Secrets Of A Gay Marine Porn Star (18 page)

Looking back, I can see that it had something to do with the little kid who always had to win the spelling bee. I wanted everyone to look at me and think,
Wow, there’s a stud! There’s someone impressive
. Maybe everybody wants that—but I think I did things that indicated I needed it more than most.

Each gig paid fifty bucks. I’d dance a little, strip down to a G-string, and leave. I did it about six times, total. There was one incident when the woman asked me to stay and hang out at her apartment with her friends. That kind of freaked me out. I made some excuse and left. I was afraid that if they got to know me I wouldn’t live up to the fantasy. I loved being a part of someone’s fantasy and I didn’t want to do anything to spoil that.

Another time I stripped for this eighty-five-year-old woman and that was hilarious. I danced for her without any shame. It was pure fun.

But beware of the ego. When you’re constantly putting yourself on the line to reaffirm your value on a strictly physical level, you’re destined to get knocked down a few pegs. I was booked at a dance club where a group of women were out at a bachelorette party. They pushed the woman getting married to the middle of dance floor while I stripped around her. Now, I will be the first to admit that I don’t dance very well, and being on a dance floor—just the two of us like that—was seriously awkward. The girls at her office thought it would be hilarious but it soon became apparent that she didn’t want this—I could feel the disapproving vibes emanating out of her, which only made me feel more uncomfortable, and the whole performance didn’t go over well.

What made it even worse is that one of her office workers was a woman who had been in my graduating class at Bob Jones Academy. Her name was Wanda Harmon—ironically, it was her older brother with whom I had experienced the homoerotic inner-tube ride and naked nature hike at the Wilds. Now everyone at Bob Jones was going to find out; Wanda was a notorious blabbermouth.

The next day I got a call from the woman running the Strip-O-Gram agency. She informed me that one of the women from the party had called, demanding her money back. “I didn’t give them a refund because we don’t do that,” she said, “But I just wanted to let you know that we need to work on your dancing.”

That was really devastating. This was not why I was doing this. I had one more commitment that I had already agreed to, so I kept that appointment. It was at an office and coincidentally another girl who I’d worked with at Swensen’s was there. Luckily she was cool about it. But I thought, “Oh my God, this really
is
a small town, everywhere I go people know me—and on top of that some of them want their money back!” So I quit doing it.

A small group of my friends took me out for my birthday to the college bars on a Tuesday night. Of course, the bars were packed. After several hours of partying, I remembered that I had an accounting test the next day so I ran back to my dorm room, grabbed my books, and went to the library. The next thing I recall was a guard tapping me on the shoulder telling me the library was closing. It was 1:30 a.m. I had passed out.

I repeated the story the next day to my friends, including Tami. She and Gary had gotten back together. Again. She was also the only one who didn’t laugh.

“Rich,” she said, “have you ever considered the possibility that you might have a drinking problem?” Maybe Tami was right. I
was
drinking a lot. I contacted some people who’d been in recovery for many years. They told me their stories, which were pretty horrific. No, compared to them, I definitely did
not
have a drinking problem. Relieved that I was not an alcoholic, I returned to my newfound freedom of drinking whenever I wanted to.

My only real traditional stay-as-drunk-as-you-can spring break came in 1990. Gary, Donnie, Colin, and I, along with others, went to Panama City, Florida. Just before the trip, Gary had broken up with Tami for the eighteenth time. I was furious with him because to me it seemed like he had done it just so he could screw around in Florida.

Sure enough, that’s exactly what he did. Our gang merged with a group of redneck girls from a small college in Georgia. Well, most of us “merged.” I didn’t merge with anyone and visibly seethed with anger. One night I even heard Gary and his girl making sex noises in the other room. We were all being pretty trashy. Except me; I stayed drunk and I stayed a virgin. Real pious of me.

I was furious with Gary because of the way he had treated Tami. That seemed like a noble reason to be mad at him. Tami was my friend and I felt that, by getting mad, I was standing up for her.

