All These Deep Impulses Roaming Around

Ok ok. Sorry to leave so many deep impulses wandering around our space without any anchoring for days on end. Suzanne is a little voiceless while WB lives out some narratives he doesn't yet know how to tell and waits. Not for an Austinian Pride and Prejudice set-up. (Those typos'll getcha and you're bound to make them writing incidentally on a blog). But for an Augustinian conversion. Oh yeah. He's working. Way too much. Too. Is it too late to have loved you?

Meanwhile, the leash was maybe the best part. It was hanging from my belt out of use Friday night just after I got in. T had come in the day before for a work meeting. And a night out. I got in. We made a run for the goods. Like last time around. Same place same guy. Unfortunately different goods. The connection gave us an extra hit. Which he told us was because it was crumbly. Turns out it was crummy too. We don’t do this often enough to have a tester. B had told us his friend R had said that the e in Berlin was bad. We shoulda listened and cancelled the run. ‘Cos it was terrible. Fine coming on. Then clenched jaws and angry. We had words in the subway on the way to Perverts. Where we will not go again. The echte Berliner boycotted. All the big parties. Except for A. Who we saw out on Saturday. I still remember the way he looked at me. On Saturday. How he looked at me six months ago. I remember that too. I like remembering being seen by him. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Because we were having at each other. In the difficult way. In the train on the way to Perverts. Because while it was coming on I had been saying to T. That I was possessed. B again. That B. Like some others. Was in me. Still. Telling T how it was. How he maybe could be. T. Given B. In me. We’re working it out. Desire is not fair. Ways of dealing with it can be. So far so fair. Basically. With some beautiful mistakes. (Barthes again! I’m reading the recently published seminar that made for the Fragments. Barthes saying there. “Destiny is to be struck by Error. (Error is a god: the goddess Error. Why can’t we build a true Pantheon? The Pantheon of our desire.” Me moaning with pleasure recently reading that in bed.) T and I both separately and independently wished B happy birthday today. And here I am doing it again. Sorta. Happy B-day B!

So Friday we weren’t actually in bed too late. Not much to tell about Perverts. One nice moment. Maybe I need to let T go more. Let him go out on his own. I let him go at some point. Sat with my jaws clenched on a sofa. Drinking beer or water. T went for a walk. A while later on, I got up. Found him in a dark corner. Going to town. I joined in. We went to town. For a good while. Thank goodness. Because other than that? It was a bunch of foreigners wandering around a party looking for where the party was. “Maybe.” The drama queen I also am said at some point to T. “Maybe this is just the dystopia.” Like after the utopia of last time around. But that’s a load of drama-queen shit. Because last time took place. Took place and took time and took words and made me cry lots once it was gone. And I don’t really believe life works in flip-flops between good and bad. There’s always more.

Also? We hadn’t really eaten very well. A hot-dog chopped up drowned in ketchup and curry powder that you eat with a little fork. You eat the pommes frites with the same fork. Pomm-es. The Germans say like it has two syllables. All organic. For real. The hot dog stand says so. We always stop at the same one. Just not usually for our main dinner. This meant that when we got up on Saturday we were starved for Fruhstück. Still at C and L’s. Which is really turning lovely. Comfortable. Campy. Multi-lingual. Lots of laughter around the breakfast table. And? A really sweet Tillmans montage on the wall across from where T and I were sitting. Like Tillmans pictures. In a collage with pictures of them. And a couple of Tillmans’s beautiful after-eating shots. Or after-breakfast. And C and L seem in a good place. I know absolutely nothing. Or very very little. Of their history. But that was nice to see. And be a kind of part of.

