ISSUE â„– 

03

a literary journal in multiple timezones

Mar. 2024

ISSUE â„– 

03

a literary journal in multiple timezones

Mar. 2024

Smooth

The West
Illustration by:

Smooth

We met outside a coffee shop where you can pay to pet kitties. I said what
do you do in the real world. He said I sell rare comic books on the
Internet and teach at a preschool. He said what do you do. I said I work at
the library downtown and I write things that get published on the Internet
for no money.

On the App there’s a little guide, a map of spots all over the metro area
that are reported as safe for public encounters prior to an intimate
contract. I wanted his mustache in my blood. I wanted to watch it get
yeasty and mucked up at the hands of a tried and true goblin. I wore pink
sunglasses and Calvin Klein underwear. All black for everything else.

I wanted a smooth one. I hadn’t had a smooth one in a long time. At night,
I’m still dreaming about the rough one. The rough one had a brow on him yes
he did and he was nothing like the ones who don’t show their want. Rough
wanted bad. Rough didn’t care for secrets. Rough felt my fear and brought
it straight to my face. Made it warm with ribbons of spit and darkened it
with his big, curling shadows.

I wanted a smooth one like the ones from the television. The ones who fly
airplanes or deliver large boxes from grandma, all the way across state
lines. A laugh to the eye. A hand on the hip. A close-mouthed slip of a
grin and a trimmed neck. A healthy flush but not a showy one no not a bit
showy at all.

I’ve got someone already. A little something that keeps me going. An old
one. Needs his back scratched but picks me up from work. Keeps cookies
waiting for me. Gives me milk. We don’t tell anyone but they all know. At
work they like it fine. On the computers they say I’m just getting my start
on my back like lots of other girls before me. They say he has a taste for
younger and younger. Grooms the pretties and teaches them a good line or
two. We agreed to try out the program. Here we are, already shying from
convention. Why not make the most and really go for a pleasure storm?

We both downloaded the App.

I scrolled through dozens of images, profiles with philosophical statements
on eating ass with phrases like, to munch a tender rose bud, and, to
tightly tongue a cupcake, pictures of non-smiling faces and their
near-oozing cocks of all imaginable sizes and textures. I chose the comic
book preschool man from the kitty café. He had a tidy shape and that
mustache of his it had a healthy scrub to it. I could tell from his online
presence alone that he folds his clothing after giving it a gentle cycle in
the wash. Smooth.

My dear old one, he chose a woman with a blonde mop who had a long face. He
is good at being polite with his jealousies. I’m still young. I said All
the puss you could want and you choose a woman with a spoon face. Hey now,
he said. He adjusted his glasses and burped discreetly, clacking away
softly at an email. I started to punch on his back and tried to swat at him
with my bra but he paid no mind. I clawed into his bed and dug my head into
his pillow mountain and growled like a lap dog until I felt I no longer
cared. I asked him to fetch me a mineral water from his fridge and he did
it and also brought me a bit of granola and half a banana. But only after
he finished his email.

After the smell of books and shit all day stuck in my head, I cannot flick
it. I cannot get off. I fall asleep without ever getting there and I dream
again about the rough one. This time he is spitting kombucha on my hairy
tits and then pins me down and begins to eat me through a pair of sweat
pants. I can’t feel much but I know the technique is practiced. He
disappears and I don’t cum. When I wake up, I need to urinate. My breath
smells like blood is coming soon, maybe tomorrow or the next.

My smooth one from the App messages back later that morning. He writes to
me in some detail that in our initial meeting at the kitty café, he felt we
had an organic attraction to each other through the penetrating quality of
our eye contact.

