Matt Gunther was, plain and simple, one of the most glamourous boys ever to do porn. He was also infamous for being “difficult” on the set, to the point that he received the first porn video award in that category and the award was promptly retired. Of course, one could make the argument that demanding good lighting and objecting to being exploited might be “difficult” to directors. Matt, at one point, had appeared on more Falcon box covers than any other performer.

Ahhh, the excitement of meeting—and fucking—one of your favorite porn stars. And the oddity of having said porn star become one of your best friends and having that relationship move to the stage where sex would seem wrong, even incestuous.

When Matt Gunther’s appearance at the Show Palace was announced, I couldn’t wait to see this smoldering, glamorous star showing it all off and stroking his huge cock in person. Matt Gunther certainly did not disappoint, and was as gleaming and streamlined in person as in the videos and magazines that had gotten me off so many, many times.

After his show he asked for my number, and the next day the phone rang; he invited me to his room at the Paramount Hotel. He ate my ass pretty aggressively, telling me that eating ass “is my thing.” His own hole was one of the most perfect I’ve ever seen—to small and tight and smooth. And highly skilled, as I found when he slid that shaved hole onto my stiff cock and started riding, taking my cock raw. Suddenly he took his open hand and smacked it on my chest, and I mean HARD. I would still have a handprint there the next day. I thought, “If he’s this rough as a bottom, what is he lie as a top?” I found out from a friend who hooked up with him at Bijou 82, a sex club with booths. Apparently Matt basically knocked him across the booth during sex, which my friend promptly curtailed. He also really liked fisting his young, pretty costars like Cort Stevens, who did his first porn scene with Matt at age 19. I think it was the first time he was fucked, and getting deflowered by Matt must have been quite the event. Danny Sommers told me when he did a scene with Matt, he stopped the action because it was too rough.

When I became true friends with Matt, I realized he was deeply angry, and that anger manifested itself in a number of ways, including during sex. Which I never had with him again after the first time, other than once essentially fluffing him during another Show Palace performance; we were going somewhere later so he comped me in to watch. He was tired and having problems getting hard so he walked over and said, “Help me,” which in context I was happy to do by swallowing that beautiful dong and sucking him up hard.

Despite that moment of difficulty, he was a real sex machine. Once after a full week of 35 jackoff shows at the Show Palace he asked me to go with him to the Limelight, where he had been hired to do a show. He stroked that rod up and blew a hot load all over the eager crowd.

Matt also was quite aware of his physical image and had some standards in terms of his work. He was notorious as the “biggest bitch on set,” a trophy given at one of the porn awards ceremonies, named for him and promptly retired. It was interesting to hear his take on the situation, with directors and crew treating porn models like mannequins, machines or meat. Not only did he refuse to accept that treatment, he also understood the importance of production values. I think it’s interesting that, despite his “difficult” reputation, at the time no performer had done as many videos for Falcon, the company that, at the time, had the highest standards and made the greatest effort to beautify and glamorize the cast.

He also commanded the highest fee ever paid to a porn star by the Show Palace in New York. And when they wanted him back after his shows were all packed, he demanded even more money—and got it. He was worth it.

He was staying with me once week and was supposed to appear on the Robin Byrd Show, one of New York’s oddities, hosted by one of New York’s oddities. Robin Byrd had made a few porn movies in the ‘70s, most famously Debbie Does Dallas (she was NOT Debbie) and had parlayed that into a niche career as host of a public access show interviewing porn stars after they stripped. I tuned in to watch Matt, and suddenly the illustrious Ms. Byrd was back on camera saying, “We lost Matt Gunther. Where is Matt Gunther?”

Pretty soon I heard him at the door. He said he took one look at the cheesy studio and it’s bad lighting with Robin herself, in a haze of pot, running behind the scenes to work the camera for her guests’ stripteases, and said “I’m going out for a cigarette (he didn’t smoke),” grabbed a cab, and came home. Robin Byrd ever after held an on camera grudge against him.

He was a real star. Walking down Eighth Avenue in Chelsea with him was like strolling down Fifth Avenue with Brad Pitt. All the Chelsea Boys recognized him and reacted, although he seemed impervious. Even the lesbian who worked the front desk at my apartment knew who he was. Turns out some lesbians enjoy gay porn, maybe to see a man being penetrated and used?)

He encouraged me to drop his name if I met a porn star I wanted to fuck. I generally relied on my own charms, whatever they might have been, only mentioning Matt after I finished fucking them.

He was bait for my starfucking friends, too. I generally declined to set them up, although once someone I really loved as a friend (and former sex partner) stopped by when he was living in the same building. The three of us sat around for a while, after which Matt announced, “I am going to be in the next room.” I felt like the character in that awful movie The Big Chill who encourages her husband to go knock up her single friend with the ticking biological clock, when I looked at my friend and said, “Go ahead.”

I suppose it’s a mark of the status of my relationships with both these very hot guys that I wasn’t even tempted to go peak although I could also have joined in. As Matt said afterward, “I knew you were through with both of use, and just figured out whoever wanted it would come in the room.”

At that point I preferred just hanging out with him. He visited a number of times from L.A. and always left an amazing gift for me—perfectly selected based on my tastes and interests. He also astonished me once when we passed the theatre where Grand Hotel was playing and announced “I LOVE Cyd Charisse! We’re going,” and went in and got tickets for that night.

He did, however, have a bad habit of being high-handed with people in any service industry—hotel clerks, waiters. More than once I had to tell him to cut it out—which he did, although he seemed unaware of his behavior until it was pointed out.

Matt met a sad end, when his HIV (contracted at age 17) became AIDS. Although he had taken 18 months to take care of his mother as he was dying of cancer, his father refused to allow him to move in once he became ill. He had a new girlfriend and his son was inconvenient. Likewise, his sister refused to have him in her house because her kids “might catch it.” So, some of his anger was justified.

He ended up in at least two homes for people with AIDS, asked to leave both of them because of his ill-tempered treatment of the staff. I learned later that he ended up on the street in a wheelchair, but always dressed in Armani. He had great taste. I can only wonder why the producers who made a comfortable living off of his talents couldn’t assist him, but perhaps his rebellious and demanding standards were too much for them.

I know these tales are supposed to focus on the hot, sleazy excitement of fucking studs who make their living with their cocks and asses, but Matt was a special person and I think it merits discussing him beyond either his onscreen image or the snarky comments made by some of his “colleagues” during and after his short life. He died a week before his 34th birthday.