Heaven Tonight is a series of erotic stories that transgress the conventions of desire. Authored by artists and writers, each story offers its own perspective into the effects of passion, shame, lust, loathing––and all things sex-driven.

The roll of cash sits tight against my ass. It’s uncomfortable the way I’ve crammed it into my pocket but I’m too nervous to take it out in full view of the driver whose car does not have one of those partitions like in a New York cab. He’s not even looking at me. I don’t really know what it is I think might happen.

I get out at a dilapidated foursquare on N Ainsworth that everyone calls The Firehouse after a blaze knocked out its rental value and allowed it to become an overrun spot for house shows like the one tonight. All the house show venues in Portland have these names––The Rocking Chair, the Artistry, The Ice Palace––and they are the reason the city is so replete with noise musicians, wheatpasters, and rescue pit bulls. There must be at least seven people who live at The Firehouse and they each pay something like $150 for their rent. It makes me feel indulgent for living in a studio for twice as much when no one lives alone in this city. It makes me feel like a phony for talking to Uncle Doug all night at dinner about how hard it is to survive on my meager earnings from the restaurant, even if it is true that I’m broke all the time. Even if it is true that I mostly eat frozen waffles and instant mac and cheese for dinner and take the bus for forty-five minutes all the way out to WinCo to buy cheaper groceries.

Uncle Doug doesn’t know what WinCo is and he drives an hour or more each day into Cambridge for work so neither of these details would phase him much. He was passing through Portland on business, he said, before flying to Asia, and could meet me for dinner by his hotel if I had time. Doug and my father shared this penchant for ambiguity. When filling out my FAFSA forms senior year, I asked what I should write down in the section marked Father’s Occupation. Just write business, he said.

In a panic to find a restaurant that would impress Doug but not one so expensive that he’d feel taken advantage of, I had chosen somewhere awful. Some sloppy marriage of Italian and Greek cuisine that had opened years ago and served spongy eggplant in a watery red sauce with congealed mozzarella cheese; presumably it appealed to men in suits by emphasizing the large amounts of meat that came heaped onto each plate of Secondi.

“Is this somewhere you go a lot?” Doug asked, knowing the answer. He poked around his veal piccata. I had dutifully finished the eggplant parmesan and they were freely refilling my wine glass, at least. He seemed annoyed, either that I was underdressed or he was overdressed. Every time he ever spoke to me, since I was a kid, it always sounded like the very last thing he wanted to say, like his patience had finally run out. But there was always another question. At barbecues and Thanksgiving dinners, I found myself expounding to him my thoughts on whatever novel I had just read or lesson I’d had in school. And now, at dinner with him one-on-one for the first time as an adult, I felt like I was being interviewed. What was the last painting you made? What’s your favorite park in the city? How do you think the mayor of Portland is doing? Do you hate your brother’s girlfriend as much as your parents do? Dating anyone yet or just sleeping around? The last one came with a little editorializing. I’m sure a guy as cute as you is in no rush to settle down.

He insisted on driving me back to my apartment in his rental car, “to see what kind of sketchy neighborhood” I’d wound up in, teasing as we passed the methadone clinic, tattoo parlor, and shuttered bowling alley, “you’re living in Tom Waits song. Although I’m sure you have no idea what that means.”

As he pulled up to my building, he noticed the tobacco shop, the one where I had once paid in dimes to the irritable short-haired proprietress whose three cats would often form a sort of summoning circle in the middle of the store. He said, “come on, let’s go inside. I can tell you’ve been craving one since we met up.”

I had been girding myself for days of indignant bumming and occasional nicotine fits until my next shift at Lucciano’s in two days. I let him buy me three packs of Parliaments and tore the cellophane off one before he’d gotten his change. I stared into the wallet as he nestled a couple of ones back into a bulging stack of twenties. It seemed a little absurd to be carrying that much. He gave a look like he’d just remembered the name of a song stuck in his head.

“Come to think of it,” he said, and opened up his wallet again.

