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Gorillas in the Mist
by Beau Burriola
There is a sauna at our gym where a whole load of men seem to spend their day. It's as if they were
born there, built right into that room and never leave, because although they go to the gym to sit in
the sauna, I don't really see any of them go out into the gym itself. If you're Gay, you might find
that intriguing, but I don't find it much fun to be cooking in a six foot by six foot room with a bunch
of sweaty men who don't talk. It seems kind of bizarre to me, like a joke I don't quite get the
punchline to.
I know the sauna because I pass it every day between my locker and the shower. There's a glass door and
occasionally someone will come or go, or there will be a sort of ghoulish face hovering in the mist and
looking out. It occurred to me during the second week I was going to this gym that there might be
something other than cooking going on in there because I saw some guys giving one another sideways
glances before they both headed over to it, opened the door, and disappeared into the mist. A couple of
days later, I was on my way back from the shower and one of the same guys was just arriving, when
another guy went into the sauna and he seemed to hurry up his changing so he could race in after the
other one.
All that makes me want to avoid the place at all costs. I get that people like public sex it because
there's danger to it, a kind of verboten excitement that people don't get being normal and having sex
behind closed doors in -- God forbid -- a bed, but I don't get why it's still so popular. Like in the
1920s, I might understand why a guy would get his kicks at the local park, especially in a society of
people who just don't get it. But today? It seems strange to me that after all the years of taking
steps to get society to treat Gay folks like everybody else, there's this whole group of people who
race into the shadows to be dark and shady about sex. But hey, live and let live, nobody is harmed by
it so what do I care? It’s strange to me, but so are people who like mustard on their French fries. So
long as I don't slip on anything on the way to and from the shower, it's all just kind of part of the
gym experience you know exists but are never apart of - at least it was until yesterday.
When I arrived at the gym yesterday, one of the usual gorillas had just left the sauna to go to his
locker, wearing his tiny sauna towel. Nobody else was in the locker room and I guess maybe he was
hunting, at least that's the feeling I got from the electric expectation he was looking at me with.
I've learned not to look at the gorillas at all when this happens, because if you don't speak the
language of sexual intrigue, you don't really want to chance saying something you don't mean to say.
It's their habitat, and I'm just hoping to visit long enough to get changed and get out of there, so I
try my hardest not to even slightly send any signals.
After a while of no response, he moved very suddenly. When I turned, I saw him sitting there right on
the bench not two feet away from me. I didn't know what to do, but I could sense he was still staring
at me. I glanced up and saw that he was pretending to do something on his cell phone, maybe sending a
text message, but I discovered rather quickly that what he was actually doing was finding some excuse
to rest his arm on his lifted leg so that the full force of his nakedness were visible to me.
Not wanting to move too suddenly as to frighten him or to move too slowly as to become prey, I decided
the best thing to do was just to continue as if nothing at all had happened. Here was a man who clearly
had his own ideas about what was going to happen, but not realizing I wasn’t a real gorilla just
because I was in the locker room didn’t seem to stop him from realizing. Not realizing I wasn’t the
sort of Gay man into public sex just because I was a Gay man didn’t seem to stop him either. This was
his habitat and the way things worked and if it ever occurred to him that some people just aren’t into
that, he didn’t show any signs he cared much.
Gradually, I got my gym clothes on – all the while humming something to myself so that my annoyed and
nervous energy wouldn’t be so apparent. He didn’t budge from his spot and I could feel little lightning
bolts of anticipation coming from his eyes. From what I could tell from my peripheral vision, he might
have been playing with himself.
As fast as I could, I got my shoes on and locked up my locker, stepping away from him but not backing
into a corner. I wanted to get away, far away. I wanted to go back to a time when these creatures and I
had an understanding and I was just someone they avoided but allowed to live in their space. I wanted
them to go back and stay in the mist and leave the universe in perfect balance. But I suppose it was
inevitable that one day the balance was bound to be upset.
Fortunately for me, I escaped with not much more than a bit of annoyed and nervous energy, which fed
well into my workout. Surely another gorilla would show up soon and all this would blow over. Maybe the
natural order of things was bound to return.
Or, hell, maybe I’ll just start changing and showering at home.
Beau Burriola is a Brussels-based writer with a big, modesty-protecting towel and a soft spot for
eighties films. beaubrent@gmail.com |
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