We agree to meet the following week in the Village Inn, a designated spot
for rutting in accordance with the App. I had to put down a small deposit
to confirm the meeting. The smooth one made available his clean bill of
health, scanned and in miniature on my screen. It was viewable three days
prior to the encounter, one of the rules. In order to preserve tension and
keep the likelihood of the meeting very high, we are only allowed to
exchange two nudes each within the week between the initial meeting and the
first official encounter. I choose one with a nice angle of my ass in a
bathtub and one with my tits looking a bit deflated amongst my clean
bedding. I want to appear as someone who plans things and has the luxury of
time to pet my own self. His are very clinical and both have deep grey
backgrounds. One is his cock sitting down, looking patient and half-sleepy.
Another is his entire body reflected in a full-length mirror, a whistle in
his mouth, coach-like. The expression on his face stays open, charming,
ready to be made up and twisted into a subdued ecstasy.

The Village Inn sits diagonal to a dying pharmacy and is part hidden behind
a fast food. Outside, it smells big like a sad treat, the type that sits
inside you for a bit. The roof is patchy and hard. Inside, the lobby smells
of rubber and bagel scorch. The room is the final one in a curved hall. I
wait with my parts crossed, my phone atop my triangle alight with things
far off and sentimental. The knock to the door is sharp, efficient.

The smooth one brings a briefcase with the App logo on it. Inside are whips
and assorted kegal weights, cock rings, ball cages, a small and a medium
sized strap-on, an older-style vibrator. I put a leash on him. He bares his
teeth. He keeps that whistle around his neck the whole time. He wears a
flat stopwatch around his wrist and pulls out of me from time to time to
jot down some numbers on an iPad with a slim stylus. There are three small
paintings of chickens above the bed. He only gets rough if I yell. He is
not a rough one by nature. Smooth, American, peanut butter. He is not
overly curious. He does not suck with too much energy. He is highly skilled
in finger work. And that mustache. It goes places. He is uncaring of my
blood. A true sport. A gentleman. I ask him after does he want to watch a
television with me? He massages my forearms compulsively through several
episodes of Cold Case. He snaps his gum and is generous in asking
if I want any. Cinnamon flavor. That one, he has a hot mouth.

Me and my dear sweet old, we meet for coffee and pancakes later in the
week. He asks me in-depth questions about technique, postures, balances of
hydration, and if I got the release I need to have a more productive peace
to my day-to-day. I tell him it reminded me of my rape but only in the
exciting parts. He winces and tries hard not to follow-up. He has a bit of
syrup on his chin and I ask him does he want to have a go back at his
place? And he asks am I still bleeding?

My sweetheart met with that spoon. They met at a salad joint and I joked
that I’d be there with binoculars to watch him. I joked that he better use
a condom with the old spoon. He hated that. He knew too that I’m prone to
raw-dogging it and later falling into a stupidly curable despair. He said
she is not very old. I think she might be thirty. I did not watch him with
binoculars. I imagined they spoke about emails and journals and had a lot
of mutual pals scattered about California and the like.

I ask the next time we have a spend-the-night does he want to keep going
with the spoon? He says they might follow up but he does not want to be
monitored by the App now. This is, to my mind, a breach in our terms. He
may only have a spoon under the cloud of the App. This was our agreement.
Oh, how I moan! I howl and climb on top of him and he laughs and laughs and
laughs and says, Oh, little chicken, it is only a coffee date. I do not
want to whip the spoon. You’ve had your fun. Now get some sleep.

The next afternoon, the smooth one messages me through the App. Little
jostling balls move about the message box, a mean clue to tell me I am
reading a brain in true time. Truly, I had the best first encounter with
you. But I’m afraid my real life partner no longer accepts my professional
sexual life. I will be terminating the App soon. Would you like to meet
back at the kitty café, outside of the App, to discuss what you need in
terms of closure? He leaves his personal number and I immediately flood it
with graphic pictures of my asshole from four months ago that took some
strategic angles to capture. He responds with fifty heart and wet droplet
emoji back to back to one another. I am impressed that he has the restraint
in avoiding the eggplant.

