by Patrick Cash
THE CHEMSEX MONOLOGUES
PATRICK CASH
THE
CHEMSEX
MONOLOGUES
OBERON BOOKS
LONDON
WWW.OBERONBOOKS.COM
First published in 2016 by Oberon Books Ltd
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Copyright © Patrick Cash, 2016
Patrick Cash is hereby identified as author of this play in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The author has asserted his moral rights.
All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before commencement of rehearsal to the author c/o Oberon Books. No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained, and no alterations may be made in the title or the text of the play without the author’s prior written consent.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
PB ISBN: 9781786820051
EPUB ISBN: 9781786820068
Cover photo by Dionysis Livanis.
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eBook conversion by Lapiz Digital Services, India..
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Contents
Nameless Part 1
Saint Sebastian
Fag Hag Cath
Daniel the Sexual Health Worker
Nameless Part 2
The ChemSex Monologues premiered at the European Chemsex Forum 2016, before transferring to the King’s Head Theatre in May 2016 with the following cast:
Richard Watkins (Nameless Part 1 & 2)
Denholm Spurr (Saint Sebastian, pictured on cover)
Charly Flyte (Fag Hag Cath)
Matthew Hodson (Daniel the Sexual Health Worker)
Directed by Luke Davies, a Dragonflies Theatre production (www.dragonfliestheatre.co.uk)
Lighting design by Richard Desmond
Nameless Part 1
I was twenty-five when I met Nameless. I had travelled back from Paris for the first of my old school friends’ weddings, and stopped over in London. Having been a bar boy in Soho, I popped in for a pint, which became seven pints and three shots of whisky and a hazy recollection of sambuca; and I found myself – or, more accurately, lost myself – exceedingly and rambunctiously drunk.
After having sabotaged a past flame’s new relationship, I proceeded to accidentally destroy the club night he was DJing at by falling down the stairs, smashing a glass and clearing the dance floor. I was unceremoniously kicked out – although it’d probably happened to me enough times in Soho to carry at least a degree of ceremony – and not allowed back in to retrieve my jacket. I wandered the cold November streets of Soho in just a singlet and oblivion until I bumped into the Dealer Adonis.
He dragged me into a cab, and said:
“Come with us to Love Club.”
*
I’ve rarely refused the offer of free drugs in my life, and each time I have has been a deep regret. By the time I was inside the huge bass-pumping Vauxhall club of lasers and House, I’d snorted a bump of meph, whipped off my top and began to prowl through the dance floor advertising my wares. A boy in blue soon took the bait, feeding me coke or mephedrone from his key in a cubicle, as a toilet attendant we’d forgotten to bribe aggressively banged on the door with her broom, screaming: “NO JIGGY-JIGGY!”
At the back of the dancefloor we found a closed-off outside area, where we sneaked out to smoke and kiss further.
Two guys had already beaten us there. The more muscular I recognised as Nameless, a friend of the Dealer Adonis who had added me online. I was wary of him as part of the gay scene A-list. He was the poster boy for Room Service, where the most beautiful and judgemental of the hard-bodied men went; and his eight-pack abs glistened from myriad club photos on Facebook. I pre-formed an opinion of him as over-bathed in others’ lust, and narcissistic. Yet when I told him I performed poetry in Paris, he asked if I might listen to his poem.
We fled away from our companions, to the very back gate. As he began to recite, I thought clearly how, whatever might happen that night, I would always remember how this blue-eyed boy with the tribal tattoo read me his poem as the dawn rose white in the sky, beats dimly pumping through the club walls.
*
It was a good poem; heartfelt and rhythmical. I can only remember in exactitude now the refrain: “his son is a homosexual.” It told the tale of a Latvian Catholic immigrant and the expectations placed upon his firstborn son. I wonder now if this first introduction to Nameless was more illustrative of the demons that lurked in his dark than I could, at the time, perceive.
We lost the other two amongst the high-NRG trance and sweaty, gyrating torsos of the dance floor. When he asked if I wanted to go back to his friend’s, who lived nearby, I said yes.
*
His friend was older, gym-toned and Brazilian, wearing a silver band on his ring finger and harbouring a seemingly endless supply of G. As Nameless stripped off his red and white boxers, revealing his sculpted buttocks, he announced: “I can top, but I’m a fucking good bottom.” I felt my cock kick alive.
Yet, moreover than the energetic sessions of chem-fused sex, what has stayed with me more from that hazy morning was the smoothness of Nameless’ skin as I held him afterward in my arms, and ran my fingers lightly over his shaved chest, slotting them into the subtle grooves of his ribs. I lay my lips gently, like flowers, upon the heat of his back, soft between the twin blades of his shoulders.
