Queen City Memoirs

By John Bendt

"Not everything is what it appears to be," John Benedict, a gay man, learns the hard way after moving to youth and beauty-obsessed Southern California. He hopes to find love after the breakup of his eleven-year relationship but wonders, At forty years old, is it too late for me? A fun, carefree life as a writer with new friends, country western dancing, and romance is soon shattered when a love-triangle betrayal along with financial disaster lead to life-changing consequences. Several men come and go in his life, each bringing their lessons. He loves fearlessly, always searching for spiritual answers and happiness, along the way finding out that he has a lot of growing up to do.

John struggles against sex and relationship addiction and works hard to heal himself while building a new life. But disillusioned by go-nowhere dates, painful traps, and abortive relationships, he makes a choice to stop looking for love but instead revels in the single life of sex clubs and party drugs. Though independent and living life to the fullest, he eventually realizes that something is missing. Will he ever find lasting love and the elusive healthy relationship he has been longing for?

Queen City Memoirs is a chronicle of our times around the turn of the twenty-first century and beyond. It is set against the backdrop of the history of same-sex marriage--from an impossible dream, through a growing global consciousness, then culminating in 2008 when gays and lesbians were at last able to marry in California, only to have our civil rights voted away.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887932415

Book preview

1

Floyds (1992)

I’ll never forget Floyds; for a time, it provided the main stage for the drama of my life. Floyds Bar was a little piece of country-western heaven plopped down in the middle of metropolitan Long Beach, California. Whenever I had a hankerin’ for some country music, a couple of Lone Star beers, and a little Texas Two-step, I would head to Floyds and was always delighted to find the handsomest men and best dancers there. Back in the early 1990s, Floyds was crowded with possibilities, excitement, and hope for the future.

I’d had a lover up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Exhausted from stressful jobs, long commutes, and periodic layoffs, we needed a change. We moved together to the Big Island of Hawaii, only to have our relationship fall apart a year later. I decided to move back to California, but no corporate, straight-world job for me again. I wanted to use my creative side and start a writing career. It was scary and exhilarating all at the same time. And this time, I would try Southern California. I’d always dreamed of its world-famous beauty and warm weather.

My new hometown, Long Beach, seemed a gay Mecca to me. It wasn’t called the Queen City only because the Queen Mary was anchored in the harbor. There were dozens of gay bars, gay restaurants and stores, a gay pride parade, and a gay film festival.

I was not a big drinker, but where there was dancing, that’s where you’d find me. My ex didn’t like dancing. I wanted to find myself someone who did. That’s how I started taking dance lessons at Floyds and soon made friends and partied there every weekend. Before long, I found that I couldn’t take my eyes off one of the best dancers there. He had his eye on me too, cruising me heavily every week, though we never even met for the longest, most excruciating time. I felt that I wasn’t in his league, dance-wise, and he probably thought I had a lover since I was always there with my best friend, Frank.

Frank had totaled his BMW earlier that year. After ogling and braking for some hot young thing, he got rear-ended, only not the way he liked, he used to joke. Because of some personal debt and credit problems, he couldn’t get a new car. I used to pick him up at his apartment and take him to Floyds. We’d hang out together, and I had to take him home early so he could get to sleep. He worked as a parts manager on a space program project for a company near LAX and had to catch the bus early to get to work. So, come together, hang together, and leave together might spell lover to a lot of people. That wasn’t the case, however.

I first met Frank months earlier at the gay gym, which was right next door to the Long Beach Gay Center. He was the same height as me, which was six-feet-four and had dark hair, a mustache, and a cute bald spot on the top of his head. He was thirty-two; I was forty. He cruised me back by the back machines but wouldn’t make the first move. I thought, If he wants me, let him talk to me! I left the gym alone. The only problem was that he was not there the next day or any other day that week. Exactly one week later, he was finally there, and this time I didn’t wait to say hi. He was attractive, seemed nice, and it looked like he had a good body underneath his gym T-shirt. After our separate workouts, we both wound up in the steam room, naked and alone together where I got a real eyeful of his body…and his beautiful endowment. The latter looked big and thick and had many wrinkles and folds in it. It was already a show-er, but I knew it was going to be a grower too. I asked him out right away.

Oh, wow, I love white flowers! Black and white are my favorite colors, he said when I showed up at his door for our date that Friday evening with a single white rose. Whether luck or intuition, it earned me an early kiss.

