m4m_LA
i’m outside.
one sec
Seven minutes went by and m4m_LA still hadn’t buzzed Amir up. Early September was always hot in Southern California, but it was past midnight and the air didn’t blister his skin like in the daytime. He’d never been to this part of the valley before. His mom was mugged in the valley once, something she still mentioned often. She didn’t say where in the valley, or give any other details. Just that a group of white teenagers stole her purse at knifepoint. But Canoga Park didn’t seem dangerous, with its honeydew garden-style apartments and alabaster strip malls. It was homogenous to Camarillo.
The entrance buzzed open.
apt 13. second floor.
Amir went up a pebbled staircase to find m4m_LA at the front door wearing cotton briefs that used to be white but now looked closer to a dusty yellow. He stared at Amir confused, disappointed, as if he’d ordered magnolias and received weeds instead. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea that he used someone else’s photo. He invited him in anyway, even though Amir felt like weeds.
The smell of stale smoke coming from the studio apartment overwhelmed Amir. There was no furniture other than a twin bed and a clothes rack cascading with colorful feather boas and sequin gowns. The juxtaposition of the ornate garments within the squalid space looked silly, Amir thought. The floor was sticky and the mattress didn’t have a bed sheet over it. Just a brown beach towel that also looked like it used to be white. Pages from old fashion magazines held up with Scotch tape adorned the walls as decor. Amir recognized one of them — a portrait of Janice Dickinson wearing a Versace dress. He saw it once, years ago, in one of his mom’s magazines, and remembered it because of how thin she looked, and how her collarbone protruded out like a crossbow under dewy skin. Amir wished his collarbone looked like that.
m4m_LA and Amir were roughly the same size, but m4m_LA had muscle where Amir had fat. He envied his rectangular torso and Herculean arms, which revealed a discipline and metabolism Amir would never have. m4m_LA also looked exactly like his photo, which made it more embarrassing for Amir. But everyone fibs on the apps, at least that’s what his friends said. They were all lying about their ages so they could start hooking up with older guys. They added inches to height and cock size and subtracted pounds from their bodies. Amir decided to use a photo of his cousin, objectively more handsome, even though they looked nothing alike. The only similarities were that they were both brown, and they weren’t even the same shade of brown. His cousin was lighter, with curled eyelashes and perfect teeth and a distinct jawline. Amir didn’t have any of these, with terracotta skin and cheeks that blended into his neck. He didn’t even want m4m_LA to see his teeth.
Amir asked where he could pee, careful not to lift his lips too high. m4m_LA pointed to a door across the room.
The dark ring around the toilet bowl was almost black and a thick layer of hairspray matted the sink that made it sticky, like the floors, eyelash hairs and lint clung onto cracked porcelain. And there was no soap. He was jealous of the filth. m4m_LA could live as dirty as he pleased without a mother nagging him to clean up his shit. Amir had to wait until his parents went to sleep so he could drive the Honda thirty miles to Canoga Park. His friends said to be casual, act like you know what you’re doing, don’t tell him your real age or that you live with your parents, pretend you’re in college. And fill up the gas tank there where it was so your parents don’t notice.
Amir flushed the empty black toilet. He avoided his reflection in the mirror.
m4m_LA was already naked on the bed. His pale, lightly freckled body, tight and smooth, no tattoos or pubic hair, was one Amir had only seen in pornographic films. He walked over, sat on his knees, and put his face between m4m_LA’s legs. He took a deep breath of his groin, taking in his earthy scent that almost made him retch. He kissed his inner thigh here, then there, inching his way down to his feet, just like he’d seen in the pornos.
“Put it in your mouth.” m4m_LA shook it like it was made of rubber.
Amir slowly made his way back up, again kissing his knees and quads, until it was in his mouth. He wet the shaft with saliva with one hand, rubbing m4m_LA’s firm abdomen with the other like he’d been told to do. It looked thicker than it was long, the head bulbous like a mushroom. He learned the head was the most sensitive area, so he focused his attention there, lightly nibbling at it while he stroked the base. Amir could feel m4m_LA’s abdomen rising and falling with each breath, his tight skin pressed against his nose. He fit the whole thing in his mouth and gagged and threw up a little. m4m_LA moaned quietly. Amir felt like he was doing a good job.
Without warning he felt a rush of warm fluid enter his mouth. Both salty and sweet, like his own. Amir swallowed it.
“Sorry.”
Amir said nothing while m4m_LA got up and wiped himself off with the towel. He didn’t offer it to Amir, instead taking it to the bathroom and turning on the shower. The smell of Amir’s saliva wafted from his hand while m4m_LA bathed silently. He wasn’t sure if oral sex was always supposed to be this fast.
Amir plucked some feathers from a red boa as a keepsake and closed the door behind him without saying goodbye or goodnight. They probably wouldn’t meet up again.
He drove back to Camarillo. He forgot to fill the gas tank on his way home.
Arya Roshanian (He/Him/His) is a queer, Iranian-American writer based in Brooklyn. His essays and criticism have appeared in Variety, Catapult, and BOMB Magazine. He is currently working on a collection of short stories.
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Art Georg Frederic Watts Public Domain
(a note on the art – we really wanted to use artwork by Bahman Mohasses for this piece, but were unable to. He often used the minotaur in his artwork, so this beautiful Georg Frederic Watts is a nod to that)
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Jellyfish Review 
