Chapter Eight
Lex
Last Night
One thing I’ve never told anybody: I’m afraid of flying.
Petrified. Like cold sweats, shaking hands, shallow breathing, scared.
It’s why I only ever fly alone, because nobody wants to deal with that shit.
And also, flying with somebody I love? Having them be at risk of hurtling to the ground in a metal tube destined for death?
No, thanks. I can only just about cope with my fear for that kind of end for myself, and I’m not exactly my own biggest fan.
So, yes, the ten-hour flight from Seattle back to Amsterdam is agony.
I must sweat a litre of fluids. I am rude to cabin crew and fellow passengers alike.
I grip my phone so hard the whole time, I get cramps in my fingers.
But I need my phone handy because if the worst does happen, maybe there will be time to make a call and tell that person how I really feel, how I fucked up, how I didn’t mean to hurt them, how I’m sorry.
I just don’t know which number I’d dial first.
As the plane’s wheels touch down at Schiphol with a rude bump, I finally exhale for longer than half a second since we took off from Sea-Tac, and I smile at the endlessly flat landscape that stretches out beyond the runway and airport buildings.
It’s not like I grew up with mountains on my doorstep, but the Netherlands’ pancake-esque landscape took me by surprise when I first arrived by boat ten years ago.
As the train from Hoek van Holland shuttled me to Amsterdam on that bitterly cold morning in early January, I stared out at the horizon that seemed to go on forever.
It didn’t surprise me that many so-called great painters come from the Netherlands.
All that negative space. All that sky. All those clouds.
All that potential for light and colour, and yet it’s all too often filled with monochrome greys and greens.
I guess the so-called Dutch Masters had to get really creative to come up with something worthy of hanging in the elite’s drawing rooms.
Personally, I’ve never felt much inspired by the Dutch countryside – aware, yes, but not moved to create. But I have felt at home in this country from almost the first moment I stepped foot on Dutch soil.
Maybe anywhere would have done. Anywhere but…there.
I didn’t expect to stay here. I expected to get through the winter, out-stay my welcome at the warehouse/studio space I was squatting in, and then find somewhere else to go.
But once summer rolled around, it was hard to imagine leaving Amsterdam behind.
The sun brought all the locals out of their houses, like bears emerging from hibernation.
Days were spent on café terraces and in city parks.
Work was at the bottom of people’s to-do lists.
The late evenings were fully exploited with barbeques, canal-side drinking, and impromptu house parties all over the city.
And I wasn’t alone in Amsterdam. Furthermore, I wasn’t unusual.
It felt like everyone I met was queer or alternative in one way or another.
People didn’t blink at my they/them pronouns.
They thought nothing when, years later, I changed them again.
I became close enough to a few of them that we moved into our own flat-share and we cooked and cleaned for each other, like a real family.
And yet they also gave me space. When I needed to disappear for days when my work needed me, there weren’t questions or expectations.
And when I brought home a rolling carpet of different people from all points of both gender and sexual spectrums, and sometimes three or four or more of them at a time, I wasn’t judged.
My flatmates would sometimes even join in.
Yes, Amsterdam suited me. Ironically, the reason I gave my mum and family for wanting to go to Amsterdam – to find more opportunities to monetise my art – also came to fruition.
Within a year, I had regular exhibits. Within two, I was able to stop my full-time job as a barista, and I’ve only returned to shift work a handful of times since.
So I can pretend I didn’t lie to my mum.
I can pretend that this was my plan all along.
And yet, I don’t have a plan. I never do. I’m not supposed to be back in Amsterdam right now. My show in Seattle goes on for another week, and I’m supposed to be there every night to deal with press and potential buyers. But I hate that shit. My stuff will sell, or it won’t. I really don’t care.
Which is easy to say now when I know I can afford rent for at least the next year or so.
I just felt this pull to return. I’d only been gone a month or so, but it felt much, much longer.
I woke up yesterday and just had this pressure inside my sternum.
The kind of pressure that you can’t rub at to dislodge.
The type of pressure that feels like it’s compressing, stretching, squeezing from all angles.
So I sent some messages, found some flights, and packed my bags. I checked out of the hotel, emailed my agent to explain, and then switched my phone to flight mode because I know she is going to be pissed.
But she’ll get over it. She has before. She will again.
And now here I am. With nowhere to go. Nobody is waiting for me at the airport. The country is cloaked in darkness, and I don’t know what to do or where to go. I just know that I need this pressure to ease out of my chest.
Which probably means I need to fuck.
And that’s my decision made. It’s one am on a Saturday morning. QISS will only just be getting started. I can shower there and maybe just watch. Or maybe get railed senselessly until I’m aware of – and afraid for – every single one of my bodily organs.
This possibility keeps me company as I follow the crowds off the plane, through passport control, and to baggage reclaim.
It’s my sole focus as I get in a taxi and give the driver QISS’ address.
It’s all I allow myself to think about as I rub uselessly at my tight ribcage.
It’s what I soothe myself with when I call Roos’ number and there’s no answer.
Because to imagine her being happy to hear from me, to even fool myself into thinking she would want to join me would be foolish. Fucking, fucking foolish.
*****
“You have got to be kidding,” the man says when I’m finally inside the first set of double doors.
“I see you’ve missed me, Joel.”
“Like a verruca.” He glares at me.
“Now, now. Is that any way to speak to the clientele?” I say, squaring my shoulders.
He may be half a foot taller than me, considerably broader, and made of mostly muscle, but I know we have a lot more in common than we do differences. Besides, we used to be friends once.
