My erections on this trip and my ejaculations have been forced and feeble. I yearn for a true unbidden unexpected erection, unexpected arousal

My erections on this trip, and my ejaculations, have been forced and feeble. I yearn for a true unbidden, unexpected erection, unexpected arousal, and true joyous ejaculation. If these are my last words on earth, god help me. I love my MOTHER. Risible erections, risible ejaculations. The story of four consecutive holidays now. I yearn for Vienna, but the last great night of my life was when I rushed BACK from Vienna to spend a last night in Brussels. So there is no easy answer. Eros comes when you least expect it so I sit waiting for what I least expect. In my experience, what really unlocks Eros is the LAST MINUTE changes of plan. On the trip back from Vienna for my last night in Frankfurt, I at the last minute decided to carry on to Brussels, and What. A. Night. You have to make last minute changes to unlock Eros, this is the lesson of my life.

You cannot call yourself a literature lover unless you ejaculate into the pages of your favourite books so they are stained forever by your SPERM

You cannot call yourself a literature lover, unless you ejaculate into the pages of your favourite books, so they are stained forever by your SPERM. By your LIFEFORCE. Before you have fingerprinted them with your EROS. With your PRIAPISM. Then, I usually tire of these books, and give them away to some charity bookshop, or my library—no matter, my legacy lives on in these books in a most extraordinary way. Orgasm, and paperback books, are my two greatest pleasures in life so to combine the two seems absolutely natural. You want to borrow one of my books? No problem! But make sure you give it back! Don’t go extracting my DNA and try to clone me!

Oh Christ blue fucking skies now. Rain more unlikely than ever. Very very disappointed. On my 4th beer 1115AM

Oh Christ, blue fucking skies now. Rain more unlikely than ever. Very very disappointed. On my 4th beer 1115AM. Men wearing gloves in weather which is really not that cold; footballers wearing gloves—ditto. Discuss. I have a policy, even if my hands are really fucking cold, I will not put my gloves on unless I see at least two other men wearing them first. No one wants to be the only man wearing gloves. I’m afraid even if my fingers are fucking freezing off, I feel too self-conscious to put my gloves on (and they are only fingerless gloves at that). One is terrified of looking weak. Similarly I will carry a little umbrella in the rain but will only put it up if it is really lashing down. 1221 Six cans down. Still here in the Max. Not much option on a Sunday. Not really interested in going to O’Reilly’s for an Irish Breakfast OR a beer—they are too expensive; 450 a pint. No. Let me keep on buying my 1,40 cans of Jupiler from the shop next to my hotel for a while longer, then start my pilgrimages (maybe). Even back home in London I am an afternoon person; I like to start my drinking by 11am or 12 midday at the latest, back in bed by 5pm at the latest to sleep. It is how my Eros must adapt. In Vienna at least I can then go out after midnight to Manhattan or Tete, of course. Brussels does not really have this option. And Berlin died a long time ago.

Just wondering what type of tree that is outside the Max Hotel window—a monkey puzzle tree perhaps?—when a young man in red scarf and a bobble hat stops to pee in the big pot at the base of it

Just wondering what type of tree that is outside the Max Hotel window—a monkey puzzle tree perhaps?—when a young man in red scarf and a bobble hat stops to pee in the big pot at the base of it. Under the tree the sign pointing to Yser-Ijzer, where Fifth Avenue can be found; only in the last couple of months did I realise that Yser/Ijzer translates as Iron. Reminding me of my iron-hard erections, no doubt, if I’ve remembered to take the medication. And I’ve indeed taken the medication, 2 days in a row, completely pointlessly, because I never even came close to enjoying intercourse with anyone, not even a woman. I scarcely found the arousal to enjoy intercourse with myself. Yes, my FOURTH trip to Brussels this year (and I’ve been nowhere else) and I still have not enjoyed carnal relations with anyone in those four trips. Four consecutive trips without any jollies may be an unwanted record for me. My finances dampen my mood all the time and make it increasingly difficult for Eros to spark and catch fire. Always the nagging thought, it is time for Hamburg. But also, oh Vienna. Though I did NOTHING on that trip in December either, and couldn’t wait to rush back to Brussels—Vienna to Brussels in one day, and then in Brussels had one of the great Brussels nights of my life with sensational Brazilian Diane. One of the great f—ks of my young life, SHE would bring this holiday to life, that’s for sure.

