Read More: A brief Q&A with Kashawn Taylor
Never has hookup culture been my beat. Some people have the testicular fortitude that allows them to have casual sex with any willing body; I, however, do not.
There is a perceived promiscuity unfairly and stereotypically applied to the LGBTQIA+ community, and that was a narrative from which I wanted to be excluded. While my friends were having sex in movie theaters and sucking dick in the backseats of rusty Corollas and Hondas older than they were, I was in my room playing PlayStation and jerking off. Probably both at the same time.
Other peoples’ ability to have sex with strangers fascinated me. It was like an open-secret club to which I sometimes received invitations, but always declined, not without a fiery pang of curiosity. What if?
When I was in high school, a friend I met on Myspace used to hang up the phone to rendezvous with men he’d solicited on Craigslist. With excitement, he’d promise to call me back, and after the pipes were sufficiently drained, he’d ring me with all salacious deets. Vicarious random sex through my friends quelled my own curiosities.
My excuse wasn’t prudence; I did have a healthy sex life. The people with whom I had sex, however, were my friends mostly, people I knew on an intimate level. My reason against random hookups was pure, unadulterated fear. Fear of STIs. On my Big of List of Fears STIs of any kind came in fourth after birds, getting fat, and my grandmother dying – in that order. Thus, the people I had sex with were people I knew – or desperately hoped – wouldn’t plague my penis with festering pustules and shrivel my balls to resemble something like dried grapes.
I doled out rejections like they were cheap, chalky candy to people on “dating” apps like Grindr and Tinder. Several people have blocked me after meeting in person and refusing to engage in some type of sex act, though I made my intentions explicitly clear. Some people thought they could convince me, but when my mind is made up, I am like mama bear defending its young. My convictions are my babies. I’m sure I missed out on great sex, funny stories, maybe even stellar friends. I could have used condoms, sure, but I’d broken enough too easily not be wary of love-gloves, and in my opinion, nobody else seemed wary enough.
Another day with my mini-me intact was, and forever will be, the ultimate win in my book.
A few months before starting my prison sentence (this, however, is not the story of my incarceration), my friend Leo thought it’d be a spectacular idea to introduce me to his friend Stan. Leo knew Stan from high and in the years since had remained in touch. For weeks Leo said things like You’ll get along so well and You two are so alike, you’re like the same person until one night, while sitting in his car outside my house, he called Stan.
When he said we’d get along I should have known what he meant, because, when arguing with his girlfriend, he’d say “Kashawn’s a Sagittarius, too, and he’s ho! You must be one!”
Regardless of Leo’s flawed logic, he turned out to be, at least, partially correct. Maybe it was because I was cocaine-horny or a case of the I’m-going-to-prison Fuckits. Whatever the reason, Stan and I hit it off initially.
He was a pudgy type 2 diabetic, with shoulder length blonde sandy blonde hair which was bleached lighter, and an explosive clingy personality best consumed in bite-sized portions. It was like Velcro on Velcro. I, however, am like a bull and run headfirst into red flags.
We added each other on Snapchat and sexted the night away. I saw no harm in a little fun. Besides, Stan lived in Pennsylvania, while I resided in the Nutmeg State, and he’d made clear his ostensibly concrete plan to move to Florida with an ex-boyfriend. If anything, I’d end the night with a nut and – maybe! – a new long-distance friend.
For the next three days, Stan and I bantered over texts and chatted on the phone. The prospect of prison depressed me, and his intense interest in me set off in my brain the release of much-needed happy chemicals. I was his personal celebrity and he my enamored fan. He was obsessed, which was what I thought I wanted, and I showered him with attention from a safe and reasonable distance of several hundred miles.
On the fourth day Stan called me.
“Guess what?” he said in a lilting, singsong Valley Girl cadence. Before I could hazard a guess: “I moved back to Connecticut. Don’t tell Leo, I wanna surprise him.”
My jaw dropped. I damn near dropped my phone along with it. “What?” The monosyllable escaped sharply, propelled from my tongue like a bullet from a gun, by a meld of shock and horror. In a weak attempt to hide my terrified astonishment, I asked, “What happened to Florida?”
“Well,” said Stan, “since my family is out here, I thought I’d have a better support system. And of course, there’re you and Leo, my friends. I can’t wait to see you guys. I’m so excited! Aren’t you so excited? Where do you work again? I want to visit you.”
Rendered mute by this terrible turn of events, I breathed heavily into the phone.
“Kashawn?”
“Sorry,” I said, “this is all so… exciting.” Hoping that forty-five minutes worth of highway between our two cities would be insurmountable, I gave him my place of employment and schedule. I went to sleep that night praying to anyone and anything with the power to stop this visit. My sleep was restless and plagued with bad dreams.
My prayers remained unanswered, and two days later Stan walked into the lobby of the Wendy’s I’d gone back to before incarceration. Apparently, a felony trumps a master’s degree.
Wearing too-tight cheetah print pants and a cropped screaming-blue t-shirt from the bottom of which spilled his paunch, and carrying his bags like he was ready to move in between the grill and the fryers, he pranced to the counter. We exchanged pleasantries and a stiff hug, because in situations like those I am as awkward as a cheating spouse caught in bed with two extramarital lovers. Between orders I tried to entertain him in the lobby until my break, which came three hours after his arrival.
Before I clocked out for break Fenix, my six-foot curly-haired, nonbiological work-son, pulled me aside. “Why’s he still here? Are you gonna hang out with him on break? You probably should.”
Considering this sage advice from someone almost half my age, I realized my plan to sneak out on break unnoticed would surely fail. I, too, had obsessed over a person, or four, in my life, and noticing the object of your obsession’s movements, even in your periphery, occurred instinctually, like the urge to walk a little faster at night for fear someone might emerge from the shadows and ask to bum a cigarette.
“I don’t think he has anywhere else to go.” An abridged version of the events leading up to that moment followed. “So, basically I fanned his stalker flames and now my house is on fire.”
“What?” Fenix’s dark locks obscured his face as he looked down on me.
“Nothing. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I’m going to let him down easy.”
Armed with a modicum of confidence and a heart full of conviction, I headed into the lobby. Thirty minutes later I returned to understandably curious looks from Fenix and other coworkers who’d caught wind of my predicament.
“So?”
“His ex-boyfriend sent him money for a hotel room. I’m supposed to go there after work.” […]
Subscribers can read the full version by logging in. |
___________________________________
Kashawn Taylor is Black, queer writer based in CT. He holds a BA in English and Psychology and an MA in English and Creative Writing. His work has appeared or will appear in such journals and magazines as the Indiana Review, Prison Journalism Project, Poetry Magazine, The Offing, Miracle Monocle, The Shore Poetry, and more. A full-length collection of “prison poetry” titled subhuman is forthcoming from Wayfarer Books in March 2025. Follow him on Instagram: @kashawn.writes for updates.
Read More: A brief Q&A with Kashawn Taylor