Every word in this story is completely true, including me. Names and places are changed. Don't read this if you're in North Korea, it's probably illegal there. This is the first instalment.
It was early November and huge flakes of snow were falling silently on my winter coat. The wind was really getting at me. For winter in Moscow it wasn't so bad, only about -10C, but I wasn't thinking about the weather. I was late to meet my friends at a restaurant whose location I didn't know, and I didn't really want to go.
All my new Russian friends had been bugging at me for weeks to come gay clubbing with them, but I wasn't so sure. Moscow has heaps of gay clubs, and the guys in Russia are just so beautiful. They've got that Slavic thing going. Perfect faces, clear skin, almost every single one built like athletes, and the way they are inside - strong, welcoming, hospitable - is just as good as what's on the outside. But I'd already been 'straight' clubbing, and the idea of more dark, smoky basements with awful Russian pop and unfriendly security thugs didn't seem too crash hot to me. Still, it was about time to meet some guys like me. I'm only human, I need sex like everybody else, and the internet is OK for meeting people, but they never seem as good in real life.
I guess I'd better describe myself. I'm bad at self promotion, but after all, you're gonna be reading about me, and you'll probably never meet me, so you might as well know what I'm like. My name is Heath. I'm 21, pretty damn tall, nice chiselled face, blue eyes, gold hair and a decent body. I have massive feet - size 16 (50 for you Europeans) - and when I was a kid I was a good swimmer. I used to play football back home and in Russia I know some guys on the university team who I've been playing with, but now there's snow everywhere and I keep slipping over. I'd buy some football shoes but I have to get them specially made. I'm not American, only been to the US twice, but there are some Americans studying here too.
I came to Russia to learn the language and meet the people. This place always fascinated me and I was keen to get past the stereotypes and learn what makes the place tick. So I saved up for awhile and just flew on over. Now I'm better with the language but still not good enough.
Back to the story. I had just got to the metro station I was supposed to find - Okhotny Ryad - and was no closer to guessing where the restaurant was. I looked around and saw a guy about my age standing on the street, probably waiting for someone. He was wearing a black cap and blue coat, and had sparkling grey eyes and a smart, friendly face. I offered him a cigarette (everyone here smokes) and asked him, in Russian, if he knew where this place was. I had the address and he knew the street, but I didn't understand his directions. I thanked him and walked in the direction he'd pointed, without much hope. But then he ran after me and tapped me on the shoulder, and said he'd walk with me to where I needed to go.
As we walked along the snow-covered street, we chatted about life in Russia and why I was here. Russians always want to know what we foreigners think about the place, and how it was different to what we'd heard. Where I come from there are four things associated with Russia - vodka, cold, bears and spies. The first two are definitely true but I haven't seen any of the other two. We were laughing about this - they always find it incredibly funny - as we came up to the restaurant. Our handshake lingered and I was going to get his number but you never know with these guys. They'll always go out of their way to help you but that doesn't mean they're gonna suck your cock.
I came in and the place looked pretty pricey. It had tablecloths, after all. Russia is incredibly cheap if you want to live like a local. A pack of cigarettes costs 18 rubles, about 60c, and a bottle of decent vodka is 100 rubles or $3. Bread and juice and all that stuff is practically free. Even at the good clubs the cover charge is hardly ever more than $5, and "imported" beer (actually made in Russia but with a foreign brand) is about $3. But if you want to eat like a foreigner, drive like a foreigner, or use fabric softener like a foreigner, you're gonna pay for it.
The father of friend of mine who also studies here is some kind of bigshot business man in Russia, and when he visited her he took her out to dinner, inviting me and some friends too. The food was OK and we drank Australian wine. The bill at the end of the night - which he paid - was over 37,000 rubles - US$1300. Damn.
I didn't feel like repeating that experience, so I was happy to find that the attractive 26 year old guy at the head of the table, with trendy clothes, was the manager (he was called Vitaly) and dinner was on the house. Drinks were free too, and I discovered that the point of being here was to get wasted before going clubbing. Every time I slammed down a tequila another one magically appeared at my place, and before long I was nicely toasted, staring at the Pepsi on my table and thinking the logo looked like the Korean flag.
