“You should be very proud of yourself,” he says grabbing me as I try to get up from my bed to go and turn off my bedroom lights. It takes some effort, but I finally manage to get up from his arms and walk towards the door. On my way, I readjust my crumbled up boxers over my jeans.
“I don’t usually do this,” he says.
“Yeah, I love to wrestle in bed,” I respond, dimming the lights.
“No, I mean, hook up that often.” I’m confused. I had totally pegged him as a total player. The day I met him at a mutual friend’s BBQ, he had gotten in a fight with a drunken straight guy and called him an asshole. All while hopping around on crutches. He’d broken his left foot jumping down a fence and had to get a cast, but that didn’t stop him from provoking a riot. So I figured that the testosterone that muddled his temper also filtered down to his crotch and fucked up his libido – encouraging every impulse to “hit that.”
It had definitely fucked with mine. I was instantly attracted to this Potential Player and his straight guy-like bravado. And I refused to watch from the sidelines.
But playing with bad boys is a dangerous sport, and I didn’t want to end up getting hurt and calling foul. So I didn’t think much of this guy with the sexy dimples and messy hair who always wore his shirts wrinkled. I wasn’t even expecting him to call me, even though we did have an intense, shirtless make out session on my friend’s couch the night of the BBQ. With his foot in a cast, I had to lift him up and support him on my shoulders when we started to dance, swaying slowly to “Electric Feel.”
And then three weeks later, there he was: free of crutches and inviting me to his birthday celebration. Potential Player has this way of making every guy feel
like the only one on the team, which solidified my first impression that he would pitch to whomever was willing to catch. And that’s what caught me at the
beginning. He has the confidence of a Casanova, never mind that he prefers LMFAO to MGMT.
The night of his birthday, he brought about 25 guys to his party at Trigger. Impressive considering we live in a city often unwilling to commit. The sexy bartenders flowered him with even more attention in the form of drinks. But I kept sober. Despite the fact that it seemed as if I were playing Marco Polo in a pool full of men wanting to swim up the birthday boy’s trunks, I felt a little like Michael Phelps, for I had already won. I’d hooked up with Potential Player the night before. See, I don’t do sidelines.
So the next night at Trigger, I felt quite secure in my position as starting player on his team. A little past midnight, I gave him a hug and made up the excuse that I had to meet up with some other friends in the Mission. I didn’t want him to think that he was a starting player on my team. Before I exited the club, he gave my number to one of his friends, a tall, hunky blond. “My phone is about to die, and I forgot my charger,” Potential Player explained. “I’ll call you tomorrow on his phone.” And he did, and we hooked up again. But this time with the lights off. And I felt like the only one on the team.
The only rewarding aspect of being young and well connected in New York City is that you will always find a party to go to (or crash) any night of the week. Promoters take note, if you throw it, I will come. So much so that merely a month after arriving in New York, Friday and Saturday nights became a respite from my otherwise hectic weekly agenda. Every single night, I’d find a different party at a different spot. It kept the crowds moving from the East Village down to the Lower East Side, over on to Williamsburg and back over the bridge to Chelsea or Chinatown. And the week culminated on Sunday night with the biggest, most notorious party in all of Manhattan, or so I had heard. I will never forget my first Sunday night at the Hiro Ballroom for the Cuckoo Club, the dance party at the Maritime Hotel in the Meatpacking District. Hosted by Amanda Lepore, the poster child/cover girl of the freakshow/fashionshow nightlife debaucheries that regained popularity in the 21st century with the release of the film, Party Monster, and her entourage of club-kid socialites, Hiro’s feels like being trapped in a David LaChapelle photoshoot. The longer you stayed, the slower time passed. Everyone wanted to be here, beautiful and young, dearly clutching on to the last night of the week. Because as soon as Monday rolled around, it meant a new cycle, more wrinkles and worries and the awareness that nothing lasts forever.
Amateur models, prolific porn stars and glowing go-go boys, tanned creatures mingling with the stylish creeps of the underworld: it’s a kaleidoscope of characters and here I am too, swimming in the dark. I’ve dragged a guy I met that Thursday at Splash, the frat boy frenzy that caters to young, Midwest transplants still carrying their college IDs and popping their collar.
