PAPER Got Flown Out for Whole

In the Love Island villa, a kiss is like a handshake; at Whole Festival, a blowjob does the same.

My presence at the German queer festival — “a constellation of queer vision,” per the site — was, to be sure, an anomaly. I was passingly familiar with the debaucherous four-day celebration of all things queer house and techno, but the notion of actually indulging had never once crossed my mind. I’d never been to Berlin, for one, didn’t know anyone there, and events like this or its spiritual Stateside sister Honcho tend not to be my default scene. Said without judgment!

So when a peculiar little invite came across my inbox about a month before the event, I’ll admit I waffled a bit. The utter insanity of getting flown out on such short notice, for something so deeply outside my personal wheelhouse was outdone only by the fact that the offerer was none other than the cruising website (and winky apparel brand) Sniffies, a sponsor of the festival.

Reader’s Note: This piece contains mention of graphic imagery.

A brief primer, though as a PAPER Magazine reader, I’d hope one wouldn’t need it: cruising, here, refers to the pursuit of impersonal sexual encounters, typically among gay men, in public spaces. The practice, as with much of queer culture, is the offspring of homosexuality’s longtime illicitness. It’s a nonverbal discipline, famously characterized by codes like foot tapping in bathroom stalls or a dance of nonchalance, utilizing eye contact and walking patterns as its playthings.

Most notable is the analog nature of the act and its fall from prominence owing to, of course, AIDS, but also the mainstream acceptance of queerness (to an extent) and the fact that our world is no longer tactile but digital.

Now that we’re on the same page, the company sponsored this year’s Whole Festival, a partnership which included the presence of the Cruising Arena (more on this later), a branded lounge I’m not sure I ever actually saw, and the integration of the festival map into the app’s interface. Another facet of the partnership was the crew of influencers, DJs, creators, and so on, who were traveled out by the festival, in addition to — this is where I come in — press to cover the festivities. They hosted the whole crew in neighboring glamping tents, or at least I think they did, because I never saw any of these people to my knowledge in real life, just online. Not that I needed to, but I have this uncanny relationship with influencers; I’m not convinced they actually exist, much like many other things on the Internet. The experience did little to disprove this.

In the days leading up to the trip, I experienced cold feet for a myriad of reasons. Most immediately, it can’t be overstated, the sheer madness of such an endeavor ate at me — trying to find time to pack and get my ducks in a row, working around not only my creative career but also a barista job, proved Herculean. There was, as ever, the imposter syndrome. I am what we in the business call more of a mover than a dancer; recently at an amateur lipsync competition I love doing, a judge called my performance style “special,” and I wish that didn’t get to me, but it did. My necessarily thick skin has its limits. But it is #SafetyInNumbersSummer, after all, and we must check our insecurities at the door!

I read Dancer from the Dance on the plane. On-the-nose, sure, but the sort of creative mindset I wanted to approach the weekend — and this writing — with. “Pop Sound” and Nirosta Steel on repeat, and Confessions II as always, as I walked through the streets of Berlin for the first time. Vegan döner, followed by a packed dive bar Thursday night, which my body told me was mid-afternoon, as I chatted up a stranger and the conversation somehow turned to geopolitics. His friend offered me what he said was a joint but was certainly a hand-rolled cigarette; he didn’t speak otherwise. I asked a crowd standing outside the restroom if they were in line, which one of them was, though he’d forgotten — “sometimes you need an American,” he said. “Gets shit done.”

I met a French boy who was lousy at kissing, left him behind, and passed out in my hotel.

FRIDAY

Checkout is at noon, though I can’t say I know very well when I am. I’m in a haze when housekeeping starts threatening to bang down my door. It’s all wrong, I’m in over my head, who do I think I am; I pack my shit, though I swore I’d barely taken anything out. Asian food is big in Berlin, especially dandan noodles or some variation on the form. There’s a place nearby Google Maps says is good, and it is.