Out on the patchy lawn in front of the Firehouse I see some people I know but head straight to the back where the keg will be. I don’t pause to hear the music in the living room since I have never heard a single band at a single house show play one song I like. There is no other music in Portland than house show music, though.

I find Bryce, my ex, sitting on a camping chair and triumphantly offer him one of my cigarettes.

“So you came after all?” He takes it hesitantly. I think even still he is nervous around me because of all the awful things I said about him when I broke up with him last spring. It was a preemptive strike; he is so much more handsome than me that I knew it was only a matter of time before he wandered away. When we were dating I always joked that I was like the cartoon evil version of him: longer hair, darker, beadier eyes, and drabber clothing.

I take out the wad of cash and give him a big slap on the face with it. “A bolt from the blue.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re just carrying that around?”

“I had dinner with Uncle Doug.” I start pumping the keg. I pour myself a cup of mostly foam and sit on the ground across from him.

“Was your asshole on the menu?” Bryce knew about Uncle Doug and found his interest in me disturbing.

I pretend he’s asked a different question. “It was the strangest thing. We were sitting talking all night, I had a few glasses of wine and was a little chattier than usual, and then at the end he hands me this and says ‘thanks for the stories.’”

“Stories.”

“I was just telling him a little about my dating life which as you know is mostly sex these days. I don’t know. I mentioned the threesome we had with David over the Fourth of July weekend. He seemed intrigued.”

“Oh god.” He crosses his legs defensively. Bryce acts prudish when he’s put on the spot but the truth is he was the one who initiated that threesome. David was his high school boyfriend from San Francisco. I actually said this exact thing to Uncle Doug tonight at dinner. I said, Bryce loves to pretend he’s terrified of sex but he’s actually a giant whore. Uncle Doug had responded cryptically, They always are.

No one knows who Doug fucks. If he fucks at all. My father and his other college buddies used to tease him about it more but as they all neared their forties then their fifties it just got sad. Or the reason was one that no one wanted to admit. For a moment at dinner, after he agreed with me about Bryce, I began to panic that he was going to come out to me right there, the way in high school all these boys kept telling me they were bisexual when they gave me rides home or drunkenly cornered me at parties.

“Well he’s not really my uncle, you know.”

“So he wants to fuck you?”

I shrug. “I imagine it’s just fascinating to hear, if you come from his world. I mean, men like him go their whole lives salivating over the idea of threesomes. It’s like their Holy Grail. And I’m only nineteen and I’ve already had two.” I don’t know what I mean by his world and men like him but Bryce nods as though he does, or at least like he regrets the question and wants to move on. I can’t stop though. I keep babbling. “I mean he’s rich, so obviously, he could… Well, just that, men from his generation…”

Back towards the house the crowd is beginning to roughly spill out of the tightly packed kitchen and onto the back porch. They howl and shove each other and pull their dark hoodies over their closely shorn hair. They seem of a different ilk than the milder, sweater-clad boys who made up most of the population when I arrived, the ones with the air of sexual possibility. It’s getting late and the night is seeming less and less salvageable.

“How much money did he give you, anyway?”

I hadn’t bothered to count. When Doug handed me the money outside the tobacco shop, I took it as unquestioningly as if he had handed me a few bucks for gas or a Dunkin’ Donuts gift card or any of the small acts of charity that had come to characterize our not-quite familial relationship over the years.

I lead Bryce to the empty side yard where we count it huddled. He makes soft little breaths as he watches my hands flip through the bills. He would hate it if I tried to kiss him here. I lose count and have to start over. Two hundred and eighty, plus the twenty I spent on the cab up here. It’s quite the gift.

I’m already on the bus up to meet Uncle Doug when I get a text that he can’t make it to dinner tonight after all. I’ve already wasted the two dollars on bus fare so I start thinking of how far I could ride to make it worth the expense. I’m not at all thinking about last month’s dinner (well maybe a little bit) when Doug sends another text: if you had been counting on a gift like last time, then perhaps you could send me another one of your colorful stories to tide me over until the next time we meet.

