to retrieve the heavy-duty gear, the scrubbing brush and disinfectant, the pine-scented detergent that burns off the surface stone from the ceramics and five layers of skin from my hands. There are some rubber gloves in there somewhere but I’m too tired to go hunting, I want this over and done with even if I go to sleep with my fingers stinking of this stuff enough to poison a room. At least it might scare off the mosquitoes. Tooled up, I enter the gents. It’s not so bad, I can do this on autopilot, bucket and mop to wash the piss from the floor, wipe for the basin and bottom of the walls, attack of the brush for the crap clinging to the rim of the bowl. For a fleeting second, I watch myself doing this in the mirror, I want to stop and banter with my reflection – you should see yourself pal, you look fucked. Darkness around my eyes, hair lank and greasy, skinny as shit, the friendly face of a psychotic is smiling grimly back at me, you looking for trouble? We both get the joke. Definitely the sexiest lavatory attendant in town tonight. So much for cool travails.
I stop. I thought I heard something. Could have been outside, could have been those two guys coming back after throwing up, maybe they saw the lights still on. Shit. I hear it again, it’s closer than that, it’s inside. This is worse, I can feel my heart begin to race to a faster beat, I’m suddenly wide awake, am I being robbed? I put down the brush and slowly lift the mop handle; if there’s someone there they are going to feel this, I work too fucking hard for anyone to come in and help themselves to what’s mine, I don’t care if it’s the biggest guy in the fucking world who’s about to beat me to a fucking pulp, I swear he’ll know about me and this wooden pole first. OK Martin, cool it, I tell myself, the adrenaline has got to be controlled, go deep inside, compose yourself and think, then you can take anyone. I hold still – the sound is coming from the women’s toilet, someone is in there. I wonder whether to kick down the door and surprise them. Maybe not, maybe it’s just a drunk who went in and fell asleep, it’s happened before.
‘Hola? Come out for Christ’s sake, everybody’s gone home.’ The shouting is loud, I’m sending a signal, I’m not scared you cunt, you’re not in control of this now. I try to turn the handle. It doesn’t shift, the lock is on.
‘Come on!’ I’m banging hard, maybe it’s a junkie, out of it and about to expire, how can I get in there without breaking my own door?
‘Martin?’
A voice, a female voice, small and fragile. I calm down.
‘Yeah?’
I hear the lock being turned. The door slowly opens.
‘Do you want to fuck me?’
It’s one of the Scandinavian quartet who were in earlier on. She’s standing stark naked in front of me looking kind of alarmed at the mop that’s pointed at her face. I hadn’t realized she’d sneaked back in, I hadn’t realized she was so keen or was even falling for the treatment. I take in the view. Five-foot-six, maybe seven, small by Swedish standards. Small-to-medium tits pointing east and west, tanned skin with tiny white hairs in a line from her navel to the chestnut pubes; wide hips, about ninety-seven per cent beautiful. She has a confidence that comes from being at one with her own sexuality, either that or she’s just wired on something, maybe just plain nuts. Anyway, it’s her that wants to cool the scene down, trying to fix me in the eye. Don’t be scared, Martin. I like that. I’m tired and I stink of bleach and I’m still annoyed that she scared me pulling this stunt but I know that I will fuck her, like I promised myself I would fuck someone for every shit night that I was stuck behind the bar, or for every hour spent talking to boring Danish sailors, or for cleaning the shitty toilets when I’m tired enough for a coma. Sure baby, I’ll fuck you, I have to, it’s my destiny. Sex is a talent. And I have it.
Another moment, the next one that comes in the sequence, or does it? In my mind it happened next but the truth will be that it was a few days later, for various reasons. The first was the sex; it was good, surprisingly good. The Swedish girl turned out to be German, I can’t remember her name, and it’s not really relevant. I remember her talking, until I placed a finger on her lips to show there was no need. I led her from the back through to the main bar area. She waited as I switched off the lights and lit the candles at the front tables. She was naked but comfortable with it, I liked that. I turned the CD player and amplifier back on, the disc I wanted – Roberta Flack, First Take – was already on, I had been playing this music more and more to wind me down last thing. Once it started to play I was ready to give my guest the attention she deserved, advancing on her to place a kiss on her silent mouth, gently forcing her backwards until she could retreat no further and her white cheeks touched the plaster walls. I tried to kiss with delicacy, no tongues, kissing only with lips, kissing lightly, briefly; kissing to set the pace, a tender pace, not rushed. I kissed her like this until the feeling was there that we were synchronized, that we were in tune, and then I began to explore the touch of her skin, a soft skin, perfumed with the moisturizer she must have used after her days in the sun. I felt her with the backs of my hands, brushing lightly down her sides, the tops of her arms, then massaging the tightness from her collarbone to shoulder. I turn my hands outside and then run them gently down again, this time the touch lingers and there is more contact, I let my wrists and forearms warm and rub against her, moving inwards towards her breasts, closing in to gently grip her nipples between fingers. My palms are still turned backwards so that when I slowly clench my fists they gently push each breast upwards, cupping them in reverse, softly squeezing each nipple. I kiss them with an open mouth, my tongue coating their tips and sides in saliva. The song on the music system has changed, Roberta is starting to sing ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, my hands release their light grip on cue and I bring them up to run my fingers through her hair. And then they go down again, down to her hips then circling in with the lightest of touch from my fingertips across the tops of her thighs. She shifts her stance slightly, kissing me with more urgency, parting her legs so that I can touch the insides of her thighs but again I concentrate on the lightness of my fingers, brushing the skin almost teasingly, dabbing the lips of her vulva with restraint, and then breaking off from her kiss to place one of my own behind her ear as my fingers make their way towards her clitoris. Her arms are around my neck, hugging me close so that I can hear her quickening breaths. I can sense her whole body tensing as the circle my hand is drawing centres more and more on her velvet lips and the moistness around them. She pushes her legs further apart and tilts her hips towards me. She lets out a sigh and then begins to sink, sliding down against the wall, down to her knees.
She unzips me and draws my cock out, she strokes me and kisses its sides. Then her mouth is open and I’m in then out of it, in then out. This is not unpleasant, but it leaves me with nothing to do. I turn my head to one side and see our silhouettes reflected in the bar window. A man is having a blow job, he’s still fully clothed. I feel remote somehow, even though that man is me. I pull off my shirt, throw it across to a chair; my aim is good, a thought that seems to demand my concentration more than it should at this moment. I bend to put my hands under her arms to lift her up. She looks puzzled – did I not enjoy what she was doing, was there something wrong with it? I look at her; no, nothing wrong, just me going mad, my mind wandering off for some insane reason. Occupy me, please, involve me somehow.
With one hand I separate her legs and with the other I guide myself into her, pushing hard, full penetration in one thrust. After the tenderness, the rough selfishness, my preferred combination. Show them a tender side, and a tough side, it works every time. I’ve seen women leave a gentle man for a rough one, and vice-versa. The trick is to offer both, to explore both. I think of good sex, the best sex, and I always think of Jim Morrison singing with the Doors, how his voice could be soft and gentle, but what gave his performance its edge was the knowing that at any moment it would break into something more base and brutal and that he was almost struggling to keep that element within him under control. That’s what makes it compelling, particularly for women who have their own take on this, that it’s their destiny to accommodate both in a passionate man.
So.
That was why we were now doing it standing up, then doing it sitting down with her astride, doing it both of us on the bar I’d only recently wiped down. I liked to look at her against the marble, her delicate tanned skin against the stone; I put my weight on her, pinning her down by the shoulders, pushing and grinding