Secrets Of A Gay Marine Porn Star (44 page)

He was right. Why would that be? I’d been with this guy for five years now. No one had ever loved me so much, shown me so much tenderness and care. By the end of the session, I was crying. “What if I don’t love him?” I asked. “What if that’s what’s really going on?”

A few days later I admitted something I had been in denial about for months. I had fallen in love with a gay friend at law school, a very sexy, handsome and smart young man. I don’t know how it happened, it just did, and I had pretended it hadn’t. But I couldn’t hide it anymore. I was still in love with Brandon, but I also had these strong feelings for my friend. I admitted this to Brandon, and to my friend, as a way to hopefully deal with it all.

Brandon was crushed and my friend was kind about it but nonetheless put off by my admission. He certainly didn’t feel the same way about me, and was now worried about how Brandon, who was also his friend, would feel toward him.

How could this be? I always thought once I found the person I loved, I would love him and only him, that I would only want sex with him. Here I was, in love with Brandon, but having sex with other guys and now falling in love with other guys.
What the hell was happening to me? What was wrong with me?

At the end of the summer of 2000, with all my concerns about my life with Brandon weighing heavily on my mind, I got the offer at the firm where I’d been interning. Financially, at least, I felt set. I landed a high-paying job. I didn’t care how much money I spent. I had taken a lot of classes in my second year of law school; I didn’t have to take as many in my third year. I could coast to graduation.

“I want to party.” I declared to Brandon. “I want to go as many parties as I can.” That was how I handled my doubts about the relationship: camouflage the problems with a smokescreen of parties. And that’s what we did. We went to the “Viva Las Vegas.” We went to New Orleans for Halloween. We went to Miami for New Year’s. In between, we were going to clubs like the Factory and the Palace in Los Angeles and Montage in San Diego, the club that had replaced my old favorite, WCPC’s.

October 2000 was a busy month, even by my party schedule. Between Las Vegas and New Orleans, Brandon and I took a trip to Illinois for Gary and Hedy’s wedding. Coincidentally, the wedding happened to be near the place where Brandon had grown up. I saw his old church and the place where his grandparents were buried. In the middle of the whirlwind parties, this was a nice, relaxing, Midwest sort of family occasion.

Gary and Hedy’s wedding was the most beautiful I’d ever seen. The autumn sky was clear and the rehearsal party was on a Mississippi riverboat. I had never been to Illinois nor had I seen the Mississippi River. It had also been ten years since I had seen autumn leaves. The wedding dinner was outdoors under a clear plastic tent. Leaves had fallen on the see-through canopy, presenting an amazing, natural fall covering over our heads. The sun shone through the leaves and the whole sight was just spectacular.

It was a military wedding and Gary and the officers in the wedding party looked incredibly handsome in their dress blues. Hedy was stunningly beautiful. I knew most of the people present but, to those I didn’t know, Hedy introduced Brandon and me as partners. I told her weeks later that their wedding was the first time Brandon and I had been formally “presented” as what we were—a couple. Most of Hedy’s family and longtime friends were midwesterners and Baptists but, on her day, no one dared make an issue of our being gay. A few people noticed the irony—although Brandon and I had become friends with both Gary and Hedy, the one gay couple present were acquainted primarily with the Marine groom, and not the Hollywood actress.

One of the few photographs I have posted in my office today is of the four of us—Brandon, Hedy, me and Gary—taken on the riverboat the evening of the rehearsal dinner. We all look as happy as four people could possibly look. If we had had any idea what the next few years held in store for us, we’d probably never have gotten off the boat.

For New Year’s Eve weekend 2000/2001, a group of us from Southern California met up with some friends from Atlanta in Miami. One morning Brandon told me that a bunch of our friends had been doing a drug called GHB the night before. GHB stands for Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate. It’s basically degreasing solvent or floor stripper mixed with drain cleaner. Everyone at the parties talked about it but I hadn’t dared discuss it with Brandon. People died from too much GHB. I knew he’d say no.

The first words out of my mouth were, “Why didn’t they tell me? Why didn’t they offer me some?”

“Because none of the guys wanted you to take it,” he said. “They know you can’t control yourself. If you take too much G it will kill you.”

I didn’t want to hear any of that. All those feelings of being isolated, of being left out, came back. I was already so paranoid about being excluded. Plus I’d been taking crystal, which only makes feelings like that ten times worse.

The next night we were back at the Miami Arena and I was doing the same thing—lots of “tina,” “X” and “K.” I did way too much K. I had an experience where suddenly I felt the K-hole coming on again. What I had learned to do to keep those hallucinations from coming on is that I would grab hold of Brandon. I would feel the K-hole coming on, I would grab on to Brandon, and he would be my anchor to reality and I would be fine.

