One night, during the wet Spring of 2013, I felt frustrated in some areas of my life: job, study and sex. I was between partners, and the online scene was not yielding any results in terms of the latter. Online porn was doing nothing to satisfy my growing urges. The two bars close to where I lived had no possibilities, and I gave serious consideration to visiting a local brothel but could not summon the courage.
Bored at home, I decided to jump on the train and traipse around the city for a few hours. As I stepped out the door, I distinctly smelled rain in the air and saw the ominous thunderheads above me. By the time I reached the station, the first rain bombs were falling. It was going to be a wet Saturday evening in the CBD.
During the fifteen-minute journey to Flinders Street Station, the rain picked up in ferocity, and an entire storm was raging by the time I arrived. This development added an extra degree of funk to the way I felt. Given that it was October, I expected the weather to improve from the pits of winter that gripped Melbourne since the previous March, but nope, the sun did not shine until late November, as it turned out.
Stepping out of the station, the city lights had a garish, supernatural glow in the storm that gave Melbourne a futuristic, dystopian look that reminded me of
Blade Runner
. My first port of call was Young & Jackson's, a pub across the road from the station. This place is a well-known Melbourne institution and is frequented by locals and visitors alike. It is not the cheapest place to drink, but the pub oozes character and charm. Tonight though, there were not many patrons and no women on the prowl. Oh well, one drink and off to the next place.
As I made my way up Swanston Street, people scurried for cover from the rain while trams dutifully rattled up and down the thoroughfare. When I came to the intersection with Little Bourke Street -- Chinatown -- I decided to see if a particular Japanese Restaurant I visited years ago was still there. What was unique about the restaurant was the tempura chef who used a fucking paint scraper to cook food in front of you and precisely flip it into your bowl.
I struggled to locate the restaurant among the plethora of quality dining locations festooned with gaudy neon lights and lanterns, making my way through Chinatown. The aroma of fine Asian cooking were in stark contrast to the piles of rubbish and rainwater rivulets.
Towards the end of my detour, and failing to locate the restaurant, I happened to glance up an alley and saw the sign of a seedy sex shop that I used to frequent in the late 1990s. I was amazed it was still there, given the city council made a concerted effort to drive the many same shops on Swanston Street from the area as they thought, probably correctly, that their existence lowered the tone.
This store consisted of three levels. The ground level was a regular shop that sold the usual collection of sex toys and accessories. The second level was a video store where you could buy or watch-on-demand a wide variety of porno movies.
The third level is where you could watch said movies for a fee. This level consisted of a series of private booth complete with a screen, a chair, and a Kleenex box. Each booth had a circular glory hole drilled in each wall, but I never encountered a cock in all my visits. Despite being 'cleaned' after each visit, the booths had a lingering stench of stale sperm. The patron selected his movie, went upstairs, paid the attendant the rental fee, went to their assigned booth and enjoyed the action.
I watched a movie almost every lunchtime when I worked for this crumby bank back in the day because my hormones were raging, and the dial-up internet did not deliver the goods. Also, watching pornos on demand was cheaper than buying them because the government had placed an enormous import tax on the physical media to discourage purchase.
Curious, I decided to revisit this sex shop to see if things remained as they were or if the place had changed. Nope, all was the same except that the second level had a reconfigured fit out, a coat of paint and an even more extensive selection of DVDs on the shelves that replaced the clunky old VHS cassettes.
Browsing my favourite genre, anal, I was bamboozled by the choice available. There were thousands of movie available. The new releases had the covers facing viewers, but the majority were stacked likes books on a shelf with only the spine of the title visible.
It was a combination of the place's seediness and some nostalgia that I decided to select a movie and watch it in a booth. Spoiled for choice, I grabbed a new release at random and took it to the third level, where a disinterested employee took my payment and assigned me a booth.
I could have done the same thing at home, and I would have been $20 richer and with the same result. The screen's action failed to get a rise out of me, let alone ease my sexual frustration. Watching the somewhat attractive starlets getting their shitters buggered by generic stunt cocks in the same old tired gonzo style was oddly unerotic.
I got through a couple of scenes before deciding that I was wasting my time; I exited the booth without even opening my pants. As I prepared to leave, I noticed a sign with an arrow pointing to 'The Crystal Lounge'. There was a fourth level now?
"Enjoy that one?" Asked the bored employee.
"Not really," I said, "Boring, just like all the others."
