Teo Recommends: “Latched” by Disclosure ft. Sam Smith

CW: recreational drug use, sexual coercion

I’ve been dating Jeff for three weeks now. In two weeks I won’t be.

It’s Spring in Chicago. The snow is almost gone, packed to ice on the berm of the sidewalks, dirty, but transparent. It seemed like any day in those five weeks that I was free — no work and no classes — I was in Jeff’s apartment. Most often we were naked.

I’d helped him pin sheets to his windows with pushpins to block out the growing light, sun moving toward solstice. Jeff is smoking. He smoked anything, but his favorite was Tina, crystal meth. I know now that had our relationship continued, it wouldn’t be long until I became addicted to meth in the same way I was addicted to him. I was already in love with the sensation of GHB, swirling, like a gelatinous fishbowl was around your head. It made sex fun, made orgies more fun, and Jeff loved drugged orgies more than anything else I could name. I thought that if I he included me in this, he loved me.

Jeff offers me a hit from the bowl, but I am still too afraid to try it. I figure I should only try one drug at a time. Instead, I get up from the couch, cross over to the suitcase of Jeff’s “toys” and pull out a wrestling singlet. I knew this was Jeff’s favorite, that seeing me in it would act as contrition for refusing his sacrament. During those weeks, Jeff was something of a saint, if not a god. Singlets and jockstraps became our vestments. Too often, I lay prostrate. The problem with love is that it lies so close to devotion. I was devoted and I was desperate for love and it was confusing.

Jeff points to his lap. I obey. He tells me I am a good boy. I feel the center of my mind shift from adult to something younger. Shame is easiest to ignore in the face of pleasure and intoxication. I know other men will soon join us here. These are other men that want to smoke meth and call me boy. These are men Jeff approves of and I have no say in. This is the pattern of my life now. I’m latched to him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93ASUImTedo(Song recommendation by Teo Mungaray)