Whole takes place not in Berlin, though it’s of course convenient shorthand to say as such, but on an odd little peninsula called Ferropolis. Most literature about the site, “city of iron” in English, refers to it as an “open-air museum,” full of massive 20th century industrial machines from a former strip mining operation. It’s about two hours outside the city, and most everyone takes a bus to get there. Like we’re going to summer camp or something.

The festival posted about an apparent norovirus case, which for my peace of mind is not my business. PrEP probably covers it. More my business is the looming storm, which delays the fest’s opening while I’m still onboard the bus. It’s a double decker, by the way, and I sit up top for the novelty. Sometimes I like to just hide in the shadows; create a new persona; a different identity.

Purgatory hits right outside Ferropolis as a line of buses sits, static, waiting for the all-clear. It lasts maybe an hour, maybe two — I still don’t know when I am. Time starts to move differently as we approach the threshold. Eventually, we move again and enter a new queue, after which we disembark and enter yet another, this time on foot. The delays have created quite possibly the worst bottleneck I’ve ever seen at the artist check-in (which, for some reason, includes me). I don’t know what the Artist pass gets me; this isn’t like any of the pop/rock fests with stratified access, and it feels wrong to look into the perks further in light of the existing tenuousness of my presence in the space.

I hesitate to call it a line, really, but I make some friends while waiting in the pen, one of whom is a drag performer who gives me a rundown of the various stages. There’s the Performance Stage, where her set will be; she describes this as “pop, drag, for the girlies.” Arena is where you’ll find circuit guys; Forest is more “artsy;” Beach is lighter, with sunnier house and disco; Crane has themed days, including a Latin day Saturday. Another friend is a crew member, working at the Water Bar, where you can get water with flavored oils like sage or cinnamon, all poured out of glass bowls in a Zelda-esque bazaar setup. We all make it to the front, get our wristbands, and split; I don’t see them again.

In the glamping area, I’m brought to my tent, which is adorned with two Sniffies bandanas; inside, there are two beds, one for me and one presumably for another press person who backed out or was never confirmed in the first place.

On my bed, there’s a collection of Sniffies merch — a pair of basketball shorts, a camo hat, some tanks, a pair of socks, and a bedazzled tee that says “Sniffies faggot” — along with a note addressed to me, thanking me for coming. As if I’m an influencer, though I’m not obligated to post, and I’m generally moving in silence this weekend, so I don’t. My family knows I’m here, and some number of my friends, and of course my coworkers, but I haven’t posted about it or gone horribly wide with it. Hide in the shadows, new persona, etc. I text the marketing guy to let him know I made it and confirm that the other bed isn’t going to be used before I unpack onto it. I also ask him if there are any sets I should make sure to catch — after all, I don’t know what I’m doing — but he doesn’t have an answer, just that I should see the Sniffies Cruising Arena. Which I was of course planning on doing. For anthropological and journalistic purposes.

I try on the basketball shorts and text a photo to my editor, Joan, and we laugh about how ridiculous I look in them. After which I change back into my non-sexual jorts and head into the festival proper.

Everything is overwhelming, and I don’t know what to make of it. There’s a bar selling Long Islands; I start things off with a bang, before heading to Forest, which is both on the artsier end as promised and in a literal forest. The Long Island makes me have to pee, and I find a set of urinals, where my eye quickly meets a man sitting on the still-muddy ground with a yellow handkerchief, mouth agape. Beach next, which I suspected would be my favorite stage. It is, as promised, on the beach, with the stage itself out in the ocean, flanked with two docks attaching it to the shore. There’s a massive, monstrous face surrounding the DJ booth, a psychedelic Cheshire Cat of sorts, with eyes that move and blink and close.

Next to the Beach is the other cruising area, the Cruising Village, an outdoor campground with a few different huts. There’s dark alcoves and free-floating beds chained to the ceiling and slings and, in one, a cage. It’s relatively early, or the sun is still out a bit at least, and people have wasted no time getting to business.The sound bleeds over from the Beach. If time operates differently in Ferropolis generally, the cruising areas are complete time vortexes, teeming with Lotus-Eaters and ass-eaters alike. I don’t know how much time passes, but at some point I hear the beginning of “I Feel So Free” and am compelled to go dance.

