"The Bad Life" by Frédéric Mitterrand: the disturbing passages

Excerpt from the book La Bad Vie, by Frédéric Mitterrand (Edition Robert Laffont, 360 p., 2005), pages 293 to 307.

"The boy walks in the night a few steps in front of me. Dark-hued trousers fitted at the hips, narrow along the legs; white t-shirt that sticks to the outline of the shoulders and the line of the back; bare arms , a Swatch on the wrist, black hair with shiny reflections, released on the nape of the neck. Supple gait, calm demeanor, everything is beautiful, neat, irreproachable. He does not turn around, he knows that I am and he probably guesses that this moment when I look at him in lost profile, up close and without touching him, gives me violent pleasure. He's used to it. It's the fourth since last night, I wanted to go to a club I didn't know not yet before returning to the hotel and I noticed it immediately. Only for those who do not want them that they all look alike. He stood like the others on the small stage, his hands crossed back to mark the body well in the light, in immaculate boxer shorts, the Saint John the Baptist side that they instinctively find and that queers adore, but the face firmly drawn, the expression with character, look without sentimentality and a smile without rehearsing, an immediate charm that set him apart from the group of professional flirtatious people. I imagined Tony Leung at twenty. He laughed like he had won the lottery when I called his number and when he came near me I briefly guessed the smell of his skin, light cologne and cheap soap ; not those duty free perfumes they usually love. He seemed really happy to go with me; I sensed that he would be lively and fraternal. The rats swarming in the alley scurry as we pass, the neon lights disappear behind us in the half-light, the smell of the garbage cans fades in the sticky heat, and the deafening din of techno oozing through the open doors of everyone else clubs accentuates this impression of sensory deprivation where I focus all my attention only on him and on what I expect from him. Bad music grossly adulterated on the synth on standards that we don't recognize anymore but whose infernal rhythm bombards the whole neighborhood, staggers between excitement and stupefaction and intoxicates the desire that drums against the temples. It goes down a little in the underground which leads to the parking lot of the hotel. It raises its fifteen floors of mediocre international comfort above the crowded flood and the magma of nightclubs and eateries, sheltering a not too expensive clientele of tour operators who go out in the daytime in tight groups and stealthily taste the great thrill and fun memories before going to bed early behind the air-conditioned double glazing. But it has its roots in much more fertile soil: the kind of cave where the gang of taxi drivers indulge in vociferous card games in an atmosphere of a gambling den for kung-fu films commands access to a series of windowless rooms that are usually rented by the hour, and for a long time, even in perpetuity if you want to end it and pay the price. It is certainly not the worst place to die, anonymity and discretion assured. Naughty young people who would have had no chance on the numbered ramp take their revenge by bustling about in front of the pleasure cellars: they hold the keys, ensure the traffic which can be dense, read the meters, clean up between the passes. Rather friendly, moreover: they claim to know all the waiters by their names and treat the regulars to tips by playing the comedy of a hotel service. The reduced and the bathroom are very clean: towels wrapped in cellophane, paper cover on the bed without sheets, new carpet, chrome fan, mirrors everywhere and even on the ceiling for those who are interested. The room valet, as he elegantly calls himself, makes an attempt to show me how the television works and, gauging my seemingly defeated look, offers me, on the off chance, some tapes, no doubt intended to revive me. We laugh a little without really understanding each other, I give him the tickets for two hours with enough to buy another gold tooth and he leaves humming. We are alone. My boy hasn't said a word, he stands in front of me, motionless, his gaze still as straight and his half-smile on his lips. I want him so much that I'm shaking.