What kind of stories? I shoot back immediately. I reread his text until he responds.

Surely a good-looking guy like you has had a few more adventures since we last spoke. Any more threesomes with Bryce?

No. Another of our drunken late nights, Bryce’s erection pressed up against my back through his boxer shorts while he plays dead but for the occasional light drag of his finger in a holding pattern around my nipple.

Not exactly. But I did have a pretty wild night last weekend.

Tell me all the gory details and if it’s good, I’ll transfer the money over.

The bus lurches over a pothole on Sandy Boulevard. I can smell the cinnamon raisin bread as we pass the giant Franz bakery. Looking up from my phone, I accidentally lock eyes with a man two seats in front of me who must think from my demented grin that I’m flirting with him. I realize I’m starting to get hard.

I’d already repeated this story a few times to friends so the details are still fresh. If I could get them out as quickly as possible maybe I could have the money by the weekend. The gory details. My father may have never known what it was Doug wanted but now I did and I would give it to him. I brace my back against the hard plastic of the bus seat, lower my head and begin to type furiously into my Sidekick.

So last Friday I’m at this Great Gatsby house party only I haven’t dressed up because it’s stupid. I’m hanging out mostly by myself because the friend I came with is with her new crush. So I’m by myself and all the straights and all the gays have self-sorted between the ground floor and the basement. And this guy who also didn’t dress up comes over to me and starts talking about how we’ve got to stick together since we’re both in our regular clothes. He’s older, slightly chubby and wearing a heather gray zip up hoodie and tight black jeans. Sort of an aging punk look. He tells me I look cute as shit and asks what I’m drinking. I say why are you looking to slip something into it. He laughs and says only if I have to. He’s not that attractive but I’m having a little fun and I’m drinking whiskey straight so I start teasing him some more. I say what’s an old guy like you hanging out at a college party for? And he goes you don’t know how old I am. So I say how old are you and he just shakes his head.

I leave to go back upstairs and dance a little but they’re actually playing big band music. I don’t bother to tell anyone that big band is the wrong decade because I’m starting to feel horny. I go back to the gay basement and start hitting on this twink but he has a bad attitude so I find Aging Punk again and tell him to buy me a drink which I know is such a stupid line at a house party but I’m losing my faculties. He walks me over to the laundry room and hoists me up onto the dryer and starts forcefully making out with me, like he’s trying to push his mouth through my face and out the back of my head. Then he undoes my jeans and wrenches them down and hungrily goes down on my cock. I think he’s trying to make me come until he stops suddenly and lifts my legs straight in the air. He wants to fuck me, of course. He starts dry humping my bare asshole with his pants still on but I can feel that he has a huge dick. I hear footsteps and tell him let’s take this to your place.

Neither of us has money for a cab and there’s not really a bus to where he lives so we walk for about thirty minutes. Not saying much the whole way but stopping occasionally to make out against the sides of buildings. The apartment is ground floor and sad. Almost no furniture. He tells me we have to be quiet. He just moved back to Portland a few months ago and he’s been crashing at a friend’s place. We can use the bedroom but there’s only an air mattress and someone is sleeping on the couch. He asks if this is okay as if I have any choice now and I say sure that’s fine. He gets all excited and puts on Liz Phair and strips me naked and starts eating my ass which is still a relatively new thing for me but he’s good at it. He takes off his pants and underwear but leaves his white shirt on which bums me out but his dick is really as big as it felt so I get over it quickly. We start 69ing and I can barely fit my mouth around it. He’s trusting up hard so I know pretty soon I’m going to have to ride it. He keeps saying things like you’re such a cute little bitch and tonguing my hole deeply. Finally he flops over onto his back which nearly bounces me off the air mattress.

Get on, he smirks. I ask him if he has any lube and he says we’re using spit and I say no we’re not, so he runs into the bathroom and comes back with a bottle of lotion. I start from on top slowly to loosen myself up and pretty soon I’m taking him to the hilt, so to speak. Bottoming is still relatively new for me so I’m really impressed with how well I’m taking this dick. It hurts but it’s like a pain that can exist at the same time as feeling good which is cool.

