Cold Hard Sex

"No one really wants to talk to you if they don’t know you."

I think they wanted me to talk about porn, or my childhood trauma, or maybe the news. And use a lot of big words. I loved big words but never knew when to use them.

No one really wants to talk to you if they don’t know you. That’s ancient knowledge– you can find that in the Bible, Genesis 19:9– but it’s hard to realize it again and again. You might think you’re kinfolk because you’re attractive and young. Wrong. Watch how they smoke, how they look at each other. Their little half smiles. Their clean jokes. Okay, so now you know.

Anyway, I could tell I wasn’t going to impress anyone at this party. Every time I spoke I was stumbling over too many “umm’s” and “like’s” and greeted with too many “oh shit’s” and “real’s” and “facts.” To top it off I was habitually ripping up my napkin (there were small plates, they were fake-poor) like a creep, so I knew I had to either pull it together or leave.

I squeezed my way to the bar and tried to make small talk with the bartender. This was a good technique since they’re motivated by money to be nice to you. He ignored me. There was a pretty blond sitting on the edge of the bar, getting photographed on film. The bartender was pouring her a free shot. I didn’t blame him– God, even I loved her! At least, I liked what she was wearing. White t-shirt, no bra, mini skirt, cowboy boots. It was a real feminine twist on the otherwise bookish crowd. So of course everyone was watching her. All those turtlenecks.

“I always wanted to do something like that, but I’m so awkward in photographs.” I said, turning to the man standing next to me, either waiting to order or waiting to get his drink. He looked at me like I was stupid. I started to wonder if maybe I looked like a little boy, and maybe that was the reason no one wanted to engage with me. But I was wearing a lot of makeup. A lot. Lips and eyes and cheeks– and I had spent fifteen minutes getting my hair up the way I liked, and I had thought a lot about my outfit. Denim on denim, ironically patriotic, and just a little bralette underneath my jacket. But I guess there was something about me that made me extra weird; I guess I just didn’t catch the hint that everyone had slept with each other or knew each other in college or otherwise was incestuous in some way. I should have managed to use a big word like “incestuous” while I was there. Damn.

The cowgirl started to dance on the bartop. I inhaled and blinked and I was walking home. Wet streets. The hum of the party faded in the perfect dissolve, an old film, a forgotten high school yearbook. Now complete silence, other than my footsteps, which were loud and tacky since my heels were all worn out. I began to feel overwhelmingly sad and nostalgic. Wet nights tended to do that. Ten years ago I had imagined walking down these streets, living independently, dating, “making it”. I had all the girlish fantasies about adulthood and tiny perfect apartments and wild parties with coke and cigarettes. One night stands, older men, falling in love in the most fantastically violent ways. But these fantasies had faded and been delayed. Maybe I was in the power to change it– I don’t know. But going to magazine launch parties advertised on Instagram– maybe that wasn’t the way.

I came to a corner and felt terribly suicidal. It was just my luck that I didn’t have to ruminate over it whatsoever– the decision to die was made for me instantaneously when a motorcyclist (or maybe it was one of those terrible ebikes) collided with me at sixty miles per hour. I was thrown by the impact all the way to the adjacent street corner, heels knocked off, and immediately bled profusely from the side of my head. And my legs– I actually was able to notice this while still in motion– smacked against a fire hydrant at such an awful angle. So despite the adrenaline from the accident, I was unable to stand and curse out my assailant. I was only able to scooch up on my palms.

The motorcyclists had lost control (obviously) and ended up headfirst smacked against the metal siding of a dumpster. He was bleeding in such a way from his neck that I knew he was dead. I was no longer feeling suicidal and wished that it wasn’t so quiet and so wet. You’d think that since it was New York, there must have been someone in an apartment that would look out their window after all the commotion and dial 911. But Soho tended to empty out completely after 10 or 11pm. And the rich folks with lofts were either out at night clubs, or so high up in their apartments and nestled into a cloud of marijuana that a “boom” and a “crash” was as un-intrusive as the radiator turning on– or more accurately, central heat. So I just laid there. A whole lot of nothing.

It wasn’t until the bartender who ignored me finished his shift and mopped the floor and grabbed his heavy wool coat (of course he was also cool…) that anyone saw me. I’m happy to report that he saw me first, then the dead motorcyclist, who I was really starting to harbor some resentment towards. The bartender– I found out his name was John sometime later– sat by me and checked his phone until the ambulance arrived, and inexplicably, rode in the back with me to the hospital, and talked to the ER doctors on my behalf. Maybe I had imagined that last part, I had lost a lot of blood, but I did see a lot of him while I was in the hospital, and although when I woke up the next morning he was gone, he did leave his number on a post-it by my bedside:

LMK if you’re okay - John

I was actually discharged rather quickly, which was a blessing in itself because I had just aged out of my parents’ insurance. Once the IV was out and I had some space from the nurses to change into my civilian clothes, I lumbered over to my little hospital-room bathroom to survey the damage. Neck brace, leg in cast, head to toe bruises. My makeup still looked good, all things considered, but my hair was awful– they shaved off a small patch near my temples to put in eight stitches. I took a nude and posted it, sort of censored, on twitter because I thought it was funny. It was funny. I went to the Gothemite Magazine launch 2025 and all I got was a broken-rib and a bartender’s phone number.