SUNRISE, FL – DECEMBER 18: Demi Lovato performs onstage at Y100’s Jingle Ball 2015 presented by Capital One at BB&T Center on December 18, 2015 in Sunrise, Florida. (Photo by Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)

Just a cold overcast day; little chance of it actually raining again I think unfortunately

Just a cold, overcast day; little chance of it actually raining again I think, unfortunately. By NOT eating before, it means I am going to have to stop my drinking and come back for something to eat SOONER, so that increases my chance of being able to get up and out again later for a second round. I need to buy a beer as soon as I walk in to the Cine Paris, that will FORCE me to stay there longer; therefore increasing my chance of getting turned on, despite myself. I always get turned on in in porn cinema EVENTUALLY, it’s just I always feel like walking out as soon as I walk in. Oh I just wish something could spark me to life. Wish I could be inflamed with Eros, and with Priapus, the way I am when I ANTICIPATE these journeys, but never feel it when I am actually here; or very rarely, and those are the special trips I remember for all my life. But you cannot manufacture it; it just has to happen spontaneously, out of the blue, spontaneous combustion of your erotic senses, when you least expect it. So I sit patiently, waiting for what I least expect, anxiously, mournfully. It would make more sense to do something different, go up to Rue d’Aerschot and then back to Fifth, BEFORE going in Cine Paris, so then I’ve no reason to always want to rush away from Cine Paris but I cannot do it. I know porn cinemas are best when I am really sleepy, really far gone; going to them at the START of my day is always pointless, but still I do it, every time.

Third beer begun 140pm. Overcast today but starting to heat up. Honestly don’t think I’m going to do anything naughty on this trip

Third beer begun, 140pm. Overcast today but starting to heat up. Honestly don’t think I’m going to do anything naughty on this trip. I always say I’m going to come here like a rutting stag, but in reality my reticence and lack of lust are dominant. To feel lust, it has got to be random, and completely unexpected—like the white vest girl on the boat. I certainly could have —— her like a rutting stag if I’d had the opportunity. Not seen any soldiers yet. Let us not forget it was just 4 weeks ago some loser tried to detonate his bomb in the Central Railway Station, at 8 o’clock at night!

Thankfully the presence of a McDonald’s 20 yards away has lured the American ladies away

Thankfully the presence of a McDonald’s 20 yards away has lured the American ladies away. I am only being rude jokingly; they are very pretty, and I would not mind a McDonald’s myself but am trying to be strong and stay hungry. A full stomach is the enemy of Eros and will kill any last chance I have of my erotic flame, poor little pilot light, sparking into any explosion whatsoever. Or if not explosion, at least some chance of heat. Probably though I’ll just stay here in the hotel and drink myself into a stupor. A Jupiler stupor. A Maes haze (or Maes farce, if I pronounce it correctly).

I didn’t have any carnal contact because I want to get home cheaply (my sub-conscious taking the upper hand)

I didn’t have any carnal contact because I want to get home cheaply (my sub-conscious taking the upper hand). But now I want to extend my holiday and hope before I return home to get some carnal contact (my drink defeating my sub-conscious). Madness. This is the way I live my life. This constant battle inside me between my Eros (Devil) and my Angel (sub-conscious). 115 On my 5th, 6th, 7th, god knows what can of Jupiler of the day already. If I just forget about Eurostar, and stay another night tonight, that is just 45 euros (£38). A very small hit, in itself. As always the option of a coach home. Cheap. Cheap. Painful as f–king hell.

So yes I went to Cine Paris and felt nothing

So, yes, I went to Cine Paris, and felt nothing. Went to Jimmy, and Fifth Avenue, and felt nothing. So, rather than flog this dead horse even further, I came straight to Brussels Grill. Maybe I will go on to Rue d’Aerschot afterwards; I doubt it. The horse has bolted. No point locking the stable doors now, my cow. My Eros has gone, sodden, like a drowned rat. Nothing left. Still early, 430pm, though, Friday night. If even Cine Paris and Fifth Avenue do not arouse me, then what chance do I have? I am mentally dead, subdued; as I say, sodden. Nothing can spark when it is so flooded, flooded with 5 solid days of booze. Even before the steak arrives, I am thinking about another Domino’s Pizza. Or a burger in the bar next to my hotel. 1659 This has been an UNUSUALLY long wait for my steak. Because I tried to order before I even sat down? No, she said, you must sit down first. Did she deliberately delay my food because of that?

