About a month ago, I returned from a month-long trip to Washington, D.C. While I was there I worked at a local design firm doing work for the DNC. I had the most excellent time. I made money, got my yearly dose of the northeastern fall, and I caught up with the friends I have missed so dearly.
The place I was working is a smaller design firm. I’d guess about 9 people work there year round. During election time, that number jumps up into the 20s as the need to get work DONE! and get it done FAST! quadruples. Out of the 9 regulars, three of them are fabulous, highly entertaining gay men. You wouldn’t believe what comes out of their mouths. I am rarely ever shocked or embarrassed by words or stories. But this one fella has a way. He can make the entire room erupt in a huge groan and then go quiet.
It might not come as much of surprise to find that I was thoroughly entertained by this man. I did everything in my power to encourage him. Which wasn’t too hard considering one might hear the senior account executive say the words, “SHE WAS A CATHOLIC VIRGIN WHEN SHE WAS MARRIED. BUT ACCORDING TO HER GETTING FUCKED IN THE ASS OR HAVING ORAL SEX ISN’T LOSING ONE’S VIRGINITY.” One might say that encouragement came naturally.1
On my last day there, we were all standing around the production station when someone brought up self-felatio. The three gay men were absolutely certain and insistent that ALL men would give themselves oral pleasure if they were able. The straight man said no way. The other straight man didn’t say anything at all. He just stood there blushing and desperately trying to ignore us. Soung and I didn’t think this was the case. But the gay trio just kept on insisting.
“Call Toby. He’ll tell you ‘yes’. I’m sure of it. All men would give themselves falatio if they could. Call him.”
And so I placed a cross-country phone call to ask Toby if he’d blow himself.2
“Hey hon. If you could give yourself a blowjob, would you?”
“What?”
“Just wondering if you were able to give yourself oral pleasure, would you do it?”
“No, the hot part isn’t the blowjob itself, the hot part is having someone attached.”
“Ok. That’s what I thought. Thanks.”
“If the Democrats lose this election, I’ll now know why.”
We hung up and I gave them the news.
“He said ‘No.’ He said the hot part is having someone attached.”
The other straight guy agreed with this by nodding a lot. But Soung, didn’t like or understand this clarification.
“Having someone attached? Attached to what? What does that mean? Attached?”
I have known Soung for a long, long time. She’s one of the smarter individuals to hit my existence. I knew there was a reason she wasn’t getting this. I just wasn’t sure what she needed to know. Perhaps she was annoyed by the semantics. Perhaps she didn’t like the idea of using the verb “attached”. Either way, she didn’t like this answer.
One of the gay men grabbed a sharpie and began to illustrate. And this was born:

I folded the drawing of stick-figure falatio and put it in my pocket as a souvenir. It then flew across the United States with me where it finally ended up on our refrigerator as a gift to Toby.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been showing our apartment. Since we’re breaking our lease a bit early, we’re conducting open houses in order to fill it. On the first day a young lady from Iran showed up and we went about the place. I answered her questions and asked her about her husband and why they were moving from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco. We were in the dining room when she asked me about the light. As I’m illustrating to her that one side (the kitchen side) gets light in the morning, and the other side of the house (the bedroom side) gets it in the evenings, our eyes lock onto x-rated image of stick-figure love. But she was a polite girl from Iran, so she didn’t say anything about it. And so we moved along.
When she left, I decided to turn the image around. Which did a whole lot of good considering it was drawn using a sharpie and was therefore completely visible through the back. I showed the house to six other people that day, and not one person asked about our drawering.
About a week ago, Toby and I were here together. A young couple showed up to see the house. I was on the phone at the time so he had the honor of showing them around. The guy (I later learned) was a gay man who wasn’t “out” yet. The woman was a talkative creature, a tall, slender thing.
He took them into the bathroom and then the toilet room (yes, they are separate) and then into the bedroom. After that, it make sense to enter the kitchen. And so they did.
The couples’ eyes met the refrigerator. My stealth cover-up by flipping the drawing over did not help. They stared. Toby stared. Toby, then removed the drawing. He folded it up and put it on top of the fridge.
At this point Toby decided – knowing FULL WELL how the drawing came to be – to take the road less traveled.
“OH yeah, that. Sorry. A friend’s nephew – he’s seven – he drew that.”
(7?!! Wait, what?) To which she replies:
” That’s very precocious!”
After I was finished looking up that word, I thought what kind of 7 year old draws a picture like this? And why did Toby think this was better then, say, I don’t know, THE TRUTH? I’m sure her boyfriend knew a thing or two about blowjobs.
Would you have known how to draw such an image at age 7? I surely couldn’t, an pegasus or a unicorn, sure, but not this. But then again, I was a slow learner when it came to this sort of stuff. Though, I do remember some kid telling me at the bus stop one day that I should ask my mother what the word “BJ” meant.3
We never really grow up, do we?
(1 Dear Mom, I couldn’t make this stuff up. I do realize I don’t need to share it with the rest of the world, though. And I almost didn’t. It was either this or I’d bitch and moan again about moving, packing, driving, and I’ve done that before and I’m sick of hearing myself complain.
2 Dear Mom, again, I am sorry. Toby and I don’t normally talk to one another like this. And if it weren’t such and absurd idea, I’d have had him blushing.
3 I don’t think I took his suggestion and ran with it.)


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