Tracey Parker is an urban explorer, based in Mexico City, who discovers and presents unique gay cultures around the world. This time, he explores a well-known gay bathhouse in Arizona, The Chute, and reminisces on a hot gay hookup there.
Usually, when I travel outside of Mexico City, I don’t expect to find much in terms of gay experiences.
My experience in the United States still leads me to assume that the larger the urban center, the gayer it will be. But Mexico continues to surprise me and make me question all my assumptions about my gay life.
Morelia is the capital city of the Mexican state of Michoacan. Its colonial downtown has a style unlike any other colonial city in Mexico, and I really loved it. In place of the multicolored buildings, Morelia is mostly grey-stone buildings, giving it a somewhat spooky medieval vibe.
Behind the colonial downtown lies a large barrio that suddenly comes to an end at the foot of a steep hill. Parts of this hill are covered with homes, and other parts have become beautiful green parks.
The centerpiece of one of those parks is The Santa Maria Staircase, or Las Escaleras de Santa María. During the day, you can climb the stairs and catch a glimpse of the two steeples of the Metropolitan Cathedral, which tower over the small town landscape.
At night, the steeples are illuminated by bright orange lights, and an entirely different environment exists at Las Escaleras.
Every night, after sunset, from about seven o’clock p.m. until eleven o’clock p.m., the gay males of Morelia wander to the staircase from both the top and the bottom to search for satisfaction of their sexual desires.
At seven p.m., there is still considerable foot traffic from the general community. So much so that I thought I had the wrong staircase when I first arrived. But there was an equally strong, energetic feeling, generated primarily by prolonged stares between the eyes of discreetly dressed men who, unlike the passers-by, were standing in place, waiting.
Typical of Mexico, the men were of all ages. Not knowing better, I took my post at the top of the stairs so that I could see everything going on beneath, admire the view of the Cathedral, and watch as the features of the men ascending the stairs became more distinct as they rose closer to where I was standing.
I spotted one guy at the bottom of the stairs, slim, dark, with black rimmed glasses and a black leather jacket. As he crept up the stairs, his proximity made him look more and more handsome. He felt my gaze about halfway up and stopped at one of the landings. He stared up at me from down there and appeared to be waiting for something.
There was another landing between us, so I slowly descended one level to get closer to him. As I was walking down the stairs, another man passed me by. I quickly noticed he was playing the same game with another guy further down the stairs, who was quickly ascending to the same level. Both of them met right next to me and then promptly disappeared between a row of tall bushes and a stone wall.
I looked down the stairs and saw my guy strolling up to meet me. It is evident that he was coming for me, so I took the lead and followed the other two into the bushes. \The bushes were a hollowed-out maze, and the branches created several small private alcoves.
I was looking as far inside as I could while waiting for my new friend to enter behind me. When he entered, he was even more handsome than I had last looked at him from outside. His eyes were brighter, his face younger and fresher, his smile ready for anything.
He came right up to me, and his smile turned serious. As he caught his breath, he greeted me by grabbing my cock and staring into my eyes. I put my hand onto his soft, worn jeans and felt his cock pointing out at me.
He nodded forward, and I led both of us into the bushes along the stone wall without thinking.
As we walked down the rocky, grassy path, I began to wonder why I was leading the way, since I was obviously the foreigner, but I just kept going until I passed an opening that looked comfortable, and I led him inside behind me.
The bushes opened up to a hilltop view of all of Morelia. The cold night air blew across our skin, and we quickly warmed ourselves up by kissing one another. He unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants, and the back of his pants fell onto the edge of his warm buttocks.
As I slid my hands down under his jeans and grabbed them, they felt so delicious that I let out a sigh. I looked into his eyes and saw a satisfaction inside of them. Something that told me that he was accustomed to the effect his ass had on the men at Las Escaleras de Santa María.
He started kissing me again, then unbuckled my belt without stopping. He began to jerk me off. My hands were still glued to his ass, and I was opening his cheeks up and searching for his hole.
He turned around and let his pants and underwear fall to his ankles. He took one foot out of his loose tennis shoes and spread his legs open. I got on my knees and reacquainted myself with his ass, which I had become mesmerized by. Just like him, it got more and more beautiful the closer I got to it.
I opened his cheeks up before me and smelled the spicy mustiness. The air I breathed in was a mixture of the biting cool breeze and his warmth. I put my tongue inside of him and listened to the sound he made in response. I spit my saliva inside of him. I was planning my penetration.
Once he was lubed up with my juices, I slowly stood up. I had become rock hard just by exploring him. I stood behind him and we both began to play with one another’s parts until my head was right outside of his hole.
We both rested our hands on the centuries-old stone wall, and he slowly relaxed and allowed me inside of him. We started moving with each other in the violent dance that each of our languages called fucking. We lost consciousness of our surroundings under the demands of the pleasures pulsing through our bodies and minds.
I emptied myself into him and let my cock fall out of his hole. My cum dripped out onto the stones on the ground. He turned around and looked at me, then he looked at the magnificent view behind me. Then he finished himself off.
As we were getting dressed after he said, in Spanish, “You’re not from here, are you?”
He then gave me an orientation of Las Escaleras and how they had evolved over the years. He took me back outside to the stairs. There were fewer “normal” pedestrians and more men like us.
My new friend pointed down to another landing that was illuminated by two bright streetlights. He told me that before it used to be dark and that orgies of at least 10 guys would break out almost every night. We both longed for those days — or for the opportunity to see something like that —which were now impossible because of the new preventive measures.
We looked out over the horizon at the sparkling lights beneath the far-off church steeples. I had a great respect and admiration for Morelia and for the gay men who surrounded me here at Las Escaleras. I knew stuff like this used to happen in my country, but I was also sure that it was all in the past now. The fact that it continued down here, far from all the inclusivity and LGBTQ acceptance in Mexico City, was admirable.
I walked down the stairs for the last time and took it all in once more. I passed by several handsome dark-eyed young men whom I would have loved to have devoured had I not left all of myself inside the previous one.
As I got closer and closer to the bottom of the hill, the normal people began to show up again, until before I knew it, I was back in Morelia. I never asked the guy I fucked for his name. It was such a small town that I ran into him in the town square the following day as I was leaving for the bus station. He pretended not to see me, and we both went on about our business. That interaction left me confused and reminded me of how little I actually understood where I was.
