Chapter 6

Your name is James, and you’re dead.

In the fifth week after your death, your identical twin brother gave a portion of your ashes to Anthony. Don’t forget—not long ago, Anthony had attempted suicide because of someone. You could easily dismiss this foolish act of his as an attempt to dilute the guilt of surviving alone. But you should know that the moment Anthony opened his eyes and realized he could still see daylight, he felt fucking fantastic—like he was Pelops, resurrected after being dismembered and cooked.

On the way to Anthony’s place, your brother kept thinking, Thank God it didn’t happen, otherwise he’d have to figure out how to convince both families to bury your ashes together with Anthony’s body. The odds of that happening were about as slim as your mother successfully giving birth to identical twins.

But by the time your brother saw Anthony, he seemed to have completely forgotten the tragic scenarios he’d just imagined. Because the first thing he said upon entering was: “Are you okay? I think James would’ve wanted to leave a part of himself with you.”

How okay could a man be—one who lost his male escort lover a month ago and was dragged back from the brink of suicide by modern medicine—when faced with a man who looked just like his boyfriend, holding a paper box filled with ashes?

But given Anthony’s personality, he still said, “I don’t know. Maybe a little better than before.” Even though his expression looked like he’d been strangled by a noose dangling from the ceiling.

Then—

Your brother said, “This portion is about one-tenth of the total ashes. Not enough to make a synthetic diamond.”

Your brother said, “Because I was so miserable the other day, I drank a little too much. At the time, only James’ ashes were there with me.”

Your brother said, “I’m not an alcoholic anymore, but that night I drank so much my temples were throbbing, and I wanted to find some other kind of fun. So I snorted James’ ashes like they were heroin. I swear, I didn’t feel even a hint of euphoria.”

What he should’ve sworn was that Anthony could tell this was a goddamn joke straight out of your darkly humorous personality. If you hadn’t been reduced to a pile of white bone fragments, you would’ve laughed your ass off at this successful joke—and you never cared about the discomfort of the punchline’s recipient.

But Anthony didn’t seem to find it funny at all.

So your brother had to strip away the joke’s disguise. He said, “My father thinks he should be buried next to our grandfather. Most of him has to stay in the grave—after all, the rest of our family will eventually join him.” Join you.

When Anthony took the box containing the mixture of your skull, ribs, radius, tibia, and fibula, his thoughts were still stuck on the idea your brother had planted—do something with your ashes, turn them into jewelry or snort them up his nose.

What you need to know is this: if Anthony hadn’t missed you so much, if he hadn’t been drowning in a self-glorified sense of loss, if grief hadn’t temporarily made him selectively forget the arguments and bitterness between you two—he would’ve flushed your ashes, the only calcified remnants you left in this world, straight down the toilet.

Then, your finally silent brother opened his arms and hugged Anthony. Anthony closed his eyes, pitifully inhaling the scent on him that was so much like yours, imagining your beating heart, warm body, and steady breaths. Humans are never satisfied—after this embrace, he’d want your kiss; after the kiss, he’d want your touch. A moment of fulfillment always gives way to even harder-to-fill desires.

You were the same.

After your first awkward official date, you thought that young man would probably never contact you again.

At the time, the gay porn company you worked for was preparing to shoot a ninety-minute zombie-themed film. You were set to appear in the second and third scenes as a gay man who gets fucked into becoming a zombie and then continues spreading the zombie virus through sex across the city.

Even though you couldn’t fathom what kind of monster would get off watching blood-and-rot-covered zombies fucking each other’s asses, you still packed your things hastily and hitched a ride with your company’s VP to the “set”—a deserted suburban factory in another city.

This VP’s name was Adam, the kind of universally “let’s just be friends” nice guy. He was one of your few friends in the porn industry.

He was someone who worked hard at living—if people saw the wristband reminding him to take his meds on time every day, they’d think so too.

He was also genuinely kind, because when you first met four years ago, he’d awkwardly told you he was HIV-positive. His expression made it seem like he was Patient Zero of the AIDS virus.

You liked him well enough because he occupied a rare middle ground between the two stereotypical HIV-positive men of the ’90s—he wasn’t the type who, upon testing positive, doubled down on self-destructive hedonism out of cynicism, nor was he the type whose soul seemed purified by the virus, transforming him into a saint. He’d said he was still just an ordinary person—a lonely patient branded by the iron of homosexuality, someone desperately fighting to live long enough to see tomorrow. In a way, you two were alike.

The whole ride, he talked about the AIDS awareness cycling events he’d participated in over the past decade. He said that after each event, they managed to raise a certain amount of money, all of which went toward AIDS research.

You said, Are we staying at that same motel as last time?

He said, That money is just a drop in the bucket, but I’ll keep participating. My total cycling distance has reached two hundred thousand kilometers now.

You said, That motel was awful. There was a used condom stuck to the corner of their sheets.

He said, You could try joining the event too—do something good for the minority community while you’re still alive.

You said, Are there any fundraising events for improving sex workers’ benefits?

Sure enough, by evening, you were checked into a motel with abysmal conditions. Your real aversion to these remote little inns came from the knocking that started after dark—eighteen- or nineteen-year-old boys cautiously pushing open doors barred by chains, leaving only a crack, whispering if you needed “special services.” They were your peers—the kind who’d sunk so low they’d stand on street corners or slip into motel rooms to suck off strangers for a few bucks.

