Sex app

   It was very cold outside but I just had to smoke. It was one of those times when I just needed to fill my lungs with that damn poison that we all know and hate but sometimes need desperately. I was only wearing my boxers and I had put on his jacket in order not to freeze my ass while smoking at six AM like an idiot. The view from the balcony was amazing: as the building sat on one of the many hills in the city, you could see the business towers on one side and the ocean in the other, as well as hundreds of cars rushing one way or the other. The air smelled delicious, like fresh bread. I noticed there was a bakery just across the street and an elderly couple where entering the store, buying their morning bread so early.

 How did they do it? I don’t mean wake up this early to go and buy bread. I mean, how did they stay together for all these years, without boring each other or drive each other mad? I know and feel I would have the capacity to drive any other guy insane. For life… That tends to be a fucking long time and that’s something I’m not really comfortable with. I have never been able to keep a relationship with anyone for more than six months and this couple may be celebrating their sixtieth anniversary together. No, I think I would have died a long time before that or gone mad. I have a tendency to move around, never standing still for too long. I just couldn’t.

 I finish my cigarette but I don’t really want to go in. Thankfully I brought the pack with me along with a lighter. I lit up another one and feel it comforting my skin from the cold. Winter is done or at least that’s what all the people in the news say. But t sure doesn’t seem like it. My ass is freezing and I don’t know what else to do besides smoking like mad. I let my beer inside… Fuck!  Could have used that. Well, life isn’t perfect at all, shouldn’t I know that. I’m the man working in his father’s flower shop. I have to say I don’t hate it or anything but I would have liked to get so much more from life.

 I went to school and everything. I mean, back in high school I was a great football player and not very smart but in college I discovered I had a thing for numbers and all that. I’m good at that and that’s why dad asked to work with him. I keep the books in order and thanks to me his store is working much more efficiently than before. I even caught someone stealing for him, so I guess I did a great job. But I would have liked to have my own business, make my own decisions and just be myself in life. But this happens when you look for a fucking job for three fucking years and no one even thinks of helping you, giving you a hand. So here I am, thirty-two and still working for daddy. It pays well so I shouldn’t really but hey, I could bitch professionally.

 I turn around and see him there, sleeping as if he had just taken a magical potion to sleep like a log. He looks nice asleep… Not that he doesn’t look nice while awake but you know what I mean. I don’t really know how I got here, I mean, how it was that I accepted to come. To be one hundred percent honest, I met him earlier today on one of those apps for the phone where you get people to fuck with. Yeah, I was that bored. I just downloaded the thing and in an hour I had gotten lots of messages. Which is amazing the body I had back in high school has almost completely disappear. But I guess I have my thing and he noticed it.

 He looked nice in his picture, cute smile, nice guy he seemed. So he asked to come to his house in the middle of the night and here I am. The sex was great and he turned out to be a great guy, very nice and well mannered. But that didn’t stop me from coming out to this freezing balcony to smoke y heart out. It’s maybe because I don’t really like this kind of situations. It annoys me that I have to use those apps and shit to get to know someone to fuck. I mean, it makes it easier but one wonders if it’s all because of me or because he was horny or what.

 Down in the street the elderly couple has just come out of the store. They are holding hands and each one of them is carrying a brown paper bag with what I guess is bread inside. They walk closely together, maybe because they’re cold or maybe because of the love they feel for each other. Either way, they look perfect, happy and just beaming. They disappear after I follow them with my look for a couple of blocks. No one else is really out there except some of those idiots in bicycles and some others obviously heading to the gym or some shit at this time of day. My only obsession is smoking and maybe a beer or two but that cult on the body, I never got it.

 I hear my cellphone’s voice mail ringtone. It only lasts for a couple of seconds but I instantly worry it will awake the guy. But no, he doesn’t even move. I open the sliding door carefully, walk slowly to my pants and take out my cellphone from one of the pockets. And come out again, closing the door behind me. As I take another puff, I realize it was my ex who just left me a message. He’s drunk and says I fucked him up or something. He says I was great always but that I drove him insane. In the background I can hear very loud music. The message ends suddenly. I check it again but hear nothing out of the ordinary so I put my cellphone in the jacket.

 He has already done that, a couple of times after we broke up. It had to be said that it happened like four months ago and he still doesn’t get over it. And he should. Not only because it’s bad for him to hold that inside for so long but because he seems to forget he was the one that send our relationship to hell. I mean, that’s what normally happens when you want to surprise your guy with a nice present that you bought him in a nice little flea market downtown and you just find him in his house fucking another guy. Yeah, that’s what happened. Once I entered with the keys he had given me, I realized there was something wrong but you know people, we always want what we know to be a lie. But it wasn’t. He was fucking that guy hard.

