Catching Up: Part 3…. Naked Men and Black Outs.

That weekend in Toronto was not only for the BF and I to get re-acquainted but it was also a birthday gift to me, along with a fancy dinner at a secret location. Now, I had been pestering the BF about this dinner since the trip began. Given the previous experience we had with brunch I really wasn’t going to take any chances again. Finally he broke down and told me where we were going to a place called “Rain” on Toronto’s waterfront, “Rain” use to be a women’s prison. But that’s not what threw me off, it was already 9:30pm and we had just finished getting ready. I was curious how late Rain was open. So I asked the BF to call the restaurant to see what time they stopped serving. So he called information to get the number of Rain and called the restaurant. They told us their kitchen closed at 10:30pm and there was an hour wait once we get there. Phew! We dodged yet another potential mealtime disaster. But now we had to find a new place to eat. We decided not to pick a place out of the yellow pages or to go to a place we had been before. We wanted to try someplace new. When we reached the lobby we asked the concierge to point us in the direction of a casual but nice restaurant and he did. He told about a place that was just outside the hotel doors and down the street called “Oro.” It was a beautiful little place just off of Yonge Street, which had food that was to die for! Sorry, too gay? I had a Quebec game hen with fried gnocchi and a blood orange reduction. The BF had a risotto dish with black raspberries, which I think if given a chance he would have rolled around naked in it. We split two deserts an almond Crème Brule and a “melt in your mouth” cheesecake done up all fancy like. It was certainly a dinner to remember and might I say terribly romantic. Thank you BF. After dinner we moved on to the entertainment portion of the evening.

Now, there are a couple of things you must remember when you enter a strip club (especially a gay gentlemen’s club); these are people who take their clothes off for money, YOUR MONEY, plain and simple. You cannot take their advances very seriously and trust me, they WILL advance! This is one of the things that most straight men and gay men have in common. They both think they have any chance in HELL with the hot naked person. Strippers are much like bloodhounds; they can smell money and desperation a mile away. As proven by the fact the BF and I were nearly surrounded as soon as we walked into the place (they smelled our money, not our desperation people.) Soon after sitting down and getting a tasty beverage the BF and I began our version of “Canadian Stripper Idol.” There are certain qualifications we look for when picking a potential lap dancer; the most important being personality and a sense of rhythm. You wouldn’t think this would be a difficult task to find such a person in a room full of “dancers”, but it was. Some of the dancers literally walked on stage, strutted around like steroid riddled show ponies, and walked off waiting for the roar of applause. Oh silly stripper. After reviewing many contestants the BF and I picked the two lucky “dancers” who would have the distinct privilege of taking our money. From across the room we gave each of targets the high sign and one at a time discreetly slinked off to the “backroom.” [CENSORED]

The night was still relatively young and we decided to head down to Queen Street. We had heard about several clubs on the Queen but the one we were the most curious about was the Bovine Sex Club. This is a club with no sign other than a bunch of junk carefully mounted on the front of the building over the front door. The BF and I walked up to the door in our best queer gear only to be halted by a rather frightening bouncer. But lucky for us we passed his big hairy eyeball scan and we proceeded into the club. Well, club is a loose term; it was more like someone’s basement, to be more specific like a serial killer’s basement and we just walked in wearing big targets. As I said before we had our best queer gear on, me in a bright pick striped shirt and the BF in shiny blue shirt. As we looked over the sea of black and dark grays a thought crossed our minds, “Maybe we should have changed before coming here.” But it all worked out well, it was a diversified bunch and they hardly took notice of us. When we finished our drinks at the Bovine Sex Club, we moved down the street to the Cameron House. It was nice little joint a few doors down from Bovine with chez lounges and comfy chairs. I’m sure it’s a popular place before 2am in the morning.

A Toronto tradition for us at the end of a long night of bar hopping and other activities is to stop by the Golden Griddle for an early morning breakfast. It just so happen there was one on our way back to the hotel. When we walked in there was the usual crowd of night stalkers and party goers chowing down on almost every style of cooked eggs imaginable. The hostess took us to our booth and handed us a couple of greasy menus. The waitress came over, offered us some coffee and asked if we were ready to order. It was difficult to concentrate on the menu with all the sirens going off outside. Toronto is a big city after all; sirens are not an uncommon thing. I was craving a stack of pancakes with tons of syrup and butter. After giving our waitress a bit of a good natured hard time, another Toronto tradition of ours, I was ready to order. Before I got out the second syllable of “pancakes”, all the lights went out. It was going to be awhile for our food.