There was no cover, but unless we wanted to wait in line, it was vital to schmooze with the snobby doorboy whom I had met a week prior at The Plumm in the West Village. As soon as we step, Frat Boy comments on how this is so not his scene. Which I always think it’s just a condescending way of saying that someone is not comfortable or secure in the environment. And I guess he had a point, this party is not for everyone, but removing themselves from the festivities so early in the night just doesn’t feel right to me. That’s so not my scene.
So he’s surprised when I tell him that I want to stay pass our first drink.
“I’ve got to get going, though,” Frat Boy says. “I have work in the morning… don’t you?”
“Yeah, but I’m already out, it’s not like I’m going to stay here until dawn. If you want to go, just go. I’ll be fine.”
“By yourself? Isn’t that a little weird?”
“There’s a transsexual walking around topless and dancing by the bar. Trust me, I’ll be fine.”
Frat Boy takes off and I never see him again. But I don’t care. I order another drink and walk to the top of the stairs. From up so high, I can see the entire Japanese-inspired ballroom and the pool of men glistening under the bright red lights. Tonight I don’t have an agenda. I’m more of a spectator, observing from the sidelines. Perhaps I will dive in some other night. I finish my gin and tonic and head down towards the main entrance. It is getting late, and I do have to be at work at ten in the morning.
I decide that instead of trying to maneuver my way through the crowd, pushing and shoving my way out, I should take the route that leads through the elevated booths and out the other side. As I walk by, I notice a tall black guy with glitter on his face and wearing a tight leather jacket smoking a cigarette. Several people in the booths are, so I take my pack of Parliament lights out and light one.
I don’t remember exactly how it happened, I think I must have approached someone and started a stifling conversation, but next thing I know I’m sitting in one of the booths, talking to two tall guys, both at Columbia law school. Guys are lounging all around the booth, lurking almost. I take a look around, counter clockwise sitting down, it’s me, tall law student, tall law student #2, dark-haired hottie in a fedora, a baby-faced, blue-eyed boy with spiky, frosted hair, a fit black guy wearing a tank top and… wait, a minute. That baby face! Those blue eyes! The spiky, frosted hair! It’s former N’ Sync’er Lance Bass! What is he doing here? What am I doing sitting at his table?
But I can’t freak out and act like a teeny bopper fanatic, that would just diminish my luck and finesse that got me sitting almost next to a former pop star. Besides, when it comes to celebrities, I’ve learned it’s best to pretend you have no idea of their social magnitude. It’s all about keeping composure. Someone introduces me to Lance, and I manage not to bring up how I used to sing, “Tearin’ Up My Heart” in the shower when I was 13. Apparently that summer, Lance was doing a stint in some Broadway show and was a common sight all over New York at various gay parties and other events. So it wasn’t that glorious that I ended up “hanging out” with him.
It gets to be almost 3:30 a.m., I’m running out of conversation topics with the group and I still have to work the next morning. At this point, Lance has stood up and is now lingering close by, dancing in place with a few other guys. I say my goodbyes to all and go down to where Lance is standing.
He’s just standing there, not talking or anything, so I go up to him to say goodbye. Even though I’ve just met him, I act like we’ve been friends since… we were both in the Mickey Mouse Club. I’m not a bit intimidated, so I give him a hug and make sure to inhale deeply when I get up close to his neck. He smells like baby powder.
So it’s true what they say: you should always aim for the moon, no matter how many plastic surgeries she has gone through. Even if you miss, you’ll still soar with former pop stars.
Chico Rock’s wild tour of Madrid continued for the remainder of my study abroad stay. Every Friday night, I would climb across to his room through his balcony, and we would pregame in his room before heading down to Chueca to explore yet another gay bar or club. Or several.
Unbeknownst to me before deciding to study for a semester in the Spanish capital, Madrid is well-known around Europe for its gay quarter. Despite being an overwhelmingly Catholic country, gay marriage is completely legal in Spain. Gay lifestyle and culture is prominent, sometimes preposterous.
