Boyfriend #71 / Sagar
I felt raw. He had left me gagging for it … the truth. This had been the same mistake I always made, that is, expecting more: this was the last time I would bother myself with trying. I was annoyed by being imprisoned every time he touched me. Would this touch be different? The one that would be here for the day but gone for the week? I tried to tell him, but there was never much breathing room in the cadence of his fucking voice; no matter what—I was always drowning in him. Would it forever mean nothing at all? I wanted to be something else when he looked at me. A walking fiction. I wanted fake teeth, a fake accent, a fake sense of knowing where it was leading. I understood soon I was a liar, i.e., an actor.
Boyfriend #4/4 / The Drummer
What does love feel like? I’d imagine a rush, or, as a poet once put it, “twenty million tom-toms”—either way? I went to an artist lecture with my boyfriend the drummer and I remember the artist saying specifically, “Incoherence: the point where you are in the middle of making something and it no longer looks like art to you”; my butthole puckered when she said it and I looked to my boyfriend for eye contact, because what else is a boyfriend for but to share in mutual epiphany? That nigga was sleep as fuck. I even tried to decipher incoherence in his snoring, but no, he was all rhythm, even in his dreams. His snoring read like little kitten purrs of breath. It even read like drum tablature: left, right, left, right, right-right-left triplet, etc. We walked home in the streetlights and I saw the pattern in his steps—left, right, left, right, right, right, left. He wore all black like his teacher, a jazz master from some forgotten decade whose records he always played when I was walking naked around his apartment. His beard was thick like a Black man’s and without it he looked Arab—“My mother is Black,” he explained. The white man whose record was always playing when I was naked is his father. If incoherence truly is the point where art no longer looks like art to you then I guess a drummer can never be a real artist because even an incoherent beat is still a beat—no drum strike is ever truly out of place—even when it tries not to be. “You never stop looking like art to me,” I said, all curled up, naked and lighting a joint under his black-clad body, and he held me for three more beats that hold space into forever.
THIS DAY AND MANY MORE
I WAS JERKING OFF to the sound of my English roommate getting fucked. His trade always comes in the morning and I can always spy them through the blinds of my window, jogging up our front steps.
This trick in particular is an older Black man, looking to be in his late fifties. He is wearing brown polyester pants, a printed-satin fake–Louis Vuitton long-sleeve button-up, white snakeskin cowboy boots, and a matching white snakeskin cowboy hat. His hair is a shock of white afro smashed under his big-ass crown of a hat. He looks tall, like 6'2", has a gut but is otherwise muscular. He’s hot and looks like he could make a bottom’s dreams come true—you can tell his old ass has had a lot of practice.
My roommate intrigues me. He is a conventionally attractive boy, he could, as the pecking order goes, be a lot more selective than he is—the diversity of his trade is virtually unchartable. But no, he’s a ho, like a real ho, like he will fuck virtually any man in the neighborhood who asks nicely; I have an undying respect for him because of that. If it weren’t for the fact that 30 percent of his trade look like for-real serial killers I might even be jealous of him.
I hear him getting fucked hard, bed squeaking and shit, and he’s making these elevated, open-vowel sounds; he is having a good time.
I, however, am furiously stroking my dick until I remember that I can’t remember the last time I had fun having sex—this boner-killing thought, of course, kills my boner.
I have not left the bed in three days. There is a handle of whiskey by my bed. I am not celebrating.
The bed is beginning to smell but I am not bothered, I just open the window and turn on the ceiling fan. I love my bed because no one can hurt me here.
The open window reminds me of that saying, “Where God closes a door, He opens a window,” but all I can think about is, like, But wait, the window is on the fifth floor and the house is on fire. To which the Almighty replies, “That’s just some GOD humor—good luck!”
I can hear my neighbor who hates me dig through our garbage; my landlord hired him to “look after the block.” He sweeps and collects the trash of everyone for virtually pennies on the dollar and has taken to referring to me as “that uppity Black faggot” to all the neighbors. When informed of this I simultaneously was ready to kill and also chuckled to myself; “uppity Black faggot”—like, where was the lie?
I came home early one morning on a shit ton of blow and hammering a grip of vodka—I saw him rifling through the garbage cans and I confronted him: “YOU. CALLED. ME. A. FAGGOT,” I screamed as I crouched to the pavement in tears, dropping and breaking my almost-full liter of vodka. He was so fucking uncomfortable that he apologized. His apology, as forced as it was, still felt good, but every time he comes in the yard I have this burning desire to put on a rainbow-flag cape, scarf, and matching socks (only) and jerk off furiously at him. I know this is a pipe dream—if I couldn’t even bust a nut to the sounds of my roommate getting fucked, how was I supposed to get it up for that?
Half of the handle of whiskey is gone and it’s only 10:00 a.m. I try to piece together where the time went.
At 8:00 a.m. my roommate’s trick showed up; he left by 9:00. At 9:30 my asshole neighbor came and left, and fifteen minutes ago my roommate also left. I am finally all alone.
