I once made this tape whose two sides were labeled “A Good Night Out” and “A Good Night In”. The first half was full of tunes to be played before heading to the club. As you drank, skinned up, snorted, necked cheeky halves, as you put on your makeup, tried on that new top / shirt / skirt. It was all “Italian Scream-ups”. 

Tracks like DJ H & Stefy’s “Think About” and ASHA’s “JJ Tribute”. The flip was meant for when you got back home. A couple of years of excessive Ecstasy use having turned us all into porn stars – at least in our heads. 

The tempo of these numbers was a lot, lot slower. The rush not immediate, but taking its time, teased, drawn out. YBU’s “Soul Magic” was there. “Feel it” Oh, yeah. The Grid’s “Floatation” – “take my hand and come with me”- was on it. The song’s Serge Gansbourg & Jane Birkin-esque heavy breathing and seductive whispers securing your surrender to the sound of surf, waves, and cinematic, soft focus, clarinet serenades. A hypnotic “Be happy” and a loop from The Stone Roses’ joyful “Waterfall”. 

In the taxi back, at 2, 3AM, south over the river, we’d be silent. My partner and I. Both wired.Tied up in the anticipation. Waiting. Imagining. In her room, I roll a joint and watch her undress. Dancing, unbuttoned. Her hands in her pants. 

We’d take another pill, put the cassette in the deck, and annoy, drive her flatmates crazy until sunrise with the racket. Sometimes midday. Maybe it was because the MDMA made us forget everything but each other. The memory of it on Monday would mean that I’d have to beat off at work.

I made copies for my friends, and the following weekend Steg’s feedback was that we should try – as he had – swapping the running order. But then Steg was always more of an open minded progressive. He had the polaroids and bruises to prove it. 

If I’m honest, while I wouldn’t have missed the experience for the world, I think that Ecstasy ruined sex for me. A previously shy individual, with barely a notch to my bedpost, the tablets and capsules instilled an incredible chemical confidence. Providing a place to hide. Somewhere to pretend I was someone else for a while. A collage of characters, heroes, from books and film. In the process, it dragged repressed desires and exorcised demons from the deep. However, this also meant that I only, totally, associated love-making with heroically intoxicated all night / all day sessions. I had no idea what “normal” was like. Nothing to measure against except deranged, hedonistic abandon. 

When I eventually quit, sober and straight, my hang ups remained. I had to be rehabilitated. Re-learn. From scratch. I was a little freer. But not cured. Still conscious. Without the drugs it was never quite the same.