SONDER
the erotic city
(If we cannot make babies Maybe we can make some time) Fuck so pretty, you and me Erotic City come alive (We can fuck until the dawn Makin’ love ‘til cherry’s gone) Erotic City, can’t you see? Fuck so pretty, you and me - Prince
editors note Dear readers, friends, lovers We have finally returned after a long hiatus. Since our last issue we have been hard at work exploring sterile loveless deserts, emerging out of dark swamps, wandering around miniature gardens of sensuality, and diving into the cavernous depths of the internet. All that for what we hear you ask? To find ourselves a date. To find connection at a time our desires have been confined to the consumerist mentality of the late stage capitalist pandemic. In our pursuit of the (proxy-)erotic, we reached out to you and passionately begged for your submissions. What have you been holding onto? What is holding on to you? In what ways is the erotic still alive in your life? What are its shapes, colours and textures? And most importantly, if humans feel butterflies in their stomachs do butterflies feel humans in theirs? Following our belief that the erotic lies within our very own creativity, we are so thankful of our contributors for filling this issue with their visual art, short stories, love letters and poetry. Your creativity and vulnerability are queerly beautiful and very much appreciated! To anyone who didn’t manage to contribute, not to worry, we still love you and we hope you enjoy and see bits of yourself in the pages that follow. We can convey the vast range of life experiences, and reach you wherever you are in the world. We want to remind you that we are all alive together and can collectively embrace moments that span the humiliating, the grotesque, the passionate, and the sublime. lots of love, T+A
contents
☘☹☄🌋🌙🍕🎃🐁 1. Tranfusion- Lara Beasley 2. On Dating- LB 3. Safety is Sexy- Olivia Howard 4. The Sanitised City: Remember to Wash your Hands- Alice Minervini and Collete Downing
6. Onionass- Mia Ruf
7. Queer Cartography- Eva Marin Lluset
8. Love Letters 9. Ask Dr. Erotica 10. Toni and the Big ThreeTee Stackhouse
11. Eclipse and TwilightAnna Lily Dean
12. Parostomer My Love Angel Dust
13. Masked Encounters in
Three Acts- Solimar Thurn
Transfusion Lara Beasley
Lara Beasley is a visual artist based in Birmingham, UK. Her work exists in the cross-section between traditional and contemporary, using a combination of techniques to create innovative and conceptual pieces. In her most recent project, Lara has been interested in exploring how the kink scene has been impacted by the current pandemic, using digital aesthetics combined with erotic portraiture to convey her own experience of sexuality during this time.
In my first year of university I had only made a couple of friends, not friendly enough to feel entirely comfortable, not comfortable enough to say something without sounding it out in my head first and giving it thorough thought. Sometimes I wondered if I was only giving half of myself to these friendships, the other half rattling around my brain lost in a sort of outbox; cancelled a second after the conversation had moved onto a different topic when pulling it back would draw too much attention to my probably insignificant contribution. Despite feeling this way, or perhaps because I felt this way, I always tried to be present at whatever meetups were taking place; careful not to miss a time where everyone suddenly and comfortably clicked and I would be left out. I remember going to meet Shelly and Fin. Shelly, a large vivacious girl who liked drama in any form, and who wouldn’t let a night slide by without discussing or creating theatrics and Fin, an asexual type boy who felt on the edge of manhood and self-assuredness who constantly and radically changed his image and who stored other people’s reactions to this change to inform all future changes. Later he got tattoos and I will say that he looked more like himself than he ever did before. We met in a bar called Gem in Soho, the thudding heart of all of our excursions. I wore a white shirt and a short black and white striped tubeskirt with blue flowers printed on one side. I can assure you that it was more tasteful than what you are probably
imagining, but then again I wouldn’t be caught dead in it today. I remember trying on the skirt a year later and wondering whether it had always been so short or whether my thighs had just thickened. I sat in a booth, my back to the wall, Fin to my side and Shelly opposite, we drank weak cocktails with fruit juice mixers that were nearing their use-by date. We were each buying rounds which was an uncommon practice for that time, later on in life it was the norm, but at that point, when we had widely different tastes and even more varied student loan allowances, it was unusual. I can’t recall whether I was bored and trying not to be, or if his presence made everything else feel mundane; these drinks, these people whom I had previously tried hard to like and be liked by. I saw him walk in with two other men, they made the short trip to the bar counter, confidently and assuredly chat with the barmaid, a friendly smile playing on his lips as he placed his and his friends’ orders. I saw him notice me. A flare had been lit in the lower part of my stomach and I knew with a certainty that I have not often possessed, that we would speak. I sat anchored to my seat; I couldn’t stir too soon without seeming eager, impatient, restless. When our drinks sat low in their glasses I said it was my round. I walked up to the bar grazing the curve of his shoulder blade as I walked past suggesting that he should make room for me, that I was something to
