In the spring of 1994, I had an actual full-time job, a rarity in West Hollywood, as an architectural assistant at Gruen Associates, the guys responsible for popularizing the idea of the indoor shopping mall.
I hated having to be inside the same four walls day after day from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm, Monday through Friday, with no days off except for federal holidays (I had to use a sick day to take Thanksgiving off, and my vacation time to go home for Christmas). But other than that, it was great:
2. I got a full hour for lunch, and it was two blocks from the L.A. County Museum of Art and Thai, Chinese, and Vietnamese restaurants.
3. It was full of hot architects wearing business suits. I have a major suit fetish, so I was in heaven.
You even saw them occasionally out of their suits, as they stripped down for jogging or to play racketball with clients. By the end of the day, I was usually raring to go. I grabbed Lane the minute I walked into the apartment, letting dinner get cold on the table.
Not that he minded.
4. The architects were all "family men," with the heterosexual wife and kids essential for any management or professional jobs in the 1990s (and usually today), but the support staff, the receptionist, secretaries, gophers, and miscellaneous assistants, were all gay. None of us were out at work, of course, so no one talked about it openly, but it was great to have some friendly faces among the hetero talk of wife-kids-sports-boobs.
5. There had been a lot of layoffs, so I had my own office,, a long, narrow room with two small windows, down a long hall with empty offices on either side, and not much to do but work on my homework for my architectural design class or write. I published about 50 articles that year.
One afternoon, about an hour before quitting time, I was alone in my office. The shades were drawn to avoid the glaring sun. Suddenly I heard a knock on the door. Morris, the guy I had the date from hell with last month!
He wasn't a welcome sight. Granted, he was attractive -- in his 40s with curly salt-and-pepper hair, a square face, square workman's hands, and an old-fashioned gray flannel suit, complete with vest, pinktie, handkerchief in the front pocket and cuff links instead of buttons.
But he brought his lady friend along on our date! the humiliation of being seen in public with a woman! I was still being ribbed about it.
"So this is where you've been hiding!" Morris exclaimed, shutting the door behind him. "Your cute little receptionist gave me directions,but I still got lost."
The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual content, is on Tales of West Hollywood.