 I’m not the kind, soft type. I opened up that door with a fucking kick and took pictures. Yeah, I did. I was driven insane and just wanted to fucking destroy him. He begged me not to show those to anyone and then I knew what was really important to him. I didn’t even look at the guy he was fucking, who just jumped like a rabbit and into the bathroom; maybe scared I would kick him in the balls. I wanted to. Fuck, I really did but I knew I could get into trouble if I did that. So I just took the present, my cellphone and what was left of my dignity and walked away.

 That ended up the relationship. Again, I’m not one of those stupid people that talks and decides and all that shit. For me, that was it. So I never saw him again. No accepting calls or messages or presents from him. Nothing. And yet, he still calls when drunk and has the nerve to blame me for him fucking another guy. I have to be clear on this: I don’t give a shit if he had a reason to go and fuck around. He felt neglected or needy or whatever? Cool, he could have told so to me and just have a healthy breakup or talk about it or whatever. But no, he took the whore’s road and here we are.

 I don’t even hate him. I stopped feeling anything for him at that moment. Yeah, I guess I cried a bit but I got over it. Again, it was a short-lived relationship and I never expected it to last for too long. But it hurts more when it that person who disappoints you. Because I can see me disappointing anyone and I have. But never like that and never before taking time to sit down and talk about what’s happening. It may seem cruel but I always tell them “You’re not my type”, “This isn’t working” and so on. I cut the shit and say the truth because I believe we all deserve that.

 So I guess that’s what makes me uncomfortable about this whole sex app thing. I mean, it’s great that we just cut to the chase and we know what we’re there for but maybe it’s too blunt, to direct. I would love to be able to charm someone into having sex with me and not just ask. Fuck, maybe I’m a romantic that way but doesn’t it fell better when people are attracted to you as a person and not just because you are another horny guy in their area or something? People nowadays seem to just be fucking around but not really caring about anything else and that kind of bothers me. But I guess that’s the way it is and who am I to say anything? Any way, this might be my only time in this so, who cares.

 Then, I feel two warm hands holding my waist and lips kissing my right cheek. We share a kiss and a hug and then we go back inside. I spoon him until he falls asleep and just before I do that myself; I realize things are as I want them to be. So I’ll smell his hair and enjoy his smile and just see where I can take this later today.

The App

   Do you ever feel your friends get you to do things that you don’t really want to do? Very passive aggressive, not so many words but they get their way and, some time later, you regret following their advice because you realize it was all a big trap? Well, that happened to me and I felt like an idiot after realizing it was all just a way to get me out of my comfort zone.

 You see, I wasn’t planning on going out with anyone. And when I said that I mean, for a long time. I just wasn’t interested in having to be with anyone, sexually or romantically. See? I wrote, “having to”, because to me it’s still an imposition. I’m still without couple but things shifted a bit when my friends convinced me to download this new app for my cellphone. I’m gay, so I thought I was an expert on apps to check out people on the phone. And yes, I do mean that as a stereotype that is actually the truth.

 Well, anyway, they convinced me to download it and we spent a whole afternoon lying around like idiots just putting yes or no to many pictures until the app decided to stop us from keep doing that. Normally, I would have left it at that. Every time I download an app, I normally erase it from my phone days later because I find it not only boring but also such a fucking lie. I mean, let’s talk here: does anyone not really mock people when looking at all those pictures with sunglasses on, upside down “selfies”, shirtless pictures and so many other classics of the internet.

 Anyway, I just went back home and have a good sleep, which I really need by the way, and the next morning I checked my phone, as I usually do. First my emails, then some social networks and finally I reentered the app realizing someone had written to me. I answered and we had a rather normal conversation, very uneventfully. I stood up to have breakfast and forgot all about it. That day, a Saturday, I spent some time home and then I went to the mall with my family to buy some new shoes and a shirt for the upcoming wedding of some cousin or something like that (I don’t really follow that part of my family).

 When I came back home I realized the guy had sent lots of messages and even pictures and many questions marks. I didn’t even acknowledge it properly and erased the whole conversation. I certainly didn’t need anyone like that near me and even less if I was consequent with my decision not to have any type of relationship with any man. And there were no exceptions or any kind of weaknesses from my part.

 The guy kept on sending messages and I just ignored him because that’s not the type of person that interests me, not even to chat with any day or to go out and have coffee. That maniac behavior is great if you want to be scared for life but I’m just not going for that. So I kept using the app because it was kind of an obsession to criticize people and I’m known among my friends precisely because of that. I’m the one that says what the others only think and I never care if I’m being to over the top or “mean”. I just like to be honest and if that means telling you you have a big nose or your shirt is too small or your pictures are one big fat lie, I’ll say it. It’s not like we know each other.