*
The Brazilian Friend passed us the crystal pipe, holding a blue flame beneath its glass bulb, instructing us both to suck hard on its white ghost wisps. Nameless beckoned me close for a kiss and blew the exhaled smoke from his lungs deep into mine. I could not adequately distinguish the high from the other substances I had imbibed, but as Nameless and I lay side by side, and the Brazilian Friend told us a meandering boyhood story of stealing bananas from his neighbour’s tree, my penis grew painfully hard. Under the bed covers, as the other still spoke on in a glazed manner, Nameless gently guided me to his asshole, still slick with sweat and lube from before. As I entered him we both made no sound, barely moving. I had never felt so blood-engorged and I knew if I incited fast motion I would climax inside him. I did not want to do this for, as safe I played when sane, I had not been tested for some time. I could not be the one who might mar his beauty and youth. It was an experience of the intensest eroticism as each kick of my cock manifested itself as a tiny kiss on the hairs at the nape of his neck, and the accented words of banana trees and far off places fell in waves upon our ears.
*
Not yet being au fait with chemsex etiquette, I switched the pounding House music to ‘Perfect Day’ by Lou Reed. The Brazilian Friend stared at the Spotify, before announcing he was taking a shower. Nameless stated it was a nice song, and lay resting naked between my legs as we shared together a cigarette.
“How old are you?”
I asked.
“Old enough.”
He turned slightly, to smile at me in a crafty manner.
“I’ll be nineteen in January.”
I took the cigarette.
“You look older.”
He laughed.
“It’s the drugs.”
“No, in a sexy way.”
I thought how the seven years between us could be a century on the gay scene. What would people say? Already I was toying whether this boy’s beauty might save me from my embarrassment, and the intoxicating wish to dull my own shine. Perhaps he would strum the chord of happiness.
“Does your tattoo have a meaning?”
I traced out the tribal pattern, writhing around his right shoulder and bicep, as with my other hand I held the cigarette to his lips.
“It’s made up of millions of little pictures,” he said, as he blew out smoke. “My tattooist, yeah, can go so small that he paints all the scenes of my life in miniature.”
I gazed at the tattoo, which was clearly filled with plain, green ink, and then lay my finger upon one spot.
“What’s this scene?”
“My first Rihanna album.”
“This one?”
“Getting bitten by a dog.”
“And this one?”
“Travelling through France with my Mum.”
“Whereabouts in France?”
“I dunno, there was a big building and a park full of sand.”
“Did your Dad not go with you?”
“Nah, he came over later.”
I realised he didn’t mean camping in the Dordogne.
“What’s this spot?”
“The first time I had sex.”
“How old were you?”
“Dunno, four.”
“Who had sex with you at four?!”
“It wasn’t real sex, just humping.”
Nameless suddenly turned and kissed me, so I could not speak.
*
I went under on the G and woke up at 3pm, having missed my train to Bristol. The wedding was not until the next day but I had to ring my mother, whom I had promised I’d come home to for dinner that evening. Her wrath was incendiary, full of thorn-hooked Catholic guilt, and I thought of broken vases.
*
We got lost on the streets of Vauxhall in the dark winter dusk, coming back from buying cigarettes. By this time the drugs were taking their toll and my world was spinning. I could not keep somatic control of a can I had bought from the shop and it exploded upon the pavement. Nameless put an arm around my shoulders, pulled me close and told me he would take care of me. I smiled. It was then he whispered he believed in angels. He had seen them, he said, in his visions and they granted him promises late in the night.
*
When we finally left it was nearing midnight on the Friday. The Brazilian Friend lent me a coat to wear as I was still dressed only in a vest and the night was cold. He bade us farewell and instructed us, wide-eyed, to take care of one another. We would, we said.
We walked to Vauxhall station in silence, until Nameless asked me what I was doing that night.
“Sleeping,” I replied. “I need to get to this wedding tomorrow.”
“Where you staying tonight?”
“My friend’s place. Seven Sisters.”
“That’s not far from me. We can get the train together.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got to get my jacket.”
“Oh.”
We walked on, our footsteps loud.
‘What are you doing tonight?’ I asked, eventually.
“Dunno. Might go visit my friend in Seven Sisters…”
I smiled, because it was so unguarded, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Maybe we could meet later…”
“That’d be nice,” he said, brightly. “What time?”
“Maybe one?”
He checked his watch.
“It’s twelve now…”
Times and figures raced in my head as an inner anguish seethed and, finally, the last of the high evaporated in the orange smog-filled sky above us.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t think I can actually do tonight. I’ve gotta get this train. But I’m back in town on Monday.”
I wasn’t prepared for his crestfallen look.
“But you don’t have a phone.”
I swore; I’d lost it in Paris.
“I’ll send you a message online.”
“I don’t check online. Too many guys sending me messages.”
“Check it this weekend.”
He nodded doubtfully, and I embraced him.
“You’re really cute,” I whispered in his ear.
He looked down at the tarmac.
“You too.”
