SPECIAL ISSUE - 6 INTERVIEWS by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2007 written on December 17th 1994 translated by the author English text kindly revised by John
USUAL DISCLAIMER
"SPECIAL ISSUE - 6 INTERVIEWS" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest.
SIXTH
Again in the field of literature, we are pleased and proud to propose to you a really exceptional interview; that of a great writer, who only a few know he started his career as an actor:
ALONSO ARIAS
Novelist, Mexican
Q. Dear Alonso, thank you for having agreed to receive me here in your retreat and to concede to our magazine the opportunity to interview you.
A. Thanks to you, rather.
Q. Alonso Arias, gay novelist... Do you like this label?
A. I think it funny. It is like saying: Pedro Garcia, gay butcher - And so? His meat is tasty or not and if he's gay or straight is totally irrelevant.
Q: Well, a butcher sells beef meat, and that has no relation with gayness. But you write about gay loves...
A. Yes, yes. It is different, I agree. What I mean is that there is too much discrimination about this point of gayness. Just read the newspapers - "Rejected lover kidnaps a girl" and that's that. But "Wretched event in gay world: a rejected man kidnaps and rapes a poor youth". In the second case all is colored black, dirty, when the facts of the two events are possibly not very different. Against all this I write: gay love can be beautiful, clean, saintly as much as the hetererosexual one. Especially if it is real love.
Q. When did you understand being gay, and how did you accept it?
A. I was an eighteen-year-old. I had a girlfriend who I regularly had sex with mutual satisfaction. You know, a boy my age, in my country, had to have a girlfriend or he would be despised, avoided by everybody. Therefore I too had one. Of course I knew about the existence of gays, but to me they were weird people, something like the small green martians saying "bip-bip". In fact as far as I know, I never met a gay man in person,. In my circle there wasn't a real contempt towards gay people but a kind of pity - poor people, we thought, their tool doesn't work properly and they don't know what they are missing.
I was attending the last year of high school. One of my neighbours owned an advertising agency. One day he tells me: you know, Alonso, you'd be the perfect guy for a set of advertising spots I have to produce. Would you perform in them for me? I'll pay you, of course. I think: why not? What's it about? I ask. Advertisement for a new drink to launch next summer. I accept. He filmed me, mainly on the beach, in my swimming trunks. I like performing. He pays me well - the first money I earn by myself.
I think all is over. But, on the contrary, a director sees those spots. He has to shoot a movie and thinks I could be the ideal co-protagonist. So, one day, my neighbour tells me he received a telephone call from that director, and asks me if I'm interested. He sets up an interview. Screen tests. The director is enthusiastic. My mother didn't really agree because my character would be that of a gay youth courting and conquering a married man, until they become lovers. But the pay will be very good, and my father says it's all right and we sign the contract. So the filming starts.
The funny thing is that the main character, the one who in the movie is the married man, in reality is gay - the opposite to real life.
We film the scenes - and I'm amused. The seduction scenes, the ones where I succeed in arousing him, and the love scenes are often repeated because of small imperfections. The protagonist is a really handsome man, he is a thirty-eight-year-old, his name is Pablo, and he is a really likeable guy. During some of the love scenes, I feel really odd - the contact between our bodies, often naked or half-naked, is arousing. At first I feel slightly embarrassed, but nobody seems to care, nobody laughs or pulls our legs - it's just acting for a movie. But I become aware that also Pablo is often aroused and this has the power to increase my excitement.
Until one day Pablo says to me, "As I see that you too are aroused in some scenes, why don't you come to my place... so we can try it once for real,?"
Of course I refuse, he insists, at the end, after some days, I accept. It is like repeating the film scenes... but more agreeable, more exciting. In the movie the boy lets the man take him. When Pablo, at his home, really tries to take me, I have a moment of hesitation, but then I tell myself: let's try, just once, so I can better understand what my character feels... and I let Pablo have his way. I enjoy it a lot. It is a really intense pleasure that, of course, no girl can give me.