And the waiter, serving just our table, man was he hot. He looked younger than me and had this amazing smile, which he looked like he was always trying not to show. He was serving his boss, after all. He had beautiful muscular arms and you could see his lean chest and six-pack through his tight white shirt. I made some joke in Russian about being about to pounce on him (their cool word for this is pronounced "attackovat" ;), and everyone went quiet. The guy next to me whispered that the manager gets a little on the side. I suddenly felt angry and couldn't realise if I was sorry for the position the waiter was in, or jealous that the manager got to bang his staff.
A couple of tequilas later some more gay guys arrived. I don't remember their names. Everyone here seems to be called Anton, Andrey, Sergey or Mikhail. They weren't much to look at, except one guy wearing very expensive clothes. He was pretty young looking with a deep tan and wavy hair, and I was surprised to discover he was 29. He was telling everyone about his unfortunate love life and string of failed boyfriends. Drunkenly I was thinking that only idiots believe in "love at first sight". I've had some long relationships - I lived with a guy for 14 months - but I've never really been able to call it "love". And I've never felt what the Italians call "the thunderbolt" (yeah, I just finished reading the Godfather, well done you literary types).
It was getting late and the guys decided we'd better head on down to the club. I'd heard nothing but bad things about this club, but Russia is all about new experiences, right? We got out of the taxi and walked down a long, narrow path knee-deep in snow. It looked like nobody much came out to these parts. We got to a black door looming out of the snow, with some kind of tunnel leading underground. The door had a bell and a camera on top. Mikhail, the stylish one, pressed the button, and after a while, the door clicked and we headed down a long set of stairs, no lights or anything. I was careful not to trip but it was too late for one of the guys, who was definitely feeling the tequila.
We got to another door, which was made of heavy steel with a little glass window. I could see a huge security guy peering through it at us, and a whole lot of shapes moving behind him. He let us through and I brushed the snow off my coat and checked it in. Entry was 50 rubles - $1.80 - which ain't so bad after all.
The first thing I saw through the smoke (cigarette smoke, they don't need fancy fog machines in Russia) was a whole lot of amazingly hot guys, with muscles rippling through their skin, dancing by themselves. The club had huge fans and was really cold, but these guys were 'in the zone'. The club had all these dark corners and nooks, and I could see guys leading each other away to them. There was a pretty young looking couple that looked like they were fucking in one of them and a few guys standing around pretending not to watch. So much for privacy.
My friends promptly moved over to the bar and ordered beer. Given how drunk we were already, this seemed like a bad idea, but I got one too and lit up a smoke. I surveyed the scene around me and tried to look cool. Somehow I always feel nervous in gay clubs, no matter how many I go too and I've been to a lot. The place had tables around some of the walls, and a huge screen had red and blue shapes swirling across it in time with the music. The walls were painted black and there were hundreds of people. Butch looking lesbians with intricate tattoos and their lovers' names shaved into their hair. Older guys hanging around the bar, silently staring, hoping to pick up, like just about every gay venue in the world. Younger guys eyeing each other off, brushing up against each other, offering and taking cigarettes and making that spark, that connection, that says just one thing - "I'm gonna take you home tonight, and you will be mine". We have all had that feeling and I was hoping to get it tonight.
I was staring at how one guy, wearing a super tight tank top and 3/4 pants, seemed to be rock hard just from dancing by himself. It was tenting out of his shorts and it looked enormous, I could make out the head on it. Nobody else seemed to be paying any attention, and I noticed a couple of other guys who seemed to be in the same state. Must be some way cool drug they got off a spam email, I thought, as my friends circled around me and started asking me what I thought of the club.
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I was rooted to the floor. All my attention was diverted to the dance floor, and every single other guy in that place disappeared. I had eyes for only one. He was just standing in the middle of the dance floor, staring, loosely holding a beer. He had dark blonde hair, he was nearly as tall as me, he was wearing a dark green and blue top that seemed to fit his athletic frame like a glove. I could see his pecs and tiny nipples sticking through it as he rocked on his feet, just watching the sweaty bodies all around him. His face was what got me, though. It reminded me of a thousand models, and thousand advertisements, a thousand beautiful angles and contours, combining to one amazing whole. He had green eyes that were really green, and he was looking in the direction of my group, frowning like he was thinking really hard about something.
