A Hiding Place

Mark wakes up at 1:30am and looks at his boyfriend Paul who is sitting at the desk where their computer is, snorting a line of bluish-white powder; his face lit by the pornography that he’s watching online.

“So are we going out?”

“I guess …”

Twenty minutes later and Mark’s washing his hands in the bathroom with the light off.

Thirty minutes after that and Paul and Mark are sitting in a cruising bar. The only real light is from a set of small red bulbs in the middle of the room, where the drinks are served. Occasionally they’ll see a face that they recognize or someone will recognize them but they keep it low key and just nod.

Paul stands up and finishes his drink. He starts walking towards the darkrooms, where the majority of the sex happens. Mark walks behind him and brushes a hand against the back of his jeans as they walk in. It accidentally feels like a reminder.

You have to train your eyes to the dark. Eventually you can flesh out shadows with features but it’s still vague. Someone starts to kiss Mark. A hand slips up his t-shirt. He reaches to the side to check that Paul’s still there, which he is. The same person has a hand planted round Paul’s crotch – Mark’s fingers trace the arm down to Paul’s jeans, which are still fastened. Paul moves suddenly, which makes Mark move too – his hands feeling out the wall behind him. It dawns on him how high he is and how much he’d been relying on the light for balance.

They push though a set of plastic strips that separate the first darkroom from a small area split into six cubicles, some with glory holes and some without. It’s still dark but there’s a dim glow and it’s not as black as the room that they’ve just stepped out of.

The way that the space is split with a slim corridor running between the cubicles reminds Mark of a level from a computer game and the fake industrial pipes on the wall add to it. A guy stands at the end of the walkway, with two cubicle doors either side of him, his hand resting on his belt buckle. Paul walks towards him and Mark follows. The man leans forward and kisses Paul. Paul puts his hand back and holds Mark’s, which surprises him. Mark touches Paul’s back. He realizes how thin he’s got. He runs his fingers over Paul’s shoulder blades. The guy kisses Paul harder, and pulls him forward, holding the sides of his head. He starts sidestepping into one of the cubicles, guiding Paul as they kiss. Paul lets go of Mark’s hand and follows the guy in. They close the door.

Mark hears a belt being undone and sped up breaths in between the kissing noises. A hand touches Mark’s ass. It reaches round and starts feeling the front of his legs and then his dick, which isn’t hard. Someone starts kissing the back of his neck. Mark closes his eyes and turns round. He lets the stranger steer him towards a cubicle. Mark holds out a hand for balance. When it brushes against plastic he realizes he’s been led back into one of the darkrooms; he opens his eyes but it’s pointless: there’s nothing.

He trips but stays on his feet. The floor feels sticky. The guy who brought him in is rough. Mark feels stubble scrape against his cheek as the guy starts kissing his neck again. Mark can feel the guy’s heart. It’s going fast. Hands run up and down his back like he can’t decide what to do with Mark or what to do first. Mark’s head bumps against a wall. His belt is unfastened clumsily. A hand covers both Mark’s wrists and holds them up against the wall. A tongue fills his mouth, pushes the back of his front teeth uncomfortably. Another hand goes up Mark’s t-shirt. Someone else is pulling his jeans down round his ankles. Something’s pushed in his face, bending his nose, a hand with a bottle or a tube or … Mark snorts whatever it is and a fast daze lands quickly, blurring the nothings further. His head nods onto his right shoulder but is quickly pulled back up again and kissed hard. He’s bent over. A finger muddles round his ass. That finger quickly becomes a cock. Mark makes a sound somewhere between a cry, a choke and a cough as whoever’s dick enters him. There’s no condom. Someone else is pulling at Mark’s hair. His scalp feels tight. The guy fucking him does it hard. It hurts. Two cocks try and get into Mark’s mouth, vying for space. He can feel another couple rubbing against his stomach. He feels the stitching of his t-shirt rip under one arm. It sounds like he can hear crying – the guy fucking him? – but the music seems so much louder now. Repetitive beats and someone singing something about needing someone forever till the end of time. It’s hard to make out anything else. The cock isn’t in him anymore. Mark’s on the floor. He remembers falling as it actually happens. Time’s a mess. He’s too high. Someone’s shouting. The beats of the song begin to stretch. Things are a lot heavier. He’s pulling his jeans back up to his waist. It takes effort. More than you’d think. Stuff is dense – stuff like air. Mark’s nodding out and he’s being fucked again. He opens his eyes and he’s back on the floor. There’s a synthetic taste in the back of his throat, like gone off medicine. He feels a vibration in his pocket. He reaches in to get his phone. He realizes how wet his hands are and wipes them on his leg and takes the phone out. He presses a button and the small blue rectangle that’s from a friend he hasn’t spoken to for in a few days and that says: hope yr ok. xxx is such a contrast to the darkness that it lights up the room for two seconds. Through a squint Mark sees a heavyset guy in his fifties buttoning up a shirt, a guy in his twenties leaning against a wall with his eyes closed and playing with his dick and trying to make himself hard, there’s two older guys standing close to each other with their trousers down, some others too, but the light soon leaves.

Mark makes his way back into the bar. The sudden amount of clear space throws him. He orders a drink and can’t tell if the guy behind the bar is looking at him weirdly. He tries to make better eye contact, but that makes it worse. He’s still squinting. When he scratches his nose his had comes back with blood on it. He thinks he can here Paul being fucked but it might just be the music. Things feel knotted.