I meet up with a friend who’s also here, separately, by Arena, which is less threatening than I’d anticipated, if still not my cup of tea. He introduces me to some of his friends — a globe-spanning group I’m not sure the connective tissue of — and they quickly head over to Forest for more dancing before the group disperses. As will become customary for me, I make my way over to home base at Beach. At the bar outside the stage, I have a run-in with a college classmate of mine, another South Carolinian gay guy. My poor orientation leader didn’t really know what to do with me and had recommended the two of us chat, which I don’t think we ever did one on one until this very moment.

“You were blond the last time I saw you,” he tells me, a chilling reminder of who I was three personalities ago. He tells me he had a dream last night that I’d be here — “well, here I am, darling,” I offer — and commends all the “cool stuff” I’ve been doing. I take it for granted, but he’s right. I tell him this is another cool thing: I’m here as a writer. One of his friends asks that I note that he (the friend, not the classmate) is a slut. People’s reactions when I disclose who I am and what I’m doing never cease to amuse me — I’m typically either met with abject horror that I’ll expose them for something or other, which I don’t particularly have an interest in doing, or intense zeal at the notion of being memorialized on the CMS of papermag dot com. Another beast entirely.

A new DJ starts at Beach — I’m regrettably dreadful with keeping up with who’s playing where, for the most part, though cross-checking with the schedule feels both tedious and dishonest — and we head into the crowd to dance. Safety in numbers. The classmate and I remain in shock at the other’s presence. I catch an arty stranger nearby checking me out, and we dance together. He’s local, and I give him the “I’m a writer” spiel sooner rather than later, and he winces a bit when I mention Sniffies, but I guess I’m either alluring or apologetic enough, or some combination of the two, that he still kisses me.

The German and I dance for I don’t know how long, the Cruising Village close enough that all semblance of time goes out the window. I look over where the classmate and the slut were at one point, and I don’t see them, so when the German proposes we go off somewhere I have no qualms.

Off to the Sniffies Cruising Arena.

What greets us is best described as a “Danceteria” video-themed haunted house maze. It’s all aligned with the jock fantasy so central to Sniffies’s branding — hard, knowingly grimy, bathroom stalls with graffiti on the walls and gloryholes in the dividers. Beds in gloriously exhibitionist plain sight, on the ground or resembling a wrestling ring, slings in every nook and cranny, industrial vats of lube on steel stepstools. Hard techno bleeds in here, the moonlight from the open air augmented red, bright, sinful red. (If any of this sounds dismissive, please know it is, truthfully, deeply erotic.) The German peels off and I am once again a lone wolf; everyone is horny here, but my “thing” (eccentric intellectual nymph) seems to do better here than at home. I meet a cast of characters I don’t remember, except an Aussie-Brit who’s endearingly chatty in a way that makes me feel less alone and a Brazilian couple.

They talk to each other in Portuguese on the walk back, as the sun comes up.

SATURDAY

The reports that Speedos are out for gay people are a gross exaggeration.

I’ve been alarmed by the Twitter discourse claiming that gay guys aren’t wearing Speedos anymore, opting for trunks, longer shorts, more masculine silhouettes. Not out of any particular allegiance to the swimsuit, though I do enjoy ogling the masses of gorgeous men around me wearing them and find that the right ones make my ass look fantastic. Rather, I find it a harbinger of conservatism, a nasty assimilatory impulse we once used to decry as a community (“masc4masc,” at a time, was tantamount to hate speech) before falling in line.

A core tenet of my queerness is that being a faggot, really truly a faggot, the queeny Stanford Blatch sort, is not only the best part of the gig but also, increasingly, the main form of social resistance we have left.

I’m not surprised Europe would generally be preferable in this area, but I find myself creatively energized by the amount of freaks and queerdos surrounding me. Even the hyper-buff ones are, by and large, in short skirts or bright colors or fierce boots or fagging out in some way or another. Ironically, given my mission statement, my drag for the weekend is much more demure — the character I landed on is sort of Almost Famous-esque, but everything else about my whole thing makes up for it.