Thus, all during the filming months, at times I go again to his place. I become aware that now it's easier for me to play the scenes. I feel them more true, inside myself. Anyway, for all that period, I also continue doing it with my girlfriend - a top with her and a bottom with Pablo. I can't tell which role I like better. I enjoy both of them; well, why not?
The movie comes out. It is moderately successful. But it's a great hit in the gay world. I start receiving fan letters, autographs and photo requests... it is a taste of celebrity. Some of the letters are from men who would like to meet me, to make love with me. Inside myself I smile. I reply to everybody. To the last requests I explain that I have a girlfried, I only play the role of a gay youth in the movie. The encounters with Pablo stop too.
Then I finish high school and enter university. Here I meet a twenty-four-years old boy, Raoul, who saw my movie. He is gay. He is really handsome and likeable. We become friends. He starts courting me. I tell him, as in my letters - I have a girlfriend, I'm not gay, but he doesn't let go. One day he invites me to go for a trip at the river, to swim. I tell him that, if he swears he will not try it on with me, I'll willingly go. He promises. He keeps his word. We are naked and, after a good swim, we are sunbathing. I look at his body - I like it. I'm aroused. I feel I desire it. So I let him clearly understand. He naturally doesn't draw back. We make love. He takes me but then he makes me take him - that's really great. That night, in our tent, I ask him to do it again. Afterwards I feel really good. Better than when I had sex with my girlfriend. So I then understand that I like doing it better with a male...
Q. No shock at all?
A. Absolutely not - it's all so simple, spontaneous, beautiful. And Raoul is at once sweet and strong. I simply understand that with a man I can have a lot more than with a woman. Therefore my choice is spontaneous, natural.
Q. Therefore, you did make a choice.
A. Yes, right. Why continuing being a top with a girl and a bottom with a boy, when I could play both roles with the same person? It would have been nonsense, wouldn't it? And also in the so-called active role, I realized I liked it better with a boy.
Q. What do you mean with the "so-called'' active role?
A. Just that you can also be very active being the bottom and also very passive being a top - they seem to me just stupid labels.
Q. Did you become Raoul's lover?
A. No. Simply, after that first time, we continued making love from time to time, because we both enjoyed it. To me, that choice was a real copernican revolution - I'm gay, and happy, satisified, fulfilled. And you know the enthusiasm of a revolutionary. I entered the gay university group at once and became an activist - we wanted everybody to understand we had to have citizens' rights like any other person. For instance, we wanted to be allowed to walk arm in arm like any "normal" couple without being laughed at...
Q. Therefore, your family too became aware of you being gay?
A. Of course. My mother cried a lot, saying that it was the fault of that movie that led me astray. My father was angry because he wanted "a son to be a male, or a daughter to be a female, and not something halfway"! But I held out, explained, tried to make them understand. I think they never really understood. Their education limited them way too much. But at the end they resigned themselves and, at least, stopped making a tragedy of it.
The director of my first movie contacts me for a second one. This time there was nothing gay - I had to play a young gangster who falls in love with a nun... each of them wants to pull the other to his own side. The nun is the winner - the boy leaves the life of crime and becomes a missionary in Africa. No sex in this movie. Somewhat honeyed but not bad...
Meanwhile I have several adventures with boys, young men, mature men. But not a real love yet.
Then another director contacts me, a very famous one, for my third movie - this is the story of a boy ending, innocent, in jail (and there are sex-scenes between the young inmates) and how his father, believing in the innocence of his son, after many dangerous situations, is able to prove his innocence. I like it. The director tells me: yours is really the right face for this character. Come to bed with me and the role is yours. I answer no. First, because I don't like him and second, because I want a part because I'm a good actor, not in exchange of sex. He threatens me: if you refuse, you will never again put your foot in a film studio. I answer that I don't give a shit. I would really have liked continuing to be an actor, but I soon see that his threat was well-grounded - even the director I did two movies with now seems to have no roles for me.
That's when I write my first novel, more to give vent to my anger, my deception, than to really become a writer. But my friends read my manuscript and all say I have to publish it. So I take it to a publisher, who likes it. My first novel comes out.
