August

I always enjoy August. It's the height of summer after all. Who doesn't enjoy watching guys wandering around the streets of London without their shirts on? I also had a week in Europe with boyfriend number 1, which was wonderfully relaxing even though I didn't make much progress with my intended holiday reading. That, plus a trip to the Edinburgh festival, and there wasn't much time for activities.

Actually, the low level of activity probably had more to do with the fact that I started worrying about sexual addiction. So I had a genuine break from gaydar and the other online cruising web sites.

But right at the start of August there was one thing that I did which I hadn't done for perhaps five years or more. I had provisionally agreed to visit the Greek guy again, before work. Getting up early, I send him a txt msg to confirm, but a response doesn't arrive so I end up going to the gym instead.

Having been ready for an early morning session, I find myself feeling frustrated all day. Just like an occasion at the start of the previous month, I consider spanking the monkey in a cubicle in the men's toilets, but suddenly I have a better idea. I decide to visit Chariots, which is probably the biggest and best known gay sauna in London.

I've never been a regular visitor on the sauna scene, but for variety's sake I should probably visit more regularly than once every 5 years. Leaving the bank at the usual time, I grab a cab and soon I'm paying my £14 entry fee. Last time I was here I think it was only £12. It was interesting to see how the place had changed. Not much in fact, but I did spot one or two things.

Originally, perhaps in an attempt to give itself a less cruisey image, there was a pleasant lounge area on the top floor. It was quite a light area, and the big TV screen at one end of the room just showed ordinary television channels, i.e. not pornography. It's not there any more. Instead, it's become one of the darkest areas in the whole complex, with various rooms partitioned off. All the windows have been blacked out, and all the partitions are painted black too. There's still a TV screen in the main room in this new area, but it's permanently showing hard core porn. And on both sides of this TV screen there are raised, comfy, padded areas to lie down, so that all the guys can lie next to each other and wank each other off while watching the porn. Nice one!

The poolside bar has gone too. Actually that doesn't surprise me because there never seemed to be many people buying anything there. It wasn't really needed ever since the ground floor cafe area was incorporated into the main cruising complex. And it's much more practical to have the cafe, where one has to spend money, right next to the lockers where one has left one's wallet.

The gym is still there on the ground floor, even though it doesn't seem to get much use. And there are more lockers too. I've never visited at a peak time (e.g. Sunday afternoon), but if even half the number of lockers they have are in use at the same time it would be a very very busy place indeed.

Anyway, I enjoyed my visit. In fact it was an exceptionally satisfying visit. As I was leaving I felt really good, and wandering through the locker room my satisfaction must have been evident somehow because a guy who was just arriving turned and looked at me in amazement.

After that, on the second Sunday in August I did end up hooking up with the Greek guy again. But apart from that, there were no other activities in August. Will my chastity last? I already know the answer to that of course!