B.B.B.

Swapping the Marais for Pigalle, it’s hard to believe you’re still in Paris: stepping inside the club, it’s hard to believe you’re in the same gay world. No fresh-scented cologne: no air conditioning: it’s all hot sweltering man-muskiness. That might be pleasant if it wasn’t for the stale sweat.

The music pumps. I’d forgotten there are places where you don’t have to wait for a decent song to hit the decks: after ten minutes in this place, you have to dance, even if it’s far too crowded on the dance floor, that’s how fucking good the DJ is. It starts off R&B before heading to the exotic far east, evoking fond memories of bhangra nights at London’s Club Kali, before losing me altogether with a flip through rap, ska and other styles that I’m too old to recognise, before returning for a blast of R&B at the end.

More like nightclubs back when I started out on the scene- men standing around awkwardly, men not quite sure if they should be here or want to be here, not so many men strutting around with a confident gleam, quite sure what they want to do and who they’re not prepared to do it with- it offers more enjoyment than any night out I’ve had out in this city... a night out alone, that is.

Enjoyable in spite of that interval on the dance floor when it all gets awkward.

He has an attractive body; he has an attractive face, although his smile isn’t what you call warm. He dances good, which doesn’t turn me on quite so much as a man dancing bad, but it’ll do. Anyone dancing turns me on, except those guys who gyrate their hips at something like a mongrel in midsummer heat, or a pole dancer who doesn't realise he's not starring in a Bangkok peepshow.

I watch him for a while, allowing him get closer. Then I feel him brush so lightly that it might be accidental, before feeling him against me again, realising from how smoothly he moves that he wants not to be doubted: he is out for a professional all-night work-over… and he thinks that I am capable of delivering.

If all I wanted was a one night stand, he is everything that I’d want. Two weeks ago, if he’d started dancing his ass up against me like he's doing, something would have happened fast.

Maybe that’s why I delay a little too long… asking what the fuck I have come out wanting, checking that I am sure about what I don’t want tonight.

I'm at the stage in life where I probably look like I’ve been around more, that I have been playing in this field long enough to have learned… to have a little... technique, shall we say… so his mistake is easily made.

But truth is, when it comes to a one night fuck- just about raw sex and there’s absolutely nothing more to it-I’m crap as I’ve ever been. If I was drunk or horny enough, no doubt I might attempt something... and if there was a full moon and fuck knows what stars shining in my favour, perhaps I'd forget myself for long enough and deliver a performance that might not completely disappoint.

But chances are that it wouldn't work out like that.

I don’t have the inclination, never mind the French, to explain all of this. I take a coward’s way out- or a gentleman's, if you prefer to call it that.

He looks back at me, after I scuttle to the opposite side of the dance floor. He's still dancing, but he isn’t smiling in my direction anymore.

Little did he know that I was doing him a favour.

Fucking time-waster, he's probably thinking.

And he's probably right.