In Chicago, the legendary gay bathhouse is Steamworks. I went to Steamworks first when I was 23 years old after betting a bisexual magician I could figure out his card trick. The gambit was if I couldn’t explain how the trick worked, I’d have to go to Steamworks that afternoon. I couldn’t unravel the magic, so I got wasted and went to the bathhouse.

Steamworks is four floors. It is spotlessly clean top-bottom, pun-intended. It resembles a spaceship, the walls a gleaming, futuristic-like chrome alloy. You check-in with a front-desk man behind thick glass. He forces you to buy a membership to join. I imagine this satisfies some arcane law in Chicago permitting bathhouses as members-only “clubs.” You can rent a private room, if you like, by the day, for twenty something bucks. Your basic room contains a twin-size bed and a TV tuned to a variety of porn channels to satisfy every taste, including heterosexual intercourse. There’s no porn-free channels though, so don’t expect to just check-in and watch HBO or something. Those traveling on a budget can purchase a locker to house your stuff and rely on the public facilities for the sex part.

On the first floor of Steamworks is the sauna. You submerge into a frothing series of whirlpools with water so chlorinated it burns your eyes just sitting in it. There’s a reason for all that chlorine. Adjacent to the pools is what I call the Steam Labyrinth. A series of winding corridors covered with mist like the innards of Cloud City on Bespin from Star Wars. You can get lost in there, and test your resolve, and find someone who’ll say he’s your daddy.

You walk the stairs to the second floor, past the vending machines serving condoms and lube of all brands. There’s also a vending machine with non-perishable food in it, though it doesn’t get as much use.

Half of the second and third floors is just private rooms for play, but the other half is public spaces. There’s the lane of glory holes tucked in the back, and the den of chains and slings, and the public bunk beds that get more action than the test mattresses at Sleepy’s.

Don’t go to the fourth floor unless you wish to work out. It’s a brightly lit garish hell. All the equipment looks unused and is colored eggplant purple. If you go there, you could face your true self, like Atreyu looking into the Oracle’s mirror in The Neverending Story.

The silence throughout Steamworks is pervasive. No one speaks. Everything is done via eye contact. It is very dark, which gives a certain privacy to even very public displays of affection. You wear a towel or nothing at all except the bracelet with your room/locker key attached. You walk the floors, spine erect, posture bold, sliding your eyes from one person to the next. Bold men grab their cock to indicate they want you or sometimes just go up and grab yours. It is primal and strange, and you wonder what these people are like at their 9–5 jobs as investment bankers.

You cruise. Everyone is looking for someone just slightly hotter than they are. A game of chicken ensues against the countdown clock of dawn. The closer it gets to the sun rising, the lower everyone’s standards become. The ‘hot’ guys pair off bit by bit; everyone else starts taking what he can get. House music plays and bores into you and you make a decision.

Everyone I’ve hooked up with has always been very pleasant and kind, and I’ve only ever had a good time at Steamworks.