Ruby Stark

On Tuesday, I went on a work outing to a bowling alley. My boss and I prodded each other on our way past to the bar or the loo or the food laid out. I attempted to skittle the pins in the next lane, but missed. We went for a few drinks afterwards, and when I said I was leaving, Malt walked me to the U-Bahn. I wanted him to come home with me, but it didn’t happen.

On Wednesday, my friend, Suki, came for supper. I made gazpacho soup and bread and a salad with French dressing and tzatziki. We ate and talked about why people believe in homeopathy, and about boys and having multiple irons in the fire while we played with the cats.

On Thursday, I was beside myself with tiredness. I had had three early-morning visits to the doctor to get more drugs and have my INR level checked with a blood test, so I was completely shattered. At work, we had a review meeting and everyone wrote down good and bad things about the past two weeks’ work and then we grouped them into categories for discussion. When we got to the final item, all the points were positive, so someone suggested we have a group hug, so we did. Each of the fifteen people in the meeting hugged each other person and it was very moving. I love the company I work for so much.

In the evening, I went to a programmer meetup and watched Dust give a talk about running a certain programming language on a certain hand-held device. I decided against going home to get some sleep and went to meet Malt and some work friends for someone’s leaving drinks. On the way home, I listened to Sunset Rubdown.

Today, I have pottered and, soon, Malt will arrive for supper.

Tomorrow, I get on the sleeper to Paris.

First of all, I have the feeling. It’s where you’re vulnerable to your own thoughts of what has happened, but oblivious to the outside. It’s like what is going on inside you expands to fill the world. It’s a feeling that comes the day after a late night with little sleep. It’s a feeling that is massively augmented by sex with a new person. Some other times I’ve had this feeling: the time between getting thrown off the street at one a.m. and going to bed the night after that one, the first time I had sex with Dusk, the Sunday I left Bradford after visiting Matte for the first time after we got back together.

So, my boss arrived at around one p.m. and I changed into my pink and blue cotton dress that shows my shoulders and back and scar and we set off for the brunch place. We bantered and laughed and it was good. We arrived and ate foul German breakfast, all cheese and bread and, for the meat-eaters, speck. We talked in the front room of the pub, a smoky fire making the place smell like a place in a village my Dad used to take me to for roast beef sandwiches and lemonade and lime. We talked with my boss’s friend, Margo, and I used his phone to ssh into my remote server to restart a site I’ve been working on recently.

My boss’s friend rang and invited him for supper and he said he had planned to spend the evening with me and she very kindly said I could come, too. So, we set off for a long, a very long, walk to his private office in the centre of Berlin. We jumped fences and traversed river banks (he said if I fell in, I would have to remove my clothes to avoid drowning and he would finally get to see me naked). He took my hand. I found myself feeling quite tremulous and shivery, rather like I felt when I’d gone for even a short walk after I died. We got to a tram stop and he wrapped me up in his arms. It felt weird. We finally got to his office and he showed me the helicopter and the matrix of smoke generators he is working on.

We set off again and walked to his friend’s house. We arrived with beer and wine and everyone was so warm. There was Victoria, my boss’s friend and our hostess, a nice couple with a sweet baby with whom my boss played which made my heart melt, and Margo. I sat in the kitchen with the women while Victoria told this long story about her demanding friend and, I think, nearly broke down during the telling. They chatted fast and close as they prepared food and I felt like I was in a Woody Allen film, or maybe Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. I tried to remain standing and worried I was going to be sick.

We went into the sitting room with all the raclette things and sat down and cooked the cheese and I ate pickled onions and scoffed down potatoes and a cherry tomato and felt so much better.

The group asked me whether there were any German stereotypes and whether I thought they were true. Treading carefully, I said Germany was known for being ruthlessly well organised, which I found to sometimes be true, like in running orders at gigs. I also said that German people were said to have no sense of humour, but I found that Germans are always laughing and have quite a similar sense of humour to the English. Someone speculated that this stereotype existed because, occasionally, foreigners would come up to Germans and say, Heil Hitler, as some kind of bizarre joke and would receive no laugh in response.

We talked about the German guilt about World War II and the holocaust, and they said that it is only recently that people have begun to make jokes about these things in Germany. Victoria said that she had gone to stay with a French family when she was small, and the father had been in the war. Her parents had warned her to be ultra polite and respectful and not to be insulted if she received a frosty reception. However, she said she was able to translate a letter written to the man by a German soldier and that, afterwards, he had hugged her.

As the supper went on, my boss and I exchanged close glances, and I fell for him more and more. There was a thread of closeness between us in the group, two people revolving around each other in the warmth of a friendship group. When I looked at him, I felt excited, felt proud.