Frank’s 1920s apartment was incongruously but well decorated with famous designer mid-century black leather and chrome. There were black-and-white art photos hanging on the wall. I really liked his place despite the fact that it was devoid of plants and color. When the apartment tour wound up at the balcony, being a plant fanatic, I was a little dismayed when I spotted all his dead houseplants lying in a huge heap out on the balcony floor. I recognized the remains of some spider plants, a wilted dieffenbachia, and brown ferns.

I have a black thumb. He shrugged and grimaced. Everything I touch dies.

At dinner that evening, I learned that his family belonged to the Divine Light Mission church founded by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Yogananda was a swami from India who came over to the United States in the 1950s or ’60s, I forget exactly when. He taught meditation and yoga, Frank said. My father worked to develop weapons of mass destruction up in San Jose in the 1960s and converted to the Divine Light teachings as a way of coping with his guilt.

I got hooked on metaphysics, you know, ‘New Age’ by friends of mine at work in Silicon Valley: chakras, crystals, psychic readings, past lives, and all that stuff.

I love metaphysical and psychic stuff too, he replied. I don’t see us having any past lives together.

No? But who knows about this life? I wondered aloud.

Yeah, maybe. I’ve never had a lover, Frank told me. I’d like to though, someday. I’d like to date someone.

Well, me too, I replied.

*****

Months later, Frank and I were at Floyds one Thursday evening, enjoying a couple of beers, talking, and watching the dancers. We’d tried dating, and it hadn’t worked out. Happily, he’d developed into a dear friend. I felt safe with him and could tell him anything. We talked on the phone every day and went out three or four nights a week. He was the brother I never had, and being a twin, that was bittersweet. I was estranged from my straight twin brother.

A friend of Frank’s, whom he had met a couple of weeks earlier, Bill Calquhan, spotted us and joined our conversation. Bill was a slight man in his early forties, cute, but still wearing a 1980s-style mullet and mustache. Bill seemed a timid man but talked openly with us.

I’m kind of smitten with this man named Roger, Bill informed us. "I met him here, and I’d hoped to see him tonight. He’s soooo good-looking."

"Really! Frank said, sounding fascinated. What’s this guy like?"

Roger is a little older, and he’s a doctor. He has such ‘queerisma,’ and oh…a very big dick. I’ve slept with him twice. He recently broke up with a young live-in lover who is still living in, unfortunately. Roger isn’t ready to date yet. Bad breakup.

Frank had been interested in Bill but now found out that Bill was not really available, not unlike the object of Bill’s affection, Roger. Some of my favorite songs had been playing while we were chatting, and I was aching to dance. Although Frank could do a simple two-step, he didn’t really like to dance. I could usually drag him out there on the dance floor only once an evening. But now, all of a sudden, a set of line dances was starting. At the very first note of the familiar line dance song, everyone rushed out to secure a spot on the dance floor, including Bill. It was like the starting bell at the races.

Over at the other end of the bar, I spied the object of my interest: the handsome, excellent dancer of my dreams. For the first time in two months, I saw him alone, and it seemed like divine providence. And he was cruising me again. We had never seemed to be in the same place at the same time; he was always dancing with someone else, or I was busy talking with friends. The excitement and frustration had built up to a frenzy inside me, including the buildup of sexual tension. Something needed to happen soon, or I was going to explode. Frank spotted him too that evening, grabbed me by the shoulders from the rear, pointed me in his direction, and gave me a little push toward the man.

This has done gone on long enough. Go rustle him up! he told me in his feigned cowboy accent. So I finally went over to him and introduced myself.

Hi, my name is John, I said and shook hands with him.

His name was David (and not Dave). I got a close look at him for the first time in the bright lights of Floyds’ pool table area, and he stood up to the test. He had bright-blue eyes, thick auburn hair, a reddish bushy mustache, and a sexy five-o’clock shadow. His rosy cheeks and high cheekbones gave him a young, innocent look. He was about five-foot-ten, I guessed. Immaculately dressed in a freshly pressed Brooks Brothers blue shirt and like-new wranglers, he accessorized his outfit with expensive black alligator boots and a matching belt. He was a verified complete package of gorgeousness.

Frank, you know, the guy I come here with is my best friend. He and I have a platonic relationship, I informed David, wanting to clear that up right away. I’m single. You’re single too?

Yes, I’m single, he replied, smiling warmly.

My first impression of David was that he was pleasant, and there was an elegance about him that made him seem to be a quality person. I also found him very sexy of course. His stares had seemed as if they would burn a hole right through me, but here was not the extremely passionate or oversexed man that his heavy cruising suggested. No, he seemed serious, straightforward, and a tad reserved. We talked for a moment about dancing with chemistry blazing, but it was already nine, and I had to get Frank home. The next day was a workday for him. I excused myself and left the bar with Frank. At last, the ice had been broken. And he liked me! I felt like a puppy love-stricken teenager.

