A YOUNG 'LOUNGE LIZARD' LOVES BEING INTIMATE WITH THE AGED
A young man who's a British national lived in Delhi for more than a year ten years ago, and among other things he did to keep himself engaged, also operated as a gigolo and slept with older people with a sense of responsibility. He is odd and bizarre make perfect sense to him.
A good-looking young man with a slim, muscular frame lived in a single rooftop room in Greater Kailash ten years ago. His space was spick and span, and closely guarded. A British national of Italian origin who'd grown up in London, John (let's call him that) had dark, curly, long hair emphasized by fair skin, long lashes over moist, expressive blue eyes, and a gaze intent enough to make him alluring.
John was barely nineteen when he lost his father to a freak car accident — he couldn't be reached in time, too busy making out with a college mate. His father's death left a lasting mark on him. There was no escaping himself.
Eight years later, in Delhi, he found plenty to occupy him in a culture contrast from his own. He worked part-time with an NGO and took odd jobs for paltry money, though he was fairly well off. He moved in Delhi's moneyed circles and made friends easily, mostly to keep himself engaged.
One of the odder things he did was sleep with older people — sometimes people his grandparents' age. Soon, it became a regular thing, every other day, with a handful of steady clients, and he was fairly indiscriminate about gender. Most of them were rich.
The grandfather archetype is often rooted in an unconscious search for stability, for something protective and nurturing — in his case, guilt played its part too. He felt a real pull toward older people, and it wasn't about money, and it wasn't charity either. He always charged something, even if just a token amount, insisting the arrangement stay contractual — never a relationship, at best a sort of retainership.
The idea was to spread love, and through it, joy, to the aged — the people he believed needed it most. Intimacy, to him, wasn't only about sex; it was about being seen — read: naked — and appreciated.
He operated like a gigolo, though he preferred the term "lounge lizard," and he was something of a wizard at it. Perpetually single, he kept company only with people at least twice his age; his own generation he simply didn't find palatable.
He felt responsible to give his clients something memorable in the evening of their lives. They left his presence feeling a renewed vigour, an experience they wouldn't forget till their last breath.
Money-making was a hobby for him, not a need. He'd do it innovatively, buy up a big cache of trinkets and colourful cards and sell them at a steep markup at garage sales back home. In 2018, he married a woman twenty years his senior — a lesbian he'd known since childhood. He supported a friend by marrying her and gave her freedom.
"I hope you find someone like you when you're old," I said.
"I will never grow old," he said and paused to ponder, "though I love being old."