Finally, we had to leave to go to a colleague’s birthday party. We hugged everyone goodbye and then came out onto the street and quickly kissed for the first time since the weekend before and then we walked to the U-Bahn, his arm around me.

We got to the bar and there was Olive, Thora the birthday girl, my boss’s best friend, John, and a few others. My boss and I sat on our stools with our legs touching, not really talking to one-another, but with that secret kinship you can share with someone when part of a group. I really like John – he is gentle and clearly adores my boss and they support each other a lot.

We moved to another bar and, on the way, plugged our headphones into this jack in a wall that lets you listen to the movements of the building. We danced to old ’60s girl groups like the Ronettes. I sat down and my boss sat down next to me and I put my hand on the inside leg of his trousers – very bold, for me, with a boy – and we kissed for a long time. He stroked me all over my arms and back and neck and shoulders and the slow desire that had built over the whole day turned into a scared certainty that I wanted to go home with him.

It was half four in the morning and I said that I needed to take my drugs which were at my house, but, that, if he wanted, he could come with me.

We got in a cab with Olive and got out and went into my apartment building and came upstairs, me very nervous. We drank water and I took my pills and then my boss took off his trousers and I took off my tights and we got into bed and I put out the light and we started kissing.

I just loved the way his hands stroked me all over. He put his hand in my underwear and stroked my clit and I started sighing into his ear and then he pushed a finger inside me and I bucked and squeaked and gasped and, thinking about it now, I get a twisting in my spine.

After a while of deliciousness, I faked and then we lay together for a while. I kissed him and pulled off his boxers, feeling really scared now, and knelt between his legs and put his cock in my mouth and began sucking him off.

OK, so he had, by far, the biggest cock I had ever seen. I could just about close my fingers around it, and could only get about a third of it into my mouth. I stopped for a moment and then asked him for advice and he said I was doing fine and I aborted and felt really bad.

We snuggled for a while and he said, “So, I think we got a problem. I am not sure I fit inside you.” And I decided to tell him about being intersex and he took it incredibly well, just as another of the scar stories I have told him. And he said, “We figure something out,” and I felt so happy that he was seeing it as a problem to be worked at.

So, he fucked me again with his hand and I pulled off my dress and he sucked at my breasts and it felt so good and I am pretty sure he will be able to make me come. I really wanted him to fuck me.

We fell asleep and I woke three or four hours later and woke him up and we talked and I asked him whether he considered himself a happy person and he said he was very happy until a few years ago when this girl he was in love with died, and, since then, he has been slowly healing. I listened and hugged him and kissed his cheek as he told the story.

Later, we sshed into my remote server and he helped me set up some handy stuff. He left about two p.m. and I went to go a mozzarella burger and chips and walked through the street listening to Bob Dylan in that vulnerable/oblivious state.

I realised how desperate I was to talk to Cat. She went home with her date last night, too, and I thought how magical it would be to discuss the feeling with someone who had it, too.

Last night, Dust invited me to an ambient electro gig at a squat in Mitte. I had kind of resolved to just go straight home, but then got persuaded to go and have a drink with my work friends, Cal, Olive [the woman who invited me to go to a woman-only massage parlour but who then never called and I think might have a boyfriend but who I still can't figure out and who is now warm and kind to me], Reed, Smirk and Stroke. We sat out on he pavement in the warm summer smell and drank beer and cracked dev jokes. Stroke, who is extremely good looking, further revealed his vulnerable side with an admission that he is always telling bad jokes, and his girlfriend calls him grandpa because of his poor memory.

My boss texted me to arrange a time for meeting for brunch and I said that if he comes to pick me up, he could help me choose an outfit for the day. He agreed.

It started raining and we dashed inside and had a very cosy and funny talk about trans-continental humour, the role of electronic devices in separating or connecting us, our positions as devs who make the world for so many people. We laughed and laughed and I realised I was spending yet another evening being happy.

We went to see another colleague’s gig and it went on a bit long and the mood dissipated, so I came home. On the U-Bahn, I read a lovely email from Cat about how we are both going on dates ON THE SAME DAY. I replied and said so that means we are going on a transnational double date.

On Friday night, I picked up my friend, Archigram, from the airport and we went to the same upstairs in a shopping centre bar that Malt took me to the week before. We talked about Archigram’s lovely girl and how fun in Berlin is happening without me having to make it and drank beer.

The next day, we went for a long walk across bridges and through dusty parks in the sun and ended up at the Soviet Memorial. I had been there with my old German girlfriend, Cassette, on a freezing cold night when it was pouring with rain and we were the only people there, the only warmth in the desolate, concrete wasteland. We were really in love with each other, then.

Archigram and I pottered about and talked about the war and having children and making a family.

