23rd October 2005

At the eleventh hour, a miracle. I tried the Rankestraβe club, Ciro, and walking in the door there was Erika. Voluptuous blonde Polish girl in blue dress, as like Iga as you can possibly get. I am in love. I will pay anything for her. 500 to take her back to my hotel. Whatever. F—k Vienna. I will come back to Berlin on my next four days to f—k Erika. I have to f—k her. A new Iga. Amazing. I had no more money with me, and a bunch of Norwegian oil men came in who liked her, so I graciously released her, so she could go to them. I am such a gentleman.

Having just found a reason to stay in Berlin, I have to leave. Erika is the someone special I have been searching for since I met Diana in March. Since then I have endured empty visits back to Berlin, Antwerp, Brussels and Frankfurt. Though that is not completely true. I liked Vanessa, and Clarisse in Brussels was spectacular, and Katerina in Frankfurt was somebody who meant something. But Erika is up there on the level of Diana, Iga, Riccarda and Emily. I want to f—k her in 50 million ways. I cannot remember the last time I wanted to f—k somebody so much. Maybe Emily. Maybe Iga. Maybe Sylvia.

22nd October 2005

One of my worst ever nights in Berlin; though partially redeemed by some of the best blue movies ever. So flat. Ludicrously waited so long at Berlin Zoo for a 100 or 200 bus I got a taxi to the Staatsoper instead. Sylvie Valayre initially disappointed me. She looked like Brigitte Helm, all expressionist acting. Once she danced her Dance of the Seven Veils and let her hair down, however, she looked like a young Inga Nielsen, crossed with Nicola Pagett in Upstairs Downstairs, and you can’t get much better than that. Blonde pigtail girl on bus, in black shirt over massive breasts, grey check pleated miniskirt, beautiful voluptuous naked thighs, grey check popsocks. Knew I was looking. Very red, as she played with phone. Sexiest girl I have ever seen in my life. After the Erotik Centre I met Evalina again in Golden Gate, felt nothing. Went with Maya in Monte Carlo, 50 euros. A shabby day. The films on TV turned me on so much, I had to go out. Then the Erotik Centre just turned me on so much, I had to have some end result. Kitchen smells, then.

This is perfect. Sitting at my open window, rain outside, traffic hissing along the Ku’damm outside. I was so turned on last night. That was good. Maybe again tonight.

To get so turned on last night was delicious. I had just got back in after my worst ever day in Berlin, and was feeling depressed and humiliated, so also at my most needful of turning on and being wild and reckless. However, I feel Stuttgarter Platz is finished for me. It was once the magical place of Yulia, Riccarda, Iga and Diana—now nothing. Everything gets worse. That is entropy. I have tried, therefore, to find new places, as the oil runs out in Stuttgarter Platz, but new places are never as good, as in Moloch. So I ask myself suddenly will I ever come back to Berlin? I have nowhere to go now, where I feel comfortable, the way I have Atlantic City in Munich, and…what else? If I come back it really will be only for the opera. Still, getting so turned on last night was delicious. I will try BEC again tonight, maybe look again for Tabu. I still am no nearer to solving the mystery of where all the men go in Berlin! They are hiding somewhere.

I am afraid I feel compelled to make one more attempt to find out where the men go in Berlin. I will try Rankestraβe and Marsburger, then back to BEC.

18th October 2005

15th October 2005 Erotica in the Shadow of Death Day

I see all the sinful things I’ve done as triumphs; I look back at them as the high moments of my life.

Almost inevitably, I walked into the Flying Scotsman after four weeks, and Sylvia was up there naked on the stage. No longer red, it is going back to brown. Also there was Stella and after 7 --. --, “don’t you forget” she said, stroking my face. I was drinking so fast, maybe six pints in total plus two double vodkas. — was sweet, smiling a lot at me, though — looked at me stonily. Magda is so much more confident now. I must have left about 950, as Zoolander was on at Lydia’s, so I got there about 1025 (I do not remember how!?). I must have left about 1110, as — was going berserk, about how she has to listen to all this crap about “Is he going to marry me? Is he going to give me a passport?”. I sit there “on her time!” So Lydia asked me to leave. Lydia seemed very quiet & distant anyway. I no longer think she has any feeling for me whatsoever. Sylvia had to find change for me, and she looked up at me, but I kept my eyes down & said nothing to her. The one you have been dreaming of for so long, I stonily ignored! She has put on weight, definitely a bit fleshier, & not so spectacular without the red hair. I still feel such a tug of lust for --. I would really love to kiss her.

