average gay guy today. This kind of intel is more freely
available in gay saunas, gay media and other avenues not frequented by straight
men. It’s okay to have a thing for married men but it’s up to us to educate them
in this regard: Don’t be daft, cover your shaft.
Health4Men
is a project of the Anova Health Institute NPC, funded by USAID through PEPFAR.
This article represents the contributing writer’s personal views.
Health4Men
would like to hear from you too! Gay and bi men from throughout South Africa
are welcome to submit articles about their own lives, primarily regarding
sexuality, sexual health and relationships. Selected articles, like this one,
will be published in print and online. For submissions please mail
media@health4men.co.za.
