ANTICHRIS_

By Christopher Stoddard

DEAR CAIN
I knew it was over the last time I swallowed your cum. It was the morning after the night we’d had dinner, a meal I’d paid for to make up for getting jealous the night before, when we were at some well known artist’s pizza party. At the party, we drank Jose Cuervo Tradicional tequila shots and chased them with mini cans of Budweiser. The artist had signed the bottles of tequila. You were flirting with some straight, tattooed intern who wore a T-shirt designed by Nom De Guerre that actually said Nom De Guerre on it in oversized text. Normally, I wouldn’t have cared. But the effect of the alcohol had released my green inhibitions, and I vented them onto you with evil stares and snide comments until you finally asked me to leave. The whole scene was embarrassing to say the least, and I went home defeated, hoping that you understood I was drunk.

DEAR ABEL
I met you on Halloween. You dressed up as some reality show chick. You said that no one got your costume, and I didn’t either until you explained it to me.

You recently finished grad school and are now completing a residency at some dental office in DUMBO. You’re 6’2”, with blond hair and blue eyes. Your body is perfect, toned from head to toe, you have broad shoulders, and your cock is big.

You live in SoHo in an oversized studio with an outdoor patio. We smoked weed and you fucked me. You came on my face. I licked some of it off while trying to jerk off to completion but was unable to finish because I was too drunk.

I wanted to feel guilty, but I was too inebriated and too ignored by Cain to care. He didn’t want to see me during Halloween weekend. That’s the main reason why I let you fuck me. And you’re so nice and from Omaha, Nebraska, and while you come from a wealthy family, you’re not superficial or pretentious, at least you didn’t seem so that night.

DEAR CAIN
So the night after the pizza party, I took you to dinner at an Italian restaurant. We sat across from Michelle Williams and next to where Sigourney Weaver had been dining less than an hour before we’d arrived. To my left and your right was a young actor we both recognized, but neither of us could remember in which film we’d seen him.

I thought that you had forgiven me for my childish behavior the night prior, but as we finished the second bottle of wine, you confessed that the incident had made you take multiple steps backward, and you made it very clear that you were no longer considering being in a committed relationship with me. Disappointed, I hung my head low. When you returned from the bathroom, you kissed me on the back of the neck and told me how cute I looked. It made me feel better and somewhat hopeful.

Back at my place, I showed you pictures and told you stories that were revealing and possibly incriminating, but I didn’t care because I was intoxicated. As the effect of the alcohol wore off, you said you just wanted to sleep, and so I said I guess I did, too. We didn’t have sex.

DEAR ABEL
The second time we fucked, Cain was in Louisiana, visiting friends and family during the weekend of some football game that people in the South seem to think of as a holiday.

Before he left, he’d returned my DVDs and books, including Sugar and Wrong. I didn’t want them back. I just wanted an excuse to see him again, but when I did see him, all he told me was that he was “sick of it.” I didn’t fully understand.

Two nights later, on the very night that he flew to Louisiana, you and I met at The Cabin Down Below on Avenue A and got drunk. Actually, you were already drunk when you arrived because you’d been drinking for free at a friend’s party earlier in the evening. I’d been at the gym and walking my dog, and seeing as I hadn’t eaten dinner, I became intoxicated quickly and paid our check hastily so we could go back to my place and fuck.

Shortly after we entered my bedroom, I grabbed a condom from the top drawer of my dresser. It was the last condom I owned, a prophylactic that Cain had left at my place a week or two earlier. When I tore open the wrapper, all I could think about was how much I missed him.

DEAR CAIN
The morning after the night we’d had dinner, when we awoke, we kissed briefly. I thought we’d fuck, but instead you just asked for a blowjob. As I sucking your cock, I heard the beeping sound from a truck reversing, a child yelling to his mother that she’d forgotten her cell phone, the rushing noise from cars speeding up the West Side Highway. It was the quietest sex I’d ever had with you, and it took you a long time to cum in my mouth and for me to swallow. I wondered if you’d been thinking of someone else.

Two Others Infinite Playlist:

DEAR CAIN
You Don’t Feel Like Home to Me – The Good Life
Tiny Vessels – Death Cab for Cutie
I Can’t – Radiohead
Cornerstone – Arctic Monkeys
Confidence – Deep Sea Diver
Slow Down Jo – Monsters of Folk
Crystallised – The xx
Islands – The xx
This Must Be The Place – Miles Fisher
Passionless, Pointless – PJ Harvey
Oh Well – Fiona Apple
Hair – PJ Harvey
Catherine – PJ Harvey
Missed – PJ Harvey
Dry – PJ Harvey
Rid of Me – PJ Harvey
Horses in My Dreams – PJ Harvey
Nude – Radiohead
Sulk – Radiohead
Jigsaw Falling Into Place – Radiohead
11th Dimension – Julian Casablancas
The Dancer – PJ Harvey
Threads – Portishead
Plastic – Portishead
Poison – Neva Dinova & Bright Eyes
Cardinal Song – The National
Ready, Able – Grizzly Bear
Album of the Year – The Good Life
Cruisers – Fluffy Lumbers
Your Bruise – Death Cab for Cutie
Difference is Time – Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band
Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear
Pink Love – Blonde Redhead
Creep – Radiohead
High and Dry – Radiohead
Black Star – Radiohead
Bulletproof…I Wish I Was – Radiohead
Crying Lightning – Arctic Monkeys
Joe’s Head – Kings of Leon
Tripped – Neva Dinova and Bright Eyes
The Calendar Hung Itself – Bright Eyes
You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. – Bright Eyes
Lua Song – Bright Eyes
Love Lust – King Charles
The Sound – Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
Make War – Bright Eyes
I’m Your Man – Nick Cave
If You Leave Me – Nick Drake
All Yr Songs – Diamond Rings
Separate Ways – Teddy Thompson
Butterfly – Weezer
With You Forever – Pnau
Black & Gold – Ellie Goulding
Northern Sky – Nick Drake
Who’s Gonna Save My Soul – Gnarls Barkley
Skinny Love – Bon Iver
Re: Stacks – Bon Iver
Blood Bank – Bon Iver
I Want You (Live for Decades Rock Live!) – Fiona Apple
Vision of Division – The Strokes
Razorblade – The Strokes
About a Girl – Nirvana
Black Hearted Love – PJ Harvey & John Parish
Lucky You – The National
Basic Space – The xx
The Background – Third Eye Blind
New Age – Tori Amos
All I Need – Radiohead
Let the Distance Keep Us Together – Bright Eyes and Britt Daniels
Infinity – The xx
Home – Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros

Or

DEAR ABEL
I Miss You (Double Rub Part One – Sunshine Mix) – Bjork

By Christopher Stoddard

You can enter the office building on either Broadway or East 11^th.  That in itself may not sound all that interesting, but what’s especially peculiar to me is that the same building has two different addresses: 798 Broadway and 81 East 11^th.  I rode my bike up Broadway, against traffic and then locked it up on some scaffolding.  I could’ve entered at 798, but I chose to walk round the corner and a quarter-block down to enter at 81 East 11^th. 

Some might question why I chose the longer route, but it’s really very simple.  My life-path number is 11, and everything significant that happens to me adds up to or is somehow connected with the number 11.  And I didn’t want my first visit with my new psychoanalyst to be tainted with bad luck. 

She rents out two adjoining offices, one’s a waiting room, the other her meeting place.  The door to the waiting room is equipped with a pushbutton keypad that allows you to unlock the door by pressing the keys a certain way.  We’d discussed it over the phone, and I thought I had the combination down pat: push the top and bottom buttons at the same time, release and then push the third to bottom.  I must’ve done that five or six times before getting really frustrated and mouthing off obscenities.

Eventually, my noisy predicament interrupted her current therapy session.  I apologized profusely and introduced myself.  She walked me through the unlocking process.  First she had me watch her do it.  Then she relocked the door, and I had to repeat the process while she watched over my tense shoulders like an understanding mentor.  She returned to her patient in the adjoining office while I spent the next ten or so minutes waiting for my turn by filling out two pages of paperwork: one form for personal information, the other for health insurance details.

I liked her already.  Just that little thing she did with the door, her patience with me and my frustrations, her short hairdo; her personality seemed tough but goodhearted; she reminded me of a strong black woman with five children and no man, the only difference being that the psychoanalyst is white. 

I had my whole spiel rehearsed, a long laundry list of the most down and dirty parts of my life.  I wanted to impress her.  Psychoanalysts always love a good challenge—the more fucked up you are the better.  And I’m sure she gets sick of listening to the same whiny bullshit.  People like me make her job more interesting and worthwhile. 

She had me start with where I was in my life presently and then work my way back.  We covered my depression, the murder, the hit and run, the drugs, the sex, the prostitution, the suicide attempts, the dysfunctional family and friends, their prison time—all of it in a span of 65 minutes (she let me run over a bit because she was obviously concerned or at the very least intrigued).  Equipped with my life history, she even helped me find a solution to a superficial problem I’d been having with a guy. 

After agreeing to a weekly visit on Thursdays at noon, I left her office in good spirits, but then accidentally exited the building via the 798 Broadway entrance.  Once outside, I texted my guy and, just as she’d instructed, explained myself to him.  She said if there was any real depth to my relationship with him then he’d try to understand why I’d acted the way that I did, and perhaps even give me another chance. 