 So one day I was going through pictures and another guy hit me up. We bonded and chatted for hours and hours and he looked cute in a couple of pictures with no filters, really casual photos of him and his dog and him in a beach. He looked like a nice person so I decided to go for it and tell him to me meet for coffee. We did and I have to say I don’t regret it at all. He was such a nice person and we had a blast together, laughing at the same things, sharing interests and even learning a couple of new thing from one another. I have to concede it felt great to feel that again after so many years, to feel that connection with another person and just feel at ease with them.

 For the following two weeks, we saw each other fairly often. On the fifth date, we decided to go for cocktails and it was then when things got strange. In a moment, a couple of seconds in which I went out to call home to say I may be late, I could have swore I saw the guy that had sent me all those messages with question marks and so on. For a minute I was convinced it was him but I forgot about that quickly when I started kissing the other guy, whose name was John, and we walked around holding hands and just having a good time that night.

  Then, another Saturday, we decided to meet for beers at his apartment. As I’m no idiot, I knew what was going to happened so I shaved properly, I put on the nice clothes and tried to be my best self. No, I wasn’t thinking of anything serious with him. To be honest, it was all such a blast for me but I saw only as kind of a game that we were playing and that may end very soon. He wasn’t ready to have a new boyfriend, having broken up with one just two months ago, and I had never had a boyfriend but wasn’t going to begin like that. Just no.

 It’s stupid, isn’t it? But I picture my first boyfriend someone to be very special and me just knowing that is him. And I didn’t feel that with John. However we had a lot of fun and every time I remember those days, I smile because he was such a nice guy and had a great time in every sense possible.

 Anyhow, I took the bus and then it happened again. I was so sure one of the people on the bus was the creepy guy from the app. And this time it wasn’t something that happened fast and went. This time I was just two rows behind him and I couldn’t wait to get to my stop and physically run. I didn’t want to know if it was actually him. I just wanted to stop minding about the crazy guy and keep on with my date with this great guy. But I couldn’t, at least not for the whole ride to John’s home. The guy wouldn’t go out in any of the stops and I was staring to get nervous. But finally my stop came and, as I had pictured, I ran to John’s building and told him all about it.

 I know it’s very romantic or arousing to talk about a creep you think you saw in a bus, but I just had to tell someone in order not to feel crazy. He was very nice, gave me a beer and told me many guys can’t just get a hint and get obsessed with others. I must have looked even more scared than before because he went on saying most of them just stopped, after finding someone else to annoy so he was sure that would happen in my case.

 Then, again, I forgot all about my problems, because we started kissing and, minutes after, we had gone to John’s room, without the beers. It had been a long time since I had had any sex with anyone and, I have to say, it was awesome. Maybe that was precisely because I had nothing to compare with, a foul thing we all do, but I just though it was perfect. He was so tender and loving or so I felt and even when things got a bit rougher, he seemed to care about me a lot.

 I ended up staying the night. I called my mom past midnight to tell her that and me and John didn’t go out of bed until eight in the morning or around that. He had fallen asleep hugging me and that has been the only time I seriously thought two things: first, that he might be that person I would decide to have a serious relationship with. Second, that I was able to do things I didn’t know I could. For me, a hug is more personal than anything else. And John did all night, awake or asleep. And he also kissed me a lot and touched me and as a person with a poor self-image, that was huge for me.

 When putting on my clothes, I thought I really could like being in a relationship and could use to nights like that. We had some breakfast and bid farewell with a final kiss. In that moment, I didn’t know it was going to be the last time we saw each other. Isn’t that sad? It would be so nice if we knew when that’s happening but I guess that, as humans that we are, we wouldn’t be able to handle it.

 I walked slowly to the bus stop, thinking of the night. I was so distracted I didn’t see the man running at me. I only reacted to late, when he tackled me and put something in front of my face. He must have drenched it in some chemical because I felt dizzy fast and I passed out. To be honest, I think it’s great that I don’t remember anything that happened after that. When I regained consciousness, I was in a hospital. They had called my parents and I was too groggy to say or do anything.

 Days later, the doctors and I talked, in the presence of a policeman. I told him what little I remembered and they told me what they could conclude had happened: them man, which I recalled been the creepy guy from the app, had taking me somewhere and had raped me. They explained he could have told people I was drunk, for them no to get suspicious. I was left in a park and a homeless man had found me and called the police and an ambulance.

 They told me it was probable I would never remember anything and I thanked the drugs for that. I went back to my life but slowly and cut off every link that was too weak to keep holding. I erased all social network profiles, erased all apps from my phone and only played games in my computer. My friends visited me at home and asked about John but I didn’t know nor care. He had paid for something he hadn’t done but I wasn’t ready. And now, I might never be.

