There are infinite ways in which this game is played out, all set but all indeterminate at the same time. The unchanging basis for all, however, is the checking out of goods, an unillusioned appraisal. The concept of ‘goods’ varies, of course.
A standard procedure for Ritwik is to stay inside his cubicle if the fleeting slit-view of a man entering the toilets does not appeal. If it does, he still remains locked in; after all, the man could have come in for an innocent piss only. This is either confirmed or negated in the next few minutes by one or more of various signals — not exiting after the standard time taken for a pee, washing hands at the sink for a long time (though this could be any other person in the toilets, but chances are it is the new arrival), that telling handdryer business, entering a cubicle after his piss and locking himself in. . it is like a problem in logic: if p, then not q, but only after a finite set of conditions, ∑ {a, b, c. . n}, has been satisfied.
And yet, and yet, it lacks the fixity of logic because the elements of the set to be satisfied have margins of uncertainty themselves. For example, how can entering a cubicle after a reasonable time spent at the urinal be taken as a certain sign of cruising? But even if in these cases the laws of probability work to the advantage of the cruiser, everything could come down like a house of cards if the final checking out doesn’t lead to the neat snuggling of two desires fitting each other like identical spoons.
Everything is predicated on that meeting. There are a number of ways leading to it:
1. Standing at the pissoir, his cock out, massaged to erection. He hides it and pretends he has just finished peeing, shaking the last dribble off it if some kosher pisser enters the toilet. Sometimes he just buttons up and enters his cubicle. If it isn’t a genuine pisser, and he likes the look of the man, he stands there, making obvious what he’s doing. Chances of a hit on this one: 50–50, 50 for his liking the man, 50 the other way around.
2. If the view from his spystrip really dazzles, and chances of this are low anyway, he rushes out after three or four seconds, making sure he has flushed noisily — just another casual public toilet user emerging from a cubicle to wash and dry his hands zealously. Chances of the dazzling one being a cottager: low. Chances of that click of reciprocal desire: still lower.
3. On some occasions, 2 leads to 1, if he’s convinced the newcomer at the urinal is doing anything but urinating, or urinating AND.
4. Then there is the possibility of Ritwik’s favourite cubicle being occupied by someone else. In this event, which irritates him immensely, as if he has some proprietary right over that one, he reluctantly confines himself to one of the smaller, inferior ones. Their disadvantages are many, not having a view being the most crippling; he has to depend solely on his ears then. But there is one thing working for them: being adjacent to another cubicle, a possible pick-up might happen without having to go through 1, 2, and 3. After a while it becomes obvious why the man in the next cubicle has entered it. Once that is confirmed, another little game of advancing feet, inch by inch, to the gap under the partition wall begins. Often this is preceded by noises, such as low moaning, or letting out heavy breaths in an overdone I’m-really-horny way. Once the feet touch, at least one certainty has been established. This could be followed by notes written on loo paper and passed on under the gap: ‘Do you have a place?’, usually, to start off with. Or just standing on the toilet seat and peeping over the wall into the next cubicle to see what he’s letting himself in for. No. 4 is a more prolonged game with elements of a blind date to it. It’s more exciting, sometimes, than 2 or 3, or even 1.
5. Several people at the urinals. Sometimes this has what Ritwik calls the ‘honeypot effect’ — one or two cruising men at the urinals suddenly start attracting practically all the cottagers in the St. Giles toilets until there is a row of men, cocks out, checking each other out, all heads tilted left or right, angled downwards, sometimes craning back to catch the eye of someone at the pissoir across on the other side of the mirrors and sinks. It is a predictable set of movements, but of all the methods, this gives the most direct access to the goods. This is when it becomes most transparently a marketplace: there is no pissing around, wasting time and acting out tired old moves; it is sharp, to the point and immediately effective. Or not, but in that case at least the people involved are not left hanging on, thinking will he won’t he will he won’t he while doing some more hand-drying and pretend pissing and all that nonsense.
No. 5 is also unflinchingly frank: Ritwik knows quickly who wants him and who doesn’t. Rejection, however couched, even if it involves just tucking a penis in and moving away to a position beside another person, is still rejection and potentially bruising. But it’s all part of the game, or the logic of the meat market: would a shopper buy maggoty meat out of kindness to the poor lamb which had died or the butcher who didn’t have any better? Ritwik himself has learned, a bit too efficiently, to reject: it is best done swiftly otherwise he accuses himself of leading them on and feels slightly guilty about it. Also very pleased, because someone fancies him. To be in the position of saying ‘no’ to someone and turning him down is one of the greatest luxuries in life, he reckons. He has it here, sometimes.
There are the beginnings of a fraternity here among some of the regulars, of whom Ritwik has become one. He smiles at some of them, or nods and acknowledges their presence and some are glad of this small social gesture. It’s not solidarity or anything, just a flickering registration of the commonality that brings them together underground. They don’t know each other’s names, where they live, or indeed, where they disappear once they reach the upper world. They only exist for each other in this strip-lit netherworld.
Ritwik has had sex with a couple of these regulars. There’s Martin who works for British Rail, has short spiky hair and a goodnatured leer permanently stuck on his face. And the other man, whose name he doesn’t know or hasn’t bothered to find out, who takes off all his clothes, every single stitch, and leaves his cubicle door wide open while playing with himself and fingering his arsehole. He shuts it as soon as he hears new footsteps but if he thinks it’s safe he opens the door fully again.
There is no rivalry within this set of people; in fact, when a newcomer arrives and shows an interest in one of them, the rest, who know they are not fancied, egg on the lucky one. They keep watch if the people they are familiar with are having sex in the open: it’s a give-and-take, this one — they get the pleasure of watching and in return they provide an early warning service.
Sometimes they warn off each other from ‘time-wasters’, people who come and endlessly tease, hang around, show cock, peep, peer, lock themselves in cubicles for ages but ultimately never pick up anyone. Just as ‘genuine’ is a high recommendation in this world, ‘time-waster’ is equally pejorative. Ritwik is glad to have the more experienced ones dissuade him from running down such cul-de-sacs. It is, of course, a minor corollary of Sod’s Law that almost every ‘time-waster’ is gorgeous.
Ritwik also realizes, in slow stages, that his is a type of minority appeal, catering to the ‘special interest’ group rather than the mainstream, because of his nationality, looks, skin colour. He keeps pushing the word ‘race’ away. The mainstream is blonde, white, young, slim. Or, more accurately, that is the desired mainstream. He doesn’t satisfy the crucial first two although the last two can influence the swing cruisers.
One nameless man, to whose twoup two-down off the Woodstock Road he goes back one night from St. Giles, tells him how this world divides into two classes: the rice queens — men who fancy Oriental guys — and the potato queens — men who have a thing for white British men. That puts him in a type of classificatory limbo, although for lack of a better taxonomy the latter term will have to do. All in all, if the swing cottagers are taken into account, he doesn’t do too badly although it could be better, significantly better.