Saturday after Fruhstück was Folsom Europe Fair. I’m sure you know how this goes. Mostly lots and lots of men. Some women, too. And? Because we were in Berlin. Even a family or two parading by with a stroller. And wearing the little sticker that says you contributed. But mostly men. Dressed up. Parading around. Drinking beer. Eating sausage. Or? Sucking pig. Quote unquote. It was on a spit. And the stand said. Sucking pig. Quote unquote. It’s funny. Because while we were in Croatia. We had sucking pig, too. Quote unquote. The waitress even said so. “I recommend the sucking pig.” We recommend it, too. Particularly at this one grilled goods place on this island in Croatia where it was actually delicious. I’m not sure there was anything particularly suck(l)ing about the pig on a spit of which we partook in Berlin. Because it was actually a little dry. But yummy. Lots of beer. Well, not tons. Probs 4? Over the course of the day. And lots of conversation. Because you know what? We’re sorta becoming part of a scene. If not a gang. Which is nice. To wander around and bump into people you find things to say to. And they to you. We’re still not great at meeting people. Is anybody? I mean. Really good at meeting people? Sure. I know some networkers. But actually meeting people? When you meet them they interrupt things. And at the moment. I think T and I have a lot going on. Like we’ve got enough interruptions. Or enough occasions for them. All these deep impulses roaming around. You said that very well. Actually though. Now that I think about it. There are F and P. Who were staying in a studio together. Who I’ve seen around on the scene. T met F in the plane on the way there the day before I came. We didn’t fuck. And might well not. But we kept running into them. And chatting. Really pleasantly every time. I think we may have met them. We’ll see how it pans out.

I did get chatted up by an H. Which could have been useful for our alphabet. Hence for my real writing. Whatever that is. Augustine. Proust. Corked-wall. Etc. This is one of my operative fantasies. That I’m not really writing yet. Even here. Probably should work on that. Am actually. Working on that fantasy. Writing here. So anyway. H. He smelled like he had already been at it for hours. Stinky hot leathers. Sexy face. Like the other echte Berliner he was boycotting the big parties. When I told him I’d been to Perverts on Friday. And was going to Pig on Saturday. In other words. The two big parties. Must have been that that made him say he had to pee. And he walked away. Even though I made it clear. Against my best interest. That I fully supported the echte Berliner’s move to boycott the parties on the grounds that they were too expensive. And made for tourists. Like me.

At some point. Around 5 in the afternoon. T said. “We’ve seen everybody but B.” I cracked out my cell phone. Texted B. Quoted T. “‘We’ve seen everybody but B.’ Dixit T. Where are you?” B wrote back. “B is waking up, getting ready and on his way.” I think I went to the bathroom. That’s funny. I almost wrote birthroom. Instead of bathroom. I’ll have to tell my shrink. Anyway. I came back from the bathroom. Or getting more beer. No ! Actually I’d been sidetracked by G. Who’s not (yet ?) a lover common to T and me. So he doesn’t qualify for the alphabet. Which is too bad. Or actually great. Because we need a G. G and J-M have been together for a long time. I think their letters appear in my last Berlin Chronicle. They would have W in their alphabet because I’m a lover common to them. I like them. They’re older. Not usually T’s thing. But. Now that I’ve written this. Which is of course not real writing. Haha. I’ll ask him. G and I had been talking about the American presidential election. And how nice Americans are. And how scary they can be. Because G and J-M had been to the States for vacation. Grand Canyon and all. A stop in Portland for leathers whose fame stretches all the way here. Lovely leathers. So anyway. Chatting about that with G. Then more beer or birthroom (ha!) and then back to find T. Standing with B and R. Who had traveled together. R. Who B often introduces. Or mentions. As the beautiful muscleman who used to scowl at him. Instead of talking to him. And now all of a sudden is his big buddy. And who is a delight. Though intimidating. Just because of his beauty and muscle. They had a swarm of Parisians. And a few Berliners. Swarming around. Some we know. Some we don’t. B took a few pictures. Only a few. But I was in one of them. B’s friend T. (Not “my” T). Says I look like a bus-driver for tourists. Which was not the look I was going for. But funny nonetheless.

