Rick's cafe is an institution. Been going there for 20 years, but tonight I am wide awake, on fire, and bored. Sitting just outside, me, on a cold autumn night. Long island iced-teas... couldn't decide on a flavour and this covers all bases. This is my third. Long and dark hair, and con-fi-dent. The eyes are blue. It's a fuck-you day, and that's what I plan to do.
Sitting by the door, just in front of the coffee shop, I'm leoparded up against the chill, passing the odd bit of banter with the old brit dealer who comes outside every now and again for a fag, the odd group of stag night blokes who have to brush past to walk inside, all too pissed to care what they're chatting up.... Ach, it's fine, but still, I'm bored.
American boys everywhere, and I mean boys as mostly their first action before getting a drink, smoke, even getting inside, is to produce I.D. No interest to or in me. I tap on this. I stare out at the canal in front of me. I drink. I drink.
You're tall. I'm shallow; drunk and shallower still, so tall is genuinely all I'm interested in. It's enough. And you seem interested enough.
Sitting, drinking, not smoking. I've taken a few uppers I bought in a smart shop, but, whatever they say, these barely touch sides. I'm not talky, but smiley, starey, and god knows what you are, but the important bit is that I drink some more, and we get up from this place and walk down the canal.
Not touching. Not really talking much, just looky, because there's lots to take in. We walk past the ladies in the windows. They sm-ile out at you, mate, they do, I can see their smiles right now, and we stand looking in, from the bridge. I've seen them there in the day, older, mostly plumpish black, mixed race women, in everyday underwear, staring out, smiling at the guys, all lure-y-in-y. And we stand at the bridge and we stare all around and soak up the people and the lights and the awake-ness of it all. Both used to bright lights, but this is different, something totally different. A red light district where just everyone comes to see, the shops all vibrators and bongs and dildos, live sex shows, or cacti, peyote, mushrooms, whatever. Charged. A mad and charged up vibe sweeps us up.
At night, though, at night they bring out the babes, in neon bikinis, young, all flavours, really, allllll flavours. And we stand and we watch and we laugh at the madness around us and maybe we lean over a bridge, on the canal, and we stare at the water, and the boats and soak the whole goddamn thing up through every tiny pore. They stand in their windows, and, mate, but do they spot you, and we watch as a guy goes up to the window, goes in through the glass door and little miss blondy closes that curtain. We watch as some short bald guy comes out from another door, while in the background, in the room behind the curtain, we see an older woman beyond that red-headed babe, get to work with a mop and what looks like a scouring pad on the walls. And I ask what the fuck the guy, I ask you, could have been doing that necessitated the services of a scouring sponge. And you laugh, in a way that kind of makes me think you know, so I drop the subject. Quick.
I kiss you - no, you kiss me, on that bridge, me, sobered up a little and I am struck, as I occasionally have been, by the beauty of that soft-soft kiss, and I kind of think how nice that would be, but we walk on and on and on and one, past the hooting and the laughing and the woman in the windows and the crazed-up hardcore merchants, and the little boys, some girls, mainly girlfriends, through the coffee shop windows, glazed and dazed, and now I guess we're hand in hand though still not much talking
We pass the tourist traps of the sexual masses. The museum of sex. The dress-up shops. The cheap and tacky pedestrian vanilla flavoured shops and we kind of stop down a small street and you do that damn kissing thing again and I see we're outside a live show, big black fucker and the door and he calls over to us and we kind of pause.
Erm... Hell, we're strangers and we ain't even, I mean, we've held hands like teenagers on a park bench. But. But and but. Ach, and so, what the fuck, we go in. No money. The money's in the drinks, we see as we hand over 30 euros for two beers.
On the stage is a bed. Well, what passes for one, more mattress than bed, three people on it. Two men, one woman. I can only tell you what I saw, what I thought, as no fucking idea what went on in your head, but here goes.... As we walked in, she's on all fours. Yes, there are other positions, but, hell, it's the truth, honest, you, and kind of, though I wonder how he can breath, pussy down on some guy's face. She's small, curvy though, big arse, dark, and he's, though I can't see his face, what I'm guessing is your classic well chiselled white guy, who is simultaneously licking her out (he has little option under the circumstances), finger fucking her with one hand, whilst jerking himself off with the other. Her mouth, well, it's a cliche but it's true, is around the cock, and from where I'm standing she has a mouthful and a half, of this chunky black guy with a weirdly compelling semi afro. One hand on her head. The other kind of weirdly supporting his arse, back, as he let's her do most of the work. l watch her head, dark hair all brushed to one side; I see her do this at one point, as her head bobs back and forth off his ample dick, just swoop across with her hand and pull back the hair which is sneaking back to cover the view of the maybe 15/20 people in the audience. A touching gesture. Considerate. I take a swig of beer, carlsberg. And we sit on bar stools, far enough away to watch this tableaux without being part of it. The air is fucking thick. No smoke, just a rawly fucking smell, mixed with something vaguely bleachy. And we sit.
This goes on. The audience, mainly single guys, one couple, one small group, two guys, three girls. Some watching, some just sitting and others, well, taking a more active part. The couple, the middle-aged couple in the audience, are almost there themselves I'm thinking.