So a proper night at Flying Scotsman then. Sylvia, Stella, --. Yet a real morbid, bitter Erotica in the Shadow of Death kind of night. A real Death in Venice kind of night. So many of my passions & longings are turning mude & alt. We no longer recognise each other. Sylvia and Lydia. It has suddenly become tired & old, and as autumn comes it feels like it is dying. But this can give new life to it, as its leaves drop & get soaked, turn into mulch, they become rich with nutrients & can take on a whole new lease of life. There is a real bitter aniseed taste in the mouth with Sylvia now, which I like. We can go on twisting on each other’s forks. I look forward to next time.

It is crazy to go on looking for love in these places, trying to get blood out of a stone, when there are real relationships offered to you, like —, like Ursula at the Calcutta, which I spurn. Yet even at the Scotsman, — said she wanted to go out with me, — said she wanted to go out with me (and kissed ME on the cheek every time last night). — came to the back like she wanted to talk to me, — came to back, — tried to talk to me. I always get those looks from --, & now that stroke of the face. After putting pound in, I turned to leave room & was facing her, and we just bounced our bodies off each other. You can be a bit cheeky with her, maybe.

12th October 2005

I hesitate to go back to Munich because there is no resolution (Patricia? Emily?) despite the excellence of Lamm’s. I think Vienna offers better entertainment close to the Berlin model. Drink & resolution together, after finishing with dance & films. I am leaning towards Vienna in November—with all the Christmas lights up! I actually got turned on several times in Caribic in Nuremberg, though, & I can imagine the same in Atlantic City Munich, Salome, Irina, etc. But Vienna it has to be, & not Elena Prokina in Berlin again, alas. I perhaps have been guilty of missing my chances, not going to the end of the experience (the £3,800 I owe influences this), like with Clarisse—I didn’t even accept a 5 Euro dance in my seat!—and Katerina in Frankfurt. But I could not have afforded another 60 Euro cocktail, that was crazy, or 200 Euros for an hour with Clarisse. It is just expensive in those places to mix drink with resolution or even fondling & having them touch you, the way it is not in Berlin, and Vienna is not SO bad. Really spend myself out this autumn, these five days in Berlin next week plus Vienna in November. There were some sexy girls in Berlin last time, the Pole Orien in Mon Cheri, the Brazilian Lady in Stutti. I need to find a Brazilian in Munich again. God, just two more nights to get through, then, after a night out in Flying Scotsman Saturday, back to Berlin. I would like to see those Brussels windows again.

11th October 2005

I never saw any big girls in Frankfurt. That was what I was really looking for. I miss the real down & dirtiness of Berlin. There is nowhere else like it, where you can have a drink with the girls, & then take them into a James Pryde bedroom & fuck them for ½hour as well. How can I forget what it was like with Yulia, Riccarda, Iga, Diana, and Vanessa? Nowhere else has ever come close to those experiences (except Emily in Munich), certainly not the Marias & Natashas in Brussels, or the Eva, Berta, Annas in Frankfurt. I would say actually that the Frankfurt whores are the worst I have met, apart from Soho! The Brussels girls are much sexier, though still nothing to compare with Berlin. Just three more nights to get through, then one Saturday night in King’s Cross & to see Lydia hopefully, before I am back to Berlin—for 5 nights! Straight to Mon Cheri, Stutti, Golden Gate and Monte Carlo. Caribic is actually one of the best strip clubs now, just behind Atlantic City. Better than Empire (unless Clarisse is there!), better than Solid Gold or Pure Platinum in Frankfurt. So in November do I go to Berlin to see Elena Prokina for just one night, or make time for Munich? Or Vienna? It would be nice to see Harrietta again, & Maria.

This is my time for travelling, because the nights get so dark so early. This is my time for running up a debt, so I can stay in & pay it off from April May June July August September. Travel again & again in October November December January February March. Berlin next week, Berlin in November, Vienna in December?

10th October 2005 Pope Day

It is always at the last minute that these women get you. That look from Katerina as she waited for me to come out of the men’s room, before I walked out. Emily at the end of the last Saturday night in Munich before I walked back in the snow. Viktoriya at the end of my last night in Munich before I walked back in the rain.

It is all a game. By sending the postcard, it is another very deliberate move by me in the game.

So this is POPE DAY. The SEVENTH anniversary!

