John 32

Click Here to Get Started

By Nelson Chukwu John

1.

You are a 37-year-old man whose index finger reacts badly to honey. You are a 37-year-old man who just signed up for an escort service, of course as a patron. At first, you refuse to use your picture, Grindr and Manjam have put you off these dutifully revealing spaces with the thin anonymity they provide, but the agency requires it before you can continue with your registration. You pull up something from a wedding you were at some months ago. In it, you are standing outside a conference hall, in a blue, fashionable double-breasted senator, with a strained smile. Dopey, you think. This one will make them think I am desperate. You pull up another one from a lazy day at the office; you'd asked a co-worker to take a picture of your new shirt, in it you are reclining in your desk chair, staring out like you're at the very precipice of boredom. They won't think I care too much.

In the tab that asks you who you're looking to be connected with, you pick men. In the tab that asks you the kind of gay you are you pick bear, masc, daddy.

2.

You are a 37-year-old man whose left hand reacts badly to cotton and you have just signed up for an escort service. Your profile picture is you in a speedo, thin veiny thighs, long, gently muscled arms. In the tab that wants to know what type of service user you are, you pick sugar baby. Once at a bar a friend wanted to know if you still have a job. You pick patron. You told the friend freelance jobs still keep you up. You pick sugar baby. The friend asks if you'll like another drink, and comments kindly on your jacket. You scroll down to the tab that allows you to be both a patron and a sugar baby, a premium feature. After you pay for it, you wonder what you'd look like beside boys who wear speedos with the unflinching flamboyance of youth. We know which side of the app you'll often visit, whose message you will respond to and which you will ignore, we know how long you will spend tweaking your filter, daddy, glucose, patron, caregiver, we know you'll come to change your bio simply to 30+ only, please.

3.

You are a 34-year-old man whose left index numbs out when you're drunk. You are a 34-year-old man who spends days thinking about the escort service you should sign up for. But you like simple things, you tell yourself. I will go to Freedom park and find him amongst those artsy people. The theatrics of apps unnerve you, spoil you in the singular, unrounding image they demand of your person. I will have a late lunch at The Place and he'll serve me a wrong order, then he'll have to take it back and somehow we get talking. Everything is a performance. I'll offer him a ride when he waits for a bus going to Lekki at Obalende.

4.

You are a 34-year-old man whose left index numbs out when you're drunk. You are drunk and this turns your fears into a badly shifted bone, jutting. Your breath catches over as you imagine talking to the boys on the app. You bristle at the necessary theatrics of establishing trust. You are anxious about the ways you might fail to convince these boys of the image they've built of you. In the box that asks you what you like to do, you write walking, driving, quiet Saturdays reading the newspaper in my garden, gardening, floral archiving, history trips, working. These are less true, you could almost be all of these things if you bothered hard enough.

5.

You are a 42-year-old man whose right thumb swells when you are anxious. You are anxious. The app wants to know if you agree with its most important term which is to pay your escort half of their requested amount before going out on a date with them. You yes the empty grey box below it. In the tab that wants to know if you want the app to help sort escorts especially for you, to help you speak to the escorts if you like them, and to even plan a date for the both of you, Xtra feature for busy Daddies. Again, you yes the empty grey box. In the tab that wants to know when you want the service to start, you set it for the next three months.

6.

You are a 42-year-old man whose right thumb swells when it gets stuck in a crack or gets stomped on or stays bent over your phone's screen for too long. You have just spent 12 minutes signing up for an escort service. Every Saturday evening, for three months now, you pick a new chore in your wife's old room. Folding already squared clothes. The smallest drawer goes under the window. You change the lock on her wardrobe. The app wants to know if you agree with its most important term which is to pay your escort half of their requested amount before going out on a date with them. You yes the empty yellow box below it. You trimmed off the frills of the curtains, packed them all together into one of her old jewellery boxes, and kept it in the drawer. This is where you keep all her pictures too. All your small, conciliatory gifts she never wore. In the tab that wants to know when you want the service to start, you set it for the next hour. Once in a while, you open the box, pick out a frill, a fat yellow thread and place it randomly, on the page of one of her books. You pick the first person the service suggests. His pictures promise a moderately fleshy tautness, his smile tucked in behind an unquantifiable playfulness. His black eyes are withdrawn, his chin soft, he has a nose ring, tiny sharp points around its outer body, silver, silver, silver.

You read some of her books sometimes. They don't reveal anything about who she wasn’t. You read them at work, in the conference room mostly, with the caseless lighting, the muted windows. You read them before going to bed. While you clean her room. Before dinner. When you find the time. But often before something. Like the trip to the mall. The boy hugs you when you offer him your hand. He smells of a tangy sweetness you know, as with cheap perfumes, will turn sour and ugly later in the day. His teeth are startlingly bright, he smiles through the questions you ask. You changed the rug once, touched up the bathroom tiles thrice, the windows stayed shut while you worked. In the mall where you meet, where the lights sink hungrily into the boy's hair, dyed pink, you'll realize he is a sun. You don't know what you are, but whatever it is, you cannot come close to dimming him. You'll burn, you'll burn, you want to get burnt.

7.

You are a 47-year-old man.

8.

You are a 28-year-old man whose body shocks even you who wear it. You are a 28-year-old man who signs up for an escort service. In the tab that asks you what you are looking for you don’t see any options for big, fat, space-occupying. But you see bear, daddy, need. You are a 28-year-old man whose body, taut, firm, often shocks the people you like, people whose body, loose, abundant, also shocks them who wear it.

9.

You are a 28-year-old man whose body had no conceptualization until you turned 22. You couldn’t describe your body to anyone and you couldn’t explain to yourself what people might like about it. You signed up for an escort service when you turned 21. In the tab that asks you to describe your body, you add thin, lean, veins pop out in some places, flesh lies awake—wait, where? When the 28-year-olds and the 40-year-olds ask you to tell them how much ass you have, you tell them you don’t know. You hardly had anything to draw comparisons with. You hardly knew how to measure their thirst. They hardly knew how to measure their thirst.

10.

You are a 27-year-old man whose body is stuck in a loop of remembering. When you were 21 you downloaded Grindr for the first time and you meet a man who refuses to tell you how old he is. He picks you up in an old but stately jeep. He takes you to a seaside bistro in Lekki, fish sauce, asun, prawns in spicy jollof rice. He drives you home afterwards and then he asks you to hold him. Just hold him, watch him sleep, we don’t have to do anything, would you rather talk instead, is there something you’d like to talk about, should we watch something, should we sit in my garden, do you enjoy freshly squeezed pineapple, we genuinely don’t have to do anything. You are a 21-year-old and my god, that fucked you up.

11.

You are a 27-year-old man whose body is sitting in a long line of upendings. Of quietly agreed atrocities. Of I was old enough and I am fine, but my body is always breaking at the sight of touch I didn’t ask for. You are a 27-year-old whose body often forgets you were once 23 trying to raze yourself to the ground.

12.

Whose body often forgets you were once 22 and couldn’t imagine gentleness. Whose body often forgets you were 21 and couldn’t say no, very loudly, very honestly, wasn’t this the only way to find how to be found? Whose body often forgets you were 24 and tried no for a bit and found closed doors and askew punishment and Nawa for you o, I thought you said you were a freak.

13.

You are a 23-year-old man and a 37-year-old and a 44-year-old and a 27-year-old and you really can’t figure out why the fuck your body won’t listen to you.

Nelson Chukwu John is a Nigerian writer and curator. His works of fiction have appeared in Isele Magazine, Brittle Paper, Ambit Magazine and other places.