GRINDR: A PROSE POEM by Ernesto Sarezale

He put me off when he wrote: “You are a great guy. But you shouldn’t use the headphones you have on your pic.” “Why?” “Because they’re pink!” I almost blocked him. But I counted to 10. Such hot guy would not normally want to hook up with me. I typed in a hurry “if you don’t want to meet…” He replied in an dash: “I do want to meet”. And we met. But it was not easy. First he said he could not accommodate. I typed: “I can’t at my flat ‘cause I live with my parents. If we meet, we have to have sex on a couch at my uncle’s unfurnished flat.” So he soon changed his tune and he said he could host. When I got to his place, he was shifty: “You know, my flat was untidy.” But that’s not the only thing that annoyed me about him. Half way through, when he was about to give me a blow-job, he stopped and he asked: “Are you clean?” I wondered when was the last time I had had a shower. Did my willy smell? He explained: “Are you tested?” I got what he meant. “Yes,” I said. Which is true. It was six months ago. But I didn’t tell him when because he didn’t ask. I almost lost my erection. Gladly, his sucking was ace. I was soon stiff and ready. When I came, he came shortly after me. And he annoyed me again. He sprawled on his bed, breathing deep. “I feel so relaxed,” he said without looking at me, “it feels so good!”. He overdid it, rapt in his own satisfaction, he was almost falling asleep. So thoughtless.

PAUSE.

It was sweet, must be said, that he never compelled me to remove my shirt. He said nothing  the moment his hands touched the body-shaping vest I was wearing beneath. I had put on weight over Christmas and was feeling self-conscious about the width of my waist. It’s good that he did not see me with my top off because body-shapers are made for white people and look very awkward on my dark skin tone. It would have been hard to get rid of that corset anyway. He was happy to simply strip me off my pants. He wasn’t all bad. I loved how he stroked my face stubble with his thumb. And when I asked him, post-coitus, “what’s that thing over there?” he stretched and jumped out of bed. He showed me with pride an award he had won as a student back home. He looked back at me. He got close. He crouched and kissed my soft cock. I warned him: “It will get hard again…” “That’s OK,” he replied. And I was reminded of how, earlier on, in the thralls of passion, when almost against my will I shouted “Daddy!”, he looked at my eyes, put his ear on my chest and said: “Your heartbeat sounds just like the overture of Rigoletto”.