Patty with cream topping

Barry Lowe reflects on his encounter with Patty Andrews. Well, almost.

Sadly, Patty Andrews, the last of the iconic Andrews Sisters trio died less than two weeks ago. She was a pivotal figure for many a gay boy growing up in the post war years. Okay, so Patty wasn’t the lesbian member of the group – that reputedly was Maxene – but the trio had a lasting impact not only on Allied troops during World War II but on countless drag shows thereafter. In the 1950s and into the 1960s, the war years were still recent enough that throw bouffant victory roll wigs on three men and dress them in female military attire and, bingo!, you had The Andrews Sisters.

I had an up close and personal encounter with Patty Andrews. Let me tell you about it. It was one of the memorable moments of my life. In the early 1970s I was a poor student at NIDA with a part-time job so my opportunities for socialising were limited. At that time I lived in the upper portion of a terrace house in what is now pretentiously known as East Redfern. Saturday nights were one of my only free times and I wasn’t about to spend hours and dollars I didn’t have in an attempt to find sexual satisfaction in a gay bar. Fortunately, KKK was in easy walking distance at Randwick, so I would take myself along around eight in the evening, knowing it closed around 2am. That was usually more than enough time to secure plenty of sausage stuffing to last another week.

My sexual appetite back then was almost insatiable.

One night I’d had my back passage well and truly greased and creamed by numerous gentlemen but my dick remained resolutely unsatisfied. It was getting close to closing time which is when sexual panic usually set in for the fussier denizens of the steam bath; those who’d saved themselves for that hot number above all other hot numbers. Of course, I’d learned long ago, they never turn up so my policy was to go for quantity if not quality.

I was cruising the hallways when I discovered a cubicle with the door open. Spread-eagled on one of the vinyl benches was an older balding gentleman with his ass invitingly positioned for easy access. With time running out before the place would close, I entered and closed the door behind me. Spreading his plump cheeks, I buried my tongue where, not surprisingly, I discovered other men had come before me. Before the advent of the plague years, ass-fermented spooge was one of my favourite tipples. Let’s just say, I drank freely of said plump posterior before inserting my frustration and buggering the rump until a week’s worth of spermatozoon shot into a blind alley.

It would have ended there except not long after I acquired a boyfriend who performed as a male dancer at social club drag shows. I accompanied him to a dress rehearsal, pleasantly entertained, particularly by the Andrews Sisters trio, the Patty of which was vaguely familiar. Afterwards, at a debrief, I was introduced to the actor playing Patty and, you guessed it, it was the gentlemen who’d loaned me his arse for the evening a few months prior.

I chuckled to myself that I had rimmed Patty Andrews.

[Image] The Andrews Sisters … Maxene, Patty and LaVerne.