It’s clear to me now, however, that my fury had nothing to do with Tami. The source of my anger was pure envy. The old-fashioned unrequited-love kind of envy. What made it worse was that I couldn’t acknowledge that that’s what it was. Admitting the real cause of the emotional firestorm I felt brewing inside my heart would have meant admitting I was gay. No way was that going to happen.

Tami’s friends had also been partying in Panama City and no doubt they had told her what had happened. I felt I was taking the high road by lecturing Gary.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?” I shouted at him. “Tami loves you. And you treated her like a dog, having sex with that other girl when you knew it would get back to Tami!”

“Why don’t you mind your own goddamned business!” he replied.

I was filled with righteous indignation so not even Gary Fullerton could intimidate me. “You and Tami
are
my business.”

Gary had just returned from a run around the campus. He sat on my floor, leaning against the wall, with sweat dripping from his nose and chin. He sipped water from a large plastic bottle. He looked toward my window and didn’t respond to my comment.

I softened my tone. “Gary, you can’t treat people like that. You just dumped her so that you could have a clean conscience while you fucked other girls on spring break.”

Gary was still peeved. “That’s not the reason we broke up. You know that. But so what? So what if I did? That’s my business.
Not yours!
”

He was right. I knew all the other reasons and I should have minded my own business. But I was jealous and angry and had to deal with it somehow. No one is more sanctimonious than a closeted gay person who redirects his or her confused emotional turmoil onto someone else. At least, no one has ever been more sanctimonious than I was at that moment. I was incapable of dealing with what I really felt, so poor Gary bore the brunt of my rage.

It seems ridiculous now but at the time I, someone who had never had a real romantic relationship, felt perfectly justified in educating my friend about love. Only the strongest friendships survive conversations like these.

“If you keep treating people like this no one will ever love you again,” I said. I wanted it to sound like a threat.
If you keep treating people like this, I won’t love you anymore.

“Fine.” I’m not sure if Gary was angry because I was meddling or because I had sided with Tami. Maybe both. Or perhaps he also sensed that I wasn’t being honest with either him or with myself. Whatever the reason, his irritation was still apparent. “I’m going to be myself and if that means no one else ever wants me then that’s just tough shit!”

I was incredulous. “Are you serious? You need other people in your life. You need…”

Gary clenched his jaw and spoke through his teeth with a slow, steady and deliberate tone. “Listen to me. I need food. I need water. I need air. I need shelter sometimes and I need a little bit of clothing. That’s about all I need.” He stared at me, powerfully and directly driving his point home.

It felt like he hit me across the forehead with a two-by-four. The unconscious feelings I had successfully kept in denial erupted like a volcano that I was incapable of containing. Gary was saying that he didn’t need me. This was apparent and I feared I had gone too far. If he didn’t need me, maybe this was the end of it. Maybe our friendship was finished. I had begun a conversation about my friend’s treatment of his ex-girlfriend and somehow it had become about him and me.

I was speechless for a second, but then the lyrics to a Barbara Streisand song popped into my head. If people who needed people were the luckiest people in the world, it logically followed then that…“Then you’re about the unluckiest person in the world,” I said.

“Maybe so. I’ll have to live with that.” Our conversation was over. Gary stood up and went to his dorm room. I couldn’t concentrate and had trouble sleeping.

What the fuck was going on inside my head?
I didn’t have an answer.

Within days it was like the conversation hadn’t happened and our friendship resumed as normal. Gary, Donnie, and Colin graduated six weeks later. Because of the credits I lost in my transfer from Bob Jones, I had another semester to go. Immediately after their graduation ceremony, our gang proceeded across campus to the Greek-style outdoor amphitheater where Gary had arranged for his commissioning ceremony to be held.

It was a simple event. A Marine Captain administered the oath of office to Gary while Norah and Graham, Gary’s parents, pinned the gold bars on his uniform. The gold bars are the rank insignia for second lieutenants. I was a Sergeant in the reserves and at the conclusion of the ceremony I gave Gary his first salute. In keeping with Marine Corps tradition, he gave me a silver dollar.

I had met Gary’s parents a couple of years earlier at their home in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

“Hey Mom, this is my friend, Rich, the one who went to OCS with me and Colin.”