I was dizzy with erotic anticipation in the weeks & days leading up to my trip and I wondered whether I would be able to carry it with me

I was dizzy with erotic anticipation in the weeks & days leading up to my trip and I wondered whether I would be able to carry it with me and still feel the same when I got there; as I suspected, no. During my stay in Berlin I felt almost completely a-sexual. But as always it just takes one beautiful bottom or one beautiful pair of bosoms to get me in the mood again. I hope it happens in Brussels. My train to Koln is already 21 minutes late, giving me just 13 minutes to spare to catch my connection. I sat drinking my one beer surrounded by floozies in King George, Club 77, Monte Carlo and Sissi Bar and felt completely unmoved and unaroused by all of them. I hope something happens in Brussels to shake me out of my torpor. This is madness.

Nuremberg restored my faith in eros at least

Nuremberg restored my faith in eros at least. Magnificent videokabins in Stage 2000 followed by the stunning window girls/laufhaus girls of the Frauentormauer. Walking along the Frauentormauer on my first stop in Nuremberg on the way to Vienna I remember thinking “A man could make his home in Nuremberg”. Daisy, Rubina. So many stunning girls. If I did not do anything it is perhaps because it was already so late, almost midnight, and I had just had a Burger King whopper, large fries AND six onion rings and more than anything needed a s–t. En route to Frankfurt now, 12 minutes delayed at least, but hopefully I’ll still make my connection.

So yes a dire evening in Brussels; but mostly my fault

So yes a dire evening in Brussels; but mostly my fault. I was tired, I arrived late. Time I got to Fifth Avenue almost everyone had gone. Empire was like a tomb. No other customers. On the ICE to Nuremberg now; changing at Frankfurt. Couple of minutes till we leave. We will see if I can salvage any eros from this holiday at all; even if it is manual only!

Follow the path of least resistance I always tell myself

Follow the path of least resistance, I always tell myself; that applies to Eros as much as anything else. To go up to the Dome, getting soporific on Stella, is a waste of time. Better to go straight to Cine Paris, Rue des Commercants, Fifth Avenue. Dome tomorrow when I can start early. Yes, let me get blotto here, then straight to Cine Paris. Just one more in Fifth Avenue to check the girls then back to the hotel to eat and sleep. These Jupilers are going down very very nicely. If only the street-scene was more stimulating here. I need to release myself from the clutches of this lovely barmaid, and get a move on. Nearly 5 already! Let me go Mademoiselle!

It seems to me most of the greatest art is about sex

It seems to me most of the greatest art is about sex, most of the greatest philosophy is about sex, most of the greatest classical music is about sex. People think oh, art, philosophy, classical music, is so old, dry and dusty, and boring; but when you realise most of painting, philosophy and classical music is about sex, then it opens up to you like a flower, and you can see how rich and fascinating it is. And then I sit there in a classical music concert lusting after the violinist on stage with a swelling in my trousers, I walk around art museums almost always with an erection. Eros is all around us.

Bloody hell I am tired of Brussels Grill

Bloody hell, I am tired of Brussels Grill, I am tired of Brussels shoe shops, I am tired of Fifth Avenue, I am tired of Cine Paris, I am tired of Brussels street girls. Peak Brussels has most definitely passed. And that is why this trip to Brussels has been such a GOOD ONE! Finally I am free to re-try Berlin and then concentrate on Vienna, if I want. The thing is, as soon as I get home I will feel so randy, and yearn for Beatrice in the street, and yearn for Andrea or Lorena in 5^th, and yearn to get back again. This is the complete ridiculousness of my Eros. When it’s available I don’t want it, when it’s not available, it’s all I think about.

