get behind me, jesus

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His Grindr name is Jesus but he says, “Call me Slim.” He is not skinny but he is not fat. I click on his torso. The outline of his arms are like calm waves on a good beach day. I hope they’ll caress my body. His bio says, “Don’t waste your time tapping on me. I WON’T RESPOND. I’m not interested in femmes, fats, or subs. Just a preference. Hung for hung. Masc for masc. BB only. Come Correct.”

He sounds like a lot, like a man who likes to take charge. My mom says someone needs to take charge of me. She says she can’t. She says, “You are wild like wild horses.” She says I need to get a job because money doesn’t grow on trees, especially not on fruit trees, and at 16, if I’m not going to college, I need to go work construction like my dad who shattered two vertebrae in his back sledgehammering away at his poverty. I think it over. I get on my knees. I pray that Jesus is the one.

To be honest, I’ve never read books about men who long to be cum dumps. I crave intimacy, to carry around intimacy for as long as I can. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve sought help for my craving. A sex therapist named Jeff told me to fantasize my fantasy, and right at the cusp of orgasm, crush colorless ammonia capsules in front of my nostrils and inhale. I tried it once, coughed for five minutes straight. I Google. Smelling salts are used to torture dissidents in Russia and children with autism at abusive schools in the U.S. I discontinue this part of my treatment plan but I tell Jeff I’ve been doing my homework of breathing in every night and it isn’t working. He looks puzzled. He tells me to keep trying. He asks me if I want a normal life and I say I do. WebMD says the capsules murder brain cells. I tell him I prefer Super RUSH and Jungle Juice Platinum and he jots them down even though he doesn’t know what those are. I am tired of explaining who I am. My therapist works mainly with sex offenders. I think I should find another one, but this is the only one my parents will pay for. Jeff tells me my arousal template is perverted. My family tells me I am perverted. But I’ve never done anything wrong.

Jeff says that I can recover, and there’s hope for me. Slim says he delivers chips for Utz and he wants to fuck my guts out in the back of his delivery truck but Corporate installed cameras recently so we’ll have to find another spot.

I attend purity meetings at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, where my parents pray and prostrate while I listen to soccer dads recite their moral failures. They say porn is bad, and it is ruining Christian lives and their marriages. I can’t imagine they’d understand. Not sure who would. I stare at the biceps of Jesus on the cross. Slim says he knows a place, an abandoned shed behind an abandoned bowling alley. He calls me chicken when I tell him he scares me.

I attend Sexaholics Anonymous meetings. They say I shouldn’t have sex or masturbate until marriage. I say, “Sorry, that’s not for me,” and they reply, “Are you willing to go to any lengths for your sobriety?” and I say, “No,” and I walk away. My dad is listening to Christian Coldplay in the parking lot. He asks me why I didn’t finish the meeting and I shrug. Slim asks me if I’m a power bottom and how much do I want it, the “it” being his dick.

I attend Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meetings. They say I assign “magical qualities” to everyone, and I reply, “maybe,” but one meeting, the chair, a man with jorts hitched up halfway between his bellybutton and his nipples, pulls me aside and says, “Can I fuck you raw?” and I think about it, I say, “No,” and I walk away.

Now when I see my neighbors, I speculate about their qualities. It’s a shame to live next to druids and mothmen and lechuzas and to never know it. Slim says when we fuck maybe I can fantasize that he is HIV-positive and that he is seeding me with his bug and isn’t that hot and I say yes, but I don’t think it is.

I attend Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings. They say the #Metoo movement went too far and women are from Venus and they’re from a sexualized Mars or some stupid shit like that. It is a heated discussion but then one dude admits to breaking a bottom line and calling a gay sex hotline. He whispers, like it’s a secret or ASMR, that the dial tones soothe him better than essential oils. He low talks, and we all have to lean in to hear. He says the operator’s voice dripped like cane molasses and he could almost taste it as he ran his hands down his ample thighs and began stroking and at that point I think he is sex hotlining us and that is not cool. Before I can say anything, one man and then a second flop their heads in my direction, breathing with mouths like trout and ogling my legs with eyes like trout. As I turn the door knob, someone shouts, “Keep on coming back.”

Slim texted the door’s unlocked and he’s up the stairs in the room on the left. Outside, wind chimes chime a warning, which I ignore. The screen door opens, then slaps. In the entryway, crosses surround me like telephone poles speeding down U.S. 1.

I think of three possible ending. I take one:

1. Slim falls on top of me like fall leaves. He is so light. I am so heavy. He shapeshifts into Jesus. He worships my back, my neck, and my asscrack. He wraps his hands around my body. I am his little spoon. We fall asleep together, and in my dreams, I fly high, and when I wake up he says he has never felt this way before and he doesn’t want to disrespect my body and he anoints me with lube and he makes love to me with a rubber and everything is ecstasy — the state of being, not the drug. He cooks breakfast, pancakes and sausage links and eggs sunny-side up, and I know it will be like this for the rest of my life and all of my fears and doubts jump from the second floor.

2. Slim tells me to strip but he doesn’t. He ties me to the four corners of the bed and blindfolds me with a tube sock and not well so I watch him one-eyed. He makes the sign of the cross. He pockets my wallet and my keys, and leaves. I don’t think this is his house, so I wait.

3. Slim pushes me down on the bed, on all fours, and I think about it, and I say, “No,” and Slim mutters something about me being a “flake,” but he respects my decision, and I descend the stairs and march out the door and I sprout Technicolor wings and I fly over the jacaranda tree and the light purple dances to Jennifer Lopez’s “Waiting for Tonight” and I fly over the power lines and blue volts of electricity dance to Paulina Rubio’s “Don’t Say Goodbye” and I fly over my wilted home and my family does not dance and I do not care.