I woke up at 7:00 a.m. from this nightmare I have where I’m riding in a car and take off my seat belt to pee in a bottle. The brakes slam, and I fly in slow motion through a windshield. One would hope that after crashing through a windshield in a nightmare that something poetic would happen, like you turn into a dove, or like that dove turns into Oprah and, like, takes you for ice cream or In-N-Out. This nightmare lacked poetry because all I remembered was waking up alarmed in a pool of wet, cold sweat.
It felt like I was refusing my life; I was exhausted from the task of having to respond to stimuli. I had fucks left to give, of course, just not this week, and perhaps even the next. It was going to be a slow burn for sure.
I had left the bed earlier that week and it ended in a fight.
I went to the movies with my friend Mitch. We watched some French flick where two teenage boys beat the hell out of each other until the point where they mutually realize that they are “secretly” homosexual and in love.
In this one scene, they lose their virginity to each other. The scene flashes to the next day and the two boys are cuddled up together in bed, their naked bodies kissed in sunbeams on pristine white sheets.
Both boys were specimens—puberty is being very kind to them. They mutually boasted lean builds, no acne, and, judging from the clean white sheets still covering the bed, even their fucking colons were perfect too.
The first time I got fucked I remembered the white sheets under me looking like a fucking murder scene, like someone had just slaughtered a cow.
I made the mistake of telling my friend Mitch that I felt like whoever made that movie had done it just to fuck with me (yes, me specifically).
Mitch, being the ever-understanding type, said that I was being (as he kindly put) a “fat, jaded WHORE!” and yes, I should be happy for these two fictional French supermodels who somehow (in rural France, no less) found a way to beat the odds and find each other. Was the entire fucking world trolling me?
The last time I got laid, an older gentleman followed me home for seven blocks one night. I refused his advances outside the bar where he was waiting in his parked car. I stumbled home drunk and realized he had been following me. I went to confront him. As I walked to the car he removed his huge-ass old man dick from his pants and started jerking it at me and I immediately remembered how lonely I was. I let him fuck me in his car in an alleyway. He then requested that I dress in drag the next time we meet. I explained this all to Mit
ch. “This is the reason that movie makes me upset,” I said.
Mitch told me to try meditation, and the mere mention of the word “meditate” sent me into a blind rage. I accused him of having rich parents and have not spoken to him since.
My response to stimuli is getting slower and slower, and for good measure I pop half a bar of Xanax—it’s hardly noon and already this day is overwhelming.
I sit in bed waiting for the drop to hit me, that split second where you look up and realize that you are very, very sleepy. I sit, feeling chemically peaceful, and all the thoughts in my head are like cursive letters written in fountain-pen ink on fancy paper. The harder the drop hits the more the cursive letters begin to slur and melt off the page, ink running like someone had spilled water over it. I am out like a light.
* * *
I WAKE UP to a vicious racket and someone is pushing and pulling me frantically in my sleep. I come to groggy as all hell and my vision is slightly blurred—I can hardly make out the time on my bedside clock: 2:13 a.m. I have been asleep for fourteen hours.
I click my lamp on and it’s my other roommate, Steven. I hate Steven because he is a flaming piece of human garbage. He has lived off unemployment for the past year and somehow manages to drink even more than I do. I’m sure at this point his mental state is even more corroded than mine. He has spent the last three and a half years threatening to kill himself over the unrequited love of some boy whose name I don’t remember. There was a time when the unrequited-love boy lived in the house for a while and every night they would get into some form of fight and Steven would chase after the boy crying and yelling, running out into the street in his underwear and crouching on the outside sidewalk in tears until the English roommate or I would go collect him. He is a horrible white person and I wish death upon him—and it seems I might get my wish.
I look down and notice that both of his wrists are slashed and dripping blood onto my vintage Hello Kitty rug. I am immediately caffeinated with hate and vengeance. I don’t think he understands that that rug means more to me than his life. I have half a mind to go back to sleep and let his punk ass die but of course I’m all like, “OH MY GOD!!!!! BABY, ARE YOU OK?!”
“I TRIED TO KILL MYSELF—CALL MY BOYFRIEND!!!” he says, half sobbing, half screaming.
Even with this many stimuli I still manage a slow-motion eye roll at this bitch. Like, call your “boyfriend”? Really, bitch? Not, like, the hospital? Having been in bed all day and slightly amused by the fact that there is a person who has even more problems than I do, I get up to really inspect the situation. The slashes on his wrists are not deep—he just needs some attention. I make him some tea and wrap up his bandages and muster, in my best mammy voice: “Now, honey, are you sure you want me to call whatever the fuck his name is? He’s only going to call the police on you and you’re going to spend the rest of the next day in the psych ward,” I say in a whisper, pouring the hot tea.
“CALL. ERIC. NOW. GODDAMMIT!!!!” he screams, and throws the pot of tea across the room.
I go and dial the boy, who in turn dials the cops, who in turn come and arrest my roommate after he gets violent with them. I go back to sleep and wake up with a series of messages from Steven decrying that “Eric had me arrested” and “we have to call the local news station and tell them I’m being unfairly held.”