On the drive to Frank’s apartment, I told him all about the meeting. That’s wonderful, he said. I’m happy for you. But I detected that little sadness in his voice. I understood it because of my own abandonment issues. I guessed that he now feared that I might go away.

Why hadn’t it worked with Frank and me? Frank would have made a good lover, except we weren’t compatible sexually. Frank and I had dated for a couple of weeks, and his sexiness and body were a turn-on for me. He told me right away that he was HIV positive, but that didn’t stop me from seeing him or having sex with him, safely of course. Frank was a brilliant technician in bed. He had found all my G-spots the very first time we had sex. There was one on the back of my knees that I didn’t even know I had, but Frank found it with his tongue. Frank worked and stimulated my entire body during sex. He had driven me wild with ear orgasms, armpit orgasms, and nipple orgasms before the final climax.

Frank had a huge penis, but unfortunately, most of the time, he didn’t have an erection during sex and never came. I’d work on him till I was exhausted, sore, and bored to give him an erection or to get him to orgasm…and nothing. It was frustrating and not being able to please him sexually was not satisfying to me. So the very last time we slept together, I was determined to make him pop. My pride was at stake after all, so I called on all my sexual skills. We had wild sex that night for over two hours, and in the end, I broke down and fucked him—without a condom. I knew it wasn’t exactly safe sex, but I was thinking with my little head as most men do. Frank was going to come if I had anything to say about it.

I fucked Frank hard doggy style for quite a while and then flipped him over and fucked him on his back with his legs over my shoulders, his head banging against the headboard. I talked dirty to him, pounding and slapping his ass at the same time. It was such a feeling of accomplishment seeing his giant erection that I had created through my sweat and determination. He moaned loudly while he worked with me, pumping his dick as I pumped his ass. I could see the ecstasy in his closing eyes, constricting face, and tensing body. Finally, I got to witness for the first time his copious cum exploding, arching through the air and splattering all over his hairy chest. It was white-hot! I came immediately all over his big balls, collapsing in a heap of sweaty, quivering jelly next to him. It was fun, but it had been just too much work. Moreover, hardcore porno-style sex was not really to my liking. That was it for our sexual relationship.

I’ve had sex with thousands of men in my thirty-two years on this planet, Frank explained to me afterward. Let me tell you, I’ve done the bar scene, back allies, sex clubs, orgies, bathhouses, circle jerks, you name it. There isn’t all that much that turns me on anymore. I’m sexually jaded.

I was too vanilla for him, I surmised. And there was my HIV-negative status complication with its requisite boring safe sex. He wanted the love and companionship he told me, but sex in general, he could really take or leave. I couldn’t understand it at the time because sex was so thrilling to me and the urges so undeniable. I’d never had a chance to sow my wild oats and that’s what I wanted to do now. Even so, I always had finding a lover in the back of my mind. Frank had so many wonderful qualities. I was sad to be forced to look elsewhere for a lover.

I love you, I said to Frank when we got back to his apartment from our evening at Floyds. I kissed him in the car seat, and he said it back as he got out of the car. This was nothing new; we always said I love you to each other when I dropped him off because we loved each other like best friends. We had both been searching for the kindness, safety, and peace we never found as children and found it in each other.

Go back to Floyds, he said. If you don’t, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life! he emoted in true Bogart fashion. Go git ’im, he added.

I went back. As soon as I entered Floyds, I looked excitedly for David, praying that he would still be there. As couples circled the dance floor, David came into sight, two-stepping with a jovial, stocky guy who had strawberry blond, slightly balding hair and a big shaggy mustache. I’d seen them dancing a lot together with David always following. David moved with grace and flair as he was led through many complicated steps. Remaining unnoticed, I watched his moves a few moments, eagerly anticipating our first dance together. I’d been practicing and had a few moves of my own to show him.

When the song ended, David came off the dance floor alone and smiled as he headed toward me at the bar. I bought him a soda at his request, and as we chatted, I fantasized about kissing him. I wanted to know everything about him but was careful not to push too hard or go too fast. Could he be lover material? I wondered.

David talked animatedly about his job, selling furniture at an exclusive Long Beach store. He loved to clothes shop too and talked about fashion with great interest. And David collected cowboy boots. He had purchased a pair of every kind of animal skin known to humankind.