I watched him walk away under the stark halogen lights of Vauxhall bus station. As I descended into the depths of the underground I felt an unexpected and strange wrench. I almost turned around to race back up the steps. “I did not think you were just cute,” I wanted to say. “That is not what I thought at all.”
Saint Sebastian
Saint Sebastian roller-skated under the Christmas lights of Old Compton Street, dressed in fuck all but angel wings and hotpants. I’d wanked off a billion times to him getting it from, like, massive cocks on Pornhub, but this was the first time I’d seen him up close. He was real hot. Blonde, chavvy, a stud in one ear and a sexy line shaved into his eyebrow. ‘Hustla’ spray-painted across his pecs.
My heart was beating like on Tina when he stopped and handed me a flyer. I tried to be all Zayn with my cig, playing it cool.
“You’ll catch your death of a chill,” I said.
He grinned.
“But I’ll leave a damn sexy corpse.”
I laughed, and offered him a fag. He took it without breaking eye contact.
“What’s the flyer for?”
“Hustlaball,” he said.
“You gonna be there?”
“Mate, I’m gonna be on stage.”
I brushed some white crumbs away from his nostril.
“Been snowing tonight?”
“It’s always snowing in London.”
“Romantic.”
He moved closer.
“I’m a sucker for romance.”
“And I was thinking you’re an angel.”
He paused.
“Must be the only one thinks that.”
He leant in for a kiss. I closed my eyes and thought this is the most romantic thing ever.
“What’s your name?”
“Nameless.”
He grinned.
“I’ll put you on the list, Nameless.”
As he skated away, I shouted:
“What time you on?”
“1am!”
*
He’d remembered to put my name on the list! I strutted in like I was Beyoncé, mega swag. Slapped away the grabs at my butt cheek; this boy’s with Saint Sebastian tonight. The Festive Hustlaball was more hustla than festive. There were pornstars in Santa Claus wrestling suits signing dildos made of their own cocks in the hall. On the main stage a drag queen dressed as the Virgin Mary was introducing the acts. Saint Sebastian was dressed in a jockstrap, Airmax trainers and wings.
I couldn’t fight through the crowd to the front, but I saw the image reflected in, like, a thousand recording iPhone screens. He was lying on a gymnastics horse, like you get in school, with that bubble butt in the air. Another porn star came on stage wearing dragon horns: big, beefy muscles. I watched and rubbed at my dick until the top was about to slide it in and I left.
*
I waited at the bar and watched him looking through the crowd. I thought he might not be searching for me. People stopped him to take selfies but he avoided their grasps with a good-time laugh, and a promise to come back. Then he saw me and smiled. I gripped my Lucozade tighter.
“Still angelic?” he winked.
“There was a mega queue at the bar…”
His smile stopped. For this mega-
jittering second, all the music in the club stopped playing.
“I’m sorry,” I said, quickly.
He re-swelled his grin, and the beats began again.
“No worries. It’ll be online.”
Just then this mephed-up young guy rocked up, asking if he could put his finger in Saint Sebastian’s ass so he could tell everyone he’d fingered a pornstar. Saint Sebastian looked at him like real amazed, then turned to me and pulled me in for this long, sexy kiss. The guy eventually fucked off.
He smiled and rubbed the backs of his fingers over my abs.
“Do you want to come to a party?”
“Whose?”
“Old Mother Meph’s.”
*
Old Mother Meph was about forty and American. He opened the door to a flat in Stockwell wearing a Santa hat and a tiny, shiny pair of Adidas sports shorts.
“Happy Meph-Mas!”
There were fifteen people there and, apart from one fag hag dressed as a sexy Santa, all the guys were in butt-clinging shorts that showed off their junk. The Christmas tree was, no joke, decorated with mephedrone baggies. Old Mother Meph gave us ‘the look’, and plucked a bag off the tree:
“Let’s get you boys a line and a pair of shorts.”
Saint Sebastian was quickly surrounded by fans so I began dancing with the fag hag named Cath.
“Where’ve you been tonight?” she shouted over the pumping house.
“Hustlaball.”
“I’m gonna start my own club night, called Swallow.”
“Like after the bird?”
“Yeah. And swallowing cum.”
“Oh.” I thought. “Great name!”
“My best mate Steve came up with it. We do everything together.”
She gestured to Steve, flat on his fake-tanned back on the sofa, being grinded by a gigantic man.
“Who are you here with?” she asked.
Before I could answer a pair of strong arms circled my waist. I knew it was him by the scent of his Hugo Boss. I felt euphorically happy and I relaxed back into the feel of his hard abs and the semi pressing at my butt. He whispered in my ear:
“Old Mother Meph’s boyfriend Daryl wants to know if you want some G.”
*
As the G kicked in, me and Saint Sebastian alternated between kissing like loverboys in the corner of the open-plan kitchen and showing each other the whole of our iPhone camera libraries.