Q life: with GABRIEL TABASCO

Full Monty Wannabe Soon after graduation I got a job in a consultancy firm, which involved a lot of travel. I enjoyed my job but I became bored during the long evenings in hotel rooms while travelling. All the men on Grindr started to sound the same. Not all places I went to had gay bars. After a long day at work I wanted an adrenaline kick.

Following on from my oil wrestling adventure in a Manchester gay club (see Q Magazine, July 2018) I found that I quite liked performing. I was comfortable being naked and I enjoyed interacting with people. If I was good at dealing with egotistical CEOs over business strategy, surely I could deal with anyone. Right? Well…

I was in Hong Kong for work. After what was the world's dreariest meeting, I returned to my hotel room and bored I uploaded some photos and posted an advert as a stripper online. I never expected any interests but after some back and forth with indecisive men, I had a couple of bookings. I made an appointment for the next day with Ron, an IT consultant from Delhi, and his friend Harry from Guangzhou.

The following evening, with my heart racing, I stood outside Ron's apartment. Since becoming a stripper was an impromptu decision, I did not have a stripper costume to undress out of so I wore my work suit and marketed myself as a ‘sexy businessman'.

Like me, Ron and Harry, were also wearing their suits as both were returning from work. Ron carried a six-pack of beer. ‘To enjoy during the spectacle' Ron said with a smile and led me into his apartment.

‘Do you want to chat or .... maybe…' I began, more for my benefit than theirs.

‘No. It's fine. You can begin' said Ron as he and Harry sat down on the couch and popped open their beers. I freshened up in the bathroom, went into the living room, pressed play and began my half-improvised routine.

I was unsure how long a strip show should last. I estimated 20 minutes and put together a playlist, beginning with a high-energy song like LMFAO's ‘Face Down, Ass Up' before moving onto a pop song, where I could thrust and gyrate, then ending with a mellow song like Jill Scott's ‘Getting in the Way'.

Since I never stripped before I was not as confident as I wanted to be and kicked myself for not having a shot of whiskey to relax. But as I peeled off my suit, my confidence along with my erection grew. I danced passably and twerked badly. When I was down to my briefs, I told the boys to rub baby oil all over me.

They quickly finished their first beer and were onto the second by the time I was down to a neon-green thong, that I had bought as a sex shop that morning. Through my legs, as I was bending over, I spotted Harry's reaction. With a smile, he nudged Ron's who winked and smiled at his friend before toasting with their beer bottles. Dancing practically naked was an oddly empowering feeling. I led Harry off the sofa, sat him on the floor and did press-ups over him. I followed the same routine with Ron, allowing him to remove my thong with his teeth. By the time Jill Scott's mellow voice came on I asked them to rub more baby oil over me. They rubbed me everywhere the right way and just before the 20 minutes were up, the show ended with a bang. Mine.

I kept in touch with Ron and when I travelled to Delhi I called him for recommendations. He informed me I could stay in a gay-only boutique hotel. Dev, the hotel owner, having been told I stripped for Ron, agreed to offer me a lower rate if I put on a show one night. Being of the mindset ‘make it until you fake it' I agreed.

I spent the day exploring Delhi before I returned to the hotel for the show. As the hotel had six rooms I assumed there would be only a handful of guests so I was shocked to see there were at least a dozen people there. At that moment I would have paid Dev double my rate not to perform! But not only had Dev charged the party-goers some of them had travelled to Delhi for this. (I'm really not that special', I wanted to say.) But the show must go on… even a semi-choreographed strip show by a Full Monty Wannabe. (And no. That's not my stripper name.)

Before my set began I did a shot of vodka. Then another. I went into the guest area where I was greeted by smiles and cheers. I kicked off the act with Usher's ‘Bad Girl'. But man, were they an impatient audience! Some of them kept chanting ‘off! Off! Off!'

Different members of the audience behaved differently. Some were more forthcoming while others wanted to enjoy it from afar. I quickly got to discern who was more comfortable to be included in the more interactive elements of the show, such as rubbing lotion on me.

Not sure of what type of demographic the audience would be, Dev was not explicit on whether the crowd wanted nudity or not, but he certainly did not want a big bang at the end of the act. (‘The floors are carpeted, you see' he explained.)

And so for my final act, I chose a cute man named Sahel to sit on a chair as I slowly moved around him in my neon-green thongs. He rubbed some lotion on me (careful! The carpets!) before he slowly slipping the thongs off me. With my back to the audience I let him have a look and a quick feel of my cock. Dev shouldn't have been concerned; most of the audience was peering towards me hoping to get a better look. So I indulged them for a while. Once it was over I took a bow and put on some shorts where I remained chatting to the guests.

The following day my friend Andrea called and I told him what I was up to.

‘So… you worked in a gay bar, did nude oil wrestling, then you became a stripper? All the while working as a business consultant.

You've done it all' he said incredulously. ‘Yeah… but so what? Other than my real job, it's not like I can put it on my LinkedIn profile, is it?