Geoff Nicholson - Bleeding London

Lawton was a slight man, short and lean, but athletically built without being muscled. He looked about fifty years old, with cropped hair the colour of brushed aluminium. He had on standard cruising gear, tight blue jeans and a dapper leather jacket. He looked more obviously gay than most of the men in there. He was giving out more signals. The rest of them were a varied and unmatching group, of many ages, many shapes, many skin colours. One or two were advertising their sexuality like Lawton but the majority seemed very ordinary indeed, very straight. They did not look like the sort of men Mick would have expected to find eyeing up other men in public toilets, but it was not a subject he knew or wanted to know much about.

Mick had followed Lawton to this place, followed him along the embankment, under a railway bridge, down the dark concrete steps into the toilet. If Lawton thought he was being followed he didn’t show it, or perhaps he didn’t mind. As Mick walked into the Gents he was aware that his presence had caused a temporary halt to whatever had been going on. All activity ceased for a moment while the inhabitants made sure he wasn’t some sort of invader. But after he’d stood there for a while, immobile and unthreatening, a palpable relaxation spread through the place and the men resumed their activities.

There was a lot of looking around, staring, attempts to make eye contact. All attempts were furtive, some were rejected, but some of them must have been successful since a couple of guys paired up and left the toilet together. Soon after that the action became more intense than just looks and glances. There was a steady rhythm of masturbation, of men playing with their cocks and brandishing them. Then as one or two of the men felt brave or safe or aroused enough, they reached over and touched someone else’s.

Mick watched in casual disbelief. He had never seen anything like it. Only in London, he thought, though he suspected this could not be literally true. He felt he should have been disgusted by the spectacle but there was something curiously tame and friendly about the erotic exchange. It had none of the passion or ferocity of good sex. The men were touching each other in a spirit of laddish co-operation, doing each other small but significant favours, like giving someone directions or giving them a light for their cigarette.

Nobody spoke, but a couple of men communicated well enough to take themselves into a cubicle, from which, after a moment, there came a fierce steady banging noise that didn’t conform to Mick’s idea of the sound sex should make.

Elsewhere action had progressed from hand to mouth. The man next to Lawton, a bearded, enormously fat man in tennis gear, was leaning over and devouring Lawton’s cock. Lawton’s face showed enjoyment but in a watchful, detached, halfhearted sort of way. He was holding back, not wanting to submit entirely to the experience. He kept looking round the toilet, possibly keeping an eye out for intruders, but also as though he was on the lookout for a better, more interesting offer.

Then he caught Mick’s eye, caught him watching. Mick’s immediate reaction was to turn away but he forced himself to return the look. At first the expression on Lawton’s face seemed hostile rather than sexual, but that, apparently, was part of the game. After a while his mouth curved into a slight, apologetic smile, as though he was well aware of the absurdity of his situation, of this location, of the man now on his knees in front of him.

Suddenly he grabbed the man’s head as though clutching a football and pulled it hard towards him. He thrust his pelvis into the man’s face, and although these actions now indicated a degree of sexual abandon, his face remained more or less impassive and he kept looking at Mick throughout the whole episode.

When he’d finished Lawton ambled away leaving the fat man still on his knees, wiping his mouth. Someone swiftly moved in to take Lawton’s place. Lawton collected himself and walked over to the sinks. For a moment Mick thought his quarry was about to leave but, no, he remained there at the sinks and took an unnecessarily long time washing his hands, constantly looking up at the mirror to check out the continuing action behind him. There was plenty to entertain the most demanding voyeur. A young black man with a radical haircut and a thick cock was letting two grey-haired men take turns sucking him.

Lawton finished washing his hands. There was obviously not going to be a towel or hand drier in a place like this, so he stood shaking his hands, just a couple of feet away from Mick. They looked at each other again. Mick thought Lawton was about to speak, but instead he made a complicated, articulate sweep with his head that said he was leaving now and that he wanted Mick to come with him. Mick nodded. He let Lawton walk out of the toilet, then followed him, let him walk some twenty or thirty yards ahead until he took up position by the embankment railings and waited for Mick to catch up. Mick took his time but eventually sidled up to Lawton and asked, “You got a place?”

“Yes,” Lawton said a little hoarsely, a little awkwardly. “It’s not far.”

Mick said nothing more to indicate agreement, but Lawton started walking and Mick followed. After a while they fell into step, and although conversation was neither easy nor strictly necessary for what either of them had in mind, Lawton became surprisingly, nervously talkative.

“You get all sorts in there,” he said. “Talk about ‘Chance encounters in the illicit crypts of homosexual adventure’. Flags of all nations. We had a man in a kilt in there the other week. And a young chap with a ring through his cock. Can’t say I found it very attractive but it makes a change.”

He seemed to be waiting for Mick to respond, hold up his end of the conversation, but when Mick was silent Lawton continued, “Best thing, of course, is the married man. They’re in there with a mouthful of spunk, then half an hour later they’re home kissing their wives. I love that.”

He looked at Mick in a way that was more enquiring than accusatory. Was he suggesting that he thought Mick was a married man? If so, Mick didn’t mind. At least it proved that he didn’t look like a poof.

“Do you work out?” Lawton asked.

Mick shook his head.

“But you’re a big lad. You must do something to get those biceps.”

Mick was finding this unsettling. He didn’t mind a bit of flattery, and he was quite proud of his body, but compliments from someone like Lawton weren’t what he was looking for. He was tempted to give him a good going over there and then. The place was deserted enough, but he decided to wait a little longer.

“This place we’re going to,” Lawton said, “it’s a little unusual.”

Mick immediately suspected the worst. He wondered what the hell Lawton had in mind, but he knew that he would have to find out.

“I’m sort of a property developer,” Lawton said. “I find old buildings with a bit of character, say a warehouse or small factory, occasionally an old church or chapel, and I convert them.”

Mick wondered why he was being told this. Where were they headed? An abandoned abattoir? A dungeon? A sewage works? They walked on, into a network of tight, riverside streets, an illogical conglomeration of new building-sites and ancient masonry, of arches and stairways, barred windows and fire escapes. Then suddenly they had arrived in front of a broad, ugly two-storey industrial building and Lawton said this was the place.

The building, possibly an old machine shop, had large areas of tall, metal-framed windows so that the walls were more glass than brick. There were areas that had been boarded up, other areas that had been patched with corrugated iron. Even if it was renovated out of all recognition, Mick still couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to live in a place like this. He followed Lawton warily.