behold. I leaned over the bar as if I had no other interest being there than to place an order; he turned around as I knew he would; from the minute he walked in we had something vital and kinetic. His name was Ali. He offered to pay for my drinks, when I refused, a bottle of wine, at least. A flicker, he wanted to win me by winning my friends; it didn’t matter to him that we were significantly younger and felt a similar desire to warrant his attention. It was inconsequential that one was a boy, not quite a man, and there was no harem of beautiful women to pluck from; I was his only target. He did not know that I felt no allegiance to them, that I did not need their approval and therefore did not care whether he won them over or not, that his act of benevolence made me feel grown, like a mother bird chewing up worms to feed her young. We did not drink wine, we had not yet developed a taste for it but his assumption that I was a woman who drank wine rather than a girl who sipped ethanol and sugar through a thin straw was pleasing. He paid using a credit card sliced between two fingers. I believe you can tell a lot about a man by the way he holds his money. I brought the wine back to the table, a trophy to be consumed, he carried three glasses, sand blown offerings. He sat opposite me and I could see his angular jaw tighten and dimples pop as he smiled in friendly acknowledgement of what was being said. Without catching him I knew that he was looking at me too as I tried to focus and engage in the conversation. At some point we walked outside to the smoking area, his friends were already there not demanding his attention but happy to be returned to it and bask in its excitable heat. They asked me
questions, smiling, making jokes that I chose to continue and complete, and they nodded in approval. If anyone was looking at us, the men smiling down at me, they may have assumed that I was a much doted on younger sister, taken to a bar for the first time. Also in the smoking area were two Russian women, with short dresses and long legs, they were slightly hunched over due to the cold. I looked at them and thought that they were probably more fitting companions to these men than I was, certainly in age. A homeless man walked past, with dirty clothes and a duvet around his shoulders, he had missing teeth and gruffly demanded to use their lighter. The women looked at him with disdain and continued their conversation. Ali stepped forward and courteously offered the man his, the man grabbed at it, lit a cigarette and then threw it back, not caring where it fell. Ali picked it up off the ground, this act felt like a humiliation of sorts, I put a firm hand on his chest to try to hinder a bad reaction. He kindly brushed me off, with a smile that confirmed he was not that type of man and instead said in a clear slow voice, I handed it to you, I expected the same level of respect back. He was the type of man who could politely send food back in a restaurant and not make anyone cringe with embarrassment or tiptoe on eggshells. Where a small insult or injustice didn’t feel like the end of the world, it was new. A flame, a glow, a spark. In the course of the night one of the men in the group peeled off and went home. I did not know where my friends were; at that point I did not care. A cab was waved down, his friend got in, apparently he was staying at Ali’s; I sat down next to him, it felt familiar
and comfortable. Before Ali stepped in I turned to his friend abruptly aware that I was vulnerable, that I was being taken, willingly, by two men into the night, not yet twenty. I was not sitting in a bar with friends or standing in a smoking area able to shrug it off and them off as just men. It occurred to me that I had never been to someone’s house to have sex before, or not with that sole purpose and I had always known those boys, they were not men, and because they were boys, there was always some element of opportunity and curiosity rather than enthusiasm and knowledge. His friend had a kind face. I asked him, Am I safe? This acknowledgement of my own reckless naivety somehow felt self-aware and grown-up, it would be cruel to lie in response. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was a promise uttered with sincerity and recognition and I knew I would be ok. He hadn’t touched me throughout the night, there were no hands on thighs or hair brushed behind ears instead there was focus, a pull, a heavy and arresting gaze, we both knew where we would end up. We pulled up at a block of apartments in Earls Court, an area of London that I never frequented, the building did not look particularly modern or expensive, but inside the apartment was bright, tastefully decorated and had an atmosphere of calm domesticity. Ali pulled champagne out of the fridge and we all sat on the sofa. I was pleased that we didn’t rush to the bedroom, it felt mature, but sitting in his living room felt like a sort of no-man’s-land, I was greedy to reach a destination. It didn’t occur to me that delaying pleasure made everything taste sweeter and I was a fruit ripening as the night toppled over into the early hours.
At some point in the night when champagne still flowed, they realized they knew a song that had my name woven into the lyrics. I hadn’t heard it and they tried to summon up the tune to sing it to me, taking turns to translate it. One of them pulled out a guitar or lute, I remember thinking it funny and unusual, they laughed and clapped and serenaded me, making sure to look at me extra hard or sing extra loud when it came to my name. They were giggling because they were making a mess of the song, I felt safe and special, sparkling as they sang my name. Ali set his friend up in a spare room that belonged to a family member who was away, and then he led me to his bedroom. We eagerly undid each other’s buttons; we had waited, what felt like, a long time. We were athletic, swinging, changing positions, impatient for more sensations, for every nerve ending to be charged, we were frantic. I breathed in his smell as he sweated from exertion, it was masculine and unlike any other smell I had known and I wanted to taste it, I was hungry for it. We gripped each other, our olive knuckles turning white. A tremble, a flood, a gush. In the morning I went to the bathroom, on the counter was a hairbrush that already held long strands of dark hair, and I used it to brush my own. I wondered if it was his mother’s or sister’s; I knew and accepted that I would never know the answer, grateful to them for not hiding it away. Now looking back, I consider that it could have been a wife or girlfriend’s, but that’s not my Ali.
