Chico Rock’s wild tour of Madrid continued for the remainder of my study abroad stay. Every Friday night, I would climb across to his room through his balcony, and we would pregame in his room before heading down to Chueca to explore yet another gay bar or club. Or several.

Unbeknownst to me before deciding to study for a semester in the Spanish capital, Madrid is well-known around Europe for its gay quarter. Despite being an overwhelmingly Catholic country, gay marriage is completely legal in Spain. Gay lifestyle and culture is prominent, sometimes preposterous.

Named after the Spanish word for “crooked” (or “not straight”) centuries before Stonewall, Chueca has been through more transformations than a desperate pop star trying to cling on to relevancy. All up until the 20th century, Chueca housed the city’s outcasts—criminals, freaks and other social pariahs, certainly homosexuals and sexual deviants. After the authoritarian dictatorship of Francisco Franco ended with his death in 1975 the area became one of the epicenters of La Movida, a liberation of creative expression, disregard for traditional aesthetics and a new breed of popular culture. The equivalent of New Wave but with far more transsexuals and recreational drug use. I once heard that during the mid-80s you could swipe your finger through one of the sidewalk creases in Chueca and accumulate small residues of a certain white powder, just enough for a bump. The streets were literally littered with cocaine. Then came the 90s. Chueca got chic with designers like Diesel and Custo Barcelona opening up boutiques in the now quaint but quirky neighborhood. And today, the quarter is home to more yuppies and young couples than criminals. I’m pretty sure that if Pinkberry ever made it to the European continent, the first location in Madrid would be in Chueca.

But after dark if you turn the right (or wrong) corner, you can travel back to a reformed version of Chueca’s old days of debauchery, partying until the sun comes up. That’s what Chico Rock wanted me to experience. He was adamant about having me be a part of his outrageous nightlife stunts: sex clubs and dark alleys, unknown substances and after parties. He kept saying how this was how young guys partied in Madrid, every night. He kept pushing me, challenging me almost, to stay out later and keep drinking, or keep flirting with strangers, see how far I could go down the rabbit hole. Nevermind waking up at 3 p.m. the next day, missing all my morning classes, hungover and with blurred memory of the night before.

The thing was: it was just him and his friends engaging in these excessive habits. He just didn’t want to feel like the only one, so he made a big deal about how common and ordinary it was to be so erratic, but deep down he was all alone.

I was madly attracted to him, so I kept playing the game, trying to impress him and turning into the party boy I thought he wanted me to be. I didn’t realize how self-destructive his lifestyle was until one night. November 9, 2006, three weeks before I had to come back to the states. The night I thought I was going to die.

We end our night at Royal Cool, but that’s where the story starts. The largest gay club in Madrid, the club is a neon institution that thrives on the bass thumping loud, men sweating hard and inhibitions plummeting to a new low. This is what it takes to be Cool.

As soon as we walk in, a friend of Chico Rock’s walks up to him and offers him something. I’m guessing it’s either coke or poppers since I see them snorting it. Chico Rock asks him if he knows where he can get more, looking back at me and raising his eyebrows with anticipation. The friend says no. Chico Rock calls him a liar. The friend laughs and says he’s serious. So Chico Rock drops it.

About twenty seconds later, the friend turns back, waits until we both make eye contact with him and then signals us to follow him.

The three of us walk back into a brightly lit room behind the bar. It takes a minute for my eyes to readjust. The friend introduces me to a guy with dreadlocks I recognize from going out. He asks me if I want pills, assuming that I’m the one looking for drugs, that it’s my deal to be made. I look back at Chico Rock. He nods.

“Si” (Yes).

“Cuantas?” (How many?)

“Cuantas necesito?” (How many do I need?)

The dealer laughs and tells me they’re five euros each. I tell him to give me one. He leans closer to me as if going in for a hug and puts the pill in my hand. He whispers something in my ear, but I can’t understand it, something about this being on the house. Even behind closed doors, the music from the club resonates.

I open my hand and see that he’s given me two pills. I take one and hand it over to Chico Rock, but he shakes his hands and says, “They’re all yours.”

So I take them both.

I walk out of the room and realize that: I just swallowed not one, but two pills. I just swallowed not one, but two unknown pills. I just swallowed not one, but two unknown pills from a complete stranger. I just swallowed not one, but two unknown pills from a complete stranger at a random club overseas. I just swallowed not one, but two unknown pills from a complete stranger at a random club overseas and really, I'm all alone. I just swallowed not one, but two unknown pills from a complete stranger at a random club overseas and really, I'm all alone and I don’t even have my phone.

Not only do I not know if these pills are laced (certainly they are), but I’m not even exactly sure what I’ve taken.

