FREEBALLIN'
Love breezes, and a johnson too
He's a good boy, crazy 'bout the space
Loves horses, and his boyfriend too It's a long one, hangin' unreceded
There's a freeway runnin' through my pants
And I'm a bad boy, 'cause I don't even care now
I'm a bad boy for showin' what I got And I'm free
Freeballin'
Yeah I'm freeee
Freee baaallin'
I haven't done any freeballing, for the record. It's not my bag, so to speak. Unless I'm at the bathhouse and just in a towel, I can hardly function if I don't have everything held in place. This applies even at an event like The Cuff's "Freeballin'," which Shobhit and I actually went to last night. I believe this is one of their monthly events, much like Naked Night over at CC's—perhaps even in response to it. It's billed as "a no underwear kilt/singlet party." Be you, be free and let it all hang out. Thi is going to be balls to the walls fun! Drink specials to get your ballz tingling! I was really cold last night. The Cuff is the closest gay club to our place, all of two blocks away, but I still couldn't handle the thought of walking there with no jacket of any kind on. I was too afraid there would be a line for us to wait in. There wasn't, but I'm still glad I took the middle-ground approach of wearing my red hoodie. It kept me just warm enough while walking over there, but not too warm while we danced for about an hour. I went otherwise in what I had worn all day, including a collared maroon shirt and bluejeans. And of course I wore underwear under those. No one would have been able to tell if I hadn't anyway. No freeballing for me. Shobhit was a different story, and he'd have gone even if I hadn't, but I decided to go. Because I am a freak of my own nature, I keep a log of all the times I've gone out dancing at a club. We've averaged one a year since 2023, and that year was when we went to Saloon and Gay 90s in Minneapolis. That had been our first time going out dancing since well before the pandemic—2018, in fact: five years before. We went to the Cuff one time both that year and in 2016. We haven't gone dancing several times in a single calendar year since 2014. Shobhit's been going to a lot more club events lately, though, often leather or fetish nights at different places. So it's unsurprising that this "Freebalin'" event would interest him. The thing about The Cuff, though, is it's kind of a mixed bag. It's super close to home, and what crowd they get is fairly mixed, particularly in age. It's also one of Seattle's oldest currently-operating gay clubs, having opened in 1993. Granted, there are multiple Seattle gay bars that are as old or older: CC's opened the same year and still seems to be thriving; the Wildrose, our one lesbian bar, opened in 1984 (apparently on New Year's Eve, though, so just hours before 1985); Neighbours opened in 1983. I'm sure there are others. Even Changes in Wallingford opened in 1989, although that one's not really a dance club. I suppose part of it could just be ownership and how it's operated—in fact, that's likely what it is. But The Cuff has always skewed a bit older, and at least on a surface level, the BDSM crowd. I like their downstairs dance floor, though, and the gogo boys they had there last night were pretty tasty to look at. We got there at 11:00 and left right after midnight, though; I just had one Rum and Coke and Shobhit had a Rum and Diet Coke. (I'm finding Rum and Coke to be an easy, effective drink order at clubs, making it my default lately.) So to be fair to The Cuff, for all I know it got much more happening later. When we got there it was far from dead, but downstairs there really wasn't anyone out on the dance floor yet. By the time we left, there were maybe 20 people dancing, including us. Anyway, Shobhit has been eager to find a kilt for ages. I've never been a fan of them, but I won't yuck his yum about it. He still hasn't found one, but he did find a leather skirt he bought that he found would make a suitable stand-in for one. So that's what he wore: a leather skirt with nothing on underneath, and a vinyl shirt on top. Very shiny-black. When we got there, the guy collecting the cover charge did not see he was wearing the skirt, which Shobhit says would have gotten him in, but he got charged and it was too late. It was $20 entry each. Our drinks were $10 each, so with tip Shobhit spent more than $60 for this one-hour outing last night. I went partly because I figured there would be lots of hot guys to ogle. There were several guys in singlets, some of them with open holes for their asses to poke through. Some people were just there in jockstraps, which is hot I suppose but hardly in keeping with the party theme. Some of these guys were okay looking. Of course, I'm sitting here judging from my position on the verge of 50 years old and with a definitive muffin-top paunch. I wasn't one of the people wearing a singlet or a jockstrap, though. Multiple young men were there in shorts, and at a gay club these would naturally all be pretty short shorts—a 5" inseam would practically be a stretch. And young men in short shorts is one of my favorite things. I even like it better than a guy in a jockstrap or in underwear, perhaps because it's both a bit revealing for everyday public wear but still leaves a tantalizing amount to the imagination. When you walk into The Cuff, there is a regular dive-bar area on the main floor, and then the dance floor down a few steps and into another section (this section actually used to be their restaurant. which Mike B and I would go to for lunch when we worked at the Seattle Gay News only about a block away, back in 1999 and 2000—the restaurant apparently opened around 1998 but I can't find what year they closed it; it was ages ago). I guess it was just sold, yet again, this year, after five years of ownership by the guy who runs Queer/Bar—a place I loved at first but later soured on. Previous ownership had been for just five years, since a pandemic-era sale in 2020, but I hadn't been there since before then. I felt like the vibe there last night was . . . all right. I do keep thinking about the gay couple who were on the dance floor the whole time we were there, they looked like they could have been in their late twenties or early thirties. One of them had on a black T-shirt with white lettering that read, #CUM. It very much amused me. I did think about what use that shirt actually gets, though. Surely he doesn't wear it to work. Does he wear it jogging? At the DMV? If he only ever breaks it out for when he goes out dancing, well, I suppose how long it'll last depends on how often he goes dancing. And whether he goes home with a guy who rips his clothes off, I suppose.
