I was sitting on the backrest of a bench by a cobblestone street where trams had run long ago. That’s where the motorized fags and old queens well into their thirties used to stop — the ones ashamed to show themselves in the park because of their age or their looks. Or both.
Not long ago I had slipped Jolka my old, scratched MP3 player with some tracks from the thirties: “Not to love on a night like this is a sin. Let’s love while there’s still time…” Now, dosed up on a few 5 mg Valiums, he was drifting along the paths with his hands pressed to his ears. He babbled that he felt plushy and got excited by the pre-war diction. He was thrilled by that half-closed, back-tongue, “dark” o, and the kresy ł — that soft, Eastern Borderlands lilt from pre-war Poland. The whole old stage accent.
To me Jolka always evoked a sociology script: inverted vertical migration. From a top student at a prestigious high school to a park whore who slept in stairwells with the homeless.
Around me circled some twenty-eight-year-old, not fat, more of a bear type. Nothing special, but not repulsive either. Acceptable. He approached slowly and spoke in a lowered voice:
— Sorry, do you maybe meet for money?
I said no, but I dragged out the syllable and my voice hung in the air. The guy walked a few steps away but stayed close.
I stared into the void. Jolka was turning tricks. I was surrounded by people just like him. I myself had been offered money many times in my life. I always refused. Not out of prosperity, but because of a mindless belief drilled into me at home that prostitution was something shameful. But was it really worth clinging to that illusion any longer? How many experiences, sensations — beautiful, terrible, intense — had it made me miss?
I jumped down from the bench. I walked up to him. We discussed the rules, got into the car. He turned the key, the lights flashed on. The queens, including Jolka, noticed us and started wagging their tongues. It was getting better with every second.
He drove me to the Citadel. We climbed the stairs almost all the way up to the plinth. We turned right and veered off the path into the trees.
He was calm, quiet, and kind. He unbuttoned his pants, took a condom from his pocket, tore the foil with his teeth. I don’t know why, but he took it out. And now I was crouching in front of him like a regular whore. And I felt that this was what I had been made for.
Afterward I stood up, put my arms around his neck and brushed his sweaty skin with my lips. He politely asked if we could stand like that a little longer. We stayed in the embrace for several minutes. Neither wanted to let go. I felt his warmth, the beating of his heart, his breath — first heavy, then steady and deep. In that moment everything was exactly where it should be.
He gave me thirty zlotys. I kept them as a souvenir.
In the future he picked me up from the park a few more times. What he always wanted most was the long hugging. Jolka went with him once too. He later thundered across the whole park:
— That man should be ashamed! Paying for plain cuddling! Absolute rock bottom!
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