Spin Me Right Round Like a Record (Part II)

We get to the parking lot just a few blocks away from LBC (it’s always such a hassle to find parking in that area), and DJ Dreamboat unlocks the doors to his navy blue Grand Vitara. As soon as I get comfortable in the passenger seat, I lean over and kiss him softly, with my mouth almost closed, on his lips while caressing the back of his neck with my left hand. He puts the keys in the ignition, starts the engine and speeds off towards his apartment on the Gold Coast.

In the car, I start playing with the radio dial and browsing the stations until I get to 96.3, Chicago’s #1 Hit Music Station. I turn up the volume. He looks at me and smiles in somewhat disbelief. Here I am, tipsy and dancing around to some horrendous ringtone rap blasting out of the car speakers.

We get to his apartment and I notice that his living room is clean and big, not very crowded, just the essentials: a flat screen TV and black leather sofa and a media stand full of old CDs. He offers me a Diet Coke and then drags me to his room to show me his equipment. After all, that is the reason I’m there to begin with.

He turns on his DJ stand next to his bed and goes over to his speakers and starts playing LCD Soundsystem really loud.

“Uh… are you going to wake up your neighbors?” I ask.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “If you want to learn, you have to learn at full volume.”

I accept his answer like the good student that I am and walk over to where he is standing by the DJ stand. He hands me a pair of headphones and stands right behind me, letting me in front. He puts his hand on mine, forcefully adjusting my fingers to where they should be on the turntable. He instructs me to listen to the beat, try to follow it and spin it with my hands. As the song keeps playing and I keep trying to spin, all I can think about is him getting closer. I feel his belt buckle up against my lower back and his breath on my neck. That’s it: lesson is over.

I turn around, grab him by his waist and guide him to his bed. I climb on top of him and start making out with him. He closes his eyes and puts his head back, so I start licking his neck. LCD is still playing really loud. I notice that his windows are vibrating. He sits up and puts his hands on my shoulders.

“I thought you came here to learn how to spin,” he asks with a smile. And then I stop for a minute and think.

“You’re right,” I say to this guy I’ve just met, this guy I don’t really know anything about, but now I’m on top of on his bed listening to his windows vibrate. “I better get back to my party.”

“Wait… haha, you just got here,” he says and grabs my wrist trying to prevent me from climbing off him.

“I gotta go,” I say kind of winking but not offering any excuses.

“Ok,” he understands. “Let me know whenever you want to continue your lesson.”

“I will, thanks,” I say and take a last sip of the Diet Coke and walk out.

I check my phone and see 3 missed calls from my best friend and a text: “Where did you go? We’re at Moxie!” So I find the nearest cab and head back up towards Addison.

“What happened to you?!” The interrogation begins as soon as I walk in to the bar and up to my group of friends who decided that the 3-hour open bar that I’d planned had not been enough.

“I met a boy at LBC,” I say.

“Oh a boy…” My friend suggests with a suspicious look.

“A DJ,” I clarify, “and we went back to his place…”

“And you guys didn’t hook up? What are you doing here?”

“We kissed. And what do you mean, ‘what am I doing here?’ It’s my birthday after party! Besides, one-night stands are for 20-year olds,” I say trying to act mockingly mature.

“Well, look at you,” my friend says with a smile and trying to match my condescending tone.

And then, another text: “My neighbor just came by to complain about the noise. You were right; it was too loud. I guess next time we’re going to have to be a little bit more quiet. Happy bday Boy Toy.”

[Spin Me Right Round Like a Record (Part I)]

Smile Like You Mean It

“Are you going to sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come back downstairs.”

A few minutes later, I hear some rustling upstairs and footsteps immediately coming down the ladder of the loft. I open my door and see him standing there with this expression. He knows exactly why I asked him to come back down, and he’s half-smiling. I can’t do this anymore, all this tension with a guy who sleeps so close and has gotten so close, getting to know each other and him getting to me, like no other guy has gotten to me before.

I want to kiss him, so I do. And he kisses me back. Jean Paul Gaultier smells so good on him. I close the door; he turns off the lights. We don’t have to say a word.

Two months before when I was browsing through Craigslist, I was looking for a new summer sublet, not a summer fling. But there’s no such thing as a search engine for love; the best finds seem to always pop-up when you least expect them.

Although I had my fair share of adventures down on Wall Street, it wasn’t my sort of neighborhood, so I began looking for a new place in a new location just for the remainder of the summer. After a few days of calling, e-mailing, open houses and figuring out the security deposit, I found a spacious exposed-brick loft in the middle of Manhattan with three other roommates: a bartender, a musician and another short-term subletter, a 21-year-old Florida student interning at a prominent LGBT activist organization. He found the place through mutual friends. I was the stranger.