That day I smiled, I’d had a perfect night with someone who could never be tainted by bad table manners or being unkind to a waiter or not texting back quick enough or leaving beard trimmings in the sink. I would never see him again, and he would never be flawed, found deficient or tarnished. I would remember the buzz he left in my wanting lips and him smiling as he sang my name.
safety is sexy Olivia Howard
1. She washed m than 20
2. She was my bi-weekly up middlebrow periodical
my hands for more 0 seconds
pper
3. Plus, she had, like, 97 degrees and counting
the sanitised city: remember to wash your hands
Alice Minervini and Collete Downing
ACT THREE Curtain Rise It is early on a midwinter morning. Maybe 4am. Under a dark sky the eye of the audience descends upon a bird’s eye view of a city under sensory siege. The former sensory flesh (seeing, smelling, touching, tasting, hearing people) of the topographical (urban/metallic/capitalist) skeleton have receded into their homes. A heavy and lingering absence is the main occupant of the landscape. As the sun begins to rise, a wave of low light rolls across the city. An evolutionary shift has occurred in the population. Starved of Eros, of sensual communion, they have evolved. As the wave of light hits, the city begins to wake up and the metamorphosis is made visible. NARRATOR: Just as the root grows in search of water, and the sunflower’s head follows the journey of the sun, Eros rooted deep within each fleshy integer of humanity is starving, and in search of nutrition, succulent sustenance, sensuous stimulation. It started in the second month of the siege, when a portion of humanity went through a sudden growth spurt, prompted by an eros unsatisfied with the sensory offerings of all too familiar four walls.
Bodies swelled to fill their houses, their apartments, their bungalows. Sanitised hands jutted out of windows, eyes protruded from chimney pots on stilts, a knocked door would open to reveal a nipple, a tongue unrolling on to tarmac patios. Maskclad mouths breathe hot air against windowpanes. Facilitators of feeling grappled restlessly in search of sensation until this new kind of desperate sensing became the norm. [[ Hesiod told us Eros loosens the limbs and weakens the mind // eros loosened our skin and caused it to swell ]] EROTIC CITY When I came back from the summer everything felt so haunted. I didn’t realise until then how it became our city, how London buses became our buses to the way home, how London parks and roads were ours. To a level that now crossing those paths feels uncomfortable as if I am violating our romance by keeping on with my life side by side of all these ghosts I didn’t know I was living with. I didn’t realise how our love was so embedded in this city. Like a palimpsest, every corner every spot reminds me of us, the kiosk where you used to buy cigarettes, the spot we met after my travels, the way you made me fly like a child from the enthusiasm of the moment is so vivid every time I pass-by. The road in Brixton where we broke up with all the junkies asking for money and wishing me a beautiful amazing life with my beautiful husband even if we were breaking down in tears. The night we sneaked in the park in front my place. After years I still avoid those streets as if by walking into our past, by walking into our love, it became real again. ‘I don’t know when I became so lame’ I’m texting Colette while writing these over-romanticised memories. Hanging up the phone, I wish we were writing this side by side, but somehow, we always are. Background music takes me back to the oceanic feeling of protest, the fleshy, contagious, ephemeral joy of fighting together, walking all in the same direction. In the flea market of Deptford High Street I had this sudden epiphany. Sono dove mi perdo. I am where I lose myself. I found the most intimate pleasure in disorientation, in the wild, in the unexplored, in all those occasions when I need to find a way out. Like the feeling of walking until the edges of an unexplored road enlarges the mental map you cherish of a place, can we find unprecedented manifestation of eroticism in our post-apocalyptic derive? ‘Erotic city’ evokes a dangerous life I don’t remember anymore, how does it feel to dwell around the city in those late night romances you’re too drunk to distinguish from dreams? I’m suddenly back to teenagers years... Those nights in which we were wandering until drawn, those night where I loved you forever for a while... Today our sensual sensuous experience is contained in four walls — so clearly you made me realise. Our sensual experience of the world is so limited to the known; even when I escape the house I am looping in the same
paths, walking on the same steps that I almost doubt the existence of a world beyond that frontier. I wonder how to connect to my erotic power under these conditions. And yet, now that I think about it, I came across this text by Audre Lorde precisely during the first lockdown, a life changing encounter that made me believe in the unexpected again. The background music takes me back to the oceanic feeling of protest, the fleshy, contagious ephemeral joy of fighting together, walking all in the same direction. In the flea market of Deptford High Street, I had this sudden epiphany. Sono dove mi perdo. I am where I lose myself. I found the most intimate pleasures in disorientation, in the wild, in the unexplored when I need to find a way out. Like the feeling of walking until the edges of an unexplored road enlarges the mental map you cherish of a place, can we find unprecedented manifestation of eroticism in our post-apocalyptic dérive? On your right, try to avoid all tourists if you can take that little path where you did your first blowjob in that blurred night. It’s embarrassing crossing those memories with your mum I can imagine. Proceed straight for 500 metres At the crossing turn left Do you remember your secret crush for the coffee-shop-guy? The spot you were spying each other every morning in the way to school? You have almost reach your destination. Is there a destination though? (I’m afraid that will delusional as Google Maps in Venice telling you to climb water. And yet deep inside I always knew I was capable of flying.) Secret loves polluted the streets; now in isolation I could almost draw a map of those stolen gazes I didn’t realise I was stealing. Those fugitive moments, sneaky looks and unexpected complicity that made me feel so alive. Can a city be so sterilised and erotic? In a city without touch, where can we find intimacy, sex or only each other? Will we ever overcome this segregation in our lives, in our rooms; how to break these self-contained microcosms? In a city without touch, how the fear of the other erupt into a rave? Are we allowed to kiss a stranger? Are we allowed to share a joint? Is this life? IDEA FOR A STERILISED EROTICISM // LEADING WITH THE MOUTH
