Susan Cooke shook her head stubbornly. ‘He didn’t go anywhere, he was in bed with me all night,’ she insisted.
But Willis was smiling when he and PC Brown left a few minutes later.
‘Few holes in that alibi, then,’ he murmured contentedly.
Leo
After returning home from my night with Tim, I forced myself to stop thinking about him. I am strong. Surely, I am strong. I have had to be, living the life that I do. I concentrated on my work. I am not unsuccessful. I am not an unintelligent man. I think I am quite good at what I do. I think I would be good at anything I chose to put my hand to, actually.
It is just my personal life, my personal predilections, that I can’t cope with. I do not lack confidence in any regard, other than that of my sexuality, of course. I tell myself that it is fear of the prejudice of others, which makes me live the way I do: hiding, skulking and keeping my true self hidden from the world around me.
I tell myself that prejudice against homosexuality in the workplace is still rife, particularly in less cosmopolitan parts of the UK. I don’t want to have to deal with that; I am unable to deal with that. That and the scorn of family and friends. Some, I know, would pity me and that, of course, would be even worse.
I have constructed an image of myself, as well as being strong, I am tough. I am ‘all man’. I have to be. The men I know, in the part of my life that I live from day to day, are the sort who make irreverent, unpolitically correct jokes about almost everything. So when it comes to people’s sexuality, I ensure that, if necessary, I am as unpolitically correct as the best of them. Most of the time I just listen, smile, and laugh when appropriate. But, just occasionally, I will tell the crudest jokes of all, the sort that actually make the others wince.
I enjoy that in a curious sort of way. It’s my cover. I like the fact that they lap it up, that they do not suspect for a single second that I am anything other than one of them. That is the public me. I’m one of the boys. I make crude jokes about women whenever it seems called for and I invent stories of fictional, sexual encounters. Not often, but often enough. It has become a habit.
I have grown to accept that I cannot get by without regular, if not necessarily frequent, sexual encounters with men, whilst also accepting that I will never come to terms with being open about that, with revealing myself to others for what I am.
So I cannot see Tim again. That would break my golden rule. There have been men before with whom I’d shared more than one sexual encounter, although not many. But if ever there was even the merest suggestion of a relationship developing, I backed away. I disappeared.
And that was the way it would be with Tim. The way it had to be with Tim.
So I don’t really know why I kept that half torn, hotel bill, with his phone number scribbled on the bottom. I told myself it was because I might be able to make some sort of expenses claim on it, but that was nonsense, of course. I am not stupid enough to put myself under any unnecessary risk of being found out, in order to save a few pounds.
About two weeks after my night with Tim, I made another trip to London. I remained determined to stay away from Tim and to stay off Grindr, which was so dangerous as well as seductive. I’d failed totally, however, in my greater resolution. I could not suppress my homosexual side. I’d been unable to stop myself looking for alternatives. I surfed the net and found a new, gay club that intrigued me. It had just opened in a basement off Old Compton Street. Discreetly hidden away, it seemed, like Larry’s. Also like Larry’s, it was the sort of place married men would visit, I thought. The sort of place where anonymity was still respected, required even. Not a place, I didn’t think, for the modern set of gays so far ‘out’ that I sometimes felt they were the biggest threat of all to a man like me.
It was, according to the website I found, a kind of gay, lap dancing joint. A sort of Larry’s with benefits, maybe. It called itself Adonis Anonymous and boasted, quite blatantly, that it had been modelled on a pole dancing club in New York called Adonis, where allegedly gorgeous, young men gyrated before an eager clientele.
Adonis NY had ‘champagne rooms’, which could be hired at a cost and sounded like a euphemism for something more. London’s new Adonis Anonymous also offered private ‘champagne rooms’ and was rather more blatant about the purposes of those. ‘For the full experience with your personal Adonis,’ it said enticingly on its website.
The temptation was too much for me. I decided I must visit.
The basement room I entered was dimly lit. There was loud music too. It was all rather confusing. It took a while to realise what was going on.
When my eyes began to focus, I could see that there were a series of raised platforms lining the room, each bearing a pole around which scantily-clad, young men danced provocatively.
The punters, whom I knew I would not be able to resist joining for long, prowled up and down, assessing the dancers like judges at a cattle show.
As in straight lap dancing clubs, folded money was passed to the performers. At Adonis Anonymous, it seemed the tradition was that the young men took the notes between their teeth, which was somehow wonderfully provocative. Then, of course, they swiftly removed it to check the amount.
I watched carefully. One young man checked the notes handed him and just carried on dancing. The punter, middle-aged but quite nice looking, reached into the pocket of his trousers and produced another fold of money, which the dancer glanced at before taking it between his teeth. He then beckoned the punter forward and led him through one of several doors in the wall behind the dancing platforms. Then, I noticed that each door bore some kind of crude Bacchanalian image and was labelled ‘champagne room’.
The alleged golden rule of straight lap dancing clubs, ‘look but don’t touch’, did not seem to apply at Adonis Anonymous.
I was aware of the sordidness. I acknowledged that the place was distasteful. Or one half of me did. But, as at that sex party, I couldn’t stop myself becoming aroused. There was an overt eroticism about Adonis Anonymous. Sex was clearly freely on offer — well not freely, exactly. Probably quite expensively. But that was all right, I had come prepared. I’d brought with me as much money as I could afford.
This, surely, was what I wanted. A place I could come back to as often as I liked, with little or no fear of anyone wishing to take an encounter any further. A business encounter. I had dealt with male escorts before; it was inevitable for a man like me. But there was invariably the problem of where to go, as with all casual pick-ups. I had broken one of my rules with Tim, because I’d been so desperate to be with him. Previously, I had avoided booking into hotels, even on an off-the-street cash-in-advance basis, just in case anyone ever recognised me from my ordinary day to day life. I am, of course, fairly paranoid about that.
I did not enjoy fumblings in alleyways and dark corners. I found it squalid to the point of being repugnant, albeit rarely repugnant enough to stop me. Some might think a euphemistic ‘champagne room’ in this environment was little better. By the time I had watched the oh-so provocative dancers for several minutes, I didn’t care.
I gave in to my overwhelming, inner craving and joined the prowlers. A young man of mixed race gyrated before me. He had the most beautiful, olive skin and the body of a Greek God. In the lust of the moment, he seemed to me to be an Adonis indeed. He was beautiful. A truly beautiful boy. Far better than anything I’d expected to find in this place.