I sigh and hold my breath just long enough to notice the sun is up, and I hear the rustling of the trash outside. The neighbor is back, digging through our recycling, and I fight the urge to flash my dick at him. Instead, I pour myself a modest drink and turn on cartoons. This too shall pass, though I am not leaving the bed again today, and perhaps not tomorrow.
HOOKER BOYS (PART TWO)
I WAS VISITING MY GRANDMOTHER in Alabama one summer and marveled at how much the digital age had propelled the likelihood of getting dick in the dusty backwoods towns that populated this quadrant of the state. The entire county had become a virtual whorehouse overnight.
This one cat hit me up while I was taking a nap at my grandmother’s house after church.
“Do you want an 80 or 90 massage?” said the message.
“Fuck yeah I do!” I responded.
He lived fifteen minutes up the highway, and when I got to his house I was taken aback by the scene.
It was a dirty apartment with clothes everywhere. The man did not look like his pictures. In fact, he looked like death. He had a frozen expression and a frozen vibe in general; like, it took him a noticeable amount of time to think and form sentences. He had track marks from shooting up all over his arms and legs, and his left leg was swollen and infected. He was limping on it.
About that time two preadolescent boys came storming into the apartment. They both referred to him as “Dad.”
“We have to wait till my boys go to boxing practice, then we can fuck,” he explained.
Heaven help me, I stayed because I am nothing if not the worst mix of willfully nonjudgmental and horny.
The boys left on a Boys and Girls Club bus that honked for them outside.
The man waved his sons goodbye, closed the front door, and pulled out his dick, which seemed to be the only thing about him in working order. He got me on all fours and let loose something wild, but I was startled by the way he kept repeating “I’ll eat your ass for an extra twenty dollars.” I wanted to unpack that statement but I was too busy getting fucked in the ass real good, arching my back and licking my lips and all things of that nature; then I came.
I put my clothes on and tried to leave when he blocked the door.
“Where is my ninety dollars?!” he said, looking frantic.
“Come again?” I said, in this what-the-fuck-did-you-just-say-to-me kind of tone.
“I said in my message do you want an eighty or ninety massage. I just massaged your asshole right now—where’s my money?” He pushed me back and stood in front of the exit to the apartment, suddenly menacing.
I explained to him that I assumed he meant minutes and not dollars and that real hookers say things like “looking for generous” in their ad or at the very least post a dollar sign. I almost had the nerve to say that if I were to pay for sex, he (though a lovely person) wouldn’t be my first pick, but decided not to talk shit to a junkie who might actually kill me.
We somehow agreed on twenty dollars (as it was all I had in my bank account). He grabbed me by the arm and escorted me to the ATM located at the end of his street.
I could only imagine that his street was “the ho stroll”; cars kept stopping and eyeballing us closely, and with his hand around my arm like this it must’ve looked like I was under pimp arrest. It was emasculating.
We got to the gas station and I had half a mind to scream like a white woman that he was holding me hostage, but it felt like that could be a massive misfire. Also, all I could think about were those two sweet little boys and their dismal fucking circumstances and hoped that maybe five dollars of the money would go to them.
I gave him the money and left the gas station a free man, save the rude-ass comment he hurled at me from the opposite side of the parking lot, walking away with junkie bloodshot eyes and furiously limping.
“NEXT TIME DON’T PLAY WITH A NIGGA, NIGGA,” he screamed.
BOYFRIEND #19 / THE WHITE BOY WITH DREADLOCKS
THERE ARE PERIODS OF MY LIFE that roll through me hazily. Not like an apparition, more like that moment a cartoon villain gets hit in the head with, say, an anvil or whatever, and all he sees is stars—my life was all flashbacks that never materialized.
I woke up to a spider crawling on the floor and I was reminded of this white boy I dated a while ago with these long-ass dreadlocks. I remembered that every time he was on top of me his dreads would graze my face and it felt like a nest of spiders crawling over me. I was too young to understand how this feeling would stain me permanently.
We met at a liberal arts college in the Midwest. It was freshman year and we mutually didn’t know we were gay until we were drunk and had
each other’s dicks in our mouths at the student union hall one night at 2:00 a.m.
By junior year his dreads were in full bloom and I didn’t think to tell him he should cut them (because I am nothing if not willfully nonjudgmental) or that I was certain that Jah hated him (it was the nineties and these convos weren’t nearly as prevalent).
Either way later that year I dropped out of school to follow him whilst he was following Phish and Burning Spear (respectively) on tour. We ate up his trust fund on organic orange juice, gas for the Jeep, and acid. During that period, I had fucked under a blanket of stars in the Grand Canyon some nine or ten times, swam in secret watering holes in the Appalachians, and saw longer stretches of highway between California and North Carolina than I ever knew existed. It would not last.
A year and half later I was sitting around a fire in a drum circle in Colorado. I was washed out on acid and very drunk—at the apex of my trip I felt the hand of the ancestors tap me on the shoulder and say, “Girl, take your Black ass back to college—you don’t even like these people. He just fucks good.”
100 Boyfriends Page 6