Shortly after we both moved in, I remember the boy from Florida knocking on my door to personally hand me my new issue of Esquire. Nice gesture, I thought, “Thanks!” He turns around to go back into the living area but then suddenly stops and turns back.

“Hey, what are you doing today?”

“Uh, nothing, just gotta go to work tomorrow morning…”

“Wanna go grab coffee or something, just walk around the city.”

“Sure! Have you been to Cakeshop? It’s my favorite.”

That night he tells me that he’s researching international hate crimes for this organization; meanwhile I’m interviewing celebrities for a teen magazine. He knows nothing about pop culture, and I find that refreshing. We have a great time engaging in political discussions about the state of gay rights because he’s quite the conscientious activist, and I have a knack for playing devil’s advocate for the sake of a good argument. I like to tease even in conversation.

And even though he spends all his workday submersed in reading up on some of the most atrocious acts of torture, he always comes home with a smile on his face. I come home after a day full of Miley Cyrus and all I want to do is kick a puppy.

He has this bright optimism, even though he’s well aware of humanity’s irremediable flaws, that gives him hope, a silver lining sort of attitude.

To a boy like me—cynical, jaded, irreverent—it lifts my spirits just to see him walking in with that smile. I can’t help but want to soak that all in. I can’t help but want to get closer to Sunny D.

So it gets to this. Two weeks after we’ve moved in and had our first coffee run, we’ve grown so comfortable around each other sharing this loft. We’re sitting on my bed after a night out with some friends, we’re not speaking; he’s just looking at me.

I’ve never been this open with a guy before. I share my thoughts with him absolutely unfiltered because that’s exactly what I get from him. I never considered him a potential anything, just a roommate in the most superficial sense, but somehow and almost organically, he’s managed to bury himself deeper. For the first time, I’m not putting up a front to try to impress or to get laid. Sunny D gets to see and hear and witness all of me all the time. I’m totally transparent in front of him, and he’s still here, looking at me.

He has a boyfriend back home whom he promised to be faithful, and I’m seeing other guys in New York. There are no secrets between us, just the unspoken. I feel something, and it’s heavier than a crush, and I know he feels it too. I’m ready to say it.

“I better go back upstairs,” he says waiting for a response that might convince him otherwise.

“No, stay. Stay here with me.”

“I can’t. You know that.”

“You can. You can stay here,” I whisper in his ear as I pull him closer to me.

He jerks back abruptly, and gets off my bed. He looks at me for what feels like ten minutes. Finally he says, “I need to change out of these clothes.”

“Are you going to sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come back downstairs.”

Noise Complaints (Part II)

After a few drinks out in the balcony, Chico Rock and his friends are ready to hit the city, and he wants me to join them. So I go back to my room through our connecting balconies. I take off my flip-flops, put socks on and my black shoes and change my shirt. I dash to my closet and get my jacket. It might rain tonight.

When I get back, I learn that the girls are not coming out with us; they have some birthday party in Salamanca to go to. So it’s just going to be me, Chico Rock and his friend, who has not spoken a single word to me the whole entire night. He feels threatened, I can tell. And I like it.

We get ready to leave the house, and Chico Rock whispers for us to be quiet going down the stairs and out the front door. He lives with his parents and older brother and they’re usually asleep by this time, I gather.

I try hard not to make a sound, but it’s the Bacardi shortly before midnight that causes me to giggle at even the slightest distraction. This tipsy, even a subtle touch from a cute boy can make me lose my composure.

We get on the Metro and get off in Chueca. Our first stop is Rick’s, a discrete gay bar a few blocks away. It doesn’t take me very long to realize that the Mediterranean décor and photos of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman hanging on the walls play up an allusion to Rick’s Café Américain in Casablanca.

Chico Rock gets me a drink and hands it to me, then begins dancing to some trashy Spanish pop song. I take a minute and just look at him dancing slowly in front of me. I like the way he moves, controlled sways in one direction then the next, like a drunken rockstar on stage. It’s enticing. All I want is to dance up against him.

“Que haces aqui?” (What are you doing here?) his friend asks in a cold and condescending tone, disrupting my fantasy. It’s obvious that he is not very pleased that I have intruded on their boys’ night out.

“Estoy estudiando por unos meses,” (I’m studying for a few months) I’m short with him. It’s a defense mechanism, or maybe the thrill of the competition, that prompts me to blatantly treat him with indifference.

“Pero, tio, que no eres Latino? Sabes Español perfectamente.” (But, man, aren’t you Latino? You know Spanish perfectly).

“Eso no quiere decir que no pueda aprendar algo nuevo,” (That doesn’t mean I can’t learn something new) I say without looking at him. My sight is still fixated on Chico Rock. I down my drink, put the glass down on the bar and drag him to the small dancefloor a few steps in front of us, leaving sour-faced friend by himself.

