When I was 15 my mother arranged for me to spend the month of August in France. This was the summer after 9th grade (fresh out of junior high for me) right before I was entering high school. I would spend one week in Paris and three weeks in the south of France in Pont de Barret where we used to live when I was younger. In both places I stayed with friends of the family.

At 15 I was still a virgin and very libidous all the time. I honestly didn't know what I was going to do. Some days it felt like I was going to die if I didn't "get some." Much to my excitement my father decided to have a little talk with me before I left.

According to him French girls were different. I could expect to "get some" on my trip. He brought me a handful of condoms and told me to never believe a girl if she tells you she's on the pill. Believe it or not this advice would come true for me more than once in my life. Save those stories for another blog.

So me and and my dick-tator couldn't be happier. I had my game plan down. I'd hit Paris like a storm and show the Franco females what a Black Italian New Yorker could do. The family friends I was staying with looked in the Paris-Match (the local weekly "what's cool" magazine) to find me a club that I could go to. Being from NYC I had been going to clubs since I was 14 and loved to dance. They found a place and called ahead for me to see if a 15 year old could get in the front door. The person who answered the phone assured them that it was OK for me to go. I caught myself a cab and made it over to the club. It was a Friday night in Paris and the streets were packed. I was dropped off a block away from the club and walked down an alleyway to my destination. The owner of the club was waiting outside when I arrived at the front. We had a nice little talk and he told me that I was early but the club would fill up in an hour or two. I walked inside the "club" which turned out to be a smallish square box. I was the only one there besides the DJ. This was fine with me as the DJ was playing some great music. I started grooving to the sounds of a new beat with some horns playing.

"She walked by me in painted on jeans/and all heads turned 'cause she was the queen."

Just then the DJ and I made eye contact. He smiled as I grooved to the song he was playing.

"Caribbean Queen/Now we're sharing the same dream/and our hearts can beat as one/No more love on the run..."

I sat down at the bar and decided to have a look around the place. There was nothing much to see but something at the bar caught my eye. The bar had a glass counter top with pictures underneath. Upon closer examination the pictures became very graphic. Man sex. Tons and tons of man on man sex. Leather, fists, the whole nine yards (or inches).

Now I don't remember my feet touching the ground but my fight or flight response must have hit defcon 1 as I was suddenly in the street. I looked behind and the DJ had chased out after me. I kept walking forward only to run right into the owner of the club. Sandwiched in between these two I was asked what was wrong. I made some excuse about wanting to come back when the place was more crowded. Satisfied with my answer they let me go.

If you know my background you'll know I wasn't afraid of being around gay men. I had grown up around gay men all my life. What had occurred to me at the time though is that a group of gay French men were more than happy to have a teenage American come down to their club and "party." To quote Richard Pryor, I was pussy on the hoof.

I walked the streets of Paris laughing to myself the whole way home. When I got back to the apartment my family friends asked me how the club was. At a loss for words I simply said, "Gay bar." They said, "oooooooohhhh..."

I asked them what the name of the place was. They looked back in the Paris Match and said the name in French. When I asked for the translation, very embarrassed, one of them told me,

"The Man in the Moon."