While anonymous sex is nothing to be proud of in this day and age, I found myself a little thrilled last night. the City Councilman, his cousin, a co-worker of his, and me went to HEAT. It was a typical Friday night; the transsexual porn star jiggled provocatively to "I Love Rock 'n Roll" (Britney, of course), young men cruised even younger ones, and everyone looked good in their jeans. I was in the midst of a cigarette and a story out on the deck when I spotted an old friend - Jack.

Jack is an old-fashioned song and dance man with dreamy eyes, a deep voice, and quite a nice ass, might I add. We met a thousand year ago, when he was still in high school, and I drove a periwinkle blue minivan - with power locks and manual windows. I was a freshman at Incarnate Word at the time, and he sneaked out of his parents' house to meet me - hopping into my minivan wearing the tightest jeans I'd ever seen clinging to a teenage body - note: this was before Emo and/or skaters. We danced all night, and I felt like a chicken hawk for wanting to see him naked. I never saw him naked, by the way - but we flirted innocently for a while before losing touch.

Eight years later, and in the company of several dozen of my closest homosexuals - I always see someone I know when I go out; I've lived here far too long - I reconnected with Jack, and we were appropriately all over each other. Perhaps it is that I am short, or otherwise soft and squishy, that people - men - always hug me, hold me, or otherwise tend toward affection with me.

This is often true with straight men.

So, when I saw the tall, skinny, somewhat awkward white guy standing by the pool table, I should have seen trouble comin'. the City Councilman and his friend were chatting up the tall, skinny fellow. He looked more dressed for a nice dinner with the wife at Applebee's than the hottest gay bar in town. And he was holding up a wall outside the ladies' room. He was looking for his wife ... and some dick.

Ryan and Liz are swingers. They were in town - from Wichita Falls - for Thanksgiving, and ditched the family to hit the nearest gay bar - in hopes of each picking up a same sex partner for a night of frivolity and possible switching. Liz was not doing so well, although she made a valiant effort to hook up with two drunken housewives (I think they were each there with their gay sons / co-workers), a bartender, and a particularly convincing rag queen. Ryan, on the other hand, had five hands in his crotch and two tongues down his throat by the evening's end.

But then, the evening didn't end. I went back to their hotel - the Sheraton Guenther - and was right in the middle of getting his pants down past mid-thigh when Liz started to cry. It had been her idea that we make out, and she watch ... and then she lost it. I excused myself to the bathroom so that they could talk. And then Ryan came to get me - asking me to talk to her. I crawled into bed, where she'd flung herself - sobbing, and rubbed her shoulders as I whispered sweet nothings about how her husband loved her, how I wasn't a threat and didn't want to be, and how I'd sit quietly and watch them go at it, rather than doing her husband often and with much fervor, as I'd originally intended. It worked well enough, but the momentum of the whole thing was off by then, so when she started crying again - something about not wanting her husband to leave her, not wanting him to be gay - I left.

Ryan, ever the gentleman, called the concierge to order a taxi - for which he also paid - and I left the hotel, with dashed hopes and blue balls, somewhere half past 4 in the morning. It was a night to remember - if only so that such a thing never should happen again.

Mark