I’m thirty years old, he told me. How old do I look? he then asked. I knew that turning thirty was traumatic for a lot of people, including myself when I did.

You look young, I assured him with an admiring smile. If only I were thirty again. I’m forty, I said. I’ve got this gray hair starting to come in, I told him, pointing to my temples and mustache.

I like gray hair, he said with a sly smile. I was born on December 31. I’m a Capricorn, he told me. Sharing my birthday with New Year’s Eve, sometimes I feel cheated. A birthday should be all about yourself.

You have the same birthday as my mother and great grandmother. My birthday is also in December, I told him. David didn’t ask what day.

I love dancing here at Floyds, David continued. I think that this is the golden age of country music. So many superstars: Reba and Wynonna, Garth Brooks, and Tim McGraw.

Oh, yes, I agreed. I’m crazy about country music, not to mention all the western attire, partner and line dances, and gay rodeos that come along with it.

I’m a real night owl, David then told me. I get going around midnight and could dance all night long. It’s a good thing that the bar starts closing at one thirty, or I’d stay till dawn. I don’t have to be into work till eleven in the morning so it works out perfectly for me.

Actually I’m a day person, I told him, but since I’m a writer and I work out of my home, I can stay up late and get up in the morning whenever I please.

David didn’t ask many questions but did show interest in me by listening attentively. I figured that he was just a quiet guy. When asked, he eagerly agreed to go out on a date the next evening, which was Friday. And finally, it was time to capitalize on all those dance lessons I’d been taking in preparation for this moment. With great excitement, I invited him to dance.

As if by magic, Tracy Byrd’s I’m Holding Heaven in My Arms Tonight began to play. "I’m face-to-face with an angel," Tracy sang as we began our slow…slow…quick, quick that was the Texas two-step. I was holding an angel in my arms finally after all those weeks of hoping and dreaming. He was such a fine dancer, and we moved gracefully together. The euphoria of a new wonderful possibility washed over me as evidenced by the huge smile I caught on my face in the dance floor’s mirrored wall. We danced the night away and closed the bar.

Frank and I often went out to dinner on Fridays, but I called him and canceled. He was OK about skipping dinner and had other things to do. He wished me good luck. I assured him that our time together would continue in the future; that he was my best friend.

Friday evening, I was nervous when I dropped by David’s condo at 8:00 p.m. David finished up some last-minute ironing for our date quickly. His room was stacked with hat and shoeboxes, fabric samples, and the closet, whose door was ajar, appeared to be stuffed and brimming. Several large dressers I presumed were also stuffed. He pulled out one sweater box of many that he stored under the bed and selected a pullover in exquisite taupe cashmere for the evening. Next was his famous boot collection. I recognized alligator, boa constrictor, lizard, ostrich, rattlesnake, and there were other exotics I had no idea about.

Dinner was at a romantic French restaurant nearby. I ordered the same shrimp scampi that David ordered so we both would have the same garlic breath for the kissing I had planned for later. I ordered a glass of wine; he had a coke. It was flattering having all his attention on me. Gazing into his beautiful blue eyes across the table, a hope and vision of a longed-for life of love and happiness with him came over me. I found myself captivated by his male beauty as an older man might feel delight in a younger man, adoring him, wanting to protect him, to treat him like royalty and give him the world.

I want to be a traveling international clothing or furniture buyer and someday own my own store, he told me, interrupting my dreams of the future. My parents retired last year and moved to South Florida. I didn’t want to relocate. So I rented here.

I, for one, am glad that you didn’t go to Florida, I told him.

My friends are here, and of course, Floyds is here. My parents are very good people, but I know they’re disappointed in me because I’m gay. Well, they don’t like the gay thing, but they love and accept me, he said. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

I’m sorry to hear that, I said. With my parents, there are plenty of other problems to deal with, I told him, but at least they always accepted me, my gay lifestyle, and even my ex-lover as a son. He and I were together for eleven years. He lives in San Diego, and we’re still best friends, I told him, changing the subject. We met in 1979 and stayed together until 1990, so we were both able to bypass the AIDS epidemic and remain HIV negative. I intended that all this last information about my ex-lover and me would signal to David that I was a good catch, in good health, and capable of maintaining long-term relationships. David just sat there expressionless.

Are you going to the San Diego rodeo next month? I asked. I saw a poster at Floyds. It sounds like a lot of fun.

I have to work weekends, but I’m planning on driving down for the Saturday night ball. I’ll drive home afterward. The San Diego rodeo’s always the best. You should go. We can meet there and dance.