We popped home and I changed into my sexy, slinky red dress and then we went to meet Brown for supper at the Italian she had taken me to for my birthday and had a cosy meal talking about triligual puns and people not understanding when you are being ironic. I ate spinach and ricotta ravioli steeped in butter and we dipped pieces of bread in oil and balsamic vinegar. Then, we went to the gay/biker/hipster bar for drinks and met Malt, his cute friend, Steffi, Cal and Smirk. We talked about nginx and ejaculation and the Kit Kat Club. Malt and Archigram got along famously.

The three of us went to play Lord of the Rings pinball and then Dust texted me to say he was outside. I went into the street and sat on the kerb with him and his friends and bantered and it felt so continental to drink beer perched on pavement and have a back and forth with a group of happy people.

Presently, everyone from inside came outside and we walked to the club. We got there and then Reed and his lovely girlfriend, Thora, and Wally from work arrived and we all danced faster and harder. Some time passed in dancing and talking and cigarettes outside, and Malt and I made a mini-gang we dashed about the club and danced. He did his winning smile at me like you would smile at a beloved but dimwitted child, or the smile people do when they are mocking you. We went to the unisex loo and it felt pleasingly public with the guys at the urinals and the people in the cubicles snorting cocaine and came out and stood real close and he stroked my back and my neck and I put my arm around his waist and we both stared into the crowd and I looked up at him and he was still looking outwards and then I looked up again and he kissed me and stroked my all over my sides and back and shoulders and it felt really good.

I heard Reed’s braying voice and realised that half the company would have seen, and I cared a bit, but not a lot. The night went on and Malt and I kissed a few more times and he kept on stroking my back and bottom and sides and I remember that, when I kissed him, I pushed my hips against his.

Finally, it was five a.m. and Archigram wanted to go home so we left. We got home and the cats hurled themselves at my bedroom door for the next hour until Archigram made me get up and stop them. But it was nice to share a bed with him again.

We wandered around on Sunday in a daze, went to the new national art gallery and drank coffee. He set off for the airport in the evening and I was very sad to see him go.

On Monday, it was obviously a bit awkward with Malt. No one else commented, which was gooood. A sense of horror and it-was-a-mistake-but-I-couldn’t-have-known-in-advance-ness crept over me, but dissipated when I went out for supper with Malt in the evening. He said he would be Ok with being friends and OK with more, which was very brave. I said I had always found sex with boys difficult and that I naturally leant towards girls and he said it was OK to take it slow.

So, at the moment, I am at the precise nexus of my feelings growing or shrinking. I wish I had the full text of my old Susie Down blog so I could refresh my memory on how my feelings for Dusk evolved. I do know that I felt only trepidation and not longing int the days after we slept together. However, when we had a threesome with Tourista a month later, I remember asking her whether she was keen on him and so I was probably, by that point, keen on him myself.

Today, when I came out of work, sexy D followed me down the stairs and smiled at me with his “I am thinking about having sex with you right now” smile and I skipped away to the U-Bahn light-footed and happy.

We had agile project-management training at work today. The methodology we’re being taught has some sense: it involves lots of self-reflection and includes a vaguely realistic idea of what it’s like to develop software. However, I felt so absurd sitting there and learning that stuff. Along with shower-gel and bottled water and pre-printed Valentine’s cards, it’s one of the pinnacles of civilisation’s ability to distance itself from realness. When future peoples dig up our remains, surely they will laugh at our contrivances, at how we distracted ourselves with all this bilge as the ship slipped under the surface.

I longed to be sawing wood or pressing seeds into the earth or high-fiving with my impending niece or nephew, to be close to real life.

The ball-production game was pretty fun, though.

I came home from my first day completely wiped out. I felt quite dizzy as I got on the U-Bahn, and, not being able to remember what dying felt like last time, briefly worried it was about to happen again.

I found myself wishing I was coming home to someone I adored, who would fuck me and then let me pass out wrapped up in their arms.

This evening, I walked along the road between my work and the bus stop with my coat zipped high and my collar around my cheeks and my hands in my front jacket pockets. I hadn’t slept properly for three days, and I felt blank and very cold. I felt like Richard Papen walking home from the supper where his friends had been plotting his friend’s murder in The Secret History.

I don’t know why, but I decided to put on Bruce Sterling’s Webstock talk. I fell asleep one night in hospital whilst listening to my iPhone, then awoke from a dream about being on a secret mission with some friends, and killing a policeman, and stuffing myself into a dumb waiter, and Bruce Sterling’s talk was going and I still had the dream feeling and that mixed with Sterling’s revolutionary words and him alternating his delivery from sombre Lee Marvin to the soaring music in that Godspeed You! Black Emperor song. When I think back to that moment of lying in bed, I get the same feeling of possibility that, unlike most nostalgia, comes from the associative trigger itself, rather than the time, and I think it’s the same for that Des Ark song and Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex and L’Auberge Espagnole.