Babette

Around 1973, Babette entered my circle of friends. So he was baptized among us. He was then a little over twenty and studied at some university. Tall and spectacular Slavic blonde. First of all, Babette introduced a new style of dress and behavior. He created a new look, so to speak. Unlike the sluts from the cruising area or boring intellectuals who walked around in what looked like women's trouser suits and unkempt old women's sweaters, she began to dress fashionably, in a Western way, to get or buy from foreigners beautiful shirts, shoes, deodorants, colognes (all this was not available in the USSR). We met gays from the socialist countries - from Hungary, Czechoslovakia or GDR - and they sold fashionable things to us, because they needed Soviet money but the official exchange rate in the USSR did not suit them.

Babette also introduced a new style of communication, a specific language based on a witty play of words from gay jargon. So our meetings and walks around the city center became fun and entertaining.

But Babette's main achievement was that he was the first to realize that it was possible to approach people "not like that", i.e. straights. Why go to gay meeting places, make daily rounds of them and each time make sure that “there are the same people again” or that “there is no one suitable at all”?

That's how Babette once one day came up to a straight man (or a man from the Caucasus), said something to him, chattered him up and, in the end, had sex with him. After a while it became a system. And after a while, I myself switched to the same system. We can say that it was very successful. But more on that later.

Cocksuckers

Most of the faggots wanted to suck cock. In the conditions of the city and the general lack of their own housing, this was the easiest and most efficient way. The American "Kinsey Report" (The Kinsey Reports, 1948 & 1953) long ago confirmed that 2/3 of homosexuals prefer oral sex. Approximately so it was in our distant Soviet reality. "I suck dick" was inscribed or scrawled in all public toilets. Even in remote and provincial towns it could be seen on the wall of the toilet of the bus station of some god-forsaken regional centers. There were a lot of old and very old people - cocksuckers. Often you would only look at some old faggot, and his mouth would immediately open and his tongue would lick his lips. It meant "I suck." Or when you pass by, they whisper: “I will suck, I will suck.”

In the urinals of public toilets, when men pissed, they had a short-term sexual arousal, they looked around. The faggots "worked" right there, especially the cocksuckers and blowjobs lovers. Some stood at the urinal for hours, waiting for someone to show up. They jerked off their cocks, turned their heads, leaned over, looked at the cocks of others.

The process of picking up was like this: at the cruising area, in the lavatory or somewhere else, two faggots would catch each other's eyes and walk down the street, one after the other. Not both of them were necessarily gay, one of the pair could have been a random straight guy. In this manner they would follow one another and check the entrances of the buildings (they were all unlocked at that time). Finally, the one in front darts into some dark entrance that seemed suitable to him. As a rule, they climbed to the top  floor, sometimes they even climbed into the attic. But first they had “to stand together”. To touch cocks, to check who has what. After that, one squatted or bent over and sucked. Usually everything happened without talking, and after the job was done, they silently parted ways. Inside the building entrance passers-by, residents, a sudden knock on doors could scare them. The tenants could look out, yell and kick them out, thinking that they were drinking alcohol on the stairs.

One of my gay acquaintances told me that once he went after a dishy Georgian, a handsome man with a mustache, tall, with a powerful figure. They met at the railway station, and the Georgian "led" him to the entrance of the block of flats along some dark streets. When they climbed to the top floor, the Georgian unbuttoned his fly and pulled out ... an insignificantly small dick that barely stood out from the densely overgrown pubes. He demanded threateningly – suck it! The gay guy was revolted, disgusted, regretted that he had made such a mistake. He tried to pretend that he allegedly “suddenly felt bad”, that “he got dizzy”. Somehow this thing ended. After that, he scolded himself for the mistake he made. But the Georgians should have known that he was of no value for gays. And if he had nothing attractive in his pants, if his dick was shamefully small, then go fuck natural women, the size of the dick is not so important to them, but don’t go to the faggots.

