Getting serviced

Last Thursday I was getting fucked really hard —banged!

It got me thinking about goods and services. My goods are getting old and bruised and I need to get serviced.

Eventually, we all need more services and if we don’t have the dough or they are not near enough, we don’t get them.

Commercial Dr and the Eastside, in general, seem lacking in gay services. I notice that Main St and the Drive are becoming mostly eateries now. The chattering classes have turned to masticating and yoga-ing.

Won’t this much chewing and bending bring consequences? What happens when blood tests show sky high cholesterol or early onset of diabetes?

This worries me, hedonistic as I am. I pause to think about the aftermath of such a lovely lifestyle —my sciatica has been acting up as of late.

Many health-related services seem concentrated around Burrard and Davie: St Paul’s and its platoon of diligent nurses; the pharmacies that carry heavy treatment drugs (try asking for Kaletra in a Safeway pharmacy and they will point to the ethnic food section); the lovely Robin Perry who massages my achy limbs so not everything migrates south all at once; the jovial dentist Dean Wershler; the pneumatic men at Body Energy Club from whose hands I would pop anything, anytime; Joshua, the stunning ink artist on Granville and the talented barber Bill at Burrard and Davie; and even the more private, on-the-flesh services seem to gather around there.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the tracks, we seem shy of catering to the fags. Why?

As I slowly bent in an uncanny prasarita position to withstand the thrusting, I pondered whether the Eastside and the Drive would become a sort of exile for aging queers, men specifically.

Research shows that as gay men get older, we recede into the closet. Yup, after all that fuss coming out to everyone, it turns out that aging makes us invisible anyway.

Do queers age differently though?

I wondered about this as I got into prasarita —which is good for the hips so often atrophied by whatever drug of your doctor’s choice.

You have to maintain the length of the torso, lean forward from the hip joints, press your fingertips onto the floor directly below the shoulders, bring your head up, keeping the back of the neck long, and direct your gaze upward toward the heavens.

Drawing your inner thighs away from each other, widen your hole to the entire universe —and be careful not to fart. Ouch! Then walk your fingertips between your feet, bend your elbows, and lower your torso until your forearms are perpendicular to the floor. Fuck. Who can keep up?

Keeping healthy has been turned into a Protestant 24/7 chore. No wonder we need much servicing!

They say the actual marker of middle class is not how much stuff you own, but how much service you get.

I don’t get serviced all the time, although I have been a frequent user of social and medical services over the last two decades. I don’t take them for granted, but I wish more health-related gay professionals and their clinics of all kinds were encouraged to pitch their tent on the Drive.

Some are here already. We need to entice more.

At this point, I lost the thread of my reasoning as my prasarita and the pelvic motions hit my G-spot (I do believe I have one between the second and the third rings).

However, as I wished for gay-specific services nearby, I also dreaded the “gay tax.” That is, being treated with disdain by some supple and perky 20-something-year-old.

Issues? Yes, I have them. Don’t you?

I don’t mind paying as long as I get a smile, even when you think I am pathetic in my really tight jeans and tank tops. Gay youth and those older than they are have had their communication shadowed by a sort of Michael Jackson predatory syndrome and HIV.

And what’s with the lack of non-profit services for queers on the Eastside? Don’t we deserve branches on Commercial Dr? Wouldn’t Dr Peter have wanted an adult AIDS daycare in the east? Will you not be needing a queer senior centre in the next 10 years?

No matter how much yoga we do, don’t you dread the thought of ending in closet exile in an inhospitable suburb and a poorly decorated seniors home? I mean, Waazubee and Lombardo go west. Why can’t organizations come east?

Oh dear. My thoughts began to rush from my cock to my head as I manoeuvred more or less comfortably into an inverted halasana pose. I was about to attempt my most daring acrobatics yet —the one that may have impressed entire bathhouse audiences in the 1980s.

But I started wobbly. So many things to consider: insurance, wills, plastic surgery, vengeance against betraying lovers, the friendships that crumbled along the way, the list of assholes I refuse to see at my funeral.

What will it be like getting old in a relationship? Or alone?

Will there be dignified and respectful queer retirement for gay men? What about those who were too indulgent, or could not save money, or the uninsured?

Will there still be universal health care? Will the Canadian over-regulating “nanny state” be able to protect me?

Under the weight of these thoughts, I came tumbling down in the worst possible mess, my left leg entangled in the keyboard and the webcam cables. No grip, too much lube, and the computer tower was dragged from the desk. Poof! I lost my connection.

My website master, the man who was virtually fucking me, vanished like Jeannie into the bottle.

And I wound up with some bruised equipment in need of service.