Robert lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Beside him was Ricardo, a man he’d met at Mary’s a few hours earlier in East Atlanta Village. They had gone for a late dinner at nearby Holy Taco and, after a two margaritas on top of a beer, landed in bed at Ricardo’s nearby apartment.

Robert’s mind was, as usual, running a mile a minute. They’d had good sex. Robert especially liked that Ricardo automatically reached for a condom. For reasons he did not understand, unsafe sex seemed to be the norm now. Perhaps it was the myth that HIV infection is easily managed and doesn’t affect life span.

But, as always with Robert, appreciation was immediately followed by irritation. 

After the sex, Ricardo rolled over and lit a cigarette, exhaling a cloud that hovered over the bed and glowed in the light of a street lamp outside the open window. Robert wondered how the mortality rates of lung cancer and AIDS compared.

“You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?” Ricardo asked, six puffs after starting.

“No,” Robert replied. “Erotic asphyxiation can be hot.”

Ricardo ignored or didn’t get the sarcasm.

“How did you like dinner?” Robert asked. He knew that Ricardo was of Mexican heritage and might have a pointed opinion about Chef Robert Phalen’s very creative cooking.

“I eat there a lot,” Ricardo replied. “It’s not pure Mexican for sure, but there’s very little of that in the city anyway. The Tex-Mex that most people eat here is repulsive goo.”

Robert agreed. At Holy Taco, a truly pan-Latin restaurant, one can dine on buttermilk chicken-heart tacos; whole grilled sardines; short-rib sandwiches topped with pickled baby turnips; Buffalo-style pig tails; ears of grilled corn slathered in mayo and scattered with queso fresco; an amazing chimichanga; and many more small plates, entrees and fresh, local vegetables.

“So,” Robert asked, “how does it feel to be gay and Latino in Atlanta? Do you encounter much prejudice?”

“White gay men love Latinos – as long as you don’t have too much Indian blood,” Ricardo replied, stubbing out his cigarette. “They tend to think of us as exotic. But we also encounter new prejudice because of all the talk about illegal immigrants.”

Robert rolled over and put his arm around Ricardo. “Oh, I meant to ask to see your papers before I agreed to have sex.”

Ricardo laughed. “White gay men in Atlanta have a surprising amount of prejudice,” he said, “for a community of oppressed people themselves.”

Robert agreed. “Still,” Robert said, “black men are often fetishized by white men, too. It’s all about the BBD.”

“What?” Ricardo replied.

“Big Black Dick,” Robert said. “BBD is the term used on the Internet.”

Ricardo sighed. “Oh, I know what you mean.” He reminded Robert how a certain bar in the city became infamous for turning out the lights in a back room late one night a week. The purpose was public sex in a virtually unlit environment.

“It was obvious that a lot of the white men were there to have sex with black men but without any need to actually interact socially.”

“Right,” Robert said. “Get some BBD and run out the door. Do Latinos encounter anything like that?”

“Not quite as explicit,” he said. “Well, a lot of white men do seem to assume every Latino has twice the foreskin and three times the passion of everyone else on the planet.”

“But you do,” Robert said, laughing and reaching for Ricardo’s penis. “You know,” he said, “I think Holy Taco’s food may be a true aphrodisiac. It’s some of the most sensual food in our city.”

Food Porn is a fictional series by longtime Atlanta food critic Cliff Bostock. Set in real Atlanta restaurants, it chronicles the adventures of Robert, a gay man in search of a husband — or at least a good meal. Read the whole series here.