Inferno

An extract from a bigger project I'm currently working on, about Berlin. Feedback/comments welcome!

This is what Dante envisioned. To write of a place of which so many still think imaginary, where men find themselves transformed, into monsters, where the dignified are rendered instantly depraved. Only it’s real, it’s here. And it never closes. Sometimes people stay for days, waiting for the erotic, for something just to happen. For the end of the world. Despite my many intoxicated forays to Bull bar, I’m inevitably thrilled and shocked by what I find here; men bent over tables, others strapped in swings that rattle into the small hours of the night, barely audible over grunts and wails. Unlike Laboratory and Ficken 3,000, Bull invites the everyman: those who’ve never seen their own abs, those who are older, who require the kindness of the dark. It is the absence of an “outfit,” the lack of frills that make these the men you sit next to on the u-bahn in everyday jeans and North Face coats, those who you find yourself prolonging eye contact with in the middle of the C&A at Alexanderplatz. They are the PE teachers, the dads of friends, those who were always untouchable, forbidden. Until suddenly, here, they are not.

What are we owed, if anything, by queer spaces? The guarantee of sex, of orgasm? Safety, by those who pour us drinks, who stow away our few valuables in shadowed cloakrooms? Perhaps behind the veil of drugs, of drink, a sense of community might even be found? My own head is filled with stories of friends, friends of friends, who met each other in the nefarious toilet queue, where nobody strangely ever needs to pee, who then went on to chat about family trauma and leftist politics as they shared lines together. Such encounters are proving to be solely situational; you’ll see the same guy, in the same outfit - same time, same place. He becomes your “Bull friend.” But he won’t answer your texts once you’ve both left through the same exit, nor will he get back to you about that party he insisted you were so invited to. And perhaps that is fine, enough that such an interaction with another human happened. Even if it is only ever fleeting.

Is it unreasonable to expect love from a queer space? From a place as seedy as Bull? The notion feels a preposterous one, one to which friends shake their heads doubtfully and instead utter the words, Hinge, Bumble, Grindr? And yet I am reminded of one friend who met his now husband in the undercarriage of Ficken 3,000, questions of hobbies and political persuasions uttered in gasps between intense oral sex. They shared a drink afterwards, upstairs, a re-introduction necessary after the exposé by light. Yes, the marriage was one that occurred largely out of visa necessities, yet there was romance too. Maybe it won’t be love, the pressure itself that such a word carries enough to scare many back into the comforting anonymity of the darkroom. Perhaps instead, it will be sex, just sex – though is it ever? That is another piece of writing.

I’m still not quite sure what it was I felt that night.

*

I’m feeling confident, daring even, when I respond to something he says that’s directed at someone else. We go on to chat, beers in hand, glugs almost missing our mouths in the half-dark. He’s from Florida, here for Snax, just for the weekend. As I learned last time, it is very common for queer men to come from far and wide for this renowned party, crossing continents and buying visas in a desperate attempt to avoid missing out. Avoid missing out on what, though? An orgy? A party? An exclusive community that meets and forms only bi-annually? I say I’m also planning on going. We’ll go together, he replies, and so it is decided. Though he’s stressed about entry, about the possibility of rejection, proceeding to recite to me a long Reddit thread that proclaims the rules of Berghain in evangelical fashion. I laugh, patting him on the thigh as self-professed locals do, telling him that Laboratory, as an autonomous venue within Berghain, does not employ the same draconian criteria for entry. He isn’t convinced.

“So we won’t talk to each other in the queue.”

I laugh. “Sure.”

The sex that follows is unexpected and unexpectedly mind-blowing. I hadn’t expected us to “get off,” thinking his chiselled jaw and tight core would make him automatically unattainable. It is actually precipitated by a guy from Panama, who approaches us in jaunty fashion, his eyes a cartoonish red. After enough conversation to tell me he is indeed from Panama, he begins kissing us both in turn, before getting us to kiss each other. There are certain moments in places like Bull that can only be described as sheer disbelief; I close my eyes several times while going down on him, his nose and quivering lips glinting in the catch of the disco ball, in the hope that this might somehow last forever. That I might be allowed to keep these few minutes, in old age, in moments of loneliness. That I won’t forget.

