Rent Boy

by James Anthony Ford

  So in about thirty seconds or so we arrive inside the empty toilet block. Surprisingly, being near the Botanic Gardens, it was quite immaculate. He went and checked all the toilet cubicles making sure there was nobody in them. He looked like he was in a rush, like he was in panic mode. I just let do what he had to do even though I didn’t care I just wanted him to fuck me. Without a moment to lose he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the end cubicle, slamming the door shut and locking it. This was it. Our heavy breathing got to panic attack stage like we were both having an asthma attack. He suddenly attached his lips on my right nipple sucking it harder and harder. My heart was racing so fast I could not control it. As he was biting my nipple I began biting his ear and the slight scent of his after shave drove me beyond crazy. We were so hot for each other we thought we would explode but not yet. We wanted to enjoy this intense lust but meaningless sex. This was dirty full on sex and no one was watching. It felt so wrong but felt so right. But this event had to take place, it was a release of sexual energy and we were hot for each other. He yanked my pants down hard and I did the same to him. I wanted to eat him alive, not literally of course! But I was so turned on, it was frightening. Sweat was dripping off each other and our pulsating sweating bodies rubbing against each other warm flesh. I could even taste his testosterone, it drove me wild. Then he fucked me like I had never been fucked before. It lasted two long pleasurable minutes. Then the world exploded like an atomic bomb. Then to end the whole craziness of the most full on sex I have ever had, I licked the last drop of sweat from his chest. Then that was it. We had done the task and went our separate ways, it meant nothing. Meaningless lust. It was finished. Done and dusted. Life just went on.

  We both took a deep breath in and out like we had just finished a marathon. He quickly, very quickly pulled his pants back up and put his t-shirt on and rushed out the cubicle whilst I was still pulling my pants back up. He wanted to get out and fast. I never forget the look of shame on his face as he rushed out of the cubicle. He was gone for a second then he came back in and accidentally hitting my head on the cubicle door as he pushed it in. I just happened to be too close to it. It actually cut my forehead causing it to bleed. Then he looked at me with a look of anger on his face. He looked like he was going to kill me, it was scary. “Don’t tell anyone about this, and I mean no one!......you do and I will kill you!” he said with a angry whisper. I just nodded my head to say “your secret is safe with me” and then he disappeared.

  After I re-dressed I noticed in the mirror in the toilet that there was a lot of blood rushing down the side of my head. I just smiled, even though it hurt a bit, and thought I was like a casualty of war. My bleeding skull was a scar of having sex with a famous athlete. I felt flattered and privileged and I did not want to wash off the blood. But I did and I walked out of the toilet block with a feeling of extreme satisfaction but hiding a guilty conscious. I then noticed that he was still sitting in his car. As I walked closer but slowly I noticed he was crying uncontrollably. As soon as he saw me he sped off in his BMW spinning off at about 160 kilometres per hour. Or fast, for that matter. I felt a sense of sorrow for him as obviously he is having to deal with demons and that unexplainable disease called ‘homosexuality’. It’s a shame that there are a lot of guys out there who simply cannot come out of the closet and live their true life. Some never get that opportunity. But this event I will never forget and went straight to my diary once I got home. I was bursting to tell Kim or anyone really. But I couldn’t. This was sacred and taboo. This was a spontaneous sexual experience that had intense lust but no love. It was anonymous sex. And I loved it!

  For months after that, what I call, special sex event, I became completely obsessed with athletes, especially footballers. In fact my life was so focussed on chasing sex and that ultimate sexual orgasm. Not to mention every week or so I would a visit from the ‘STD factory’, you know, “Oops! I’ve got the crabs again!” One week it would be crabs, next perhaps Chlamydia, the week after gonorrhoea and so on. Getting curable sexually transmitted diseases became like second nature and just came with the sexual territory whether I liked it or not. But the fact that I would catch something, I knew I would be treated and cured and then move onto the next guy. Then catch something else. But I was never scared of catching HIV as I always had safe sex which gave me that feeling of immunity or mortality and getting HIV does not happen to people like me anyway. HIV is something you hear about in the news, it just wouldn’t happen to me. I knew it couldn’t happen, not me, no way.

