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26
June 2019
It had taken me roughly thirty seconds the night before to locate Kris Doll using just my thumb and a search engine. He appeared to be running some kind of city tours company from the back of a huge motorbike, quite possibly the biggest motorbike I’ve ever seen. There was a photo of him on his website, sitting astride the huge bike, wearing jeans and leather boots and a white T-shirt. On the panniers on either side of the bike were bottles of champagne chilling in ice. The text above the photo announced ‘The Five Star Way to See the City’. Underneath it said:
Exclusive, one-on-one tours of the lake and the city on a fully customised Honda Gold Wing in the company of a city guide with over twenty years’ experience of living in,working in and riding the streets of this magnificent city. Create your own tailor-made itinerary, or work with one of Kris’s classics. The tour lasts for three hours and can be upgraded to include a final stop for champagne as the sun sets over Lake Michigan. Please fill in the form to make your booking or call the number below.
Yes, I think, looking at his picture again now, oh,yes please. Please put me on the back of your huge motorbike, Kris Doll, and transport me around the city and pour me champagne at sunset and tell me stories. Please.
I dial in the number at the bottom of the page and leave a message on Kris Doll’s voicemail: ‘Hi! Kris. My name is Joshua Harris. I don’t know if it’s rather short notice, but I’d love to book in for one of your city tours, maybe today? But if not, then any time tomorrow. Please give me a ring back when you get this message.’
His call comes through a moment later. ‘Sure,’ he says (he sounds sweet, much nicer than Rob with his tattoo sleeves and his air of turgid rage), ‘I just happen to have had a cancellation tomorrow. How does five thirty work for you?’
‘Oh,’ I reply, ‘yes! Perfect! That works beautifully!’
He talks me through what I need to do and when I need to do it (‘Sunscreen – even with a helmet on you’ll be amazed how much sun you’ll soak up and it’s set to be blue skies all the way tomorrow. Oh, and wear pants. I’m not going to tip you off my bike’ – I laugh – ‘but if I do, then you’ll want to avoid the need for skin grafts. And as it’s the afternoon spot, would you be interested in the sunset champagne upgrade? It’s an extra twenty dollars?’).
We agree on a champagne upgrade, a meeting spot and a rough shape for the tour and then I end the call, my face wreathed in smiles.
I go to a bar that night with the express intention of finding someone to bring back to my gorgeous hotel room. It’s been months since I slept with anyone. Actually, longer. But here I am, in a vibrant city, far from home, far from work, far from Lucy. I feel I have covered a large amount of ground today, and I feel I deserve to let my hair down, have some cocktails, find someone nice to make me feel better about myself after the Joe interlude, which is still playing on my mind, twenty-four hours later.
I take a long shower and work my way through almost all the miniature hotel products in the process. I run a hand over my stubbled chin, but decide not to shave. Afterwards I open my laptop and browse the listings for ‘best bars near me’. Then I put on black Levi’s and a black Muji T-shirt, brown leather John Lobb loafers and a soft flannel shirt in an inky blue with a dark green overlaid check. I’m going to be Phin tonight, not the old Phin, but the new rugged one. I open the mini-bar and pull out a bottle of fancy microbrewery beer, bash off the lid, drink it from the bottleneck.I AM PHIN, I think to myself and the thought sends a charge through the core of me and I find myself, alone in a hotel room in Chicago, punching the air and saying, ‘Bring it on.’ Like an absolute weirdo.
I come back with a boy called Nicholas. Not Nick. Nicholas. He is twenty-eight but appears younger. He is not much to look at (my apologies to Nicholas’s mother), but after two hours ofstanding around trying to look manly and being roundly ignored by all the hot men, I took what I could get. He smells nice and, frankly, that’s often the main thing. I tell Nicholas about ‘my’ childhood, about my sociopathic father, the con artist David Thomsen, who took over people’s homes, who raped teenage girls and stole money from naïve people and locked children in their bedrooms. His face is a picture. ‘Oh my goodness,’ he says, ‘oh my goodness,’ his hand clasping my kneecap in solidarity.
I find, when it comes down to it, I’m not actually that interested in the sex act itself. Use it or lose it, as they say. I have clearly left it too long. It is perfunctory and afterwards, it seems that I get more from the feeling of a person in the space next to me, the warm breath in the crook of my neck, the thin leg wrapped sweetly around my hips, the voice in my ear saying, ‘Phin, is it OK if I sleep over?’
I bring Nicholas’s hand over my shoulder, towards my mouth, and I kiss it, and then tuck it under my chin. ‘That would be nice. Yes. Please.’
And we fall asleep entwined, and I feel almost, but not quite, at peace.
The following morning Nicholas has gone. He has not left any traces of himself, no note, no business card. I spend some time on Grindr, seeing if I can maybe find him there, but no sign of him. I don’t know his surname, so I can’t google him. And that is that. We may have spent an entire night wrapped around each other’s naked bodies, but clearly Nicholas, dear, plain, doughy-faced boy that he was, was not keen to take things further. And as ever, I have no idea why.
But I have other things to think about today. I have my afternoon on the back of Kris Doll’s Honda Gold Wing with champagne cooling in panniers and another big step in my search for Phin. So I push Nicholas from my thoughts, and jump out of my empty bed and into the new day.
