Baroque II Graham Collett Copyright 2003
The following tale is fictional. It is the second part to a trilogy that I am writing. The original 'Baroque' story can also be found on this site.
I was a rat in a maze. Stumbling in and out of blind alleyways, smarting from the neon firebrands that blazed in the perpetual twilight of Soho's streets; spilling their exuberance into the toxic puddles. Millions of lives drawn by the same mesmeric call of clandestine pleasures; drawn though these streets of Hamelin; caught in the undertow like jetsam and washed away on a tide of alcohol and drugs.
A place to forget; to pull doves from your sleeve and pass through the veils of illusion. With each step the world has shifted and yet the obsession that possesses me remains as I incinerate the small hours with cigarettes, smoke trailing behind me in the diffusion of fading time.
I was consumed by the memory of a person and a place that somehow diverted the course of my life. A place bound up with my darkest desires like an addiction. A place without which my world had become barren and trite and I knew that I would never retrace my footsteps back to my time of innocence.
Baroque was unlike any other club that I had encountered. In my fevered hours of insomnia the memories of its decadence coursed though my veins like a raging fire. Images of merging flesh and indiscriminate fucking replayed over and over in the worn celluloid of my recollections. I imagined myself descending into the images of Hieronymus Bosch; immersing myself headlong into a garden of earthly delights; feeling that divine release from an eternal anguish. It seemed that for a lifetime, Baroque had fuelled my masturbatory fantasies and I was no longer exercising free-will. "Des..." Inadvertently, I gave sound to my formless ideal. He seemed at once to be both my saviour and my nemesis. I thought about his taught muscular body, his manly smell... His taste... His skin, dark like midnight, explored by a thousand loveless hands. I fantasised about how many men and women he had driven into the frenzy of a sublime bliss with his huge dick and voracious sexual appetite. I longed for him fill my body in the same way that he filled my mind.
I had lost count of the number of times that I had drifted Soho's jaded streets, caught in the dull ennui of existence, desperately trying to re-discover the whereabouts of Baroque, imagining that each turn might allow me to revisit that place of my awakening. Des had given me a business card but the mobile number appeared to be defunct. It seemed that fate would deny me the thing that I most desired.
"Oh sorry..." I said with a start. In my frantic search, I had almost knocked over a young black guy as I turned into a darkened street. "Mind yourself... blood clot!" He looked angry. The whites of his eyes captured the distant red glow of neon. "I am terribly sorry... erm, I should have looked where I was going." I chose to ignore his insult and smiled at him as best I could.
Short locks tumbled over his forehead, his noble features face twisted into aggression. In the half light of a sultry August night, I could just perceive the outline of his bulging biceps and tight singlet top. A gold medallion glimmered conspicuously around his neck like some artless Christmas bauble.
He walked on a couple of paces, cursing, then turned to find me staring at him. "What ya watchin at?" His deep voice jolted me, yet it seemed to lack the intonation genuine aggression. "Er, you... I'm sorry, you reminded me of someone that's all." I felt an odd connection with this stranger. Despite his hostile demeanour, somehow, I could tell that he meant me no real harm. "I wonder if you could help me? I am looking for a club..." "Me got ting fe do!" He complained with a raised voice and kissed his teeth making a derogatory sound. But then he must have been amused at my pained look as an unexpected smile broke through the cover of his stormy expression like moonbeams. I smiled back at him warmly. I wondered if he was Jamaican born, still imbued with some ancestral memory; defiant and angry against a legacy of injustice. Perhaps there was Maroon blood still quickening in his veins, remaining forever indomitable and proud. "Please, indulge me." I said softly. He approached me warily, one hand toying with the contents of his pocket. "Where do you wanna go mate?" He assumed a less hostile sounding London accent. "Have you heard of Baroque?" "Nah, what is it, a strip joint?" "Yes, kind of. It's for men really, I mean, men strip there." He seemed more relaxed with the revelation that I was gay. Somehow it appeared to diffuse any sense of threat that he may have felt. I played with my straggly blond hair as he stared at me, emerging from the quicksand of shadow. "Ok, you can do a lickle ting for me, then me take you somewhere." I was not sure what he meant as his innuendo hung in the air like a comic-strip question mark. He walked back along the street and ducked into a narrow alleyway, lost in the seamless dark. With some trepidation, I followed him, just catching his vague form leaning against the wall and merging