  I know it sounds strange but I could not stand any guy that was gay. It might sound like a contradiction but if I saw a guy that I thought was kind of hot, but found out he was gay, I was turned right off. I then realised I had a new problem. I was only attracted to straight men. Which is stupid, because if they are straight then they would not be attracted to men so the chance of me having sex with a straight man was impossible otherwise they would be gay. Confused? I knew I was! But I also thought to myself that it was actually possible to have sex with a straight man. I had to work it out.

  The fact was, was that I hated anything girly about a man even though some might say that I had a girly side. I was always trying not to be, I was always conscious about my masculinity. After that incident in the toilet block, when I went out, if I had a guy approach me I would walk away. They thought I just had an attitude and that’s also what my friends thought too. The truth is, I was not interested in gay guys no matter how hot or masculine they were. I was only interested in straight guys. I knew I was missing out on opportunities, and I missed out on a lot because of my silly attitude problem. Funnily enough, as the gay scene in Melbourne is actually quite small, I began to get a reputation that I was the ‘guy with the attitude problem’. Many said I was ‘up myself’. I was not. Everyone had got it wrong. I really did not have an attitude, I was just simply not into anything girly. Why was it so difficult to find a man that wasn’t pretentious? Just be yourself for fucks sake! I just didn’t get it. The fact is, it appeared that if you were a gay male, you had to act like one. All I could say was, what a load of bullshit! Be yourself! Act like a man. I began to get sick of all this bullshit gay scene. I was getting bored.

  I soon took step back a little from going out on the scene. I still went out, but on either a Saturday or Sunday night. It was at about this stage I only lived for the weekend. That’s all my life was about. I still did a couple of subjects here or there at uni, just to keep my head above water and feel like I was just doing something ‘normal’ and I also worked nights at the cafe.

  I also came to a realisation that my personality was changing as I was so focussed on spending the entire week preparing for the weekend. This was not normal behaviour. I got obsessed. I did not have a drug problem and to this day I still believe I never did. However I could not go out and party without at least an ecstasy pill. It was also about now that my spending habits snowballed. I didn’t care about debt, I only cared about having the money to pay for stuff. So the credit cards limits started acting like rollercoaster’s. Going down, get a limit increase, then it goes up again, then down again and the debt just kept on growing but I did not even give a second thought that someday I would have to pay all this back. To me, this was easy money. I remember friends were telling me to slow down and quite often people, strangers even, said I was out of control. I ignored the comments. At work, my bosses could even see that my personality was changing. I was even quite often rude to customers giving them and attitude simply because I was ‘coming down’. I remember I hated customers. It was like a rude disturbance when they entered the cafe asking for his, demanding for that. I just wanted to tell them to fuck off you bunch of whinging leeches! Now, I am ashamed of my attitude then. My bosses did actually see that I was sometimes rude to customers but never told me off or said anything in fact. It was because I had been working there for some time and was damn good at my job. All the other staff were impressed with my bartending skills and I have to admit
, I was good. I also wanted to do something else, I was getting really over it.

  We would either go to a club on Saturday night called The Dome or The Mansion and on Sunday we go normally go to The Peel or the Chaise Lounge which was a more laid back intimate club playing funky house. During the day, whether it be on a weekday or weekend I would go down to the local footy grounds, and watch the local amateur footballers play footy. I actually watched them with an erection. There were times when some of them came up to the barrier where I was watching and gave me a bit of a wink. I knew what that meant. It was like some sort of sign language but it never led to anything. Though I wish it did.

  After a couple of weeks I started to get the party bug again and Kim and the other guys were planning to go to ‘Tasty’ on Saturday night and wanted to know if I wanted to go. I said of course I did. ‘Tasty’ was an infamous gay club tucked away in some grungy warehouse amongst the back alleyways of inner city Melbourne. We had been to Tasty a few times before. It’s a very gay club but at the same time had a very underground feel to it. That’s why I liked it, even though it had a touch of campiness to it. It was at this club where only the crème de la crème of the club scene came, gay or straight. It was also on this particular Saturday the extraordinary happened.

