1997-1998

January 1997

January 15, 1997

I was there 1 1/2 weeks ago and it was virtually closed, but 2 other guys were hanging around, one tall, one short, both attractive, and the three of us went in. The 'room' stank of shit, there was only warm water dribbling from the taps, the sauna was barely lukewarm, but ... The short one really wanted to fuck, so I ended up sucking the other while he was being fucked. After he came, the fucker wanted to simply change holes, but I insisted on cleaning him up first and after some unwanted pain, insisted on sucking him off. "Just a bit more."
"No. Let me suck you."
After humping on my stomach and having his balls sucked ("Ahhh"), he finally shot his load. Hard work.

This time, a cop was nosing around outside and I decided to come back later in the evening. Returned to the same, sad deserted entrance hall, cold and dark, and sat talking with the banshchik, hoping someone would show up. 'If my lifeline is cut, what will I do?' I wondered.
"How is your family?" I asked, knowing his wife had died suddenly last summer.
B: "It's very hard. One son is in jail... Why? Ah, just for hooliganism'. Seven years. When his mother died in August, I went to visit him in Navoi. He was as thin as a rail. He cried and begged me to get him transferred to Tashkent or he would die. I did all I could [the banshchik rubbed his fingers together to indicate a bribe] and got him transferred to Tashkent for medical reasons."
E: "Why is the banya closed?"
B: "A young manager from BVV [the trashy business weekly that pays me to translate bits of propaganda into English] bought it for some accounting reasons. He wants to turn it into a ritzy place for rich people."
E: "The reason I liked the Soviet Union was it was basically for the ordinary people and was down on people for trying to be rich. Ordinary people are nicer than rich people for the most part."
He nodded in agreement.
E: "The same thing happened to the banya I used to go to in Moscow. It used to cost a few cents. It now costs $10."

A sad evening, but he did tell me about two other banyas, one of which he disapproved of, oddly enough, because it "is full of gays." I still managed to get the exact location of it, a mere 10 minutes away by foot. I gave him a pack of Pall Mall for his son and checked out the location before going home. The old town was already deserted at 8:00 pm. On the corner of the building it is in, there was a public toilet still open. I went in, pissed, and asked the tough on the door where the banya was. He immediately twigged to me as a foreigner and gay, crossing his arms to indicate closed, sizing me up and down. That alone was pretty arousing.

January 18, 1997

The older man kept trying to make me jack him off and go down on him, but eventually took the hint that M and I were hitting it off. M is 26, 6 feet, and as close to a Roman god as I'll ever come to.
"Come back to my place," the words poured out of my mouth without a thought.
"Do you mean it?" he asked, his eyes lighting up. We shot the shit for a while, he asking me how I found this banya, recounting meeting a UNESCO official here in the cruising area in the center, with only a few words in English to get acquainted ("gay", "my name" etc). M immediately showed me where he had tried to slash his wrists ("I realized half way through that I still wanted to live more than to die."). By 6:00 pm, it was 'last call' so to speak, and we left. I heard him whispering to someone: "He's asked me back. He has an apartment." A twinge of fear, but a very small one. M had great vibes.

He appeared at the exit in his lumberjacket shirt, khaki trousers and black toque, like a bomzh [Russian acronym for homeless] but with class, not so beautiful as he was when nude, but solid, and with the natural lumbering grace of an animal. A slim centaur, with his wide face and soulful, Tatar eyes.

We walked about a mile down the faded Soviet-style elegance of Navoi Street, finally catching a bus and settling in for the evening.
"I'm still feeling like shit after all the bad cheap wine [bormotukha] I drank last night," said M.
He managed to put away a few hits with me, we talked, I showed him some pictures, we smoked, I suggested sitting more comfortably on my bed, and one thing seemed to lead as easily to another as if it were all scripted. He only enjoys fucking actively, it turns out, and his cock also seemed to be about 6 feet as well. It was a wild and long ride, with moments of ecstasy when he rested with this laser beam shooting through me, his tight, smooth chest coming down on mine, his musky, thick saliva mixing with mine. Just lying, smelling his hair, breathing his breath, feeling his powerful arms... He dropped off like a log and spurned my midnight advances, but began again when the trolleys woke us.

Thursday, we had oatmeal ("First time. Not bad. Russians say it's only for horses.") and sat talking when the doorbell rang.
"Do excuse me," said the landlady Sofia Garifovna, "but our phone is not working." She managed to get a peak at M, no doubt the real reason for her visit, but somehow I felt not a pang of guilt as she sat down inches from our scene of mad passion.

When she finally left, I made some lunch - scrambled eggs (a luxury now at 15 sums an egg) and unexpectedly he looked at me with his twinkling eyes and said: "I think I would like to drink." So we finished the bottle and slid back into bed with not a thought about SG...