It was January 1st 2016, 4 a.m. I had spent the night before celebrating New Year at a party at a friend of a friend’s house, gobbling up the free wine as if there was no tomorrow. The place was Amsterdam, the city that never sleeps for a good two days a year, one of those being January 1st.
Generally speaking I’m not a big fan of the holiday season. I mostly like New Year’s celebrations because they announce the cessation of the generically merry festivities December is known for. So when the party at my friend’s friend’s place was starting to die off, I decided to try my luck at the local gay sauna, because surely there’s no place to not celebrate the season than at a gay sauna, a sentiment felt by many gay people, as the place was packed.
This particular night the sauna was filled with so many cute Guys I instantly knew I would start the new year on a positive note, something I was in need of at the time. I had just finished writing my first novel entitled The Super Secret Diary of a Young Dictator and had already received a few rejection letters from publishers who didn’t consider it the War and Peace of our time. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I had no idea how I would go about selling myself as one.
As I scoured that night’s sauna looking for someone to up my ego through means of anal I enjoyed the many luscious looks I was getting. When I went to the bar to get a drink I found myself standing next to a somewhat cute looking Guy who at sight of me started caressing my chest with a heartwarming familiarity that won me over instantly. I knew this was far from the cutest Guy I could lay my hands on that night, but I reasoned having some fun with him could serve as a nice appetizer for other Guys to come.
And so it happened this Guy became Guy #158, my first lover of 2016. We secluded ourselves to the darker corners of our already secluded venue, where we had lovely sex that eventually flowed into lovely conversation. Guy #158 told me about himself. He was an American artist who was currently traveling the world, going from one exhibition to the next, selling his work, doing what he loves and getting laid in pretty much every time zone. It wasn’t long before I realized Guy #158 was living the life I wanted to live.
Hoping to get some valuable life lessons I told Guy #158 about my predicament. I specifically mentioned I considered it meaningful to start off the new year doing someone who was living my dream: writing, traveling and getting laid. Guy #158 told me about the importance of marketing myself and that I couldn’t reasonably expect to be successful if I didn’t put myself out there the way I usually only do when I’m at a gay sauna. It was at this point Guy #158 suggested I self publish my book. Up till then I had not considered the fact we live in a time where we can post anything we do online, including entire books.
Guy #158 and I had a great time together and I was very appreciative of his wisdom, so when he suggested we’d leave the sauna and finish the holiday season in his hotel room, I immediately said ‘Yes’, looking forward to spending the day in bed with someone I felt absolutely at ease with while at the same time getting valuable career advice.
The two of us quickly got dressed and met up at the sauna’s checkout counter. Guy #158 was the first one to walk through, followed by myself a few seconds later.
That’s when things turned eerie.
When I stepped outside Guy #158 was all but gone. I found myself in a small alley that stretched a good 50 meters in both directions, but couldn’t see Guy #158 anywhere. Feeling a bit stupid I asked the bouncer if he had seen anyone come out in front of me. He said he hadn’t, empathetically but also with little interest for my social life, almost as if ‘No’ was the only answer at his disposal, him being a bouncer and all.
I waited in said alley for about ten minutes, doubting everything that had just happened. Guy #158 seemed to have vanished into thin air. At first I figured that maybe he was still inside, which is why I waited for him to come out. Yet in my mind I had a very clear memory of him leaving the sauna mere seconds before I did. Did he suddenly change his mind and ran off? Surely no human being could cover 50 meters in mere seconds after receiving the amount of anal I had just given this one. And if the bouncer had seen someone running away wouldn’t he have told me? Besides, why would Guy #158 have disappeared on me? We’d been having a good time. He had even told me how good he felt in my company.
Nothing made sense.
I felt like a bit of a loser, standing in the cold at 6 a.m. on January 1st, alone and completely at odds with everything that had just happened. Part of me questioned if Guy #158 had been real. The way he had disappeared lacked a rational explanation.
After enduring the cold for about ten minutes, not to mention the increasingly annoying stares of the bouncer who didn’t like me standing in front of his entrance as if I had no life to speak of, I made my way to the train station, disillusioned, disappointed and with less ego than the year before. The only thing offering solace was the career advice I had been given. While I’m usually not too keen on attributing the unexplainable to the paranormal, that’s what my whole affair with Guy #158 had come to feel like.
A few weeks later I published my book on Amazon and ventured into the ins and outs of book marketing. Guy #158 to me had become an apparition of sorts. I’m still not 100% sure he was real, that’s how unreal his disappearance had been. The theory best fitting my senses is that Guy #158 was an angel from above, sent to inspire me to get my life on track.
Since its publication The Super Secret Diary of a Young Dictator went on to sell a staggering 30 copies.
So yeah, I probably got stood up by a Guy at 6 a.m. on January 1st.
Or, at best, I got stood up by an angel.
168guys.com 