I ask Chico Rock how many he has taken before and he says something like, “a half,” but he could’ve said, “one and a half.” It’s so loud in the club, and I hate repeating myself. Regardless of his answer, two definitely breaks the “take only half the pill” rule—a rule I’ve tried to ingrain in my head ever since I started going out when I was 16.

So get a little worried, and decide that if I start feeling funky (a.k.a. like I’m about to die), I’m just going to rush to the restroom and vomit the pills out. Who says drugs aren’t glamorous?

The dealer with the dreadlocks told me that he worked at the club. He was an under-the-table drug dealer employed by the very own venue to keep the dance floor busy until the early hours of the morning, to have people come back Saturday after Saturday after Friday after Wednesday, to get them addicted to Cool.

So I’m waiting for the damn pills to hit me, to see what’ll take to control my body’s reaction to them.

20 minutes. Nothing.

I keep imagining me overdosing and being taken to a hospital. The whole university institute there, my mother flying in to see me.

Then all of the sudden, I’m totally calm. I think, “If I’m going to die, I might as well die dancing my heart out, right?”

Then the pills hit me: the music starts to penetrate, the songs expand and the whole ambiance changes—the realization that every one there is exactly on the same drug you’ve just taken.

So I dance and talk and flirt with new friends. My hands start getting really cold and then really hot, and then I start to perspire. Random groups of people are approaching us and talking to us. But to me, these guys are just mannequins, looking for colored pills to bring them back to life.

It’s 7 a.m., Royal Cool is about to close, so I say good bye to my minute friends and head out the front door, grabbing a “come back next time” glossy flyer with a picture of well-toned, blue-tinted torso on my way out.

But it’s on the metro that the pills, these drugs, whatever the fuck I took, really start to hit me. I sit there and just start thinking, and then I get paranoid and wonder if the people riding with me on the train can listen to my thoughts. “Am I saying these things out loud?” I ask myself. Of course not, you idiot. Or wait?

Then I get super nervous. I get off my seat, look around, looking confused. I feel like I’ve been riding the metro for hours. Surely I’ve missed my stop. Surely I’m somewhere far, far away past my home stay. The train stops at the next station, and I realize that it’s only the first stop. I’ve been on the train for two minutes.

I sit back down and take a look down at my hands. The glossy flyer I’d been carrying has been twisted and crumbled almost beyond recognition. The toned body now deformed. As soon as I start involuntarily grinding my teeth, the light bulb goes on: Speed!

I swallowed not one, but two speed pills from a complete stranger at a random club overseas and really, I was all alone and I didn’t even have my phone.

I get to my house and realize that Chico Rock has my keys. The light in his room is off; he’s not home yet. I can’t even remember the last time I saw him. It starts to rain, and I start to feel like shit.

But I head back out into the night to try to find him.

To be continued…

It’s a well-known rule in my code of conduct that I will never make the first move. Not because I’m afraid of rejection; not because I don’t have anything to say; not because I get easily intimidated.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that, believe it or not, I’m a pretty shy guy, especially around a very particular breed of guys, whom I refer to as “beat skippers.”

Yes, I can usually muster up enough bravado to strike up a lively conversation with a bunch of strangers. But with those certain boys that make my heart skip a beat, it’s a completely different story. When it comes to interacting with potential bedmates, I tend to freeze rather than flirt.

Besides, I’m not the type of guy who walks up to you at the club with the sole intention of taking you home. Transparent is the one color that you won’t find in my stylebook. If anything, for me, the giant dance dens of New York are platonic spaces where most of the time is spent bumping into old friends and making new ones, with a few scattered breaks to savor the eye candy, of course. Not to mention that nothing screams desperate like scanning the floor for unsuspecting victims, and nothing whispers great catch like dancing like you just don’t care.

So here I am, at Sugarland in Brooklyn, on a Saturday night, standing by the bar, swirling the ice in my drink with my straw and looking at this guy that just walked by. Dark complexion, scruffy beard, a hard jaw, and my heart just skipped a beat. He seems like a cocky fellow, someone difficult to impress. I know that if I go up to him now, like a missile zooming in straight towards its target, the only thing that will go up in flames will be my ego. So I consider taking a more subtle approach.

He’s talking to some friends by the stage, so I grab a few of mine and suggest we relocate from the bar to the dancefloor, not far from Skipper. I don’t subscribe to the whole fixating-gaze-leads-to-sex mating ritual, mostly because I feel like it’s fucking creepy and would be just as subtle as shooting a wide-eyed Bambi with a rifle and carrying the body back to my lair. I know that place has a reputation for being kind of lax when it comes to getting crazy, but I’m pretty sure that the Sugarland management and staff would not stand for that shit.

“Do you guys want a shot for a dollar? It’s bright, bright purple and comes in a test tube—OH MY GOD, YOU’VE KILLED BAMBI!”

