When my Grandfather offered to take me to Chicago for a graduation present, I confess to being a bit dissapointed for two reason. Firstly, I had mistakenly thought that my idea of an African safari was seriously under consideration. Secondly, he would be going with me.

I was eighteen at the time, and puberty had been difficult. I had seen penises in the locker room at high school, and those images were very dangerous. I had never been on a date in my life--with a person of any gender--and I had resigned myself to the baccalaureate life of Henry Higgins, but still was fascinated by things which should not have been fascinating to me. So when we arrived at our hotel in Chicago, I was intruiged to discover that the Days Inn we were staying at faced a few other buildings. It occurred to me that I might be able to observe goings on in those little residences, and just maybe something male would be among them.

The very first night, I discovered that some people don't make a habit of wearing clothes when in their own homes. One guy in particular seemed to enjoy the natural state, and I was riveted. So riveted, in fact, that he noticed. At first I didn't believe that he was looking at me. No doubt I was just a lighted square across the street, a Paul Lynde in the center of a building. But he did notice. And he stared back. And he started touching himself.

Asleep in the bed across the room was my Grandfather, wearing his night mask that supposedly kept out the lamp by which I was reading. I hoped that he was a sound sleeper, and I went for it. In retrospect, I suppose this counts as my first sexual experience, separated though we were by a traffic-filled chasm. Heretofore I had gotten my titillation purely by glancing furtively at books of Mapplethorpe photography and "The Joys of Gay Sex" at the public library. But here was an honest-to-god man, a real man, not a photograph, though he might as well have been, seemingly willing to . . . I wasn't sure what.

When he scribbled his phone number on a piece of paper and held it up to the window, I wasn't sure what to do. I was still a religious young man, and I knew that God disapproved of what I was doing, but years of religion had honed my ability to simply not think about things to a razor point. Every day I didn't think about things, about how flimsy the arguments that were reasoned for me actually were, about how unjust and mean the religious hierarchy really was, about how my Dad had suddenly become a temper-filled tyrant in an effort to bring us all into line. So it was no great stretch to not think about God for an evening. Which freed me to do something unthinkable.

I couldn't quite make out what the number was on the sheet of paper. I was insane with hormones; what was that number? There was only one thing to do. I prayed. I sold my soul in that instant, and I prayed ot Satan. I mean, literally, "Dear Satan, please help me get that number." He did.

I never actually got to meet the guy. There was no answer, so I walked across the street to the building, having carefully counted the floors and the distance from the corner of the building,. Alas, the door to the lobby was locked, and what did I expect to tell the doorman? That I had a rendevous to keep or I would go berserk with adolescent agony? I stood in the street looking up for ten minutes or so, and made my way back tot he hotel room where my Grandfather was still sleeping. But the deed was done. Satan had held up his end, he got me the number, but I should have been more specific. I should have asked for more.

Maybe that transaction impacted the rest of my life. Maybe I never succeeded as a Witness, maybe my marriage failed, maybe I made poor sexual decision for a good many years and, in fact, still make them because of that instant, that one prayer. It would be convenient to blame all of it on Satan, but in reality it was the choice, not the prayer that was the crossroads. It was not that I sold my soul, I hope, but that I thought for myself which has led me to this point. And this point is good; it is very good.