The Frankfurt whores are certainly the cheapest anywhere, 25-30 Euros for all positions, compared to 50 Euros in Brussels, and 50-70 in Berlin, though Berlin are best in terms of time & girls & the James Pryde bedrooms!

It will be a relief to get to the relative sanity of Berlin after the madness of Frankfurt’s red light district. Alt Moabit needs some exploring.

Generally, the Brussels whores are very good looking. Some really stunningly sexy looking women. Berlin has the real knock outs though, occasionally.

[Pope Day being the day in 1998 I saw a photograph in the Guardian newspaper of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, Papal Nuncio to the German Empire, leaving the Presidential Palace in Berlin in 1927, a few years before he became Pope Pius XII. It triggered a sudden epiphanic paradigm shift in me, by which I now saw there was an aristocracy of sin, to sin was the “aristocratic” thing to do, it was what Princes did. It was what Great Men did. No longer should I feel any shame at my sinning, I should luxuriate in it as the right of a Prince. Like a Borgia Prince, a Borgia Pope. Coincidentally or not, it was about three days later that the “war” against me was unleashed on or around the day now commemorated as Erotica in the Shadow of Death Day, as that was the day I read Brian Sewell’s article of that title reviewing the V&A Museum’s Aubrey Beardsley exhibition. Years of low-level sniping turned into all out hysteria against me. My books Therapy (1997-8), Soho (1998-9), Autismus (1999-2001), Lotta (2002) and The Cold Icy Air of the Mountains (2003-4) follow the trajectory of this aggression against me, and my inexorable blooming & blossoming in spite of it (or thanks to it?). These Diaries of course continue the story into 2005, and in January 2006 I fell in love with my future ‘wife’, which wiped out the next 8 years of my life, shot my bitter enemies completely up the bottom, and made me invincible to everything and everyone forever after. My published works would resume with The Ernst Graf Diaries 2014, 2015, etc. The missing years may or may not feature in my new novella The Stripper.]

9th October 2005

So, what were my best memories? The dance from Clara was pretty good, I have to admit. Katerina beautiful face and ways. The Kerry Marie film. The Viktoriya lookalike in Nuremberg, and Svetlana, and how good Caribic was in general. The Städel was good, especially the Beethoven picture with the woman’s face seemingly lit by a spotlight. The Madonna mit Kind. “Like Helen of Troy, my philosophy in life is always travel towards what you believe to be ‘the most beautiful thing’. This will make me return to Frankfurt to see you again. In the Städel art museum, apart from Stuck’s Adam & Eve which shows exactly why men are frightened of women, my favourite picture is Listening to Beethoven by Balestrieri. It is a quite gloomy picture of a roomful of men with their heads in their hands, as if ruined by a night of gambling, or fornication, or just not enjoying the music, but standing out as if lit by spotlight is the face of a beautiful woman staring straight at us. When you go to a new city, amidst the shadows, I look for that one face that is going to stand out, and in Frankfurt that was you.”

I go to these places & mostly sit miserable & depressed, sad & tired, because I am looking for something in particular, someone in particular. I am looking for a diamond amidst the mediocrity. I am looking for the special one. The Cleopatra. The Helen of Troy. And quite frankly I am STILL finding her. Diana, Clarisse, Katerina.

8th October 2005 Frankfurt

So, a wasted trip to Nuremberg? Obviously, a cruel twist of fate that there was a girl who looked like Viktoriya’s sister but no Viktoriya. She is in Immenstadt. I saw a group photo on the wall, and she was in the front row, smiling, and looking like the sexiest of the lot of them. I really missed her at that moment. Caribic was actually really good. It is an excellent place to be on a Friday or Saturday night. “I’m lying here on the floor where you left me”. I run, just as fast as I can, to the middle of nowhere.

It would have been so good if Viktoriya had been there. So, do I go to Immenstadt?! The first song I turn on the TV after I got back this time is Pink’s Just Like a Pill, my classic song of loneliness, alienation, and addiction. I am the English opium addict, travelling around Europe in search of his sleazy fixes, his dreams, his reveries, and these are my confessions.

