"Well, you know I used to be a dancer, and I never felt better than I did then. So once I get started doing something physical like that, I always love it."

"Great, I hope you'll want to go with me two or three times a week."

"Knowing me, I'll go overboard and get addicted to aerobics and want to go five or six times a week. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, right?"

I knew Ron was right. I would love aerobics. And it would be great to see the half-clothed men in the class. Of course the class turned out to be 90% women, but the teacher was a crazy-man named Russell who had the exact same birthday as my old college roommate, Terry. Another mad Aquarian born on February 8th.

After class, we were glowing. We had to go into the Edge for a Calistoga, just to show off our energy if for nothing else. When we walked in, every eye was on us. There was light literally coming out of our bodies. The pickled dinosaurs lurched their heads up as we walked past, glimpsing life for a moment, only to sink back down into their shadows and the rocks glasses surrounded by smoke. I couldn't breathe, so we quickly finished our bottled waters and floated down 18th Street to Castro.

And who else would be there except Branch and Michael.

"Latrina!"

Branch had many pet-names for me. Latrina Rottencrotchen was his favorite. Ron and I preferred the "honey" names we had for each other. I was Melliflua Legsaparta and he was Saccharina Ramabutta. But of course, everyone in the Castro was calling each other "honey" since we had made it a household word.

"Who's this? Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber?" Ron was quick on the draw.

"Hi, honey. Where are you two going?" I asked Branch.

"A meeting. Ever hear of it? It's called Alcoholics Anonymous. They have meetings where you go to get recovery. You should try it sometime," Branch said with a smarmy grin.

"Smart-ass."

"You bet it is, babe. It does calculus. And his takes money." Branch pointed to Michael.

Rolling my eyes I said, "You guys wanna meet us for dinner at Welcome Homo later?"

"Of course, we'd love to meet you at Welcome Homeless. Hey, why don't we put a sandwich sign on Latrina that says, 'Welcome Homeless' and have her parade up and down Castro Street and get all the homeless in the restaurant, expecting free meals? Or she could just use it to get tricks."

"Bitch."

"Cunt."

"So about eight o'clock then, after your meeting?"

"Sounds good, and why don't we all go to Screamland tonight? I'm dying to dance. Want me to come over and help dress you, Latrina?"

"I think I can handle it."

"That's what she said about that eleven inches she had the other night. She got impaled."

"Ha. Ha. Pig. No Dreamland sounds good. So I guess we should be dressed and ready to go before we meet for dinner. God what will I wear?"

"Told you she needed help."

"Oh look. Let's get this one coming up the street. She looks like she needs her cage rattled."

Branch was referring to the "Free Zsa-zsa" thing we'd started doing. We'd pick a victim, usually someone who looked fairly harmless and who could take a joke, then we'd surround them in a circle, arms locked in leather coats, and rotate around them, chanting "Free Zsa-zsa, free Zsa-zsa." And I'd say in my best Hungarian voice, "But I vas only self-defensing myself, dahlink." People were usually good sports about it. We were crazy all right, but it was so much fun! The four of us egged each other on constantly, always playing off each other, totally irreverent. Anything to be politically incorrect.

During dinner at Welcome Home, we'd usually pick someone we knew from the Program who was dining at another table and begin singing Happy Birthday to them. The whole restaurant would get into it. Sometimes we'd tell the waiter ahead of time it was the victim's birthday. Of course it wasn't, and he would protest and be mortified, trying to get everyone to stop singing, which would only get the whole place singing even louder.

Like I said, we got a reputation as bad-boys. Most of the shops and restaurants tolerated us though, because we cleaned up after ourselves, and we left huge tips. We were like the hired entertainment. Ron and I thought we should be charging them. Sometimes we'd laugh so hard we'd almost wet our pants. I'm sure the other people in the place thought we were drunk out of our minds.

"You letting your hair grow out?" Michael asked me.

"Yeah, I wanna get a perm. Should we get more coffee?"

"Of course, honey, 'Waiter, dahling, another round over here please.' Nice butt on that one, huh?"

Ron was always looking for a fixer-upper. We called him "Daddy-Fix-It" since he invariably fell for the young ones, around 29 (Saturn return), three weeks sober, smoker, HIV positive, codependent, looking for daddy. I had his type down.

And he called me "The Priest-Fucker." He said he had a questionnaire for them to fill out before they could date me, or even when they started cruising me. "Are you now or have you ever been: a priest, a monk, a brother, a bishop, an altar boy, a cardinal, a pope." It was a standing joke since I'd often seem to end up with a man of the cloth. Ron would get this look in his eye, squint, crouch over like a shrouded old woman, point his gnarled finger at me and say, "I know you. You're the Priest-FUCKER. HE-he-he-he-he!"

Slices of life. They were all like scenes from a movie that we said we'd make someday. We had all heard these stories, but we always had fun telling them to someone new. Ron "had a million of 'em" as he'd say.

My favorite was always the one about Ron and his friend John S. They were walking up Castro one day, all in leather. John was carrying a bag full of perm rods, on his way to give a friend a perm. A homeless lady stopped Ron and said, "Can you spare some change?" Ron whipped around and said, "Honey, I haven't got a dime on me, but my friend here will do your hair and you'll look fabulous!" John burst out laughing and threw the bag up in the air, perm rods flying all over the street.