I have really done nothing on this trip

I have really done nothing on this trip—Monday I went to the Dome then Fifth Avenue then back to bed. Tuesday I went to Dome then to Le Coin then back to bed. That is two days gone just like that. Le Coin is like Fifth Avenue just smaller and much less salubrious; the girls, however, I would say were a lot more promising. I just stayed for one beer as I was so drunk from the Dome but it is well worth a return visit. It is down by Lemonnier, one stop before Gare du Midi. I will see if I can do more today: I still haven’t been to Gare du Nord, or Empire or Cine Paris. I don’t know what’s wrong with me; I go to the brothels now and I don’t feel like doing anything. Fifth Avenue on Monday and Le Coin on Tuesday; two or three sexy girls but never came close to thinking about actually going to a room with any of them. I think I’m just sated with all that kind of thing now? I don’t know. I think it’s just like the weather. Sometimes it’s sunny, sometimes it’s cloudy, sometimes it rains. I cannot predict my Eros any more than I can predict the weather; just take it as it comes. I wish it would rain every day but it only does so once in a while.

I only ever feel like going with a whore when I am so drunk that I am no longer capable of doing anything

I only ever feel like going with a whore when I am so drunk that I am no longer capable of doing anything with that whore. That is the ridiculousness of my Eros. It actually saves me a lot of money. Oh, but how nice it is to be sitting in a bar, surrounded by whores. In London you can sit in a bar surrounded by strippers; but here in Europe you can sit surrounded by whores, and that is so much more relaxing. Why England does not allow this? This is the retardation of England for you. Civilisation will not collapse, England, if you allow bars full of whores. Life will carry on quite calmly and pleasantly.

I’ve not seen a single sexy girl today

I’ve not seen a single sexy girl today; where have all the sexy Brussels girls gone? No real desire to go to the Cine Paris, no real desire to go back to Fifth Avenue, no real desire to go to Gare du Nord/Rue d’Aerschot. Why come to Brussels then? I just want to drink and drift off into another world. I need a spark. Yesterday’s disappointing visit to 5^th has dampened my ardour. My erotic barometer is like the weather, it is so changeable. It just comes and goes and you can never predict or FORCE when you are going to be turned on. It just happens when you least expect it, and declines to happen if you try to force it. Eros is such a funny funny thing; it is even more changeable than the weather. Trying to control and force your Eros on cue is like trying to control the weather; impossible. It is random and you just have to take it as it comes.

So then I am in a brothel and can’t raise the energy to do: anything

So then I am in a brothel and can’t raise the energy to do: anything. Yet here in the pub I see girls passing and feel so yearning to f–k their brains out. The psychology of Eros continues to fascinate and bewilder. It is my desire to stay with my wife until I am old & grey, and she is old & grey. I never understood how a man could still love a woman who is old & grey & wrinkled, until I met my wife, and now I know I will love her more the older & greyer & more wrinkled she gets.

215. I have never been so early to 5th Avenue

215. I have never been so early to 5th Avenue. Just the red top black-haired girl from yesterday with an old man, and my lovely big girl, and then the big bottom Brazilian coming in. Just the 3 girls so far. Dome was closed, as I suspected, so I came back down to O’Reilly’s for a couple of pints, then ignored Cine Paris on the way back up. I just didn’t feel like it; my sub-conscious told me to keep walking, and my Eros, my eroticism, my sex drive, is located in my sub-conscious, so obviously my Eros tells me Cine Paris, as beautiful as it is, is no longer worth it. I salute Marc Dorcel company for funding Cine Paris and keeping it in business, but I find an exclusive diet of Marc Dorcel films too samey. If only Tittenalarm would fund them as well. Some big breast film company. I am so hungry. I think I will be out of 5th Avenue quite quickly today, and treat myself to a Brussels Grill steak, and then to bed by mid-afternoon I expect. I feel so at home, and at ease, in Brussels now. Only three girls here in 5th, but all three are big busted and big bottomed, and viable, if you know what I mean.

Yet you know when you’re on a bus or a train or in a bar

Yet you know when you’re on a bus, or a train, or in a bar, and you see a sexy girl you so much want to f–k her; but sitting in a brothel languidly looking at all the girls for hour after hour, I can’t be bothered.

In the old days my holidays were a three-way battle between Love, Art & Eros

In the old days my holidays were a three-way battle between Love, Art & Eros; but I found the one person I can love and so now I never fall in love with anyone on holiday. The trips therefore just become about A&E. And drink and food; more than anything drink and food. My trips are all like La Grande Bouffe these days, with the emphasis increasingly on the drink & food. 230pm on my first day back in Brussels, and annoyingly it is hot and sunny. Rain is promised for the next 2 days. It had better not let me down.