Q. It's Coin of Exchange, isn't it?
A. Right. Meanwhile I graduate. I continue writing - I like it. My second novel comes out, then the third one, Autumn Leaves. They are successful, especially the third one. I'm starting to earn good money, so I continue writing.
One day, I was strolling with some friends from the gay association and we were discussing the merit of beauty, elegance, appearances and essence... you know the sort of pseudo-philosophical discussion just to kill time. We sit on the terrace of a coffee shop.
One of our group points towards a boy leaning against the low wall opposite us, who is evidently hustling, "Look at that guy - he is fairly good-looking, but he's uncouth, dirty, obtuse. One like that could never be desired, except on a purely animal level, and by people of his same class..." and the discussion gets heated.
I have the opposite opinion - anyone, in the right conditions, can become the most admired and desired person in the world. You see, the "My Fair Lady" speech comes up, but in the masculine. Yes! No! Sure! Come on! For a conclusion, I issue a challenge: just give me some time, and I'll transform him in the most admired boy of our town. We make a real bet.
So, I stand up and go to hook that boy. I ask him how much he asks to spend all the night with me. The boy weighs me up, then tells me his price. And then he comes to my place.
His name is Diego Duarte, he is eighteen-years-old. He is a pieceworker and rounds out by hustling.
"I like having sex with men, and if I can also earn money, why not?" he declares.
His face is not really hansdome, nor very expressive.
When I tell him why I hooked him, he looks at me as if I was an idiot, "But... what? Don't you want me to have a good fuck with you?" he asks.
"Possibly that too... But my goal is, if you agree, to make you into a dandy, an elegant and refined boy... Are you game?"
"And you will give me food, and clothes, and everything... Fucking shit, if you make me a dandy, I can also earn a lot more money streetwalking! You aren't making a fool of me, are you?"
We discussed everything. I laid out my conditions: all during the period while I try to change him, he has to stop hustling, working and has to do everything exactly as I ask him, as I tell him, and without any fuss. He will live with me, in my apartment. He tells me he needs to think about my proposal. He asks me again to fuck. I say we can do it, but first he has to take a good shower. He accepts. He comes out from the bathroom totally naked - he has a really great body, he oozed eroticism. We go to bed. He does only the male role, but in a pleasurable way. He has an unrestrained virility, animal-like, as my friend said. I like him but I think that he has a lot to learn also on that point - mainly he has to learn giving pleasure, not only taking it. But without losing his virility, for sure...
We fall asleep.
The following morning he wakes me up, "Do you want to fuck again?" he asks me, showing me he again has a strong hard-on.
"No..." I answer, half-sleepy.
"For free, of course. I know you like it and I'm again turned on. Come on, look at my hard cock - let me fuck you."
"Not now, Diego. I would rather take you."
"Hey, no, not that, I told you, I'm sorry. At least you can suck it, then."
"After you suck mine."
"No no no... but I'm so hot... feel here how hard it is."
"You can masturbate, then."
"What?"
"Wank yourself."
"Heck, don't say difficult words, then. I'm afraid I have to do so... I really need to wank..."
I leave him on the bed, naked, lying with his legs spread, slowly masturbating, his eyes shut. It's a really erotic scene. After a while he comes to the kitchen where he heard me bustling about. Naked. Desirable. A real wild colt - will I succeed in taming him? He is sulking slightly. But he eats with a good appetite.
"So, then, did you decide?" I ask him.
He accepts. So my work on him starts.
First of all I impose on him to take a shower not less than once each day. I take him to the barber-shop and make him change his hairstyle. I take him to buy new clothes and discuss his choices, explaining to him how he has to choose, what he has to care about. We are back home - diction and how to move while walking. He is amused, at least for now. I ask him to read then test him about what he read. I ask him to write down a summary of the text, then what he thinks of it. Full of grammar mistakes, rambling. I correct and explain. He snorts but does as I ask him.
At night we hit the bed. And here also I resume my lessons - he has to learn to caress, to give pleasure. He does it awkwardly. He feels it is a waste of time .
"But later, you'll let me fuck you, won't you?" he asks me. That's all that matters to him.
"If you do what I'm asking you nicely, I will."
"Hey, just don't ask me to give you a blow-job and neither to fuck my ass, is that clear?"