Named after the Spanish word for “crooked” (or “not straight”) centuries before Stonewall, Chueca has been through more transformations than a desperate pop star trying to cling on to relevancy. All up until the 20th century, Chueca housed the city’s outcasts—criminals, freaks and other social pariahs, certainly homosexuals and sexual deviants. After the authoritarian dictatorship of Francisco Franco ended with his death in 1975 the area became one of the epicenters of La Movida, a liberation of creative expression, disregard for traditional aesthetics and a new breed of popular culture. The equivalent of New Wave but with far more transsexuals and recreational drug use. I once heard that during the mid-80s you could swipe your finger through one of the sidewalk creases in Chueca and accumulate small residues of a certain white powder, just enough for a bump. The streets were literally littered with cocaine. Then came the 90s. Chueca got chic with designers like Diesel and Custo Barcelona opening up boutiques in the now quaint but quirky neighborhood. And today, the quarter is home to more yuppies and young couples than criminals. I’m pretty sure that if Pinkberry ever made it to the European continent, the first location in Madrid would be in Chueca.
But after dark if you turn the right (or wrong) corner, you can travel back to a reformed version of Chueca’s old days of debauchery, partying until the sun comes up. That’s what Chico Rock wanted me to experience. He was adamant about having me be a part of his outrageous nightlife stunts: sex clubs and dark alleys, unknown substances and after parties. He kept saying how this was how young guys partied in Madrid, every night. He kept pushing me, challenging me almost, to stay out later and keep drinking, or keep flirting with strangers, see how far I could go down the rabbit hole. Nevermind waking up at 3 p.m. the next day, missing all my morning classes, hungover and with blurred memory of the night before.
The thing was: it was just him and his friends engaging in these excessive habits. He just didn’t want to feel like the only one, so he made a big deal about how common and ordinary it was to be so erratic, but deep down he was all alone.
I was madly attracted to him, so I kept playing the game, trying to impress him and turning into the party boy I thought he wanted me to be. I didn’t realize how self-destructive his lifestyle was until one night. November 9, 2006, three weeks before I had to come back to the states. The night I thought I was going to die.
We end our night at Royal Cool, but that’s where the story starts. The largest gay club in Madrid, the club is a neon institution that thrives on the bass thumping loud, men sweating hard and inhibitions plummeting to a new low. This is what it takes to be Cool.
As soon as we walk in, a friend of Chico Rock’s walks up to him and offers him something. I’m guessing it’s either coke or poppers since I see them snorting it. Chico Rock asks him if he knows where he can get more, looking back at me and raising his eyebrows with anticipation. The friend says no. Chico Rock calls him a liar. The friend laughs and says he’s serious. So Chico Rock drops it.
About twenty seconds later, the friend turns back, waits until we both make eye contact with him and then signals us to follow him.
The three of us walk back into a brightly lit room behind the bar. It takes a minute for my eyes to readjust. The friend introduces me to a guy with dreadlocks I recognize from going out. He asks me if I want pills, assuming that I’m the one looking for drugs, that it’s my deal to be made. I look back at Chico Rock. He nods.
“Si” (Yes).
“Cuantas?” (How many?)
“Cuantas necesito?” (How many do I need?)
The dealer laughs and tells me they’re five euros each. I tell him to give me one. He leans closer to me as if going in for a hug and puts the pill in my hand. He whispers something in my ear, but I can’t understand it, something about this being on the house. Even behind closed doors, the music from the club resonates.
I open my hand and see that he’s given me two pills. I take one and hand it over to Chico Rock, but he shakes his hands and says, “They’re all yours.”
So I take them both.
I walk out of the room and realize that: I just swallowed not one, but two pills. I just swallowed not one, but two unknown pills. I just swallowed not one, but two unknown pills from a complete stranger. I just swallowed not one, but two unknown pills from a complete stranger at a random club overseas. I just swallowed not one, but two unknown pills from a complete stranger at a random club overseas and really, I’m all alone. I just swallowed not one, but two unknown pills from a complete stranger at a random club overseas and really, I’m all alone and I don’t even have my phone.
Not only do I not know if these pills are laced (certainly they are), but I’m not even exactly sure what I’ve taken.
I ask Chico Rock how many he has taken before and he says something like, “a half,” but he could’ve said, “one and a half.” It’s so loud in the club, and I hate repeating myself. Regardless of his answer, two definitely breaks the “take only half the pill” rule—a rule I’ve tried to ingrain in my head ever since I started going out when I was 16.
