They’re all the same
“You have a look-alike in Holland” he said shoving his phone into my face.
“He must be very handsome.” I replied, trying not to sound rehearsed.
I get this so often that I have a template response to being told a facsimile of me exists somewhere. I used to react angrily, usually with contempt or disdain, now I take it as a compliment of sorts. “He must be very handsome” just feels like a nice way of acknowledging the micro aggression without having to engage with it. It’s also me choosing to take it as a compliment, of sorts.
The photo on his phone of my supposed doppelgänger looked nothing like me. The only thing we appeared to have in common is beautiful cinnamon coloured skin.
To white people we all look the same.
***
You go in, you pay your money, you get a locker- sometimes a cubicle, you get wet and if you’re lucky you’ll get wetter. That’s the basic premise in places like this the world over, whether you’re in Sydney or Istanbul.
The only difference to this Turkish bathhouse from any of the ones in Sydney is that this is an actual bathhouse, for actual bathing. Anything else while not officially sanctioned is effectively ignored.
The baths are clad in marble, not in a fancy way but in a deeply practical way. It would be clad of raw bricks if bricks were waterproof. There’s nothing fancy about this place. It’s deeply utilitarian, and that’s putting it kindly, it was due for a makeover at least twenty years ago.
There are three bathing rooms, one with an enormous marble slab in the centre where you get massaged, scrubbed and cleansed in full view of everyone else, and there’s always an audience.
There’s a small sauna and a smaller steam room and that’s it. If you want a private moment in complete privacy you need to go into the utility closet. Most of the action happens in full view of everyone else- or in the tiny utility closet.
Since this place hosts the most bacchanalian, debauched, unhinged madness you’d think the courting- or cruising- process is just as depraved but it (mostly) isn’t like that at all. It’s actually quite Victorian and quaint (mostly).
First you look around, hoping to catch the eye of someone looking back at you. If that goes well you may go and sit closer, then either of you will get closer, then closer still and then closer again until you’re almost touching. A hand might reach out, or a foot, maybe a leg or even an arm. Slowly at first, and then all at once.
The hottest, most intense, most thrilling part is this courtship dance you do with a total stranger. It is definitely a dance, it certainly feels that way. One person moves, the other follows, the other follows again. It’s a silent, high-stakes dance. It’s a negotiation. Body language and a hungry and curious look can communicate so much.
It works the same here as it does everywhere else, and since I don’t speak Turkish and most of the men in here don’t speak English or Spanish then hungry eyes and curious hands are our common language.
And communicate we do.
The hottest men I’ve ever seen have assembled here tonight, each one heaving with curious eyes and hungry hands. Soon enough one of them wanted to dance. He wanted to negotiate.
He was sitting opposite me in the steam room, then next to me, then closer, and closer until only our forearms were touching.
The hair on his arms barely grazed the hair on mine. Electricity was surging through me, every pore in my skin was ablaze. Only our arms were touching, and even then barely. The anticipation was as thick as the wet air around us. His arm began moving in a steady motion. I was completely ablaze at this point. So was he, if the rhythmic motion of his hand was to be believed.
Intimacy occurred.
***
“Tell the Dutch me, that the Australian me says hello.” I said to the jolly stranger as he was leaving, I was still towelling off.
“I will! Of course.” he said in his sing-song Dutch accent, his smile was so broad I’m sure he had more teeth than an adult should.
“He must be very handsome” I said.