He started to walk me off the dance floor. My arms were tightly around him, trying to hold on to reality, and he looked at me and said, “It’s time to go.”

All my life as a child, I had heard that Satan would not come to you with horns a tail and a pitchfork. Instead he would come to you as an angel of light. I looked at Brandon with his sparkling blue eyes and thick, shiny blond hair.
He looked like an angel of light!
I became convinced Brandon was Satan telling me it was time to go to hell. I thought I had died. And he took me by the hand and was taking me off the dance floor. The floor was sticky, the K made my feet feel like they weighed half a ton, and with each step I was trudging deeper into hell. Then suddenly it was as if the universe had collapsed around me. I was dead and it was now time for my judgment. I had made the decision to be gay and, because I had chosen wrongly, the universe ceased to exist and I was going to spend eternity as a body-less mind alone in empty space, existing only as a vague awareness.

Then this voice of sanity said,
You know, this might just be a K-hole
. I thought,
“If this is a K-hole, I’ll never believe in hell again.
For about fifteen minutes that’s what happened. Then I came out of it. Even when something like that happening, you’d think I would swear off the stuff. But I didn’t. But at least I was losing my fear of hell.

Pretty soon, though, hell would be the least of my worries.

“Y
our grandpa died, son.”

This news was not totally unexpected, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear. My dad’s soothing voice was steady and low. His father was no longer in pain. Grandma was too far gone into the darkness of Alzheimer’s to be aware that she had lost her husband, the man she had married when she was sixteen and he eighteen. The silver lining in the nightmare cloud of Alzheimer’s for Grandma was that she was spared the intense pain caused by the death of her soul mate after sixty years together.

I flew back to the South for the funeral, using a free ticket on Southwest Airlines. The nearest airport was Raleigh but that was okay because it gave me a chance to see Melanie and Carla. I borrowed Melanie’s second car and drove four hours south to Greenville.

I hadn’t seen South Carolina in the spring in ten years. I had forgotten how the robust smells caused by pollination and newborn flowers, trees, grass, and bushes could make me feel so alive—so new and regenerated. It was almost a contradiction, because I was there for a funeral, but everything else about the visit reminded me that life was really about enjoying the moment and nature. Both of my grandpas had been men who lived and worked in the outdoors and who thoroughly enjoyed having only the blue sky as their roof. Their thick, leathery skin and sweaty, dirty smell marked them to me as real men, men who loved what God had created. This visit gave me a fresh glimpse of that, even though it would be a couple of more years before I could appreciate that lesson.

I recalled how proud Grandpa had been that his grandson was a Marine officer and was about to become a lawyer. “Who would have thought that a Merritt would accomplish all this?” Grandpa would say.

“That’s only because he’s half-Schrader,” my mom would remind her father-in-law. They loved to tease each other and Grandpa Merritt had always adored his daughter-in-law.

A wave of guilt rushed over me.
He wouldn’t be so proud if he knew about the porn and about the drugs
, the voice said. But I reminded myself that while that was true, I had still accomplished all the rest, and he
had
been proud of those things. The memory of his pride in me is what got me through Grandpa Merritt’s funeral and visit.

After the funeral, my quirky Aunt Lydia accidentally put Melanie’s car keys, which I had left out on the countertop so I’d remember them, into her purse. Then, Aunt Lydia had taken off to her house, an hour away south of Ashville. Aunt Lydia’s absentmindedness meant I would have to cut about three hours out of an already short visit.

My mom was furious. She finished wiping the countertop clean and threw the dishrag in the sink to accentuate her fury. “This is just like something she’d do! For over fifty years, I’ve told her she needs to pay attention to what she’s doing! Now you’ve got to drive all the way to Ashville, get the keys, drive all the way back to Piedmont, then take off right away to Raleigh so you can catch your flight tomorrow. All because Lydia’s just stupid!”

“Momma, it was an accident, it could happen to anyone. In fact, maybe I did it. I think I might have accidentally put the keys in Aunt Lydia’s purse before the funeral, thinking it was yours.”

My mom squinted and stared at me. “You didn’t do it, either. Why are you covering up for her? No, no, somebody needs to tell her…”

“Son, I’ll drive you up to Ashville. We can take your grandpa’s truck.”

This would be the most time I’d spent alone with my dad since we ran the six-mile trail at Camp Pendleton together eight years earlier. Almost immediately, we started laughing. We weren’t laughing at my mom, necessarily, because we both loved her too much to ridicule her, but sometimes her antics were pretty entertaining, especially when it came to Aunt Lydia.

