Drake Marcos extended gracious courtesy and generosity as he hosted my visit to BG East’s south campus recently. Nowhere in sight were the bluster and strutting he demonstrated online for the past year or so. “Bring it, Bard,” he’d snarled during my threesome interview with him and Mason Brooks last February, “your writing won’t save you on the mats. Let’s do this!” But he was all dimpled smiles and earnestness when he treated me to breakfast at a greasy spoon frequented by BG East boys between taping matches. There was nothing but open faced hospitality as he drove me to the BG East arena to let me soak up more secondhand homoerotic wrestling hits. I have to admit I was feeling pretty certain that although young Drake clearly doesn’t like to admit it, he was way too straight-laced, way too considerate, way too self-deprecating to be anything other than a perpetually doomed jobberboy.

Kid Leopard himself had shared with me behind the scenes shots of the recently developed arena facilities of BG East, so it was both intensely familiar and deeply provocative to stroll through. The walls are plastered (tastefully) with eclectic and stimulating wrestling art. Pro posters, comic art, a few classic works. There was no mistaking that the same guiding hand that placed such a distinctive stamp on BG East’s Boston area compound had decorated this place. As I experienced during my pilgrimage to BG East north, everywhere I turned was a hot graphic allusion to precisely what turns me on.

Drake described for me the way the facility is used during a typical taping session for BG East. There are frequently many wrestlers on site at the same time, but with one match being taped at a time, the lounge area is populated with hot hunks in gear hanging out, shooting the shit, reading, checking texts, whatever. It’s that downtime, I’m guessing, that has much to do with the camaraderie and esprit de corps that so many BG East wrestlers have described for me during my interviews. For a fan like me, of course, I just kept imagining whose gorgeous asses had graced this furniture, and tried to restrain myself from burying my face in the plush cushions.

I was a little shocked to find that the mat room looked exactly like I pictured it. Pretty much every other venue I’ve toured left me with the impression of distorted proportions. The pool over at the bungalow seemed a little smaller than it was in my mind’s eye, for example. BG East’s northern compound mat room outside of Boston was incredibly tight for the illusions created by camera angles and intimate holds. But the mat room in the south campus arena was exactly like I pictured it.

And, of course, so many arousing images were superimposed on my vision, like Drake getting tagged and bagged by Mason Brooks in Passion and Punishment. It was spotlessly shiny and smelling of diligently applied cleanser, of course, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of awe, and stirring, at the gallons of sweat, tears, and cum that have fallen on that mat. Hell, the tears Drake alone has shed there could probably fill a saltwater aquarium!

The climax of the tour for me was, of course, the ring arena. Regular readers know of my partiality for the pro wrestling ring in my homoerotic wrestling fantasies. The ring itself seemed every inch the size and scope I remembered from so many scenes of erotic domination, but somehow it fills the warehouse that it inhabits a bit more than I’d pictured. The BG East masterminds have maximized the square footage devoted to the ring, making me a little awestruck at the camera angles and perspectives they manage to capture with the spare inches available outside the ring apron. With the Cheshire Cat standing right beside me, I couldn’t help picture Drake’s Drubbing at the hands of Jonny Firestorm in Custom Combat, winner of the 2012 Fan Poll for Best Squash of the Year (of course, it was Drake that got squashed. Again. And again.).  So much brutality and destruction! What a hotly suffering jobber!

Drake had to interrupt the tour to scrub the ring. It’s apparently a task he’s been assigned by The Boss, to keep the facility spotless. As he scrubbed away like a good jobber, Drake explained that when the facility isn’t being used to tape BG East matches, it’s rented out for private events and personal wrestling rendezvous by locals (or those traveling through).

After choreboy was all done, we sat and talked for hours about a ton of shit, most of which I’m expressly prohibited from sharing on the pages of this blog. My scrupulosity is my bane, clearly. The Cheshire Cat would tell me juicy anecdotes from on and off screen BG East moments, and then pause reflectively and add, “of course, you can’t share that on your blog.” Me and my fucking integrity. I got the impression that Drake was happy to download a ton of behind the scenes stunts and quirks, confiding what mat match created such a racket that the boys waiting their turn in the lounge found themselves laughing so uncontrollably that they had to flee the building for fear of blowing the taping. “But, of course, you can’t share that on your blog.” I was cataloging juicy gossip about the good, the bad, and the downright prickish among BG East wrestlers and hopefuls. “But, of course, you can’t share that on your blog.” I heard Drake’s personal impressions of dozens of the dozens more wrestlers who he’s met, worked with, and tried to avoid. “But, of course, you can’t share that on your blog.”
It began to dawn on me after, quite literally, hours of hearing homoerotic wrestling buzz off the record that the rising pairing of frustration and arousal that was making my crotch ache may not have been all that unintended by the Cheshire Cat. I began to suspect that, knowing of my commitment to confidentiality, the tease of so many stories that I was not allowed to share may very well have been a strategy from the dimpled stud sitting across from me, stretching out his long, sexy legs, working me into a lather and then swearing me to secrecy. What had appeared as an overabundance of generosity and frankness… wait, was I getting played!?

We hadn’t talked about the gauntlet Drake had laid down so many months ago at all so far this entire time, until suddenly he stopped dishing and smirked at me. “So, all that talk about wrestling. Are we really going to do it, or was that just talk?” Wait, was all this just foreplay, astonishingly spot-on foreplay aimed at stoking the vanity and arousal of a particular wrestling blogger known for loving the behind-the-camera dish, and then leaving me erotically frustrated, irked even, in order to lure me into the ring?

Uh, yeah. We’re going to wrestle!