I wasn’t ready to go home, so I paused for a cigarette, bothered only once by someone borrowing my lighter – so tedious. The man was handsome in a somewhat generic way, and obviously keen to strike up conversation, but I could already see that he was on the turn. The hair will go first I imagine, and then the jowls will set in. I didn’t have the inclination to invest even a minute on that trajectory. I walked around Soho for a bit, looking in shop windows and weighing up whether to have some dinner. It was only 8 p.m., so I headed for my favourite Italian spot, which has counter seating and doesn’t make you feel strange for dining alone. It is one of life’s great pleasures to eat without anyone talking to you. What could be worse than a bad date with good food? How can you appreciate what you’re eating when someone is telling you about how they really don’t understand the fun in reading. Or worse, telling you that their favourite film is Goodfellas. Liking Goodfellas over all other films means the man has never bothered to cultivate a personality.
After a bowl of cacio e pepe, another glass of wine and a macchiato, I looked at my watch and saw that it was already past 10 p.m. Funny how thirty minutes with colleagues can feel like an eternity and two happy hours with just your own thoughts can pass by in a flash. I think I’d known the whole time I was sitting having dinner that I could drop into the Chinatown dive that Lee frequented. Perhaps that’s why I’d lingered so long. I’d not been thinking it consciously, but as I paid up and walked into the street, I knew that it had been lurking in my mind. It was still a little early for my uncle, and I didn’t even know if the bar was open on a Tuesday. But sex isn’t solely for Saturday nights, and Lee didn’t seem to stay in very much – if ever, so I thought I’d chance it. Besides, I was keen to push on with the next part of the plan, and I had to be more assertive from now on. I had to persuade Lee to come with me to Mile End. This might have seemed impossible, given that we barely knew each other, but I suspected that his need to seek out risk and his low tolerance for boredom meant that he’d go for it. Men like Lee don’t require the levels of trust that other people do. Simon would never take up an offer like the one I was going to give Lee. But Lee had the perfect combination of not being smart, and very much thinking that he is. It’s a heady mix, one which made me pretty confident that he’d be up for the offer. I just needed to pin him down.
I walked to the bar. I wasn’t dressed for a sex party, in my work clothes and woollen scarf and hat, but it was a Tuesday night, and this establishment could hardly demand sartorial excellence when it seemed to imagine that an abundance of red carpet gave off an air of opulence.
The place was fairly empty, which was unsurprising. A few couples sat having drinks in low velvet chairs, while a slightly too drunk man in a leather jacket stood at the bar and perked up when he clapped eyes on me.
‘Can I …’ he said as I took my scarf off.
‘Absolutely not, no,’ I replied and stared straight ahead. Never be kind to men who seek to engage you in conversation. Even a polite brush-off comes off as a challenge. Especially in a sex club.
I gave myself an hour. If Lee wasn’t there by 11, then I was going home. I very much subscribe to the adage that nothing good happens after 2 a.m., and in this place, it was prudent to knock a few hours off the rule.
Eager not to give the man next to me any further opportunities to talk to me, I took my drink and went for a wander. In a room just next door to the accessible toilets （did Westminster council enforce these rules in sex clubs as strictly as they did in Starbucks?） I found two men and one woman having a threesome. This many people trying to pleasure each other has always seemed like one too many to me. How can you concentrate on your own orgasm when you’re having to think about whether someone else is being neglected? In this situation, there was a clear difference in the levels of attractiveness of the two men, which I imagine they all knew but could not address. One man had a gym-honed body, in that vain way that suggests he spent a lot of time creating the appearance of strength but likely meant he had very little. He looked as though he could chop wood with his bare hands, but his manicured fingers suggested the idea would appal him. The other guy had a sizeable belly on him, and back hair, which I refuse to accept is attractive to anyone in the modern age. You don’t get points for keeping yourself warm. The worst thing about him was his bottom, which had a pretty serious case of acne. Even the forgiving lighting couldn’t conceal it. Grant me the confidence of a man who can go to a sex club with a spotty arse. Truly, it was body positivity in the unsightly flesh.