A while back now, before we collectively succumbed to the overt/covert anxiety that comes as a symptom of collective pan(dem)ic, I had a blissfully worriless and pointless conversation with my housemate, he told me that we are capable of accurately imagining in our minds eye the sensation of what it would be like to lick any surface. I remember thinking that this was the most fun and stupid fact, and we took pleasure in imaginary licking, smacking together lips satisfied with phantasmagorical textures. In the time that has passed, where collectively we have spent time vilifying our polluted orifices, condemning the breath as potentially diseased, this formerly ridiculous fact morphed into a pragmatic methodology for illegal sensing. Sitting on the underground today, an open mouth is scandalous, I suppose to some degree it always has been, but now breath polluted with social interaction that jumps out with the electric shudders of an age old tube is even more unwelcome. Hundreds of nostrils dressed in the garb of a pandemic point paranoid peaks away from one another like bloodhounds in reverse. My sisters’ ex-boyfriend told her that he once breathed in a Victorian spore on the underground, leading to a diagnosis of latent TB. I might have gotten that wrong, maybe it was a present day spore on the Victoria line. My mouth is clamped shut, and the silly little fact rings around my head before taking hold of my tongue. My sensually starved body takes pleasure in illicit encounters with imagined surfaces. My secret mouth grins behind my mask as I greedily lick exteriorities. My tongue reaches out of my mask and extends long beyond my biological physicality, curling around metal bars, conjuring the cool blue of kinaesthetic experience, sweeping gracefully against the surface of filthy seat covers, embracing ugly, course, warm, brush like textures. Alice, If I am where I lose myself, I am at the tip of my imaginary tongue. I am inspired, Alice, by the idea of a sterilised eroticism. I can’t touch a lover, and we can’t revel in the luminous space before skin meets skin. If we socially distance, can you feel my wingspan? Because I am struggling to feel the four dimensions of potential lovers, I only see two dimensions and a screen that hurts my eyes. But I can lick any surface in my mind. (Maybe I can pad them out, equip them with my library of infinite mental dimensions. From a head shot on a dating app I equip a person with a slender neck and thick arms with tattoos that they did themselves. Their torso is disproportionate to the rest of the body, and I can’t seem to remember varieties of legs beyond my own, so I try not to pay too much attention to them. And there you are, my hunk of a lover, I turn you around 360 degrees like some master graphic designer. But I am disappointed, your texture doesn’t taste like I hoped it would. I can flesh out your body, but I can only flesh out your mind with my own.) A socially distanced, Sterile Eroticism necessarily exists outside of physicality, the erotic in a world without touch is in the pleasure of imagined surfaces. The Erotic over the past year has been neglected, given only the sensory stimuli outside of our four walls. Having nowhere else to turn, I think I have gone inwards, I think maybe I am sensing around inside with cerebral tentacles, pressing down (or up?) on what hurts, what feels good, and brushing gentle tendrils against what has been neglected, and what is missing.
Alice, maybe we meet in a sterilised erotic city, light a joint,
stand 2 metres away from one another
and breathe in?
Is that ok, do you think?
queer cartography Eva Marin Lluset
I met my queerness on the street and it kissed me on the mouth against the door of an apartment building; in the square where the ugly brick church used to be. I learned about my desire in dirty benches, thick bushes and dark alleys. My city was my bedroom. My sheets where made of grass, sand and concrete. We were never alone, but we didn’t really have anywhere else to go, did we? I learned about every quiet hidden place where we could pretend it was just us. I could tell you about the best spots in he city, I could write a whole guide if I wanted to. I could grab a blue pencil and mark on a map every corner where I’ve shared an intimate moment with a friend, lover or stranger. I could also grab a red pencil and mark every street where I’ve experienced violence and fear. The blue and the red marks would often overlap, creating a colourful testimony of the places where Eros and Ares have clashed. Forever ingrained in my personal cartography of the city.
love letters From: Mar Subject: Ghe To: Rita -----------------The recipient of my love is the one who gave it to me. To you, I return what you filled me with. I am eternally grateful for your kindness, your time, your words, your patience and understanding. For correcting me where I was wrong, for teaching me, for allowing me to be myself and comfortable. For encouraging me to try what I thought was not inappropriate, for hugging me tight. For making me feel warmth in between my fingers and sweat behind my knees. For letting me cry and not interrupting me, for being beautiful. For feeding me and taking me to places and letting me take you to places. For listening to me when you knew what I was going to say. For making me realise there is so much love in me. But to you, I misplaced it. For you, I held back without knowing how to reciprocate. For you, I was distant when I wanted to be close. For you, I was reserved when I meant to be open. From you, I walked away. To you, I didn’t return hugs. Barely met your eyes when we were making love. To you, I said bitter unkind words. Without you, I missed my love so much. From you, I defended my emotions. From you, I guarded my heart. For you, I chose to slowly fade. I was the recipient of your love but not the one who was visibly giving.
