a queer, sex-positive illness memoir in real time

To numb the despair, I scrolled through Instagram. Every time I flicked with my thumb, I relished the sensory overload quietening my mind. There was no time or space to catastrophize about Bruno growing and nibbling away at my skull. I was pulling the lever on the slot machine: More images more sounds more dopamine. More, more, more… The next one would pay off. The next one had to pay off. I wanted out. Out of my head. Out of thinking. Out of worrying. Out of being.

Hours passed glued to my screen.

When I wasn’t bingeing Instagram, I was on Grindr. I wanted to physically shut down my brain and the only way I knew how to do so was sex. So I liked profiles, said “¡Hola!” to sexy headless torsos. Paid for the premium subscription. Refresh the app. Again. Again. And again. Liked or ‘tapped’ more as they appeared online. Texted old hook-ups. Reached out to anonymous accounts. Refreshed. Said I was looking for ‘right now’, that I could host. I wanted it and I wanted it bad. Yet, somehow my principles remained. My profile clearly indicated what I was into but also that fascists were not welcome—¡No Fachas! Some wrote and attacked me: claiming I was being prejudiced —the nerve! One wrote to me unprompted: “You’re very ugly and you’re very bald.” I burst out laughing in my empty flat. It was good to laugh.

“Very bald!” Indeed, I was very bald and had been for many years.

I juggled five conversations at once because I knew how it worked. Many stopped responding abruptly. Others blocked you because you didn’t respond fast enough. Some wanted to remain anonymous and refused to share their pictures (all you get was a badly-lit, zoomed-in, dick pic). On the other side of the cloud was someone who was just looking to blow their load; I was looking to forget.

When one (finally!) showed up at my door, I welcomed him in.

“Hey,” I said with a disappointed grin (some people are very photogenic—he, unfortunately, was one of them). He walked in very slowly and seemingly unsure of himself. I assumed he was debating whether or not I would do.

“Do you want a glass of water or something?” I asked.

No response.

“Are you ok?”

No response.

“You know if I’m not your type and you’re not into this, that’s ok. Consent and enthusiasm should be key here,” I sounded like a pamphlet.

No response.

I gently put both of my hands on his shoulders and, keeping myself at arm's length so as not to frighten him, I put on my nice teacher’s voice and asked “Are you on drugs?”

He shook his head but still didn’t utter a word.

“Are you drunk?” I then asked.

“Had couple a beers” was all he managed to mumble. I swivelled him on the spot and politely ushered him towards the exit.

“I think you should go home and sober up, baby,” I said as I closed the door behind him.

I went back to my sofa and did the whole dance again. Liked. Tapped. Refreshed. “¡Hola!”. “¡Hola!”. “¡Hola!”. Refreshed. Looking for ‘right now’. Tapped. In between waiting for answers, I scrolled Instagram or checked other dating apps that worked on geolocation and where you could find potential shags instantly.

There were a few sex workers that were not sex workers but just regular guys who wanted a tip, an AI chatbot who promised me love and many false starts, incompatibilities and so on. Before I knew it, it was nighttime.

I needed out of this funk. I needed someone to fuck it out of me. Why couldn’t I find someone to fuck it out of me? —I didn’t know if I was talking about the funk or about the tumour anymore. All I wanted was to get fucked so that I wouldn’t fucking think about it.

Then, my phone pinged. Hallelujah!

Enters Mr Big (Carrie Bradshaw had hers and so do I.)

Mr Big was a fuck buddy of mine. We had met on the app a year or two prior and had been seeing each other on and off since —quite irregularly but somehow consistently. In time, we had become friends and spent our time mostly chatting nonsense or catching up. One of us undoubtedly made a move. The teasing was part of the fun: an innuendo here and there, a grazing of a thigh, hands holding a bit too long. He’d call me “a good boy” and I’d get all tingly. I’d say “Yes, sir” and we’d stare at each other for a while wondering if now was the moment before returning to our conversation. I loved our cat and mouse game and got off on making him want me. He was always the first to break and to burst out a “Take off all of your clothes now” and I obliged. Our bodies couldn’t have been more different. I stood a giant at 1.95m and weighed over 100 kilos while he was a skinny lad that barely reached my armpits. The Beauty and the Beast. Laurel and Hardy. David and Goliath, and the story would always end up with Goliath face down and ass up.

When my phone pinged, it was him. I invited him over immediately and he rushed to mine. When I opened the door, we hugged tightly and that was when I realised how much I needed that. We stayed locked into each other for a moment, right there in the entrance, my front door still wide open. I took refuge in his smell, in the unspoken tension of the embrace.

We plopped on the sofa and drank our teas like two old ladies, all we were missing were stale biscuits. Mr Big was a seminarian. I had never seen him in his robe and it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Though the church kept him busy and he’d memorised entire passages of Saint Theresa, he also had a keen interest for our queer history and always buried himself into never-ending research just for the fun of it. He talked about the Movida like he talked about feminist witches in the 1800s. The man was fascinating. I knew what had driven him to the cloth but he preferred not to talk about that.

