The Hookup from Hell

It had now been three entire months since I had made my first sojourn into the gay scene. During this time, I had learned so much about the (so-called) gay culture within New Delhi that I would later learn would be essential to my survival. I learned that the term ‘straight-acting’ was almost always used synonymously with the term ‘closet-case’ by the denizens of this city. I discovered that drag-queens were treated with abhor and scorn for being true to themselves, unlike majority of the ‘bisexuals’ who chose to live in denial of who they truly were. I learned that those whose profiles that were sparse in content belonged solely to those looking for a quick lay. And those who claimed they were looking for something more than a quick lay would magically change their minds the minute they exchanged numbers with a hot guy that was well-endowed.


Things were going pleasant with The Bull. Well, at least for him things were going pleasant. At first I was thrilled to be his ‘good friend’. We would speak on the phone for hours discussing every possible subject under the sun; from my obsession with Broadway Musicals – particularly the musical Wicked – to him going commando in linen trousers as the material felt amazing on his tool. Everything was going great, till he began giving me intimate details (that being the most ‘polite’ way of putting it) about his rather active sex life. He wasn’t what one would call classically good looking. He was rather short (5’7), his body was average but far from fit (alcohol can really affect a once toned physique), and if you took a close look at his face, you’d probably be reminded of a potato. If you had to think of a celebrity look-a-like for him, it would probably be Tom Drake – who played the role of John Truett in Meet me in St.Louis. And despite all that going against him, he certainly got a whole lot of action. But then again, he was a Taurus; they’re all hung like a bull. And like Judy Garlands character in Meet me in St.Louis, Esther Smith, I too found myself oddly drawn to The Bull despite my better judgment (and no, not because of what lay between his legs).


The worst part was that he would go on about his numerous sexploits in the manner casual acquaintances would talk about the weather – frank, to the point, and without a hint of hesitation. Even if he did get the slightest thrill of bragging about them, his voice showed no such indication of it. From male models to college professors; from married men to barely legal teens; from preppie clubbers to gym bunnies, and I could go on further, but just typing all this is giving me a complex. And even though majority of the times I would feel a mixture of disgust, jealousy, and wonderment over how he never managed to get an STD, I listened to it all patiently with the calmest smile I could muster. After all, that’s what ‘good friends’ are supposed to do … right?


One afternoon, whilst in the middle of narrating another one of his McNasty tales, the bull questioned why I never shared with him any gory details about my sex-life. Well, if it was someone else, I would have just given my usual schpeel - ‘a lady never tells’, but since we were well passed the stage of conversational etiquette, I told him that I honestly couldn’t bring myself to have a one-night stand with someone. And it’s true, I had never had one. Well, there was Laurent, the French man who gave me the best four hours of my life till that time, but that’s another story for another time. The Bull guffawed and told me that there was nothing to having a one night stand, claiming it’s the best way to release pent up energy. And since both parties knew it was only for the night, there would be absolutely no strings attached, and hence it’s a total win-win situation.


Although my mind wasn’t really convinced by that, my body spoke another story. Granted, I don’t go around having sex whenever the urge comes about – Bel Ami movies always help out – but it had been a really long time since I had any kind of action, and well, the way The Bull kept going on and on about his sex life, it did get me all hot and bothered. I suppose one of the many things that did keep me from indulging in random hookups was that I still wasn’t happy about the way my body looked clothes off. True, I had managed to lose quite a bit of weight in those three months, making me look quite cute in my face-pics, but being raised in a very looks-conscious household, I tend to be super critical about my appearance in general. To top it all, people in Delhi tend to have what’s known as a ‘small-town-mentality’ and hence gossip and rumors spread at the same rate as they would in high-school. And the gay community here would be like ‘The Plastics’ from the movie Mean Girls.


However, I rationalized that perhaps it would be a wise idea to indulge in a one-night-stand with someone just visiting Delhi, preferably from a different country all together. I figured that way in case things went bad it wouldn’t really become common knowledge with every single gay man within the tri-city area (also known as the National Capital Region or NCR). Although May wasn’t really tourist-season and that did reduce my chances greatly. But fate has a funny way of conspiring, and within a few minutes of my pondering, I got a message from an Indian guy visiting from London.