Viktoriya will always be a part of my life now. The fact is, for whatever reason, I did break through with her on that night in Munich, and did achieve some connection with her, which is so hard and so rare for me, and that can never be undone. No Diana or Martina in the Pils Bar either, unless they were in that séparée out of sight. “She’s had a couple of kids since then, I haven’t seen her since God knows when.” What it has given me is a sudden craving to go back to Munich! Back to the home central, the hive, motherlode. Whenever I go to a club now, and I don’t get involved with someone, I come away bewildered, thinking what went wrong? After Suzy in Munich, B— in Munich, Patricia in Munich, Viktoriya in Munich, Iga in Berlin, I cannot understand why it has not happened in Munich since then, or anywhere else.

I feel sad and down that I did not see Viktoriya in Nuremberg, but I am quite looking forward to spending my last night in Frankfurt, quite relaxed. Go to Platinum (and maybe Solid Gold), maybe the Kerry Marie blue movies, find the subway entrance to airport, take my last photo of the station at night and Maintower, then that’s it. I feel so sad about Nuremberg. The music in the Caribic is actually really good, grinding and pounding, Benny Benassi Satisfaction and so many great grinding tracks I could not even begin to know the title of. I would have loved a dance with the girl who looked so much like Viktoriya and had such great breasts, but she didn’t want to come near me; also Svetlana with her great breasts. Had a lot of eye contact with her, but again, as ever, she never came near me. I am glad I did not spend 70 euros in the Pils Bar, though would have been tempted by the girl in the black knickers and will definitely come back again. I now want Munich again. Lamm’s and Atlantic City and Sexyland and NY. I get back home tomorrow, then it’s four nights at work, off Friday, back to Midnight Bell Saturday and then hopefully Lydia. Then Tuesday I go to Berlin for five days! How can I afford that now!

I went so far as to find out the times of the trains to Immenstadt. A 19:50, getting there after midnight, not one coming back until 6AM, and 132 euros. That’s finally ruled it out. If it had not been for the Sunday midday flight home, I think I would have gone all the same, just for the wildness of it.

7th October 2005 Frankfurt

I have still not had an “adventure” on this holiday. In the past, the adventures have come on the final Saturday night e.g. Patricia on Saturday night in Munich, Emily on Saturday night in Munich, Viktoriya on Saturday night in Munich. An adventure usually means a killer woman. “Bitte gib mir nur ein Oh”. In Berlin it usually comes on the first night—Yulia on Wednesday night, Riccarda on Wednesday night, Iga on Wednesday night. I don’t think I will find an adventure in Frankfurt now. I have been everywhere and seen everyone, and there is no one with that special something. My vampire, my Eva Mudocci.

Going to Nuremberg tonight would be a crazy expense—but it is only through crazy expense that I usually break through to the other side, and really touch some sensational pleasure. Sometimes it is even a masochistic pleasure in extreme pain. In Brussels there was really nothing, except fleetingly Clarisse. In Brussels there is just Empire; I have tried and discarded the other places. In Frankfurt there is just Pure Platinum. Always travel towards what you believe to be the most beautiful thing. Like a river cuts its own course, following the path of least resistance. Following the most beautiful thing is usually more expensive. And then you get there you find it was not a Snark but a Boojum. Following the rabbit down the rabbit hole leads you into wonderland. The cheap option is usually less enjoyable & less worthwhile. Staying in Frankfurt tonight would be the cheap option, but then I would have no big memory to take home with me. You’ve got to take a chance, push the boundary, go too far, to get anything back. You’ve got to shine like a diamond, roll with the dice, stand on ledges. Me going to Nuremberg will be me standing on a ledge. I am an adventurer, on the moral seas. I am an explorer. On the ice. Thin ice at that. Ice fragmenting and splitting up beneath my feet, pulling one leg one way and the other leg the other. I am Shackleton. None of my expeditions ever have any precise aim, it is enough that I am heading south again. None of Kenneth Williams’s visits to Tangier were what he could say were successful, but they were important because they kept the pendulum swinging. I am looking for the woman who stands out, who leaps out of the canvas at me, like Balestrieri’s Beethoven woman, like there is a spotlight on her face in a black room. My Fanny Janauschak. I travel through the Roman ruins of my mind, looking for the Kaiserin sitting on her marble throne. Paloma, Emily, Viktoriya, Ilsa were all this for me in Munich, as was Yulia, Iga, Riccarda and Diana in Berlin. Clarisse nearly in Brussels, Maria nearly in Vienna. I have not found that woman in Frankfurt. In Moloch it is Sylvia, or Vicki, or Lucky or Anya, all at the Midnight Bell.