After showering, you lay there staring at the ceiling. You’d once read a story about a motel owner who built secret passages between the ceiling and roof, spying on guests through fake vents. Those well-dressed or weary travelers just wanted a place to rest in this shabby motel, but their naked desires, hidden fetishes, and private ugliness were all mercilessly observed by a “God” crouched above the ceiling.

After a while, there was a knock. A timid voice asked, “Sir, do you need any special services?”

You closed your eyes, imagining someone peering through a fake vent. Next door, your company’s VP was on the phone, his tone deliberately playful and soft—the kind of voice only women and gay men used when talking to something cute.

The footsteps outside faded. You sat up, unlatched the door, and called out to the young man in a thin blue-and-pink T-shirt, lowering your voice: “Hey, come here. I need some ‘special services.'”

When he first entered the room, he seemed nervous. He tried to flash a practiced smile, but his cheek muscles were as stiff as cobblestones.

You said, A blowjob’s enough.

So he knelt on the filthy carpet, deftly undoing your belt, unbuttoning your pants, pulling down your underwear, and rubbing your limp cock with his palm.

Adam, next door, said into the phone, Emily, Uncle misses you too.

The boy pretended to be enthralled, sticking out his tongue to take your head into his mouth, his cheeks hollowing with effort, saliva dripping from the corners of his lips to his sharp chin. You noticed the scattered needle marks on his arms.

Adam, next door, said, Emily, Uncle would love to read you a bedtime story too, but Uncle’s working right now. Yes, I love you too.

The boy strained to swallow your shaft down his throat, the pressure making him gag, his spit splattering onto your trimmed pubes. You lifted your shirt, coldly staring at the vent embedded in the ceiling’s corner.

Adam, next door, said, Emily, Uncle’s not cycling, Uncle’s working. I’ll buy you a present—there are lots of toy stores around where I’m staying.

The only things near where you were staying were a graffiti-covered abandoned factory and a bunch of boys ready to sell their asses. The young man was skinny, his arms bruised in places, his hands wrapped in pale skin, veins bulging like a tangled maze of life. Then you grabbed his dyed-blond hair and hoarsely told him to stop. You’d meant to pay cash for the chance to humiliate someone weaker, but in him, you saw the fragile self hidden beneath your muscular armor.

You pushed him away, pulled up your pants, and pulled bills from your wallet to hand to him. You said, “Kid, this line of work will ruin you.”

He wiped the saliva and your pre-cum from his mouth with his arm, stuffing the money into his jeans pocket with his other hand. “Thanks, man,” he said, though his face showed no gratitude—he looked like he couldn’t wait to spend that money on drugs to make him float away.

You grumbled, “Don’t call me ‘man,’ man.”

After he closed the door, you had to admit—you couldn’t change others, you can’t even change yourself. You were just a fucking waste.

Just as you were silently battling your imagined ceiling vent, you got an email from that young man named “Anthony,” who, right from the start, brought up his goddamn homework again.

Anthony said he really had been swamped with infuriating assignments those days—he even named his professor and the course he was taking. He said he wanted to explain because when he got home the next day, he felt like his nervous silence the day before might’ve seemed like he was brushing you off. He didn’t want you to feel unimportant. He said you were a good person, that being with you made him happy, and that he wanted to try getting to know you.

So you lay on the bed, clumsily and angrily typing a reply, ready to respond to his hints in your own way. You wrote—

My real name is James Norton. I was born in 1982 in a small hospital on Long Island, New York. I’m six foot three, 230 pounds. My hair is brown, and so are my eyes.

I have an identical twin brother—Jon—and two sisters—Danielle and Michelle.

My father—Jim—hates me. My mother—Sue—always wishes I’d cause her less trouble.

I’m blind in one eye.

I snore like a chainsaw when I sleep.

I’m incredibly insecure.

I always let people down.

I’m a thieving pirate.

I only like long-term relationships. If possible, I’d spend my whole life loving just one man.

Other than that, I’m a male prostitute. My hourly rate is at least $400. I’m also a porn actor—my minimum per-scene pay is $800. My body and my dick are my tools for survival, and that’s been the case for four or five years now. Do you still want to know me? Do you still want to know me? Do you still want to know me?

You asked Anthony: Do you still want to know me?

Though you didn’t mean to, your words made you seem not just like a deranged sex worker but also like a desperate prisoner sending out an SOS.

You figured the young man was probably scared off—his silence was your disappointment. Eight minutes later, you got his reply. He said he did still want to know you, that your job didn’t define who you were inside. So you smugly assumed he was trying to reach out and touch your gaunt, lonely soul. Eight months later, he officially became your boyfriend—the kind who’d seethe with jealousy over your “work,” if selling your body could even be called work.

After the DVD for that zombie gay porn film was released, you gave him a copy. You said, I know you won’t like watching me do those things with other people, but the day before we shot this goddamn porn, I sent you that crazy, desperate email—and you reached out to me.

Anthony lounged lazily in your arms, glanced at the explicit cover, and said, “What kind of monster gets off watching zombies fuck?”

You couldn’t help but laugh, tightening your arm around his shoulders. You thought that if it were possible, you’d spend the rest of your life loving only him. That possibility became a dramatic inevitability when Anthony held the box of your ashes.

In the end, Anthony decided to put your ashes into a custom dog tag, engraved with the handwritten love notes from your Valentine’s Day card.

At that moment, he missed you terribly.