“Nice to meet you, Rich,” she said. She had a beautiful accent that I couldn’t quite place. I learned she was from Scotland. Gary’s own childhood British accent had faded into something more Southern long before we met. His parents, however, had retained all of their English charm.

“Wait a minute,” she said, the sudden change in her tone startling me. “You’re not the one who went to that…that Bob Jones University now, are you?”

I glanced at Gary who was smiling broadly. “Well…yes, but…”

“Let me tell you something about that place. I was wearing pants, nothing indecent, mind you, just a nice pair of pants and they wouldn’t let me on the campus! I had to put on a dress, but Graham really wanted to go to that concert so I did. But I didn’t like it one bit!”

I laughed. “That sounds like them. Well, Mrs. Fullerton, you’ll be glad to know I was expelled from there.”

“You were?” she said, her stern look becoming more welcoming. “Well, good for you. I can tell we’re going to get along just fine. You must stay for dinner then. And call me Norah.”

After Gary’s commissioning ceremony, Norah and Graham threw a huge party for the graduates at their home. I met Gary’s grandmother, Sally, a feisty and vibrant Jewish woman with a zest for life exceeding that of most people, especially the people I’d met who were her age. I felt more comfortable around his family than I felt around my own.

My last semester at Clemson, I was alone again. That old familiar feeling of stifling loneliness overcame me. Fortunately, late in the summer, I met a new friend at the gym.

Clemson had fired its world-famous coach, Danny Ford, and had hired a new coaching staff. One day at the Nautilus gym, I saw one of the handsomest guys I had ever seen. His dad was one of the new assistant coaches and he had just moved into town. Jarrod was fascinated by the fact that I was a sergeant in the Marine reserves and would soon become a second lieutenant. He also wanted to be a Marine officer, but wasn’t sure how to go about it.

I knew what I wanted to do—spend as much time as I could with Jarrod. He was twenty and I was about to turn twenty-three, so I could buy us beer. For several months, we’d work out together, grab a bite of dinner, get some beer, and sit on the dock on Lake Hartwell behind his parents’ house. After several hours of drinking, Jarrod and I would strip naked and swim under the moonlight and stars. I was in heaven. Jarrod was just my type—short, muscular, with a boyish-but-manly handsome face and twinkling eyes. One night I got bold and started a naked wrestling match with him in the shallow water. After that, I’d do it often, making sure to gently grab his private areas during our romps. He’d do the same to me.

I was really beginning to doubt my heterosexuality.

Jarrod told me he had discovered a bathroom in the secluded “Twelve Mile” state park by the lake where men cruised each other. I didn’t know what the word “cruise” meant at the time, but Jarrod was intent on showing me. While jogging one hot afternoon, we approached the bathroom.

“See!” he whispered, “if you go in and just hang out in the stall, a guy will come along.”

“Why? What for?” I was genuinely clueless.

“For sex, what do you think?”

The part about the bathroom stall seemed disgusting to me. Jarrod was insistent, though, that I go wait in the stall and see what he meant.

I waited in the stall for about five minutes and began feeling ridiculous. I returned to our hidden spot in the bushes.

“Watch,” Jarrod said, “here comes a guy now.” Sure enough, we watched as one guy, then another, then another entered the bathroom.

Years later I heard that law enforcement conducted a sting operation at the Clemson “Twelve Mile” state park bathroom and arrested dozens of men, including professors, athletes, and even a judge.

After several months, I could no longer admit that my feelings for Jarrod were purely heterosexual. I was visibly disturbed one evening when we were hanging out in his bedroom.

“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded to know.

“I can’t tell you,” I said, looking at his studly, shirtless body stretched out across his bed. I was sitting on his desk chair.

“Tell me what you’re thinking!” He practically demanded it.

I wanted more than anything to tell him that I had fallen in love with him. But I couldn’t do it. He would be mad at me, or hate me…or worse…beat the shit out of me. I remained silent.

“Goddamn it!” Jarrod said. “This is just like you! Why won’t you open up to me, tell me what you’re thinking? I thought we were friends.”