The Garden of Delights
by Carlos Be
Photo: Jonny Rueda-Gualdron
I withdrew from the game when I discovered the first gray hairs around my nipples. I finished buttoning my shirt, turned my back to the mirror, and left the room. The mass of naked bodies shivered on the bed. Only one open hand beckoned, in silence, for me to return, but the gesture melted away in that throng of flesh. The hotel concierge didn’t say a word to me as I walked out, and, with my suitcase under my arm, I left Milan.
In New York, life on the streets becomes a continuous assault on intimacy. Nothing resists the onslaught of army ants, and you even lose your raison d'être, especially at night. Lost men run through dark mazes and keep each other company until reason comes home at dawn, on its own two feet, and surprises them as they frolic under the sheets; it screams and separates them.
As a Latin man, heat and sweat howl through my blood. At the age of twenty-five, I already knew how to dash hopes with a cold stare and I didn’t believe in monogamy or in the Universal Cock. I wanted to join DTdL. I talked it over with my boyfriend at the time, Adam, and he was supportive. Why not, he said. The game was beginning.
I contacted DTdL through a forum on Yahoo! Groups. DTdL is the acronym of the organization De Tuin der Lusten. They hold four meetings per year, in different European cities. I remember part of the screening process, some of the tests. First, you’re summoned into a cafeteria by The Officer, this is how he introduces himself. You’re seated and The Officer lays on the table a sheet of paper printed with a person’s silhouette. You’re instructed to fill in the figure’s features. If you start with the eyes, you're considered sharp. If with the hair, you’re narcissistic. If you spend too much time drawing fingers, it indicates a lack of affection. I remember wanting somehow to draw a trip on the forearm of the figure. I don’t know why, or what I was thinking, but I didn’t know how to draw something so abstract. I became blocked. Next came a barrage of questions: what are five traits you like in a man, and also five positions? My answer: bright eyes, a forehead framed with wrinkles, a man’s hand resting between his open thighs. Adam was undergoing a similar examination in another cafeteria three hundred kilometers away. The two Officers wrote everything down in their navy blue notebooks and before they left, they said they’d report the outcome to us shortly, and so it was. The letter came on a Sunday in November. The sexport and a pair of tickets to Luxembourg were inside. Neither Adam nor I was prepared for this. And although we didn’t know it at the time, DTdL would exceed our expectations. I still shudder when I remember the last time I saw Adam, his expression, his intimacy turned into bait for hyenas. We flew together to Luxembourg and there I lost him. I returned alone to New York.
After that meeting, others followed. I would bury my face in countless bosoms, not realizing that all games narrow life’s search. DTdL nourishes itself on exceptional hunger and exploits privacy by eliminating the boundaries of communication. It offers over-the-top excess and promises to tame all the wishes you can imagine. It took me a while to realize that nobody is interested in you knowing what you want: they impose upon you what others want; and that’s a lot. It’s all about winning or losing. In the meantime, the limitlessness of DtdL steals from you. And it steals a lot. It even steals time from you. The hair around my nipples in Milan. I felt tricked.
Now, back in New York, I write at the speed of a cheetah. I want to atone, to forget. Here, I only have one friend, Roger, a heterosexual bottom. He is one of the few men who has managed to overcome so much prejudice, so much acquired role. At first it was hard for him to find girls who’d top him, until he decided to open a dildo shop near my street. Since then, he hooks up as much as he wants, and even more. Someday the world will understand that an equal score is the best option.
I said I don’t believe in conventional relationships, but this doesn’t prevent me from loving. At least for the past five years. His name is Charles. I met him one day when it was raining torrentially. I was waiting under the awning of Roger’s shop when a stranger took refuge at my side. His eyes crossed the flooded street. I offered to accompany him to the other side of the street with my umbrella, and from that moment I haven’t been able to leave his side. That night, his blue eyes shone like the last blue eyes in the world and I discovered that beauty is the sum of goodness plus happiness, and nothing more.
My fingers played with the moon tattooed on his forearm. Our blessed sexes smiled, still wet. Our initial hours were very intense. I confessed to him that as a Latin man, I had often felt marginalized. I cried in his arms, as I hadn’t done since Adam. Color doesn’t matter, only purity, Charles whispered to me. And I, who had always thought myself the lame child of Hamelin, suddenly leaped up and discovered that all I needed to say was inside of me, not outside.
For the past five years, the man of my dreams has been growing in my private garden. It’s difficult to put into words, but sometimes I see through his eyes and I’m taken by surprise. It’s love, says Charles. I don’t like that term: I prefer to be moved by a mimosa tree in bloom and find myself thinking about him. Love is a garden that has to be cared for, he says. An equal score. And the garden will survive us, he says, it’s our project. Let’s take care of it until the end.
