To read the previous day’s (3 + 4) adventures, click here
Day 5:
There’s nothing like blind panic to wake you up in the morning. Somehow in the midst of my planning for this trip, I miscounted certain days and now there are a whole twenty-four hours between when I’m supposed to move out of this current hostel and over to my new one in Ipanema beach. Luckily Airbnb is designed specifically with unorganised simpletons like me in mind.
Since it is only for one day I decide to lowball it and go for a cheap as possible accommodation, which is not an easy task due to Carnival. After I pack up my singular bag and scrub the glitter and confetti confectionaries off my face, body, and crack, I manage to find a location perfectly half-way between my two homes. My perfect half-way home.
I would laugh at that later.
I arrive in the semi-rundown hotel and on-cue my phone can’t seem to get any signal and I have no idea which room I’m supposed to head to. The concierge is not much help either, grinning and nodding along in agreement that indeed my place is somewhere here before his English runs out.
It’s alright, I’m a strong independent person and if I can find a decently priced cocktail bar in New York during Pride I can find this apartment.
I step into the lift to head to the top floor as I’m reasonably certain it’s somewhere in that vicinity. Before the lift closes a short man steps into the lift with me. My nose is buried in my phone trying to look for details on the apartment, but I notice from the corner of my eye that he’s quite a muscular little cutie. We make side-eye contact and I quickly glance back to my phone, not really feeling like getting my ass kicked in front of all my possessions.
We reach the top floor and I start wandering around, hoping by some luck the Airbnb host I’m supposed to meet appears out from somewhere with the room keys and a fresh bottle of bubbly. On my second lap around I notice that Shorty McMuscles has opened the door to his apartment and is looking at me with his head cocked to the side.
“You..okay…yes?” he asks in broken and slow English.
I explain the best I can about my situation. He offers to let me use his Wifi so I can try to call the guy and see what’s up in this hood. Relieved by his good Samaritanism, I step into his apartment and drop my stuff down in the corner before I turn around to ask him for the password.
Where I find him right under my chin. I angle my head to look down at him and notice his beautiful big green eyes are mixed with flecks of aqua. His brown curls spill down like a thick mop on his head and he smells like a mixture of fruity deodorant and light perspiration from the hot day outside.
He is looking up at me intensely with wide eyes, rapidly dilating pupils (goodbye gorgeous colours) and suddenly the Wifi password is the furthest thing from my mind.
Our lips lock with a passion that heats up the small room in minutes. I’m lost in his smell and the feel of his compact body under my hands along with the soft sensation of his skin as our shirts hit the floor. The rest of the clothes come off pretty quickly as well.
I’m quite relieved that I happened to be travelling with all my bags and had bought condoms the day before.
I had never and probably will never experience sex again where we understood so little of each other’s home language and where that consequently had no dampening effects on our ardour. We relied on body cues and facial expressions to communicate and they did a damn fine job.
Well…except for when I was busy around his navel area and he suddenly got his phone out. I looked up frowning with an arched eyebrow to show that this wasn’t a video-time show. He laughed and showed me he was opening up a translation app.
There’s nothing quite like hearing a robotic voice telling you to “Make.your.mouth.wetter.” But I can always appreciate life’s teachers in all their various forms.
When he rolled over into his stomach and looked back at me over his shoulder I did not need the damn electric voice box to know what he wanted this time.
Later, while we lay cuddling and panting in his bed, enjoying the twin sensations of air conditioning and light fingers running over chests, his apartment phone suddenly screeched louder than an ill-mannered parrot, causing us both to jump up.
He went over to answer, speaking to it in flowing Portuguese. As he listened to the reply his eyes got wider and wider and he turned to me with a horrified expression on his face.
Sensing what was going on I looked over to my phone and saw I had a few missed calls and messages. Looks like my data was working again.
“They are…looking for you.” He seems quite panicked and I guessed that maybe he wasn’t out of the closet yet. What followed was a dressing both rapid and fierce enough to put Vin Diesel to shame.
I gathered up my bags and walked out to the corridor to see a man hanging out by the nearby stairs. He saw me walk out of the apartment and frowned slightly, but decided to not bring it up. He extended his hand towards me and offered greetings. I introduced myself to him and followed him up the stairs to a suite apartment that I hadn’t noticed on my initial rounds. He gave me a tour to what was – in the nicest way possible – a hole in the ground.