What follows are a few minutes of getting up close and personal, of me getting so close to him that I can feel his breath on my neck.

“Oye, chico rebelde sabe bailar!” (Hey, rebel boy can dance!) Chico Rock yells to his friend, making sure he doesn’t feel left out. They have already given me a nickname, Rebelde, stemming from the time my ancestors beat the crap out of the Spaniards in the Latin American revolutions of decades ago (with the help of the French, let’s not ignore some historic justice here).

I don’t really know what to make of these two guys and their past. Obviously, there is some territory being contested, and we’re all looking to conquer. But the exact details of their friendship (or more) remain unclear. They’re both being intentionally vague whenever I ask.

Their night out turns into a night tour of real Madrid, not found in any gringo guidebook. I’m in the passenger seat; Chico Rock is my guide.

So after hitting some other bars, we end up at an infamous sex club not too far away. There are no signs and only locals know what lies behind the heavy metal door. I’m pretty wasted at this point, but I reject the thought of any frisky business going down. Despite my impulsive and often reckless behavior, I know how to take care of myself, and having a threesome, maybe even an orgy, in public with complete strangers does not sound that appetizing for this romantic. But would I say no to having a peek inside the underworld?

Look but don’t touch, Rebelde.

My vision is blurry, and it doesn’t help that the place is pitch black. Even after my eyes adjust, all I can make out are silhouettes walking slowly from one back room to the next—a Laberinto de Pasiones, Almodóvar would say. In the first room, an erotic film is being projected onto a blank wall. It flickers on and off. In the next room, the soft red lighting helps me notice that along opposite walls, there are booths with thick, red velvet curtains to conceal what’s going on inside. But I can still figure it out. Noises can often tell a fully story, especially this dark.

Finally we get to the very back room. A chandelier shines some light on maybe 12 or 15 bodies, touching and moaning, laying on a giant circular table, and a crowd of spectators gathered to watch the intimate exploits and ecstasy.

We decide that, for us, showtime is over; time to wake up. It’s pouring when we leave the club, and the street lights are so bright compared to the dungeon we just walked out of that it takes a few minutes for our eyes to adjust back to reality.

Chico Rock guides me to the nearest Metro stop and tells me how to get home. And right before I run down the stairs to the station, he grabs my face and kisses me as we’re getting drenched—the beginning of a beautiful friendship (or more).

But as I wait for my train, I remember that Chico Rock lives right next door. Why aren’t we taking the same train home? Why isn’t he coming with me? Where is he spending the rest of the night?

[Noise Complaints (Part I)]

Spin Me Right Round Like a Record (Part I)

For quite some time now I’ve wanted to learn to DJ. Not like one of those Celebrity Rockstar DJs that just plug in their MacBooks and hit the button on a premade playlist. No! I’m talking about a real DJ who can actually mix and spin and all that magic.

I think I’d be a natural. On more than one occasion, boys whom I’ve invited to come over make a note of what I’m playing beforehand and ask me to send it to them. And I really get a thrill from encouraging my friends (and even complete strangers sometimes) to have a blast. Plus, I’m pretty confident in my ability to make cute boys dance. After all, music makes the people come together, no?

The first time I ever expressed my DJ daydreams to anyone was the night of my 21st birthday party. I had rented the back room at the Lakeview Broadcasting Company and massively invited everyone I’d ever come across at school. I was young and overeager and really wanted to be “cool.” To my surprise, a lot of these acquaintances ended up showing up.

Shortly after midnight and several birthday drinks later, I found myself up against one of the cherry-colored wooden walls in the back with only the soft red lights shining from above. In front of me was a dirty blond boy with piercing gray eyes and in a turquoise t-shirt with a small graphic of a cassette tape. Caught between a guy and a wooden wall, I got hard as a rock.

I’d never seen him before, and when I asked him, he confirmed that he wasn’t there that night for my party. He said it in this kind of smug tone, suggesting, “No, birthday boy, the world does not revolve around you.”

I have a thing for confident-verging-on-cocky guys; it’s a flaw. So I continue talking to this guy. Eventually, we go to the crowded patio to smoke a cigarette. After sliding the heavy, steamed-up glass door, we make our way past the drunken girls holding 40s in brown paper bags, talking loudly to one another and leaning on their boy friends.

We get to the bench by the corner and sit down as close to each other as possible. I light his Parliament first then mine and continue the conversation we spontaneously (and not so soberly) started inside.

“So all these people here are your friends?” he asks.

“Well, not really. Some of them I’ve just met tonight. Friends of friends, I guess. I’m actually not sure how all these people found out about it,” I explain trying to make myself come off self-effacing.

“Maybe you are very well-liked at school,” he suggests.

