It is easier to ask for sex than it is to ask for a hug. I’ve had a lot of sex in the past few months, and hated myself after the consummation of each date, each walk around town after midnight, and each app conversation, each pretending to be genuine, pretending we had more to give than a night. All I wanted was a hug. I wanted badly for those fillers, those strangers with familiar names to speak beyond the bounds of low hollers and ask if I was okay when they noticed I was doing more pseudo hugging and forehead resting on neck curves than I was thrusting. I wanted each of them to hug me back. Some did, and it was like that shower I hated in that hostel in Spain when it was cold outside. The water would come within milliseconds of getting hot enough to wash off the soap residue, then turn off. I’d push the button again, but it’d start from scratch. These lovers would hug me back, raise their shirts so our bellies would connect, but those hands on my back became nails, and the thin space between our bellies thickened with the arching of their backs, and I remembered, each time this happened, why I was there.

In a small room lit for thieves and helmet head geckos, on a bed made for small-framed lovers who oblige nuzzling, nestling, and slow, close fucking, but not much movement, I left no air between me and the debauchee with no name and dilated pupils. We didn’t move much, we didn’t speak, and we showed little signs of life if anyone outside happened to be listening. It felt like we were standing on opposite ends of intemperance, wanting badly to be neighbors.