I’ve paid him 92000₽ to fuck me. He takes off everything sans a reflective motorcycle helmet. His head is a gimmick, a five-pound burger paraded around the restaurant to an audience of second-hand stomachaches. He never speaks in his videos, just gestures, promoting his paywall porn with silent, acephalous thirst traps. At the top of his socials, an ostensibly hopeful message: “Face Reveal at 120k.” He has long surpassed the required amount of followers, so I made it a point to ask him about it when we met. He shook his heavy head, exaggerating his movements to be expressive through the black fiberglass, then resorted to hand signals. One. Two. Zero. A thumb and pointer finger rubbed together to mean “money”. I didn’t feel like explaining the word “at” should be replaced with “for”. He doesn’t seem very smart, let alone receptive.

The city is sludge; dirty snow angels on every sidewalk. Eaten at by a cold rain, they misconfigure, drain brown into gulping gutters, splatter every boot, pant leg, and car with shit or what might as well be. These people lie in filth. I’m doing the same, strewn across the thin mattress in a puddle of piss and cum. I asked him to be rough. I watched regret poison my face in the reflection of his helmet. I struggle onto my forearms. Two teeth pop out of divots they have pressed into my back. The pain is trash, the blood just sewage.

Left to forage for my own body, I pick up the teeth and place them on the table, brush the ripped-out hair off my shoulders. In the bathroom I look at a real mirror, scratch at the maroon crust under my eye. He has left me faceless like him. My cock looks engorged; a bruised, misshapen fruit still weeping precum. Everything weeps—I’m turned inside out. I widen my swollen eyes to see the whites. I’ve done this to myself.

Back in the room, I search for my phone, find it with a cracked screen under a pillow in the corner. He has uploaded two videos since he left twenty minutes ago, backlogged I’m guessing. In one he appropriates an overused “when you…” joke, a vehicle for shots of him shirtless in the shower. The water is unnecessarily on, running thick streams over the glass dome of his helmet. In the last few frames, the phone and tripod are visible in its reflection.

The second video bypasses the cursory attempt at relatability and settles for something more explicitly self-objectifying. He swivels shirtless in a chair, arms behind his head revealing shaved armpits and pale, defined biceps. The audio is some brooding, Russian rap song. 5000 likes already. I’m just a hole, sir. I know it’s pink and veiny. Kill me motoboy. I comment “fa99ot” and put my phone on the table next to the teeth.

It’s mostly men peddling the same tired, thirsty comments on his posts. When we were DMing, he made it a point to tell me, in broken English, that it would cost extra because he’s not gay. I told him I thought he was what I wanted him to be. He didn’t get it. Still, he had no trouble getting it up. Maybe he took a pill. While he was fucking me, I wondered about his name, his age, if he could remember what actually turns him on. Afterwards, I’m doing the math, trying to figure out if the cum or the violence was complimentary, what I was really paying for. I should feel better than the anonymous commenters, but I’ve somehow become less real than them.

I scavenge for my clothes, ripped off of me in a soured ceremony. My memory exists in his face: the reflection of my pants thrown behind me, behind the head of the mattress. I find my shirt under the table, ripped halfway down the front. I put it on anyway, don’t bother looking for my socks. As I reassemble, I come back to human, my stomach groaning with hunger. I didn’t come here for the cuisine but I took out all my savings for this trip. I could stand to spend the rest on some good food, despite the potential chewing difficulty he’s given me. I’ve had my indulgence, the rest will be overkill. I pocket my teeth and close the door behind me.

Dark, phallic buildings jut into a pale smog, seem to lean away until I’m right under them, like my feet spin the planet’s sphere. It’s all the same: a moving panorama, everything white or black. I parked the rental car several blocks away, needed time to look up Russian phrases on my phone.

Какое прекрасное место, what a nice place.

вот деньги, here’s the money.

ударь меня, как будто ты это серьезно, hit me like you mean it.

I only used one of them.

The sky blackens, swallows the tops of buildings. The cold has a clamping mouth. As I approach the car, a motorcycle rips towards me, cyclopean headlight tunneling into the dark street. The low, droning rumble rips into a cackle as he gets close, like he’s laughing at me. Maybe he is. His helmet stays pointed in my direction as he passes. In the moment before we cross I consider flicking him off, but I know who I’m mad at. In the last second I do it anyway. I’m not sure if he notices. In the car, I pull down the visor, check the mirror again. I don’t look like anything, anyone. I catch his light disappearing around a corner behind me. Then: real darkness, reflected.

The hunger has been replaced with something more pressing, more painful. I’m on the road—underhand grip on the wheel, the bars, the back of my knees. I’m pushing harder, pushed in. His future damage: nigh, spilled among slaloming wheels, eaten from behind. My headlights light what is no longer his head. He must pay for what he has done, what he has given me: what I asked for. Russian bikes are fast, Russian cars are faster. He’s in my grille, metallic crunch and motor oil money shot, face reveal at 120kmh. There’s nothing to eat with no mouth, there’s nothing to seeing yourself in someone else. I’m just a hole, sir. I know it’s red and mangled. Tell me motoboy, is the world dark through the helmet? Could you even see me coming?

Bex Peyton is a writer, visual artist, and cyborg prostitute. Their work has appeared in Expat Press, SELFFUCK, SCAB, Punk Noir, FERAL DOVE, DON’T SUBMIT!, Hobart, Agon Journal, and others.
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