I met a guy who said he was a plasterer, just back from a job in Rome. His girlfriend, he told me, was at home with their baby. Straight up – or bullshit? Why would he come out alone, to a bar full of gay men? Charlie wandered over, and I asked him for a hug, but he pulled away and said he was tired. The ‘straight’ guy took pity on me, wrapped me in his arms, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I thought how strange it was, this nightly congregation of strangers, everyone orbiting each other with their little stories: plasterers, lovers, liars, and ghosts. Maybe we all came here for the same thing – to be touched, just once, by someone who didn’t owe us anything.
Matchstick Man stretched and showed his slender stomach. Lean, flat and toned. It was for my benefit, and he knew that I would be distracted by the neat wave of wispy hair that headed south of his Calvin Klein waistband. But he still claimed to be straight, and when I suggested otherwise, he simply laughed.
The tall handsome guy, maybe in his twenties, looked fine from a distance. When he came over, I found that he’d had lots of botox and talked about Donald Trump in a squeaky voice.
An older man chatted me up, and said that I had a lovely smile. But I wasn’t in the mood, and played hard to get, and so I made an effort not to smile anymore. He called me an arrogant prick and left me alone.
A group of guys stood next to me. One of them, who appeared to be wearing aluminium foil, thought he was the patron saint for confused gays. He pontificated that he knew more than anybody else and his friends agreed with him. I wanted to make a noise like a sheep but somebody beat me to it.
Two guys told a friend that when they got together they were both tops, and so they tossed a coin to decide who would be the bottom.
Somebody behind me said something like, “Oh, poor love, poor heart, I played with your pain, I trampled on you with indifference!” – or words to that effect. I hoped that they were quoting from something, and this wasn’t part of their normal conversation, but somebody said, “I agree.”
The Angel grabbed me from behind and gave me a hug which I thought was sweet. He sat beside me and gave me a tour of his body tattoos. The last time I saw him, he insisted I speak to his grandmother on his mobile phone. It was an awkward conversation with somebody I didn’t know. She told me that he was ‘ a little shit’ because he forgets to take his ADHD medication and then he’s like a rabbit. My interpretation of a rabbit had been different to hers. Later… he ate pizza with his eyes closed and looked so tired that he may have drifted off at any moment.
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 