I was walking through a train station when I saw him. I was changing trains, from one line to another, going home after work. My mood was good – over the previous couple of days I had felt the clouds lift inside, a lightbulb back on, one that had flickered out in December.

I was wondering whether I had Seasonal Affective Disorder or not, for the sunshine I had enjoyed a few days previously was the first I’d had in months, and I had felt at the time as if my batteries were literally being recharged, as if every pore in my skin was lapping up energy. A couple of days later, I woke up and it was like a Prozac spring – everything colourful and manageable. I was thinking I must google SAD. Then I tripped over him.

I didn’t physically trip over him. He was sitting on a bench ahead of me, long legs stretched out in front of him, jeans and boots. It felt as if he had psychically tripped me up. I looked at him, and he was gazing at me like a lazy lion, unflinching, piercing, direct. He was tall and in his twenties and thick set. Handsome, in an army kind of way. And he was cruising like a vampire. And, as if I were bitten, I could instantly see through his eyes, feel what he felt, know what he knew.

There was only one explanation for his presence there, and I looked around to confirm it – sure enough, the Gents was across the way, one I hadn’t noticed before.

I hadn’t noticed a cruising area? How many times had I walked down that corridor? I must be getting old. Or at least growing out of it. Or something.

Time was when I would be acutely attuned to the pheromonal nexus of cottaging. As if wearing X-ray specs, I’d be able to see the dark currents of energy whirling around the men hovering around the cottage, like bees around a hive. My guts would be racing with adrenaline, tugging me there, taking my breath away. I’d be hyperaware of the subtle signals being emitted like batsqueaks by the other players.

On the surface I’d be cool, but inside I’d be a jumble of intensely conflicting feelings: a hollowness, a void, screaming to be filled. A strength, a power, from being able to command such sexual energy and play with it. A thrill from breaking all the rules, defying the “no loitering” signs, the taboo of public sex. The stench of ammonia, pine disinfectant and tobacco. The buzz of secrecy, of playing a game that only afficionados could play.

The language of discreet coughing and foot tapping and sighs. Lewd notes scrawled on toilet paper. Shadows telling tales. Door squeaks our alarm system. Shoes. Aftershave. Trackies. Rucksacks. Cigarettes. Poppers. Stony faces, large pricks. Eyes averted. Risk, danger, shock. Fear. Lust. Panic. Watch me coming, the rush, the fiery pleasure. Over. Tissues. Guilt. Flee. Fuck it. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. What a waste of time.

It’s all there, in this man’s stare. He is completely in and of the underworld, and he’s calling me like a siren, with everything he’s got. But there’s no corresponding tug in my gut, no ache of emptiness to be filled. Today. My dick doesn’t go hard. And that’s not out of willpower – it doesn’t work like that. If only it did. But today, I’m not finding that game horny, and I’m relieved. I meet his cold stare; I let him know I know the game. But I’m not playing.

I walk past, go to the train platform. I look back every now and again, and he’s still there, eyes locked on me. Still in his sexy pose. He’s frozen, stuck, can’t think of anything else but the sickening horniness of it all. Not in the moment of it. It’s too visceral, too entangled, too hormonal, too irrational. Too greedy, too needy, too selfish. Too child-like.

I don’t know how I got from there to here. From dark to - well, not dark. A kind of grey. I think it’s something to do with finding ways of soothing myself. Something to do with growing up.

I don’t know at what stage I left the underworld and stopped being sensitised to the fix of cruising. No, correction: I’ll always be sensitised. But instead of it taking me over now, it’s just something I notice. It’s like being addicted to emotional broken glass, the jaggedness of it, the crack-cocaine-ness of it, the blood-throbbing fucked-up-ness of it. The rollercoaster of it. The emptiness of it. The shame and disgust of it. Above all, the lovelessness of it. And, like the period after any addiction has been left behind, things do seem a bit flat for a while, in comparison to high drama, until subtleties reclaim their fascination.

Sometimes, I miss it. The adventure of it. I fell into it once or twice after I was beaten up last year, which more or less confirmed, if I needed confirmation, that at its root is a lot of distress and pain. Shame.

And, sometimes, I think there are worse ways of reacting to pain and loneliness. It’s only sex, men giving each other pleasure. It’s all consensual, private dramas that harm no one else.

I catch my train, and see him through the window, still following me with his vacuum eyes. What he really needs is a hug. I went home to see that war had started.