The Particularities of Their Bodies

Bryan Thomas Rice relates the pleasurable paradox of his obsessions with anonymous sex.

This is what the man from the chat room wanted:

He wanted me to park in the alley and enter his house through the kitchen door, which would be unlocked, and once inside, I would take an immediate right and find a door leading to an unfinished basement, and because there would be no light, I would need to descend the stairs slowly, very slowly, grasping the rail like a child learning to walk, and grope along the cinderblock wall until I found another door, behind which he would be laying on a sleeping bag, waiting for me in the dark.

No names, no faces: only our bodies. Total anonymity. 

He explained that he taught biology at the university and had a wife who was away that weekend. He had the house to himself but he couldn’t take chances. The darkness was unconventional but necessary. For all he knew, I was a student of his. For all I knew, he was lying about the wife. Maybe he was living out a fantasy he'd harbored in secret for many years. I really didn’t care.

As the man spoke, the telephone receiver shook in my hand, and then there was a long silence that gave me the time I needed to consider the possible outcomes. On the one hand, I could break afternoon plans with my friends and meet up with this man, this stranger, and return to my little studio apartment and resume my life. I would tell nobody. 

read more at Sweet: A Literary Confection

image: Christopher Sousa at Advocate.com