"Don't worry." I reassure him.
I have to put into his head that to caress is not to polish by hand, nor to give a massage - it is to appreciate with the hands the beauty of the partner's body. I explain to him, I give him a demonstration caressing him, I ask him to caress me. It seems I'm just wasting my time, but it's only his first time. When I tell him he can take me, he brightens - oh, at last, something interesting! And yes... he is rather skilled at doing that.
I devote almost all my time to him. I don't let him to draw breath. Exercises on exercises. Making him appreciate a poem seems wasting my time, but I don't slacken my hold. I take him to museums, concerts, shows. He seems to be someone sentenced to death. But he does all I tell him. Mechanically, without putting his heart into it, but he complies.
That is... until I have an intuition - I start by asking him to tell me why he likes so much to fuck. He looks at me as if I was a dummy. But he tries to explain to me. I ask him what he feels, what he experiences. I help him to describe it. He starts to become interested. I made him read the most explicitely erotic gay poems and prose passages. He starts to be enthusiastic. I carefully choose gay passages for him.
He likes them, "I got a hard-on! Look here! I feel like fucking, now. Let's stop for a while and go to bed, come on." "Afterwards, I promise; now we'll study some more." "But now, look, he... he really wants to pay a you visit."
So I throw him a sop. I'm not complaining.
I make him look at reproductions of Michelangelo's nudes - even if with comments like "I'd like fucking that one!" he appreciates them. Then I ask him to describe what he feels, what thoughts, reactions, desires those images arouse in him. I also carry out his lessons of orthography, of gait, of etiquette. It's an uphill task, but something is moving in him. While he does the exercises I give him, or while he fixes our food or cleans the apartment (I have to teach him these too) I avail myself to write - I have to continue producing my novels to earn money, especially now that I have to sustain him as well.
For the first time he asks me to read something - my novels. Then he asks me to explain them. And he concludes, "You know how to write, but I like to fuck you better." and he laughs amusedly.
At times I see my friends and they ask me how my experiment is going - they would like to check in person but I refuse - Diego is not yet ready. Even though six months have elapsed. Anyway he is changing, evolving, progressing. His glances are now more lively - I'm succeeding in awakening his curiosity. In bed, he is learning to appreciate the pleasure of caressing, he is learning that caring about the other's pleasure increases his own. Yes, there is progress. His expression, his way of looking, his smile are changing and Diego is becoming a more and more interesting character.
I allow only one of my friends, Francisco, from time to time, to come to visit me and only he can meet Diego. He knows about my experiment and, as he doesn't come so often, only every two or three weeks, he can be aware of Diego's progress better than I can. And I need his opinion - at times I feel almost discouraged, as the boy's progress is so slow that it seems to me almost imperceptible, possibly because I'm living with him day and night.
One year after we live together, I decide to go on a journey, together with Diego and Francisco. A nice hotel in Caracas. Society life. It is a way to test all Diego learned up to now. The boy is fascinated - in all his life he never had the occasion to mix with the jet set. I also take him in some gay salons, choosing those with the most biting aunties. At first Diego is amused, then bored, then pissed off.
He takes me aside, "I'll send them to fuck themselves! They tease you, make you aroused, then don't give a shit for you!"
I look at him severely, "You could be right too, Diego, but express yourself with more appropriate words."
"Sorry, Alonso, but those are the most appropriate words for those people!"
"Yes, you and I can both be right. But learn to treat them with their same weapons. Don't lower yourself, don't give them a reason to despise you. To them, a refined sentence can be a lot sharper than a four-letter word."
He understood and this marked some further progress. He understood that one can also use a swearword, it is not a taboo per se, but it has to be used in the right way and occasion. I took him also into more agreeable places, where he felt better. He met a boy he liked and who chased after him.
Diego asked me if he could go to bed with him. "You do not belong to me, you are not an object, Diego. If you like him, go with him."
"You told me that I had to do all you told me... and if you don't want me to... It was part of our agreement, wasn't it?"
I smiled, "Alright. Go with him, no problem..."
He came back to our hotel room the morning after. He had a weird expression. I asked him what was up.