“Maybe it’s the three-hour open bar.”

“Haha, that’s more like it. So why LBC?”

“Well, I’m not really a big fan of those huge megaclubs. Had about enough of that when I was in Madrid. Besides, I have a huge crush on the DJ here tonight.”

“Yeah, he’s great.”

“Ok, wanna know something I’ve never really told anyone before?” I’m obviously on the “It’s My Birthday, Let Me Talk About Myself” train with no signs of getting off anytime soon. But he looks at me intrigued so I continue, “Recently, I’ve really been wanting to learn to DJ.”

“Really?” he responds.

“Silly, I know. I don’t even know how I would go about doing that!”

“Well, I can teach you,” he blurts out. “I DJ sometimes, for like small parties and stuff. I have all the equipment at my place. You should stop by sometime.” I’m immediately delighted by this revelation, and dude-now-DJ gets a lot cuter just sitting there smoking my Parliament.

“What about tonight?” I throw it out there thinking I’m being suave but then instantly feeling silly for being so forward.

“Tonight’s good,” he says and stomps his cigarette out. I start feeling suave again. Most of my friends have already left, the open bar started way earlier, so I finish my vodka Redbull, say my goodbyes to the stragglers at the bar and walk out with DJ Dreamboat.

[Spin Me Right Round Like a Record (Part II)]

Playlist: Songs for a Hook-Up

[This playlist originally appeared on Kenneth in the (212)]

The most important part of the hook-up is the spontaneity of it all. After the initial uncertainty and anticipation, there’s nothing like that sudden jolt that comes from having your boy crush accompany you back home. The blood pumps harder when you go with the flow. The second most important is the music. And this, on the other hand, requires careful planning on your part. The last thing you want is to have a guy jump out of your bed the second “Poker Face” comes on.

So here’s some songs to help you set the tone. Guaranteed to have the boy call you back the next day — if anything to get a copy of the playlist.

Untitled – Interpol
Most people think that their sex playlist should start once they get under the covers … but they’re wrong! The music should start as soon as your guest walks in the door. Play something safe and recognizable to make them feel right at home. And no one does sexy cool like old school Interpol.

Stars and Sons – Broken Social Scene
Once you’re all settled in and he’s sitting on the living room couch waiting for that glass of leftover white wine, Broken Social Scene will make him feel like he’s stuck in a Sofia Coppola film. This is the perfect song to play while you engage in a semi-serious conversation about life, goals and observations. Wow, look at that! You two have so much in common!

Watercolors – Music Video
“Have you heard this song?” ask as soon as this comes on. Most certainly he’ll say no, unless he’s read this blog entry. Music Video is an unsigned, indie electro artist from Tucson. I found them randomly on MySpace a few years back. “OK, listen to this, you’ll love it.” This will stop whatever conversation you two were having to begin contemplating what will come next. Now that you have his undivided attention, make a move exactly at the 2:21 mark. It’s magic. Continue making out, innocently on the couch until the song ends and then …

Dear Miami – Roisin Murphy
… get up slowly, grab his arm, help him out of the couch and guide him to your room. Stop on the way to push him up against the wall of the hallway and make out some more. You’re strictly rolling VIP by this point, boy! (This girl is known as the original Lady Gaga, only not as obnoxious).

Pure Morning (Les Rythmes Digitales Remix) – Placebo
Placebo has been making polysexual rock anthems since the late ’90s. This song has always been one of my favorites. And this great remix is perfect for slowly untying your shoelaces and unzipping your (or someone else’s) jeans.

In the Morning – Junior Boys
Invite your paramour to come underneath the covers with you. The only suggestion I make is to blast Junior Boys in the background. The rest I leave up to your imagination.

Until We Bleed – Kleerup (Feat. Lykke Li)
Enough fooling around; it’s time to get down to business. I first heard of Swedish producer Kleerup when he produced a song for Robyn’s comeback. This track featuring the quirky Lykke Li is pretty emotionally loaded, so not for casual encounters and definitely not for the faint of heart.

Archangel – Burial
At some point in the night, lyrics can get a little distracting (the reason why I didn’t include Lil Kim’s “How Many Licks” in this mix). So this is where the British dubstep of Burial comes to the rescue. Burbling beats for the most breathtaking moments of the hook-up.

Look After Me – Hot Chip
And then a moment to respire. Hot Chip is one of my favorite bands, and this song is perfect for cuddling. It also has lots of downtime where you can lean over your lover and suggest that he doesn’t have to get ready to leave … he can stay the night.

I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From – Kings of Convenience vs. Röyksopp
Ah, the morning after! As the sun rises, this song should set the perfect tone for rubbing your tired eyes, looking around and realizing that oh, the boy of my dreams is still laying next to me.