So get a little worried, and decide that if I start feeling funky (a.k.a. like I’m about to die), I’m just going to rush to the restroom and vomit the pills out. Who says drugs aren’t glamorous?
The dealer with the dreadlocks told me that he worked at the club. He was an under-the-table drug dealer employed by the very own venue to keep the dance floor busy until the early hours of the morning, to have people come back Saturday after Saturday after Friday after Wednesday, to get them addicted to Cool.
So I’m waiting for the damn pills to hit me, to see what’ll take to control my body’s reaction to them.
20 minutes. Nothing.
I keep imagining me overdosing and being taken to a hospital. The whole university institute there, my mother flying in to see me.
Then all of the sudden, I’m totally calm. I think, “If I’m going to die, I might as well die dancing my heart out, right?”
Then the pills hit me: the music starts to penetrate, the songs expand and the whole ambiance changes—the realization that every one there is exactly on the same drug you’ve just taken.
So I dance and talk and flirt with new friends. My hands start getting really cold and then really hot, and then I start to perspire. Random groups of people are approaching us and talking to us. But to me, these guys are just mannequins, looking for colored pills to bring them back to life.
It’s 7 a.m., Royal Cool is about to close, so I say good bye to my minute friends and head out the front door, grabbing a “come back next time” glossy flyer with a picture of well-toned, blue-tinted torso on my way out.
But it’s on the metro that the pills, these drugs, whatever the fuck I took, really start to hit me. I sit there and just start thinking, and then I get paranoid and wonder if the people riding with me on the train can listen to my thoughts. “Am I saying these things out loud?” I ask myself. Of course not, you idiot. Or wait?
Then I get super nervous. I get off my seat, look around, looking confused. I feel like I’ve been riding th
e metro for hours. Surely I’ve missed my stop. Surely I’m somewhere far, far away past my home stay. The train stops at the next station, and I realize that it’s only the first stop. I’ve been on the train for two minutes.
I sit back down and take a look down at my hands. The glossy flyer I’d been carrying has been twisted and crumbled almost beyond recognition. The toned body now deformed. As soon as I start involuntarily grinding my teeth, the light bulb goes on: Speed!
I swallowed not one, but two speed pills from a complete stranger at a random club overseas and really, I was all alone and I didn’t even have my phone.
I get to my house and realize that Chico Rock has my keys. The light in his room is off; he’s not home yet. I can’t even remember the last time I saw him. It starts to rain, and I start to feel like shit.
But I head back out into the night to try to find him.
I can’t fully focus on making out with Paris Boy #1 because I’m worried about my small black bag, the only luggage I’ve brought with me to Paris, getting stolen or stepped on. Or who knows what other things can happen to an unattended bag in a gay club in Europe…
I step back and feel another body right behind me. I turn around and see a tall boy with thick, wavy, auburn hair and wearing a loose, black silk button-up. Paris Boy #2. He walks over to Paris Boy # 1, puts his arm around him and whispers in his ear. He slowly rests his forehead on his friend’s head and turns to look at me. He smiles, and I’m almost sure he flashed his tongue. Paris Boy #1 takes a sip of his drink and comes over to talk to me. I’m assuming that Paris Boy #2 doesn’t speak English so #1 has to step in as translator.
“This boy here, he is my boy friend,” he says to me, placing emphasis on the last two words. He wants to make me understand that Paris Boy #2 is not his friend who happens to be a boy; he’s the boy he happens to be fucking. Not a boyfriend. But a boy friend.
I give Paris Boy #2 a genuinely smile, then try to make a joke in my bastardized French. I’ve realized that playing funny is a sure way to show my non-threatening disposition. It’s my last night in France, I’m not going to get involved in a coup d’etat.