So for my first day in Brussels let me concentrate on Eros

So for my first day in Brussels let me concentrate on Eros. Tomorrow, disillusioned & depressed & ashamed, I can concentrate on Art, and take the long walk to the Fin de Siecle and Old Masters Museums. Friday I can hunt for shoes. The three great attractions of Brussels apportioned to my three days here. The beautiful Arab girl in the station roll shop surly on my first order of ham & egg roll, but smiling sexily on my second. I should have gone back for more (she obviously likes a man who likes a bit of ham & egg). Nothing else of note, after 3½ hours in Brussels.

*****

What of those old battles between Love, Art and Eros? Those days are a thing of the past

What of those old battles between Love, Art and Eros? Those days are a thing of the past. The love of my life is back at home, and I no longer even care much for art. I have been to the art museums of Berlin, Brussels, Munich and Vienna so many times. So that just leaves Eros all to itself, though I scarcely have much enthusiasm for that game either. My holidays now revolve around drinking, eating and sleeping, with a little bit of Eros to finish the night off, just for old time’s sake. I doubt I will ever meet another Riccarda, Iga, Yulia or Emily, because I do not need them. Like I say, I would have to travel in black despair for anyone to really have that effect on me again, then I would need to “fuck the pain away” as the song says. I travel without pain these days, which I almost regret.

So I had a couple of drinks, went to the George Grosz exhibition in Old Bond Street, had one more drink…and then just went home

So I had a couple of drinks, went to the George Grosz exhibition in Old Bond Street, had one more drink…and then just went home. That is what London has come to. There is absolutely nowhere for me that is worth going. Every trip to London used to be such an exciting erotic adventure in the old days, in the Nineties, the naughty Fin-de-Siecle 1990s, and early years of the Naughty Noughties. I always told myself I am not coming home till I have come, or at least got naked with some floozy, but these days there is nothing for me. On the train home, a little tipsy, I thought when I get to Europe I won’t have to stop at this point, I can go on drinking and really try to dig out some eroticism buried under the surface in old Europe, like a pig hunting for truffles. I will release the woolly mammoth from the ice, I will release the fly from the amber. I will find the Eros that has been so occluded in these last years.

Yes I have got a safe sinecure at the moment

Yes, I have got a safe sinecure at the moment, a safe harbour, but in reality it can end at any moment. I am at the whims of others. As long as they like me, they will favour me and protect me; as soon as they change their mind, I will be back on stormy seas again, and back in the financial abyss. I am never away from the financial precipice. It is easy to look back at my years when I was single as some kind of erotic paradise, which in many senses they were, but that would be to forget the absolute despair I was in all of the time. Deep sadness and sombreness and pain. And as I always say I think the true heights of eroticism are not possible without despair. It is only despair that grows and ripens the fruits of eroticism. Dirty smutty sexuality thrives in the damp, dark places of despair, like a fungal infection. It flourishes in the places where no one really wants to be. This is one of those eternal ironies—the highs can only be found in the lows. Student of Nietzsche as I am, we should all be grateful to our times of sickness. To know the true high nights of Eros again one must dive deeper into darkness, and one is no longer prepared to do that, as it would cost too much, and throw away too much that is most precious. I have too much to lose now.

Even the barman does not know why the hotel bar is now called M15 rather than the Café Klimt

Even the barman does not know why the hotel bar is now called M15, rather than the Café Klimt. No one had asked him before, he said, and he had never thought of it. We agreed it was much better than before, as fond as my memories of the Lotta-era bar are. 4pm already. In Berlin I would be starting to drink, looking forward to BEC, and Ciro, and Stuttgarter Platz, Sissi Bar and Club 77. Here, I don’t know. Eros is hiding somewhere perhaps. I don’t think I will find it (not even in myself). Anyway as I say things can change in a moment; it only takes one woman to bring a city to life in the blink of an eye.

