Tracey Parker is a gay cruising fanatic who travels around the world, always sharing stories of hot hookups and anonymous sex. Tracey takes us to another gay cruising spot in Mexico, situated above a convenience store, adding another layer of sleaze and fun to the nightlife of men in Guadalajara.

I locked my bike to a tree growing out of the sidewalk and walked inside one of the colonial stone buildings. On the first floor was a convenience store. I walked past neatly organized rows of Mexican potato chips dusted with chile powder, refrescos de Sangria and Manzana, and two employees who had learned not to wave or make eye contact with the hundreds of young men who passed them every day.

I walked up the stairs to the second floor. At the top, two attractive young men were working the front desk. They were both named Luis. They were both my friends. Actually, by this point, I had fucked both of them.

Squeezed into the lobby were about six men in various states of undress. 

One particularly stood out to me. He sat wearing nothing but a pair of faded blue briefs. His skin was pale by Mexican standards, and he was covered in just enough hair to make him look rugged—dirty, even. 

He sat with his legs spread, casually talking to someone, in no hurry to finish getting dressed. His jeans sat bunched around his ankles. When he finally put his shirt on, he raised his arms and exposed his hairy armpits. It looked as if he was putting his clothes on rather than taking them off, which meant I had missed my opportunity. I hoped I’d see him again soon—maybe here, maybe somewhere else.

I said hello to Luis and Luis. They both greeted me with a bit of small talk. Here, I felt among friends—among guys who prioritized their desire enough to show up to a place the rest of the world told us to avoid. 

They took my sixty pesos and handed me a large laundry bag. I undressed, placed my clothes inside, and attached a small black pouch to my ankle with an elastic band. We all had them; they held poppers, lube, and the occasional condom. In mine, I kept a bag of weed and a pipe.

The lobby was separated from the club by a curtain. Once I was down to my briefs, socks, sneakers, silver necklace, and a backwards baseball cap, I passed through and began to walk. 

The space was dimly lit—a maze of hallways and booths with doors (cabinas). Everything culminated in a large dark room in the back. Most of the guys fucked here, out in the open. When you’re in the dark room, it’s like you’re fucking everyone there.

On the other end, closer to the entrance, was a room with tables. Guys sat in their underwear, smoking cigarettes and drinking beers. Luis and Luis had a hatch that opened into the bar area; from there, they handed out beers from the fridge and kept a running tab for everyone in a notebook.

Nobody ever ran up much of a tab. This was a place to pop into after work, after school, or in my case, after making good on an abandoned childhood dream. 

I walked around to see what was going on, noticing a few guys I’d love to touch and kiss, but I decided to have a beer and smoke a bowl first. Here, nobody was too aggressive. That was reserved for the more mainstream places on the weekends. The vibe here was that you could pretty much fuck whoever you wanted; nobody ever said no. People communicated by glances across the room.

In the bar area, a friend asked if I had weed. When I told him yes, he offered to buy me a beer so we could smoke together. 

After the typical “How are you? How’s life? Good,” we settled into our chairs, spread our legs, and passed the pipe back and forth. Music played from one of Luis’ cellphones. You could hear his text notifications pinging over the speakers in the club.

The bar area had two giant windows facing the street. The bottom halves were covered with thick canvas curtains because we were all in our underwear. Street lights dimly illuminated the room through the top panes.

I checked my watch. I was one of the only people in the club who had to work at 10 PM. I was teaching online English classes to Chinese students. While everyone in Mexico seemed to want to learn English, nobody wanted to pay for it. This reality explained much of the difference between the two countries—and perhaps between Mexico and the rest of the world. Maybe that difference was also why places like this were possible here, yet unimaginable in the United States, and maybe in China, too.

My friend and I smoked about three bowls. We stumbled into the dark room together. There was a large bench in the middle where two guys were fucking while three others filmed with their cellphones. The camera lights illuminated their brown, sweaty, sparkling bodies.

One lay on his back while the other knelt over him, his thick cock stimulating a pink hole slippery with lube, spit, and sweat. Tiny lights touched their chests, stomachs, and forests of black pubic hair as they continued to fuck slowly, visible to the rest of us. They looked at each other intensely. The top lowered himself to kiss and lick his partner’s armpits before raising back up, pinning the bottom’s legs back, and driving harder.

Many of us began removing our underwear, signaling we were free to be fucked. Someone began playing with my hole. I could feel his breath on my neck. He pressed his body against mine, his hard cock between my legs, poking at me over and over. I stayed focused on the guys on the bench. By now, he was inside me. I began touching myself. The weed and the poppers in the air had made me deliciously high—every sense was stimulated, including my imagination. I looked at my friend across the room; he was with a few other guys, and I felt a sudden, strong bond with him.

He returned my glance, our eyes connected, and then I realized someone was filming me. The light blinded me and the room vanished. I was coming. The guy fucking me had already finished. We stood there illuminated and out of breath, my cum dripping from my dick. I felt a smug sense of satisfaction that this was exactly what the guy filming had hoped to see.

I decided then that I wanted to leave. What I needed to happen had happened. I went to the lobby, got my bag from Luis, and changed while still catching my breath. It was the same feeling I got after a workout or a dance class. I said my goodbyes, took down a few numbers in the changing room, put on my vest, and left.

I briskly walked down the stairs, passing the convenience store employees who were busy with customers this time. I got back on my bike, still quite high, put on my headphones, and rode home. I’d make a small dinner; by the time I finished, the high would be gone and I’d be ready to teach for a few hours before bed around 3 AM. Tomorrow I would sleep in, wake up at noon, take care of business, and head back to the dance studio.

This was the beginning of my third year in Guadalajara, one of the biggest and most dangerous cities in Mexico. It was where I found a life that accommodated my desires. I had no plans to change a thing.

People were already talking about the coronavirus in China, but I was more concerned with HIV. Most of the sex at these clubs was bareback. I had brought a year’s worth of PrEP from the U.S. and stretched it over two years with “disco dosing,” but I had run out a few weeks prior. There was no hope of accessing it in Mexico—just one bureaucratic requirement after another, another line to wait in, another essential piece of paperwork to be completed on the other side of town.

But nobody talked about that in Las Cabinas. Nobody talked about much of anything. There was another form of communication happening there—which was for the best, because at that point, my Spanish wasn’t very good.