Full steam ahead

So god - I just - whatever.

I want to come home now. I am tired and exhausted and sunburnt and hungover and broken.

(Those two lines have taken about 40 minutes to type because I keep leaning back in the chair and staring into space.)

I went out for dinner on Friday night with some friends who I know from Uni.

Afterwards I was supposed to meet Ian and Andrew for more drinks but instead I decided to take a detour.

Reading this may inform your understanding of what happens next.

So yeah - I ended up there. On a Friday night, as I had done so many years ago.

I wasn't even "revved up" to want to go, I just thought fuck it. It felt a bit like going back to the scene of where you had a car accident just to stand there and be still.

I got to the change-room at about 1am, transformed into the white towel and entered the main arena.

Everything just the same as I remember it. Doors in the background slamming, men hanging around in white towels and trashy vocal house music playing.

Celine Dion singing "I drove all niiiiiight....." to drown out the sound of guys fucking.

I wandered around and became appalled at myself, that I used to engage with this environment.

Standing at the bar and reading a magazine some guy in his middle-40s offers me some CAT and the chance to fuck his boyfriend.

I shake my head and continue looking at the magazine.

There are private cabins, a sauna, jacuzzis and a large steam room. The view from the upstairs balcony is picturesque.

The "maze" downstairs where guys wander around in towels... where you hear slaps, yelps and guys moaning with their mouths full.

There is no nuance and no subtlety. There is just fucking. And maybe if you're lucky you'll get one in the arse and another in the mouth at the same time.

This is humanity at its finest, 1.30am

In the downstairs jacuzzi two guys are asleep.

The motor has turned off and the water is still, one of their towels lies in the damp.

I try very hard to resist the temptation to jump into the water and fuck one of the guys to wake him up.

The other thought is to push one of them under the water, to see how long before anybody notices the dead body floating. There is a gag about stiffs but I can't be bothered to make it.

Slumped in front of the TV are two elderly men, they too have fallen asleep.

The one has his mouth hanging open, the only movement comes from the light on the TV screen, as two young Eastern European boys fuck each other in the forest.

Obviously the film isn't that good because these two would have been awake otherwise. Maybe the plot was a little too complicated.

I decide I've had enough and I want out. This is not sexy and not somewhere I want to be. Me is bigger than this, standing around in a towel.

I'm back in the change-room putting on my underpants as a couple near me are removing theirs.

One of the guys comes over, grabs my crotch and says something like "you should not be leaving just yet..." His breath stinks of alcohol.

I remove his hand and shake my head. I realise that for the last 45 minutes I minutes I haven't uttered a single word.

You can come here, to this place, and get fucked. And then have a couple shove both their dicks in your mouth in the darkest corner of the maze and no-one will have said anything. Not even thank you.

By now the couple are in their towels. They're probably going to traipse around the place, one of them will get sucked off in the steam-room, the other will stick his mouth into some guys arse and afterwards they'll both fall asleep in front of the video showing group sex.

I get home and I'm not even amped enough to have a wank.

Instead I go to bed and hope that my soul will have returned to my body by the morning.