  Kim and I parked the car in some back alley in Melbourne and wandered our way through the maze of tiny alleys and following the noise of the thumping bass. This club seemed to have no address; they tried to keep the club as underground as possible. As we came to the last stretch of alleyway, we could see from a distance the crowd surrounding the entrance. The entrance was simply a tin metal door with no signage so it’s really hard to find. That was the idea. But tonight the cops found it. Kim and I slowed down our pace and saw there was a bit of commotion. “I don’t like the look of this” I whispered to Kim. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing” she replied. We kept walking but slowly and heard that the music had suddenly stopped and we could hear screams from inside. Both Kim and I halted with a complete stop in terror. The screams sounded agonising, it was chilling. Then a man, and I don’t know if he was an undercover cop or what, but he just took a real piercing stare at both Kim and I. I will never forget that stare, it was pure terror. So I said to Kim “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”. Kim didn’t say anything, she just got scared, like myself. We both ran for it and did not look back. When we got back in the car, we were out of breath and we just looked at each other wondering what the hell had happened in there. We were baffled and just sat in silence for about fifteen minutes or so. We thought we should do something but what? I knew what was going on but couldn’t bear to say it. But soon we snapped out of our brain freeze and said let’s just go out somewhere else. And we did, to the bloody ‘Peel’ hotel of all places! But we had fun anyway that night.

  The following day I lay in bed still wandering about what really happened in the club ‘Tasty’. Then I received a phone call. It was Kim.

  “You awake?” she said like she was trying to be discreet.

  “Uh, yeah, what’s wrong?” I said.

  “Tasty got busted last night” she replied back immediately.

  “Waddaya mean?” I said.

  “I mean, the cops busted into the club, and body searched everyone that was inside, and when I mean body search, I mean.......b-o-d-y-s-e-a-r-c-h-e-d” she said with a tone of disgust.

  I thought about it for a while and knew straight away that we had only just missed the commotion. Only seconds. So in fact, we missed one of the most controversial events in Melbourne’s club history. So this is all I am aware of. This was a bust by undercover police to search all the clubbers for drugs they may have had on them. They apparently searched them unlawfully and in humiliating circumstances. It was big news and a touchy subject if that. So I won’t go into any more detail, it has nothing to do with me and I am not about to make judgements about what happened in there and the police system. I am just so glad that I was no involved so I will leave this subject alone.

  Months go by and everything was pretty good. Life was good. I remember I was really appreciating this stage of my life. It is only now that I realise there was a missing piece in the puzzle. At that time I had no idea what it was. Although I was partying a lot and having a good time I never really had my feet on the ground. I should have. But I can’t turn back time.

  Life at that stage was just sex, drugs and dancing. It really was all about the music in club land. It was all about real underground House music.

  …………………………………………………………………………………

  Chapter eight……It’s all about the music

  It’s the mid ‘noughties’ and dance music seemed to be at its prime during this period. Clubbing was also seemed to be divided into two sub-cultural groups. You had the bogan’s, as well called them, that had went to mainstream clubs, got blind drunk, have a vomit or two in the gutter and then went home pissed by 3 am. Then there were the ‘real’ clubbers. This was the underground elite and we were a part in it. We never arrived at a club earlier than 12 am, never left earlier than 5 am, always freshen up after the first club, then rocked onto one or two recovery clubs or parties well into Sunday afternoon. Even though we loved our ‘vitamins’, we well also full of gusto and energy. But the real element of the appreciation of clubbing, underground side, was in the music.

  People hear ‘poppy’ music on the radio and they instantly think this is dance music and have the nerve to call it house. It may be house, but it is what we call progressive house. In our language it translated into ‘commercial crap’.

