I LIKE TO THINK OF IT now, from the standpoint of current sanity, as my “dissolute period”. After Mandla disappeared, and then Prince cut contact, I lost my bearings. Unbounded by political discipline, accountable to no one, I allowed myself the sensual life I felt I was owed, but I pursued it perversely.
I’d drop into a bruin café at lunch time, sample the osseworst or other fare, and drink morbidly over the newspapers, turning first for news of South Africa which, when there was any, would invariably dismay me. The country had become a cauldron of violence. Dutch politics had never interested me, to be honest, and I read the local news with a sceptical eye. I’d get drunk alone and then struggle to find my way home after midnight, allowing my bicycle to weave incoherently over the tram lines, battling futilely to get my key into the lock at Singel 500. Often one of the other squatters would find me there, leaning whimpering against the door, and let me in. The rallying cry of the squatter movement was a hollow one to my ears in comparison to the “real” struggle and it irritated me.
I was desperately lonely. I craved affection. I wanted a body in bed, someone I could cling to when I could not sleep at night. But after Oliver and Mauritz, I believed I was incapable of love and I did not want to be loved. I started hanging out in the gay bars, but their sexualised atmosphere only made me cynical. I persuaded myself that I was attractive. In the bars on the Reguliersdwarsstraat I’d drink for courage and then seduce boys with insouciant arrogance. If they weren’t interested in me, I’d tell them to “donder op”, to fuck off. I did things I’d previously hated about the gay scene. I’d colonise some corner of a bar, unbutton my shirt and let my eyes slide about the room until I had caught the eye of someone playing the same repertoire of moves back at me. Or I’d slide my groin against some stranger’s buttocks at the bar, anticipating an answering leer. If they were not attractive I would not go with them. I was not interested in their minds.
If they were, more often than not we’d go back to the Singel because it backed onto the Reguliersdwarsstraat. In my room I’d take my time getting their clothes off, running my hands through their hair, over their limbs, tugging their clothes from them. I’d savour the revelation of each newly exposed limb or flank, run my tongue over their chests, their nipples. I’d light candles and make them stand in the flickering light in front of me so that I could take in their bodies. Sometimes I’d find myself catching my breath and feel an aching need to possess them. But when it came to the act the romantic desire would dissipate and be transformed into something harder and darker. I was done with kissing and foreplay. I was drawn to the dominance of fucking. I’d be careless, foregoing gentleness for my own gratification, pushing them into mutually urgent, aggressive sex. My own gratification was all I thought about. Some took to it with rapture; some would be resentful in the morning and would leave as soon as possible when the trams started to run. Others stayed over and we’d have uitsmijters and coffee for breakfast, both of us often weak from a hangover. I would take their numbers, feign interest in their early morning small talk and never contact them again.
In the dark room of the Cock Ring late one night, I encountered a naked man. Dimly outlined, he seemed handsome, although his features were indistinct in the half light. They seemed angular and well-proportioned and his hair, which was dark, hung over his face. He kissed me, a rough, insistent, deep-tongued probe. I gagged as I pulled away from him but then brushed my lips over his for more. I was aroused. I wanted him. He pulled me into an embrace. I was up against him, our bodies aligning symmetrically. I could feel the vigour of him. He was a big, large-limbed man. I reached up to kiss him, but instead he disengaged, deftly flipping me around so that he was behind me, and pressed into me. He was erect and large and I could feel the tip of his penis in the small of my back. A sense of unease swept over me. This was all happening too fast. He was going to fuck me. I was caught in an ambivalent fear at the size of him and the subliminal allure of being fucked really hard. I realised that the rising scent of poppers in the room were loosening my inhibitions.
Before I could think anything through, he gripped me by the waist and then bent me forward. Reaching out in the half light I clutched onto a railing and steadied myself as he pushed roughly into me. I was beyond resisting, my protestations drowned out by the noise of the room. He was hurting me. I clutched at him from my prone position but he seemed to treat this as an invitation for more. He gripped me even more tightly and thudded into me.
I willed myself to go with the experience, to try to extract some eroticism from it, but all I felt was increasing panic. Then someone pushed a bottle of poppers under my nose – was it him or were there two of them? I inhaled deeply. A wave of sensation passed over me; it removed me from his awful thudding. I gave myself up to the sensation, but in his animal aggression, in the deliberateness of his assault, there was no empathy and I could not come. He – or was it his friend? – came loudly, bucking against me. And then he left. I collapsed against the railing. I lay there for some time gathering myself, bruised and throbbing. Bizarrely, I still felt sexual desire. I needed to come.
I looked at myself drenched in cum. I looked at the room around me.
Then I stood up. I went home. I showered. I crept naked into my bed and dreamt about the gentility and grace of Oliver and of Mauritz’s alabaster skin and his passionate need of me.
In the morning I bought a ticket to London.