Barnaba da Modena’s Madonna mit Kind (1367!) has got narrowed eyes, full of scorn, contempt, hatred, like she knows what the world is going to do to her son, lionise then murder him. Like Marilyn Monroe. To get anything in life you have to cross the Teufelsbrücke, the Devil’s Bridge. By going to Nuremberg, I am crossing the Devil’s Bridge. I just close my eyes, like Indiana Jones searching for the Holy Grail closes his eyes and steps across the abyss. I did not get an erection at any time while I was in the Städel, which is always a sure sign. I got one when thinking about going to Nuremberg. So, would I ever come back to Frankfurt? At the moment, I cannot think of anything to come back for. And yet I am about to make my third one night only trip to Nuremberg.******Liven up! Spark yourself! You are Dracula. You are the man Ursula liked. The man G— liked. The man H— and S— and D— liked. The Midnight Bell now seems a legendary place? Like the Romanisches Café in Berlin. The König Deutschland music in stockings and suspender belts. They are like the rapper Eyes Wide Shut video. I look for something really dirty to happen. In Frankfurt, still, you have got the champagne places or the cheap brothels. Only in Berlin does the champagne go with the sex at a still affordable price. I see that now. If I can find a good strip club it will be perfect. In Munich all you have got is the private dances, and if it is with a Brazilian you may be in luck. I think Larissa would have done anything. In Berlin, Lady would have done anything.

6th October 2005 Frankfurt

The sign of a good hotel is how sexy the chambermaids are, how cold the minibar is. I am sated with Frankfurt now. I have overdosed on it and am sick of it. This is good. As ever, post-coital depression, and a little weepiness. As ever, longing for a friendly face, like Lydia. Tomorrow, Museum of Modern Art and Nuremberg at night, to look for Viktoriya. Saturday, maybe the Kerry Marie film and Pure Platinum. That’s it.

4th October 2005

3rd October 2005

The third anniversary of me going to Venice, can you believe it?

2nd October 2005

Got a call from Lydia just as I was about to get off bus at —, texted her back ‘Hey babushka’ & she rang me back while I was sitting on — platform, to complain babushka means grandmother in Russian! It was nice to talk to her & know we are still friends. I will miss not seeing her for so long. Two weeks before Saturday after next. I want to go to pictures with her. I really want to see her. I fly back from Frankfurt Sunday afternoon, I suppose I could go see her Sunday night?

Dusha=darling

Dusha moya=My darling!

Dushka=sweetheart

1st October 2005

It looks like it is raining in Munich now, 00:51, the white street lights are really glistening. How comes I still miss Munich so much?! So many memories there. So much blood on the tracks. There is nothing much for me to do there, but it is nice just to drink in my Inter City room, then head off to Lamm’s, maybe back to New Pin, before back to hotel to sleep it off. Heading out to the White Coffin at night, maybe popping in to Three Cats. One day I could go in Killian’s & the Frauenkirche. One day even go mad & do the Zugspitze finally! Or Berchtesgaden!

30th September 2005

29th September 2005

Today is the first anniversary of Martina with the most incredible double GG breasts in Nuremberg, on the Great Wall of China night, before getting back to Munich 630AM and turning REM’s Leaving New York on the TV. I will never see Lydia outside of work again, I know that. We always talk about it on a Saturday night, & arrange it like we mean it, but I think we both know it will never happen. Was Martina in Nuremberg only a year ago? It seems so much longer. It seems like a really exciting time all of a sudden. The Munch exhibition is opening at the Royal Academy, and almost at the same time the Degas Whistler Monet at the Tit. I slated Vienna; but there were so many beautiful whores I would have wanted to sleep with: Maria, Harrieta, the blonde Irina in Club 69.

28th September 2005

This trip to Brussels was worthwhile for the incredible new confidence I felt. I felt more powerful & at ease than ever before. An incredible poise, even at Waterloo I was getting attention. I felt a little exposed in Antwerp when I arrived, it is true, but once I left H.C. Andersen the next morning I felt strong, and arriving back in Brussels was a wonderful feeling.

I am living spectacularly beyond my means. But travelling is worth every pound you spend on it. Because it produces memories—like Mando Diao, Saybia, Soulwax in Vienna in January. Because it enables me to fuck girls like Maria in Vienna, Emily in Munich, Diana and Riccarda and Yulia and Iga in Berlin, Natasha in Brussels. And see sex dancers like Irina and Susi in Munich, Clarisse in Brussels, Karolina in Berlin.

