‘You’re very handsome!’ I told the tall, sleepy-eyed guy with dark curly hair who I had subtly stalked from the front hall onto the crowded dancefloor.
‘And you’re very drunk!’ he replied.
I extended the hand not holding my cup in a gesture of ‘eh, what can you do.’
The sleepy-eyed guy flashed a vaguely apologetic smile, as if regretting his harshness, but the signal had been sent. No thanks. All right. I danced beside him and his friend for a while longer, then finished my drink and retreated to the toilets to pee.
Looking in the mirror, I noticed the stains of spilt vodka-and-coke down the front of my blue vest. Proof of drunkenness to the guy, clearly, though really it was just proof of people bumping into me; I was more high than drunk, having done two (small) bumps of ket since Joe had abandoned me, his anxiety triggered within five minutes of arriving by the Tina-queen mascness of the crowd. As for me, now, I felt floaty and amused, alone, but fine.
I joined the queue for the cubicles, which stretched out of the bathroom into the busy front hall. Looking up at the vaulted brick ceiling, I suddenly remembered when I had been to this venue before — for that graphic design event, a few months ago, that my company had made us attend. There had certainly been a lot more dress shirts and rimless glasses and fewer shirtless torsos on display then. I stood there, musing on the strangeness of how one venue can accommodate such different crowds and vibes. I concluded it was no more strange than how one person can slip between such different environments. Coming back here now, for this, I felt kind of like a fraud. But was it graphic-designer me who was the fraud, or party-boy me? Who knows. Probably the ket talking at this point.
The guy in front of me in the queue was hot. Dark-haired, like the guy who’d rejected me (I have a a type, okay?), bearded, a solid, strong build under a silky football shirt.
‘I like your shirt!’
‘Thanks.’ He gave a calm smile and placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘We were at a costume party before. American themed.’
‘Oh! What’s your costume?’
‘I’m a quarterback.’
‘Cool!’ I was pretty sure his shirt was of the European football variety, but who cares. ‘What’s your name?’
‘I’m Kris. This is my boyfriend, Gabe.’
The next guy along in the queue smiled at me and said hey. He was tall and ginger, handsome in a more expressive, friendly way. Kris was the real star of the show though (it is a truth universally acknowledged that the most gorgeous guys are always the more stoically inscrutable.) Kris, Gabe and I talked while the queue inched forward. Kris was German, Gabe Canadian. They lived in Berlin. I told them I was jealous. I’d heard that in Berlin people don’t work and they just take drugs and have sex. They laughed. Gabe said it was kind of true. ‘Then why don’t we all live there?’ I muttered bitterly. ‘Do you find London stressful?’ Gabe asked. ‘A bit!’ I shrugged. ‘I mean, not right now.’ Gabe nodded, smiling. He asked if I was on anything. I said ketamine. He asked me if I wanted some mephedrone. I said yes.
We bundled into a cubicle. One quirk of this inappropriately polished central-London venue was the lack of security in the toilets to stop people from doing that, or to knock aggressively on doors if people were taking too long. Pretty refreshing, to be honest. Gabe got out a baggie and shovelled meph onto a key. He served me first, then Kris, then himself.
‘Oh no. I’ve got a hole in my trousers,’ I said, fingering a tear in the side of my tracksuit bottoms.
‘What?’ said Kris, leaning in. My voice had drowned in the din of laughter, voices, doors slamming, locks clicking, distant beats.
I repeated myself.
He looked at the tear, my chalk-white thigh visible through it. ‘It’s not so bad.’
I nodded in agreement.
He kissed me. I kissed him back hungrily. We looked up at Gabe, who had by now put the baggie and keys away. He smiled and kissed me. I got between them, leaning my arse back on Kris, who I wanted the most; he started pushing against it, kissing Gabe past me, kissing my neck. Our trousers went down, and then me. I crouched between them and sucked them off; their cocks were, somehow unsurprisingly, amazing, thick and half-hard through the drug haze (my own limp, even though I felt horny — too much ket.) I felt Kris’ grow harder; I looked up at his body as he leaned back against the door, forearms against the sides of the cubicle; he looked like a king, like someone who deserved to have any man he wanted and who I was lucky to service tonight. A solid column of muscle. Dark armpit hair, the silky football shirt off and hanging over one shoulder. We hadn’t locked the door properly; suddenly it opened, but Kris pushed it back with one elbow, his satisfied calm unbroken. He slid the bolt, then returned his hand to my hair, grasping it gently as I took him in. ‘That’s so hot,’ murmured Gabe from above, and I gave a hum of agreement, mouth full. ‘Your boyfriend’s dick is amazing,’ I told him a little later, while Kris sucked him off. ‘Yeah, I love watching him fuck people,’ said Gabe. A little later still, my forearms on the back wall of the cubicle, bending over as I let Kris rub his cock up and down the cleft of my arse, slapping the cheeks gently with it. ‘You should see the view from up here,’ said Gabe as Kris’ dick rubbed against my hole. ‘Oh yeah? Is it nice?’ I said, eyes closed. ‘Very nice,’ said Gabe.
We left the cubicle and got drinks. At the bar, Gabe said, with an almost wistful grin: ‘That was nice! That just felt, like, so natural, the way that happened.’ I agreed, almost wishing he wouldn’t discuss it in words. I told Kris he had a gorgeous dick. He told me I had a gorgeous arse. There we were, just three guys waiting for our drinks, making small talk about our dicks and arses.
Back on the dancefloor, Gabe started talking to someone — a slightly grizzled guy with shifty eyes, but a nice enough body; he turned out to be Ivano, Russian, a fellow Londoner. I got the vague sense he didn’t like me. He smelled of cigarettes. We all went to do more meph. In the cubicle, bumps were snorted and kisses exchanged, with Ivano too. Four men in a cubicle. A slightly more complicated set-up. The Russian started sucking off Kris and Gabe and, why not, me. I didn’t feel turned on anymore. Gabe could tell. ‘Do you want to get out?’ he murmured. ‘Yeah. I think I’m gonna go back to the dancefloor.’ Gabe nodded, and we all ended up leaving the cubicle, Ivano with an arm around Kris, pulling him close.
I suddenly found that I did need to pee, so I agreed to find them all in a specific spot on the dancefloor, then doubled back to the toilets.
When I got back, I couldn’t find them.
Damn. I didn’t even get their numbers or Instagram. Would have been nice to have lovely, sexy Kris and Gabe to visit in Berlin. For a good half hour, I floated around the rooms of the venue, peering for a glimpse of their faces, but try as I might, I couldn’t find them. Maybe they were back in the toilets with Ivano. Or they’d gone home with him.
I got my coat from the cloakroom to leave.
On the street, a light drizzle fell. I pulled out my phone to see how bad the nightbus situation would be. Seventy minutes to get home. I sighed, looked up and caught the sleepy eyes of Mr ‘You’re very drunk!’ from what now felt like a lifetime ago.
He looked at me. Gave a slight smile and a nod.
We stood there with our phones out, mirror images of each other. Maybe I’d misread him — maybe he really had been interested in me.
I smiled back cautiously.
A car pulled up, and he got in and drove off.