Can you feel me?

He had done it before and knew what it felt like. But he kept doing it, not caring for the aftermath, how it hurt afterwards.

It was so easy now, not like it may have been for boys and young men decades earlier. These days, all you had to do was grab your phone, download an app, put up a picture and voila. That was it. Thousands of men available, just by touching a few commands, just by responding to a message or sending one.

Of course the images were laughable. Most tried too hard to get noticed so they uploaded pictures where their bodies were shown in full exposure. Many were taken at the gym or in a bathroom.

Our guy, he just took a selfie on the street and that was it.

For the last six months, he had intercourse with several men. Sometimes even two on the same day. Always in their homes, their workplaces or sometimes in cars or parks. He didn't really thought much of it, not before or during the moment. It was the aftermath that hunted him.

Curiously, it wasn't the unprotected sex that bothered him. Most guys used condoms so he didn't gave it much thought. What pierced through his head was that emptiness he felt during the process. He had sex to pass time, to forget, to feel liked for at least a second. He wasn't keen on finding love or looking for it. He just needed someone's touch sometimes, and to feel needed or wanted. That was his turn on.

But it all disappeared pretty fast after it had all ended. Most guys rushed him out of their homes and it was understandable: many had couples and were even married, to women. He had even known some of them had children.

The truth was that he felt numb, sometimes during sex but always after it. He didn't really care for anything. He was desperate to feel something but many times couldn't. Physical arousal was rapidly meaningless, empty and hollow.

One day, going to meet a guy, he realized he had lost his cellphone. He had no idea if he had lost it or if he had been the victim of theft. Anyhow, he didn't have the exact address of where he was going as it was noted on a message the guy had sent. He waited until he saw a familiar sight and waited for the bus to stop.

It wasn't a pretty neighborhood but he kind of knew all about it. He had been raised in a house not very far from there but hadn't visited in years. His family had sold the house more than twenty years ago and there were things he didn't remember.

He decided to walk around a bit, eat something and then go back to his house. All the houses looked as if they hadn't been cleaned for years and there was a lot of garbage on the side of the road. It was sad, to be honest, to see how a place could just freeze in time, in such a negative way. It had never been a nice place but it was sad anyway.

The boy saw an internet café and was tempted to go inside but something came over him. It was maybe better to spend the day without any electronic devices, specially not the kind that may make him go to a place he now had no intention of going.

He did enter a Chinese restaurant and asked for the menu of the day, which had lots of rice, soup, a drink and a dessert. All of it for a good price. He was glad to be the kind of person that never left the house without money. He didn't have much, but enough for the meal he craved.

As he ate, he detailed every corner of the restaurant: red and gold veils all over, dragon statues that looked like made of gold but obviously weren't, a Buddha figurine and a one of those white cats that greets people with a paw. It was nice and almost empty. Lunch time had passed so only two tables were occupied. The other one was taken by a young Chinese girl doing her homework or so it seemed.

As the boy finished the soup, a man came from the kitchen and started arguing with the girl, in Chinese. It had always fascinated him how, as different as languages may be, we all have the same facial expressions, body language and reactions.

The man went back inside and the girl continued with her work, typing on a calculator and writing in a small notebook.

 - Is the business good? - he said.

She raised her head an looked at him, a bit confused.

 - Sorry... The rice is really good.

She then smiled and said the recipe had been brought from China by her grandmother and it had been in her family for years. He asked if she was doing homework but, as it happens, she was doing the numbers for the restaurant. Her father had entrusted her with this responsibility a few months ago but now thought it may be too much for her to handle.

The boy said he was good with numbers so he could help if she needed to. She hesitated, so he took a bite of a spring roll. But then the girl stood up and took her things to his table. She explained what was troubling her and in a matter of minutes, the boy had cleared the issue easily.

As he finished lunch, he helped her get everything in order. The father came back and was surprised to see his daughter talking to a client. The boy thanked the man for his food and asked for the bill. The man did not say a thing to his daughter.

The boy then wrote his email in the girl's notebook and told her to remember him if she needed help again. She said she had actually been looking for a tutor, as she needed to improve her grades to one day be able to handle every single aspect of the restaurant.

The man brought the bill and he was introduced by his daughter. The boy thanked him again with a handshake and told him he was going to tutor his daughter, as he realized she was eager to have the best Chinese restaurant in town.

The man seemed very happy, shaking the boy's hand and smiling. After he left, the girl and the boy talked about the business and not much about each other. He then saw what time it was on a clock in the wall and decided to leave. They bid farewell and, some time after, he was on the bus en route to his home, to his family. And for days, he didn't even thought of getting a new cellphone. He finally did in order to be in contact with his friends and family, all the people he had banished of his life and was now getting to know again, feeling them closer.