He’s moaning like crazy and tips me backwards to fuck me missionary and starts really slamming it into me and it’s getting to be a bit much, I am lightheaded and trying to jerk myself off from under his large frame. He kindly lies back down and lets me finish by cumming onto his chest and then he rips the condom off and comes on himself. He’s panting and covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

I quickly regain my composure and am over the whole scenario and the idea of spending the night on an air mattress and waking up in God knows what neighborhood and God knows what time this guy likes to get out of bed. I pat his sticky chest and say well now that you’ve fucked me, I guess you can tell me how old you actually are. He hesitates and I add, it’s not like I can do anything about it now. He says I’m 35 like he’s embarrassed and while at this point he is the oldest guy I’ve ever slept with, it’s not even that crazy of an age disparity. I brush back my hair with my other hand and say, well as long as we’re being honest, I’m not actually 19 like I told you earlier. I’m 16 and my parents don’t know where I am tonight and I’m going to be in so much trouble.

He sits up abruptly, knocking me off him. What??? He sounds like he’s about to vomit. I laugh and laugh and stand up to put my clothes back on to begin the long trek home. I’m just fucking with you, I say, but don’t lie, you would’ve thought that was hot.

It takes me about twenty-five minutes to type this all out in a series of texts without looking up from my phone at which point I’ve ridden the bus all the way to Alberta Street. My heart is racing and despite how flushed and weird I’m feeling from the idea that I’ve crossed some sort of boundary, I’m still rock hard. Maybe I fucked up because Uncle Doug has not responded to any of the texts but I suppose it would be strange mid-story if he just started saying yeah or go on. I don’t even know what country he is in, if he’s even awake.

I get off with a plan to walk the eight or so blocks to Bryce’s and begin the process of forgetting that I did this. I light a cigarette and take my phone out to text Bryce when I see Uncle Doug’s response.

Very nice. Will transfer $300 as soon as I have your bank details.

Right before Christmas, I get fired from Lucciano’s because the alcoholic Russian who runs the place doesn’t buy that I need to leave work early after I hit my head on a pipe in the back pantry. I don’t admit this to my parents for fear that they’ll try to force me to extend my short visit back East since classes don’t begin again until the middle of January. I do see Uncle Doug on his traditional Christmas Eve visit but he’s as laconic as ever which I am very relieved about. I had been dreading our first in-person meeting since our arrangement began. Would we chat over stuffed mushrooms around the buffet table about how school is going? Maybe a half-hearted request to see the new paintings I’d been working on, something for his house up on Lake Winnipesaukee? The thought that we might have some sort of secret between us is practically unbearable although I do suppose there is a secret between us, just one that I’d prefer remain in the abstracted realm of texts and emails.

In fact, only about a week before we saw each other I texted him a rather embarrassing request for a “Christmas bonus” and the promise of a saucy story involving the bathroom of a gay club I had snuck into which had taken more persuasion than usual. Particularly, he’d taken umbrage at my lack of an accompanying photo of the guy who’d penetrated me in the handicap stall, something that’d become a requisite addition to the intervening stories I’d sent since that first bumpy bus ride three months prior. I’d wanted to explain to him that the more abject the sex—and his appetites were certainly trending in that direction—the harder it was to obtain a clear-faced photo of the guy, or even his name for that matter.

He ultimately relented with the caveat that future stories would not be similarly exempt and so I compiled a folder of the Facebook photos of friends and acquaintances who might serve as attractive stand-ins. And though the $300 arrived promptly just the same, I noticed Doug’s reticence, however temporary, and with it a slight weariness. It began to rot my brain, the possibility that I had already run this generous well dry after only a handful of pumps.

