Adventures in Obsession

Why is tonight different from all other nights?

And why was I standing outside this Kensington apartment block on a wet Saturday night remembering this phrase from childhood? Certainly not a childhood that I would ever have expected to bring me here.

If only I had known then the sort of man I would become. What could I have done to change things, to change the course of my life? Too late to think about that now.

I think even back then I knew that I was going to be a bit different, though in those days I still tried not to be. I had always been a solitary person. Even when I was in a group I never felt part of it, always felt like I didn't fit. But maybe this was about to change. Maybe tonight I would meet my kindred spirits and finally be accepted. I was as nervous as hell.

Before I take you with me on this outing, so to speak, let me tell you a little about the sort of person I am, on the outside anyway. I'm into my forties now but not too far and I find it hard to believe, so you would be excused for saying this is yet another mid-life crisis story. And maybe it is, but it's been going on for the last thirty years and gathering steam all the time.

I'm nothing to look at, six foot tall when I remember not to slouch, which is seldom, slim, glasses, dark brown hair that can't decide whether it wants to go grey or fall out. Average looking, most people would say I suppose, although I think there is something indefinable missing. But what I do tend to be a lot of the time is quite invisible. I just don't get noticed and that suits me fine. My clothes are not new, but most of the time I look fairly presentable, as long as you don't look too closely. I've never been trendy. I learnt a long time ago that whenever I tried to follow a trend it had already left. Like I said I was never quite a part of things. Something else I should mention, I don't talk to people much. I don't have much to say to them and I feel they don't want to hear it anyway, and to be honest most of the time I prefer it that way. Am I quiet, shy, anti-social, pig-headed? Tick yes to all the above and any others you can think of. Is that going to be a problem tonight? I suppose it's time to find out. It's now or never!

I've never been here before but I know it's the right place. I've already seen one guy go in and there's another one coming along now while I dither about pressing the buzzer. I let him go first and follow him in. It's not his first time he tells me as we take the lift up. Everybody is friendly and you'll have a good time he says. You don't know me, I think. But I relax slightly because he seems ok and maybe if they are all like him I might be able to handle this. Except that he is younger than me, and better looking. I had this faint wish that any other men here tonight would be hideously disfigured, gnarled hands shaking as they grip their walking sticks, So that hope has gone out the window then!

And now we have reached our destination. The apartment door is opened by a tall, bald man who reminds me of a butler in a haunted house film. He asks if this is my first time, as if it doesn't show. He explains how things work. You buy cloakroom tickets and use them for drinks. Now I am not a drinker. I am physically unable to get drunk. My head will be in the toilet before I get to that stage, so most of the time I don't bother. But tonight I need a drink.

In the hall a statuesque lady with long hair and glasses greets me. We have spoken on the phone, I find, and it was her who gave me this address earlier today. Before then I was not allowed to know it.

Once again I am told how friendly everybody is and that I should go and mingle. I am not a mingler. Social graces escape me. First I need that drink. I walk down the hall, past the first door where I can see there are a few people sitting and talking, and down to the kitchen where there is a table of drinks set out. I hand over my ticket take my drink and notice the bowl on the table....the bowl filled with condoms. The table blocks access to the kitchen so I'm not going to get away with spending the evening in there. There goes my normal tactic at social gatherings. Time to mingle.

It's twenty minutes later and I'm standing in a corner of the main room trying to look nonchalant. There is a television on in another corner showing a blue movie but no-one's watching. I'm being ignored, it's an air I have which I've perfected over the years. There are about twenty people here now, a fair mix of the sexes and all shapes and sizes, but bigger is certainly much more predominant. Many of them obviously know each other from past occasions and most are talking happily. One or two others appear nervous and alone like me, it's always the men.

I need to push myself a little, if I stay like this all night then my efforts so far will have been wasted. I edge closer to a small group, two ladies and a man, still fully clothed, although this is not the case with all the people in the room now. I sit on the periphery of the conversation, it seems that one of the women is a first-timer and the other is giving her encouragement. There are now people drifting off to the bedrooms, singly, in pairs, in threesomes. There are three bedrooms. Am I going to be brave enough to do this? Do I really want to? Certainly, no matter how unattractive I feel, there are a few here I have no wish to get close to. Somehow I force myself to talk to the newcomer, she's quite attractive and willing to talk and I start to think this won't be so hard after all. After all she is here for the same reason I am, all I have to do is ask, and somehow I manage it..... She tells me she prefers women.

It's about an hour later. I am back on the street, walking towards my car, enjoying the fresh air. I was the first to leave. I was the only one who remained fully clothed. I'm not sorry about anything, except that I still don't know where I fit in. I'm pleased I tried something else, I'm also quite pleased to find that this wasn't the thing that was missing from my life. I watched the others enjoying themselves, I watched masses of writhing bodies in all three bedrooms, I watched whips and chains, I watched true hedonists giving themselves to their pleasure, and I got nothing from it, even from the watching, except the knowledge there was no place for me here yet again, except the knowledge that my needs were different.

Partly I know that the reason I didn't get involved was that it would have meant sharing the acts with other men. But I know that even if I had been the only man there, the sex party or orgy, or whatever you wish to call it, was not going to give me what I wanted. But will I ever know what that is, and how did I get to this point..