This is my internal monologue as I hit the showers; typically, when I’m at camping fests, I resign myself to what we call a “whore bath,” consisting of baby wipes and a water bottle I rinse with. But we are glamping, dahling, so the Adidas slides make an appearance. Everyone is built like my Explore page, and I try not to notice. I catch myself attempting modesty, I think out of body sheepishness, despite the fact that by Monday morning, everyone here will presumably have seen everyone else’s dick in some capacity. (I run into the Aussie-Brit, the chatty one, so there’s one already.)

Around 3PM, I’m putting on sunscreen and about to head in when I meet someone from the Sniffies team. It’s his first Whole, too; “not typically my thing,” he says, “all this” — gesturing at the camping of it all — “...gross.” “Disgusting, hedonistic faggotry,” I add. He’s loving the fest, which he dubs “kooky…like ten parties at once.” We talk about the Cruising Arena, the “Danceteria” of it all.

“Everyone you could ever want to have sex with is here,” he says. “Shame they’re all kinda mean.” Not my experience, though maybe I’m naïve or maybe we just have different types. Inside, I grab vegan Chinese food, some pancake based something or other, which fucks (the food here is genuinely fantastic and pretty reasonably priced, at least by my standards.) I’m committed to seeing all the grounds today, a journey that takes me to the U-Haul Dyke Bar, over on a different beach. The grounds kind of give Hunger Games arena, biodiversity-wise at least. There, I grab a vodka-mate, which becomes my go-to. A chicer vodka Red Bull; I’d love to incorporate it into my normal practice but imagine it wouldn’t hit the same with Guayaki.

There’s an acronym here called FLINTA, which conveniently doubles in English and German — female, lesbian, intersex, nonbinary, trans, agender. Anyone other than a gay guy. (The German word for nonbinary is “nichtbinäre,” which I can’t help but love.) Over here in FLINTA-land, there’s an arm wrestling competition emceed by some hot girls in U-Haul shirts with bullhorns. I stay for a few rounds before making my way to TRINA, a beachfront stage dedicated to “QT*BIPOC celebration of music, movement & joy.” The music leans poppier — during my time there, I hear Caucasian spiritual “Unwritten” and a brief Rihanna mix. There’s a raised platform, and it’s rowdy in a way that reminds me of tailgates back in undergrad. I meet this daddy from Florida, the sort of man I can’t help but pull into my orbit and intoxicate wholly.

I tell him about the article. I’m doing my best to disclose my whole MO, and he dubs me a “free spirit” which lands and “quirky” which does not. I move on.

The Cruising Arena is eerie in the sunlight, not entirely barren but sparse, liminal. I hit all the stages except Ambient and Performance, not for any reason other than forgetting; both are a bit off on their own and easy to exclude from a lap.

Later, I head back to TRINA — why not? The vibe at night is more or less the same, and I find myself dancing with someone who introduces themself as being “from the Caribbean,” though they live in Berlin now. I feel so tacky every time I say I’m from Los Angeles. “You LA boys have some spice,” the Caribbean tells me, both an entirely novel experience and a very sweet lie.

They leave, and so do I. I run into my classmate again; the one who wanted to be called a slut spots me first. We dance for a bit, at Beach again, always Beach, before we all start to wander through the crowd. I meet a boy who I believe says he’s from Peru, and we hit it off and dance together. Someone comes on the mic and starts saying some earnest shit about queerness. He says Sniffies like it’s a slur, all consonants and huffing and puffing. Applause when he does. He’s singing some song or chant about “release your gay,” but the Peruvian and I are too busy kissing to find it corny. We make our way to the Cruising Village; I can tell he has a good heart.

