Chapter 7

Your name is James, and you’re dead.

In the first year after your death, people are forgetting you at the speed of light, but Anthony isn’t doing well, nor is your brother. You are like a festering wound across their chests—not fatal, but the lingering pain makes it impossible for them not to think of you.

On Valentine’s Day, Anthony bought a single rose from a flower shop on his way home from the gym and casually placed it in a slender-necked glass vase—right next to your photo together. That night, as usual, he went out with friends, swaying under neon lights and disco balls to the shrill, horn-like music. The powdered remains of your bones, encased in a metal dog tag, swung with his movements, as if dancing intimately with him.

As the music faded to a breathless end, a woman’s scream, tinged with tears, pierced the air. She covered her mouth with a hand painted in blood-red nail polish, her false lashes and smudged eyeliner blending into a dark mess. Her other hand trembled as she held it out, fingers slightly upturned. The man kneeling before her, though prepared, fumbled nervously as he slid the ring onto her finger, accidentally knocking off a rhinestone from her middle fingernail. Amidst the crowd’s cheers, she feigned tearful surprise while inwardly cursing herself for forgetting to apply that damned hand cream.

Everyone cheered, including Anthony. Everyone called the proposal romantic, including Anthony. Everyone crowded in for photos with the newly engaged couple, including Anthony.

If you were still alive, you’d be there too. What would you whisper in Anthony’s ear? You’d say, “This is all bullshit.”

By the time Anthony drove home, it was already dawn—prime time for drunks and drug dealers. As he left downtown, a long-haired, shirtless white man, clearly drunk, pissed against a streetlight pole. Spotting the car, the man shook his dripping dick with smug satisfaction before flipping the dark-tinted window the middle finger. His fingers were still wet with urine, but to him, only such filthy fingers could properly express his disdain for the evils of the Industrial Revolution.

Your Anthony pretended not to see—not the drunk, not the splashing piss, not the exposed genitals, and certainly not that defiant middle finger. What would you have done? You’d have laughed until your sides hurt, marveled like you’d spotted a Jurassic dinosaur, and muttered about how there were still goddamn hippies around. Then you’d have rolled down the window and shouted, “Fuck the government!”

Or maybe you’d have yelled, “Make love, not war.”

Either way, you’d have said it out loud.

Back home, Anthony first washed away the lingering scent of romance from the engagement party, then waxed his armpits and chest hair, trimmed his fingernails and toenails. Perched awkwardly on the toilet lid, he hugged one foot and carefully clipped his toenails, squinting as he filed them smooth. Even after grooming himself, sleep eluded him. So, he started packing for a trip—one scheduled for Italy five goddamn months later.

In the end, he couldn’t surrender to Hypnos. This was his first Valentine’s Day without you, and he’d planned to sleep through it. But today, you were like a ghost slipping through keyholes—everywhere. Your boyfriend pulled a magnesium-aluminum cosmetic case from the bottom of the wardrobe and entered your birthday. The metal box clicked open, revealing handwritten notes, letters, and a thick stack of photos.

He spread them across the bed, rereading words he’d memorized long ago. Memories surged over him like a tsunami. If you’d told him to be strong right then, he’d have punched you.

One card read:

“Baby. As you know, I hate holidays. They’re just rules people blindly follow, and once you conform, you become part of the calendar’s order. Valentine’s Day is the worst—a fake, pretentious ritual. Flowers and chocolates everywhere, couples acting like they only love each other on this one day. Just like how people supposedly love their moms most on Mother’s Day, even though their moms still have to clean up after their bratty kids every day. But I don’t want to miss a single chance to tell you I’ll always love you. I’m giving you just one rose because I want to seem ‘classy.'”

As you wrote that card, your mother on Long Island felt a dull ache in her molars, making her suck hard on the inside of her right cheek.

Anthony could recite every word of that passage by heart, though apart from “I’ll always love you,” he disagreed with every syllable.

As the time apart from you grew longer and longer, the anger and pain Anthony felt at first gradually faded, words describing feelings gradually fading, leaving only one word, scalding as lava, all alone at the bottom of his heart: longing.

The rose he’d bought today, resting quietly in its vase, was like a cold spray of seawater in that tsunami. A trigger for memories.