I couldn’t really make out what he looked like, as the pic he sent me was a full body one taken at a distance with a large pair of Ray Bans covering half his face. However, he was wearing a beautiful tan Dolce jacket with a stunning Hermes scarf around his neck that didn’t make him look queenie. So I figured that if the man could carry himself well and wear trendy labels, he would at least be presentably chic up close. Plus he said he was a Sagittarius, shameless hookups are their middle name. After exchanging a few messages back and forth, we arranged to meet up at the PVR Saket complex the next day.


I couldn’t sleep at night. My stomach was churning as if it were creating a cocktail of excitement, panic, and trepidation with a dash of anticipation. Paranoid thoughts races through my mind, ranging from whether or not I’m gonna become a total man-ho like The Bull or whether I might contract a sexual or social disease from the random stranger to whether or not my Latina-esque booty would end up being a bigger liability than it already was. Curses to be born a man with a pear-shaped body!


However, the fear of getting ‘panda eyes’ on my flawlessly bronzed skin was far more great at the moment – hey, I wanted to look my prettiest best – and hence I played Madonna’s Something to Remember CD in a loop to serenade to sleep.


The next morning, to my horror, I got a zit! And not just your common garden variety zits, but those icky puss-filled ones that look like a bright red cherry right on your forehead. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating, but considering what was supposed to happen later that day, I was screaming operatic notes of horror. Without thinking twice, I ran out to the market dressed in the exact outfit I wore while sleeping – a pair of boxers which had Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls on my ass area, a T-shirt from my XXXL days that had the slogan ‘Deliciously Full’ sprawled across my chest, and a pair of lime green slippers with a faux fur lining (any chances of hiding my sexuality that day were exceedingly slim) – in order to get my secret weapon against any form of facial acne, a facial scrub made from lavender and tea tree oil. To my horror, the shop keeper informed me that the company that produced it had gone belly-up and he sold had sold his last stock a couple of days back, leading me to perform another operatic screech.


I began to run back home in a frantic manner. I was almost run over by an SUV while crossing the road. The driver pulled over ahead of me and got out and tried to block my path. I told him to let me go as I was having a life-or-death emergency (to me my skin is one), but he insisted on giving me a lecture on how I should be more cautious while walking on the roads in Delhi. Aggravated beyond comprehension, I bitch-slapped him tightly across his cheek and announced in my Diva-tone, “Outta my way Biatch!” and ran as fast as my slippers could allow me. In an almost Cinderella-like twist, the strap of my slipper came apart and I was forced to run the rest of the way barefoot. The fact that I had to abandon one slipper hurt more than the hot tar road that had been insulated by the Delhi sun – they were incredibly pretty!


Back home, I was pacing up and down in panic. Not only was I gonna have cold no-strings-attached sex in less than three hours, but I had a zit and a missing slipper to deal with. The whimsical side of me reasoned that perhaps a Prince charming would find my slipper and come searching for me. The logical side reminded me that it would probably be the driver of the SUV hunting me down to kick my ass. Luckily, I remembered an old herbal remedy that required turmeric paste, red sandalwood powder, and a mashed banana, and quickly made a paste of it and applied it generously upon my face, with an extra dollop where my zit was. Within an hour of application, the zit had visibly reduced quite a bit, and my skin had a luxuriant radiance about it. Pleased with the results, I began my elaborate ritual of ‘pretty-fi-cation’ while belting out “I feel pretty, oh so pretty” from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story – the best song to sing while getting ready before a date of any kind. Donning a black Hugo Boss golf t-shirt and a pair of indigo jeans that hugged my butt in the most flattering manner, I headed off to get laid.


Upon reaching the Saket shopping complex, I checked my reflection in my car’s rear view mirror. I don’t mean to toot my horn, but I was looking rather cute, and for some reason I was feeling all the more calm and breezy about meeting him and indulging in a hookup. Besides, hookups are common place in the gay world, and it’s almost part of the complex unwritten code of conduct that stated every gay man had to indulge in them once in a while. So with that, I headed over to Om Book Shop, where he would meet me in the ‘fiction’ section.