We head over to Forest and the crowd is lame, so I peel off. Juliana Huxtable’s set is tonight, the only one I knew to be appointment going in. I make my way over to Arena. She’s spinning a remix of “Finally” as I weave through the crowd and up onto the platforms and scaffolding surrounding the stage. A bacchanal surrounds me; I squeeze through this crowd, tighter now, sweatier, rowdier, trying to find a spot to dance that still feels in the action. The music is pounding. Harder beats. The smoke is suffocating. Lost in strobes. Dancers hanging on scaffolding. Eroticism in the way that only exists in music videos and movies.

I find stable ground right beside the glass box of the DJ booth; there’s a boy that I think about making a move on before his hag is revealed to be his girlfriend. My mom texts me happy birthday — I’m 27 today — and I’m going to text her back when a skinny blonde boy with sunken features reels me in with the chain around his neck. He holds me close, we dance together for a bit, and he introduces himself as Edgar. Before he lets me go, he looks directly into my eyes, the most I’ve felt someone see me all weekend: “Let’s rave.”

The set is magical, I’m out of shots on this disposable, I feel gauche videoing anything, and I can’t stop dancing long enough to process any of it. Around the time my feet begin to feel like they’re going to fall off, someone asks if I’ll climb up onto the scaffolding with him, and of course I will, and we dance there, my head thrown back, hanging over the Cruising Arena, for what could be five minutes or ten or an hour. I feel so free.

SUNDAY

Going into this trip, I had concerns for my sleep, but the sad truth is that glamping — having an actual bed, mainly — makes a world of difference. I fear for the ramifications this will have going forward.

My clothes are more soiled than I’d anticipated (leave it to me to underpack, always), so I opt for the Sniffies basketball shorts today. Performatively freeballing, of course. I continue to look and feel ridiculous, but as with any bolder stylistic choice I’ve ever made, I frame it as drag. I’m about to leave when I hear rain starting to hit the walls of my tent, so I lay down a bit more and respond to birthday texts and posts. I don’t repost anything. I still don’t tell anyone here. As someone who can’t perform mystery no matter how hard I try, the anonymity carries a new high. I can be whoever I wanna be. Create a new persona, a different identity.

The persona is wearing branded basketball shorts, and he sets out when the rain lets up around 4PM. A cold brew today; the line at the stand is long, but they play David Bowie’s “Modern Love,” so we move. Vegan spätzle for what I’m calling “lunch,” and I head in, Beach again, always Beach. Beach is home. I dance on the docks today; I’d kick myself if I didn’t. The rain returns, and I don’t let it stop me for about two songs, just twirling in the rain, letting it wash me clean.

Then the rain picks up a bit, and the Cruising Village is right there, so I use one of its huts as shelter. This bout is mercifully short, and I’m back out dancing with only one or two new notches on my belt. A set change, and I decide to check out the Ambient stage for a set called “Kate Bush Therapy” — all Kate, per the name — but no one has a joint I can bum hits from, and it’s all a bit plaintive, so I go back to dance. Another vodka mate, and I’m dancing until the rain picks up again, rinse and repeat back to the cruising hut. It’s longer this time, the storm isn’t letting up, the hut more and more crowded, and I find myself in the arms of a Jason Momoa type, who tells me his history but I’m not listening.

A man in a neon vest comes in and tells us to evacuate to Arena because of the storm. Never mind that the evacuation area is entirely open-air and that we’re actually sheltered in here. We make our way over, me and Jason and his friend, who asks to use my phone to try and get in touch with his friend who’s God knows where.

As we’re walking toward Arena, the friend frantically calling and texting and voice memoing on my Whatsapp, I find myself uncharacteristically silent. I wonder if Jason views me as a hanger-on, until he puts his arm around me again. The friend goes to get his power bank from a locker, but the lockers are closed. So are the bathrooms. Apparently, when lightning strikes, Whole Festival turns into a war zone. There’s finally a Whatsapp response, and the friend goes to find the guy, and I follow because I don’t know this man who’s holding my phone. They reunite, I get my phone back, and just like that all restrictions are lifted.