“You still deem us worthy of your attention, do you?” he says and crosses his arms, making his suit jacket bunch up. He really does need to size up. If we were still friends, I’d tell him so; he’d like that little kick of gender euphoria.
I let my shoulders sag a little. I am too exhausted, too horny, for this. “Honestly, Joel, I’ve barely thought about you in months. Can I just go through and enjoy myself?”
He stands to the side, hands raised, but as I pass, I should have known he wouldn’t make it that easy. “Good to know you’re enjoying yourself,” he says, full of bitter sarcasm. “Wouldn’t want you to be worrying about the woman you abandoned or anything like that.”
I pause and gather a number of insults I could throw back his way, but none of them feel worth the energy.
Moreover, I don’t actually have a problem with Joel.
I like the man. Maybe one day in the future we can be friends again.
If Roos ever forgives me, that is. So I don’t turn back or say anything.
I push through the other set of doors and walk into the grand lobby of QISS, or Queer International Sensual Society.
Also known as one of the other reasons I choose to stay in Amsterdam.
The club’s usual host, Nadia, is there, checking in new members, and she doesn’t acknowledge me with more than the arching of one of her perfect dark eyebrows.
I don’t even give her that much as I roll my suitcase past the small crowd to the changing rooms. It takes me less than a minute to dump my luggage and jacket in a locker, and then I’m moving again, leaving the changing room and heading to the grand staircase.
I take them steps two at a time, eager to start something with someone because, if I do that, then I can’t back out. I have to see it through.
Tonight, the ballroom is hosting a mingler. A gathering. A very formal munch for the well-dressed and well-paid. Right now, I am only one of those things.
My first stop is the bar at the rear of the large wood-panelled space. I order a drink– a sparkling water with lime – and as I turn to face the rest of the room, I both brace and force myself to make eye contact.
I’m on my second sip of water when a femme has locked eyes with me.
They’re a light-skinned Black woman wearing a slim-fitting red dress that accentuates their wide hips and small tits.
I smile at them and raise my glass. They do the same and then lean closer to the dark-haired white masculine person they’re standing with.
Looks like this is going to be easier than I expected.
The next thing I know, they’re both approaching me.
Heart is the femme’s name, although I suspect that’s a lie.
He is called Phil, which could also be a lie, albeit a less imaginative one.
They’re here with a third, Justina, who is ‘slipping into something a little less comfortable’. Would I be open to playing with her, too?
“Yes,” I immediately say.
We wait for Justina. She arrives looking like a showgirl, all feathers and olive skin and glitter that I know will get lost in my most private crevices later.
Her body is tall and lean, a bit too much like Roos’, which has my stomach flipping, but I ignore it.
I’ve been ignoring it for many months; one more night won’t kill me.
“This way,” I say.
And I lead us to a private room I have the code for.
It really is amazing what you can make happen with just your phone on a twenty-minute taxi ride.
I kiss Heart first, or she kisses me, I can’t tell.
Phil’s touching me up while I do, probably disappointed when his hands come up empty when they slide up my chest. I take a crumb of joy in that.
I kiss Justine next, and she’s more forceful, more of a fight than Heart.
I like it. She makes my lip bleed, near one of the holes in my snakebite piercing, and that’s when I sink to my knees for her.
While I’m on my knees, my face in her cunt, Heart slowly takes off my shirt. She smooths her hands over my top surgery scars, she pokes and kisses at a few of the tattoos on my back, and then she kneels behind me and slides her hand down my trousers and into my underwear.
Her touch is too kind, too tender. It makes me sway and melt. I hate it. But with my mouth full of Justina’s pussy, I can’t communicate this. Instead, I push back with my hips, and that knocks her off-balance enough to stop.
I’d almost forgotten Phil was in the room with us, but he has no problem distracting Heart when he unbuckles his trousers and guides Heart’s head his way. I turn away from them and focus on Justine. She comes quickly and ferociously, like a storm that appears from out of nowhere on a summer’s day.
“Please,” I say, looking up at her. She owes me now.
“What is it?” Her dark eyes question me.
“Will you hurt me?” I beg.
She frowns and then adjusts her features, finding a sort of confident serenity. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” I say. Fuck, yes.
“On the bed,” she orders, and I do my best to ignore Phil and Heart and the gagging and grunting noises they’re making. I lie down on the bed and spread my limbs wide.
“Do you want to be naked?” Justine asks.
“No,” I say. I’m never naked. Not with anyone.
“Okay,” she says, and uncertainty drips into her tone.
She is not used to this. She is not well-rehearsed in taking the lead.
I bury my disappointment with everything else I’m feeling.
I try to put a positive spin on it. Maybe this means she will be less careful.
Maybe she’ll really do some damage to me.
“There are floggers and paddles over there,” I nod at the cupboard on the wall. She walks over and opens it up. It’s like a mini bar but with play implements hanging on display.
When she returns, she has a medium-sized flogger in her hand and she’s playing with the leather tresses, running them between her fingers.
I pull down my jeans, leave my underwear on, and get on all fours.
“Right, I see,” she laughs, and it’s coarse and almost unfriendly. I like it. “You know exactly what you want.”
“Don’t stop,” I look over my shoulder to tell her. “Just keep hitting me until I say one word.”
“Your safe word?”
“Yes.”
“Well?” She dangles the ends of the tresses over my thigh. It’s gentle and teasing and makes me feel nauseated. “What is it?”
I swallow. “Mari,” I say with closed eyes. “Now please. Make it hurt.”
“Very well, you strange little creature,” she says, and she lifts her arm.
I face ahead and take exactly what’s coming for me.