I am pragmatic about my odd news. I say to my old one that I too, am now
venturing outside of the App. He can now be absolved of his transgression
only through my own transgression. This is how we make the age difference
fairer, is what I tell him. He adjusts his shoe and asks me to rub his
shoulder with a bit of heated ointment.

There are tears at the kitty café. He brings a woman, his partner, on his
arm. She is taller than he and appears to be carved from a fine,
machine-made wax. It is a cruel move to have to witness her, an unwarranted
surprise. I suppose it was her grand idea. She hugs me with limited warmth
and before she even introduces herself she says, I have no anger toward
you. I find out that the smooth one has a real name outside of the App and
this real name is Grayson. His partner, Leah, fits in at the café. She
looks like a big cat. I too have cat-like qualities, but feel inferior
beside this wax woman. My gap tooth is whorish but compelling. My hairy
parts are dotted about my body and are not the expected parts. She is most
hairless on her body and pulls her expected head hair back into a long
twist. Her voice sounds like she might catch cough in an alluring way. She
says I’m a Leo. Me too, I whisper. I now want to rut with the wax woman as
well as the smooth coach.

She says to me but also to him, Grayson has been with the App for a few
months. But it’s never changed him. After he met with you, he seemed
different. He forgot his whistle last week on the way to the grocery. He
had two time-keeping violations at his Montessori preschool within the same
pay period. In bed, he is a daze. A dope. This won’t do. I know this must
feel a little odd, she says, shifting her weight in her seat, keeping her
hand firmly planted on Grayson. But, we spoke about it and I wanted to
extend an invitation for you to meet with the both of us at once. Outside
of the App, of course. I was tested in the last month and have no
outstanding conquests. Tears begin down her wax face. She keeps her
expression blank as they puddle to her softly pointed chin. Grayson looks
pained. His freckles turn anemic and I see that one eyebrow is arched high,
involuntary, locked into an exciting new chapter in his relationship.

I am thrust into an emotional upset I had taken some pains to avoid. I say
to her and not really to him anymore that I truly appreciate the sporting
nature of all this but I need some time to decide. Of course, she says, an
insecure twinkle in her large, dark eye. Grayson shakes my hand on the way
out and Leah presses her waxen palm to mine in a gesture that borders on
too dramatic to be manners.

In bed, my head stunk of the scenarios. The wax woman’s asshole in my
mouth. The smooth one coaching us along, blowing the whistle and jerking
like a business. It was too new and too emotionally dangerous,
overwhelming. I would certainly be sore. And what would my old one think?
He would likely not care on the outside but it has to be a kink somewhere
in his kind intestines.

Certain that the rough one has had his fair share of this. Certain he’s
been more tough about it. More tragic. He probably slogs down whiskey every
night until his toes get fat and sucks his lips off like it’s nothing. And
he probably does it analog, no App, no battery-charged Mommy watching over
to make sure we all play nice and have documents. He’s probably getting at
it right now, at large in the humid, southern air with that mess of curls
and the heat still coming off a parking lot even so late in the night.

Once, the rough one banged bruises all along my chest, collarbones. Like a
chain of flowers for me to keep on in the bath. Just for a week or so. Oh,
I delighted in it. I was proud to have to hide it at work and I touched all
the spots deep in their middle in front of a mirror in the mornings before
they faded. We walked barefoot on his roof before he gave me all those
pretties. He made me cum over and over with his calloused, big hand and
that fucking brow was over me. He had fed me fermented garlic with his arm
snaked around his countertop. He had smashed an egg on the ground for fun
and laughed as his dog lapped it up in a great, wet hurry.

Edited by: Joyland Editors
Kate Jayroe
Kate Jayroe is a writer and bookseller in Portland, Oregon. Work by Kate appears in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, NANO Fiction, Juked, Hobart, and elsewhere. Kate holds an MFA in fiction from Portland State University and serves on staff with Sewanee Writers' Conference. For more, go to skjayroe.wordpress.com