"Yeah, the market's saturated with this kind of thing."
"What's the 'Crystal Lounge'?" I asked.
"It's a place for gay men to get together."
"In what way?" I was inquisitive.
"There's a small cinema and several private rooms where men can get together."
"I see," I answered a little vaguely.
"It doesn't cost anything to attend," Said the employee, sensing my curiosity, "But you must buy a box of condoms."
While I was a bisexual male, I had not once viewed any gay porn, and that is why I was intrigued. The possibility of hooking up with another male flashed across my mind but was not given any consideration.
With the box of condoms vended, I ascended the stairs in complete silence. I felt no emotions, not even expectation, just interest. At the top of the stairs was an open door to an unattended reception area. To my left was a door labelled 'Cinema' and to my right were four rooms, one of which had the word 'Engaged' on the door handle.
With some trepidation, I opened the door to the fourth room. Inside was a frosted glass window, a chair and a seedy mattress. There was also a smell of male on male action hung in the air. The room repelled me, so I had not high hopes for the cinema, but I was committed.
Opening the door to the 'cinema', I saw a collection of maybe ten men whose attention was glued to the screen. All were seated on cheap plastic chairs, bar one man leaning against the pillar in the back corner. The seats were arranged in a U-shape around a central projector that projected its celluloid image against a white wall.
I took a seat by the wall, and surreptitiously surveyed the audience. Aside from the man by the pillar, the others were old queens, in their fifties or sixties, and very used to casually hooking up at this cinema.
The man by the pillar was the enigma. He was on his own and looked out of place. Tall, sporty, sandy and unshaved, he wore a pair of round-rimmed glasses and dressed well. His demeanour suggested that he was a white-collar worker, and his presence at this place was out of character from his everyday comportment -- like me. It was a complete contrast to the other cinema-goers, who probably used public toilets to 'cottage' back in the day.
The action in the movie was not what I was expecting. The first whole scene I watch consisted of this ugly, fat bearded man, covered in tattoos, with an enormous cock living in a disgusting trailer. His 'son' comes home from school, appalled by his father's slobbiness. In the end, the daddy seduces the younger boy, who reluctantly accepts an absolute hammering. That scene did nothing for me except to elicit a feeling of mild disgust. The audience, however, approved.
The second scene showed two skinny young men dressed unconvincingly as firefighters having sex on a couch. There were lots of mutual oral and anal, but I winced when they repeatedly kissed. One of my rules with men, flexible depending on the circumstance, was no kissing between us. All but one of the men in the audience found this scene a real turn on, with several overtly wanking. The other man remained stoic by the pillar but shot me several glances. Was he interested in me? Hell, was I interested in playing with a man? I did not think so.
The third scene was mildly interesting. It depicted three Latino men covered in the obligatory tattoos engaged in DPs. It reminded me of when I was involved in performing a DP on another man, and the action before my eyes provoked a mild rise in my pants. Again, the queens were vocal in their appreciation, with two of them leaving the cinema, no doubt for one of the rooms. When I looked over, the man by the pillar caught my gaze.
The fourth scene depicted a gang bang between old, overweight men in a decrepit warehouse. At this point, I checked out and made my way to leave; as I did so, the man by the pillar suddenly stood upright, his first movement since I arrived.
Once in the reception area, I could hear sex noises coming from one of the rooms. Two were now occupied, and one couple was being very vocal. I ran a hand over my face, feeling a sense of shame from my nocturnal activities and prepared to leave. My only thought now was to drown my sorrows with beer at a nearby pub.
Approaching the stairs, I heard a door open behind me, and a voice call out. Turning around, I looked into the eyes of the man by the pillar standing in front of me.
"Oh, hey," He said nervously, "My name's Daniel, and I can't help but notice how uncomfortable you are."
"Yeah, the movie didn't do anything for me."
"I understand that," He said, "What is it that you're looking for?"
"That's the thing," I answered, "Can't seem to find anything to satisfy me tonight."
"So, you don't know what you're looking for?" He said, "Are you open-minded?"
"Of course, I am," I responded, cluing on to where this conversation might lead, "That's why I'm here."
This man before me, was attractive, in-shape and dressed well. I guessed that he was perhaps five years older than me, and I noticed a slight tan line on his wedding finger. Was he married and engaging in extra-curricular activities? My first foray back into the gay scene was with a married man in Perth about eight years ago.
