Meredith and I were wrapping up a conversation in a restaurant last night when she mentioned that she was supposed to meet Eileena at 10.30 pm, something about an event called Butchhunt. This truly piqued my interest and I asked if I could go along. Apparently, this was the 3rd or 4th time that Butchhunt had been held (annually), but I had never heard of it before. This probably tells you a lot about what gay men know about the lesbian scene.

Anyway, Eileena got us in by the fast track, and soon we were tunnelling our way through the extremely dense crowd, over 95% female, easily more than a thousand in all. I got detached from Eileena and Meredith twice as the crowd closed in in front of and behind me. Thank heavens for sms, without which we would not have been able to relocate each other.

12 dykes who self-identified as butches were in the contest. Almost all of them were small Asian-sized, probably no more than 1.65 metres tall, no more than 55 kg, and the 28-year-old said she was probably the oldest of the line-up. They all had short hair (except one who sported a pony-tail) and chose men's shirts and jeans when being interviewed for the introductory video. One wore a Red Bull T-shirt, the kind you often see straight working-class Thai men wear (gay Thais would never be caught dead in it).

In the video, one contestant posed while seated in the driver's seat of a car; another posed on a motorbike – quintessential symbols of masculinity. Except for one who sat at a piano, the others tended to sit, squat or stand with legs apart, shoulders slightly hunched, one arm on a knee – a very "man" look.

The show began with a hip-hop dance number performed by all 12 of them. Dancers they weren't. I think they were generally too self-conscious about their "look", too used to static posing, to move well with the music. The dancing seemed to be too inhibited by half; many a school production might have done better.

Then the comperes came out and what had we? Two male-to-female cross dressers. Why was there a need for ah kuas in a butch show? Why not two other dykes? Why not two femmes, if one wanted a bit of contrast?

Somebody somewhere seemed to be a prisoner of stereotype to think that if there is homosexuality this evening then there must be ah kuas!

They mumbled something into the microphones little of which I caught – the sound system being third-rate at Gotham City, but what I expected didn't happen. Normally, at this point in the proceedings, the comperes would say something about how the contest would be judged and introduce the panel of judges. Maybe they did say something unintelligible about procedure, but they didn't introduce the judges.

"Cannot, too closetted," said Eileena.

Eileena asked me whether she should get me a drink. I said please don't. "I don't want a full bladder. I can't imagine, in this crowd, how I can make it to the toilet and back alive!"

I would rather dehydrate than be crushed.

Neither of which being appealing outcomes, I didn't stay to the end of the show and the judging. My eyes were soon hurting from the cigarette smoke. It was uncomfortable being nudged here, nudged there as ripples of pushing propagated through the solidly-packed crowd. It was far too sticky and warm.

Above all, I was concerned about my bag. I didn't expect to end up here tonight and I had a bag full of important documents from my work. Meredith too had a knapsack, which I'm sure held important, irreplaceable stuff too.

My bag was heavy and unwieldy in the jostle, and eventually Meredith took it from me and stashed it with hers behind a pillar. While it was a relief to be free from the weight, my mind was never at ease, separated as I was from my bag.

Meanwhile, I kept fingering my mobile phone and wallet, checking that they were still where they were supposed to be.

These are my reflexes in any thick crowd. There was nothing unusually worrying about this one, but one should always be careful, I believe. The point is, I don't enjoy being in crowds, least of all in a club with so much tobacco, so little air to breathe, so much sweat, and such a poor quality sound system.

So I said goodbye to my friends and went home to bed.

* * * * *

 
I can't recall how much I paid for admission to the sauna. But I do recall the locker room was packed solid.

Worse, the locker was far too small for all the stuff that I had; it was no bigger than a safe-deposit box. Oh, maybe it was a two-leaf door, so I touched the door next to my locker. It popped open but it was crammed full of someone else's clothes. Aren't the lockers lockable in this sauna? How will my clothes and stuff be safe if locker doors can pop open on the slightest touch?

Even as I was figuring this out, people were calling me by name. I looked to the right, I looked to the left, and everywhere I saw people I knew. It was impossible to go over and greet them, because the locker room was packed. But everyone seemed to know me (though if you ask me now, I can't identify anyone of them by name).

Furthermore, they were all clothed. What kind of sauna is this that people never change out of their clothes? How does one get sex?

Then I felt I needed to poop, but where was the toilet? How was I going to get to the toilet in this crowd?

So I collected my stuff and left.

I found myself next walking across a field, when it occurred to me that in the noisy locker room, I couldn't have heard my phone ringing or beeping. There must have been messages I should check.

So reaching the nearest bus stop, I paused. I had no intention of taking any bus, but the bench was a useful spot on which to put my heavy haversack and briefcase down while I checked my phone messages with both my hands.

While I was doing so, a bus came and the 5 or 6 other persons who were at the bus-stop boarded it.

Just then, I looked at the bench, and my bags were gone. Those commuters must have taken my bags!

I rushed onto the road and up to the bus-driver's window, and asked him to please not move off. Someone has stolen my bags, and whoever he was, must be on his bus.

He said, no, he couldn't wait, he had a schedule to keep. Call 999 for the police, he suggested. Well, that's a good idea, I'd get the police to teleport themselves over and search every passenger on this bus for my stuff.

So I called 999. Still the bus drove off. Damn!

I got someone speaking in a language I didn't understand. The only word I could catch was "silom". Silom police station? How did I get connected to Thailand by dialling 999? I tried to explain my predicament nonetheless: my bags have been taken, the bus has driven off. I got the licence number though, it was SB 1 G, or was it SB 1 Q? Or was it SB 11 G? Or Q? Oh shit! Why didn't I look carefully?

But it was useless. Whoever it was on the other end of the line didn't understand me.

Why did my phone behave the way it did? I looked at it and tried various buttons to get back to the homepage on the display screen, so that I could try calling 999 again. But all I got were Chinese words. I looked carefully at them and came to the conclusion that I was logged onto a Taiwanese cellular network.

How did my phone end up on a Taiwanese network? Was this my phone? Was this someone else's phone? The front of it and the arrangement of buttons certainly looked like my phone, but when I tilted it slightly, I could see that on profile, it was thicker than mine.

Gosh, someone had swapped my phone! Not only were both my bags gone, my phone's gone too! What a nightmare!

I woke up with a start.

* * * * *

 
So you see, clubbing's not for me.

© Yawning Bread