Groups of people hung out in the humid living room watching television on threadbare and dirty furniture. The kitchen was a mess of pots and pans and I’m pretty sure I saw a baby crawling around in the laundry room. After climbing up a flight of creaky stairs and across a literal plank of wood to my room, I was having some serious doubts about the place and an epiphany on why it was so cheap during the busiest season of the year for the city.
Luckily I had a private room and not a dormitory downstairs among the horde. The door had a sketchy lock but a decent view of the surrounding city. I had already paid and it was just for one day and night. And also I had discovered some very geographically-close-by entertainment which had sweetened the deal. So I was in a mood to give fewer fucks (I had already used one anyway) than usual about the living conditions.
I dropped my bags, triple checked my security and whirled by the group of people in the lounge. I realised I was not given a key and found out that the general consensus was that when you wanted to come back in you just hollered at the door until someone got up to open for you.
How whimsical.
I skipped across to Shorty’s apartment and knocked on his door. He opened it up wearing a brightly coloured form-fitting shirt and pleasantly tight cyan shorts. He smiled up at me before nervously looking around beckoning me into his apartment.
“What did you…tell that man? About…us?”
I frowned before replying, “Nothing, it’s none of his business.”
He looked a little relieved before he turned back to me with a worried expression and proceeded to get out his phone again for some translation help.
And that’s how I was told over a robotic voice that I needed to be careful if I was going to come over, and that if I saw a girl with him I needed to not say hello because that’s his girlfriend and she doesn’t know about this “habit” of his.
I stared, a little stunned, at the man I was inside of merely moments ago. I told him that was fine, but I did need to get going. He nodded and asked if he would see me at any Blocos later that day. I let out a “not sure” as I headed out the door and outside into the hot Brazilian day towards the beach promenade needing to clear my head a bit.
As I bought an opened coconut and a piña colada from separate vendors and combined them together for the full holiday experience, I received a message from Sara.
“Heading to big ass gay Bloco under a bridge in 10, join?”
I suppose I could use some male attention after what I had just been through.
Unfortunately, it was a long walk back to my place and I didn’t feel like dealing with that whole building in general. But I had my shorts on, my sexy fanny pack with my card and cash and that was all I truly needed. I managed to buy a leather strap to put around my leg and angled my clothes to look slightly Laura-Craft-like (Lawerence Croftward?) and caught the metro to meet the gang bangers under the aforementioned bridge to get my festivities on…
… and arrived at the sight of a boring-ass party. Lots of bums in tights and glitter on faces but little to no music or dancing. I spotted the group huddled around a beer vendor. Cat in a slinky sports outfit with knee-highs that would make a dominatrix blush. Flo covered in swashes of Purple and Bronze glitter and tights bright enough to make a rainbow blush. And Sara in a double bun hairstyle, tight red top and enough blue and black glitter across her face and arms to make the milky way blush.
Josh was not present again; I spent a lot of the trip daydreaming on where he flew off to in these moments. I would read the hell out of his blog.
Sara heard me call out to them and then had her face instantly fall at the sight of me.
“What the fuck are you wearing? This is a costume Bloco!”
I looked down at my single leather strap. “I’m the mother fuckin’ Womb Raide-” And proceeded not to finish my clever joke as I was assaulted by enough glitter to make a fairy blush. I made a few theatrical choking sounds before being informed it was edible glitter, whereupon I stopped.
“So what’s going on here? Honey, what’s all this?” I gestured to the basic bitch tea party that was taking place around us.
Basically the party was shut down. There was a betting pool that it was shut down by either the homophobic president, or it was just planned badly. Most people agreed it was possibly from both column A and B.
Collectively the failed Bloco all gathered together and took the train to the next scheduled party. I wonder if the poor crowd of norms on the metro were uncomfortable with the chanting, semi-nude crowd of misfits, or if they were so used to years of Carnival-esque mischief that this was just another Thursday.
Life in the Rat Race, Am I right?
As we made our way out the station towards the alternative Bloco I notice that Cat is strutting down the road with a curious demeanour. She’s held together but also showing signs of inner struggle. Is she hurt? Is she wrestling with some mental quagmire? She stares stoically ahead and I’m sure her jaw is locked tight. What the hell is going on?
I head over to Sara to ask “Is Cat alright?”
