Loud music. Deafening loud music in a hot room with dazzling lights. The air is stuffy but not with that musty, moldy stuffiness of old age: it’s stuffy from youthful life, exceeding life and sexual energy. It smells of sweat. Loud music and dazzling lights in the darkness, heat and sweat. It’s crowded, one can hardly move, bodies bump into each other while dancing, bare skin on bare skin.
The cool air outside in the back patio is almost a shock. It’s not cold, not even chilly, really. Just cool and fresh – so fresh after the heat and sweat inside. People talk, almost in whispers – it feels so quiet. Silence – at least, relatively.
And then back inside, into the crowd, bodies pressed together, sweat dripping down my forehead, my chest, my back. My tank-top and jeans are soaked – when I finally leave, in the dead of night, I can wring my dripping tank-top. The clean, dry T-shirt feels so fresh on my sticky skin.
By the time we get home, to their place, the sweat has dried in the cool night air leaving a cold layer on my skin. The hot water pours down on my head, running down my body, cleansing and warming my skin. And then the smell of sweat is gone, replaced by a more neutral smell of freshness and cleanliness.
I slip into bed, under the clean, white sheets, so clean they’re almost crunchy. They’re smooth and fresh, almost ecstatically pleasant on my skin. They smell nice, too. And so does my European (gender)queer ex-lover: we both do now, after our showers.
The light is dim, soft, warm. The sheets are white and clean. My heart is pounding in my chest – “Darf ich näher kommen?” – “Ja, natürlich”.
Their skin is so soft on mine – our skins are so soft – and so is their beard. And so are their hands as they lightly cup my chest, the scars, the breasts that once used to be there – as they hold my boy chest.
The Little Prince and the Fox 