Tallinn, Estonia. It’s 23 minutes passed midnight and I’m standing in a parking lot of a residential
building. My friends headed back to the hotel after a night out but I still have some spunk in me.
My phone guided me here but I must have taken a wrong turn. This can’t be right, can it?
After some searching I spot a little door behind the dumpsters: the door I’ve been looking for.
Above it, in white bold lettering: “Club 69”.
One of my favorite things to do when I’m abroad is visiting a local gay bathhouse; the sleazier the
better. And I just found the holy grail!
The person packed in the tiny cubicle office stares me down from behind the plexiglass, cigarette
hanging from the corner of his mouth. A look that says “do you know even know where you are,
boy?” I do.
With faked confidence I ask for an entry. “Is 15 euros!” He mumbles with a thick accent. I pay, he
buzzes me in.
I undress in the locker room (42 lockers, a small plastic bench in the middle ). A guy is speaking
loudly on his phone. He grabs his coat out of his locker and heads out. As he passes he gives me
a look, somewhere between lust and aggression. I’m beginning to question my choices.
I spot another guy: tall, cute. He is wearing a towel, staring at his phone. I try to catch his eye but
he’s not noticing me, or he doesn’t want to.
I go to the main room. Two elderly Estonian gentlemen sit at the Hawaiian inspired bar complete
with tiki torches (never lit). They talk and laugh and drink from their giant glasses of beer. No
music is playing, the only accompaniment is the mechanical sound of the automatic party lights
projecting magenta dots alls over the room.
I continue my expedition into the spa area. The jacuzzi of about 2 square meters houses a man of
roughly the same size. His eyes are closed, barely moving. The water is still and lukewarm (I put
my pinky in). I continue passed the showers to the sauna. I enter.
I like to be naked, there is something about the sense of freedom, vulnerability and anticipation
that is very exciting to me. I am the only one it seems, because the three people I’m sharing the
sauna with have their towel tightly wrapped around their waist. I feel looked at as I open my towel
and install myself on the wooden bench. I welcome their gaze.
From their accent I gather that two of them are tourists. The third guy I recognize; the tall guy from
the dressing room. One of the tourists is trying to make small talk with him but he’s responding in
single words, killing the conversation. When the tourists leave, the tall guys mutters under his
breath: “thank god”.
I smile. For the first time we make eye contact. His towel loosens. We start talking. He tells me
he’s been living his whole life in Tallinn. He just started working at a bank, his first job. He likes it
but doesn’t want to live here his whole life. He wants to travel west. See the world. When I tell him
I live in Brussels his eyes light up, exactly where he wants to go.
Our legs touch. Wether accidental or on purpose, it doesn’t matter, I get hard. His hand caresses
my thigh. We kiss. He takes me to a cabin in the darkroom deeper in the building. The small room
is clearly build for BDSM (handcuffs chained to the wall), but it will do for our purposes too. What
starts out confident and passionate leads clumsy sex (non of us really gifted at bottoming). After
climaxing we lay in each others arms for a bit. Continuing our conversation from before.
He talks about how there isn’t much to do in Estonia. How there’s not a lot of young people, most
of them move to different countries, looking for themself.
He walks me back to my hotel. “Can I have your insta?”, I ask. We exchange contacts and go our
separate ways. Now and then a picture a picture of him passes by on my feed, hoping that one
day I’ll see my city in the background.
I love sleazy gay bathhouses.