He looked my way and our eyes briefly met. The frown didn't disappear, but there was a power in those eyes. Like a kind of electricity crackling in them. I could just stare into them forever. That fleeting second, in any gay place, where you feel like the other guys' eyes are burning through you, checking you out from top to bottom (no pun intended). This look must happen a thousand times in one night. We all do it, we can't help it. And then my friend spilt beer all over my chest, and I looked away for a second. When I looked back, just like that, he was gone. I don't think spilt beer has ever pissed me off more. I headed over to the toilets to clean myself up, and noted the guys lurking around the entrance. In the famous gay club tradition, the toilets were mixed sex, and there was definitely sex happening inside, but it wasn't mixed. Most of the cubicles had broken doors and left nothing to the imagination.
I could see one fairly young guy with his pants around his knees, kneeled over a toilet, hands on the metal wall, with two older guys fucking him in turn. One had two thrusts and then the next one had his turn. Neither of the guys were wearing condoms. The young guy was grunting and furiously jerking himself off. They looked like they were having a great time. I felt like I was in an AIDS-awareness commercial. A couple of lesbians were standing in a corner watching them, giggling. One of the guys just inside the entrance was damn hot. He caught my eye and brushed his hand lightly against my cock as I went in. I immediately became hard, but at that moment, I had two priorities - get the beer off my shirt and find that guy, whoever he was.
I succeeded in the first task and dodged the same guy coming out. But there was no sign of 'lightning eyes'. I realized I'd probably never see him again and felt suddenly empty. For a guy like me this is strange. I've never understood love at first sight or even love itself. I'm always looking, and I find great sex, but there never seems to be anything else. At clubs I play it cool. The unfortunate truth from my experience is that guys are most interested in me when I show no interest in them at all. In fact, the worse you treat some guys, they more they seem to fall at your feet. Love shouldn't be about strategy, I though, as I reached for a cigarette. Love should be about love.
I put out my hand to light it and someone grabbed the lighter from my hand. I swivelled around, saying in Russian, "what the fuck is this, a lighter robbery?" (although with my Russian, I think I ended up saying "what the mother eggs, fire criminal?"). Then I stopped. Lightning eyes was lighting my cigarette. He damn near lit my nose, too, but I didn't care. I was trying to think of something cool to say. He was so close, I could feel this amazing physical presence from him. His thigh pressed up against mine. I said "those are my friends". And pointed weakly at them, kicking myself for not coming out with something better. But he had a reply that was like a ready made conversation starter. He pointed to Alexey, the first gay guy I'd met here, and said in English, "I'm love with he".
The guy he was pointing at was the one who'd pestered me most to come out tonight, a sleazy but friendly 32 year old construction engineer named Alexey. I'd only known him two weeks, but he had a lot of friends, and a pretty famous reputation. In Russian they called him "zavodniy paren" or something similar, which roughly means "boy factory". My heart sank. Only a couple of hours ago, one of Alexey's friends at the restaurant had been telling me about the hundreds of guys in Alexey's life, exactly how long he fucks them before he ditches them, and why they can never seem to let go. Apparently nobody could refuse him.
At that moment Alexey had been going after me. We'd met outside an Italian restaurant as I was trying to find my way to the metro, and it was obvious he wanted to pick me up. I was making an excuse to go when a couple of his girlfriends rocked up, who were so beautiful and friendly that I couldn't resist their invitation to drink cheap Moldovian wine and watch Queer As Folk (in Russian). Alexey kept fixing me with awkward, minute-long looks, but I wasn't interested in sex with him. Eleven years is a bit too much of a difference, and there was just something about him I didn't like.