So just think about it: every time you give the stare down treatment to an innocent cutie at the club… it’s like you’re shooting Bambi all over again. Most importantly, the cutie immediately files you in the Dahmer/Dead Disney/Date Rape drawer. A very difficult drawer to get out of, I’d say.

What is this post even about? Oh yeah… so the Ting Tings come on, and I’m dancing in front of Skipper, trying to get him to notice me. We’re so close, I could take a step back and we’d be grinding. Once in a while, I make sure to unceremoniously brush my arm up against his torso. Did he? Didn’t he? Yes, I did. I get pure satisfaction out of causing a commotion and drawing the attention of the crowd, so this doesn’t seem particularly shameless.

What comes next does. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Skipper head upstairs to the outdoor patio to smoke a cigarette. Of course! I have been trying to quit smoking but… fuck it! I follow him by myself this time, and realize that, no I have not quit smoking cigarettes; I’ve just quit buying them.

I linger on the outskirts of Skipper’s conversation for a minute and then randomly bust in to the half circle of friends to ask if anyone’s got an extra cigarette. Their apologetic expressions break the bad news. It’s ok; I wouldn’t give me a cigarette either. Besides, I’m not really out there for a smoke break. I figure that if I’m not going to make the first move, my best bet is to carefully situate myself within Skipper’s frame at various moments throughout the night, and making it seem like I’m not stalking him by playing it all up to be just mere coincidence. Like it’s meant to happen, caught in each other’s radars.

All right… yeah, basically, I’m throwing myself at him.

Out on the Sugarland patio, he looks at me, and I’m not sure if he’s intrigued or disgusted. Either way, I feel unbearably transparent. Then he reaches deep inside his messenger bag, probably trying to dig up the last remains of my dignity? No… a pack of Parliaments!

“Oh, do you have a light too?” I say delighted but interrupting the conversation yet again.

“What? Do you want me to smoke it for you too?” He says with a childish sneer and reaching into his pocket for a lighter. The teasing gives my hopes one last thrust. But right after I finish lighting the cigarette, I notice that their smoke break is over and he’s making his way back inside.

“We’ll be down by the dancefloor,” he says, taking my hand in his when taking back his lighter. I stay out there and finish the entire cigarette, giving him just enough time to take my file out of the stalker drawer.

After I’m finally done, I step back inside still adamant about not breaking the first move rule, but at this point, I’m more than ready to make the second, third, fourth and fifth.

Skipper is standing by the door with his friends, looking around. Is he looking for me? I look around. Where did my friends go? Is he going to make a move? Or is he just going to go?

As I walk down the stairs back to the foggy dancefloor, I start to think: What if Skipper has a first move rule too? What if he’s just waiting for that great guy to notice him on the dancefloor and come say hello? What if we’re all like that? Waiting for that touch, that gaze, that cigarette that will break the silence and form a lasting bridge.

It’s last call. I shouldn’t keep focusing on who approaches whom, who is the predator and who is the prey, who is worthy of the attention and who deserves better. There’s something surprisingly empowering about wearing our hearts on our sleeves and hoping for safe landing.

Maybe I should just start walking in his direction. Not think about what I’m going to say. Not worry about coming off transparent, silly, desperate or drunk (or all of the above). Because I can assume all night long, but I’ll never really know his side unless I ask.

Sometimes, we forget that going out should be about having a good time, not about proving you can find a tipsy guy that will let you shove your tongue down his throat—making the first move as meaningless as casting a net and settling for whatever you catch.

But if we genuinely feel the sparks and believe that the scruffy guy to our right is right, right now, then what’s stopping us from going for it, not like a mindless missile but like on a mission? The worse that can happen is old and rusted rejection. But we’re all big boys here. We can deal.

Any given code of conduct is pointless if it’s rigid, final and fixed, without exceptions and footnotes, especially if sticking by the rules leaves us standing alone, in a closing club, frozen yet reluctant to make a move.

Right after last call, if you still can’t come up with the clever words that will impress… then just kiss him. Anything’s better than watching a guy that makes your heart skip a beat walk out at the end of the night, leaving you regurgitating empty “what if’s” and regretting all your subtle, indirect, absurd moves and thinking: “I should’ve said hello.”

Every first move we make might very well be our last.

Featuring "That's Not My Name" (LA Riots Remix) - The Ting Tings

My best friend and I couldn’t be any more different. He’s from a small town in the Midwest; I grew up in San Francisco. He joined a clean-cut fraternity our freshman year of college; I was never really into institutionalized spanking. He was Captain Spirit, tailgating before every football game; I was Juvenile Delinquent, always on the verge of getting kicked out.

He really hates staying up past his bedtime, his favorite fruit is pomegranate and he lost his virginity the night of my 21st birthday party. I know pretty much everything about him. And he knows pretty much everything about me. Except that one night I slept with his boyfriend.