“Did you see the way she threw that dishrag down?” my dad asked as we turned onto the freeway.

“I’m surprised it didn’t chip the sink!” I replied.

“Your momma, I tell ya, she’s strong. When we ran that store together, she used to carry heavy things out to cars for people, even men, because they weren’t strong enough.”

“‘For fifty years, I’ve told her she needs to…!’” I said, laughing as I mimicked my mom’s rant. The words reminded me of another episode.

“Hey, Daddy, remember that time when you, Momma and Andy and I were in San Francisco, and we were climbing down those steps going from the Coit Tower to Fisherman’s Wharf, and Momma passed that old lady? Remember she told that woman, ‘You need to go back down’? That’s Momma—always telling people what they need to be told!”

I looked over at my dad. He wasn’t laughing and he had a puzzled look on his face. “San Francisco? I’ve never been to San Francisco,” he said. He smiled at me, but I could tell he didn’t recall the visit.

“Sure you have!” I said. “Remember? Just about six years ago.” I could tell from his expression he didn’t recall it. “We’ve got pictures, I’ll show you when we get back to the house.”

Looking back, what was happening should have been obvious. At the time, however, I was not about to admit what had just happened. I was too preoccupied with everything else.

I needed to cut back on the partying. Even at the time, it was clear to me that things were starting to spin out of my control. I slowed down a bit, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t go on as many big trips, but I continued to book some occasionally. I was still doing drugs during the week and hiding it from Brandon. Somehow I managed to keep my grades satisfactory but my position in the class had slipped. Which has really bit me in the ass now. The firms want you to be in the top twenty-five percent and I wasn’t up there anymore.

The weekend after Grandpa Merritt’s funeral was the White Party. It was much too big an event for me to miss now, so when the time rolled around, once again, I dragged Brandon out to Palm Springs. Especially now, I needed a distraction from the growing sadness I was feeling.

Amongst hunting eyes and shirtless torsos, we met several new guys. One of the advantages of drugs—one reason why people use them—is that the inhibitions you have, the ones created by years of living in a society that teaches you there is something wrong with you for being gay, disappear. At least that’s what happened with me. On Ecstasy, I could—and often did—approach anyone. Everyone loved me, and I loved everyone else.

One guy we met was named Josh. During the conversation, Josh mentioned he had a boyfriend.

“Where is he?” I immediately asked.

“Well,” Josh replied, “he doesn’t feel comfortable at these parties. He graduated from Bob Jones University.”

That stopped me dead in my tracks. There I was, high out of my mind, dancing with this gorgeous guy in Palm Springs, and my inescapable past once again comes roaring up to present itself, to haunt me. “Wait a minute!” I shouted over the blaring music. “Did I just say something or did you?”

“I did,” he said. “My boyfriend graduated from Bob Jones University.”

What could I do? I shrugged my shoulders, went back into my wonderful trance, shook my head, and continued dancing.

Another guy we met who we had seen around before, but this time he really got our attention. His name was Damian. In my opinion, Damian was one of the best-looking men in West Hollywood—and that’s saying a lot. Not the “pretty-boy” good looking, which I also like, but the “rough-but-handsome” manly look. He had a shaved head, an incredibly handsome face, broad shoulders, and a very, lean muscular body.

The next morning I darted around the hotel room. Brandon was asleep. I hadn’t even been to bed yet. Actually, at this point, sleep wasn’t a concept I was familiar with. I was doing massive amounts of crystal, staying awake, and I just figured I would deal with it all later—when I would simply physically collapse.

Rather than hang around, wired, waiting for Brandon to wake up, I went to the pool, did a quick scan, and spotted Damian. I approached him and we talked for awhile. More than his physical appearance, what made Damian so beautiful to me was his genuinely kind, thoughtful, and sensitive personality. While he was talking to you, he made you feel like a million bucks, as if you were the only guy in the world. That’s exactly how I felt. Here was this beautiful man and he was totally into me. The sexual sparks were flying, Brandon was still sleeping. What to do? Damian asked me if I wanted to go back to his room. That started that old tug-of-war in my mind. I knew right from wrong, but you know, when you’re in the moment, sometimes what’s wrong seems right. “Okay,” I said very soft and very low.

We went up to his room. We started to kiss, and touch, and explore each other’s body. I was enjoying it, the touch of new skin is always exciting, but Damian could sense my reservations.