But perhaps I’d gone too far, been too whorish and offended Doug’s delicate sensibilities, his provincial views of virtue and dignity, profaned the Christmas holiday with my perverted appeal for almsgiving from an intractably Irish Catholic soul. Perhaps what appealed to him about my sex life was the perfectly triangulated distance between the young boy he had known since childhood and my burgeoning carnality. Too far in either direction would upset the erotic tension.

It is this paranoia that has kept me from texting Uncle Doug for over a month since I got back to Portland, despite my diminishing savings account and bleak employment prospects. My subsequent luck on the job market is making me realize that getting hired at Lucciano’s was likely more related to the shoulder massages the Russian liked to give me after a few styrofoam coffee cups of vodka than to any competence on my part as an employee or, for that matter, the overall health of the economy which consistently remains, at least in our far corner of the country, stuck in crisis mode.

And while certain adolescent fantasies have led me to believe that poverty had its own thrumming sensuality, my finances have left me too depressed to seek out the kinds of depravity that had become the hallmark of my stories. The only sex I’ve had since the holidays has been with an anthropology student named Trevor, an encounter so politely lifeless and vanilla that I can’t imagine a single titillating angle from which to relay it to Doug.

The bookselling clerk at Powell’s mercifully turns her head as I try to peel off the anti-shoplifting tag from the oversized John Singer Sergeant coffee table book that had miraculously fit into my pants while I slinked through the aisles of the Barnes and Noble an hour ago. I overcompensate with a ridiculous grin. I have been stealing books since middle school but only last week got the idea to sell them to Powell’s to earn some kind of income while I waited on doomed applications to Office Max and Stumptown Coffee. This was a sort of test round: the retail price on the Sergeant was $95 so if I could make half that I would have a pretty decent substitute for working, at least for now. She smiles and disappears for a nervous minute before coming back with a pad of legal paper.

“We can give you…” she pauses while tracing around the page with her index finger, “eighteen dollars for the book. Or twenty-six in store credit.”

That wouldn’t even cover a week’s worth of cigarettes and it was one of the most expensive things that Barnes and Noble had in stock. I begrudgingly take my pittance and walk across the street to the Noodles & Company where I blow half the cash on a large bowl of Wisconsin Mac and Cheese and a cream soda. After an agonizing fifteen minutes of shoveling the stringy slop into my mouth, I text Doug.

Hope you’ve been well! Any chance you’re coming to town soon? Would love to catch up over a nice meal. Or maybe you’d be interested in another story. I know it’s been a minute.

He doesn’t respond within five minutes which is a very bad sign. I think about how fast the car outside the window would have to be moving to kill me on impact. I go down the block to spend the remainder of my earnings on whatever disgusting brand of cigarettes is on sale that day. Marlboro 45s, Pyramid, Wildhorse.

Sorry, on business in Osaka. I liked the public stuff. Perhaps a bit more kink in your next story.

With not enough change left to take the bus, I head towards the Burnside bridge, smoking and formulating whatever hodgepodge amalgamation I can use to extract my next payment.

Nothing kinky about Trevor unless you could twist his committed stillness during sex into some kind of disquieting perversion. But he did enjoy our date enough to add me on Facebook so I could use his photo to clear that hurdle. Down the street from my apartment is a bar which hosts a monthly party called Blow Pony. They are strict at the door and I never bothered to sneak in but it is the nexus of the gay universe in Portland so it feels like a fitting place to experiment with some new shit. It is famously on two levels of a warehouse in a secluded spot along the river. I imagine the bottom floor to be some kind of sex dungeon with black leather beds and chains and television screens playing vintage porn. I remember years ago during a barbecue at Uncle Doug’s house finding a DVD tucked far back in the corner of a cabinet: Kyle’s Piss Initiation. The first evidence I saw that he was gay, or bisexual, or whatever convoluted way he dresses up his latent sexuality.