On your first Valentine’s Day together, you gave Anthony a single rose. Given your ingrained cynicism, Anthony hadn’t planned to celebrate what you called “a disgustingly commercial holiday.”

You’d been together for eleven months then, well-adjusted to each other. He’d moved into your apartment just two weeks prior, and your pair of black Labradors, after a year with you, already loved him as much as you did. In those two weeks, you’d fought—because, unsurprisingly, he still wished you’d do something else. In other words, even though he knew your penis, ass, and body were your livelihood, he hoped you’d broaden your horizons and find a job where you weren’t getting fucked.

You’d looked up from squeezing mayo onto a sandwich, slightly bewildered. Back then, Anthony was still in college, naively believing the world held infinite possibilities, blissfully unaware of unsolvable, crushing pain.

“If you’re willing to move into a tiny apartment and live off fast food, maybe I could get a job flipping burgers at Burger King,” you’d said, taking a bite. A dab of mayo stuck to your upper lip, and you licked it off instinctively. Anthony took that tiny gesture as a provocation.

Anthony wasn’t good at arguing, but when angry, his eyes reddened and his whole body trembled. With a wounded expression, he turned and stormed into the bedroom, the two dogs trotting after him, abandoning you on the chair like a wooden sculpture growing from its core.

Just then, your phone pinged with an email—work.

It was from a successful businessman you’d met years ago in the trade, inviting you as the sole escort for a corporate trip, offering not just companionship but also the chance to share beds with elite moguls. His tone made it sound like you’d won the lottery.

He said you’d fly private to a Portuguese island where these businessmen owned property. The island had fine food, wine, and scenery—all it lacked was you.

At the end, he added that the invitation came because a sixty-eight-year-old heir found your zombie porn film fascinating and because of your discretion—your whore’s professionalism.

Images flashed through your mind: a sun-drenched Southern European island, beaches lined with oiled, gleaming bodies, bank accounts suddenly swelling with digits. Yet you felt frozen, abandoned by your man and your dogs.

You deleted the email, took down the explicit photos advertising your services on the escort site, and delisted yourself.

Slipping quietly into the bedroom, you climbed onto the bed and wrapped your arms around Anthony from behind, enveloping him in your warmth. You nuzzled his earlobe, then blew teasingly into his ear. “You have to accept that I’m already ruined. I’ve been in this line of work for five years—I have no other skills. If you want to leave, now’s your chance. Otherwise, I’ll cling to you like seaweed.”

Your legs tangled around his. “Your three-second decision window starts now. I’m wrapping around you like seaweed.”

Your dogs watched silently.

You added, “The pain your possessiveness and jealousy bring you—I feel it a hundredfold. Your suffering makes me suffer more.”

And, “I just turned down a ‘big job.’ No more escorting. I can’t imagine the agony you’d go through if I woke up in someone else’s bed.”

But you still couldn’t leave the industry—unless you really applied to Burger King.

Your boyfriend compromised because you did. “But I’ll still wonder if every guy who greets you on the street has fucked you. Don’t expect me to be nice to them,” he said. Though when you first got together, he’d claimed he accepted your profession, he’d never promised to accept the people you met through work.

The next day, you called Adam, the wheezing VP, asking if there were other paths in the industry besides porn acting. Adam, mid-cycling plan, said, “If you stay in this line, by your thirties—when you’re too old for the screen—you could direct porn. You’ve got the experience, you know the process, and you can manage young actors, teach them how to be enticing on camera. Try coming to the studio next month.”

Skeptical, you told Anthony, “Still in the industry, but maybe I could direct porn.”

Anthony hugged you, saying he was proud.

For the first time, you felt a faint sense of achievement, a vague goal. You wanted to be better.

Your debut directing a gay porn film—set in a men’s bathhouse—went smoothly. Dressed professionally, seated in your director’s chair, you wrapped the shoot successfully. Adam said you did well. You weren’t entirely useless.

On the drive home from the suburban set, you realized it was Valentine’s Day. You hurried into a flower shop, bypassing lavish bouquets for a single rose.

Flowers are plant genitals. A lone one can mean “loyalty” or simply “you.”

At home, you poured your heart into a card.

It read:

“I don’t want to miss a single chance to tell you I’ll always love you.”

And neither did Anthony.