He stopped suddenly and looked into my eyes. “You don’t really want to do this, do you?” he asked

I looked right back at him, thinking,
Well, I really do, but I really don’t
. Instead of saying that, though, I just nodded and we walked out of the room, leaving what had started between us, unfinished.

In the following weeks my thoughts kept returning to Damian. I wanted to see him again. Alone. Maybe even start up an affair. Little did I realize that that’s not the way Damian operated. Damian took a lot of pleasure in making a lot of other guys feel good about themselves. Making other people feel good was like a drug for Damian. And, like any drug, he needed lots of it. Settling down with one guy, even for a clandestine affair, wasn’t in the cards.

Meanwhile, I had been agonizing over whether or not to invite my parents to my law school graduation. Finally I decided, yes, I wanted them there. Once again I sent them a letter expressing the things I was feeling in my heart, but was too afraid to say to them person to person. “I’d love for you to come to my graduation,” I wrote. “But I want you to sit beside Brandon. Spend the weekend with him and with me. Get to know him. He and I have been together for over five years—going on six years now. We’re domestic partners, and I plan on spending the rest of my life with him.” I explained to them that Gary would be there, and they could meet his wife whom they had seen on television. Melanie would also be there, along with her mom, Carla. My mom had always liked Carla. I hoped the familiar people would entice them to make it out. I mailed the letter.

I waited. And waited.

My parents never responded to my letter. I called my mom about something else and she brought it up.

“Rich, about this graduation…”

I tried to make it easier for her. “Momma, I know that you and I have different…ideas…”

“Ideas?” she exclaimed. “I don’t have
ideas
, Rich. And neither do you. You know what the truth is!”

“What I know,” I yelled back at her, instantly losing my self-control, “is that when your father lay on his deathbed fourteen years ago, he was in agony wondering whether or not he was going to heaven. Now you tell me, Momma, who lived a godlier life than Grandpa Schrader? If he didn’t know he was going to heaven when he died, then who can? Now…what kind of
truth
is that?”

I have no idea where this came from. I hadn’t thought about Grandpa Schrader’s death in years. Maybe Grandpa Merritt’s funeral brought my other grandpa’s memory nearer to the surface of my conscious thoughts. But had I thought about it consciously for two seconds, I would never have thrown the death of her father back at my mother. But I had.

Needless to say, they didn’t come to my graduation. Actually, they never even really brought the subject up. My mom hinted that the reason was that they were “too busy,” taking care of my elderly and ailing grandmothers. Yet, I was well aware that they managed to attend my cousin’s graduation from medical school in the Midwest. That was reason enough to know that the “too busy” excuse was bullshit. Total bullshit. I tried to sympathize with what they were going through, but I was going through some shit too. I was angry.

So my parents were “too busy,” to make it to my law school graduation. Well, okay. I glossed over the matter. Brandon and some friends threw a graduation party for me in Laguna Beach a couple of nights before the ceremony. I got smashed. I asked a friend if he had some crystal. As I suspected, he did. I wasted no time in using it. It picked me up at the time but I had a major depressive episode the next day, and the next.

I still wasn’t sleeping. Even during the week. Even when I wasn’t on drugs. I would wake up, trembling, frequently in the middle of the night. I was having dreams about drugs—dreams about being caught. Dreams within dreams—until I wasn’t exactly sure what was real and what I had dreamed. Carla and Melanie Runyan flew out for my graduation, and I felt anxiety about their being with me. I thought I wasn’t being a good host but later, when I talked to Melanie, she said she hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Considering past events I think, when the situation called for it, I was still sometimes able to present a mask of being totally together. Yet, during my graduation I was on the edge of my seat, jittery and anxious, coming down from crystal. The political comedian, Ben Stein, of the cable TV show,
Win Ben Stein’s Money
and from the movie
Ferris Bueller
was our guest speaker. I should have loved this, but I couldn’t enjoy it. I also recalled that the last time I had seen Alan Gurd alive had been at his law school graduation, in the same red gown with the gold collar like the one I was wearing.

However, I continued to not even consider stopping the drug use. It would occur to me for a moment that I should, but then I would say,
No, I’m going to just keep doing this and figure out a way to deal with it.
When Brandon realized I was doing drugs during the week he started hiding them from me

He was taking a class on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. On those nights I couldn’t stand being alone for five minutes. I would need something to take away my loneliness, to pick me up. One night, after he had gone, I tore the house apart looking for the drugs and eventually I found them. When he came home and saw what I had done, he went a step further and started locking them up. I reached a point where Brandon was locking up drugs from me! And this didn’t seem totally and completely and bizarre. The absurd had become commonplace in my life.