with the building like some exquisite gargoyle. "Do da ting." He said with his hushed lilting intonation. I knew that he was probably straight, but this being Soho, he knew well of the pleasures that men could perform for other men. It seemed that I lost my breath as I drew closer to him. I dropped to my knees and allowed my arms to encircle his compact thighs. It was pitch black as my head drew closer to his waist. I was not sure what I might expect as I gradually drew closer till I felt a heat near my cheek and realised that his burning manhood was just a fraction away from my face. My mouth started to water in anticipation... He must have reached down and slapped his solid cock hard on my cheek. It felt hot, moist as if the darkness had somehow taken form and solidified into a fantasy. "Thank you." I whispered, but the time for talking had past. I turned my head and allowed the guy's proud dick to ease gradually into my mouth, tasting his skyward pointing erection as I slipped along the thick, rigid shaft. Without hesitation, he started to fuck my mouth, urgently rushing to his climax undercover of the cloak of night. I pulled away and tried to tantalise him with my tongue, but he firmly drew my head back down his hungry black cock, unable to delay the inevitability of his desire. I held his waist, almost unmoving as he greedily exploited the warm fuckhole of my mouth, pumping it forcefully and impacting on the back of my throat in rapid succession. I tried to pull away, but he resisted my attempt as both his hands clamped my head firmly in place. "You gotta swallow it all up for me." He whispered breathlessly. I rested both hands on the wall as the smooth head of his dick hammered into my throat with gathering momentum. "That's it, that's where me want it. His grip on my head tightened as he let out a horse guttural groan "huhhh.. uh...urrr! His love juice shot down my throat like a high pressure jet, as I felt powerful muscle pulsations at the base of his dick, rapidly propelling his hot spunk all the way down my gullet. "Suck it down!" He ordered arrogantly. I complied with his demand and sucked off the residual jism, drinking it as if it were a holy sacrament. His cock almost became flaccid, but started to become hard again as I worked my tongue around its head adoringly. He appeared reluctant to for me to stop servicing his proud tool, but I broke off my attentions as my thoughts turned to Des. "Thank you. I hope that was what you wanted?" "Me gotta go." "Please, let me I at least buy you a coffee." I said with a rather pathetic voice. I doubted whether he could have seen my plaintive expression looking up as I marvelled at his almost iconic black masculinity, still searching my heart for an ideal that I might never discover. "Come along, we walking." Somehow, amongst the chaos of drunk couples and milling crowds I managed to find the welcoming glow of a cafe in Old Compton Street. We sat overlooking the random collisions of gay men spewing forth from the nearby bar, picking up their one their one-night-stands with a repetitive efficiency.
My friend sipped his rum and coke, perhaps curious at the fluidity and ease of gay liaisons. "So this is what ya like?" I wondered if he intended his remark to have such accusatory overtones. "Not really. I sometimes go to those places. I have never really felt that I'm part of it. They're just places like any other. People meet, explore eachother's surfaces, loose themselves in the moment. What else is there?" "So what ya looking for?" It seemed that my world resonated with echoes of the past. Phrases recurred, haunting me like visitations. "Mind if I ask your name?" "Spinah." He gave a broad sneer-like grin and extended a large hand laden with gold rings. We brushed palms as I looked away from his unrelenting stare. "I'm Graham. What do you do in Soho?" My question was met with a stark silence. I sipped uncomfortably at my venomous green absinth. I noticed that he wore an eternity ring. It seemed to scatter the light in a most extraordinary way. I became momentarily hypnotised by the interplay of light, gazing into some inner cosmos, as it somehow extruded its substance into my fleeting ponderance.
Spinah finished his drink as I signalled to the waiter, ordering another round of drinks. "So how many girls have you fucked?" I said incidentally, drawing his gaze sharply from the street and the melee of random faces, swept along by a million different thoughts. Spinah seemed momentarily taken aback by my question, then his face flashed annoyance. "Ya nosy bway!" I decided not to pursue my line of questioning. I guessed that he may even have lost count of his conquests. "You will have to excuse me, I was being a little presumptuous." "Me know how ta wine dem girls good." "I bet you do. Practice makes perfect, as the old adage goes." I had often observed that true players rarely boasted of their sexual exploits. They remained discreet, perhaps so as not to jeopardise their future chances with a reputation that might proceed them. Even in a populous city like London, word might eventually get around of caddish behaviour.