It's not just him that explains the strength of my attraction, it's also the well-organized staging that made me discover his presence. In each club, the boys stand on the brightly lit stage in small groups of four or six; they wear the distinct outfit of the establishment and its specialty, minimal and sexy: 1900 jersey with suspenders or cyclist for the athletes, boxer shorts, thongs for the twinks or pseudo-thugs, the fools are entitled to mini-skirts. They remain motionless, silent, bodies straight and legs slightly apart, looking absent or smiling depending on the class of the club where the upper category would rather ask that they be impassive, at least at the beginning of the evening, and all staring towards the semi-darkness of the room below, the semi-darkness from where the clientele observes them while being served glasses. The number hangs in the groin, prominently. Most of them are young, handsome, seemingly spared the devastation one would expect from their business. I will learn later that they don't come every evening, are often students, have a girlfriend and sometimes even live with their family, who pretend to be unaware of the origin of their livelihood. On the other hand, they all have a cell phone, an e-mail to find their most attached customers elsewhere and at any time, which suggests that the clubs take too high a percentage and that they are constantly able to manage alone. A few are older and there's also a small contingent of rough-hewn louts who obviously have their audience. This is the menines side of the exhibition: their presence brings out the youthful seduction of all the others. To the rhythm of the eternal techno, after three minutes, two give up their turn and go backstage, another pair replaces them and so on. When the whole troop has passed into the limelight, a sort of finale brings the whole thing together on a more triumphant air in a Gloria Gaynor way, the boys abandon their hieratic demeanor, talk to each other in low voices while evaluating the clientele with obscene antics and solicit more openly then the little merry-go-round resumes, a little less rigid and disciplined as the night progresses. At the hottest hour, when the room is full to bursting, the most famous clubs present what is called the sexy-show, a vague pornographic joke based on lasers and striptease which inevitably ends with the sodomy of a transvestite in an atmosphere of general laughter that is a little too outrageous to be completely frank. The artists who practice this particular number work like the naked dancers of Pigalle; we meet them in the street, drag queens in transparent chadors, hurrying from one club to another so as not to miss the show. For their part, the boys are attached to their club and do not change it. We imagine the negotiations, the shenanigans, the danger of not respecting the rules and what it must cost to redeem a little crush in order to get it out of the circuit. The expediency of cell phones and e-mails, prior to this kind of transaction, is only temporary; you never get lost in this sprawling city and you should not try to obtain a visa for a distant destination without leaving your affairs in order.

Behind the scenes is part of the show. Behind the stage or to the side, they easily reveal themselves to interested spectators; these establishments are not so big and effective marketing ensures the mature reflections and regrets of the public. While waiting to go back on stage, the boys also keep an eye on the room, affecting to indulge in very absorbing activities; they follow a variety or sports program on television, do gymnastic movements with complicated apparatus, read the newspapers or calmly talk about a boxer's towel around their neck. When one of the waiters whispers in their ear that they have been chosen, they tick a small box on a board before heading towards the bar with a perfectly relaxed air and the other waiters politely refrain from commenting. the impending transaction. Management no doubt picks up the wall-mounted notebook before closing. Once the reservation has been confirmed, after a presentation that rarely drags on, the boy quickly gets dressed backstage and comes back; there is nothing left to do but pay for the drinks, the commission to the club owed by the client and go out amid the bows, grimacing puppets who act as loufiats and launch in a high-pitched voice: Good night sire, see you again. We can take two boys, or even more, no objection since the answer is always: I want you happy. Contrary to a generally peddled assertion, there are few Western sexual ruins among the public, the clientele is mostly local, middle-aged, well-behaved and come out in groups lightly washed down with whiskey and Coke. The few white-skinned castaways from the Spartacus are rather spotty overall, but it's also true that they're offered the best tables.

Obviously, I have read what has been written about the trade in boys here and seen a number of films and reports; despite my distrust of the duplicity of the media, I know what is true in their sensational investigations; the unconsciousness or the harshness of most families, the ambient misery, the general pimping where the underworld and the crooks trudge, the mountains of dollars that it brings in when the kids only get crumbs, the drug that makes havoc and chains, diseases, the sordid details of all this traffic. I manage with a good dose of ordinary cowardice, I cut the market to stifle my scruples, I make myself novels, I put sentiment everywhere; I can't stop thinking about it but that doesn't stop me from going back. All these rituals of the ephebes fair, of the slave market excite me enormously. The lighting is ugly, the music gets on your nerves, the shows are sinister and one could judge that such a spectacle, abominable from a moral point of view, is also repulsively vulgar. But I like it beyond reason. The profusion of very attractive boys, immediately available, puts me in a state of desire that I no longer need to restrain or conceal. Money and sex, I'm at the heart of my system; the one that finally works because I know that I will not be refused. I can evaluate, imagine, tell myself stories according to each boy; they are there for that and me too. I can finally choose. I have what I never had, I have a choice; the only thing that is expected of me, without rushing me, without imposing anything on me, is to choose. I have no other score to settle than to align my baht, and I am free, absolutely free to play with my desire and to choose. Western morality, the guilt of always, the shame that I carry are shattered; and that the world goes to its loss, as the other would say.

There are certainly establishments of this kind elsewhere than in Thailand; Amsterdam or Hamburg; but I took too long, I've come from too far, I absolutely have to continue, push much further to achieve my goals; I don't want to run the risk of meeting boys who would remind me of others, of being confronted with situations that would remain familiar, of hearing words that I could understand. I need the unknown, the foreign land, the land without landmarks. Where nothing will ever be known about me, there is a chance, however slim, that I will obtain abandonment and oblivion, the breaking of ties and the end of the past. The choice.