When I started travelling to Europe it was like I became the star of my own porn movie

When I started travelling to Europe, it was like I became the star of my own porn movie. The Esmeraldas did so much more than their Soho counterparts for the same price, were so much more voluptuous and beautiful, and they f–ked you like they were your girlfriend, instead of lying there coldly, and mechanically like a Soho girl would. And the bedrooms were amazing, up several flights of stairs, then these dark black Cameron Rennie Mackintosh (almost Gormenghastian) bedrooms lit by one low red lamp, massive four poster bed with roof on it. The best sex of my life was in the Berlin bedrooms above Mon Cheri with Yulia, Riccarda, Diana. Honourable mentions, too, to Olga & Alla in Berlin, Maria in Vienna, Emily in Munich. To go with an Esmeralda and to have her kissing you and f–king you as passionately as a girlfriend was a mind-blowing experience, after the scraggly girls of Soho, who won’t even let you kiss without extra money and some won’t even take their bras off! Disgusting! It meant I returned from Europe feeling a foot taller, so relaxed, on a cloud of pleasure, and gradually my morbid shyness that had crippled me for so long began to dissipate. Life in London became just a waiting room until I could get back to Europe again. It is a great truth that the strip clubs taught us how to live. Europe truly was a wonderland to me. Then, however, after a magical couple of years, when I seemed to go a little bit further than before on every visit, things started to get worse, the girls started to become less attractive, the Dutch Elm Disease of Eros (aka the internet) that had laid waste to the red light scene in Soho had affected Europe just the same, and increasingly I craved something real. This was when I stepped through the Looking Glass, first a little bit with my sumptuous Siberian Cleopatra Olga, then tiny little thing —–. Once through the looking glass, I looked back at those Golden Age years of freedom and sensual abandon with a yearning nostalgia, and tried to recapture it, with almost negligible success. But in the belief that all is cyclical I have not given up hope that the pleasures can be recaptured.

The girls of the ——– seem so sweet to me I now think because there is absolutely no hustle for money

The girls of the ——– seem so sweet to me, I now think, because there is absolutely no hustle for money, as it is the last place left with no private dances. For someone brought up on Josephine Baker, and Anita Berber and Mata Hari, great sex dancers of the stage, the inception of private dances a few years ago was the death knell to the world of Eros as much as the arrival of the internet. How I yearn for the days when a curtain would open, a girl would dance for two songs, and then the curtain would close again. Those were the glory days. The ——— is the closest place remaining to that innocent concept. But it is this innocence that drives me back to Europe to search for bigger kicks which then do not materialise. I am a George IV, a Henry VIII, a glutton and voluptuary, wasting money I no not have on food, drink and women. Through England in the rain. There used to be an intellectual foundation to all my journeys. I would go to the art museum, and cathedrals, and justice palaces, and bourses, and important places during the day, and the strip clubs was the icing on the cake at night. And if the nighttime places proved tawdry empty experiences, I was left with the enriching memory of the intellectual sustenance I had gained during the day. Now I do nothing but go just to the nighttime places and come away with nothing but the feelings of tawdriness and emptiness. There was no one I wanted in Atlantic City or Sexyland, or either of the other two places I barely set foot in. Well, at least I tried. Going to Atlantic City was a miserable experience and going to Sexyland was a miserable experience—so why on earth do I still keep going? A ridiculous addictive behaviour. It is eating away at my love, my life and my money. But it is only in these degradations that I find the harmony. Wurzburg is the least pretty German town I have seen in all my travels. I have felt totally calm on this trip, not a moment of stress. Though like an actor or sportsman needs to feel a little nervous before the start, otherwise he will not give a good performance, I do not have high experiences either. Just a deadness. “Like a zombie”. Was that Angel comment directed at me? I take myself to these clubs, and make myself stay, even though I am totally not enjoying it.

No time for the Secession building & the Beethoven frieze on this brief flying visit or the Schoenberg Foundation