Not travelling is a false economy. Trying to cut down on my travelling & reducing my credit card bill to zero is a false economy. If this Brussels visit has taught me one thing it is that I am right to travel on a Wednesday or Thursday, so that I go to the clubs on a Friday and Saturday, and that I am right to come home on a Sunday morning! Saturday at the Empire was great, the Sunday & Monday just spoiled things.

27th September 2005

I feel sad & sombre, at my sordid & pathetic addiction that took me to Brussels & led to me wasting so much of my limited money there. Four days of drunken debauchery has left me feeling low & shamed. The only way out of this malaise, as ever, is through culture: classical music and writing. I am more than ever like Coleridge, ruled by the boom & bust of my opium addiction. That such a fine mind should lead such a pathetic night time existence. It is lovely to be back with my mother again. I love her very much. She gets absolutely nothing out of me, but silences, or monosyllabic answers at best, but she always stays happy & encouraging & enthusiastic, even when she herself is not feeling well.

The trip to Brussels & Antwerp was worthwhile

(1) For the incredible direct look & smile of Waterloo station café girl & then coming to sit down at table near to me

(2) For Clarisse, the really beautiful black girl at the Empire with enormous breasts

(3) For the Bourse McDonald’s girl serving me, & giving me those smiles which told me she liked me

(4) For that white coat Muslim girl on Bourse metro platform on way back to Gare du Midi, and getting on the same tram the beautiful black-haired Muslim woman in black coat. Are they all Turks, these Muslims in Brussels? [More likely Moroccans].

26th September 2005

I haven’t met one “killer girl” this time in Brussels—already this is my last night, how quickly time goes. No Viktoriya, no Sally, no Ilsa, no Yulia, no Iga, no Riccarda. But I see so many beautiful-looking girls every day, and we make eye contact, and I get a shy looking away smile from her. The black-haired woman on the metro, like Margarethe, so sexy. The white coat Muslim girl, so sexy. I could have f—ked either of them, so easily. And before that, my McDonald’s girl! Still there. She served me, and I knew she liked me. Such a turn on. I will come back to Brussels, again and again. It has been sealed now. It is a fantastic place. I want that blue dress whore.

You really don’t get a sense of anybody else being in the rooms around you, or even in the city outside. You feel like you are in a room floating in the clouds. (I never understand hotel guests who complain about noise from outside. In the Regent Hotel in Munich I found I could not sleep until I had got up and opened my windows wide to the hissing rain outside, splattering through the leaves of the tree, the rattling and ringing bells of the trams, the cars, the shouts and laughter of the party goers returning home for the night, pointing up in surprise and delight at the naked young Englishman at the window above them, saluting them. Only then could I relax and sleep. Here in Brussels I feel like I am in the Marie Celeste, cut off from all sounds).

I sit here looking at the Gare du Midi bus station and try to remember the feeling of loneliness & anomie I felt four years ago when I wrote “feeling so appallingly lonely and isolated, thinking what have I done, why have I come away for?”; but I cannot do it. I felt so isolated & small & alone & ripped apart then, and now I feel big & strong & powerful. This should make me happy but somehow disappoints me! I miss that thrill of anomie! This vision of the Gare du Midi bus station is fixed on my retina now. The day of going home is always such a depressing day. The sights and sounds that delighted and excited you when you arrived and all throughout your stay, now seem dead and lifeless. Distressingly so.

The films were great. Wondergirl was great. Empire has now died a death for me. I overdid it and now do not look forward to returning. Except on a Saturday night! The best things were the girls I saw on the metro, day after day, Belgian women in the street. The McDonald’s girl. I feel low now. I feel the anomie I was craving!

I glory in this anomie. I only feel comfortable when I am splintering & fragmenting, disintegrating into a million shards again. When I am with a woman I do not want to sleep with her, I do not even really want to talk to her. It just feels so pointless. “I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the desire.” Ennui engulfs me when I am with her, though my blood was on fire for her when she was at a distance. I am dissociated from everything & everyone, and from myself. Anomie, dissociation, ennui, solipsism—these are the watchwords of my life. I am Kaspar Hauser. I am Chauncey Gardiner. I am The Man Who Fell to Earth. I was left alone when I was a baby and have never connected with anyone or anything ever since. I feel sombre & bitter as I return from Brussels. There is no one or two great memories that I take home with me. Just the beautiful Belgian girls I saw every day on the streets & on the metro, in both Brussels & Antwerp. I never see such girls in Moloch. The Bourse McDonald’s girl. The pictures in the Antwerp Royal Art Gallery.

