I continued my drive home with several voices arguing in my head...
"You can't judge him on this..."
"Of course you can judge him on this..."
"It might not have been him..."
"It was definitely him..."
"Maybe he was going to the restaurant?"
"At 11.45 at night?
"So what if he's into Beat Sex?..."
"But it's dangerous..."
"You're not in danger..."
I argued with myself well into the night - Questioning my moral point of views and opinions as to why I was suddenly battling with the knowledge that, it would appear, Sam was into sex with anonymous guys in parks...
"Maybe he was meeting a friend there?"
"You meet friends in bars, not parks"
Somehow - He had gone from a cool guy I had brunch with... a guy I was looking forward to catching up with again... to a guy I was rather turned off by.
I wasn't stupid, or naive - I knew what guys did, and I knew it wasn't uncommon for guys to head into The Gardens... Sadly though, the subject seemed so taboo that I certainly had never, ever discussed it with any of the gay men I knew, and because of this the entire thing still seemed so foreign and strange to me...
For me - Sex wasn't a handshake... it wasn't something you shared with a faceless individual... it wasn't something you stopped off in a park for like you were driving through a MacDonalds drivethrough...
Sex wasn't a happy meal....
I argued with myself to sleep
"Admit it, you're intrigued with the idea..."
"It's dangerous..."
"He's a grown man, he can do what he wants..."
"It's not nice..."
"You hardly know him, what's the problem?"
......
At lunch the next day, I was sitting with friends when my phone beeped.
"Hey Josh! Still interested in coming along tomorrow night?"
Sam, and drinks with his mates - Under normal circumstances, the idea of this would have been enough to scatter butterflies across my stomach... Sadly, I was disappointed to note that I wasn't as excited as I perhaps should have been. I replied, thumb-punching the keys into a message I didn't really feel like sending.
"For sure! Looking forward to it. Let me know the where and when"
I hit Send.
Pausing briefly, I then began another message.
"Hey, I think I saw you last night? Were you driving down Greenhill Road?"
Send.
A lie, of course - But cleverly I figured it wasn't as confronting as "Hey, are you into Beat Sex?" Greenhill Road wasn't even where I saw Sam, but he couldn't have gotten where he was without driving along it in the direction he was facing when I saw him. He replied immediately.
"Mars Bar - 1130ish - Buzz me when you arrive. Yeah, you may have seen me"
That was confirmation enough - I hit reply.
Imaginary Josh sat up in my minds eye: Don't fuckn reply to that message...
Real Josh ignored him.
"Wow... Out late? What were you up to?
Send.
Idiot. I knew this was crossing the line. I knew I had no right at all to ask the question, and I knew it wasn't any of my business. Sam didn't owe me any answers - I'd only known him a couple of days - But I had to know... I wanted to see what he would say. His reply came through immediately again.
"Just catching up with some mates"
Catching up with some mates.
Indeed.
- - - -
The following night was cold and wet - Parking on Gouger street was a nightmare (as always) and a hard rain shower had begun to fall across the city. Boys huddled under umbrellas together in line for Mars and I lined up behind them with no cover above me.
This sucked already.
I moved under the veranda and out of line to try and stay dry. I removed my phone and started another message.
"Hey dude, just arrived. Waiting to get in"
Send.
It took another 15 mins to get in, and Sam didn't reply in that time. Checking my jacket at the door, I purchased a drink and began scoping the place out. Mars Bar never failed to amaze me - You could wait months and months between visits... years between visits... and the place simply never changed... The same guys on the dance floor, the same Kylie remixes, the same barmen and DJs... It was like everything was somehow trapped in time.
Trapped being the operable word.
I did a quick lap of the main dancefloor before heading up to the beer garden which, despite the driving rainstorm, was still surprisingly full of people. I couldn't find Sam anywhere... Which only left one place: The Kitchen.
To be honest, I didn't even know why they called it "The Kitchen" - Nothing about it was remotely kitcheny - but it was the 'second' dancefloor at Mars. The main dancefloor played your regular pop, your Top-40, your RnB, The Kitchen played your hard dance and trance. It was nearly always frequented by guys off their tits on pills or thin twinks dancing topless on blocks.
Neither image appealed to me.
Looking around, I spotted Sam sitting on a couch chatting to another guy who was wearing a baseball hat. Who the fuck wears a baseball-cap to a nightclub?
I walked up and gave his leg a playful kick. "Hey dude..."
