I could have gone out tonight. I’m not, though. It’s always the same. I just read and read tonight, finished Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama. I loved it. A captivating book, full of wit and great postmodern ideas that I just couldn’t put down. It excited me (some parts even physically), it revolted me with gruesome descriptions that were rendered neutral/comical. Dark satire is great.
A main subject of the book is about superficiality, about looks over brains. Recognisable no doubt from any perspective (not necessarily gay).
I know I’m not missing anything by not going out. This is what would happen if I did go out tonight to some random place in town…
Out of it.
Tonight I’m wearing my tight blue jeans of which I know they show off the firmness of my bottom at the back as well as a (slightly exaggerated) bulge at the front. Studying it, I noticed once that my natural bulge was being enhanced by the thick six black metal buttons that prevent my black underwear from exposing itself. Breathing in as I close them, I look into the mirror, wondering whether or not if I’d shave off the treasure trail that seems to have grown back from my navel down to… well, treasure, baby! I stroke the soft dark hair a couple of times, grab my camera and its remote control and quickly take some pictures posing for my own pleasure. I look at the two-dimensional results on the 2.4 inch LCD screen, zooming in on my abdomen, trying to trace the first signs of the six-pack I’ve been going to the gym for recently. Happy with my look, I sip from a glass of Cinzano I poured out for myself some time earlier, just to get in the mood a bit. My top will be a striped retro shirt I found in the girl’s department of a vintage clothes store in Sydney where I was complimented by somebody whose face I can’t remember on how well it looked on me and how it perfectly matched my whole style. This semi-rock ‘n roll look is completed with the never-absent Converse Allstars, the only brand name I allow to be shown from my clothes.
I finish my second glass of Cinzano, feeling confident. I put on my jacket and I decide to go to Click Click again. I was there last week with a short-term friend/fuck and I quite liked the indie music and ‘hip’ crowd. I remembered flirting with some other guys too, so tonight should be alright. It’s just a five minute walk, so I slip in still tasting the Cinzano on my palate. I pay the nine dollars entry and slowly make my way through the crowd of groups standing together. Out of instinct, I head for the bar and order myself a double gin-and-tonic; ‘just to get in the mood’, I tell myself. Drinking swiftly, I patiently wander around the whole crowd, my eyes rapidly browsing through the array of available men. My gin-and-tonic is quickly emptied into my throat, my heart gradually starting to pump more and more alcoholic blood to my brain. I return to the bar, I have to wait behind some ugly old guy ordering a couple of beers with a cigarette dancing on his lips, smoke parting from his mouth, his nose and, it seems, also his ears. I give him a condescending look before I order a glass of white wine; the girl taking a beer glass starting to fill it with wine. I pay for it, leaving no tip (I say to myself I do this because she didn’t fill the beer glass enough to earn herself a tip), and then I head towards the dance floor where I start dancing to some indie songs I’ve never heard before. I take to the stage and have a clear overview of the whole dance floor. Only one or two people seem to notice me, but this doesn’t have any direct effect on my confident style of dancing. Apart from the orders at the bar, I haven’t said anything yet.
Between half an hour and two hours later, I find myself talking to some 23-year-old who’s name I will have forgotten when I’ll wake up next to him the following morning with a huge hangover, moaning incessantly (which seems to entertain him). I’ll call him Jakob for now.
‘Hey!’
‘Hey!’
‘I just had to tell you that you look really cool, dude!’ he reveals.
‘Thanks man, I like how you look too!’ we both laugh, aware that more of this small-talk will eventually get us the sex we crave for.
‘Are you here by yourself?’
‘Yeah, I needed to get out tonight. You?’
‘Sort of, yeah, I came with some friends, but I seem to have lost them. Ah well!’ He smiles again. Ideally, he would have long or semi-long darkish hair, be tall and slim. Depending on my drunkenness, their resemblance to this picture varies somewhat from night to night.
‘Would you like another drink?’ I offer.
He realises this offer ties him to me, he accepts without blinking: ‘Yeah, sure!’
He stands about beside me as I order him whatever he was drinking before and myself another wine, this time another bartender completely fills the glass, delighting me into giving him a one-dollar-seventy-tip.
‘So what do you do? Are you studying?’ he looks at me, trying to figure it out for himself.
‘Well, not really. You see, officially, I’m a traveler, I’m from Belgium. I graduated from uni last July and I just felt I needed to do something else, you know, so I decided to come here, just because it seemed like the most logical thing to do. I’m here on a Working Holiday Visa, but I’m not really working here. I’m a freelance translator and that makes great money so I don’t have to go about working in farms and stuff like that.’ I smile.
‘Wow! That sounds really cool! I’m studying ceramics, I still got two years left. After that, I’d really like to go traveling too,’ I realise I forgot to ask him what he did, ‘how long are you in Melbourne for?’
‘Until August, but I’m going to New Zealand in July for two weeks. After August, I’ll travel along the east coast of Australia, then I’ll go to Hong Kong and Thailand in September.’ As I explain this, I become aware of how he now sees my presence there as a definite search for carnality, as no long-term benefits could ever be gained from our acquaintance. Considering he’s stuck with studying ceramics for the next couple of decades (or whatever they’re studying), the only thing we seem good for is sex.
A bit later, having noticed we don’t seem to have all that much common ground, we take to the dance floor where we dance (and make out) until it becomes appropriate for one of us to say: ‘Do you want to go home?’ I am taken to some suburb I have never been, to some house and some bed I have never been and to some sex I’ve never had.
Waking up, I only seem to remember some flashes of the sex I had the night before. I try to focus my mind on it, but I only seem to vaguely remember the position in which I came. Puzzled, I seem unsure whether or not he came too last night. I let go of that thought and press my naked body closer to his, trying to get some more sleep. When he wakes up, he sees my naked self, murmurs something about me being beautiful and tries to excite me for some more sex. My penis struck with rigor mortis, I explain I’m not at all a morning person, something which he will soon see confirmed by my extended waking-up ritual.
He asks me for my number, which I give to him. He has no problem saving it under “Tim” or “Tim Belgium” or “Timpeltje” and then he recites his own telephone number to me, which I punch into my mobile. When I press “Save number as” I either squint and say something about being bad at remembering names or I just enter a description about the guy in question. “Ceramics-guy” in this case.
I ask him where I am and how I get home from his place.
He tells me I’m in suburb X and that I need to get on tram number XX in order to get home.
We say goodbye and I step on the tram. I’ll stare vacantly out the window until I’m fairly close to home. I get home and don’t do anything for the rest of the day apart from recovering from the hangover.
He’ll send me one or two text messages to which I won’t feel like replying and then I’ll never see or hear from him again, which is exactly how I want it.
/timpeltje
BUT, this didn’t happen tonight, as I was writing down what would have happened IF I had gone out tonight, which I didn’t do. So it’s all fiction. Nothing’s true of it. I swear. I would never do it like that!
Tim van den Oudenhoven 