Okay, so I’m thinking the sex dungeon has a shower too and maybe Trevor and I have been set up on the date to Blow Pony by Bryce. Not a date. That would be weird. No, Bryce mentions Trevor will be there, that we’d get along. He doesn’t know Trevor is a freak. So we meet, we flirt while waiting in an endless line for syrupy whiskey sours. We kiss. I skip over a lot of the in-between. Doug’s heard all that before. He leads me downstairs…

He asks if there’s anything I’m into. I say I don’t care, that it’s up to him. He seems a little shy but mentions he’s always been a little curious about water sports. We walk over to the shower which is empty—everyone else is fucking on the beds. I chug the rest of my whiskey sour and wonder if they make your pee smell bad. I ask, Do you want to pee on me or vice versa? He shrugs and says how about I pee on you. Sure. I get down on my knees and shut my eyes and tilt my head up toward his half-erect cock. He fidgets awkwardly for a moment and then shudders, letting out a few hot bursts of piss on my cheek. He steadies his stream and gently moves my head towards him and I feel it cascading down my forehead, over my eyebrows and into my mouth. The taste is sweeter than I imagined. I get hard.

In truth I had let a guy piss on me once. He had been rock hard from the moment we started making out, though, and struggled to urinate with a boner that stood straight up in the air. The awkwardness made him pee-shy and as he attempted to force a stream, he let out a long, loud fart that echoed throughout his small tiled bathroom.

By the end of my story, though, I’m lying on my back with my legs up in the air, begging for Trevor to “piss on my hole” and a group of guys become so intrigued that they form a naked audience around the shower, hooting and hollering while Trevor fucks me into oblivion.

The money lands in my account twelve hours after I hit send on the last text message which feels like a warning.

Bryce calls to tell me we’re going to Blow Pony tonight; he has a friend I resemble who will lend me his fake ID. I don’t mention my invented visit two months ago.

The bar looks nothing like what I had wrote to Doug. I make a note to myself to sort out any potential contradictions later. It is actually two separate nightclubs on two separate floors stitched together. The upper floor, a bright, oblong room of dingy brick, hosts most of the action which spills out all night long onto a cramped wooden porch where everybody smokes. Downstairs is darker but there are no leather beds or St. Andrew’s crosses and no one seems to be doing much fucking anywhere. I force my way to the front of the bar upstairs and order a vodka soda which I am trying out after recently overdoing it on whiskey sours. I immediately lose Bryce in the process which I knew would happen, him having telegraphed his fear that our proximity might ward off potential suitors.

I try to dance by myself to a confusing remix of Your Love is My Drug but feel stupid clutching all of my belongs with my drink. I made a last-minute decision to wear bright red track shorts and a striped tank top instead of my black Cheap Mondays so I’ve got no pockets. I try stuffing my wallet in my sock but it’s obvious that it will spill out onto the dance floor at any moment. I go outside and light up a cigarette.

“Are you sure you’re old enough to be smoking that?” A tall redhead walks up to me. He’s boyish and handsome and, once he gets close enough that I can see the delicate lines spilling out from the corners of his eyes, clearly older than his freckled face first let on.

I want to say something devious and clever but can only manage, “I guess.”

“Lose your boyfriend?”

I hate banter like this when it’s performed on me but I don’t want to keep playing the damaged twink either. “I keep trying but he keeps finding me.” Not bad.

“Oh really?” He gets closer. He seems to prefer this narrative instead.

I decide to roll with it. I tell him we’ve just had an awful fight and now I need to get drunk and forget about it. He pulls out a silver flask from his pocket and tells me he’s got just the medicine. I take a few chugs from it and hand it back, letting my hand brush the underside of his arm.

“What do you do, cutie?” His arm goes around my waist.

“I’m a student at the art college downtown.”

“Amazing. I’m a designer. I make leather goods.” He hands me a cream business card embossed with crudely-drawn arrows and ampersands. His eyes follow my hand down as I bend over to stuff it in my sock alongside my pack of cigarettes. I take another out to light with the one that’s burning down.

“Amazing idea. I need to get a new pack myself.” I offer him one of mine but he refuses. “I only smoke American Spirits. You wouldn’t want to come with me to get a new pack? Get out of the madding crowd for a minute?”

