Tell Me a Lie

by Brianna Flores

"I know it's not real. I––you don't have to mean it. Just think of it as a lie. Please? Just tell me a lie, and I'm yours."

It’s not that I’m sad. I’m not. I’ve been sad before. I’ve been agonized before. I’ve had times where I’ve screamed and cried and hurt myself. This is easier. It’s better. Mostly, it’s nothing. Just a lot of blankness. A hollowness that feels both empty and somehow like it fills me to the brim. I’m alone a lot.

It’s so fucking cute, and isn’t that just disgusting? I’m thirty-five years old and completely enamored with this barely legal kid. Cute isn’t an adjective that I use a lot, but I look at him, and I swear I just want to barrel into him, sweep him into my arms, and fucking squeeze. Cute aggression is real, and it’s maddening.

He has his bottom lip trapped between his teeth as he stares at me, his eyes begging me to, what, comfort him? I can do that. I want to do that.

He gives me a tiny smile, so fucking sadly sweet that I instantly know there’s no hope for me. I am obsessed with him, and there’s no way that’s changing anytime soon.

His very presence seems to erase parts of my brain. I forget to speak. Sometimes, I forget to breathe normally. I always thought that that was an exaggeration used in silly little romance books. They released a breath they didn’t know they were holding, blah, blah, blah, but no. It happens. I do it regularly.

I have to tell my hole to behave. It won’t stop clenching. Empty is a feeling that I’m familiar with, but my butt is new to it. I feel bad for it. For my butt.

There’s a difference between the feeling of loneliness when you’re not really by yourself and actually being all alone, though.

You don’t become the kind of person who goes to gay bars to find a stranger just to ask him to tell you he loves you without getting acquainted with the feeling of being unloved. That’s not normal. I’m not normal. I just want someone to want me. To want to keep me. To be sad when I disappear, not relieved.

I don’t mind telling him that I love him, lying to him. Mostly because I’m not all that sure that it is a lie.

"I feel like it’s looking at me." I blink at Sage’s bleary face, find his eyes open and squinting at my dick that is standing at attention under the sheet, pointing straight up. "Menacingly."

He’s mumbling half-thought-out worships about my big dick but also just about me. Total bullshit about how I’m perfect and beautiful, how he swears nobody else even exists for him. Like, maybe I’m not the only one obsessed in this relationship.

He’s got me all kinds of fucked up. It’s absurd how cute I think this admonishment is. His hole is sloppy and sore. I did that, and now he’s scolding me for being too rough? Adorable.

I'll be your slutty baby, but I'm not a slut."