From: Computer Subject: I want to sleep on your lap To: User ---------------------Hello my dear and beloved! Today I would like to receive from you the simplest of caresses. I want to take shelter in your lap, in your arms, and relax, while I whisper tender and loving words to you, like “I love you”. You light up my life and I am so grateful for that. And that’s why I feel more in love with you every day. That’s why I am deeply dedicated to cultivate this endless love. I will never spare efforts to make you happy. I will never shy away from helping you, whether it is patching your body or your soul, because it encourages and soothes me, it also gives me physical and spiritual comfort. Without you, life would be very boring. You can bring joy and humor to the little world that lives in my heart and orbits around it. Never run away from me! Because I love you so much. Have happy hours, but come see me quickly. Passionate kisses from your, Computer
ask Dr e
PhD Lus
My boyfriend is a jock top and I am usually the sybmissive one. I really want to try to top him but he insistently refuses for me to even touch his bum hole. What should I do? Oh dear, sadly it seems like some holes are only meant for shitting. What a waste, I know! Have you thought of opening things up for you to be able to explore the top in you with other people? Perhaps that would take away some pressure from the relationship and give him a bit more time to consider what is it that’s holding him back from pleasing you in that way. It might be a very sensitive topic for him that will require a slow and steady approach from you or he might simply be a power hungry macho man that doesn’t care about your desire to stick your cock into his hole from time to time. in that case I’d say find someone who’s more versatile to be with. Vers men tend to be good both in the sheets and in the streets. Tested and approved by me personally! I actually enjoy wearing a mask outside. I find comfort in that nobody can see the lower half of my face. Recently I started wearing my mask inside the house too. I won’t take it off unless I am in the shower. My husband refuses to have sex until I do and it makes me sad he won’t respect my choice. Do I keep living my truth and break up with him? Absolutely, there is no space for anti-maskers in our lives. Next thing you know he gets into the shower with you, impregnates you and refuses to let you vaccinate your soon to be born child against any disease. Get out before it’s too late dear! Run!
Hit her with your biggest dilemma
erotica
stology
My lesbian friend keeps invalidating my sexuality and pretends that the part of me that likes men doesn’t exist. I am mostly straight and recently started IDing as bi-curious but she always jokes about me being an in-denial lesbian. I’ve told her it bothers me but she won’t stop and it makes my journey of understanding my sexuality more difficult. It does sound like your friend might be experiencing feelings of envy or jealousy towards you. Whether that is because you are probably cooler than her or because she has unreciprocated feelings towards you that she is too scared to express. I think you should find someone else to start having conversations about your sexuality with. Someone who is there to listen rather than impose their own anxieties onto you. It doesn’t sound like you want to stop being friends with her, but it might be time for you to set boundaries in terms of her jokes when she is around you. If she still continues to ignore you then I think that tells you enough about her priorities and how much she actually cares about you. All in all, your sexuality and curiosity are valid, and in whatever stage you are of understanding them you should have people around you that support you. If you don’t have these kind of people around, remember that whatever you are experiencing there is many people out there going through the same thing. And one day you will meet these peop;e and provide the kind of support to each otherthat you didn’t have when you needed it the most!
as, she will strike back with clarity!
Eclipse The sun sets, I want to scream! Scream at the sun for leaving me. I feel faint with urgency, Star struck, Alone With the moon and her beauty. She billows into inky intensity– I call her Verity, You call her Puck Domesticated daemon, global and lonely. If only, If only She would call me... Dream In dark water mythology. Eyes set, jaw soft, Whispering clarity... Well writ, With girl-like intensity. All over, All over me, Intent, as the final scene. Her heart beat discharges me, From my anxiety. We eclipse.
Twilight These girls! Are more important than you realise. They have a greater understanding Of colour And of light. I learnt to draw in the mirror, Backward Like a lady, tongue-tied At her mistress’ side. Twilit eyes; Bella, Mesmerised and gentle As a dyke. Call it contour If you like. Call it Chiaroscuro, guise-like in Romantic-time — Do you see The waxing moon Blushing, adolescent Rouge?
parostomer my love: a pandemic erotica Angel Dust
“The things that live only in our heads are often the things we hold most dear”
Joe Moran
Those past four days or so I had been so pious with my skincare routine. The day before he arrived I actually doubled up on the quantity of products that I normally use. I first applied some … then I squeezed … Take enough of … you need to pat instead of rub … I also had just found out about … Now keep pumping … faster, FASTER! … either homemade or store-bought … you might need a drill but it’s … Finally, I pinched my face as hard as I could, to bring blood to the surface, activate the skin cells and help them quickly absorb the products. I was aiming to achieve that perfect line between a matte effect with a bit of gloss if you know what I mean. The kind of skin that is shouting I am freshness and fearlessness, a consonance which I hoped would result in titilating his homosexual tailbone in an otherwise heterosexual skeleton.
