To lonely nights.

I am at Pipemakers, feeling particularly horny tonight. The car park is full, which is always promising, and I spot a rather muscular guy in a white t-shirt and shorts, walking to his car. We make eye contact, he circles back to the shed, and I make my way there too.

There's quite a lot of guys here tonight. I make a quick lap around, survey the area. My mind wanders to this time last week, to Sean and Phong, to their faces, their warmth, and a pang of longing hits me. I'll see them tomorrow, I remind myself, push the thought away.

There's a guy sucking another guy in the glory hole shed, a few others crowded around to watch, but I get bored, move on. I wander to one of the sheds, a man follows me. I can barely make out his features in the dark, but it doesn't matter. I'm here for one thing. He's inside my mouth in no time.

We stay like this for a while. I get up for air, now we're kissing, now we're cuddling. It feels nice. My hand slides across his back, across the groove of his neck, and I give him a bit of a massage. He comes quickly, then leaves.

In the glory hole booth, I meet an Asian man. He is tall, handsome, we kiss. I notice I'm very into kissing now, the kind of intimacy that lingers, that says more than sex ever could. My hand runs along his spine, across his neck, over his head. Caressing, touching, like lovers. He holds me too, but it's different. His hold screams fuck me, and I'm not in the mood. He jerks off, comes. We stay there a moment, embracing.

I wonder if I should give him my number, so we can do this again, but something inside me hesitates. There's no strong connection, nothing tugging at me to ask, so I let him leave. I hesitate too long. He walks away without a goodbye, and I never see him again.

I lean against the wall, rub my eyes. I feel tired. Physically, mentally. What's wrong with me tonight? I ask myself. Why am I giving these guys back and neck massages? I want to blame it on the massage course, on muscle memory, but deep down I know that's not it.

Two weeks into being single, and I'm craving touch. Not sex—touch. It was something I had so much of in my last relationship, so much that my love bucket never ran dry. Now, it feels depleted, empty, hollow, and I can feel the effects of it creeping in.

I think, maybe, my way of giving people massages is a way of asking for something back, for them to return the favour. But of course, no one does at Pipemakers.

I think about past relationships, about the guys who didn't know how to hug me, didn't know how to embrace me, hold me, ground me in their arms. Those relationships didn't last long. The ones that did—the ones that mattered—were with the men who couldn't keep their hands off me. Who held me like they were holding the world.

I make a mental note of this, add it to the list of things I'm looking for in my next relationship: warmth, safeness, touch. The kind that doesn't deplete you, the kind that fills you back up again.