I started to feel a little bleary eyed with the drink and propped up my head on the table, glancing appreciatively at the handsome guy sitting opposite me. "I am wound-up Spinah. I dunno... Perhaps I'm just lost somewhere between obsession and madness." I sighed. Spinah's eyes became ponderous as he gazed through the anonymous macho clones and immaculate queens who hurried past or lingered a while as they flitted over other men with ravenous eyes. Time seemed to elapse and the seconds extended into their own expanding eternities. When he turned it seemed that he had journeyed somewhere distant. "You just gotta live. Some things ya choose, some things are chosen for ya, that's just how it is." "I guess so, I suppose I should let fate take its course and just seize the moment when I can." His roguish smile lifted me from my reverie. "Follow me, and no badda say anything." Spinah's eyes darted about as he got up and dodged waiters, laden with plates and headed for the toilets. I waited a moment then made my way to the back of the cafe, discreetly following him,but loosing sight of him as he descended the steps.
The toilets seemed surprisingly fragrant and I noticed that one of the cubical doors stood slightly ajar. I cautiously pushed it and found Spinah, holding a small plastic bullet shaped device. He held it to his nose and inhaled sharply while blocking the other nostril. "Dis'll relax you." "Oh really?" I said with a sardonic grin. He laughed to himself. "Go on, ave a bump of K." He handed me the small perspex device with and told me to snort the speck of white powder within its chamber. "This one's on da ouse. Looks like ya need it" "Oh great, thanks." I said trying to be gracious and taking the device, inserting it into a nostril. Did I really look like some strung-out speed freak? He reached around me and bolted the door as I sniffed up the caustic powder and waited for something to happen. "It'll come, jus wait." He said assuringly, rubbing his crotch though the baggy fabric of his gangster jeans. "You know what I want..." He half whispered in deep, dulcet tones. He partly unbuttoned his jeans, allowing them to rest on his thighs and leant against the grey paint flecked wall. I fumbled slightly with the two buttons of his boxer shorts, crouching down on the slate tiled floor. As soon as I released the second button, his dick sprang proud from the flies in all its potent majesty. I kissed the head adoringly like a long lost lover before slipping down its throbbing length, drawing back the foreskin with my pursed lips and feeling his thick girth filling my throat. He ran his fingers through my lank blond hair as I struggled to accommodate his twitching manhood. I pressed my hands to the wall as I worked dutifully back and forth along his cock. "hmm..." He started to gyrate his hips pushing himself into my salivating mouth at different angles. He pushed my head off and grabbed at the front of my trousers. "Me want ta feel ya pussy." "You can't. I am saving it for someone. You can finger it if you want." I whispered, but started to feel a yearning for him in the throws of my burgeoning desires. I turned away from him and dropped my trousers just below the curve of my butt. I turned and saw him suck his finger, jerking his fat inflamed dick with his other hand. "You can't fuck me. I'm serious Spinah. I don't do that kind of thing unless I know the person." "Ok, I hear ya man!" Spinah seemed more than a little annoyed. I bent and leant a hand on the opposite wall, tugging at my cock with my free hand. Spinah ran his hand over my butt, squeezing the firm pale cheeks and making me tingle with his firm caress. His expert finger ran up and down along the cleft of my butt then rested at the entrance of my tight hole pushing gently at the unyielding sphincter. Again, he sucked a finger, while sniffing the first one.
His moistened middle finger rubbed over the entrance of my hole pushing steadily harder and sending little waves of tingling joy up my spine. Finally, as I relaxed with his sensuous caress, his finger slipped into me bringing a surge of pleasure that seemed to expand outward as he pushed in further, exploring my soft yielding butt hole.