After the fair. T and I went to eat. Yummy German food. Which doesn’t come along everyday. Decided we’d go back to the e we bought at Easter. For the big party. Far away. In East Berlin. New space. Beautiful space. But, Jesus. You had to get there first. There was a shuttle from a S-Bahn stop. But you had to find the bus station once you crossed Berlin to that S-Bahn station. Outside the S-Bahn station. On the other side of the station from the main entrance. Where we and a bunch of other guys in leather and other sundry were standing. We chased a bus. City bus. That read “PIG 2008.” I think that it’s only in Berlin that a city bus would ever say “PIG 2008.” I like Berlin a lot. We piled onto the bus. There was a sweet looking guy. Who chased the shuttle back to the bus station with us. When one of us said “Maybe it’s this one.” He started singing show tunes. “Could it be this one. Could it be that one.” I liked him immediately. We ran into him early on inside, too. Or saw him in action. I was sitting down. T had gone to pee. Some beautiful body sat right down next to me. Which already indicated interest. Because there were plenty of places to sit. We were early. For the party. A trickle of people like us wandering around the new space. Exploring. First time used for a party. Still some walls full of peeling paint. An old electricity factory. So the beautiful body next to me got and gave a smile. But it was early. Not too early for him though. Up came the show tunes singer with a friend. They must have known the beautiful body next to me. Because they kissed. And slid onto the horizontal cushiony space just behind us. And immediately. The beautiful body pulled out his huge penis and stuck it right into the show-tune singer. Without a condom. I hesitate to add “of course.” So I’ll keep it away from the phrase “without a condom” and say I hesitated to add it. Because there’s a lot of that understandably going on in a place like this. T and I looked at each other and sighed. And probably felt happy to have each other. And a whole mix of other things that I should probably explore here or elsewhere sometime soon. The dance-floor was beautifully set in place. A big screen playing porn above the DJ. Who spun for the dance-floor that was at the front end of a huge hallway with a glass roof. That had leaks. We know. Because it started raining outside. Out where the coat-check was. Bathrooms, too. Which meant that those porta-potties didn’t get used that much that night. The door to the outside was open all night. You walked into the hallway. Big bar on your left. Dance-floor to your right. The dance-floor was. Let me count. Maybe 6 steps up from the floor beside where you entered. So you could hear the music while you were milling about ordering your beer. But you weren’t drowning in it. And you could step up to drown in the music all the more effectively. And from the dance-floor you could take the stairs up to all the little nooks where circuits and circuit-workers used to work. Where we had come to play. And then you could take those stairs back down to the dance-floor.

The dance-floor is where the leash comes in. Maybe the best part. Besides the space itself. T had been sent on a mission. For his day without me in Berlin. To buy a leash. And try on a pair of pants with a zip down the butt. I forgot to mention that. Before we went to the fair. On Saturday afternoon. We went to Mr B. Where T had tried on the pants. But could barely fit into them. And was told that after a little wear and tear he would. But he wanted me to double-check. I did. With the help of the vendor who spent a good 15 minutes moaning and groaning with T so that they could get the front snaps snapped. They didn’t quite. But with a belt it works. And with a little time. They’ll snap. I love the pants. I love the leash. And I love T.

The leash was the best part. In part because T also had clamps on his tits. And when we’d go up the 6 steps or down the stairway from the nooks to dance. I would slide the leash under the chain between the clamps. And we’d dance. And I would wiggle the leash. Which T had to love. At some point I started telling T to invent gestures. Gestures for dancing. He’s started. But is a little resistant. Last night. We had trouble going to sleep. And at some point he said he didn’t get why his gestures weren’t good enough. They are. But it would be fun. If we could bring some newness into the world. Some more newness. Because here we are. Still. And that’s already new. While it keeps going on. So the leash was fun. For inciting gestures. It was also fun. Funny, even. Because there were several times. Where a big muscleman would try and plow through us. And he’d get caught up in the leash. And look a little silly. Meanwhile. T and I would smile. Because the leash made sense. A further translation of Berlin last time around. When T finally understood I needed him. It’s a translation of that attachment that literalizes it. A little cheaply, granted. But given these tough times. We’ll take what we get. And if we’re lucky. We’ll run with it.

The way back was the hardest part. Though even that. Shuttle jampacked full of men to get back to the station. Because there was ne’er a taxi in sight. And a long subway ride back. But we ran into people we knew. J. A sex buddy of mine. And his lover. And a couple of their friends. So we could at least chat. Which was nice. Even at 6:30 in the morning. After a hard night out. T and I fucked once we got back to the pad. And slept. Well. Until we woke up starving. And went to eat breakfast with C and L, and another visitor from near Leibzig. Back to Paris on a plane. We fucked some more. Since we hadn’t actually done that much fucking. And since then. I’ve been working like a maniac. Way too much work. Did I say that already?

Something else I said already. In Skype to B. Who wants to radicalize. I asked him what that meant for him. It had something to do with a tattoo. And other things, too. But it inspired this from me. In French of course. But if I put it in English. I think it applies here. “I think going radical maybe means seeing, recognizing what we are already. Because what we are already is not necessarily nice to look at. And it takes courage to see it. And then to show it. It takes even more courage. And making for the interruption needed so that – what we are already – is seen and shown. Well. That’s being radical.”

“Amen.” Said B.