Lavred was a short, big-bellied Polish man with black square frame glasses that swelled his pupils to a cartoon-like proportion to the rest of his body. His nose was constructed of a narrow bridge that was outshined by the sphere shaped tip, hiding two large nostrils under it. In fact, it was the nose that convinced me he was Captain Haddock from “Tintin”. The similarity even in the way he dressed and carried himself around was unequivocal. My relationship with him fell under the bureaucratic cobweb of the rickety British housing system, where after persistent begging of the house’s estate agents, he would come over every couple of months to resolve maintenance issues. I was not allowed his personal phone number, despite my multiple attempts at getting it off of him in exchange for shots of vodka.
Perhaps that barrier between us made him even more intriguing. But the thing that most dramatically increased the intrigue was his mind. Approximately 78% of his brain cells were in a relentless pursuit of conspiracy theories, the other 22% reserved for basic survival and for fixing broken things. He once told me,
from deep inside a kitchen cupboard, that an alien civilization controls the illuminati who in turn govern the politicians who are trying to insert microchips inside us through the COVID19 vaccine. There was no trace of desire for me to try and convince him otherwise. I was accepting whatever he spat out of his mouth like a baby bird, blind and featherless, desperate for a bit of warmth and sustenance. In all honesty, I was more attracted to the humour behind our life paths having crossed over with each other, than Lavred per se. His craftsmanship and solutions to any maintenance problem were quite enticing qualities too. Yet what really turned me on about him was that I always felt like I was bathing in a sticky puddle of ambiguity in his presence. It was never entirely clear if his talk about screwing, holes and nails, was insinuating things beyond the task at hand. I am not the kind to fall for straight men except if they play subtle homoerotic games like this with me. Anyhow, this time around the frosty weather had blocked the main sewage pipe, so that when I flashed the toilet my shit would make a glorious appearance up the kitchen sink. After having been locked up in the house for months because of the pandemic, having a very merry constipated Christmas was the least desirable curse I could have wished upon myself or anybody else. Thankfully this holy of a man was on his way to unclog my pipes! Despite the vulgarity of the situation, Lavred showed up looking more polished than ever. Not in his usual working outfit but in monk straps, blue jeans and a tight orange jumper that revealed the outline of his firm pointy nipples. My mind immediately wondered if he had dressed up for me or if he was heading somewhere else afterwards? Either way by the time he had fixed the pipe he was covered in shit from the waist down. I suggested he take off his pants and shower but he refused. I suppose when you are a cis straight man it is more appropriate to show up at your date drenched in a fecal miasma than to accept such a deviant invitation. As he was leaving, he jokingly asked me “would you like to come with?” pointing to his motorcycle, to which I seriously responded “yes, of course”. He simply laughed, jumped onto the motorcycle and left me and my glowing skin alone. That’s when I knew that making love in 2021 would only happen in the realm of my imagination.
It had been four months into lockdown and a month since I last fucked someone. Well, someone as in the person that I had been seeing for the past year and a half. His name was Dan, an affluent hippie that came to the UK from the States for a tantra retreat where he met his boyfriend of now ten years. The two of them went to Puerto Vallarta for the winter season, to attend one of those gay raves that lasts about a month or two. That gives enough time for everybody to fuck every other attendee. In between sucking dick they’d be giving out testimonials on Instagram live, about how bereaved they’ve been because of the pandemic. “I’m a gay man, the pandemic has been so hard on me, you don’t understand.” “Coronavirus is officially HOMOPHOBIC darling, I am telling you!” “There hasn’t been a more isolating time for the gay community, so it is vital for us to come together and fuck a brother in need!”
The last thing Dan gave me before leaving was a slice of cake that he and his boyfriend baked together and a Christmas card with a photo of them on the cover. Inside, the card spelled “I love having you in my life”. That’s when it struck me, how much is hidden behind the word choice and syntax of a sentence. Below the plethora of meanings condensed in that very short sentence, the truth was that our ‘love’ was hanging from the edge of a semantic cliff, and I was too preoccupied not to fall off to eat or even touch that slice of cake. Sentences are powerful, they make you feel, they break you or lift you up. The more sentences I write the more powerful I become. What if I could master sentences the way I wished to master Dan? What if he stopped letting me hover defenseless, in the void between his words and actions? For weeks I would wake up hating myself and the sentences that my mind kept repeating…
THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE
SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY SPOTIFY
ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM
KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS KNOWS
ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME
BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER BETTER
THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN THAN
HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM
