Saturday, November 18, 2006

Minimal Music, Maximum Drugging

I am still very much in shell shock just from being away from the Levant and its unbearable heat and lack of manners. Nearly 24 hours have passed, and not one hungry stare of an ape-like man tossed my way, not a single hiss or paralyzing catcall. The people here seem to fear initiating direct eye contact of the flirtaatious variety, and I am having a lot of fun with this. I have enough sexual aggression thrown at me back home. Here, I am the mistress of my own gender role playground. Leaving the spoils of our consumer outing at Lori's place, we head for Warschauer Straße to meet Frederic in order to go to the party at the Panoramabar. He's informed me that he is also bringing along a "ladyfriend", and through our brief but intense acquaintence, I can only imagine what kind of naughty ideas he's entertaining.


Killing time until Frederic's estimated time of arrival, Lori leads me to a pizza place near the station, where sometimes reggae parties are held unerground, past some sort of cartoonish passage. No reggae party here tonight, but we do make a brief dash to an EBM night across the street, where I spot many a fashion faux pas I find quite upsetting. To make matters worse, it starts raining, and I am wearing flip flops, since everyone had informed me that this was the most hellish summer Europe has seen in over 50 years.

Thank you, global warming. Fuck you, global warming.

Not much seems warm about tonight as I am freezing like a puppy soaked to the bone, wading through Berlin's puddles in frail summer footwear. We seek refuge in a Lebanese pizzaria, where the employees are nervously watching a live news broadcast on the escalating situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border. I try to appear disinterested, but I am carefully absorbing evry word and thinking of my brother. My grandmother must be heartbroken. She has to live through yet another war, her eldest grandson drafted for reserve duty in quicksand territory we'd supposedly abandoned long ago, and her granddaughter fleeing to the one country she'd vowed she'd never set foot in again. Until my grandfather passed away, not even Kinder chocolates were allowed in their home.

My American accent and New England mannerisms come to my rescue every time. I guess it isn't really a lie when the Lebanese clerk asks me where I'm from and I carelessly reply "D.C.". I'm not really from anywhere. I don't entertain those fantasies anymore.

"You American girls are so beautiful," he tells me.

I make a mental note to pass on the compliment to all the Alisons, Jessicas and Ashleys of the New World. Meanwhile, I indulge in Hawaiin pizza, trying to ignore the familiar names spewed out from the television set. They are bitig their nails to the quick, staring at the newscastor with anxiety. We are mixing MDMA into our bottled water in preparation for tonight.

Talk about escapism.

We down it on the train, trying to put on a brave front while battling the horrid metallic aftertaste. Thank goodness some of the Cinnaburst gum Roy sent me had made it with me to Berlin, otherwise my face would have been permanently screwed into that awful expression I take on after gulping a shot of cheap tequila.


We wait for Frederic at the station, and he punctually arrives with his friend, Katja. She looks barely 15 and a bit too fragile for anything remotely resembling Frederic's lifestyle of choice, but is nice and friendly enough. We hitch a taxi to the Panorama, a mega techno palace.

At the entrance, we are thoroughlyseached and patted down by some massive Brunhilda-esque amazona, before we are granted permission to proceed. The Panorama is usually home to massive gay parties on most nights, and a general Soddom & Gomorra vibe is quite apparent. I feel good about this, though. This means most of the sleaze tonight will not be directed at us ladies but rather at the bare-chested male populace who makes up roughly 80% of the club.

The place is huge, decorated in a stren and precise manner, and is packed with hot, toned male bodies writhing against each other. Normally I would feel a little out of place in such a merry orgy scene not geared towards my uterus and other anatomical favorites, but I'm just smiling like an idiot and looking on. The MDMA is starting to kick in, and I feel those floaty tingles normally associated with the ultimate love potion. Frederic finds us again and invites us upstairs to take some E, which he passes to me with a kiss, then proceeds to do the same for Lorca. I hope she isn't too taken aback by him, because it is quite obvious to me that by the end of the night he will probably invite her to take part in a threesome with us. Right now I am too focused on the fuzzy vibrations to stop and ponder if this is cheeky behavior on his part.

The music is very minimal techno. I can't dance to this shit, but I can certainly lean back and enjoy the chemical reactions battling like a pillow fight in my brain. I spill the beans to Lori about my wild night with my new friend, and she declares me a slag. Clearly, one of the signs of the coming apocalypse, along with Paris Hilton vowing to go celibate for an entire year. The MD seems to be doing the trick, as I find myself almost uncontainably happy and stroking the ledge of the sofa. Lori rises and throws up in the most elegant way I have ever seen, but says she feels much better now.

My body temperature is going schizo on me, and every few minutes there is a decision to either disrobe or pack on the layers once more. We are briefly pestered by a loud British fellow, clearly hopped up on something, and painfully unaware of the dominant sexual orientation in this particular club. We escape and take an enchanted tour of the premises, complete with cells for sex.

Fuck-cages.

No wonder cameras are not allowed in here, not that it mattered to yours truly. The place looks like what a Village People video might haved looked, had they been immensely popular in the early 90's and heavily into BDSM.

As the sun rises, Frederic and Katja meet us in the downstairs lobby, and we split a cab home. Surely enough, Frederic had indeed pitched the threesome idea to Lori, who politely declined the invitation but congratulated him on having the balls to ask.

He and I go home, where he draws a hot bath for us. Aside from the obvious hygenics routine, there is also the fucking, very far from standard "vanilla sex". For his age, the fellow certainly has stamina.

We later stage a "Six Feet Under" marathon. I find it amusing just how annoyed Frederic gets with Brenda's promiscuous behavior on the show.

"So what is it that peeves you so much about Brenda," I ask as she fucks yet another stranger behind Nate's back. "The sex or the dishonesty?"

Frederic explains to me that he himself has a steady girlfriend, but he told her about my being a special guest in his home. "The bitch's dishonesty, of course," he smiles.

Of course.

We both cheer on Claire as she stumbles to find her own identity, and eventually drift off to sleep.

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