Pandora's Box

I’m not particularly fond of walking the dog. But this morning, I agreed to take C-dog out in exchange for spending a leisurely Sunday morning eating breakfast in an outdoor café with C. The strenuous, sweaty walk up the big hill to the beautiful wooded park with its panoramic view of our beloved city was a bargain price for sitting down to a meal with my lover and best friend.

I’d never walked C-dog alone at this particular park. This park is known for two things (aside from its stunning view after which it was named):

1. excellent hiking trails for the most pleasant of dog walking
2. boy on boy blow-jobs in the bushes

I have nothing against public sex. In fact, I am all for it. But I still feel kind of awkward as I walk through this park. You can always tell why people are there. If they’re alone and they have a dog, they’re dog walking. If they’re in a group (and they almost always have a dog in the group), they’re hiking. But when they’re alone, without a dog?

The dog walkers and I always smile warm and friendly as we pass, often saying a cheerful ‘hello.’ This interaction is very different from how I engage – or don’t – with the men walking alone, without a dog. Interestingly, I just realized that I never see women walking alone without a dog in this park.

So, first of all, these men walking alone without dogs? They almost always avoid eye contact, which only confirms my suspicions. Or sometimes, C-dog and I surprise them along a specific segment of the trails, in which case they look like a deer caught in headlights.

Today, I came across a man on a bike for the first time. The hills in this park are steep, so it was very unusual to see a bike up on the hill. To keep you on the right trail with this story, let me add – he had a dog with him. ;-) I have seen this man around town before. He reminds me a lot of Steve. Running into him today sent my mind and body reeling full-speed back into my adolescence.

For starters, Steve sometimes rode his bike over to my house. We lived over five miles apart, so this effort always impressed me - especially the time he rode over in the pouring rain. I find it less remarkable now, realizing the high fete men will go to when they’re horny. Is that not true?

Now the bike in the context of a wooded park was just the quintessence of my affair with Steve. So much time has passed now, that I can no longer recall how we got to each of these places, but there were repeated rendezvous in wooded parks throughout our town.

With that history with parks and my love of musicals, I do sometimes have to wonder if I was a gay man in a past life.