John Baxter walked out of his apartment. It was night, and he had no desire to spend another night in.

Life had been tough these past few months. John Baxter was never a rich guy. He still had his ways, though. He worked as a clerk at a seedy bookstore. He was your average-joe. Standing five feet nine inches tall, with black hair and pale green eyes. He was a rugged-looking man, not bad-looking even though he had some meat on his bones. When he wasn’t at the bookstore, he was working as a mechanic at Joel’s Auto Repair Shop. He made a living. Tonight, John felt like doing something different.

He went to the Tight End, one of the local gay bars. John Baxter was a regular there. He was bent, as in “not straight” and not ashamed of it. John Baxter wasn’t a total flamer or anything. He was gay. He didn’t act in the way most people thought gays acted. He didn’t wear flamboyant clothing. But he was gay.

Oh, he had done the “straight” lifestyle thing. Back in high school, he dated girls. He even had sex with a few of them. Sex with women was okay when the bitches spread their legs instead of opening their mouths, that is. He preferred sex with men, having discovered it at the age of thirteen with a male friend of the same age. For a long time, John Baxter considered himself bisexual, but now he just identified as gay.

He met a man named Fred Dawson when he was nineteen. Fred was a football player in college, and John was taking a couple of classes there as well. John was dating a girl named Cindy at the time. He fell in love with the handsome Fred. They had a secret affair. Their affair ended when John couldn’t stand hiding anymore. He dumped his girlfriend Cindy, told his parents and friends that he was gay, and moved into an apartment with Fred. Fred couldn’t stand the heat, so he went back into the closet. Last John heard of him, Fred Dawson was an NFL lineman getting married to some blonde supermodel.

John Baxter went into the bar. He sat at a bench and ordered a drink. Donald, the burly bartender, got him a scotch on the rocks. John sipped his drink and looked at the scene. The bar was full of gay men, and there were some women around. Some of the younger gay men had brought their female friends or faghags along. John shook his head. A lot of the gays he met were so typical. He avoided effeminate men like the plague. He preferred straight-acting men. John was out and proud, but he didn’t feel the need to display his sexuality in front of everyone.

He heard some noise and turned around. A man entered. He was tall and lean. He looked like a Latino and wore a red shirt. He was accompanied by two women. The first woman was tall, African American, and wore a black leather jacket and leather pants. Her skin was dark brown, and her hair long and bleached bone-white. The second woman was not that tall and of obvious Asian descent. John found this trio to be odd. They all looked so “straight.” He asked around, and the man next to him was more than happy to inform him.

“The Latin guy is Enrique. The black woman is his bodyguard, Mika, and the Asian chick is his friend, Nikki.”

John looked at the trio. Odd that those three were in a gay bar. He drank his scotch. He turned around and saw the Latin guy looking at him with interest. Enrique whispered something to the black woman, and she looked at John Baxter. Next thing John knew, he was being told by the bartender that the Latin dude wanted to talk to him. John was not usually so forward with strangers, but the dude made him curious. He approached Enrique and took a seat.

“What do you want?” John asked.

“I am Enrique Sanchez. This is my protector, Mika Brown, and my friend, Nikki Lee.”

John looked at the black woman. She looked at him without showing emotion. The Asian girl smiled at him shyly.

John took the seat that he was offered. He sat down and looked at Enrique. The Black woman watched impassively. The Asian girl just stared. Over the next half hour, John learned a lot about Enrique. He was some kind of big-shot porn director. He worked for Studman Studios in Los Angeles. He was into making porn, straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual. Anything went with him. He was offering John Baxter the lead role in his upcoming movie.

“I want to make you a star.”

John Baxter smiled and looked at the man. “Not interested.”

He walked out of there.

“You’ll be back,” Enrique said.

Later...

John Baxter went home. He was bored as hell. He didn’t pick up any guy tonight. He was stuck in the mother of all boredom. His ex-boyfriend, Jeremiah Henderson, had left him and gone into the welcoming arms of the Ex-Gay Movement. John didn’t hear about Jeremiah for a long time. He heard Jeremiah had become “cured” of his homosexuality and married a woman. Thirteen months later, Jeremiah had killed himself.

John had never fully recovered from the loss of Jeremiah, his closeted lover for five years. Jeremiah was a Catholic. His parents wouldn’t accept him as a gay man. He went through the Ex-Gay Movement in a desperate attempt to cure himself of his homosexuality and become “saved”. He married a woman named Jennifer and had a child with her. He killed himself. John truly loved Jeremiah. That’s why he hated religious fanatics and those so-called ex-gays. John lay in bed and did something he hadn’t done in a long time. He wept.