I meet Beast on an app. This is the way most things happen. 

I am 24 

My dad is dead 

In theory, it should be difficult to care about dating 

But in practice, it’s difficult to think about anything else

Beast is handsome. He’s shorter than I expect, but the longer I am alone, the less I care. We get drinks, and Beast beats me at pinball. I am supposed to be impressed that he is a Harvard Grad. He is supposed to be impressed that I am published. 

None of this matters. 

Recently, I have been told I am not adequately vulnerable with the men I take an

interest in. I believe this is because the inside of my chest is like a Tupperware at

the back of the fridge. I have no idea what could be rotting inside, but regardless,

I would never inflict that punishing mystery on a guest. 

So it should come as no surprise that I do not tell him 

What I cannot stop thinking about

How soon is too soon to start going on dates again? I asked my therapist in that first,

suffocating week. Well, she said, the fact that you’re asking is its

own kind of answer. 

Beast invites me to his apartment, even after I tell him that I do not want to have sex. I mistake this as a good sign rather than an indication he believes he can change my mind. 

I think I want to kiss Beast, maybe fool around with our clothes on. 

The truth is, I want to treat him like a vibrator, a thing I can pick up and put

down as I please –something I can dial back if it gets too intense. 

Beast’s apartment is violently manicured. I have forgotten that he is 28. He is a Man who must have a Man apartment. He has glassware and something he describes as a “bespoke arcade game” in his living room. All of the books on his shelves have cracked spines. 

We haven’t been talking ten minutes before his tongue is in my mouth. 

Beast growls when he kisses me. Men do this, I’ve noticed. I wonder if it is

intentional, or whether this is just how creatures sound when they are eating. 

We knock over a table, shattering a potted plant and peppering his white carpet with dirt. 

I wish I could say this was a result of our passion, but the fault lies in an

unsteady table propped too close to the couch. 

Beast sweeps up the terra cotta fragments, and it is forgotten. 

I should 

but do not 

take this for a sign

that he is comfortable with breaking things. 

There is a mirror in the bedroom. I watch my dead face, and I think about writing this while Beast bites into my throat like a tick. I think about this line, think about writing how I am thinking about writing. Dissociation after dissociation. 

What must it feel like to fuck and to want to be there? 

Beast wraps his hands around my throat 

squeezes 

I pull back, his hands still around me, and tell him that I am not into breath play. 

His thumb is on my pulse 

I wonder whether he can feel that I am terrified 

Whether this 

is what turns him on 

He releases. Thanks me for telling him. 

I know this is the thing boys are supposed to say. 

This means he is a good boy. 

He’ll only choke me if I want it.

If I let him 

But my pulse never slows. 

Because another way to look at this is that I have asked him 

to stop miming the act of killing me.

He has thanked me for 

begging for my life. 

We relax into a cuddling kiss 

despite the fact that we have now made explicit our roles as predator and prey. 

Beast’s skin is so warm. I want to curl closer, to fall asleep in this stranger’s arms. But I can’t. I haven’t paid the price. 

How long has it been since I was held by another person? Surely people 

hugged me when my father died, but it didn’t register. I scrabbled against 

those bodies like I was grasping at buoyant debris in an endless flood. 

As he pulls his pants back on, Beast asks me to text him when I get home. I leave his apartment as the last stragglers flee Dodgers Stadium. 

It wasn’t until a few weeks after my dad died that I was able to name a new, profound sadness

that sat beside my grief. Now, there is no man to whom I will not have to give some part of

myself to be loved. 

I text Beast when I make it home. He never replies.

Oh well. Maybe if I had let him choke me.