Captain Spirit is the type who always has a Mr. Right, a caring, cute, smart guy he can spend his nights in with while I rummage out and about, drinking Redbull and making out with dicks (sometimes literally).

Of course, I was always supportive of my best friend even when his picture perfect boyfriends turned out to be all photoshop, but deep down, I couldn’t help but resent Captain Spirit and his All-American, well-bred knack for monogamous bliss. If we are completely opposite, and he’s the relationship type, then what does that make me?

I was never jealous of the cute boys he was with. Not surprisingly, we go for different types. My best friend embraces the stable, and I like my fireworks. That’s why I was so surprised when he introduced me to his current Mr. Right. Sure, he looked like all his past Mr. Rights, but instead of cool and composed, this guy's personality was more volatile, like he could explode at any minute. In other words, he was my type.

So upon first meeting him, my best friend alarm instantly goes off, and I keep feeling like we're entering a danger zone.

They had only been dating a week or two, when they decide to meet up with our mutual girl friend and me for an after hours party at Evil Olive. It’s obvious that this boy, Mr. Danger, has already caused a shift in Captain Spirit’s sleeping schedule.

We are all on the dancefloor, and I’m dancing with my tipsy girl friend to Kid Cudi’s “Day N Night” while Mr. Danger and Captain Spirit linger closely behind us. Captain Spirit leaves to go to the restroom, and as soon as he’s out of sight, I catch Mr. Danger approaching. I dance with him for a couple of minutes but then feel awkward when Captain Spirit, who’s not much of a dancer, comes back. I make my way back to the girl and keep dancing with her.

A few minutes later, I feel someone coming up from behind and dancing up on me. Dancing up me real close. I turn around and see Mr. Danger right behind me and biting his lower lip. Captain Spirit is there too, watching this. I feel guilty even though I know we're not doing anything wrong, but the last thing I want to do is cause a scene, so I just nonchalantly push Mr. Danger away and bring my best friend closer to us.

The rest of the night consists of moments like these, of moments of me pretending like Mr. Danger is just being a friendly dancer with no concept of personal space. But the way he is looking at me and dancing next to me, following me whenever I make the slightest move to try to avoid his incriminating presence on the dancefloor, he’s leading me on.

As we’re closing our tabs by the bar, Captain Spirit asks Mr. Danger to get in a cab with us and come back up to campus.

“Should I come up?” Mr. Danger asks seemingly in general but looking directly at me with his almost-menacing blue eyes.

“Do whatever you want to do,” I say instantly in a rather defiant tone, as if to say, “fuck off.” But the words come off more as posing a challenge. Do whomever you want to do. Despite how hard I try to act like he repulses me (or maybe because I try so hard), he senses that, really, I’m attracted to him. And my put-on hatred is fueling a flirtatious fire. And just like playing with fire, the game is both dangerous but extremely enticing.

I’m leading him on too. And he’s not going to let it go.

“Fine, I’ll come up,” Mr. Danger replies smiling and still looking at me and then grabs Captain Spirit’s face and gives him a big open-mouth kiss. I see his tongue going in deep right before, and I’m truly repulsed.

The next week, I’m having lunch with Captain Spirit who, after much bitching about his lost phone, confesses that things with Mr. Danger are getting kind of serious. I, for once, keep my mouth shut and just stick to using one-word, vague adjectives when he asks me what I think of him. “He seems nice.” “He seems cool.” But Captain Spirit doesn’t catch that my brevity might suggest bad news.

That night, we are all out at MiniBar for a quick round of drinks. I’m not looking to stay up too late because I’ve planned a huge party at Sonotheque the next night. All of my comrades are on the same page. Except for Mr. Danger.

As we’re leaving the bar, he turns to me, puts his two fingers up to his mouth and quietly says, “Smoke up at my apartment?”

“Sure,” I say, and although I think it’s just going to be a big, chill after party, I still have to make sure, “is Captain Spirit coming?”

“Yeah, of course, but keep it on the DL. I don’t want a whole bunch of people over,” he says.

We all get on the Red Line, and I get off at his stop like we had agreed on. The train continues on, and I notice that Mr. Danger and I are the only guys that have gotten off and standing alone on the platform. It all starts to feel way too DL for me.

“Where’s Captain Spirit?” I ask with an open arms motion signifying total confusion.

“I don’t know,” he responds, not confused at all. “I thought you had talked to him.”

“You said to keep it on the DL, it’s your apartment and your pot, and he’s your boyfriend,” I say feeling guilty and feeling guilty for feeling guilty.

“He’s your best friend.”

I pick up my phone and dial Captain Spirit’s number. The call goes straight to voicemail, and I realize that he still hasn’t replaced his lost phone. I don’t leave a message. We get off the platform and start walking towards his place in Lakeview.

[Where There's Smoke... (Part II)]