There were many public toilets with cubicles in the city. Often the partitions between them were wooden, and, naturally, holes were made in them, sometimes quite large. Some queens spent many hours in such booths, as if lying in ambush, waiting for a guy or a man who wanted to do something to come in. And the men would put their dick in this hole in the wall, and from the adjacent booth their dick was sucked happily. Oddly enough, a lot of straight people in those faraway Soviet times went for it, stuck their dick in the hole. Moreover, through such a hole between the cubicles you could even fuck in the ass! And the straights fucked! It can be said that this was a common practice.

Between the queens there was a fight for cubicles, because some of them were more comfortable and visited. It got to the point that they bribed the cleaning lady, gave her some money, so that she would kick up a stink and drive out from a convenient place an impudent queen, who had sat there for five hours. And they also acted as follows: in order to drive out the gay who occupied the cubicle thus blocking any rotation, they threw a burning newspaper into the cubicle. In this way, they smoked out the insolent type.

Probably, some people have an inborn propensity for blowjobs. Once I saw a “toilet gay”, a man of about 45, who sucked a dick. I was amazed that his face at that moment was incredibly transformed, he became like a human embryo - his eyes are reflexively closed, tightly shut, and his mouth made intense sucking movements, as newborns do. And that's the way it goes, the sucking.

When I later went to Azerbaijan, I learned that the attitude to blowjob was different there. In Baku, in the capital, of course, they knew about it and practiced it, although they preferred the ass. But for rural “archaic” guys, an attempt to take a dick in the mouth, as I was told, could cause surprise, bewilderment and even disgust. The common people had the idea that you can and should only fuck in the ass. They were the right people.

I came across an oral sex lover

Before I knew where the gay hangouts were, I had one significant affair. True, an unsuccessful one, as it soon became clear. It was sometime in the mid-1960s. I was already in my second year in the college. The institute was not prestigious, the student were not attractive - mainly from rural areas, and, basically, it was "Slavic colorlessness". Of all this faceless mass, only a few representatives of the Caucasus stood out clearly. It was they who attracted my attention, and with through various schemes and tricks I tried to get to know them (at the time everyone smoked, there were smoking rooms, people easily entered into conversation there, and this made my task easier).

I liked one student with very dark oily eyes. He was from another faculty. It took me a long time to get to know him. I studied his class schedule, “accidentally” appeared near him when his lectures ended, stalked him in different places. In the end, we got to know each other. His name was Basil, he turned out to be an ethnic Greek from Tbilisi, Georgia. He was several years older than me and lived in an institute hostel. We began to communicate and meet, walk and chat. One evening we went to the park, sat down on a bench and began kissing passionately. And it was he who started it first. Well, I thought, my dream has come true! I “ordered” it for myself, and here it was. I fell in love, was jealous of him, terrible pictures were drawn in my mind that he was with others, I was jealous of him over women who brazenly flirted with him. For a long time this bench in the park, where we first began to kiss, was a holy place for me, I often went to sit there.

It was necessary to somehow fuck, finally. He lived in a hostel, my parents were at home. I've been waiting a long time for the moment when I'll be alone in my apartment. And then one day my family went for the whole evening to the theater. It was then that I invited Basil. Everything started out great: I lit the candles, there was a bottle of wine, all sorts of conversations began. Then I laid an old fur coat in front of the stove with burning coals (like a fireplace). We lay down in front of the “fireplace”, and our passionate kisses, cuddling, caresses began again.

At this point, all my happiness began to quickly give way to disappointment. Something strange happened: Basil began to push my head closer to his dick (the dick was of a decent size, one might say, big). Although I had already heard about dick sucking, I was completely unprepared for this. I thought that he would fuck me in the ass, I already gave myself enemas,  but I just had to take his dick in my mouth. Sucking cock it is not enough, it can only be a prelude to real fucking.

And the most disgusting thing about it was that after I sucked his dick (supposedly he believed that it was some dirty action), he no longer kissed me. When I tried to approach his face, he abruptly turned away as if from someone infectious. He turned out to be fucking hygienist.

