I didn’t know him all that well; at the most I guess you could say we were acquaintances. The first time I met him, he came over to my apartment and handed me a book as a gift and token of appreciation for having been invited over.
I laughed because he was (and remains to this date) the only such person to ever give me a gift as ways of saying thank you for meeting. The book was a copy of his biography, entitled “Sleeping under the Stars” and before he left I made him sign it for me. During the months that followed that first meeting, we probably got together at least a dozen times. There were times he would call at midnight and we would talk on the phone for an hour because he was lonely and frustrated.
One time he called and asked me if I would mind picking him at his doctor’s office the next day as he had no ride home. I remember thinking that if you have to call me to come pick you up at the doctor’s; chances are you probably don’t have that many other friends you can call to ask so I agreed. No big deal, right? When he met me at the reception area, he stretched his arms out and hugged me as if I was a long lost relative. I’ll never forget that. I’ll never forget that because it made me so incredible sad to see someone so lonely and so grateful for something so minor.
The last time we talked must have been well over a year ago. Eventually we lost touch with one another; things happened and time moved on but those two events always stuck with me.
Geoffrey Karen Dior died on August 25, 2004 due to complications of AIDS. He was 37 years old.
I found out yesterday, purely by accident, when I was browsing a gay news site and caught the 3 sentence paragraph that mentioned his passing. Amongst his many talents, he was a former porn actor and producer. A devout Buddhist, he had the most incredibly intense set of eyes I have ever seen. And for all the stigma and detached shallowness that comes with being a porn actor, he was a nice, warm, sweet man.
The reason I am telling you all this is because Geoff is the first man I know to die that I was intimate with. He is the first person to die in my direct life because of AIDS and it is scaring the shit out of me.
Because I don’t want to die at the age of 37 due to complications of AIDS; laying in some hospital bed. I want to die at home; in my sleep and lying next to the person I love at the good young age of 90. Not 37, not 40 and not 50 and not “due to complications of AIDS.” It just isn’t right.
I am sorry I lost touch with Geoff. I pray he didn’t die alone and he had someone else to call, just as he had called me to come pick him up at the doctor’s.
For all the stars he may have slept under, he now sleeps above them all.

My name is Sven