Then there was the time Ron and I were eating dinner at La Med and the damn table wouldn't stop wobbling. I couldn't find a sugar packet or a match book to put under the leg, so Ron scooped up his knife, turned around to the chair of the man behind him and started pretending to saw off the sleeve of the guy's leather jacket. I was in stitches. You could dress us up, but honey…

Then of course there was the story of the Lenalonians. Ron and I were in the Detroit airport, laid over on our way to Florida. It was 3:30 in the morning and we were wired on coffee, reading Runes, and giddy as hell. We kept hearing this "S-s-s. S-s-s. S-s-s." noise somewhere close by.

Ron said, "Honey, the girlenas are here."

"Huh?"

"You know, the girlenas from Lenalonia."

"Oh, and that noise - they must be speaking Lenish. Of course!"

"Naturally honey. All fags speak Lenish. S-s-s. S-s-s. S-s-s. You can hear them a mile away."

Dreamland was packed. As usual, it seemed like the place was half drugged and half sober. I came spinning out on the dance floor to meet Ron, Branch and Michael. 'East End Boys and West End Girls' was just fading out while Donna Summer's 'State of Independence' overlapped it.

"You're always late, queen." Branch kissed me.

"Honey, what's this, you're 'Sperm-burping gutter-snipe' outfit?" Ron asked.

"Uh-huh," I said, sneering. I was dressed in skin-tight jeans, a studded belt, boots, a T-shirt that had the sleeves cut off and about a dozen asymmetric holes cut strategically into the front so my nipple ring would show through, a bandanna on my forehead (light blue, for blow-jobs), and a leather arm band that Ron had made me (was there anything he couldn't do?).

Branch piped up over the music, in an affected Southern drawl, "The only thing that distinguishes us from the lower forms of animals is our ability to accessorize." He knew every line from Steel Magnolias.

Ron leaned over so I could hear him, "I tried to call you a while ago to see when you were coming. I got some strange machine message…"

"Oh, you mean, 'Welcome to Man-Trappers'…?"

"Yes! That's the one. Is that you? Oh honey, what does it say? 'Feeling lonely? Have we got a hostage for you!' That's too funny."

"Yeah, I thought we could start this service called 'Man-Trappers' and get T-shirts with a logo over the pocket with a guy's leg in a bear trap."

"Oh, honey! I love it. But of course you'd get first pick of all the bears."

I was more of a notorious bear-trapper than I was a priest-fucker. And San Francisco was becoming full of bears. I was in heaven. Ron used to say my new type was an old, fat, bald, hairy, bearded altar boy. Who'da thunk that that would be in fashion when I grew up. I mean, like all little cubs, I liked Hoss and Mr. French and Artemis Gordon and Bluto. Now, that look was in. Not with everyone obviously, but enough to get recognized as a new and popular segment of the acceptable hot gay male culture. The bears were a subculture, and quite a large one. And if you count all the bear-lovers and cubs who were coming out of their closets (like me), it was a huge faction. I discovered that I was not alone in my attraction to the big and hairy. And some bears liked little cubs. So I carried my traps with me wherever I went.

"Where's Ron?" He had been standing next to me just a second ago.

"Check that out." Branch was pointing over to the corner where Ron was in a lip-lock with a young man. "I think he's having 'cream-of-some-young-guy' for a midnight snack."

"Yep, snagged another one. I can see the fish-hook." I gestured with my little finger hooked in the side of my cheek. "Well I'm gonna dance."

I was gyrating to some song I loved but could never remember who did it. I looked up and saw a guy dancing toward me with chaps on, a leather codpiece, and ropes tied around him in an intricate, elaborate harness. God, queens are so creative. He began to move around me to the music, reminding me of some exotic bird's mating dance. He was sort of hot, with a severe flat-top and a handlebar mustache that was kind of bizarre-looking. He leaned over toward my ear, licked my neck and said, "I wanna tie you up and fuck your face."

I was flattered, but declined. I went to find Ron upstairs, but tripped over two bodies on the staircase, entwined in a slippery clench with pants undone. It was Ron and the guy with the fish-hook in his cheek! I stepped over them. They were oblivious to anyone around them. I found Branch upstairs and asked if he knew the guy who'd done the mating dance around me. I told him what he'd said, and Branch laughed and said the guy needed a new pick-up line, that he'd used the same one on him. He was kinda weird, but harmless. Then Branch kicked his foot up behind him. "Clothesline!" We laughed at how wonderfully silly some of this leather drag could be.

We both had to pee, so we ran into the restroom to primp and get rid of some of the Calistoga. I went into a stall to avoid being pee-shy and found the typical mess of a dance-club restroom - toilet paper everywhere, cigarette butts, the seat down with piss all over the place, and remnants of cocaine on top of the TP dispenser.

When I came out I found Branch at the mirror. "Oh god, it does look like a brown football helmet! Do you have any back issues of Southern Hay-er?" More Steel Magnolias.

"Come on, honey, you're too twisted for FM radio."