As they say with hard drugs, I never quite regained the ineffable shock of the first time, but that is irrelevant because the wave that carries me is far more powerful than the relative decrease of intensity brought about by habituation. I treat myself to alcohol, a light mist maintains the compulsion and there is always a boy that I had not yet noticed. I never experience real disappointment. We close at two o'clock and it starts again tomorrow. I also know very well that it's all just a sinister joke I'm telling myself. No matter how much I resist, the lie crumbles when I take the plane back, reality puts my nose back in my shit as soon as I arrive in Paris, remorse grabs me and doesn't let go of me more than a single sole. , infuriated by the fear of having almost lost track of me.

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— katie🌞 Tue Sep 24 00:06:02 +0000 2013

My boy jerks off his T-shirt like he has to do in sports without even realizing the manly grace of his movement and he shakes his head to straighten his tousled hair by the neckline. This vision paralyzes me a little more as I observe it from the door; I am unable to approach him, to loosen the noose that crushes my neck and control the shivers that take me. I had long since forgotten such violent sensations. Oddly, it's more difficult to remove his pants and his American underpants, he avoids my gaze, a depth of modesty, a shadow of concern perhaps in front of my behavior which must seem to him exaggerated, unusual. These kids are largely used to men although they don't really like them, they consider their desire with satisfaction but with a kind of persistence in candid astonishment; they also happen to pick up crazy people and a passing Westerner who still seems relatively young, it doesn't fit with the ordinary clientele; at my age, in this town, you find yourself a free darling when you benefit from the prestige and privileges of a foreigner, even if it means paying for a walkman before leaving. Trash from a painted-over crazy old woman would seem less threatening to her and would do better. However, his hesitation is brief, he certainly doesn't want to put himself in the wrong, he carefully folds up his belongings, places them on the television console and finally stares at me, starting to smile again. Everything is impeccable, as well designed as the rest. Where does this legend come from that wants their sex to be of a ridiculous size? I can attest to the contrary even if I am not a fanatic of the superlative comparisons which occupy so much the conversations of certain queers.

I snap out of my stupor, put a few smoothed notes on his clothes, much more than the correct amount indicated by the club manager, but he seems not to pay attention. As strange as it may seem, prostitution is a taboo in this country, so much so that the word that could designate it does not even exist. The small bundle has no value at this moment, it bothers him and will only interest him afterwards, not as payment for a transaction, nor as payment for a specific service, but rather in the manner of a friendly reward detached from any notion of reciprocal obligation. On my part, it would be bad taste, almost an insult, to insist that he take them. The tickets will then disappear, without my realizing it, as if by magic. But if I am almost ashamed to have committed a breach of this politeness which I do not know well, I note that it is still the old fear of a difficult negotiation at the last moment, even of being repelled by touching the goal which would have been the strongest. I've always called straight away to take advantage and stun the opponent; Corruption is a sport for the blind, we grope the money so much what we are trying to achieve is uncertain. In this case, it's a blunder and fortunately the boy doesn't hold it against me; he innocently follows his own rule which is to please me because he knows no other. With a small wave of his hand, he indicates the bathroom, walks past me without touching me, tears with his teeth the cellophane case that wraps the towels and the washcloth and begins to shower. inviting me with my head to follow him. What if I was one of those who refuse to wash? For these boys who are rightly neat freaks, shying away from ablution is another red flag, even if it's still too late to back down and unseemly to hint at reluctance. I undress and join him in the shower, in case he asks me more questions about the effect he has on me, they no longer have any reason to be and he soaps me cheerfully, this time very reassured. Everything is going normally. In France, with most gigolos, it's quite a story to get them to get a hard-on, but we're definitely not in France and we continue with the glove, the soap, the shower head to explore ourselves and ourselves measure to each other while laughing softly. He's almost as tall as I am and certainly sturdier, built like kickboxing champions who stretch you out in a flash. But I have nothing to fear from him, it's a delicious game to which I abandon myself, closing my eyes, full of joy and confidence. I no longer know who is protecting the other.

