The Year of the Rat

by Anel Viz

Nearly half a century ago, when all Chinatown poured into the streets to celebrate the Year of the Rat, I first had sex with a man.

Conventional wisdom would have it you never forget your first time, but that is often not the case, at least for gay men.  For one, if our first partner was an acquaintance, who can tell where to draw the line between fooling around as children and our first real sex?  If with a stranger, we have had so many anonymous encounters, often more memorable than the first, that they blur together.

They will swear up and down that they remember every detail, but question them, and they do not.  How old were you?  “Fourteen or fifteen,” they’ll say, or “my last year in high school.”  Where were you?  They cannot say which public toilet or against which tree in the park.  What did he look like?  They’ll remember his red hair or his long coat, but they wouldn’t recognize him if they saw him.  Ask what they did, and they’ll name the various acts, but you can see it’s a list, not a visualization.  They’ll remember whether or not they enjoyed it, but they lacked the experience to say if he was a good, clumsy or indifferent lover.

So it is with me.  I could give you exact date, but I’d have to google “lunar new year1960”, if I remember correctly and it was, in fact, the Year of the Rat.  I can picture the street where we ran into each other, but when I go back to Chinatown I can’t find it, and if I did I couldn’t say which way we went to get to his apartment, just a few blocks away.

I remember thinking my parents would probably lecture me about coming home late, but they wouldn’t worry, not on the New Year, not about a boy.  They’d imagine me setting off firecrackers, joining the parade, stuffing my face with dumplings.  No wonder I lost track of time!

The waves of immigrants from Southeast Asia would not begin for another decade, so I assume he was Chinese, though we spoke in English.  “You’re over eighteen?” he asked.

I lied.

He didn’t turn on the lamp in his bedroom; the partying in the street outside his window provided enough light to see by.  I remember my excitement, and also that I was totally passive.  I couldn’t say for sure how much time elapsed before I first took a penis in my mouth or, after that, when I first tasted another man’s semen.

He undressed me, I remember, and I closed my eyes when he began exploring my body with his hands and mouth.  He took me twice, and in between he went into the kitchen and whipped up a plate of fried rice for us to share, blander than my mother’s cooking.

I remember that I lay on my stomach beneath him.  I cannot say what went through my mind when he entered me, beyond that was happening to me was something I’d always known would happen eventually.  He must have been gentle.  Surely I would not have forgotten if he hurt me.

Was it good, though, really, really good?  That it left me wanting more doesn’t signify.   As a gay teenager, I would have sought it out anyway.

People will speak of their first time as an earth-shattering experience, a revelation that set off fireworks in their body.  I remember fireworks, but did the sex set off any more than were already part of the New Year’s festivities?

I have no recollection of when I left, nor of the walk home.  I have the impression I stayed with him a long time, and, if so, he was an accomplished lover, but it couldn’t have been that long, for the street celebrations must have been going on still, or my parents would have fussed when I got back.  They only asked if I’d had a good time.

My only clear memory of that night is feeling relief on thinking that they had no way of knowing where I’d been or what I’d done when I answered, “Just great.”