He gave a quick reply, albeit brief, one that partially forgave my spastic behavior.  Once again excited by the prospect of having a boyfriend, I texted back three or four paragraphs of manic mumbo jumbo.  He didn’t respond. Devastated, I phoned my psychoanalyst.  She said we’d discuss it next week.

By Christopher Stoddard

The way we met, most would consider unorthodox.  I’d posted an online ad that said I was looking to blow a straight guy.  He sent me two pictures, both of which he took of himself in front of a bathroom mirror, with his right arm curled upward like a bodybuilder does when showing off his muscles, only this guy’s arms were more lean and toned than big and bulky.  A stiff Yankees cap, turned just slightly to the left, sat snugly on his head.  His tanned skin and black eyebrows made him look Mediterranean, perhaps Italian or Portuguese. 

He said he needed thirty minutes to shower and that he’d text me when he was on his way.  In the meantime, I continued exploring my options.  Another guy responded to my ad, one who looked much more like the proverbial frat-boy I usually prefer to blow.  In his pictures, he looked All American, tall and solid and had a big cock.  I wanted him.  We emailed back and forth dirty words that described what I was going to do to him and how he wanted it.  He asked me to be wearing nothing but boxer briefs and black dress socks—long ones—when I opened the door to him. 

I was just about to send him my address when I received a text from the first applicant.  He was in the lobby.  Frantic, I considered telling him to go away so I could have the second guy over, but online tricks are so flaky that I didn’t want to take the chance of sending the first one home and then having the other cancel.  Contemplating the situation further, I decided that I’d blow the first guy quickly and then have the second guy over afterward for a much longer suck session.  I emailed the second guy my address along with explicit instructions for him to arrive in thirty minutes or more, definitely no earlier.  That would be enough time for me to hookup with the first guy and rinse out my mouth. 

I made my first horny suitor wait downstairs for ten or so more minutes while I walked my Akita pup, Alfie, in the yard behind my building.  After he did his business and we returned to my apartment, I locked him in the bathroom; but before I did that, I removed the roll of toilet paper on the wall, the throw rug on the floor and the assorted bottles of toiletries along the edge of the bathtub.  Anything of mine that Alfie can reach, he destroys. 

Finally I was ready to receive my first guest.  I texted him the buzzer code and my apartment number.  After about five more minutes my doorbell rang.  My heart sank, but just a smidgen; I always feel a slight rush when they first arrive.  I’m more numb to it now that I’ve been hooking up for however many months—ok, years—but I still feel a little something.

I opened the door and he walked into my dimly lit foyer, squinting through the low-key lighting to check me out.  I had left on barely any lights, not because I didn’t look like my picture, but just because the darkness makes me more confident during the initial meet-and-greet.  My bedroom was much brighter, and there we both got a good look at one another. I could tell he was pleased.

As he advanced toward me while unzipping his slightly baggy jeans, we made brief eye contact and shared a mild, mutually uncomfortable giggle.  That was the only other form of communication we had had since saying hello. He was taller than he’d appeared in his pictures, and while he was thin, his shoulders were very broad and his muscles more pronounced than I’d anticipated.  The boxers he wore were so white and crisp they must have been either brand new or freshly bleached and ironed, especially when compared with the dingy white t-shirt he had on. 

When he smiled, I noticed a slight crook in the alignment of his lower teeth, but his masculine, almost boyish face, dark olive skin and sexy body made up for the imperfection.  Actually, the orthodontic error made him that much more desirable.

After only a few minutes of me sucking his perfectly shaped cock, he pulled me up and made me kiss him.  I never kiss men I have sex with and normally would have resisted, but this time I didn’t.  We made our way onto the bed and finished what we were doing in the style of long-acquainted lovers.  Suddenly it wasn’t just about satisfying our primal needs but more about filling our souls’ lonely voids, which is the real reason why most gay men have promiscuous sex, anyway.  At least that’s why I do. 

When we were finished, he stayed for a couple minutes longer.  We discussed some of the hundreds of books I kept on my built-in bookshelves.  He said he was fond of Fante’s works.  I freed Alfie from the bathroom and introduced him to the man in my bedroom, which is something else I never usually do with men I have sex with.

Alfie took an instant liking to the man and tried to run away with his stiff Yankee’s cap. Usually my dog only likes to steal and destroy my clothing and accessories, because my scent is on them.  This was the first time he took an interest in someone else’s.

The man told me his name before he left, but I didn’t make an effort to remember it because I didn’t think it mattered.  Being that he was straight, I didn’t believe I’d see him again.  But a few minutes after he’d gone, he sent me a text.  He said he hated to ruin the thrill of anonymous sex, but that he’d like to take me on an actual date. 

I smiled, beamed, then responded with, “No thanks.”  The second guy never showed up.