I'm From Driftwood

by Robert Dominguez

Club Stars was the last of the 3.2 alcohol gay teen bars in 1990, located just west of lower downtown Denver in the railroad yard just off the old 20th Street viaduct. My friend Kyle, a 24-year old blond guy that I had met at the Aurora Mall, suggested it would be a good idea for me to go there and meet some friends my age. The club itself wasn’t that spectacular. It was an old tire warehouse that had been painted all black on the inside with a dance floor at the far end and a bar, lit with Christmas lights, along one wall. Tom, the owner, was a large German man in his mid-thirties with broad shoulders, paunchy stomach and one semi-lazy eye. Situated at the cashier door, he intimidated the hell out of me with his towering ego, large crossed arms and a thick, throaty laugh.

“And just why should I let you in?” he scoffed at me as I stood in front of him in my latest rayon paisley print with black MC Hammer pants to match. I told him that I wanted to meet friends. “Friends? In here? That’s cute. Good luck.” Often, though, after I convinced him to allow me in, I would pull up a bar stool next to the cashier cage because I was too scared to venture past on my own. I tried not to disturb him too much with what I felt were stupid questions, but in some sense I thought of him like a friendly pit bull. As the night would wear on he would often give me a clue or two about the patrons that passed through the front door.

One night a large maroon Mercury stretch limo pulled up outside the door. From it emerged three very tall and glamorous looking women. I was in awe and asked Tom who the women were. “You’ve never seen drag queens?” No, I answered. “They’re not real women,” he continued in his deep voice, “they’re men dressed up like them.” With that the first of the three entered through the front door. Dressed in a blue sequin cocktail mini, adorned with large earrings, glossy lips and a mass of curly hair, she resembled something of a Diana Ross knock off. “Bitch,” said the sparkly lady to Tom, “wha cho up to?” Tom said something about business as usual. Then she turned to me, her tarantula eyelashes widened with delight. “Well hello baby,” she flirted while lightly scratching the side of my face with her long, red nail extensions. “I’m Brown Sugar.”

Completely star struck (I was after all under age in the illusionary presence of a Motown legend) I could only think of one question. “Is that your limo?” She looked at me, then Tom, and laughed. “‘course that’s mine. Why? Would you like to go for a ride?” she asked. I couldn’t contain myself. I had never been in a limousine before and I couldn’t believe that I was going to now. Boy, if the kids at school knew what I was doing on a Friday night, I thought. Having sipped down half a pitcher of beer while seated at the door, I leapt with excitement from my bar stool. I flashed Tom a big happy grin. He shot me back a silent raised eyebrow with a tilt of his head. “Girls,” said Sugar to the other two, “I’ll be right back. Come baby,” her nails now scratching the top of my head.

The driver opened the rear door and I bounded into the back seat. What few parking lot lights there were looked like muted stars against the sky through the dark, tinted glass. Brown Sugar slid into the seat next to me. Before the driver closed her door, she instructed him to take a few laps through downtown Denver and then we were sealed into the dim lit cavern. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked as the car lurched forward over and around the potholes in the parking lot. I told her no, I was fine, but the reality was I had no idea what kinds of cocktails were available. All I knew was beer. “You got the face of an angel, baby.” I smiled with embarrassment and looked out my window as the car started to weave among the streets lined with high rises. I asked her if I could open the rooftop window. She obliged and as the dark glass slid open, I noticed the black privacy window rise between us and the driver.

Instinctively I knew something wasn’t right as Brown Sugar slithered over to me and onto the floor. “Pull down your pants,” she growled. “I want to suck your cock.” All of a sudden I realized I had to pee really bad and that it wouldn’t be a good idea. Plus, she was starting to frighten me. I attempted to be coy and said something like “what about the driver, we can’t do that back here.” She laughed at my naivete and in an instant had my pants half way down around my thighs. Oh god, I thought, this can’t be good. From my crotch this mound of synthetic wavy hair started to rise and fall, but I just couldn’t get hard. My bladder started to really throb. Crap, I worried, I’m going to piss in her mouth if I strike up a boner. Several times she looked up at me with a sneer and I just sat there with a terrified toothy grin. “Why don’t you close your eyes,” she whispered. That made it even worse for me because all I could think was I didn’t want to be known as the guy who took a leak in Brown Sugar’s mouth.