By the time we finished the wine, everyone was pretty tired and of course, Alexey had only one bed, if I stayed the night it would have to be with him. I'm well built and can fend off the most determined guys, and I resolved not to take any shit. We lay in silence for about 5 minutes and I drifted off to sleep. I woke up about 5 minutes later to find Alexey's tongue licking my jeans zipper, undoing it with his teeth. I pushed his head away and he scooted out of my hands, pinning my arms and legs with his, and pressing his pretty respectable cock up against my thigh. He covered my mouth with his and I couldn't push him off without bucking, which might have hurt him. So I waited for him to come up for air, smiled, and slithered out from under him. He took defeat gracefully and kissed my hand. But the next day I got a string of SMSes. They were in English, sort of.
":) you very beautiful boy. Y very likely me. Sorry of my night, I very won't sleep. You lips is very tested and softly kissed."
I've never been told my lips are "tested" before, but I guess it's the thought that counts, and I began to see why less determined guys would end up under his spell.
Back to the club, it looked like the guy of my dreams, Lightning eyes, was one of these guys, still under the spell. I mustn't have said anything, because he looked at me and said "But sometimes I hate he. Now I hate he." This was better. I asked him his name. He said he was Anton and shook my hand firmly, staring at the wall behind me. He studied Chinese language and politics at one of the good technical universities here. He was 19 in a month. He was from a closed city in the far north of Russia that foreigners may not visit, a nickel mining town. He had gone out with Alexey for 2 months, until he released just how many other guys were also "going out" with him, and dumped him.
After the first few minutes, I couldn't get him to meet my glance, and wondered what I was doing wrong. The conversation kept running into a brick wall and it was hard to keep it running. Suddenly a song I recognised came up in the other dance floor than ours, and he ran away from me to go dance. "Sure, leave me here", I thought, as he disappeared, but then he whirled around like he was wondering where I was, and gestured to follow him. I'm OK at dancing when I've had enough to drink, but Anton kept laughing at my style. I thought the Russian style, of hands in pockets and jumping around, was pretty weird itself, but when in Moscow, do as the Russians do.
He was obviously checking out the guys around me, and so was I. But my eyes kept coming back to his. He lit me another cigarette and we went and sat on a table on the sidelines. He told me he was here with his gay housemate Misha, then started going on about Alexey again. I couldn't figure out where this was going. He seemed content to have me follow him around, but he didn't seem too interested, and it didn't help that he kept talking about his ex-"boyfriend". But he said he wanted something to drink, and we both got a bottle of water. More silence as we stood and stared at each other, then some dude in a scarf, who must be the campest guy in the city, pranced over and pressed himself up against Anton, and kissed his neck. I couldn't understand what they were saying but it didn't seem like Anton was too happy about it. He pushed Scarf Dude away, grabbed my hand, and hauled me over to the dance floor.
We'd been hanging around for 2 hours now, I'd lost track of my friends, I was still feeling uneasy in this club, but I couldn't get myself away from Anton. Even when two young guys - they must have been about 16 - stripped off and started dancing against each other with the spotlight on them, all muscles and youth and sweat and energy, practically all I could see was Anton. And he wasn't looking at the other guys, other. He took me over to the seats in the dark. We sat next to each other and stared. He looked impassive, but his eyes were burning. Our faces got closer... and then some drunk dude crashed into the bench and we fell to the ground, one of his legs sprawled over mine.
We didn't break eye contact. We were staring at each other, lying on the dance floor together, and there was no way in hell I was going to get up. We edged closer to each other. At the moment, right there, we were the only guys in that club. Damn it, we were the only guys in Moscow. He smiled softly and our lips touched. Quietly, gently, we kissed. He put his hands around my neck and we kept kissing. I didn't give a damn where we were lying or who was watching. Slowly we got up, our lips still pressed against each other, our chests pressing together, our bodies slowly coming together and moving apart. I was his and he was mine. He ran his fingers up and down my spine, and I got goosebumps all over. He pressed me against a column and leaned himself into me, his huge cock hard as anything I've felt before, pressing against mine, both straining for release. Suddenly someone tapped me on the shoulder and after about 5 seconds I broke off and looked around. We were in the centre of the dancefloor. Our hair was messed up and there was dirt all over our clothes. The whole club was watching. I stared, horrified. Then everyone burst into applause.
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