the soft cock

a story by Rain Rainwater.

Goddamnit. I accidenally open the cruising app I’ve become so attached to for  the 3rd time in the last hour in the hopes that maybe there’s a new message from  someone my age who would want to ease into me. It doesn’t take long for the messages  to roll in for the first time in this area, but after a while, like every new area, it gets cold.  Everyone who’s displayed an ounce of interest has been contacted, left on read, or  fucked been inside me. The desperation to feel anything that soothes my aching kinks encroaches upon every last drop of my humanity. The soft cock in my hand refuses to grow. 

The boy is on again. The boy has been on ever since he got back from his summer abroad. We said we would be open for the time being and just kind of do whatever we  wanted because labels were never something he was interested in. Why have a label  when he could have any cock at any time? One day, we even saw each other on the app.  He ended up coming over like a proper hookup.  

This unfortunately wasn’t the first time that our sex felt like nothing but a  hookup. In fact. More often times than not it felt like I’m having sex with someone I met just hours before. I’ve had known him for 4 months and never could get aroused around him. I claimed that it was just performance anxiety. He didn’t mind because I’m good with my hands and mouth, but every time I hooked up with him — I started to refer to the sex I had with him as “hooking up”—the soft cock in my hand refused to grow.

I’ve resorted to texting men who are old enough to be my father while the cat I’m watching stares at the flaccid sack of skin in my hand. He wants me to stop just as much as I want myself to stop. Probably even more, so I can finally pay attention to him or actually sit down and read this 600+ page book I tell myself I’m going to get through by Monday. It’s Friday and I’ve read 100 pages. Now I sit here with Jim Croce playing and a half empty cup of water sitting next to the PrEP I will forget to take. I’ll sit in this way too nice apartment that teases me like a dream that will never come true.

Maybe in this dream my soft cock will be happy to grow and not be ashamed of itself. Maybe in this dream I won’t feel the anger that comes with disgust of this lazy appendage. I’ll be able to look at the child that raised me in the mirror and tell them that we did good together. Instead now, my red vision pulses with the soft cock in my hand. Anger flushes through me as I try and dose myself out to torsos and genitals on my screen forgetting that I have run dry.

I’ve begun to wonder if I have anywhere I can go after all of this red leaves my vision. If I can’t survive here in the world I’ve created myself, can I survive anywhere? I crafted the perfect world for the child I once knew. Now that infant’s bones have melded. The welded calcium concentrates have transformed into iron bars and the cage has been locked with no key. The iron is melting in the fire and the poor infant is choking on the intoxicating fumes. Death imminent, the infant looks up at me with sorrow in their eyes and they ask, “Was it worth it?”

I close the app.

No.

The kitten curls up on my feet.

I weep.

My soft cock no longer in my hand; it shrinks inward and disappears forever. Soft.