Original subtitles

Hi, this is Troy de Ward,

and I'm a little perplexed to be here

giving a commentary for this dirty little film

I made a half-century ago,

especially as I haven't seen

the damn thing in years,

but, yeah.

Let's... let's see what we can piece together here.

My memory's a little shot these days,

but, anyway, for what it's worth,

these are my thoughts as an old man

looking back on something long since gone.

So, here he is,

restored from decades left in a film canister under my bed.

I first came across Wade

when I was putting up a Christmas window display

one evening in the early seventies at some old department store uptown.

He stopped by to admire my baubles.

I caught his eye and then, you know...

Hook-ups were a breeze back then,

but Wade was so much more than that.

He wasn't any old trick; he found his way into me

and then it made sense to continue what we had together

in front of the camera.

I got to use a lot of materials

and stuff from those department store displays

to make my little private worlds.

I had this railroad apartment in the Lower East Side

that, with enough window dressing, dry ice and the odd papier-mâché tree,

could double as a horny world for Wade to exist in.

I was normally filming tricks I picked up from the Saint Mark's Baths,

but nothing really worked out with those guys.

Wade was different.

He was a writer and he had that ability

to summon something within himself that came alive onscreen.

He knew how to invite the camera into his world.

He knew how to make any viewer feel they were alone with him,

and the more I filmed him,

the closer I felt to his screen image

than the real person I ended up living with.

There was no narrative or structure in these reels;

just scenarios I had in my head when I was feeling bored or horny.

Initially, these were private reels

just for me to get off on.

Besides, this stuff was illegal, unless you disguised it

as something along the lines of fitness, action or adventure.

But within those constraints,

you could get away with a certain amount of what you'd politely call "activity"

and find yourself an audience.

We always had to pretend that what we did

was somehow not illicit, even though everyone knew otherwise.

We couldn't do what we really wanted to do

because of the fear of prosecution,

but we pushed it as far as we could.

The law made us use our imagination,

but beyond that, other stuff always got in the way.

We had some guy ready to hide in that tree,

only he got into an argument with Wade about Nixon,

which kind of ended in tears.

Wade claimed that he didn't blow Republicans

and then we had to start all over again.

I didn't have much time to find someone else with the rental costs,

but there was this stud I once balled from the Continental Baths

who was willing to do it.

Turned out he was another Republican voter,

but when he saw how hot Wade was, he pretended to be a Democrat.

Only problem was he caught the clap,

and there was no time to find another replacement,

so what you see in the end is a prosthetic I got from a joke shop.

Not the most convincing cock in the world,

but it probably saved Wade from catching the clap

and me from needing a public attorney for obscenity.

The whole thing didn't turn out as planned

and Wade hated sour cream, as you can probably tell from that shot.

We'd circulate duplicates of these little adventures

at 12 bucks a pop on 8mm and 20 bucks on 16,

and we both got off on the idea

of arousing complete strangers with these reels,

only we didn't consider much beyond that.

So, it's kind of strange to have this unearthed

and to be doing a commentary for it 50 years later,

and even stranger knowing that I wouldn't recognise Wade

if he walked past me on the street now.

If he were still around, I sure hope he'd give his blessing,

only we lost contact decades ago.

I thought with all the social media out there, I'd find him, but nothing.

He might not even be alive anymore.

We didn't part on the best of terms,

but kept it amicable enough for cards each Christmas

until it was clear that even that ritual of civility was pointless.

Watching this now, all that excitement's gone.

Now I'm just reminded of something that went so wrong

after a blissful year living together.

I'm reminded of how cold he became during our final months.

First, we stopped sleeping together.

He said it was my snoring, so I took to the couch.

But we still balled each other pretty regularly, or so I thought.

What I failed to realise at the time

was how his eyes stopped lighting up when we spoke,

how his interests and social priorities changed

and how vacant and unresponsive he was when I was balling him.

He stopped communicating with his voice,

his eyes and even his body.

Sometimes it felt as if I was making love to a rug,

all the joy and affection bled dry.

He stopped initiating anything,

and if I didn't make a move, then nothing would happen.

I once tested him by waiting to see if he'd need me,

and it went on for months.

That time without the passion I needed was torture,

but then again, it was also an exercise in self-hatred

to ball someone who had no passion.

Seeing how he could happily function

without needing me or my body became hell.

It was a kind of loneliness I'd never experienced before,

to live with someone, yet feel so unwanted and lonely.

I was still desperately in love with him,

but we both lost that intimate language we both shared,

and it felt like the hardest thing in the world to get it back.

What once felt so natural and spontaneous

became riddled with doubt, fatigue

and worst of all, indifference on his part.

I was still trying to resuscitate what we once had,

but each gesture I made was one of futility.

He was no longer interested.

He was no longer curious.

He even stopped asking me about my work,

and he retreated further into his own writing.

Completely separate worlds within the same apartment.

Apathy had won.

We reached that strange limbo of knowing it was over,

but delaying the inevitable, probably out of mutual laziness.

And this shot here,

hopelessly marred by a phone call from our landlord raising the rent.

He claimed the interest was going up on his mortgage,

but, of course, we were the ones taking the hit, not him.

He wouldn't even meet us halfway.

That kind of soured the mood.

Wade couldn't get hard and I flunked the camera move.

I always blame him for ruining that shot,

and we couldn't do it again.

That was the nature of these underground reveries.

There was only enough money to hire the camera and lamps for one day.

One take and then it was on to the next shot.

But, you know, we got something done

and Wade really sets my balls on fire when I look at him here.

I often wonder what that flesh looks like now in his old age.

Do his joints hurt the way mine do?

Does he bruise all the time?

And would his eyes still have that voltage he had back then?

Maybe it'd just be enough to be friends again

and no longer be haunted by how something so profound for us

ended up in the trash.

It'd even be enough to know he's OK and enjoying life.

For that money shot, there was no way he was going to come on demand.

Those ten-minute 16mm reels are pretty unforgiving

if you need to reach orgasm,

and the poor guy kept going limp whenever I tried to hurry him.

In the end, we played it safe by squirting more sour cream from a syringe

and throwing as much baking soda into the water as possible.

The vestiges of our romance dragged on for another few months,

us, slowly withering.

We'd pass by each other in the apartment

without touching or smiling, and all this you see here,

that was our apartment,

our apartment transformed into a fantasy world,

and once all that cheap decoration was taken down,

all the tedium and resentment in our relationship

was exposed against those bare white walls.

We were just another dysfunctional couple.