I didn’t like it very much right away, but by inertia I was still in love with him, still running after him, still waiting for situations of intimacy with him. I hoped that he would eventually fuck me, but every time the same thing happened. Kissing, sucking his cock, then not touching my lips as if I were a leper. Fie on him!

Then I found out that he didn’t fuck women either. His sex life was limited only to what we did from time to time - oral sex with me.

Finally, I got tired of it. We were friends, but I already avoided sexual activities with him. This began to bother him. I remember how he once asked: “Why don’t you want to be with me anymore, I have such a big one! You won't find anyone with that big one."

In the end, I started feeling physical disgust for him. Somehow I restrained myself, continued to play "friendship".

Despite the fact that we broke up, he invited me for a vacation to his place in Tbilisi. I flew there in January 1967, lived with him almost in the very center of the city (of course, with no sex). In Tbilisi, I was stunned by the looks of Georgian men. I stared at them. However, any dating did not work out, and there were no sexual innuendos. I did not yet know the meeting places for men. One day, Basil said to me as if in jest: “Just don’t meet men at the railway station.” I immediately rushed to the Tbilisi railway station, walked around there for a long time, sat in the waiting room, but it never occurred to me that I had to go into the public toilet there, where, apparently, something could happen.

Ten years passed. Someone knocked on our door. On the threshold stood a completely gray-haired, almost an old man - Basil. It seems that he stayed with us then and lived for several days. Allegedly, he got married, a child was born to him. It was in the year 1975, or about that time. In recent years, I travelled to Tbilisi and sought him out. He is retired and lives completely alone. He is eighty years old. It remains unclear to me what kind of mythical wife he has in Greece. He is basically a narcissist. So he lived out his life being proud of  his great tool, without getting along with anyone.

 

My first steps. Russia, Leningrad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Railway Station in Leiningrad, Saint-Petersburg

In the autumn of 1967, kind people showed me where gays gather in Leningrad. Actually, in those days the word "gay" was unknown, they used the word "faggot". But at that time it was just a swear word, and this swear word, as a rule, was not linked to sexual orientation. Rare people (apparently those who have been in prison) knew its true meaning. Among gays, they usually said “like that” (“he is like that”) or “ours” (“he is of our kind”).

I was looking for cruising places in Leningrad, and I was sure that they were somewhere, but I couldn't find them. I thought it was just some secret place under a street clock or by the fountain at the corner of such and such street. It never crossed my mind that homosexuals have public toilets as their base, that there was their favorite habitat, that this is exactly where people piss and shit and where you can see dick.

In 1965-66, I often went to railway stations - I heard from someone that "people like that" gather at railway stations. I hung about in the waiting rooms, but never went into the toilets. What for, I thought?

True, once in the waiting room of the Baltic railway station (there was a restaurant nearby), an old “faggot” stuck to me. He told me, flashing his golden teeth: “Oh, you want to go to a restaurant, but no money, no money…” I was delighted with this encounter. At last, I thought! I will get to know him, maybe through him I will be able to meet more interesting people. I told him, let's go to my house in the suburbs. Oh, - he answered, - how can I go there, what if your hooligan friends attack me and beat me up there? No, nobody will attack or beat you, - I begged him, - let's go!

Of course, he didn't go.

Well, in the fall of 1967, I was lucky and I met a kind gay, a young dyed blonde queen, you can see from a mile away who he was. At first he wanted to do something with me, but very soon felt that I would not give him what he wanted, and he decided to take me on a tour of all the places in Leningrad where “such people” gathered. By the way, for a very long time, homosexual appearance, mannerisms, and peculiarities of speech were not noticed by ordinary common people. It was believed that these were simply “trendy guys”.

 Well, we arrived at Nevsky Prospekt, the main street of the city. First we went to the café (I don't remember what it was called) but among the regulars it came to be known as “Saigon”. Allegedly, such people gathered there.

By the way, this "Saigon" existed for many years and went down in history as a meeting place for various underground artists, musicians and dissidents. This crowd did not react to our circle of gay people, just as if we were not there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Leningrad, cafe "Saigon", long ago.