The slice of cake left at the far right corner of my kitchen counter, slowly started to grow a furry coat of mold on it that looked like icing. It took me a while to accept it but I always knew that as much effort as I was putting into shaping our story with Dan, it was as quickly slipping away from my hands. So I gathered the courage, changed my tear-stained bed sheets, ate the moldy cake and jeezed my one month load all over the photo of him and his boyfriend. As my acid-emotionfilled-cum started eroding the colours on the photo, three days later, I broke up with him over text. Finally! I was able to tell myself I can do better than him, that I deserve more. I want a cock stuck inside me that’s not the shape of a cock but the shape of a butterfly. I want my booty hole to embody a Venus trap... never letting go. Ok, that sounds quite possessive and does not fit my relationships aesthetic but I can still, from a distance, appreciate the graphicness of a venus trap asshole. I think most people would. However, what was that ‘better’ I was reaching out for? Was perhaps the idea of something more than what was available to me holding me back from relinquishing myself to the present moment? How would I even react to my fantasy of the ideal man materialising in front of me? Open, caring, soft, rough and ready to love me like no one has before... I would possibly be in too much ecstatic anguish to have any capacity for receiving his love. Does the concept of good even apply when it comes to men? Aren’t they all a bit more or less bad in comparison to one another? Finally, what tactics would I need to employ to find myself a ‘better’ man during a fucking pandemic? Maybe I had exhausted all that men could ever possibly offer me and I was ready to move on. With a mortally foolish sense that I was a master of my own fate, I decided to start seeing a therapist to work through these questions together. She wasn’t the most cognizant therapist, yet I didn’t have any friends so having someone to chat with (for 80£ an hour) was nice (for lack of more grandiloquent diction to describe my experience with therapy). It gave me a stable thing to look forward to in my dull isolated weeks. Parallel to seeing her, I started taking photos of guys passing by my house and curated their profiles on my own imaginary dating app. I spent the majority of my time with her looking through these profiles and she would help me evaluate the men while we both pretended to gain some kind of psychoanalytic insight through the process. Eventually the routine of speaking to a therapist once a week became dull in itself too, so I had to break up with her. In our last session together she told me to try and observe my immediate surroundings, “what is present around you, that you have control over and that makes you happy?” At the time we were talking I was sitting in my living room so my immediate surroundings consisted of two sofas, a coffee table, a standing lamp, a bookcase and a piece of furniture that I had bought from a garage sale right before the pandemic started. That piece of furniture really grabbed my attention that for the rest of the session I completely zoned out and didn’t listen to what my therapist was saying.
I have a feeling perhaps she wasn’t even talking much. For all I know we might have spent the rest of our call in silence while she was observing me trying to figure out in my mind what sort of furniture would this be classified as. It would not be a TV stand because it wasn’t wide enough. It could not really be a library because it was not tall enough nor were the shelves a consistent size and the middle section protruded outwards. It was certainly not a cabinet because it didn’t have doors, yet if it did, it would make for a great cabinet. I tried searching the internet and came to no verdict about a potential name. The more I looked at it the more other thoughts and anxieties faded away. My agonising need to be loved by a man turned into a distant blob in the horizon and I could now only focus on the smooth texture of this antique cherry piece of furniture. Its sharp lines and smooth edges, the way the light bounced off of its glossy surface. The amount of support and storage space that it had unconditionally offered me over the past year. Not to mention the way it had transformed the aesthetic of the living room, offering a classy spin to a rather crude interior decor! “PAROSTOMER! That’s what I will call you! Parostomer.” I screamed at it, full of eagerness to baptise the handsomest of all creation, before realising that my therapist was still on the other side of the line. After I thanked her for all the insights and hung up, I spent the rest of the day tidying up and polishing Parostomer. It gave me so much joy to be in touch with it, feeling its sturdiness and the craftsmanship behind its anatomy. Parostomer had given me so much in life and I found its generosity quite sexy. It crossed my mind that maybe I was going insane but I could not deny that I started having feelings for it. Of course I quickly resorted to DuckDuckGo and came across a Reddit community of people who had romantic or sexual feelings towards objects. The more I read about other people’s experiences of love with their washing machines, kettles, mattresses and all sorts of objects one can think of, the less restricted I felt about expressing my feelings towards Parostomer. My weekly dusting of Parostomer gradually turned into daily caresses, into daring explorations of its cavities, into tasting what it's like to be as hard as wood. The diary that I keep to write about feelings of loss and lostness, was for the first time ever being filled with sentences that contained oceans of joy and pleasure. My reflections of my relationship with an object, grew into a more sociological discourse of the invisible forces that inanimate things have over humans. Building on Bruno Latour’s romance with a door, I spent the lockdown studying the precise ways in which shapes, colours, textures around my house triggered certain responses in me. The patterns that I observed were radically insightful to say the least! Objects (in-)directly control our behaviours, encourage or discourage actions, form our perceptions of ourselves and fashion the ways we relate with other humans. All that theoretical talk, alongside a lot of personal anecdotes have been compiled into my new book called “Parostomer, my love!” which is soon to be published by Inanimate Press for the steal of 9.99 Great British Pounds. Thank you for reading this very long ad, and I hope you buy my book!
