Adam just let it all out. In
that tiny bathroom, with the blue light and the very crammed stalls, he knew he
had too much to drink. Normally, he would have known that before having to head
for the bathroom in a huff, but this time he had been too distracted by the
deceiving amounts of alcohol in each drink and the beautiful looks of the bartender.
Besides, the whole atmosphere invited anyone there to forget about the world
outside and just focus on pleasure and fun in that moment.
He was lucky there was a roll of
toilet paper in the stall. He flushed the water down and then proceeded to
clean the edges of his mouth. He felt more than dirty but decided the place
wasn’t the proper place to feel like that. After all, people went there to
loose themselves and not the other way around. As he threw the toilet paper
into the basket, a man appeared from above, startling him. Adam recognized him
as the owner of the establishment, who was the only one dressed differently.
You see, that place was what they
call a sex club in many places in the world. It was a mix between a bar and a
hotel but without the burden of having to take an elevator and close the door.
People would just have sex anywhere, except for the bar area which was strictly
used to drink, smoke and have a little chat if that’s what you wanted. And it’s
also important to note that Adam was in one that only accepted men inside, so
there wasn’t a woman to be seen. Only a lot of male clientele.
The owner asked Adam if he was ok
and Adam told him he was and that he was craving something to eat. The owner
disappeared, so Adam opened the stall, washed his mouth in one of the sinks and
then head off to the bar again, where he would ask for a soda or something with
no alcohol. As he put his arms on the bar, the bartender smiled at him again,
as he had done many times before during the night, and that was more than
enough for Adam to forget his short trip to the bathroom.
As he sipped his soda, he look
around and realized the amount of people in the club had doubled in the last
thirty minutes, which made sense as it was peak time, the moment of the night
when most men would seek that kind of place. It wasn’t expensive, or cheap. It
was just the right price and that’s why some came in for some time and then just
left, having received or given what they wanted. Some people would think it was
a dirty and awful place but the truth was it was pretty much the contrary,
considering people were having sex practically all over the place.
The owner of the establishment
appeared again at the bar. He was carried two big bowls: one contained popcorn
and the other had potato chips. He told the bartender that he would be coming
back with more in a minute. The young man working on the other side of the bar
nodded and then looked at Adam, winking an eye to him. On the street, Adam
would have never known what to do in such a circumstance, but in that place,
not only did he smile openly but he also winked back to the bartender.
For the next hour or so, he
didn’t leave the bar area. He just looked around at the people that came and
went and even engaged in conversation with many of them. It was funny how far
those conversations were from sex or anything related to it. In an area closer
to a big open window, some older men were discussing about politics and next to
Adam, two younger men were gossiping about some of the people they knew in
college. Apparently, one of their teachers was on one of the other rooms.
Hearing that conversation, Adam
realized he had been standing at the bar too long and that he had to go and
check out the other rooms, at least once. It wasn’t like he only attended such
places because of the drinks and ambiance, he also engaged in sex with
strangers. But sometimes he didn’t felt like it as much as he would have wanted
to. He didn’t feel the need to go and just do it. But he decided it was best to
look around, especially because his legs hurt from not moving for such a long
time.
There were two floors: the lower
level was where the bar and the reception area were located. The reception was
not only a front desk, very similar to a hotel, but also a large room with lots
of square shaped lockers all around. They were all adorned with a number and
different colors and in the center of that room there were several benches,
where the men could take off their clothes without any rush. Funny enough,
almost no one looked at others there. It was something like an unspoken rule.
Besides the locker room, the
front desk and the bar, the lower level of the structure also house two rooms.
The light was lacking there but that was compensated by the fact every single
visitor to that place was given a colored bracelet at the entrance. The
bracelet was there for purposes of lighting rooms and also giving a code to
other people about your intentions in that place. It was a great achievement of
homosexual men to have coded every single part of their behavior in order to
avoid interference from other parties and unwanted attention.
The rooms in the lower level were almost empty. They were destined to
certain tastes that only a handful in a large group would enjoy. But sure
enough, there were enough people there to use everything they had at their
disposal in those rooms. By the sounds, it was clear people were having fun and
Adam decided he wouldn’t want anyone to spoil something like that for him. So
he went back to the stairs he had seen before and started to walk up slowly, as
some people were coming down and the spiral case was a bit narrow.
When he got to the upper level, he
saw the familiar doorways; he felt the weight of the air and the scent of it
too. He had been in that place several times before, many more than he would
even confess. He knew how the rooms were distributed and how much it all looked
like a regular apartment, with different rooms for different purposes. There
were bedrooms with large beds but also a couple of living rooms with large
sofas and even a terrace, which was not very popular due to the freezing cold
climate outside.
People on the street couldn’t see
up there because there were several small pine trees blocking the view by the
edge of the terrace. The same thing happened with the windows, which had all
been painted black in order to avoid any complaints by neighbors or passersby. It
was a very large but also discreet place were men could just gather and do whatever
they felt like doing, as long as they respected each other. No one said it but
that was a huge part of a place like that: you had to respect everyone.
Not everyone looked like a model
and the truth was that most people liked that. Because the reality of it all is
that people look like people and that’s it. So men went there to see other men,
to find themselves in others. They went there to have sex, yes, but also to
free themselves from the shackles they wore every single day at work or at
home. Some had hurt others without wanting to and that place was one where they
wouldn’t do that because honesty and respect were the norm there.
Many people would not understand
all of that. And that was ok, or so Adam thought. If everyone did the same
thing, there wouldn’t be any special places or people or anything. We would
just be copies of the same boring thing and, who wants that?
In one of the rooms, Adam was
grabbed by the waist and he suddenly felt someone’s lips on his lips and a
couple of hands touching his back. His bracelet helped him identifying the
bartender, who had apparently escaped his duties and had followed him into the
darkness.