I jerked myself as fucked me with his thick finger, pushing deeper and faster. "Nice pussy, nice n tight for me" He whispered as he quietly groaned his appreciation. His finger slowly withdrew. I felt his hands suddenly grasp my hips and in an instant his hot tool was pushing hard at the longing gateway of my desire. "No I can't. I want it but I can't." "What ya talking bout, jus free it up." He intoned in a harsh whisper "No, I don't do it just like that" "Get down on me then." There was frustration in his voice. I turned and crouched back, before him like a penitent sinner appeasing an angry god with my display of humility and devotion. Spinah gripped my hair with both hands and yanked it a little hard, forcing me to speed up and bringing a slight pain as I desperately tried to keep up with his tugging fist.
He started to pant and I felt a slight trembling in his grip as his escalating euphoria arose into the rush of orgasm. I felt dizzy as he banged the back of my throat until he slowed and rapid shots of spunk jettersoned down my throat. He drew it out while still cumming and I watched in awe as his seed squirted from his ejaculating cock and sprayed over my face.
He examined his dick self consciously and carefully wiped the dripping spunk from the end before slipping his jeans back up. Without saying a word, he left, leaving me feeling hot and frustrated from the depths of my being. I zipped myself up and ventured out to wash my face, gargling his manly taste from my mouth.
I headed upstairs and back to my table but Spinah was nowhere to be seen. It seemed that he had been engulfed by the night . I felt unsteady on my feet as I paid for the drinks and stepped out into the drifting tide of faces. My footsteps seemed unsteady like a foal, newly born into a strange world. Lights seemed bright and when I closed my eyes, tapestries of interwoven images seemed lucid and richly textured. A euphoria and numbness gathered around me like clouds and I felt myself drifting into an altered state of consciousness. I leaned at the corner of a side street and closed my eyes. My mind seemed to conjure up shapes and forms that solidified then dissolved like a magician's illusions. I slumped to the pavement as my mind's eye travelled through the vastness some inner space.
Something emerged from the smoke and mirrors. A huge golden pyramid in some remote and alien universe. It glowed, basking in the reflection of an ancient, bronzen sun. As I drew near the laws of physics gave way to metaphysics as I passed weightless into a gargantuan glass atrium. I was no longer aware of the external world as a universe unfolded in my mind. Other travellers drifted here and sweet music swept over me, subtle and alien, pulsing in layers of ambient harmonies. A fellow traveller looked at me serenely and I perceived her thoughts... "Welcome to Zero G Club." I felt myself rising to the apex of the perfect tetrahedron construction and looked out upon a blanket of clouds, basking in golden sunshine. "Hey!" I half opened my eyes and the visions dispersed before the shifting and skewed aspect of the street like a puff of smoke. Someone gingerly shook my arm. "Hey, it's not safe to travel here!" "Huh?" An angelic looking oriental woman looked at me with worried eyes. "Oh, I was a bit dizzy, that's all. I'm... I am fine... thanks." I clambered to my feet tentatively testing my balance, still a little unsteady. "You should be careful. Soho can be dangerous sometimes. People can't always be trusted." "I am ok, honestly. I just need to sit somewhere... wait for the dizziness to wear off." The woman lead me by the hand along a series of narrow alleyways, taking shortcuts that I had not even been aware of. All of a sudden we were in China Town looking along the rows of restaurants and chinese medicine shops. She lead me into a quiet, dimly lit restaurant and spoke something unintelligible to a waiter as she headed to though a doorway and ascended the stairs. As I tried to bring my mind back into full focus, the waiter brought jasmine tea and a golden sachet containing a fortune cookie. He poured the tea and left me to collect my thoughts. I broke open the fortune cookie and removed the delicate strand of paper; "To discover wisdom, first you must loose it." I thought about the cryptic wording momentarily, then placed it carefully in the top pocket of my jacket. The waiter reappeared and poured some more tea, looking rather concerned. I started to feel a little self conscious as more people began to arrive and called to the waiter, offering payment for the tea. He smiled and held up a hand "No. No money. You go and come back soon." He nodded politely as I thanked him and bid him goodbye.
The cool night air seemed sobering and fewer people lined the streets. I wondered which direction my feet would take me. They seemed to have a volition of their own. I thought about going home but somehow I knew the night held more secrets that it sought to reveal to me. I made a wish and tried to look for shooting stars beyond feathery masks of cloud.
