nathan’s Reviews > Tramps Like Us: A Novel > Status Update
nathan
is 36% done
The dance floor was jammed with shoulder-to-shoulder men. Someone stuck a bottle of poppers under my nose. I inhaled the pungent fumes and felt the exhilarating rush temporarily overwhelm me. Someone was always handing me a drink. We danced and danced. Between being with my friends, being so high, and being surrounded by so many sexy men, I felt like this was the closest thing to heaven I’d ever experienced.
— May 15, 2025 03:40PM
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nathan’s Previous Updates
nathan
is 97% done
One night during my early New York days, Eileen, Dennis Cooper, and Roberto Bedoya did a poetry reading at a bar in Brooklyn. I had a copy of Not Me, Eileen’s new book of poetry. I knew Dennis from a reading he did in San Francisco. He was the first writer I’d ever heard who wrote about things I could relate to: Boyfriends. Getting high and feeling stupid. New Wave music.
— May 15, 2025 03:49PM
nathan
is 96% done
I’d always wanted to move to New York, but Los Angeles was okay. I didn’t hate it the way most people do in Northern California. It was a way out. I decided almost overnight that I would go down there.
— May 15, 2025 03:48PM
nathan
is 93% done
Except it was never one token. It was usually three to five dollars’ worth of tokens. I didn’t want to miss anything in any of those fourteen movies. I wouldn’t jerk off in the booths, though. I just spaced out with my thumb pushing the channel button until finally I had absorbed so many penetration and come shots, both straight and gay, that I couldn’t soak up anymore. Then I would leave.
— May 15, 2025 03:48PM
nathan
is 93% done
It was 1986 in San Francisco and to me sex equaled death. My sex life consisted of getting really high on speed and then going to the peep shows at the corner of Geary and Polk, sitting in a little video booth and pushing the channel selector button over and over to see fourteen different porno movies for the price of one twenty-five cent token.
— May 15, 2025 03:47PM
nathan
is 91% done
I fell in love if sex was still good the third time. Doug fell in love if it was still romantic the third time. To him sex was secondary.
— May 15, 2025 03:47PM
nathan
is 90% done
When we were going through his things James and I felt Felipe leave us, like something went out of both of us, out the top of our heads. We looked at each other and knew. It seemed like Felipe’s spirit had come into the room to check on us for one last sweeping good-bye. We got a call from Felipe’s dad about 11:00 p.m. James talked to him. He said Felipe had died.
— May 15, 2025 03:47PM
nathan
is 90% done
After all, hadn’t Felipe told me that his grandmother thought I brought a demon into their house when we went to Mexico and his cousin got drunk with me? Then I thought about it more and figured she was probably in shock.
— May 15, 2025 03:46PM
nathan
is 90% done
I gave Felipe’s mother a hug when I left Felipe’s room. She gave me a half-hearted hug back. At first when she hugged me like that, or didn’t really hug me, I felt like she must be thinking it was my fault that Felipe caught AIDS. I was the bad influence.
— May 15, 2025 03:46PM
