rants n raves
by tom miller
rants n raves
by tom miller
11/03/98 - 12:02 P.M.
on crabs, beer, and love
normally, i'm not a slut, though i have been called a slut on many an occasion. in fact, my last relationship was two years and was completely monogamous. well, okay, there were two, maybe three indiscretions, but that's still not a slut. a slut has a couple-hundred flings and winds his sordid life up by sticking a cigar in somebody's cunt. that's a slut. but i've been so non-prolific in my lust that for awhile i wondered if it was all over. it wasn't. ever since i got my digital camera and used it to have cybersex from denmark to japan to most of the free world, i thought maybe i would do a little better with this pastime than the usual nighttime jack-off session, which was more of a sleeping pill than a hot self-love experience. but instead of satisfying some primal need in my nuts, i found i wanted more. i wanted flesh again. and sure enough, i went out and found myself a date. someone i had been interested in for almost a year. he was a nice guy, too. smart, handsome, fun, interesting. but let me tell you friends, he had a mouth on him that wouldn't quit. i'd go to this restaurant where he worked with about six other queens, and it's as if everyone there knew my sexual history with this guy. i had this nightmare idea that i would walk over to the lunatic who drinks coffee at the breakfast counter and rambles and drools about nazi germany and river phoenix and norwegian snow otters, and he would turn to me and say, "so, i hear your fucking mr. x over there."
i had to give the guy up. i'm 33, the age of christ when he was nailed to the cross, and i've got better things to do then feed gasoline to a sewing circle of yaking sissies. next thing i hear from my x-boyfriend, who goes there for breakfast every so often, is that now the guy was telling his gang i gave him crabs.
it's one thing to have crabs, but quite another to not have them when everyone thinks you do. especially in a small town like gainesville, florida. crab central.
so i took great offense at this, but never mentioned it. i had heard and seen that the guy was in bed with more people than madonna, and if he had crabs, it was probably from one of his little friends, not from me. but then i thought, maybe he gave me something. so i did the search, looking for the little evil beasts. i hardly have any pubic hair anyway (oh boy, did you ever need to know that, or any of this) so it wasn't to difficult to figure out that, yes, i was crab free.
side note: i feel i have to share this. i am insane, especially about hygiene. i use approximately eleven products when i shower, and i shower three times a day, at least. i check my ear for hair and pull it out. i work a tool under my nails. i got stuff for lips, underarms, balls, asshole, teeth, eyes, you name it. i'm a fucking freak, but i'm a goddamn clean one. the idea of a crab on me is like finishing a cup of soup only to find half a roach in the bottom, and it's not dead.
back to the action: so that was that. i was over him and he was over me and maybe he had crabs, but i sure as a sonovabitch didn't. then i banged some other guy. then i got with some guy who i had met five years earlier when he was something/teen years old, and now he was older and he was taller than me, and he came to the club to hook up with a new guy every night. sex with him was good. he's a good looking guy. strange guy. the kind of guy that will stick his finger in your asshole, but won't kiss you with an open mouth. how fucked up is that?
how it happened: i was so drunk, as usual. he says, "got any pot?" and i reply, "maybe. let's go." this is meta-language for, "wanna' fuck?" "sure."
we get to my place and sit on the couch. we smoke the pot and get remarkably stoned. i look at him in a sexy way. "i'll be right back," i say. then i go to the bathroom and as quietly as i can, yak.
then i return and he's stretched out with an obvious hard-on. "need anything to drink?" i ask. "sure," he replies. i bring him a grape soda. i drink some. "i'll be right back," i say. i go to the restroom and yak again. it's blue.
i gargle and return to the couch. now his cock is sticking up from his pants. i got the hint, but as if things weren't clear enough, he says, "i've got this hard-on all of a sudden." and i said, "let's go to my room." we do, and the rest is history.
on with it: so having sex doesn't satisfy for long. in fact, quite the opposite. i wanted more. two days later, i'm wandering around the gay bar on my day off, and here's this puertorican guy looking like he's looking. so i pick up on him and we go to his car. then we go back to my place and have a round of "i-don't-know-you and you-don't-know-me" sex. he tells me he's from jacksonville, and asks me if i can be his boyfriend. i tell him no. truth is, anyone who would sleep with me on a first date can't be my boyfriend because they're a disgusting slut. i should know because i am one.
he leaves and i go to bed. the next morning, something feels itchy. i go into the bathroom and there it is. it's looking up at me.
"hi, tom. guess who. it's me. crab. i'm locked in here, so don't try anything or i'll lay eggs."
unfucking believable. i dig him out with my fingernail. shave all the hair off my body. scrub myself with a scrubby thing. peroxide. toothpaste. alcohol. crab-killing stuff from the pharmacy. scrub again. wash everything twice. spray the room with crab death.
not since 1984, i kept saying. not since 1984.
i don't mean to be one who stereotypes, but until i hear differently, all puertoricans from jacksonville have crabs.
i'm a clean guy. i only participate in safe sex. i get tested every four months for HIV. to date, i'm negative. i don't know how, given my reckless history as a teenager, but it's true. but one day, it might be a crab just as easily as a virus, no matter how hard one tries to avoid such things. my love, one day it could be the end.
that's true for me.
that's true for you.
not so funny now, is it...
motherfucker.
(tune in next week for the continuing adventures of tom miller and his world of the mad and lonely.)
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