Clubbing Pt. 01

It started in the bar on Newcastle Station.

I noticed her. You would. Would you expect a startlingly good looking woman to be sitting in the bar with a glass of red wine and two small suitcases that looked as if they'd done their share of journeys? I didn't. Maybe you drink in different bars to me. For my age, I have drunk in a surprising number, and they haven't featured women like her.

I wanted to consider myself cool. You do when you're a fresher at uni. You want the world to see you as cool. Not naive, or foolish, or over excitable, or stunned wby women who don't even know you exist. Just cool is all you will hope for.

She was reading. Not just reading though. She had a pencil in her hand, was underlining, making notes in a small pad that looked like the sort of notebook policemen have in old TV series. On second glance it wasn't a book she was reading. It was a journal. Sociology or the like. I wanted to take out a book to impress her. Elizabeth Freeman, or maybe Sedgwick. Trouble is you can't read the cover of a Kindle.

She caught my gaze. Smiled. Made conversation.

Holy shit. She was talking to me. A woman, real, well dressed, in her forties with a necklace made of beaten copper that looked like it was from the Arts and Crafts period. She told me about it; found in a second hand shop in Keswick. She told me about her work; a lecturer in Public Health and Nursing. She told me about her partner who'd be along to collect her as soon as he'd finished work. Her partner.

I told her about me. Student. Lonely. Isolated by choice, taking weekends away from York to stay in an AirBnB bedsit where I didn't have to listen to noisy flatmates braying about their lives, about horses and young farmers clubs. Telling her about studying business and wishing I'd chosen sociology so that I could do more Queer Studies. If she was telling me about her partner to say this wasn't a conversation about sex or desire, I could do my own kind of boundary marking.

Except...

Except I desired her. She made me feel, in just a few minutes, alive and bright and engaged with thought, with someone who could dissect my comments in a gentle but sharp edged way. You know how a paper cut doesn't hurt until you see the blood? When she asked about whether my sexuality made me want to read queer studies or whether it was a theoretical approach to the only way of making sense of the world I felt like she was really asking if I was a virgin. The answer, sadly, was no and yes. I'd had sex, with a girl at uni, and with a boy in the summer in Malia, but neither left me feeling I had had the sex I wanted. The girl made me take a photo of her back as she rode me like a cowgirl, facing away from me, so she could show her friends. I felt as if I wasn't there. The boy in Malia, a classmate on our post A Levels trip, only wanted me to prove to him that I had passed my O levels, and didn't want to ever talk again about the way he'd come as I'd fingered his bum.

Did I blurt this out to her? Of course not. Just cool, remember?

Did she find it out? Yes.

By the time her partner arrived we'd got all the way beyond how I shaved my legs compared to how she did hers, whether I believed in polyamory and what I felt about public sex and swinging. We laughed about that being a theoretical discussion, for me at least. I didn't feel put down. She made me feel we were discussing what I would do when I had the chance, not if.

My cock was aching thinking about her choices. I felt that acute sense of depression that I got in my fleeting glimpses of other men having casual sex when I used to ride my mountain bike down to the nature reserve that last summer, watching but never feeling I could join in. Was I supposed to be an observer again?

Her partner didn't help the situation. Clean shaven, tall, medium build, with greying hair that didn't try to fight the receding hairline. Soft trousers in a natural material, a check shirt with a small tie that said 'business like' but with a twist. The kind of man you wish had been giving careers advice at school, or telling you what to look out for when you're househunting on your own. The kind of man teen porn stars call daddy as their clothes miraculously fall off in front of him.

They had plans, apparently. To not appear lonely, I told them so had I. I needed to check into my AirBnB. Some Fridays when I'd done this I'd made my way to Shieldfield and the AirBnB one pub at a time. Yes, I know the stats about queer people and drink, and drugs, and harmful behaviours. I'm still me though. When they suggested I might like to meet them in Time Square for a drink later, before they went on to a club I was beyond relieved. I was exultant, even if it meant a fast dash to Shieldfield.

OK, so I'll admit it. I got to Time Square not expecting them to be there. They were though. She was in a vintage dress and lace up high heeled shoes that whispered volumes, he in a tweed jacket with a leather backpack too small to carry much more than some moisturiser and some tissues. Moisturiser came easily to mind looking at him. And they were pleased to see me. Genuinely, pleased, according to both of them.

They were drinking non alcoholic stuff that I didn't recognise the name of. I followed suit. Did they need to know I sometimes wondered if I had a drink problem? No. Posh tonic water and the chance to feel as if someone liked me was enough. Sometimes emotions are strangers, and this one, of being in a safe place while far away from familiar security, didn't even introduce itself as it settled inside me. It just was.

Sometime around the second drink the penny dropped. They weren't talking about a club as in banging music and more fashion horrors than anyone should have to take. No. They were talking about a sex club, where they could go and swing, although both of them said swing in a way that put air quotes around it.

I tried to affect an air of knowingness, but it was obvious I hadn't a clue. It was also obvious I wanted an invitation. They knew. She smiled, and trailed a fingernail across the front of my trousers. She had known, she said, from about the moment I'd started blethering about queer theory. All they wanted to know now was could I go through with it, and play with both of them? Even if he was strictly a top?

I kind of got what I was being asked, and said yes. Definitely yes. I was terrified, and scared I'd say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing, or not be able to do the right thing, but I was still going to say yes.

That's how I ended up in the club reception, up a flight of stairs from a bar I'd read about in the local guide to gay venues, unable to summon up the courage to visit. No turning back now though - once my admission was paid it was straight into the changing room, and I was going to strip in front of them.

Apparently some guests kept clothes on to socialize in the bar. Keith didn't approve. I was to get my dressing gown on and follow Jen, while he would wait for us. Keith's approval mattered.

Of course I was in awe of Jen. She stripped with a show of confidence that made me shake. Could I be so brave? I could. Could I follow? I had to. From her bag she that I'd hardly noticed she produced some backless shoes, high heeled, some stockings, and a silk mans shirt that she wore unbuttoned 'to keep her shoulders warm.' The voice in my head that said I wanted to be dressed like her was another stranger that moved in and settled in my consciousness as if it had a reserved seat.

She held my cock through the opening of my hired towelling robe, and led me to the left out of the changing rooms, into a dark corridor behind a room where men were watching a porn clip on a small screen. The corridor had three cubicles with glory holes between them. Jen was calm, assured. This was my test. If I could go into the centre cubicle and suck cock, I'd prove I wasn't just pretending to be queer.

Could I? After all those hours at home studying videos of men doing just this, could I do it? I could. I could kneel there, moving my head from side to side, sucking each cock in turn. Could I concentrate on the cocks, not on Jen, watching me with her hand on her crotch, stroking herself? I wanted to because I knew she would notice if I wasn't. When the smaller cock to my left, smelling of talcum powder and soap, started to pulse I held it tight and milked his cum over my face so Jen could see it. She pulled me to my feet, licked up some of the cum from my face, squeezed my arse and cock, and told me it was time to play. What had I just been doing? Passing a test, of course.