This was supposed to be a BYOB party, so I needed to stop to pick up something for drinks.  I’m used to California, where you can buy some hard liquor in the grocery store; in Washington, you can’t buy more than beer and wine at the grocery, and in British Columbia, it all has to be bought from special purpose stores.  Did I have any idea where to find one of those?  Heck no!  So I ended up stopping at a little convenience store about 80% of the way between the hotel and Bill’s house — dressed in my 27" boots, latex shirt and shorts, and full-length rubber police coat, mind you — for a couple three bottles of Arizona Green Tea.  (Sweetend with a little honey, and infused with ginseng.  Plain, diet, or flavored with plum juice.  Great for getting you through an event where you’re trapped behind a table, among other things.  Comes highly recommended.)

     (Oh, the jacket: it’s a New York policeman’s rain coat [according to Mike].  I found it at Worn Out West [that’s Worn Oot West, for the Canadians <grin>] in the Castro in early March, priced at $125.  The salesman said they get pieces like this on occassion from an older gentlemen, and hence the higher-than-usual price.  I have no idea how old it is — a guess would be 30 or 40 years, by the look of it — and it’s a little small for me in the shoulders, but I thought it was a great find.)

     There were between 20 and 30 guys at the party.  (Cameron from MOR was supposed to show up, but unless he came and left before I got there at a little after 9:00, I don’t think he made it.)  Bill and his partner David have a nice big house, the sort that feels “lived in” rather than all-too-typical “way too neat” gay men’s abode.  The home includes three bedrooms (I think) upstairs, a big living room and kitchen on the main floor, and a full basement.  There is also a nicely landscaped backyard, a deck, and a hot tub.

     Upstairs, two of the bedrooms are filled with assorted rubber (and other) paraphrenalia.  Lots of boots.  Cartoon action figures.  Rubber and bear art (including a few bits from Tim Barela of “Leonard & Larry” fame).  And so on.  What really managed to catch my eye, though, was the square dance items, and particular the square dance drag items (pictures of the Bradley girls and so on).  That triggered a memory, and I asked Bill about it later.  Turns out that while we haven’t known each other until now, per se, we had met several years ago, at the square dance comventions in 1992 and 1993, when he was there in his Radical Faerie/drag persona of Wella Balsam!  Aiee!

     It was a nicely comfortable group of guys, and as you can see, they were more than willing for me to take their pictures.  Later on, as such things will from time to time, guys got a bit frisky in the hot tub, and later on, in the basement room with the sling.  (And a nice sling it is, too.  A synthetic canvas of some sort, from what I could tell by feel and in the dim lighting, rather than the typical leather.  Bill said that David made it.  I must get the recipe!)

     (And yes, everyone with whom I had sex while in Vancouver — except for the blowjob in the hot tub — is pictured here.  No fair trying to second guess and figure out whom I did and whom I didn’t!)

     I don’t know when I left, but I and one other straggler were the last ones out the door (with Bill prodding us along).  I gave him a ride home (which was largely on my way) — yes, just a ride! — and then headed back to the hotel for some sleep of my own.