She notices my gaze and whispers in my ear, “She just really needs to pee. She will shut down if we don’t make it there soon. And frankly, I’m not doing so well either. There were no bathrooms under that Bridge. Probably for the best it was closed.”
I feel sharp spikes of sympathy. Especially since Josh, Flo and I have had zero problems in this department. There’s plenty of male bathrooms and no shortage of green trees and bushes where tribes of stumbling males wander off to every now and then. We eventually find a female bathroom…with the line curving around in a graceful spire around the block. Oh dear.
Flo and I leave the girls to stand hunched over and sweating at the brow while they inch forward at a glacial pace. We will go to find refreshments for them in this trying time. For them to consume after their journey is done, of course.
We manage to find the intended Bloco along with the refreshments carts and get a message from Josh that he will be heading our way shortly to party. I’m half expecting him to arrive in a superhero cape without a proper alibi for his whereabouts at this stage.
The womenfolk find us later wearing more relaxed postures and wider smiles, weighing about 3 kgs less from the loss of liquid. We make sure to try to replace that as soon as possible with the beer and churros we’ve found.
We head to the Bloco, which at the very least seems non-gay this time. It’s far more screamo band-ish and has men rapping lyrics and mini explosions in the sky, made from firecrackers that seem more smoke and sound than actual sparkles. This is indeed a very straight Bloco. Yes. We have finally found the elusive Hetero Bloco after days of searching.
Ten minutes later we’re all waiting for a taxi to arrive to take us to the next Gay party happening on the other side of the city.
As we wait, Sara asks us to help send a short birthday video to a friend of hers back home. Turns out I actually knew the guy at the time and ran into him working out a few months later where we laughed about the coincidence and I had to go to the gym bathrooms to cry about the memories. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We arrived at the part of town where the latest party was set to take place only to find our way blocked by an ongoing Carnival day parade procession. With no way around we hopped out of the taxi and began our trek to find the elusive fête.
Very soon we found ourselves completely alone in a more run-down part of town, decorated with stunning displays of graffiti and little-to-no people.
With two near-naked girls and two closer-to-naked boys in our party, we were a little worried about our odds of surviving long on these streets. So, while fully enjoying the dystopian beauty of the surrounding area with its leaning trees and derelict buildings we frog-marched a little faster to the desired location.
We managed to cross the street to stand in line just as Joshy came around the corner in an uber, less sweaty and out of breath than the rest of us.
Getting inside we discovered it was a much more festive party, than the previous one offered, with many dance floors and overhead stalls selling everything from cocktails to flavour layered Portuguese dishes. It was less a Bloco party and closer in a manner to Shindigs. Cat took to the Spanish dance floor with a swing of her scantily clad hips and the rest of us followed suit, deciding the dance floor looked like it needed a good breaking in. And break it in we did – if memory serves, Sara, in particular, is fending off the dance floors late-night calls to this day.
It was a delightful night of dancing, kissing more good looking men (I had hoped Flo remembered his antibiotic spray, I might need to borrow it again) with even Cat demonstrating how it was done by engaging in a three-way kiss with two stubbled hunks.
“I thought I saw those two guys kissing earlier…” I said to Sara. She responded, “Oh yea they’re a couple. But Cat doesn’t care. She’s going to get hers.”
I managed to find myself a devilishly good looking man wearing a tutu, a sign that said “NETFLIX”, a magic fairy wand, a beard and… nothing else. I still think about him whenever I chill to this day.
During this time Flo and Joshy had left to go retrieve the tickets the gang would need to see the Sambadrome that night as they hadn’t quite experienced the heavenly wonder that was the Carnival Parade yet. As they arrived back to pick up the girls I decided to call it a night and go home. I didn’t have enough battery life to stay longer and still be able to call an uber and I was far too glitter-strewn and covered in sweat to hustle myself another lift from the kindness of strangers.
As I arrived home, I walked out of the elevator to the stairs where the suite was, passing Shorty’s apartment door. I stopped and stood there swaying a little, envisioning dilated eyes the colour of gems and a short muscular behind. I thought about how I wouldn’t even need to talk at all. I would be gone tomorrow and would never see him again. What concern was it of mine on his relationship with a girl I hadn’t seen and would never meet?
A minute later I hollered at the hole-in-the-floor’s door until someone came to open up so I could pass out in my crappy little bed and shake off the confetti and lingering guilty thoughts.