"That one... said to me that I'm a leaping stallion..."
"Well, aren't you glad?"
"No. You see, all he was interested in was just my coc... my member, not me as a person."
"But he let you take him, didn't he? Aren't you happy? Wasn't that what you wanted?"
"Yes... no... Do you think that way of me too?"
"Well, rather. You complain because he saw in you just your member. But, for instance, when you want to take me, don't you see in me just my hole?"
"No... I like you as a person, for real..."
"But not the first times. Be honest now."
"Well..." he said and blushed.
"Moreover, you mainly care about your own pleasure, not that of your partner... You just found somebody like yourself. What's strange in that?"
"You are wicked telling me that... Am I really like that one? I don't take it..."
"I'm not wicked."
"You cannot deny I give you pleasure..."
"But to be sure not for altruism. You do it, you learned to do it, only because this increases your own pleasure."
"Yes, it's what you explained me..."
"Sure. But I never told you that you have to only care about your own pleasure. The other person has as much right as you have, as many desires as you have. If somebody thinks mainly about his own pleasure... well, it is a contest about who gets more; and it's easy to take, when the other gives."
"I like making love with you."
"Yes, exactly, because I give and you take."
"Am I giving nothing to you?"
"Very little... you are not yet able. I don't lay the blame on you..."
We went back home. That journey did a lot for Diego - he experienced his own personal limits and he didn't like them. He was maturing. He devoted himself to his utmost - it was him, now, who was the one urging me to teach him, to explain things to him.
And at night, in our bed, he asks, "You would like taking me, right?"
"Yes, I desire you."
"Why didn't you try any more?"
"Because I know you don't like it, and I respect you."
"I... I don't really know if I don't like it. I never tried. That is, yes, but only when I was thirteen, and that man was too much endowded, so he hurt me and after I never again wanted to take it. But if you desire it so much... you can try, with me..."
"We don't need to."
"Well, at first, you know, I'm not used to it, but then, possibly..."
"But we don't need to." I repeated with gentleness.
"Yes, we need to! I... now... when I make love with you, I just continue thinking that I know what you like but I don't give it to you. And then I recall what you told me: you stopped going with girls because with a boy you could have everything, but I'm giving you only half of it. Therefore, either I'm able to give you everything or it will be better if you look for a boy better than me. And also, after all you are doing for me, wouldn't it be right if I do something for you? You are right - all my life long I always took, took, only took. Wouldn't it be time I learned also to give?"
I didn't take him that night. But I clearly felt we were making love in a different way, with another spirit - I felt that I was finally becoming important to him.
When I felt he was really ready (his decision had been mainly intellectual, but gradually, waiting for me to take him, he stared to desire it), I took him. As soon as I tried to enter in him, he moaned.
"Do you want me to stop?"
"No... go on..." he answered without hesitation.
Afterwards I asked him, "You didn't really enjoy it, did you?"
"Well, you are really wrong. I liked it too and not just because I felt you liked it." he said quietly. Then he added, "And then... to be honest, I was somewhat afraid I would feel less of a man, being taken, but on the contrary... I feel I am a male just as before."
"But you like better taking me, don't you?"
"For the moment, that's so, but then... who knows? You enjoyed a lot taking me, right?"
"Well, not really a lot..."
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"I knew you were putting up with it, and this dampened me a little. If you enjoyed it totally, as I did the first time I was taken, it would have been perfect for me also."
"It will be better next time, for both of us." he said with a gentle smile.
"We don't need..."
"Stop it! Or rather, if you prefer... I pray you to cease these absurd speeches." he said in a "refined" tone, almost pulling my leg.
We laughed.
Another time, while in bed during the preliminaries, we were caressing each other genitals, he told me, "Do you know that you are beautiful also in this department? I'm feeling like... Would you like sixty-nining?"
His last taboo had crumbled.
Making love together became really great for both of us.
Q. Because you fell in love, at last...
A. No. That happened but a lot later. He was living with me for two years. For his twentieth birthday we oganized a party to present him to society - he was at last ready. We invited all my gay friends, including those who made the bet. After asking them for their silence, I presented Diego as a the scion of a Columbian upper class family. Nobody doubted it. At the end of the party, my friends said I won the bet.
