So Sad Today by Melissa Broder Read Free Book Online

I would be taking a nap until he got there.
Sleep, sleep in my heroin
, he said, meaning sleep in the anticipation. I said that I was having a stomachache and could he bring me some Pepto. I think it was the only thing he ever bought for me. I still have the Pepto tablets. To me, they still seem romantic: pink, cherry flavor. To me they look like tiny valentines.
    That night I had my first anal sex. It was tender, nothing like I had seen in porn. I felt like we were a pair of twins sharing a womb, two DNA strands, two genderless humans. I felt that I was a virgin again. He ate my pussy as he always did, as it was our foundation of sorts. He licked my ass too. He put one finger in my ass, then two, then three. He really knew what to do. I really wanted it. We Frenched each other with his dick going in and out of my ass.
    Afterward, I cried—not because it hurt but because of something else. I had the feeling that a darkness was lifting. I forgot about death.
    The next day we went to go get lunch together and for the first time, we held each other’s hands outside in public. I felt so proud to be holding his hand, not only because he was physically beautiful, but because he was keeping death away. We talked about bonobos, how they are nonmonogamous and use sex to pacify all kinds of situations. Verbally I agreed that more humans should be like bonobos. But inside, I thought,
I would be monogamous with you
.
    Or maybe I did not let myself think that. Maybe I wanted him to be mine, but also wanted to continue to be married and also to fuck other men. I brought him to an event that night where I read poetry. Other men I had fucked were there. And the first time he had ever seen me, a year before, before the Internet flirtation and sexting began, it was at a poetry event like that. Bothtimes I wore black. Both times there were other men I had fucked in the room.
    On the cab ride back to the hotel, the driver put on “Stairway to Heaven.” This would have been corny except that we were able to be corny together, as that is what children do together, and so it was not corny. We made out in the cab as the cab crossed over the Williamsburg Bridge. I cried in his mouth.
    When we got back to the hotel we made love again. This time he came inside me. I said
I’m in love with you
or
I love you
. I don’t remember which. He said it back. I don’t remember which.
    love (noun)—an assurance of affection
(
Merriam-Webster
online dictionary)
    love (noun)—unselfish, loyal, and benevolent concern for the good of another
(
Merriam-Webster
online dictionary)
    love (noun)—brotherly concern for others
(
Merriam-Webster
online dictionary)
    I felt that we were moving past only fucking, into something else. Over text, I told him that sometimes the harshness of our sexts didn’t fit how I felt anymore exactly. I asked if I could tell him the truth.
    Me: when i say hardfucktalk, i’m talking about sexting i think. like, i really like it in the sheets sometimes (not like “skullfuck her till she is crying whore pig” totally degrading kind of stuff, but hot stuff). and i like it a lot in sexting too, as we do sometimes (i think we go hard sometimes and it’s great) but i guess i just mean that like once in a while i wld type something in to txt you and then be like, oh shit, that’s gonna sound too romantic, make it harder/make it funnier/don’t scare this kid.
    Him: I don’t think I’d ever be scared by something you’d send me. Send me real feelings when you want to. I want to receive them unconditionally… You’re so beautiful I want to throw a land mine into a wall of cinder blocks and paint your lips with the dust cloud. Your face is like… So Hot… Bone structure… Eyes… Lips… And your body… Is… So, God… Shockingly good… I want to kiss and lick you spiraling into a drainhole to be spat into the first human epoch in which the majority of things are good…
    That was as far as he would meet me. It was a beautiful