We leave, though the line on the way out lets me know I won’t be coming back. I can walk home and spare myself a worse hangover, I think. The guy spends the walk to Plaid Pantry telling me about his business and his boyfriend who lives in Seattle. Only now do I notice how fucking stupid his outfit is. Salmon-colored shorts with tiny white whales on them and a short sleeve button-up the colors of an Easter tablecloth. He doesn’t take his hand off my ass the entire time. With the other he keeps feeding me shots of the sharp, clear alcohol in his flask. I think it’s tequila but it’s becoming somewhat difficult to discern. When he goes into the store, I briefly consider running away for dramatic effect but I would probably vomit if I tried to sprint right now and I still want to know what his dick looks like.

I know what he’s going to say before he says it. Look at that crowd. The party will be over before we even get back in. Besides, we already took care of the hard part. Why don’t we just find a little spot by the river? He knows one, of course.

The walk to the water is only a block but the air feels ten degrees colder. His spot is not much of a secret, just a touristy section of the East Bank Esplanade that opens up to a view of the Hawthorne Bridge. He leans me up against a tree nearby a bronze statue of an old woman in a pantsuit and pearls. She’s got short hair and kind of looks like the lady at the tobacco store. He hands me the flask and unzips his pants. He’s already hard. He removes his dick from his briefs gingerly like taking a bunny out of its hutch. It is enormous, bright red like his hair. He says go on, touch it. Put it in your mouth. I start by running my fingers over it; it’s feverishly warm. I can’t stop shivering. My jacket is up at the bar, I only realize now.

I lower myself, my exposed knees sticking in the mulch at the base of the tree. I half-heartedly suckle on the tip. The streetlights lining the plaza give off a sickly yellow glow. He looks even older, the bags around his eyes darker and more recessed. I have a sudden spasm of panic about where my wallet is and want to reach down and touch my sock to see if it’s there but he’s got both of my arms pinned up behind me. “Want to get right to the main event, I see.”

He guides me up with a finger to my chin and gently spins me around, presses me up against the rough bark. He slips off my shorts and I hear him drip a large glob of spit onto his penis. I say “buy a girl a drink first…” but it comes out slurred and too soft. Then he’s in. He doesn’t go fast. He wants to but he knows he can’t yet. He seems to know better than I do how to make the muscles of my sphincter relax, controlling them with his steady pressure. The first time Bryce fucked me, he had marveled at how naturally it came to me. “You just opened right up.” I hadn’t noticed.

The bark scratches the underside of my arms. I smell the booze on his breath. Okay, so it was tequila. He’s thrusting now. I run through the list of words I’ve used to describe my sex: pounding, riding, pumping, shooting.

He slips his hand from my shoulder to my hips and pulls me back, away from the tree and lowers me until I’m face down to the ground. I tilt my head to look at his shoes which are pigeon-toed with tension. I shift my weight, thinking this will be signal enough, and he slips out. It’s always on the dismount that the pain really begins. But he’s back in before long, no spit this time, and now he’s pressing my ass cheeks together. At least, I think, I won’t have to make him into somebody else. It wouldn’t be hard to look the guy up. I would use that sweaty, crumpled up business card scratching against my bare ankle. He’d have a profile picture I could use, one taken from slightly far away but he’s there, windswept at the beach in front of Haystack Rock, that same soft red hair and tired eyes glinting in the gray coastal light. I knew better now than to make details up but to leave some out—well, we all do that anyway.

I would get my reward and buy that sickly sweet macaroni, gobs and gobs of it like fistfuls of buttery popcorn or shrimp cocktail because that’s the only way it tastes good, when you shovel it all in at once. I could start drafting the story on the walk home and have the money by the time I woke up, right around my first cigarette craving of the morning, joking with the tobacconist that I was there to pay off my tab and that last night I’d been fucked in front of a statue that looked like her. Oh that’s Vera Katz, she’d say, I get that all the time. She looks nothing like me but the statue does, funny how it works that way sometimes. ♦