Jason asks to pick up where we left off, so we’re back at the hut, where these two guys are doing pull ups on the overhang supporting the beds. I’m in a hoodie now, a bootleg Rosalia one I got in the parking lot at her show (and didn’t pay for, owing to the seller getting spooked by something or other and running away before I could grab her Venmo). There’s a girl with the puller-uppers, and she compliments the sweatshirt, and we queen out a bit about Lux, the first of many such encounters I’ll have today.

Something comes over me — “forgive me,” I tell Jason. “I think I have to dance.” “Go with your heart,” he tells me. I weigh pulling out a ring I don’t have.

Back at the beach, I dance and twirl, all alone, so free, so alive, until I get bored for some reason and wander around a bit. Another vodka mate, and I’m aimless until a distant echo of “Jolene” comes into focus. I head toward it, or at least I try to, but I don’t find it, and suddenly I’m face to face with Jason again. Through the haze I hear the unmistakable strings of the “Frozen” intro, and I tell him once again I must go. “I get weird about Madonna,” I tell him.

“Who doesn’t?” he responds. And, bitch, I twirl.

There’s a trancey mix of “Milkshake,” one that bends in time, or seems to at least, after which I run into the characters with whom we will spend the rest of our time.

I know Hayden because a good judy of mine shared a Fire Island house with him one time, a delightful way you can know a person as a faggot. He’s a Sagittarius, with all the requisite free-spiritedness and self-assuredness but none of the off-putting bluntness that tanks the sign’s PR. The sort of ethereally handsome that puts you at ease, not pins and needles, armed with a baritone so soothing it’s no wonder he did time narrating a meditation app. The last time I saw Hayden, I was approaching the pit of a yearlong depressive breakdown, the one that led me to blow my entire professional life up and in its way brought me here. I can’t claim to remember much of our interactions, much of that time in my life at all, but he approaches me with enough warmth that none of that matters, not least due to him being my savior from a weekend largely adrift.

He’s with Blayke, whose name is spelled that way because his mother is really into numerology (the y makes him a 3, he believes). Blayke is an Aquarius; he’s recently moved to Berlin from Los Angeles, and we both find it peculiar we never knowingly crossed paths during our time in the same city. But, again, there’s the memory hole, and I’ve only recently started affording myself the luxury of being a full, complete person rather than a workhorse. Like Hayden, he’s impossibly handsome, in the way that might make me insecure were it not for his unrelenting ingenuinity, perfect blondish curls over dime earrings and a camo hoodie.

We head to Forest for a set that opens with “everything begins with consciousness” and eventually circles back to Donna with a “Love Sensation” mix I make the boys stay for even though Hayden hates Forest. It reminds him, he tells me, of his time in Australia and the influencer parties he would go to with a lover. (Ever the cosmopolitan, Hayden has also lived in Argentina and Mexico, as well as Wisconsin and his current New York.) When he says influencer, it’s analogous to “circuit,” that dirty word hanging in the Ferropolis ether this weekend, the thing that everyone’s afraid will sully our precious Whole. He’s not wrong; despite its initial “arty” promise, much of the vibe at Forest, especially later in the day, has become increasingly combative, antisocial, more masculine and vapid. As “nothing that we cannot do” echoes for the thousandth time, I relent, and we hit the food court.

Blayke gets stuck in line at the Chinese place for reasons still unclear to me. Hayden thinks I’m too smart for LA, and I’m an asshole for agreeing. I’m antsy in Hollywood these days anyway, though maybe that’s just the heat wave. He thinks I should lean into my performance artist tendencies — and we both know LA is no place for something so outré. Someone comes up to me and compliments my Sniffies shorts and Lux hoodie, both separately and in their juxtaposition. He asks if I bought the shorts, and I tell him no, of course not, they were gifted to me. He tells me he works for Sniffies, doing something called “growth;” I hate it when people say things like that to me as if I’m supposed to do anything with that information. Whatever that means.

“Are you camping with us?” he asks me. I guess so? He asks how my Whole is, I say I haven’t had any complaints yet, I ask him back, he says there have been some, and I leave it at that.