It’s later in the night when we interact again. There was a natural break – to get another drink, to avoid reflection. There is also, overwhelmingly, a greed in us both. A gluttony to conquer others, scout the bar and darkroom several times, assessing the number of men and the subsequent number of possible attractions and rejections. It always comes down to statistics. As I pass him I stroke his stubbly cheek, as if to prove to others that he’s mine, even if just for the night. Like we’re some laissez-faire couple, that we’re casually open.

He kisses the back of my hand, which no one has done is so long.

We chat again, this time about how our respective nights are going; who we’ve “played” with [an awful turn of phrase that queer men insist upon using], who we might still like to “play” with [ugh], and our respective energy levels. We drift idly into other topics of conversation; I tell him about my visa struggles and he makes some refreshing and fair defences of American tourists. Though I don’t put too much effort in because I know we’ll be seeing each other again, in fact, later the same day. It’s 06:32am.

We are to meet in the evening for Snax. He’s suggested 8pm to combat the queue.

“We’re going together still, right?”

I nod keenly, flattered by the fact he hasn’t just remembered, but reminded me. I suggest meeting at a Späti beforehand, suggest grabbimg a beer to warm us up and have a proper chat. He’s keen on the idea, stroking my head softly before he pushes it down, slowly yet firmly, below his waist. This time I make an effort to worship him, to show him how much I want it, him. His legs shake from the unexpected advent of kisses, though his stomach is far more used to it. He’s been worshipped before. I close my eyes briefly again, like camera shutters, trying to conceive of the fact that his handsomeness is real, his abs not pixelated, and his strong arms the things I’m currently squeezing, not watching through a laptop screen. That this is all real. It’s at this point that sex seems to reach its heavenly zenith, and, in this moment, nothing else exists; not the men spectating at our sides who are now inanimate, not the club itself which begins to unfold and collapse around us. He asks to fuck me. I tell him I haven’t prepared, which is true, and that he can instead do it tomorrow. Tomorrow, which is now today. He nods chivalrously.

He leaves without saying goodbye. I complete two hurried searches of the club, scanning the faces of those who are pleasured in small corners, assessing the bodies of those whose faces are occluded by masks and caps. I try the bar in case he’s opted for another break, or is deep in conversation with someone else even, yet I’m met only by strange faces. The new cast of characters that are here for the matinee slot. My heart sinks initially, but I tell myself it isn’t personal; he just got caught up, he’s exhausted. He’s forgotten.

I break from a long nap, sweating at the thought of oversleeping. Luckily I haven’t, and I find myself opening WhatsaApp before I’ve even rubbed my eyes awake. I check to see if he’s replied.

He hasn’t, and he won’t.

The ticks next to the short blocks of text remain grey, though doubled, despite how much I shake my phone, willing them to turn blue. The first asks if he left, earlier, which quickly answered itself. The second casually says, “what you saying then?” in the most nonchalant way I could. I decide to call him, once, my final play in this game of casual, sexy non-commitment. He doesn’t reply.

Over the next few days I can’t understand why I feel so distraught. It’s an emotion that is divorced from heartbreak, certainly, yet that could be mistaken for emptiness. I decide my unhappiness comes from my uncertainty. Namely, my failure to understand what has happened, despite being a present, willing participant in all of the recent events. What happened certainly wasn’t anything close to love, yet to label it a “hook-up” feels like a disservice. Such encounters all too often serve their purpose; they are often disappointing, sometimes good, and always erotic. But they are rarely at the level of the indefinable. And perhaps it’s not so serious, what with us parted by a vast ocean and liberal landmass, with us having our own, separate sex lives. Our own lives.

Perhaps it’s simply “not that deep.” Though acceptance of this becomes increasingly difficult when you remember the intensity of the kissing; how you forgot to breathe momentarily, when breathing didn’t feel so important. The way that your bodies seemed to interlock, as if they were already so well-versed in fitting together, resting and relying on the other. Entering each other. I’ve never been able to stroke my own hair the way he did. I let myself wonder, briefly fantasise about having my hair stroked in that same way as we’re curled up on my Berlin mattress, as we’re sat in the flicker of the cinema screen, once again, plunged into the darkness in which our relationship will only ever exist.