Diego started to go out, both with me and alone. He was admired, flattered, courted. He liked it. At times he didn't come back home because he spent the whole night with some occasional conquest.
But he was very selective, "Thanks to you, I now have all the city at my feet, and I can now make my choice. Not like when I had to sell my body..."
Until one day when he accepted the courtship of Elvino, a rich industrialist. Therefore he told me he was going to live with him. Good, it was the best conclusion to my experiment, I thought - I took a cheap, little hustler from the street and made of him the charming lover of a billionnaire...
But I became aware I was missing him. I realized how much I had grown fond of him. Or rather, I understood I was in love with him. Too late, unhappily. Who knows why you don't appreciate things for their real value when you have them, but only when you lose them?
I was out of the scene for those two years. So I dived back in again. At times I met Elvino and Diego and the boy seemed happy. Elvino didn't let Diego want for anything. But I missed Diego so very much! I tried not to think too much about that. I took a fancy to Teodoro, a medicine student a couple of years older than Diego. The boy also took a fancy to me. After we were meeting for a while, we started making love; until he moved to my place. I liked Teo, but was always making comparisons with Diego... Diego was different, more lively, more natural, more virile... Teo was more beautiful, at least his face was, but... Possibly Teo felt I was not in love with him. I liked him, enjoyed making love with him, I was also fond of him but... So, after the one and a half years we were together, Teo fell in love with another man and left me.
During the following two months I passed from one adventure to another. Then one day I met Diego again at a party. We talked for a long time.
At a centain point he told me, "You know, I'm planning to leave Elvino."
"How come? Aren't you happy with him?"
"Well, he is a good man, he treats me nicely, but there is no communication with him, we have nothing in common, nothing to talk about. Moreover, I have nothing to do all the day long, I'm bored. I wanted to look for a job, but he doesn't want that. I felt better when I was a plain worker... or when I was with you. And then... I was falling in love with you, when I met Elvino. I let him fascinate me with his wealth. With his kindness. I thought I could forget what I was feeling towards you... but on the contrary..."
"And I... After you left, I missed you so very much. I too think that... or rather, I'm sure... I too am in love with you."
"But... aren't you with Teo, now?"
"No more. There was no love between us..."
"So then... wouldn't you like having me with you again?" he asked, brightening.
Just his smile would have conquered me, if I wasn't already in love with him: "It would be great..." I answered with a certain emotion.
"Anyway I shall have to leave Elvino... He could regret it, but he isn't in love with me. You really want me with you again?"
"If you really want it... I love you, I told you."
"I too do, therefore what problem is there?"
"None."
"None!"
He left Elvino, who didn't react badly. Diego came back to me. He found a job as a shop assistant in the best jeweler's in town. He was at last happy. I too am happy.
Q. Three years ago you were awarded the International Literary Prize for your novel "Warps and Wefts". It seems almost the opposite story of what happene between you and Diego...
A. Yes, it is so. I wrote that novel for Diego - it is the story of a young worker who bets with his friends he will conquer an upright university professor. And how the man, thanks to the youth, will understand that love doesn't rely on culture, education or similar things, but only on the sensibility of the person. And that you can also call the member "cock" and you can also say "fuck me" without losing the poetry of making love. It is somewhat a counter-current novel, to do Diego justice. It contains the things I wanted to tell him, and that I found easier tell him in the form of a novel. Because I wanted Diego to understand that what really transformed him were not my two years of "lessons" but the fact that he already had within himself a sensibility, even though it was made drowsy by the life he lived up to our meeting. Because I wanted him to understand he owes me nothing, but he owes everything to himself.
Q. Did Diego understand that?
A. Yes, he understood it, but he corrected me - he says he does owe me something: the fact that I love him and I accept his love...
With his interview, dear readers, we have finished our first tour of gay celebrities. If you enjoyed this special issue, write us and tell us if you would like a second tour, suggesting the names of the people you would like us to interview and we will do our best to meet your wishes.
THE END
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