As I was wheeling my beat-up bike thru the Kings' Cross red light feeling blue, a handsome young man, seeming lost and restless, crossed my path and smiled at me and I smiled at him in return and, encouraged, he approached and with wild eyes said, "Do you want to have some hot sex?" "Sure, with who?" I replied, somewhat taken aback. "With me of course. Do you want it?" "Yeah, but what do you want, money?" "Nothing, I just want to have a good time. Do you live near here? Let's go, I'm really hot for sex!"
"I don't live far but I can't believe you want to give an old gronk like me sex for free?"
"Why not? I can tell by your eyes I can trust you, I really want to get it on right now!"
"OK, I suppose so, I'm desperate, tho it seems crazy asking a stranger straight out for sex."
"Come with me to my hotel, I have to get my bag, I'll check out and come to your place."
I halted in my tracks: oh ohhhh! I said I'd wait for him and considered running away, there was something fishy in his mad eagerness, Kings Cross is the land of sub-humanity. But he insisted I accompany him and I did for I was horny and he was very good looking.
He dashed into a seedy hotel and came out with a tatty shoulder-bag and said, "Let's go."
"We'll walk awhile, I want to talk to you to figure you out. There's something wrong."
"I've run out of money, that's all, and can't pay my hotel bill and need somewhere to stay."
His story gets worse by the second and all the zombie desperadoes of the Cross stare at us as we limp by as if to say, "Another mug hooked by the gamble death does play with fools."
"I don't think I'm so keen, I'm desperate for a human's touch but I don't want to be ripped off."
"No, really, all I want is to have free sex with you, believe me. Are you into chems?"
"Chems? What do you mean? Chemicals? What kind of chemicals are you talking about?"
"Crystal meth. I've just had some. If I start acting crazy at your place, dont'worry, I'll come down soon and will just need more drugs to keep me going for your pleasure."
I knew it was too good to be true, so out of touch with reality he overlooked my grungy bike!
"Umm, ahhh, I'm sorry but I'm not into drugs at all, and ICE is the worst, it makes me sick!"
"But I've nowhere to stay. I had a fight with my family in Punchbowl and they threw me out."
"Why, because of the drugs?" (I'm sure.)
"No, my sexuality, I'm Mid-Eastern, they hate gays!"
I love Mid-Eastern guys so I'm still sucked in. "If you're cool, you could stay with me I guess."
"Great! I just need more ICE. If you lend me $100 I'll pay you back on Monday, I promise!"
"I don't have $100 and I wouldn't give it to an addict for drugs if I did, it's horrible!"
"I just rang a gay fuck-buddy and asked him for money but he knocked me back, we have really rough sex, I love it, he whips me and punches me about, I can't get enough! I'll give it to you rough as you want, you can bash the shit out of me if it turns you on, all you've got to do is give me drugs to power me up!"
Now he's scratching at his hairy chest, rolling his eyes and complaining of the long hard walk.
"You're really turning me off! I couldn't think of anything worse, I'm out of here, goodbye! You're too fucked up for me, sorry, I might be desperate but not that stupid!" What a life!
I moved off quickly and he yelled pleadingly, "Don't leave me! You've got to help me, please!"
He screamed and screamed, we were on Oxford Street and all the straight gays oggled us. I left him outside Headquarters where all the fast-food, dirty 'sex on premises' happens and I wonder if he didn't find succor inside those gloomy red-lit cubicles for the hungry blind and unzipped maniacs, his humanity frozen into submission by that nasty drug called ICE.
I went back to the Cross to my broke-down bike where I'd locked it and felt a sad relief, for all my gutter-level white trash deadbeat Skidrow broken-arsed dreams, I'd survived, thank no god, without drugs. I'd handicaps enough, I was even a Bohemian success story, so said an encouraging friend, but I had to bitterly laugh, it was all so fucking pathetic!
P.S. A few weeks later I saw his photo in the papers, face twisted in harried dismay, he was a witness at a Coroner's Inquest into the murder of an American woman found dead in her flat, her body under a pile of junk with cords wrapped around her neck. He'd admitted to having rough sex with her but was innocent of her death, they had no proof so they let him go, free to harass any suckers, such as desperate poofs, around the city. On the grapevine I heard one fool got sucked in by his sweet face and taken him home only to have his apartment trashed in a sado-masochistic flip-out. Thank no god I'm too old for it!
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