My first wrestling experience took place on 2 January 1996. On New Year's Day, I traveled a couple of hours to a friend's house and spent the night with his wife and him. That night, I didn't sleep much, going over and over in my mind what might happen that afternoon, and when morning finally came, I got up and drove another three hours or so, to a city where other friends lived. The plan was that D and I would meet for lunch. If we liked each other, we'd go back to his place and wrestle.

We met at this little restaurant he'd told me about. I don't remember what he ate, but I was so nervous I couldn't tackle anything but a salad. Neither of us ate much, but we had a good conversation. When we finished, we decided that, yes, we thought we could go through with this, so we paid our checks and got in our cars and I followed him to his house, which was in a nice little neighborhood in a medium-sized town (near the city where my friends lived). My most nervous moment might have been stepping through his front door and into his world. Anything could happen, I thought, here in this private place away from the eyes of the world.

He'd set up a room upstairs. The place was small, with a single window facing the house next door and a small mat, maybe a tumbling mat, on the floor. He stayed there while I went into the bathroom to change.

I didn't have wrestling trunks in those days, and I didn't wear the colored no-fly briefs I wore most often in those early matches before I bought my trunks. I took off my clothes and put on a pair of black form-fitting workout shorts with a wide white waistband.

I took a deep breath and came out of the bathroom. Nerves and January and the fact that I had on nothing but this pair of shorts made the place seem cold, and I felt as if I were shivering when I stepped into the wrestling room to find him waiting there in a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt.

D was gay, but I don't think he was involved in any relationship. He'd grown up in the Midwest. He was older than I, by maybe ten years or so, making him at the time in his late 40s or early 50s. He had a round face that smiled easily, a high voice and a high, warm laugh. He was maybe 5'11" and weighed around 260, which made him big in the belly and upper body. He also had big legs with thick strong thighs. And here he was, nervous too but ready to wrestle me.

One of the notions that kept me awake the night before was rolling over and over in my mind images of how we might get started, get warmed up. I heard myself suggesting that we try a few holds, and I pictured me putting a head scissors on him--my favorite hold, my obsession--and warming up as he tried to escape. D was a fan of the bear hug, so I pictured him taking me in that. I was still wondering about this when I came out of the bathroom and entered "the ring."

D stripped off his t-shirt.

"Come here," he said as he walked toward me. "Hold out your arms."

He took a forearm in each hand and kneaded it. Then he moved up to my upper arms.

"You do the same," he said.

The chill in the room faded as we moved closer and accustomed ourselves to touching another man. And then he stepped in close and took me in a warm embrace--not a wrestling hold, not a bear hug, but an embrace. The ice was broken.

Next thing I knew I was in a standing side headlock, the first I'd ever been in after years of dreaming about it!

Over the course of the next hour or two, we wrestled there in that small room. We moved back and forth between wrestling half-speed catch-as-catch-can falls and just swapping holds we wanted to try. One would lock in a hold and the other would try to escape. If he did, we would continue to wrestle around until one got the other in something that he couldn't get out of.

D once worked me into a head scissors and double hammerlock, to which I eventually had to submit. I took him with a bear hug, which he loved. I worked him over with a figure-four head scissors. He made me submit to a body scissors and full nelson.

For a first experience, it was awesome! One of the images that still lingers in my mind over ten years later is of a head scissors he had me in. My head was sideways between his thighs so that I faced his feet. I remember looking at those crossed feet, saw them working together as he cinched the hold tighter and tighter. He had great legs.

When the session was ended, I showered and dressed and walked with him downstairs. We'd talked a lot over the course of the afternoon, which, as it often does when I wrestle men I like, meant as much to me as the wrestling. At his front door, we hugged and expressed our satisfaction that we could, in fact, get almost naked and wrestle another man without any overt sexual events taking place. We were both relieved. Again, we hugged, and I headed to the nearby city to visit friends for a couple of days.

I saw D again at a Waffle House some months or a year later. He was passing through where I lived, and we'd arranged to meet for a meal. We talked openly about wrestling, and I remember watching a couple of people at nearby tables paying attention to us. But we had a good visit. We've been in touch via email since--although not in a long time now--but have never wrestled each other again.

That was my first experience, as I said. I wouldn't wrestle again until August, when I would have three matches back to back and then back out of another.