We wipe ourselves with a thousand precautions; it wouldn't take much for my body to betray me and I'd be done. In just one time. I don't know if he thinks like me that it would be too stupid, but he completely admits that I take my time and he leaves me the initiative. I don't dare kiss him yet, but I caress him, I touch him and he does the same. We return to the room; they have definitely planned everything, a rheostat allows you to dim the lights. While we are lying down, I try a kiss on the boy's lips, I was wrong to hesitate, he kisses wonderfully well, probably with the same skill as with his girlfriend, he comes back to it as much as I want , fresh lips, deep tongue, salty saliva of a young male without the smell of tobacco or alcohol. His skin is exquisitely soft, his supple body bends when I touch him and squeeze him, and I feel like he feels pleasure wherever I touch him. The fact that we can't understand each other only heightens the intensity of how I feel and I swear it does the same for him. Which doesn't stop me from talking, from saying tender words to him, which he picks up on the fly and repeats in disorder with great laughter. He licks me with extraordinary delicacy and I see his neck, his back, his ass in the mirror on the ceiling, the mass with blue reflections of his hair when I lower my head to look at his face so attentive to what I feel. I don't know where he got the condoms from, but he puts them on for us in the blink of an eye and with the dexterity of a pickpocket. It is he who decides now, and it gets a little complicated; her body holds me entirely, her smile reveals her clenched teeth, her eyes are fixed on mine, but without any hardness in her gaze; with a flicker of mischievous cunning and joy rather as if he were the first to be surprised at what he is doing. There are things that I no longer assume since a bad experience with a Moroccan, thirty years ago in a sauna. He was an immigrant worker, quite handsome, who only thought about his pleasure and took revenge on everything else, like a good macho, the class struggle at the end of his cock stuck to the hilt in young people's ass bourgeois. He had hurt me, infected with a disease, a tenacious and secret suffering from which I took months to heal myself. I haven't started again. But there, it's different, I'm not even in pain, I let him take me where he wants, as long as it's with him; he became my man. I perceive myself above, in snatches, like the American stars in the films of yesteryear when they give each other, loving and maternal, an air of distant melancholy in their expression. Joan Crawford in Patpong. This is what is called bewilderment because in fact for Joan Crawford, motherhood was not really her forte, even if she briefly married this fag Cary Grant. I always have to make mistakes thinking of something else. My boy, he is not in Hollywood, he is where the boys are when the desire goes away and they find themselves alone; I feel his heart thud against mine, but he turns his head away and rolls onto his side. Joan Crawford has plenty of time to see herself on the ceiling and tell herself that the lights should be dimmed even further. I rediscover this anguish which is usual for me to see him get up suddenly and leave; that's why I usually come first, so as not to confront their weariness; sometimes that's enough for me and we stop there, and sometimes I want to continue and so do they; in this case, there is still a little margin. My boy is ready to do anything to keep his contract; the I want you happy which knows no exception. He came back to me, looking a little veiled as if he were sorry for leaving too quickly and regretted his absence; we start again but otherwise, now it's me who decides and all the pleasure is for me. I have never experienced such a feeling of fullness and power. He closed his eyes, I don't know what those wet marks are under his eyelids, the slight dark circles, in the hollow of the temples a little sweat perhaps or tears of fatigue, tears of fatigue surely exist. The side mirror sends our image back to me, me like a madman and he like a dead man, and this image strikes me down. I am seized with an immense feeling of compassion and tenderness towards him, seeing him so docile and helpless, when he had seemed to me the freest and strongest of all, the young king of clubs lying with another foreign lying bastard waiting for it to happen; my shame like a childhood sorrow slips over his silence and his naked body, wraps his poor clothes so well folded on the television and can't find the words he wouldn't otherwise understand;my desire vanishes at the speed of the sky-train which will soon bring him back to his rotten suburbs, a handful of bahts in his pocket to spend immediately on useless trinkets. Outside, I hear the taxi drivers and the grunts shouting at each other with the sound of a rattle; I smell gasoline and oil from the parking lot oozing from the fan. There is no longer a hint of joy or emotion in this riddled room of a fake clinic. Thirty years of bad sex to get here. I retire nicely, come on it was just a game, nothing serious, we will never have a chance; he wipes his eyes, opens them, smiles again while I turn aside and dive in at top speed, inert, like a stone in the mirror. Did he guess that I really loved him for a flash of time and that I felt so sorry for him, for me, for this whole story that it was not possible for me to continue and leave him like that in such abandon. However, I still feel him against me, he taps his fingers along my back and chirps bits of French words that look less and less like those of earlier. He probably didn't feel anything, I must have told myself one more of my novels, here we are only back in our world.

After we fell asleep. Still, something must have happened to make us feel so exhausted. When we parted, the clubs had closed and the tourist merchants were making an infernal racket by storing their junk in the iron containers. I wanted to have his e-mail but he only knew his letters in Thai; I understood that I would just have to write to the club indicating its number, I had trouble imagining that any mail could reach such a random address; he also told me again that his name was Bird but I hadn't forgotten him; it's a pretty name, Bird, even if it probably doesn't mean bird in their language. Others are called Tom or Brad, it comes from the movies and when you dig a little you find the real Thai name that looks like him; there isn't a lot of choice, they often call each other the same, that's also why they insist on the number. As he left, he turned around, flashing his incredible smile at me one last time and he pointed to the small street of the club, I felt that he was probably giving me an appointment for the other evenings, and then he disappeared very quickly leaving me the night I had found him. I left for Paris a few hours later. I often think of him, I hope no one has hurt him; each time I go with a boy, I see him again for at least a moment, in front of me, in the dreadful room closed like a bunker and I have the impression of betraying him, him, over there, so far away, my Patpong boy."

With the authorization of Editions Robert Laffont.