I have just moved from New York to Wilton Manors, Florida, to live with Yuri and his housemate, bodybuilder turned gym owner Barney. On my first weekend in town, in an attempt to fix me up with an instant boyfriend, they have invited two guys over for dinner: Kevin, a bodybuilder in his 30s, and Jordi, a slim, eyeglassed twink from Romania, who teaches at Florida International University.
After dinner, we sit in the living room with dessert (yogurt-covered strawberries), cruise, decide who is going to share who, and exchange stories about dates from hell, celebrity hookups, and gigantic penises. Kevin asks Barney, "Do you think they'd like my story of the Great Underwear Thief?"
"I think so," Barney says, "It starts out weird, but I like the ending."
Buffalo, New York, Summer 1995
Kevin was 25 years old, a recent graduate of Canisius College, working in an office and training hard for the Mr. Olympia contest in Atlanta (he didn't place).
Bodybuilder or not, when you live in apartment, you spent a morning once a week trudging a clothes hamper to the laundry room at the other end of the hall or down the stairs, putting my clothes in the washer for 30 minutes and the drier for 45 minutes, returning to your apartment to wait in between.
He didn't worry about thieves. Washers don't open during the cycle, and who'd want to break into a drier to get damp clothes? Especially when they don't know what's there? Could be the wrong size, the wrong gender, crappy? It's not worth the trouble, right?
"Well, maybe for a pair of your Speedos, I would take the trouble," Jordi says.
One week he couldn't find his favorite blue briefs that cost him 50 francs in Paris. He checked under the bed, in all the drawers, even under the couch. He figured a hookup stole them.
Then he couldn't find his favorite Speedos.
Then, when he was folding laundry, he found only two pairs of underwear. There should have been seven.
Was he being targeted by an underwear thief?
Kevin decided to catch the culprit in the act. The laundry room was adjacent into the boiler room, a perfect place to hide and see who was coming and going.
He put the laundry in the drier, and then instead of returning to my apartment, hid.
Sure enough, after about 30 minutes -- long enough for the clothes to be dry, but before anyone would be coming back -- someone came in, knelt, and stared going through his stuff.
A kid! Teenage, tall, slim, long dirty-blond hair, brown eyes. Big hands and feet. Bubble butt.
"Hi!" Kevin said, jumping out from behind the boiler.
The rest of the post, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.