One of the most important values in life is your own home, your place. This is what I did not have abroad. And without a place everything is bad. There were wanderings, first living with someone, then in rented rooms. In general, I would call the disgrace of the West these microscopic closets, inside of which everything was located - in one corner behind the screen there is a toilet (or often just outside on the same floor), in the other corner there is a kitchenette, i.e. cooking stove, with or without a curtain. And these "closets" for living were strangely called "studios". At first I thought that the studio is a huge space for an artist and that I don’t need this at all. It turned out that this is exactly where I will have to live for many years. And you had to pay for such miserable "studios" from a third to a half of what you earned...
At first I lived in this area. Metro Jules Joffrin:
Babette met me at the railway station, he lived in such a studio for a couple of years. And, apparently, he was happy. That was his makeup. Even now, decades later, he is happy, God grant him health and strength!
It is also good that almost immediately upon arrival in Paris I began to work. In this regard, I can say that I was lucky.
But what were my first impressions? Babette first took me to Pigalle, a street lined with porno cinemas, sex shops, and other entertainment venues. He took me to one of these cinemas, where there was a hall for homosexuals. But the faggots also visited the hall for straight people, where straight sex was shown on the screen. There sometimes guys jerked off, and queens tried to sit next to such a person. There were also special booths in the area, where people entered, put the purchased token in the slot and watched porn. There, too, gays loitered to catch the moment of lust and grab someone’s erect dick. All this did not attract me, although at first I also used to go there for some reason.
Gay bar "Central"
Finally I was shown bars and nightclubs. You go to a gay bar, you order a beer. And you stand. At first, it was a curiosity for me - how is it, a bar for faggots, full of people, not a single woman! And after all, there are windows of houses opposite, from which everything is visible, and they know what kind of institution it is. But very soon I realized that no one here cares who does what.
In the bar itself, no one paid attention to anyone, did not get acquainted. There were also quite attractive types, but, as it turned out later, their emphatically masculine appearance was an illusion. There I noticed such a mimicry of men - most had cropped hair, they were unshaven, wore leather jackets. In fact, they were all passive or, so to speak, of the Western type, i.e. "first I fuck you, and then you fuck me." Or not at all had clear sexual interests.
One day, back in my early weeks, I plucked up the courage and went to these places alone. Sat at the bar and ordered a beer. Suddenly, a handsome mulatto with a mustache sits down next to me and starts a conversation. Immediately offers to go to his house for the night. I agreed. He drove me in a convertible sports car, we raced at high speed along the avenues and illuminated underground tunnels - it was spectacular, already breathtaking! Well, I thought, how lucky I was!
We went to bed. And then bullshit began. This mulatto mustang's dick could barely get hard, he raved about some fantasies that it would be nice if he was fucked in the ass and he was fucking someone at the same time ... His hole was like a bottomless pit. We tormented each other like this all night, without actually doing anything. Just rubbing and kissing and fingering up asses. In the morning I returned home broken and disappointed.
Another time, I also met a guy in a bar. He lived nearby, in the center. We came to his place. It turned out to be the same sad story. He had to be whipped with a whip, flogged with a belt and threatened with murder. “You, Russian”, you came to me, you will kill me here now ... ”he muttered.
Caricature masculinity:
Babette decided to visit a night bar with me, it was called "BH" (bar homosexuel). The bar opened around midnight, and we had to stay there all night, until the morning metro, because paying for a taxi at night to return was then beyond our means. We went. Same situation. People stand with glasses of beer or other drinks. They don’t talk to each each other, because they are afraid to tie themselves up with a casual and unnecessary acquaintance. The bar had a darkroom, where people went from time to time. In this dark room they groped each other, felt each other upUP. In general, decent people did not go in there, those who squeezed in were mostly desperate faggots and size queens. There was also a toilet where they also stood and smoked. It was there that in a cubicle, standing up, I was fucked by an Arab guy. Wow. At least there was something.
Otherwise there was nothing but sheer sadness. As a rule, Arabs were not allowed into such nightclubs, because they were seen stealing, but, lo and behold, I got one, and that's okay.
I remember that it was very disgusting to go home after such a sleepless night in a crowded subway carriage when all the people were going to work.
Very quickly, I realized that there was nothing for me to do in these establishments for gays. Sometimes I went there just to drink beer and sit in friendly ambiance. But I no longer counted on any meetings in numerous gay places. I completely forgot about them.
As expected, the Turks, Arabs and other southern peoples helped out. In all the eleven years of my life in France, I have not met a single Frenchman! In general, all these eleven years spent in France did not leave any impressions in terms of dating and fucking. I had friends at work from Russian immigration, I drank with them, we discussed the “destiny of Russia”, well, some fucking took place with random southern immigrants whom I met in random places.
I felt longing for the past, for what was lost. My sexuality is somehow strongly linked to the ethnic and cultural context in which I grew up. It is impossible to tear it out and move it to a new place. I was fully aware that in all respects life in France is better, that Russia/USSR will lag behind forever, that in France there is respect for the human person as a basic principle, I saw and appreciated the beauty of France. But what do I have to do with all this? What am I doing here?
To live there, one must grow up in this country, one must not only speak excellent French (which is impossible), but one must also think in French. Otherwise, French society will not accept you. It is necessary, by the way, to make love the way they do it.
I left Russia in distant times, even under Soviet leaders. I remember how the French news announced that now there would be Gorbachev. One day I got very drunk in a bar - it was in the spring of 1985 - and got lost in the very center of Paris. For a long time I wandered, as if in a maze, then I stopped in despair on a completely deserted street. Then I turned my head back and saw a huge illuminated portrait of Gorbachev. It was an advertisement for a new issue of Paris-Match magazine, its cover. I stood with the picture of Gorbachev against me for a couple of minutes.