I managed to get my jeans over my leg cast (thank god they weren’t skinny jeans), buttoned my jean jacket all the way up, and couldn’t manage to find my bralette amongst my personal effects. I held John’s note instead of pocketing it. I was so afraid of losing it.

Everything happens for a reason. If I didn’t go to the party, I wouldn’t have felt suicidal. I wouldn’t have lingered on the street corner, I wouldn’t have gotten hit by the motorcyclist. If I hadn’t gone to the party John wouldn’t have ignored me at the bar to give free shots to the woman who was more attractive than me. If he didn’t ignore me, maybe he wouldn’t have noticed me when I was dead on the sidewalk. And now there were all these possibilities: dating, marriage, children. I’d do myself a terrible disservice not to think of it in that way.

My roommate told me I looked terrible and I didn’t particularly care to tell her what happened. I locked myself in my bedroom and decided to save John’s number before I forgot– and to my surprise my selfie was going really viral. In the comments, they were calling me “necro-chan”. I had posted lewds before and received modest attention– twenty to fifty likes– but the sheer amount of comments on this one was concerning. I checked the profiles: run of the mill porn addicts. I decided to plug my poetry underneath it but I realized quickly it wouldn’t get too much attention. I’m not even sure what attention it could get. I got out of bed with some strained effort (I really was seriously injured) and took a look at myself in my full-length mirror. I slowly unbuttoned my denim jacket. I imagined doing it for a camera and a ring light. The idea wasn’t as embarrassing as I would have thought it would be.

Thus began my career as a fetish model. It does happen that quickly. But there were a few factors that added to my decision:

1. I had no idea how to apply for disability. The cafe I had worked for prior to my injury was “under the table”, so there was a real possibility that I wouldn’t qualify to start with.

2. In situations like these– sudden internet fame– swiftness of action was vital. If I waited even a week my moment might have been taken away from me.

3. I would never be as pretty as the cowgirl. Not in the way she was. I simply wasn’t the sort of person that was going to be offered a free shot. I’d never be candidly photographed, laughing, kicking my feet up, pouting. But when I was a little battered up, there was something very noticeable about me. Something tragic and beautiful– as I put it to myself.

4. I in all likelihood had some sort of personality disorder. I had falsely been writing it off as the awkwardness of self-hatred– but no, it was a full blown disorder of narcissism– and the new-found attention fed my ego (I think).

I became extremely talented at a whole manner of poses that ranged from pornographic to “artistic”. I quickly gained a following and received many interesting messages from all sorts of different types of men. It turned out there was no stereotype in porn-addicts and fetishists. My clientele ranged from retirees to college students.

My aforementioned roommate eventually found out and had a lot of bad things to say about it– really fundamentally cruel critiques from a feminist perspective about how I glorified abuse and if I wasn’t expressly glorifying abuse I was an inexperienced and worryingly uneducated sado-masochist. She hugged me in a nasty, patronizing way. I knew that it was chalked up to a lack of understanding. Because how could she understand me? She was so pretty! And so smart!

As my body slowly healed itself I started giving myself bloody noses. I smeared dirt on my face and lied and pretended I had been lost in the woods for a week (in reality, I took a break from modeling and spent some of my saved money at a little hotel room in New Hope). My fans loved it. “Look at necro-chan,” one said on a heavily upvoted Reddit thread, “she can survive anything!”

I had not forgotten my bartender. I misremembered the note slightly: I had mentally replaced “if” with “when”. Let me know when you’re okay. It took a long while to become okay. Months. I moved into a nicer apartment (goodbye roommate…) with a roof deck. My popularity online had translated into the real world, and I began throwing my own parties, and collected a great deal of signatures on my cast. I made a lot of guy-friends. I got good at video-games and streamed them in my underwear. All and all, my life completely changed. I was an entirely new woman. The day I had my cast removed, and I was finally fully healed, I decided to call John:

“Hey… you left me a note and said to let you know when I’m okay.” I said, biting my lip, sitting indian-style on my bedspread. “I’m finally okay now.”

I could hear his shallow breaths on the other end of the line. Maybe he was biting his lip too. After a moment: “Wow,” he said.

I nodded, then remembered I was on the phone. “Yeah, it’s crazy…” Everything truly happened for a reason. The emotion behind his voice sold it to me. I got a sudden pang of insecurity, and hoped that he would accept me given my current profession. But love conquers all. I had to remember that and be brave. “So why did you leave your number… John?”

“It was weird seeing you at the bar one second, and then seeing you on the sidewalk a few hours later. Some people you’re just supposed to forget– like people on the subway, you’re not supposed to remember their faces. So seeing you… it was freaky. I was freaked out. And I was giving a lot of comped drinks that night.” He swallowed, and I could tell he was on the verge of crying, though I couldn’t understand it. “I was scared I over-served you and killed you. I’m just not ready for that, you know? This whole thing gave me a nervous breakdown and I quit my job. I’m moving out of the city. Upstate or midwest or somewhere.”

“Oh okay. I thought you thought I was cute.”

“No, not really, no.”

We talked for a few more minutes after that, about the extent of my injuries– and I clarified to him that I did not have anything to drink that night, and how in fact I had tried to get his attention to serve me but had failed. I tried to end the conversation quickly, but he had a desperation, a terrified affect to his voice. And he repeated, over and over until I hung up: “I thought you were dead. I thought I killed you.”