After several minutes, Brown Sugar sat up in a huff and ordered me to put my pants back on. She then lowered the privacy screen and barked at the driver to return us to Stars. I sat in an awkward silence as we returned to the club. When the car slowed to a stop outside, I thanked her and exited quickly before the driver could open my door. I sped past Tom at the cashier cage to the toilet to relieve myself. When I came out of the bathroom, Brown Sugar and her groupies were seated at the bar shrieking in hysterics while they stared at me. What little self-esteem I had was shattered and I bolted out of the club and went home ashamed of myself. For the next two weekends I avoided Stars, and when I finally returned, Tom asked where I had been. I lied and said busy with school. Before we could continue anymore conversation fate would have it that the maroon Mercury limo pulled up to the door again. I panicked, but stood next to Tom as Brown Sugar and company entered.

She said hi to Tom and made sweet talk conversation as her crew hovered and passed without paying cover. Then she looked at me. “Wanna go for a ride?!” She howled and hissed in laughter. Her minions jumped in on cue and I felt the blood rush to my head. I wanted to run, but luckily they moved on into the club and I sat mortified next to Tom. After about five minutes of silence, I felt Tom’s meaty left arm weigh in across my shoulder. “Brown Booger?” he said in a low gruff with a squeeze of his elbow. “She’s a tired bitch.” Grateful for his support, I then only had to wonder what “tired” meant.

-(Share your story with us!)

by Bobbi Dykema

I’m from Strasburg, North Dakota, hometown of Lawrence Welk. They played polka at my senior prom. A very homogenous, provincial, rural backwater of a place. I got picked on as a kid because I was different: brainy, literate, ironic.

I didn’t really glom onto the possibility that I was anything but straight until my sophomore year of college, when my best friend (male) came out to me. That started the gears turning in my head. Like maybe my interest in the ladies’ underwear section of the JCPenney catalog had a sexual dimension to it.

Luckily there was a small but supportive community to come out in. My best friend. The GLBT group on campus. I was also in the process of questioning my religious identity and beliefs, and had started actively attending the local Unitarian Universalist church, which was also an extremely loving and supportive environment.

For me, coming out has always been an ongoing and multi-layered process. After finishing my bachelor’s degree at North Dakota State University I moved to Minneapolis and began actively dating women and participating in the lesbian community. I discovered that many of the women in that community at that time were more or less openly hostile to bisexual women. So I identified as lesbian and tried to keep the other side of my sexuality under my hat. When I first came out, I wanted to make my appearance advertise my newfound understanding of myself as much as possible, so I chopped off my hair and started living in flannel. After a few years I realized that wasn’t really me, so I let my hair grow back and re-embraced lipstick and dresses. I remember calling up my friends on Saturdays to see if they were going to the club last night—Club Metro, the lesbian bar in St. Paul. It was a big place, two dance floors, a sports bar, etc., so my friends would ask how they were going to find me. My response was always the same: “I’ll be the one in the skirt.” And I was. My pattern was to ogle the pretty women—usually in jeans, but with longer hair and jewelry—and go home with the butch ones.

When I’ve been with a male partner my sexual orientation is often more or less invisible, or at least it feels that way. I’ve been told by lesbian and bisexual women friends that I set off their gaydar when they first met me—even in makeup, heels, and a skirt. Probably at least some of the people I know, such as my students, colleagues, and acquaintances, assume I’m a straight ally. That’s okay. What I hate is when a person, usually a straight man, finds out I’m bi and assumes that means I’m poly and/or into threesomes (like with him and his wife/girlfriend). No, thank you. I’ve explored polyamory a little and find it intriguing but I get jealous too easily for it to work for me in anything but theory. And I don’t really like sex for the sake of sex; I want there to be emotional closeness and real relationship too.

I have often found support in unexpected places. After my best friend came out to me, I asked my mom what she thought of gay and lesbian people. She said, “I think they’re God’s children like anybody else.” Or when I was on the phone with my dad and mentioned my girlfriend’s name, and he said, “Well, you’re both welcome to come visit anytime—you can take my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.” Or when my aunt picked me up at the airport, asked about the book under my arm (something about GLBT life), and said, “You know we love you just the way you are.”

I just finished grad school, and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for the first three years of my program. What a rush to be in a city where people living all kinds of lives—partnered, single, poly, with partners of different ages, races, genders, etc., and it’s really not any great shakes. In New York, everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. In San Francisco, everybody’s gay on Pride Day. I love that.

So much has changed for the better in my lifetime for GLBT people. I was 27 when Matthew Shepard was murdered. Now same-sex marriage is legal in 10 countries, 5 US states and DC. We still have a long way to go, as the recent publicized suicides of bullying victims testifies. But I am so grateful and proud to be part of the GLBT community. An army of lovers cannot lose.

-(Share your story with us!)