No time for the Secession building & the Beethoven frieze on this brief flying visit, or the Schoenberg Foundation, Karl Kraus’s house, the Belvedere, KHM, Zentralfriedhof. No Third Man sites. How I have blossomed and bloomed since the cerebral, mind-obsessed pages of Autismus is quite extraordinary, yet in another way I have not moved on at all. I have become more relaxed and at ease in my own skin, but still the eternal battle between love, art and eros rages in me. Like scratching a mark above a child’s head every year to measure how fast they are growing, it will be interesting to see how different I feel in Vienna this time; from the neurotic first 4 day stay in 1998, to the three days of exquisite masturbation on the way to Oslo, then falling in love with Lotta & Sophia, to my last time six years ago when I finally lost my Vienna virginity. Now I am living in Moloch with a sex dancer from The ———, after an affair with another Tallulah from the same place, and before that an Esmeralda, a sumptuous Siberian Cleopatra, with a big cat’s face, purple fingernails and blonde highlighted bob. Back in 1998 I never imagined I would ever be with a woman, or could ever be. Eroticism is the motor of life, it is what makes the world go around, and I have no shame in admitting I have devoted my life to it. Let those who are family men be family men, those who are businessmen be businessmen, but I live for eros alone. Priapism, persistent erection of the penis, has been my guiding philosophy since I was almost old enough to walk. There is no pleasure to compare with the swelling of one’s member, feeling all the warm blood beginning to fill it; it is even better than orgasm. Anticipation is everything. Resolution is merely putting the lid on it so one can return home, over Dowson’s Shaftesbury Avenue, across a rain-swept torrential Leicester Square, pass the statue of Oscar Wilde, into the bosom of the Charing Cross Hotel; or across a beautiful vast tree-canopied Kurfurstendamm with a bulge that still refuses to go down one little bit, around Olivaer Platz and its erotic window-display mannequins, back to the Plaza; back around the Gurtel to the Dorint; around the corner of Schillerstraße on shaking legs over the tramlines back to the Intercity; or back down the interminable never ending Boulevard Adolphe Max to the Ibis. Oh these high nights of erotic swooning, those high moments that “persuade us to put off suicide”. This my career in infamy has brought me. I like Nietzche am grateful to what my years of sickness have wrought in me.

In the old days that would really have been good because I had nothing else

In the old days that would really have been good because I had nothing else. My travels are just about eating, drinking & whoring now. No longer do I care about Nefertiti or Caravaggio or the Ishtar Gate. My mind has been completely eaten away by the serpent of sex. I am never going to spend another night in Brussels again. This is it. When I say farewell this time it will be for good. The answering cry of good riddance will no doubt be just as forceful. So depressing it robs me of all energy to even go to Berlin but that would mean staying another two nights in Brussels. I have no choice. I must press on. The two nights in Berlin are already paid for. Although by not going I will save the £250 in train fares—but I must go, to find some excitement. My hotel room is one of the biggest disappointments. No notepaper. No music channels on TV. I press on in search of adventure and inspiration. My sight of Justice was necessarily remote this time. What a blessing the Euros I was to use for Tallulah and Esmeralda in Brussels are already filling my pocket ready to use in Berlin. That is why I am glad I took a picture of Bourse on the way home last night. Money is linked to Eros as I have expounded at some length before. We should take the rough with the smooth and battle through, that is my feeling. But she always chucked me when the going got tough, for —, for the ———, for someone else last year I am sure, maybe now again because I have come to Brussels for three nights, despite her telling me to go. It is good to go away from someone you love for a while. To remind yourself how much you need them and how much you love them and how important they really are to you. But I never feel I can be really close to someone and always think she is going to leave me again. Loneliness and solitude are so important to me. They define who I am and in a very great degree define who I want to be. Without loneliness I lose myself. It may be this pressure will always push us apart and destroy us and mean we are not the right ones for each other. But I will always love her and need her more than anything else in the world. If she leaves me I will be an empty husk till the end of my days. I have become such a connoisseur of Tallulah & Esmeralda that now only the finest will satisfy me. I search in vain for that one special experience which eludes me almost permanently now it seems. There was maybe a couple more places in Brussels I could have gone, but I was aware that Berlin is to come, and Berlin is usually a better investment for one’s money. Travel is the most important thing but the reality of what I find in each city now disappoints me. It is still important for the quality of loneliness and solitude it provides me. For that it still feels worth its weight in gold. What was exotic has now become commonplace. Replacing exotic with erotic as you wish. I am the most silent man I know, and she is the loudest woman I know. Her life excites me and draws me to her, and my peace and calmness draws me to her. It however is not enough to keep us together perhaps. What I love about Brussels is it rains all the time. But no one bothers with umbrellas. Like now. People just pull their hoods up and get on with it or walk bareheaded like nothing is happening. This I respect. Enormously. No one bothers about the rain. It is just like the air they breathe, perfectly natural! Do they even have brollies in Brussels. I don’t think I have ever seen one. Ah finally. After watching 600 people walk regardless in the rain, I see my first umbrella. —— is the alpha & omega of my life.