I turned randomly along the vibrant streets, stepping in and out of shadow. I passed shops packed to the gunnels with plastic renditions of Beefeaters and Tower Bridge. Union Jack T-shirts displayed proudly, in some ironic post-modern ode to nationalism. Every conceivable national icon seemed mass produced, dulled by repetition into a kind of wall paper.
"Yo Bruv!" I turned but knew in my heart that a wish had been answered. "Des?" A figure approached from the opposite side of the street with a swaggering pirate's gait, as if dancing to an soundless rhythm. I noticed a familiarity about the street and realised that at the next turn was the original place of our meeting. I looked in vague disbelief as he sauntered up to me and grinned broadly, his gold tooth glinting in the gloom. "Hey bruv, where ya been?" "Nowhere really, just looking around." In my mind, I wanted to tell him how much I had missed him but it seemed inappropriate and the meanings of such expressions of endearment seemed to have lost their substance somehow. They had become mantras to insincerity. He stood close and I wondered if he could sense my soaring `joie de vivre' as I looked at his face in silent wonder, ineptly trying to disguise my true feelings. "Ya missed me them." He spoke as if it were a statement of fact as I looked over his gentle features and dark seductive eyes. His dress sense seemed a little more conservative than previously and his tight sweatshirt bore no obvious logo. Beneath it, powerful and defined muscles swept down in a classic "V" shape to where his undulating abdominals rippled under the fabric suggestively. "Why would I miss you?" I said defiantly, trying at the same time to convince myself that he meant nothing to me and I could topple the pedestal on which I had placed him upon. "Anyway, how did you know it was me? There's a hundred white guys walking along this street..." "I juss know! I remember ya walk. I remember cuz ya never free up ya pussy fa Des." "Why would I do that when you can get it any time from one of your bitches. How is Battersea Dog's Home these days?" "Ya fukin rude-ee! Who d'ya think ya talkin to?" I sensed that his hot blood rising, so I made a rapid apology before his quick temper got the better of him. "Supposing that I did miss you, what difference would it make? You don't really care about me... I'm just another piece of white trash drifting the streets. I bet you don't even remember my name..." "I do." He said decisively, fixing me with a cryptic stare. "It's Gray... Graham. I always remember a face." I tried to conceal my surprise as I felt my heart soaring; hidden like truth and obscured by the random abstraction of clouds. "Would you care for a coffee?" I said rather formally, looking him in the eye with renewed vigour. "No. There's a party. That's where we're headin." "Ok, if you say so..." Des looked pleased with himself as he lead me though vaguely familiar streets. Soho possessed a chameleon like quality and familiar buildings reinvented themselves in rapid succession. There was no constancy or solidity about it. Facades altered and names changed. Somehow, It seemed charged with the same amnesia that clouded the minds of those that wandered its streets and I was following Des though its shifting sands.
I noticed that we had strayed its boundaries and entered into Theatreland. The bright dazzling lights of West End shows proclaimed themselves like brash soap actors; drowning in visual clutter and hackneyed anecdotes.
Des walked ahead of me as if the street belonged to him. He was a proud young colt, magnificent and un-tamed. He was a dark Pegasus, leading me into the deepening night on the wings of dreams. I struggled to keep up with him as the night streamed by in the blur of headlights and merging faces. My heart seemed to race to the quickening pulse of a city lost in forgetfulness. A city that pulsed like a heart, fuelled on adrenaline, caffeine, coke, speed. Whatever, however, just choose your poison and let go... The day was just the languorous opening of an eye that waited for the oblivion of darkness.
"Dis is where it's at..." "huh?" "Yeh, just here, come on, check this shit." We detoured from the rivers of light and headed to the back of a theatre concealed in the ciascuro of looming shadows. "What ever happened to Baroque, Des?" "Forget Baroque! things move on..." He laughed to himself as we approached a shallow alcove beneath an ornate and dimly lit archway. Before us, seven door buzzers, each glowing in its own faint green corona. "Juss press da magic number.' Des stabbed at the top buzzer and shortly afterwards, a faint female voice came though on the intercom as I stepped away from the doorway feeling a peculiar sense of foreboding. "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him." Des spoke the few words with an almost cut-glass English accent and I recognised them as a quote from Voltaire. The buzzer sounded and Des pushed it open, privately amused with himself. "some doors should never be opened..." He said with an enigmatic smile.