25th September 2005

It is lovely to be back in the Ibis again. And to think I did not want to come back here. The pictures I saw in the Royal Gallery made the trip to Antwerp worthwhile. It was worth coming to Belgium just to see them. Arriving back in Brussels was a tremendous relief, though! I made my way to Louise and found both Buddha and Peplum but too early! I will try again. So headed back to Gare du Nord. For the first time found my way easily to the correct exit, by platform 12—so that is another mystery solved. The girls in those windows are really beautiful. The films in Paradise were really good and I was randy very quickly. From passing on the train, I now realise the windows extend for much further up Aerschot than I ever imagined. I chose long blonde-haired Natalia from Bulgaria, such a beautiful, soft, gentle girl. She reminds me so much of Riccarda. She has been in Brussels just two days! Like with Clementina or Riccarda or Diana, I just want to lay with her and cuddle her. Went back to the Paradise kabins and more great films. I passed a younger brunette in long see-through blue dress in window, almost perfect body, and I wanted to go back for her, but resisted. Walked back to Le Dome instead. Headed down — and found a place called Night Dreams. It seems you just buy the girl a drink and nothing else. One blonde there. I left quickly, but just around the corner was Empire. At last, a proper strip club! With men in the audience! On stage the unbelievably big-breasted, beautiful black Clarisse. I need a mortgage to pay for the beer—8 Euros a time—but the club had a good atmosphere. The nearest place to White Coffin I have found. Girls will dance for two minutes at your seat for 5 Euros, but then it is 200 Euros upstairs! Clarisse almost tempts me. I drank until I could drink no more then back along such a crowded Anspachlaan, looked for a pub or a cinema but could find nothing, and before long back at the hotel. How could I have been to Brussels all this time, all these years, and never found Empire!? Clarisse made the trip to Brussels worthwhile. And the films were better than I have ever seen in Brussels before. And Natalia was so beautiful. I never even made the effort to find a proper strip club in Brussels before. It is hard to believe. Yet it is true for Vienna and Berlin as well. The blonde in beige tight top in the station Relay shop is mind-blowing. After I finished with Natalia I straight away thought now what is the point of three days in Brussels? Now I am glad I can stay here. I feel very happy in Brussels this time. Free from my amour fou with Viktoriya that ruined my last visit. I am glad I have got two more nights here.

Belgian women are so beautiful. Every day you see so many pretty girls. The girl in yellow top standing next to me in Relay, then leaving just as I did. Back to Louise today, to take some pictures of the Justice Palace.

Paradise Peep Show & videokabins closed around 2016. Aerschot being the street of window girls. Night Dreams hostess bar and Empire strip club are actually on the site of the massive Alhambra Theatre (namesake of its famous London sister)—demolished in 1973 but which gave its name to that whole area of Brussels to this day. Josephine Baker danced here in the 1920s; only when it was being demolished did they discover that the façade statues were in fact by Rodin.

24th September 2005

The beautiful Belgian girls keep me in a state of some permanent excitement. They are all so voluptuous and ripe, in soft wool cardigans & jumpers, they come bouncing along. I became turned on several times while walking around the Royal Art Gallery, which is always my sign that it is a good museum. There were some real treasures there. Cleopatra testing poisons on Condemned Prisoners by Cabanel, however, is the absolute centre of Antwerp. I had no idea it was here, so to see it was an emotional experience. It is tucked into the corner of a wall, high up. How long I’ve known & loved this picture. Cornelis’s Kindermorder in Bethlehem (1590) is also an extraordinary picture, all those great strong naked male arses, staring us in the face, as the men murder the children. You cannot believe that if they turned around they would not have massive swollen erections, so priapic a charge does the picture have. I am becoming dangerously excited just thinking about it. The men who are facing us have a soft silky gauze covering their loins, almost see-through so we can almost detect their size beneath it. I think I will come back to Belgium, for the sheer beauty of the women. It is amazing to realise it is exactly a year since I was in Belgium last—on my way to Viktoriya, Diana & Martina in Nuremberg, the rapprochement with Riccarda & Iga in Berlin. That ruinously expensive holiday I am still unable to pay for. I caught a glimpse of girls in windows & thought I must come back to this town, then we pull into Brussels Gare du Nord, & I realise it is the Rue d’Aerschot—unrecognisable in the bright sunlight of day.