But unlike American boys, the French don’t get off on competing with one another, marking territory, claiming possessions. Fucking with each other leaves everyone empty-handed. French boys are more about teamwork and alliance. At least, this is the conclusion I come up with to explain how I went from making out with a boy, to telling jokes to his boy friend to trying to make the couple forget my trespass to what’s happening now: me grinding with both of the Parisians in the middle of the dancefloor. Paris #1 is in front of me with his hands on to my hips and putting his nose up against my cheek. Paris #2 is behind me, grabbing on to his boy friend’s torso and pressing our bodies closer together. Paris Boy #1 is eyeing me like he wants a kiss. So I kiss him, while playing with the back of his neck. I hand him my drink, turn around and place both of my hands on Paris Boy #2’s shoulders, to regain my balance. Then I go in for his lips, slightly higher than mine. I bite his lower lip and then smile while he’s still caressing my mouth with his tongue. I run my fingers through his thick, wavy hair and pull a little.
It’s starting to get really hot, and I can feel my shirt sticking to my sweaty back. The boys and I go over to the bar to get a drink. Paris Boy #2 turns to me and says something in French, something I shouldn’t be able to understand. The sentence is too complex, and the vocabulary is nothing they’d teach me in school. But maybe it’s his body language, getting closer to me with every syllable uttered, or his facial expressions, how his eyebrows rose with excitement after certain words, or his eyes, the way he looked at me and then down at my jeans. I don’t understand what he says, but I understand what he means.
I look over to Paris Boy #1, my original partner, and notice that he too is eager to learn of my response. Yes, these boys are sweaty, sexy. Yes, it would be electrifying to keep playing with them. Ah, a threesome in Paris, every boy’s bubbly daydream.
But no. I have a flight to catch. A flight I can’t miss (again). There will be other sweaty, sexy boys, other electrifying nights, other times to get fully drenched in daydreams. But now, nothing screams reality like starting to get sober and a feeling your watch ticking all the way down on your wrist.
I write down my e-mail address in a wet napkin, and fair the fine boys adieu. My black bag is still where I left it hours earlier.
I wonder if how far we would’ve have gone last night…
“Excuse me, sir? I can’t find your reservation in our system.” And just like that dream is over. The airline attendant at Charles de Gaulle is condescending and British. She’s been having trouble finding my return ticket back to Madrid. But I assure her that she’s oh, so wrong. I mean, how else did I get to Paris.
“I’m sorry, but at this point the only thing I can do is suggest you purchase another ticket,” she tells me.
“But I have a ticket. Here, I have my printed out reservation.”
“Well, it looks like the ticket has been cancelled. I can’t do anything about it here, you need to talk to customer service, I’ll direct you.”
So there I go again– trying to talk my way into a flight back home. The customer representative is even less helpful and way bitchier. She is not going to give me a break. She lives for moments like this. She tells me that since I missed my original, non-refundable flight that my return ticket had been cancelled, and I had no choice but to purchase a new one if I wanted to return to Madrid. The price? 875 euros.
My friends have already boarded their respective flights, I have no one with me, my phone has just died and I have about 35 euros in my bank account. And I’m stuck in Paris.
I go get some coffee to regain my compusure and figure out an escape plan. I have to get on that flight. Boarding is going to commence in a few minutes. No mom, no friends, no money. All I have is this piece of paper stating that I purchased a flight. It’s all on me. I down my coffee, look at the clock above my head, think about the cute Parisian boys, grab my Kenneth Cole bag and stand up. “I’m getting on that flight,” I think and give myself no other option.
With collected bravado, I walk up to the security guard, and flash my reservation and passport. He looks at it, marks it with his red sharpie and lets me through. No questions asked. I wait until the original British girl who denied me my ticket takes her break and find another. She’s brunette and a lot cuter. I give her all my details, and she smiles and says, “Madrid?”
“Si,” I say with the biggest good boy smile I could muster this early in the morning after having my tongue down two cute guys’s thoart (almost at the same time).
“Oh wait…” she says after she catches an indiscretion on the screen, probably a big sign reading: DO NOT LET THIS BOY OUT OF PARIS. And I think, “shit.”
But then she gets distracted by an Italian tourist, bitching and yelling about something. So she steps out for a minute to try to help her co-worker deal with irrational Italian.
And that’s when I see it, my boarding pass. Dangling, freshly printed from my machine. My ticket out. So close, within grasp. I don’t even look around to see who’s watching. I just snatch it and run away.
It’s not until my flight takes off, with me sitting comfortably in my seat, that my hearts stops pounding. I feel like… Matt Damon! I’m a spy.