A key reminder that we’re not in America comes when Hayden realizes he left his jacket back at camp, and there’s nowhere in sight to buy a hoodie, no massive merch compound in the middle of proceedings. I sit with Blayke for a bit while Hayden heads back, and he tells me about his move. Gay Los Angeles, we both agree, can often feel like, in his parlance, Kansas City. Staid, a bit square — “cheugy,” Blayke’s word of choice, Hayden’s being “basic,” though they all refer to the same thing. It’s all so fractured, what with the cars and all. No one wants to go outside — it’s not okay — I don’t fuck with it!

Blayke also thinks I’m too smart for LA. Showbiz, too, is so often stifling, and I’m finding it increasingly hard to escape the trap of my entire life being so entwined with business. I don’t allow myself the luxury of being an artist enough. We head to Beach to see Octo Octa and tell Hayden where to meet us. More vodka mate. The boy in front of us offers his poppers and tells me I have beautiful eyes. The three of us head to Forest, where we spend barely any time, owing to a basic/cheugy/square crowd more interested in squeezing their way through in search of nothing in particular than fucking dancing. Hayden reminds us of his preexisting distaste for the stage. It’s around midnight at this point, and my car is arriving at 6AM, so of course I’m pulling an all nighter. We’re all fans of TRINA and head that way, only to realize that the stage has been torn down already. “We must overthrow the culture of corruption that silences women,” I joke.

So we pop by Arena, but all roads lead back to Beach.

We dance a bit, the three of us, before Blayke, a better man than Hayden or myself, calls it a night and heads back to camp. He’s not sure he’ll make his bus on time. “You’re charming and handsome,” offers Hayden. “You can get anything you want.” Except, counters Blayke, the Argentinian he fell in love with yesterday, an 11/10 with a husband that isn’t hot, visibly wealthy or connected, or — most damning — any goddamn fun. “What gives?”

I catch up on birthday texts as the DJs navigate a set change. Many of these people are finding out about Whole for the first time when they ask what I’m doing to celebrate — “thanks I’m actually at a queer festival outside Berlin for a story rn!!!”, a string of words beyond my comprehension mere months ago. OK Williams and Gabrielle Kwarteng hit the stage to a vocal sample of Ru’s “Bring back my girls” (from the show, blessedly not the song) for a b2b set closing out the stage.

And it may be the drugs, the fatigue from a weekend of debauchery, the way the sand feels on my feet, the sisterhood I’ve found in Hayden — the soul-to-soul kind — or just the outpouring, heart-on-sleeve house of the set’s beginning, but I feel the spirit begin to move the way I used to at church camp. This time without any of the strings attached, any of that horribly stifling theater, just the spirit, the spark of revival, love without words.

I know Hayden’s behind me, and I’m in his periphery, and held by that I surrender to the interior, profound experience I’d been resisting, for fear writing about it would be too trite.

As you tend to do on birthdays, I think back on the past year, starting at 4AM the night of my birthday party when a good Judy told me I was about to enter a renaissance. In that year I blew my life up; I quit my job, nothing lined up, no direction, just trust in myself; I made an earnest attempt at The Artist’s Way; I tried being a Creator because that’s what we’re supposed to do these days, I was good at it even; I put on wigs and tits and kitten heels and a dress from Ross and the worst makeup you’ve ever seen and no falsies because one lingering effect of the alopecia that plagued me in my youth is I don’t have eyelashes and I find it hard to apply them can someone please help; my social life upended; my point of view sharpened; I felt lost in the ability to have one; authenticity is dangerous and expensive, but it’s all I’ve got.