  House music was an art; a craft. It was a broad term that many sub-genres that defined particular types of house. I considered myself as a connoisseur of house and techno and could talk about it with such articulation without fail, which always impressed everyone in the club scene. I could really have been a successful DJ, which I did pursue. Although it was ephemeral, a bit of a ‘fad’, but that’s another story.

  The term ‘house’ is simply used to describe dance music that is played in a club. But a club, a ‘cool’ club, that is, has to have the music that rocks the house down and makes your body move. It has to be fresh and impacting.

  House is a style of music that is totally misunderstood by, dare I say it, ‘normal’ society. House is not just dance or electronic music. There is deep house; a form of house that is deep (well, duh!) but the elements of deep house is very moody, catchy but funky beats, sometimes with minimal vocals. It is usually an underground style of house music and the feel is quite underground as well.

  Then there’s house music from the USA called Chicago house and Detroit house/ techno and New York garage.

  I love Chicago house as it rocks, it is pumping and very sexy hip swinging tunes. Its house music with a touch of electro or techno beats, minimal vocals but it just rocks-simple at that! DJs such as Derrick Carter and Armando and DJ Sneak are connoisseurs of this genre of house.

  The most appreciated and type of house that always rocked and considered very cool, particularly in the gay dance parties, and underground recovery parties is dubbed a ‘dirty house’. The term ‘dirty’ is used to describe the sexiness, the deep and dark atmospheric feel to the funky beats. It had a bass line that seemed to pump in align with your own heart beat and it thumped so hard that you can feel the beat through the dance floor. There are minimal sexy vocals, not lyrics as such, but a bit of “oohh”, “Ahhh”, “Mmmm”, that kind of thing. It sounds cheesy but trust me, it isn’t. It is sexy, trashy and butt-swing house that truly felt like sex. A hit with the gay or ‘anything goes’ type of clubber.

  Detroit house or techno was kind of split between house beats with a strong techno influence. It was harder and faster and more popular in the rave scene. But this type of house was very underground and it is rumoured that Detroit, in the USA, is where techno really all started. But that is debateable as the rave scene developing in Manchester, the UK, could claim that one also.
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  Garage is house that was very funky and a lot more diva style vocals. It is basically house, but underground. When I say underground all the time, it means that it is not played on commercial radio. Underground is a sub-cultural term that defers away from the ‘norm’. It was the ‘norm’, like mainstream clubs, that were considered uncool.

  Garage also began to break down into new sun-genres such as hard garage which is still Garage but with harder and faster bass lines and very, very funky. Its addictive, which is why you cannot sit still when hard garage comes on in the club. Garage was usually played at clubs either before you go out, say at a bar before 12 am, or at recovery clubs. It was not to soft and not too hard. It was perfect for a recovery party at a club as it was very upbeat and suited the atmosphere with all those smiling faces.

  The clubs during our time included of course ‘Freakazoid’, which you will probably not forget from the confronting realistic introduction. I wanted you to feel the real world of pure clubbing elegance, even thought it was very risqué, but that’s what makes it unique.

  Then there were other clubs that come and go. The longer running clubs on our list on the weekend agenda included ‘Tasty’, ‘Uranus’, ‘The Mansion’, ‘Groove Asylum’. ‘Egg’, ‘Milk Bar’, ‘Filter at The Lounge’, ‘Plastic at The Lounge’, ‘Savage’ and the list goes on.

  “Tasty’ was probably the most infamous one and very, very cool. It was promoted as a gay club, but it was a combination of both gays and straights and it synergistically blended perfectly in unison. This was the place to be seen. This was also a club where it was not unusual to see an international model or celebrity in there, but their presence was like, “big deal”. Everyone was the same inside; weird, twisted, bent but very cool.

  It was dark, dingy and a bit tacky, but that ‘tacky’ or ‘dodgy’ back alley entrance added to the underground element of ‘cool’. There was a dark room inside that was made for those ‘liaisons’ if you know what I mean but ironically it did not really work as what it was planned for. It ended up really being a chill-out room or a place to feely do drugs. I guess that’s what ecstasy does, you really just want to feel good rather than have sex.