He looked slowly up at me.
"Oh HEY! Josh..." He smiled. "You made it..."
He remained sitting. I stood, half waiting to be introduced to Baseball-Cap Guy, half expecting the conversation to continue. It didn't.
Imaginary Josh held up a sign in my minds eye: Third Wheel.
"Your mates here?" I asked, to fill in the silence more than anything else.
"What?..." The music was loud.
"ARE YOUR MATES HERE?"
"Nah, I don't know where they are..." he replied. I glanced to the guy sitting with him again.
Third Wheel.
Silence.
"Cool, well Im going to...." (you've already got a drink, Josh) "...get another drink"
"''Kay!"
Fuuuckn hell.
I moved away from the kitchen and back into the main area - Grabbing my phone, I sent a group text to any friend in my phonebook who I figured might make it to Mars that night.
Safety in numbers.
"Hey! At Mars for once... Heading out? Let me know!"
I leant up against a wall and watched the dancers on the dancefloor grind and step to the beat. My phone surprised me by beeping back. It was a girlfriend from work.
"Im here now! We're in the beer garden!"
Thank Christ - I moved up to the beer garden and happily greeted my saving grace, where we chatted for twenty or so minutes. I explained the entire situation to her.
"What are you going to do?" She asked, laughing "Is he still here?"
"In The Kitchen, I think. He seemed to be with a guy"
"You should let him know you found friends..."
She was right. With a nod, I moved back to The Kitchen.
No longer sitting, Sam was now dancing topless with Baseball-Cap Guy. Moving onto the dancefloor with the music, I joined their dancing... Rave music wasn't neccessarily my forte when it came to dance, but it hardly required coordination; It was more kind of just a matter of moving your head in time with the music...
"Sorry, found mates!" I exclaimed over the bass.
"Cool!..." he looked at me... looked around me. I recognised the look immediately. The gritted jaw, the shifty eyes... Sam was clearly not altogether there on the dancefloor.
Goddamn it - Beat sex and pills... This Party Boy was falling fast in regard.
We danced for a few more minutes - I watched Baseball-Cap guy out the corner of my eye while Party-Boy moved up and grabbed my hips. I let him. His broad chest was covered in a light fur, his skin was covered in a light sheen of sweat - The smell of ocean had now been replaced with the smell of heat. We danced closeley with one another.
Baseball-Cap guy came up behind him and put his arm around his Party-Boys chest.
I saw the posturing immediately - The game was on.
The three of us continued to dance, Party-Boy in the middle facing me. He reached down to pull my shirt up - I stopped him.
"No..." I smiled "That stays on..."
"Loosen up..." he slurred.
We continued to dance...
I watched Baseball-Cap Guy's hand snake down into Party-Boys back pocket and bring out another pill. He placed it in Sams mouth before chasing it with a bottle of water. He sucked it down like a babe on a teat before Baseball-Cap Guy pulled the bottle back and sprayed us all with water...
...Like it wasn't wet enough outside already.
Nice work, dude.
But they loved it... Dancing to the music, I backed off.
This was stupid.
Holding up my empty bottle, I indicated I was going to get another drink. Party-Boy smiled and pawed at my face playfully, the palm of his hand sweeping across my forehead and down the side of my face to my neck when it rested on my chest "Good. Drink more"
Moving out of The Kitchen, I turned back briefly to see Baseball-Cap Guy and Party-Boy disco-pashing on the dancefloor.
Yup.
That was the last time I saw Party-Boy. He called me once a few days later and apologised for being so "fucked up" the last time he saw me. I allowed the apology, and told him it was certainly an interesting night. He didn't question where I disappered to after I left him on the dancefloor, but admitted he didn't remember much about how the night played out.
I didn't ask about Baseball-Cap Guy.
Our sms's slowed down to nil... I caught him briefly on msn a few times here or there, but was no longer interested in pursuing anything with him. The cool lifesaver who worked with kids and their problems seemed to have quite a few of his own from what I could tell... What little and brief conversation I had with him since that night uncovered a few demons that I could well have done without discovering... Drugs... Drinking problems... Beats... and a seemingly lost sense of 'wellbeing' over all...
I had already done my time with "The Drunk" - Party-Boy and his antics were now of no interest to me... I refused to play the Florence Nightingale of gay men, rescuing the lost and troubled guys of Adelaide...
So I cut the cord...
...Back to the drawing board.
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