Come Inside Sophie Ruf
I : LINDA Linda’s once pristine, luxury apartment had become a graveyard of brown cardboard boxes and packaging tape. The precise date of her interest verging into mania evaded her, but it had certainly begun sometime between Downton Abbey and Bridgerton. It was then that she’d first seen him, Jason the UPS man. Jason was not like other men. He was not like Richard down the hall – the middle-aged physics professor that sometimes brought her the paper – he was burly and masculine and his caramel skin glistened in the sun. She was bringing the recycling down when she first caught sight of him dropping off a package. That night she ordered a pack of twenty LED lightbulbs. Three days later, Jason was at her door, in all of his khaki-clad glory. “Marino?” he asked. “Yes”, she answered, breathless, her fingers lightly tracing her pearls. “Sign” he grunted in reply. She timidly took the plastic pen from him and as their fingers grazed, felt a shiver run down her spine. With that, he dropped the box, spun around, and Linda watched his taunt calves retreat down Madison Avenue. Since then, Linda had purchased two pasta makers, twelve cans of pinto beans, one dish caddy, one meditative CD for anxiety-ridden dogs, four storage boxes, and sixteen cocktail glasses of varying sizes for when she eventually plucked up the courage to invite Jason over for a drink. The days she awaited Jason were always the most thrilling. She would curl her hair and apply a thick coat of mascara; sometimes she would paint her lips, not that he would ever see them. Even her daughter’s incessant chirping on the phone became more bearable when she knew that Jason was making his rounds. One sunny Saturday afternoon, after her usual primping and pruning, Linda made herself a Martini and a plan: today was the day she invited Jason in. She was awaiting a bird feeder to hang on her balcony and was hoping that he might, say, give her a hand. At 2:00 PM she rouged her cheeks. At 3:00 PM she changed her clothes. At 4:00 PM she poured herself another drink. At 5:15 PM there was a knock on the door. Gathering her strength, Linda straightened her dress and went to the door. It was Richard. “I brought you the paper” he muttered, as he registered her notable disappointment. Linda studied him, weary in his creased blue shirt and pants in dire need of an ironing, his warm green eyes strained from yet another day of virtual learning. “Drink?” she asked.
II : RACHEL Sunday, May 17, 2020 Dear Diary, Calling you a journal seems pedantic. 58 days have passed since I’ve been stranded in my teenage nightmare and reclaimed you from storage. I thought I’d left this godforsaken hellscape of co-ops and picket fences behind when I moved away. Instead, here I am, listening to Radiohead and drinking vodka with blue gatorade. I’m so bored I could scream. Friday, May 29, 2020 Dear Diary, Please God let me kiss the face off a stranger. I miss bad dates. I miss going out without a plan, somehow ending up at a plastic surgeon’s duplex in Williamsburg and stealing all of his fancy little soaps. I miss going to a dive bar downtown and making out with all my friends. Sometimes I’ll greet hasidic teens in my building and watch their mothers squirm, just for kicks. Wednesday, June 3, 2020 Dear Diary, Do you believe in love at first sight? Of course not, you’re a diary. Haha. (Who AM I.) There’s this guy in my building that walks his dog every night around 10. Maybe he’s just a man between the ages of 18 and 80, but maybe he’s my soulmate? There is a PALPABLE tension between us. He’s tall-ish, blue eyes maybe? I think I love him. Monday, June 8, 2020 Dear Diary, Still bored and unemployed. My mom’s started to get suspicious about my sudden interest in the dog. I was waiting in the lobby for the elevator the other day and Hot Dad — as I have come to know him — was waiting for the elevator holding his puppy in one arm and his daughter in the other with a Frozen backpack slung across his shoulder. An elderly woman stood between us and offered to let me ahead, so I could ride with my husband. “Yes!” I almost shouted, “Take me into your simple charmed life!” Instead I stumbled over my words and I’m almost certain that he smiled at me.
Monday, June 15, 2020 Dear Diary, 87 days in. How long were Romeo and Juliet together before she killed herself? All I can think about is the mystery of Hot Dad’s face. The shape of his lips, his nose, his cupid’s bow... I saw the phantom of dimples beneath his mask last night. How do I make clear to him that we are meant to be? Wednesday, June 17, 2020 “Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.” Saturday, June 20, 2020 Dear Diary, I met a boy! We crossed paths at the farmer’s market and were wearing the same face masks! It’s fate! …Or our mothers both shop at the Gap. Outdoor dining is meant to reopen on Monday so I might take the 1 down and meet Ben and Lila for drinks at Bistro les Amis, maybe invite Farmer’s Market Boy? Monday, June 22, 2020 I want to flirt with everybody. Down with capitalism, down with the modern workforce. LIBERTÉ, EGALITÉ, DRAGUER!
III. Ollie In medieval France, women were told that they would be poked with a hot poker in hell for every hair they epilated, at least according to my dog-eared copy of Horrible Histories France. I hope a similar fate awaits Nadeem for every time he munches on a crisp with his mouth open. Isn’t it intriguing how quickly desire mutates to disgust? Just 8 weeks ago I lapped at his feet, worshipped each of his syllables. Now I watch his openmouthed chewing and fantasize about hot pokers in hell. He’s lovely to look at really. We met at the pub next door and I drowned in his deep, brown eyes as he told me about the play he had started writing in lockdown. Of course, now I know it’s utter garbage, but then I thought, brilliant, an artist, a sensitive soul. He was a neo-Marxist and loved the existentialists: Sartre, Arendt, and Dostoyevsky. We fucked with abandon and when the third lockdown hit decided to hole up together. I thought we’d write love sonnets and trace every outline of the other’s limbs. Instead I sit here silently fuming while he watches Love Island 2019, his pandemic discovery, and leaves a trail of Walkers on the couch.
Hell is other people.
Front cover art by Talia Clarick For ideas about future issues and collaborations, please get in touch with us at info.u.zine@gmail.com- we would love to hear from you. Thanks for reading!! <3