We finished dinner, and I had a wonderful time. I drove him home and stopped my car in front of his building on the dark street, leaving my motor running. Romantic moonlight slanted through the sunroof of my car, casting its silvery glow on David’s face. My God, how his beauty shined! I reached over and kissed him. It was a long passionate kiss, and David responded to me. And there was tongue. I waited a moment for him to invite me up, but he didn’t. We said good night and mutually agreed to meet at Floyds the following evening for a dance date. Despite not getting lucky, not yet that is, I did feel lucky.

Saturday, Frank and I went over to Floyds at 9:00 p.m. as I waited anxiously for David to arrive for our dance date. I wanted Frank to meet David and get some feedback, maybe even his approval. I decked myself out with brand-new black-and-tan western outfit with Stetson hat that I had bought that morning especially for the date. Looking nervously around the bar, I didn’t see David. Bill Calquhan came over to chat and have a drink.

What did you do last night, Frank? I asked.

"Oh, nothing really. I thought about going to homo happy hour over at Cha Cha’s, but nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded," he joked.

Ha, ha! I said to him, smirking. I’m sure Yogi Berra skipped homo happy hour too!

Had to. Dead, you know, Frank joked.

Come on, I know you didn’t stay home on a Friday night, I pursued.

Are you accusing me of a nocturnal omission? he quipped. Well, I went to the Mine Shaft because Friday night is ‘Shaft Night.’ Yeah, I popped in for a beer and a secondhand smoke, Frank said. It was so smoky in the Mine Shaft…

How smoky was it? Bill and I chimed in, in unison, giggling to each other.

It was so smoky that you couldn’t even see the Marlboro Man if he were a foot away. Frank adlibbed without missing a beat. "Oh wait, he died of lung cancer, didn’t he? So either way, I was not going to find him in there. I was wearing my tightest jeans with my cock ring, and this cute guy came over to me and said, ‘You have a beautiful smile.’ I said to him, ‘Yeah, and its eight-and-a-half inches long.’ I saw where he was looking!"

Let’s order a round of shots! Bill suggested.

Oh, yeah! Frank replied eagerly. How about Cowboy Cocksuckers? That’s Butterscotch schnapps with Baileys Irish Cream.

Bottoms up! Frank toasted. They upended theirs, but I sipped mine. I didn’t want to get tipsy. I needed my wits about me for dancing and wanted to demonstrate to David that I was a responsible and sober man. David wasn’t a drinker.

And what else would our conversation turn to when drinking Cowboy Cocksuckers but foreskin? Frank came out completely for it and particularly enjoyed funk and cheese. Bill opined that foreskin was very exciting when one was lucky enough to encounter it, but for a lover, he felt that circumcised was more manageable in the long run.

Any foreskin on David? Frank teased with his silly laugh. He knew damn well that I hadn’t gotten any the night before.

With that, David walked in the bar. I felt so proud to be on a date with him. Spotting me right away among the crowd because of my height, he came over to join our group. I made all the introductions. His small talk with us was light and enjoyable, and there were no uncomfortable silences. Frank and Bill were smiling and seemed to like David.

David and I headed to the dancefloor as Collin Raye’s Blue Magic played. ‘That blue magic in your eyes,’ Collin sang as we danced, and I gazed into David’s. I’d never seen eyes so blue in my life. Although others were on the dance floor with us, I saw only him. I’d asked the universe for a handsome, quality man to date, and David seemed the answer to my prayers.

I excused myself from David after our dance to find Frank. He and Bill were talking again by the back bar.

Well, what do you think, Frank? I asked.

Nice. I like him, Frank said noncommittally.

I like him too! Bill interjected enthusiastically. "There ain’t nothin’ wrong with him! I love his rosy cheeks! Frank told me that he’s born on the same day as your mother, so there’s very likely a strong attraction and subconscious recognition from that. He’d have the same Capricorn traits and vibe as she has."

That’s interesting, Bill, and much more helpful than my best friend Frank here is being! Yes, he’s kind of formal and proper, like my mom. Tell me more, I asked.

Well, my psychic guide is saying to me that you and he have had many past lives together always in loving relationships. You two are also in the same soul group, Bill told me. He could be a soulmate to you.

I really do like him, Frank told me when we were dancing a little later, "and I can see that you’re wild about him. You’re actually glowing, damn you! But I hardly know him. And neither do you! Go slow. Remember, all emotional suffering comes from attachments. Love and lust are attachments."

Thank you, Buddha, I answered sarcastically, almost irritated. Emotional suffering;