I walk in to the Barajas International Airport in Madrid clutching my small black Kenneth Cole carry-on bag, the only thing I’m taking with me to Paris. I had heard earlier that the recently remodeled international terminal was currently being used as a location spot for the third Bourne film. I don’t see Matt Damon stunting about. Then again, I don’t have much time to focus on finding action stars. I’m late for my flight.
The night before I had gone out with Chico Rock and his friends to Royal Cool, the largest gay club in Spain. As a result, I’m not only late for my early afternoon flight, but I’m also hung-over. In no condition to be doing physical stunts of my own, instead of dashing, shoving and hectically trying to catch my flight, I accept my fate: there’s no way I’m going to make my flight. Considering it’s pointless to be dashing frantically through the terminal, I stroll.
“When is your departure time?” the airline assistant asks typing some keys into the computer. I look down at my watch, gesture nonchalantly and answer, “Five minutes ago.” She’s a little confused by my lack of concern, but I’m certain that the worse that could happen is that I’m going be put on a later flight, get to Paris later tonight, meet up with my friends at the hostel and continue on my merry way. That was not the worse that happened. Failing to read the fine print, I did not know that my flight, because it was so cheap, was a one-time deal. No refunds, cancellations or rescheduling. Damn you, RyanAir! The only thing I can do now is purchase a one-way to Paris for 450 euros, the assistant regrets to inform me. But fuck that!
After about 40 minutes of talking to airline agents and the ticket counter, trying to negotiate a way to get me to France for free, my persistence and their frustration gets me a ride up a secret elevator to the top floor. I’m not sure who I’m going to see, but they make her sound important. I’m kind of nervous? Nah, she’s my ticket out of here and on to Paris. I’m ready.
I walk into her office and see a woman in her early forties sitting in a large leather desk chair, wearing a black pencil skirt, heels, square-rimmed glasses, straight auburn hair parted on the side. She’s looks up at me and doesn’t smile and I think, “Great! There’s no way this lesbian is going to have any sympathy for me and put me on a flight to Paris!”
But she’s actually the most understanding of my situation… no, not that I had gone partying the night before but that I was taking an exam at my institute this morning that had taken longer than expected. She prints out another boarding pass, signs it, hands it to me and this time, she smiles. And 20 minutes, I’m sitting on another Paris bound RyanAir flight.
“Well, I am very glad you made it,” Paris Boy #1 says to me after I tell him the story. It’s my last night in Paris. I have a flight back early in the morning, but instead of sleeping at our dungy, stuffy hostel in Montmartre, swarming with hippies and vagabonds, I decide to pull an all-nighter and use my hostel money to get into an exclusive and much-talked about club at the end of Les Champs Elysee, Le Queen, a recommendation from Chico Rock. Paris Boy #1 has short, spiky hair and wearing a grey polo shirt. Because I never really paid attention in high school French and I dropped out of my college French class, I’m thankful that he speaks English fluently, even more thankful that he has retained his accent. He speaks softly and in a reserved tone even when he’s talking about the dirty things he likes to do in bed. The 25-year-old law student noticed me clutching my black Kenneth Cole bag at the bar and thought it was unusual… he called it “peculiar.” It’s common for businessmen catching a red eye or something, but I seemed kind of young and kind of unemployed and like I had been living in a cheap hostel for a week, so yeah it was rather “peculiar.”
We make out on the dancefloor to an awful eurotechno song. The lighting at Le Queen shades the club in fluorescent violets and blue hues. There isn’t much dancing, not tonight anyway. The boys stand in place to look, but they rarely touch. It’s my last night, so I don’t care if I break the club’s customary stance. I’m touching Paris Boy #1 all over. Le Queen is not that big, so no matter where you’re standing you can get a good view of the whole place and the hotties bathed in color and motionless like mannequins all crowding inside. But I was so wrapped up in this hottie, I didn’t notice his boyfriend, Paris Boy #2, approaching. [Paris Is Burning (Part II)]
“You should be very proud of yourself,” he says grabbing me as I try to get up from my bed to go and turn off my bedroom lights. It takes some effort, but I finally manage to get up from his arms and walk towards the door. On my way, I readjust my crumbled up boxers over my jeans.
