I slumped too, the back of my neck feeling like it had just undergone a serious Balinese massage. If I had to explain what inhaling amyl nitrite for the first time really feels like, I’d say it’s like witnessing a hundred goosebumps in one go. Your blood flows faster, your heart beats harder, your penis throbs like pulsating lava. By the fourth time, I realised I was only meeting him because he had this seemingly never-ending supply of poppers, each with a name weirder than the other. He realised that too and our meetings stopped. Like a true junkie, I was losing my shit. Throughout my 20s, sex was something personal, something you did with someone you liked beyond that one night. Now every dude who could afford to have poppers was a supplier for me, and they were just body bags I could hump to to feel that release that only certain drugs can facilitate. Now having encountered that first hand, both on the giving and receiving end, I can safely say that it does work wonders for both the participants involved in anal sex. But continuous dependence on poppers, much like with any other drug, increases your immunity to the high. So you consume more to get to that same first-time rush.
The next time I was offered free poppers during sex was by a much older gentleman a year later in Bengaluru, through Grindr. I travelled an hour and a half away from my hotel just because he said he had some.
The second time, I was so involved in sniffing the fumes, I hurt him and didn’t even realise. There was a beast in me that had gone berserk. I walked away from the encounter entirely angry with myself, but not having learnt my lesson. Soon I wanted some more of the high without wanting to damage anyone’s rectum.