Chapter 2

Your name is James, and you’re dead. On the third day after your death, your family is overwhelmed—not only do they have to clean up the wretched needles, pill bottles, and sex toys in your apartment, but they also have to arrange your damn funeral.

Your mother encounters a minor hiccup while handling your death certificate. When asked about your profession, her face stiffens like a mummy’s, pausing awkwardly before she says, “My son was a model, um, a freelancer.”

If you could hear the word “model,” you’d burst into uncontrollable laughter. When you were alive, you often heard young gay porn stars self-righteously declare, “I’m a model, an actor, and I truly enjoy sex. That’s why I willingly chose porn as my career. It’s a great platform for me.” They’d pile on adverbs to emphasize their point.

Your usual snarky internal response: What? A career platform? A platform for spreading your legs and becoming the best male whore? Give me a break—you’re just a fame-hungry slut. But what usually came out of your mouth was: That’s cool. Then, you’d smoothly change the subject as if nothing happened.

You never used “I’m a model” as a flimsy excuse to barely maintain your dignity. The moment you started exposing your most private parts for cash, you knew exactly what you were—a gay porn star who moonlighted as an escort to make ends meet. Your dick, your asshole, your body—they were your tools for survival.

Now that you’re dead, you’ve lost the ability to speak. Your mother has draped a thin, translucent veil over the identity your entire family avoids mentioning, tactfully preserving everyone’s dignity—including yours. But she shouldn’t expect gratitude from you. The false pretense infuriates you, but now that you no longer breathe, you can’t tear it off in a rage. You wish you could come back to life, write a proper will demanding your family clarify your profession—male prostitute, sex worker, adult film actor—not some goddamn model. Then, you’d let your ex-boyfriend kill you all over again.

The female clerk glances at your age and sighs, “He was so young, what a shame.” She says you were young. But you wish she knew—thirty is already considered old and ugly in the cruel, bitch-infested gay porn industry.

Your mother replies hoarsely, “He was always the prettier one of my twins. They looked so much alike, but he was always the one who acted the cutest.” And the most depraved, the most debauched one was also you.

“May he rest in peace,” she says. May you rest in peace.

Your father, who emailed you two weeks ago accusing you of “never doing anything for this family,” is now tossing the pump-action lube, enema hose, and electric shaver from your bathroom into a giant black trash bag. Of course, the bag also contains vibrators of various sizes, colors, and frequencies; white plastic bottles of pills designed to heighten your excitement; and a few boxes of ultra-thin condoms sized for you or your ex-boyfriend. The photo of you on the nightstand, frozen in a smile, silently watches your iron-gray-haired father until he swipes the frame to the floor.

Eight years ago, your father screamed at you that he wouldn’t waste another ounce of concern on trash like you. That’s right—he called you trash.

Now, he’s in your home, wearing sanitized rubber gloves, handling everything related to gay anal sex. He can’t fathom why his tall, handsome son wanted to be another man’s whore. He’s cleaning up your mess—and you. Still, you hope he’ll feel slightly better when he sees the meager sum you left behind, barely qualifying as an inheritance. You didn’t do nothing for this family.

Your twin brother Jon tells your wheelchair-bound grandmother with dementia in the nursing home, “James is dead.”

Your grandmother’s yellowed eyes well up with tears so clear they make her dull irises look like murky moons. She wipes her wrinkled hand across her face and sobs, “How tragic.” Then, after a long silence, she asks, “But… who is James?” Who are you?

Your ex-boyfriend receives a condolence call from Zoe, your mutual female friend—the last girlfriend from your “straight” days. She cries hysterically on the phone while encouraging your ex to stay strong. Nothing could be more fucked up. Your ex’s stubborn defense against tears finally collapses, but he clenches his jaw, refusing to make a sound. You just wish Zoe would shut her damn mouth so the two of them would end this godforsaken call.

Though Zoe’s emotional outbursts often left you exasperated, you have to admit—you loved her. Not just because she was the first witness to your inevitable coming out, but because she was one of your closest female friends.

Back when you were dating—the kind of thirsty teenage romance every adolescent craves—you worked part-time at an adult store, hoping to escape the high school life you’d squandered in a haze. Your boss gave you your first damn dildo—a replica of bisexual porn star Ryan Idol’s cock. Pointing at the handsome face with its ’90s aesthetic on the plastic packaging, your boss told you Ryan was a beautiful bad boy who’d kill someone someday. You asked why he thought that. “I just do,” your boss said. “Either himself or someone else—he’s already insane.”

You inexplicably took the absurd gift home, originally intending to give it to your then-girlfriend Zoe as a gag Christmas present. But instead, you found yourself using it, driven by the image of the murderous bad boy on the packaging.

Later, when having sex with Zoe, you’d catch yourself imagining her hips as a construction worker’s ass—yet even then, you couldn’t reach climax smoothly. Something always blocked you from the peak, like eating food into someone else’s stomach. You’d fake an orgasm, discreetly dispose of the condom, and absentmindedly lull your exhausted girlfriend to sleep. Then, unsatisfied, you’d return home, turn on the desk lamp, and spread your legs on the wooden table. If your family had barged in, they’d have seen their delinquent son—or the high school heartthrob—gripping a slick dildo, pounding his own asshole like a pile driver.

Thankfully, you always remembered to lock the door, so your shameful masturbation sessions never got exposed. But your mother did find your well-used, uh, toy while cleaning your room. You don’t want to imagine her expression, but you know it was moved from under your pillow to a cardboard box beneath the bed. You waited for her to confront you, even rehearsing smooth lies—but she never asked. That silence haunted you until death.

Even as you enjoyed playing with your asshole, you never saw using a fake toy as deviant behavior. A meteorite pierces Mercury’s thin atmosphere, striking its charcoal-gray surface, followed by countless others; the Rocky Mountains were once shallow seabeds, enduring rock compression, glacial erosion, and occasional volcanic eruptions; the 400-foot Lighthouse of Pharos once stood at the island’s edge, surrounded by sea, its massive square base clinging to the steep cliffs—yet when tsunamis came, even its steadfast light trembled before the waves. In short, you saw nothing abnormal. You were still the flirtatious guy who only slept with women—the straight you.

Until one day, lying in bed masturbating, you desperately swallowed the entire dildo, fucking yourself like a madman. A kilometer-wide asteroid tears through the atmosphere with demonic arrogance, slamming into Mercury; tectonic plates collide with divine force, thrusting the shallow sea into towering mountains; three catastrophic earthquakes strike—first Poseidon’s bronze statue sinks, then the corroded inscribed walls, and finally, the lighthouse trembles, shedding stones before a dark wave engulfs its foundation.

Your mind spirals into chaos, flickering with phantom images of male body parts. After three exhausting orgasms, your entire body convulses hysterically—and in that moment, you realize your disaster. The scar on Mercury’s lonely surface is called the “Caloris Basin,” though you can never remember its name. You do recall the “Laramide orogeny” that raised the seabed, and you once guessed the Richter magnitudes of the three quakes that destroyed the lighthouse. You believe every consequence deserves a name—and yours is “Three Orgasms from a Fake Dick.” You tell yourself: You’re done, James. You’re gay.

After a few stunned seconds, you burst into tears.

Then you confess to Zoe, break up, and become best friends. With her support, you come out as gay. You’re still popular.

But you deeply regret that masturbatory sexual awakening. You wish you’d told yourself, “James, you’re disgusting! Stop.” Then boxed up the “gift for your girlfriend” and burned it. Maybe your life would’ve been different. Or—maybe you wouldn’t be fucking dead?