When I arrived, there were about three people in the fiction section. None of them were dressed in labels nor looked remotely pleasing to the eye. Biting my lip, I headed to the self-help section and grabbed a copy of “Men are from Penis and Women are from Bras” and pretended to be engrossed in it while eyeing to see who could possibly be my hookup for the afternoon. Within the span of five minutes, two of them had picked up their respective books and had headed out and it was just my luck that the ickiest one was left behind.


His face was more or less structured to resemble a chimpanzee, with a fat bulbous nose that was took the attention away from his thin rodent-shaped mouth. Calling his hair line receding would be a compliment for him, and unlike his picture, he was dressed in the shabbiest clothes ever – a cheap Sarojni Nagar sleeveless tee with ratty torn jeans. It made me wonder if the labels he had donned in his pics were cheap knock offs. Taking a deep breath, I decided to approach him, after all, I hadn’t gone through all the drama of the morning just to head home empty handed (although now I wish I had).

“Hi, are you Siddharth?” I asked (not his real name) by flashing my Venusian smile trying to generate all the charm I could muster.


“You’re fatter than I thought” he replied brashly – so much for English manners.


Arching a quizzical brow, I remained silent but made sure my eyes indicated that his comment was offensive and in my mind I felt like telling him that at least I didn’t look like the mutated half breed of an ape and a rat, but being brought up by a strict appreciation for good manners made me use the subtle approach of silence. Being a Sagittarius, subtlety of any sort is just wasted on them, and he quickly added, “But I suppose you look nice” to which I flashed my ‘I wanna smack you but wont’ smile.


“Alright, let’s get a move on, we have three hours before my mum comes back from Kirtan” he announced while heading out of the store. Great, while his mother was praising the lord in a prayer-meet, I would be screaming the lord’s name in vain in her son’s bedroom.


To top it off, he had come via taxi, and expected me to drive him back to his place. I didn’t mind, it was just a ten minute drive, and plus I just wanted to get this over and done with as soon as I could. So once there, he began to get all paranoid about neighbors seeing him and all. So he got out of the car and told me to park it around the back and enter through the back door. Too exasperated to argue, I just nodded and followed his royal cuntyness’ orders.


Once in his bedroom, after he locked all doors and windows and drew all the curtains shut, he ripped his shirt off revealing a not so fit torso that had NOT been recently shaved and jumped on top of me, shoving his tongue down my mouth. Wide-eyed I felt like I was about to choke, I pushed him off me and gasped for air as I asked him to slow down a bit. He rolled his eyes, “fine but hurry up, I wanna get this over with before mum comes home” as if I wanted to re-enact the scene from Titanic, where Leo and Kate were in the car, with him!


However, his tone magically became nicer after I kissed him, “Mmmm … you’re a delicious kisser!” I smiled cockily at my mild triumph and I continued kissing him as he let out soft moans of pleasure between kisses. Although I can’t say I had much practice prior to this in kissing, so I guess I’m just a natural (wink wink). Kissing him however, was not so pleasing to me as like his chest, his face hadn’t been recently shaved, and the stubble was really itching me and made my face feel as though it was gonna burn. A word to all the men who are reading this, either shave your stubbles or use a good moisture regularly if you wish to keep one. It’s murderous to kiss a human cheese grater.


The worst was when he removed my tee and lay on top of me, let’s just say I had to run home and apply a week’s worth of aloe cream on myself overnight to soothe the swelling his chest stubble caused. He was a clumsy lover, very wooden and no fluidity in his movement. I honestly wasn’t even enjoying myself and the voices in my head were singing a chorus of “I told you so” with a verse of “this is what happens when you do the McNasty with a random stranger online”. The experience itself was rather nasty.


“Sat-Sri-Akal Aunty Ji!” He answered his cell phone promptly after two rings, jumping off me as if I had the plague and got up on his feet and began conversing in Punjabi that was laced with his East-London accent, “Ki haal hai?”