“How have you been?” he asked after we had talked for a while already.

“I have a tumour.” There was no beating around the bush.

“I haven’t really been telling people yet. I have a biopsy planned soonish and we’ll have a better idea of what it is and how to deal with it.” He looked at me with tenderness. Not pity, tenderness. He stood up and pulled out his cock. This was the reason I called him Mr Big, yet every time it was right in front of me I was mesmerised by his girth and mass. His dick was a work of art and I wanted to worship it. He gestured that he wanted me on my knees and I obeyed.

“Get on it, boy!” And on it, I got.

He wasn’t fully erect yet and he wanted me to do all the work. I palmed his cock. I wrapped it entirely with my fingers and I stroked it with glee. His head bent backward. I knew his cock well and knew what he liked so I swallowed it whole in my mouth and felt it get harder and harder as I was sucking him. I pushed it all the way down into my throat and that was when he cried out “Fuck, yes! ¡Cómemela!”

He grabbed my face by the chin and stared into my soul.

“Take off all of your clothes, I want to look at you.”

I didn’t hesitate. I lifted my arms and removed my t-shirt and in one swift move pulled down my sweatpants and my underwear.

“Keep the socks.”

“Yes.” I could barely speak, I was so turned on.

“Now, sit on the sofa, lay back.”

He climbed the sofa and presented his dick to my face once more. This time, I knew he would be the one doing all of the work and that he would use my mouth for his pleasure. I moaned, my mouth full. I got completely lost in the ecstasy of it all. The softness of his skin as I ran my hands up and down his chest, the way he looked down on me with jubilation, the taste of his cock, its scent, the release of letting him take charge, I was his to use however he wished to. I was completely submissive to his will. Liberated.

He asked me to turn around. I knew what was coming next. I grabbed his face and kissed him eagerly.

“I’ll be right back.”

I ran to my bedroom to grab my lube and was back in an instant. As he was eating my mouth, I filled my hole with lube. I knew I needed it.

“Turn around and arch your back.”

“Yes.” I really couldn’t talk. Normally, I would have been a chatterbox of dirty talk. I needed this so much. I needed to be fucked out of my brain, literally.

He positioned himself and I slid back onto his cock slowly. My eyes rolled into the back of my head. I had forgotten how big he was. I exhaled deeply and continued down his shaft until the whole of him was inside of me. We paused there for a moment, both relishing how delicious it was. He grabbed hold of my chest and engulfed me in his arms. He thrust in slowly while kissing my neck. And the thrusting accelerated.

“Fuck me,” I screamed “Yes! Fuck me!”

Nothing else mattered. My mind had gone blank. All I wanted was to feel him inside of me, to leave his mark on my body.

He stopped.

“You feel incredible,” he exhaled. “I need a minute, this is too intense and I don’t want to come yet.” That was what he was saying, but I felt him still piercing through me. Slow became fast again and my noises became louder and louder. I had disappeared into pure pleasure. As he rocked me back and forth, I felt my muscles loosening and the entirety of me elated. He came inside of me in a repeated jerking motion and as he spasmed in me in cries of pleasure, I too spurted in a long, high-pitched groan. We both collapsed on the sofa, exhausted.

I pulled him in closer and kissed him.

“Thank you.”

The good seminarian jumped into the shower. He was one of those that couldn’t bear the stickiness of semen on their skin. He had to wash it all away. Immediately. I was sprawled out on the sofa glowing in after-sex rapture. If I still smoked, this would have been the perfect time to light up.

We stayed naked on the sofa together for a long while. I loved chatting with him while still having a direct line of sight to his cock. His body was smooth and tight. He didn’t work out but he didn’t have an inch of fat on him, I could see every outline of every muscle on his body. He liked holding my hand, which I always found so cute. We had a real connection.

“She was accused of counterfeiting the office of husband by owning that clay phallus.”

“So, she had a dildo and they were mad about it?” I laughed.

“It was no laughing matter, I can tell you that. What’s worse is that the claims were coming from her lover, Agnes Mitchell. She was the one who had tattled. They tried Maud for witchcraft, of course. Back then, women were being burnt all across Europe for being a witch. So, you see...” he continued on his exposé about Maud Galt for a bit and I let him. Once he had come, Mr Big always ceded the way to the seminarian.

It got late and I saw him pull his underwear back on.

“I’d better head home before the metro closes.”

“Sure.” I didn’t want him to go. It was not because I had feelings for him, I didn’t and neither did he. What we had was clear: a fun friendship spiced up with great sex. But something was wrong. All of a sudden, I got scared. The sadness had returned. I couldn’t face the night alone.

I had never asked him to spend the night. Not ever. This wasn’t what we did. We slept together but we didn’t sleep together.

“You can totally say no and I would absolutely understand but… er… Would you mind spending the night? I think I need someone to stay over. I don’t…”

He didn’t let me finish.

“Of course. But I’ll have to dash early in the morning, is that ok?”

“You sure? You don’t mind?” I hugged him tight, “I really appreciate it.”

He buried his head in my chest and held me while I cried.