Lust and Loathing in New York

All the men I've fucked and hated

This is a fiction piece I wrote a while back, pre-transition. It’s an amalgamation of all the weird, grimy hookups I’ve experienced. I don’t really be fucking like that (or at all) since I started estrogen, but I still think it’s a fun (sad?) story. Hope you enjoy xoxo

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I stop checking my phone because the time feels like blackmail. It’s somewhere around 4 AM, but my circadian rhythm is so warped by cocaine and adrenaline that it could be midday. My makeup looks chalky under the fluorescent subway lights, like a Dateline episode recorded from the upper corner of a sterile interrogation room.

Looking around, it feels like everyone is watching me with reactions ranging from disgust to sympathy – Good cop, bad cop. Do they know I am en route to fuck a slimeball? They are probably staring because my makeup looks like Temu Natalie Portman from Black Swan, but it’s more fun to create a story.

I sway to the rhythm of the train’s juts and halts; my arms interlocked with the pole. “This is 2nd Avenue,” the artificial voice says from over the intercom. Grounding my dirty Doc Martens on the filthy subway floor, I lift with my knees. The world tilts as I find my balance. I begin to make the last stretch of my hero’s journey, switching between Grindr and Google Maps every few seconds. It feels like vacillating between opening the fridge and the pantry, knowing you haven’t gone grocery shopping in weeks. The whole way there, I’m hoping someone else will message me. Someone hotter, or at least someone normal. Someone I would talk to in the light of day. Fifteen minutes later, the fridge is still empty, I have no new messages on Grindr, and I am at his apartment’s doorstep.

Sitting in his cluttered room, I can feel my heartbeat in my throat. My feet are snuggled under a blanket of empty water bottles that hug the side of his frameless spring coil mattress. There is a wilted plant in the corner, a corpse threatening me with what happens when you stay here too long. I scan the room with the intentionality of someone who will not be back. He is below my league, but I am drunk, horny, and maybe need to lower my standards anyways. What league am I even in? Whatever, I’m already here.

this type of vibe

We smoke, drink, and talk, preening our feathers and pretending we did not meet exclusively for sex. It’s a conversational gloryhole and I’m unsure what persona to masquerade as. Quiet and doe-eyed? Seductive and sultry? Despite the superficiality, this is one of my favorite parts of a hookup. Chained to his cock’s command, he’s forced to acknowledge my personhood, even if only for a brief moment.

I spend half the time trying to be demure, barricading my true self from rushing out with the force of seven vodka sodas. I remind myself that men don’t like it when you talk too much; my weed-induced dry mouth is a saving grace in that way. But, unfortunately, the cocktail of substances circulating in my veins impairs my social filters. When I falter, I am revealed to be a pig-in-lipstick: combative, inquisitive, straight-up weird. I oscillate between these two personas like alters in The Wonderland System.

“Do you like my socks?” he asks. The socks have hundreds of tiny yellow ducks on them, taunting me with their beady eyes. You’re fucking a guy who wears yellow ducky socks, they say to me. pig-in-lipstick me scoffs before I can catch myself.

“I once dressed only in green for an entire year,” he announces as if to say, “This isn’t even that bad.” But this wasn't forest green dresses and seafoam accessories. No - he wore a Green M&M t-shirt and green Vans. Every. Single. Day. For a year.

During a lull in the conversation, I ask if I can play music, but as the music envelops our conversation, my cheeks flush. My glitchcore playlist, which usually gives me erotic sci-fi main character vibes, now sounds like someone angrily rumbling through their pan drawer. The beats are indistinguishable from the goings-on of Manhattan outside his apartment. Am I high, or is my music taste genuinely bad? His face, entranced in a crossed stupor, offers no hint. I end my Spotify playlist’s game of Russian roulette and opt for something more reliable: CTRL by SZA.

Throughout our conversation, we slowly inch closer in awkward shuffles of the sit bones like an amateur magician’s magnet is dragging us from under the couch cushion. Eventually, we reach an intersection of silence, closeness, and eye contact that we pretend is spontaneous. The last hour is washed from memory as I focus on synchronizing our mouths. Our tongues fence and teeth click while we blindly unsheathe our limbs from their polyester scabbards, our skin is pulled together by an electromagnetic pulse emitting from behind our lips. For a moment, I am filled with lust and gasping for air. A shot of dopamine jumpstarts my hypothalamus. Researchers have found that the brains of depressed people can atrophy due to neglect, like a wilted plant. Am I watering my brain?

The thought is interrupted as he pushes my head to his crotch. I oblige, using the technique I learned years ago from a YouTube tutorial of a woman blowing a cucumber. Curling my lips over my teeth, I jerk with one hand and grip the base with the other. I like giving head because, according to my DISC profile, I like being appreciated for a job well done. The building tension is broken by intermittent chugs of water to quell my dry mouth, during which he gives a miffed expression and adjusts his blue balls. In fairness, the fleshlight in his drawer requires consistent lubrication, too.

After my jaws grow sore, I ask if he has condoms and lube. I’m annoyed I have to ask. He looked annoyed that I asked, too. “Yeah, I guess.” I will already regret this interaction in the morning; I don't need to worry about a cotton swab six inches up my rectum, too. Submissive but demanding, I tell him when to slow down, when to stop, and when to change positions, not invested in the fantasy enough to endure pain or sacrifice pleasure. I don’t stop to consider what it means for my investment to correlate with my willingness to endure.

We start in cowgirl, and it feels good but not mind-blowing. A safe starter position for my mind to wander. Is he close? Why am I not harder – Is it the Lexapro? We flip into missionary, and I grip his arms like a cushioned t-bar, riding a rollercoaster that is all bump and no bite. I keep waiting for the drop. “Choke me,” I whisper, and he grips my neck to steady his labored thrusts. I can’t believe I traveled to Manhattan for this.

Eager for the end, I channel all my energy into the next minute like an 800-meter sprint. Time stops as we climax, suspended in a liminal fog of pheromones. A forced chuckle breaks the spell. “We made a mess,” he says, tossing me a towel from the floor. His bed, already decorated with a mosaic of cum stains, is now damp and sweaty too. I wipe myself off, and then he wipes himself off with the same towel and throws it back on the floor. I’m suddenly aware of the pungent odor filling the room.

“That was fun; maybe we can do it again sometime.”

“Yeah.”