With nothing better to do, I began thumbing through a men’s health magazine he had laying around his room, as he continued conversing with his paternal aunt and filling her in with all the trivial minutiae of his life. Just as I was engrossed in an article that was discussing the pros and cons of penile implants, he began tapping his watch frantically, indicating we were running out of time. I shrugged my shoulders as I didn’t know what to do as he was still on the phone. Without a second to spare, he kicked off his Jockeys to reveal his surprisingly hard dick (surprisingly because I found it hard to imagine someone maintaining an erecting while talking on the phone to relatives from their pind) and motioned me to come over and service him off. I would have said no, but just like Taureans are hung like bulls, Sagittarians are hung like horses, and being primarily fueled with testosterone, I just couldn’t help myself. Never ever blow a person in the middle of a telephone conversation, it makes them moan in all the wrong places, and giggling at the fact causes your teeth to hurt them a little – although quite frankly he deserved it.


Within fifteen minutes, he got off the phone and announced, “Oh fuck! You give the best head ever, I just gotta lay ya now!” Charm was definitely not his forte.


So I layed on my back, lifting my legs up and wide in the air yoga style, while he began the first of many unsuccessful attempts to penetrate me. You see, the genius did bring a set of rubbers with him (Kohinoor brand, pistachio flavored) but conveniently forgot the lube. He refused to rim me because he ‘didn’t do that’ and hence decided to use a variety of products down there. From talcum power to lotion to even VLCC shower gel. Nothing worked, leaving an icky-poo paste between my legs. I pushed him off and ran into the shower, cleaning my ass off that mess. Can you blame me for not having an erection throughout the entire ordeal?


Once I was cleaned up according to my standards, we decided to try to wing it sans the lube. Big mistake! Sometimes men who are blessed with a large endowment are unfortunately cursed with the disposition of not know what to do with it or how to use it well. He could barely get his head inside before I began letting out moans of anything but pleasure. He begged me to keep my volume down as he didn’t want the neighbors to hear about it. I snapped back that he should try shoving a ripe cucumber up his ass without a lube and try to remain calm and serene. He shut up and suggested we try another position. So we did. We tried seven more and got the same result. It was now that I realized that penis size doesn’t really matter at all, it’s technique that counts a lot more.


Disappointed I just pushed him off and gave him a hand-job till he came all over himself. I refused to let him return the favor because for all you know, he might just break it off considering how clumsy he was. Plus I still couldn’t bring myself to keep an erection going as the entire afternoon brought me no pleasure what-so-ever.


I showered again and quickly began to put my clothes on. He grabbed me and to my surprise he was hard again and stroking himself, “We still have an hour more to go you know”, and shoved his tongue again down my throat. Another note to men who are reading this – shoving your tongue down someone’s throat doesn’t make you a passionate romantic kisser. I pushed him off and made up a story of having movie plans. He didn’t have the courtesy of walking me to the door for he was afraid what the neighbors would think and so I marched off without even saying a polite goodbye.


I got into my car and sped back home with tears streaming out of my eyes. I was filled with a gross feeling of putrid disgust at myself for having done what I did. So strong was the sick feeling in my stomach that I pulled over at some random street corner and ran to the bushes nearby to throw up in revulsion. I crawled back into my car and began frantically dialing The Bull, hoping he would hear me out. He was in the middle of a meeting but asked me to come over to his office area where he would meet me down in the parking area.


Once there, I narrated the entire incident to him, and even though he listened patiently, instead of sympathizing with me, he just shrugged his shoulders and went, “Oh well, at least you didn’t fuck him!” and after finishing his ciggie, he headed back into his office as he got a call from his supervisor, promising to call back later in the night – which he didn’t.


Upon reaching home, I spent three hours in the shower, scrubbing myself with a pumice stone to make sure I had every bit of that guy’s icky essence off me. Curling into bed, I swore to myself – Never again would I ever let such a thing happen to me again. To quote Samantha Jones from Sex and the City – “Fuck me badly once, shame on you; Fuck me badly twice, shame on me!” I realized that I just couldn't bring myself to casually be with someone who not only didn't respect me as an individual, but would also just leave me feeling all the more disgusted by myself. I guess it was never the physical thrill that I was after, but more of a connection on an intellectual and emotional level. True, it's hard to find, especially in a city like New Delhi where the average gay man has an IQ smaller than his dick and empathy the size of a pea. I still remain hopeful in my quest of finding a like-minded-soul.


And this is why I never indulge in hookups and one night stands with random strangers off the internet.