I was pushed out of one home, spent a purgatorial period subletting from a reality TV contestant, have yet to decorate or unpack the apartment I’ve lived in three months; I gave fleeting attention to boys my brain still can’t fully conceive as people; I never let myself fall in love; I never let that become a possibility; I want to be loved or maybe just desired, but never to love or desire myself; never let anyone see me sweat; I’m a Cancer, after all, and my sensitivity is my undoing; I never know why people like me, that’s why I like to go dancing; safety in numbers; I tap into my spice from last night; my legs are going to fall off and my arms are going to jump out of their sockets; ecstatic movement, to make Ann Lee proud; harder now; Hayden is still behind me; he’s experiencing jubilee in the same way; he tells me how lucky we are to experience this together; I can’t dance with him or I’ll cry; he can’t see me cry; the reason I’m so vulnerable in my writing is that it’s not vulnerability at all; no wonder publicity undid me, I’m addicted to controlling narratives; as long as I can feign vulnerability I don’t ever have to cry; it’s so corny to cry at a rave anyway; though is it tackier to care?

Whatever the case I feel the tears welling up; they’re the release tears, the hot, thin ones that burn and go outward; the feelings I intellectualized but never felt; not until now at least; how is this my life now; what's going on with my career; I can’t wait to write this; I must look insane; no, not insane, special, quirky; a performance artist, Hayden introduced me to Blayke as a writer and performance artist; I am Andy Kaufman; I am Pee-wee Herman; I am Nathan Fielder; I have never felt so spent; never so fulfilled; I feel so free; I feel so free; I feel so free.

It’s all been expunged from my system when a new sample comes in — “look at that gay guy,” in various permutations, which shock me out of my earnestness back into my trademark sardonic wit, albeit lighter, warmer. In my delirium, I’m positively tickled. Thank god the term “gay guy” is in the lexicon the way it is these days. Around 3:30, “Exceeder” signals a reentry into a more debaucherous, adrenaline-fueled dance, which takes us to the stage’s closing. Hayden drops his phone in the sand, I quickly retrieve it, he thanks me for this three separate times. The set closes with a deadmau5 song I find so beautiful I Shazam it two separate times during different remixes.

I’ve got about two hours to kill before getting in the car, so Hayden and I take a longer stroll back toward camp. We sit down in the food court for a bit, hearts open in that manner only possible in the wee hours of the night.

“How long before all this is ruined?” he asks me. I tell him I think it may already be. Isn’t everything, these days? The boy at the bar Thursday told me Germany was shifting rightward, and back in the States Kylie’s selling us spy glasses by flaunting her servants. Everything is brought to you or presented by something or other; Madonna is Madonna but also hookup apps and PrEP providers and vodka. Neither of us know about the van that will ram into Berlin Pride a week later, many of the people currently surrounding us future witnesses to a terror attack that will quickly rinse out of the news cycle.

“Fucking Americans.” I point out that we are both, in fact, Americans, but we both know what he means.

As we walk back to camp, we tell each other long-winded, fractured versions of our life stories. He’s been an actor, a photographer, the meditation app gig; I ask him what he wants to be next and he doesn’t know other than artist. I’ve been a worship leader, an opera singer, a publicist; he asks me where I see myself, and I know too much. I want to be Derek Blasberg, I tell him. Or Eve Babitz. Joan Rivers was a foundational diva for me. Maybe I’m The Soup era Joel McHale. Am I allowed to say James Baldwin? “I was going to say Baldwin, actually,” he says, “you’re witty as fuck.” I don’t mention either David, Wojnarowicz or Sedaris. I’m not sure why.

We kiss goodbye, he can’t wait to read the article, and it’s a little past 5 now, so I’m just in time to pack up my things and lay down for a moment. I haven’t heard a thing about the World Cup, for once. Spain apparently won and Madonna’s performance was mostly prerecorded. I’m still in the Sniffies shorts as I stroll through the grounds trying to find my car. Everyone looks at me like I’m crazy for asking about car pickup, but I get there eventually, and my driver is standing outside in a black suit, me in a ratty cutoff tank and reeking of sex and things I can't write about. The most I’ve ever felt like a rock star.

On the way to the airport, I scribble everything I can remember in my journal. It comes to me in pieces, fragments, phrases here and there — a song, a kiss, a moment of eye contact, the lingering memory of a shared breath.

I realize I forgot to check out the Douching Station.

Photography by Taylor Lomax