He’s got a hipster haircut, buzzed on the sides, and combed over.
The bus is nearly empty. My seat is next to a boy in slippers. He might be about twelve, maybe he’s spent the summer with his grandma in Riga, or at least a month there. His grandma was there to send him off. The boy has lots of things with him: a travel pillow, a thick book, pastries, candy, all sorts of bags. He’s got a hipster haircut, buzzed on the sides, and combed over. I’ve noticed it looks better on kids who still have nice, smooth skin and aren’t puffy-faced or, fortunately, grown a beard just yet. Since there are so few passengers on board, I sit across the aisle from him and open a book. I sit with my back leaning half against the window and my legs extended towards the aisle, one draped across the next seat. I don’t read much, to tell the truth, but spend most of the time staring out the window or over at the boy. He’s also reading a book while not really reading. I take out my phone, the boy takes out his. I put on my headphones, the boy takes out his and connects them to his phone just like me. I listen to PJ Harvey and read Maarja Kangro. I don’t know what the boy is listening to, but the book has soft, mauve covers – probably a sci-fi fantasy. Our eyes don’t meet, but he imitates my every movement and I copy him. I wish I was a little boy, too, with Grandma’s homemade pastries on my first, or maybe my severalth, long unaccompanied bus trip. He’s tanned, and maybe just ten or so – I have a hard time telling age. My grandma bakes super-tasty ones, too. I’ve stopped eating meat for the most part, but whenever I’m home in Estonia, I always have whatever’s offered and anything that Mummu makes.
Occasionally, I glance over and observe what the boy is up to. The bus fills up at Warsaw. Only the seat next to him, my actual place, remains vacant. A man reeking of aftershave plops down next to me. The smell is pungent and, although it’s not quite a stench, I loathe it because strong odors give me headaches. Still, I figure: let the boy sleep in peace on his two seats.
The bus trip with that little boy was nice and I hadn’t seen him since, maybe in a decade. Up till the moment I recognized him. Things had accelerated to the point where he was on top of me and… um… exercising?! Something like that. I was like an exercise machine, as fucked up as that sounds. I guess I recognized him out of boredom. I was watching his changing expressions; how he strained. He complained that he hadn’t nutted in days and that his balls were swollen and aching. I couldn’t move much (my body was bent in an awkward position) and his jerking around and exertion was a little over the top, that handsome young man. He’d grown his hair out a little, his face wasn’t puffy yet (angular, more like), he’d lost his baby fat, and I guess he couldn’t grow much facial hair yet. He had pretty lips, slightly plump. He might have been, I don’t know… 20… 22, maybe. I was 41. Jesus! What a coincidence.
It was my first time on Tinder, and he was far from my first match. Sterne and I had just broken up. It’d been months already, to be fair; maybe even half a year. Although the separation hadn’t been particularly painful, there was a huge void inside of me, or rather like nothing at all. We’d been together for so long and had jabbed every imaginable tender point so deeply that all we could do anymore was just create emptiness in each other. I didn’t miss her. I think. It was more like there wasn’t any overt missing, but she was me. The breakup had a weird effect. For months, I just felt like I was her; like I had her hands and body and movements; her Her, expressions, and hair; but all the while, I could still see my own stubby, crooked legs. She was lying in place of me on the brand-new mattress without a single bloodstain. I lazed on that mattress, a cheap foam IKEA product, for practically ages. I felt neither good nor bad, just nothing. It was like she was sort of there but wasn’t. She wasn’t, but sort of was. I’m going to love her forever and that’s totally okay, I think. I feel like it’s okay because she’s just so okay. She’s okay-eternal, the love of my life. It’s weird that at the same time I don’t give a damn, either; there’s just nothing that should be, kind of. But I’m filled with cement.
I only hung out with chumps
I’d been living a poor, lonely life in Berlin for almost a year. I only hung out with chumps, people who had zero interest in me, who were only interested in themselves, heh, no, they weren’t interested in themselves, either. I’d gotten in the habit of making out everywhere: cafés, the metro, parties, the sidewalk. Wherever it happened, that’s where I made out. I’d previously despised PDA and seeing people slobbering over each other felt gross. I’d never have initiated swapping saliva in public, but maybe I’m just that boring, and when you’re kissing me, then at least you don’t have to say anything and there’s no embarrassing silence, though I can hear somebody celebrating their birthday at the table next to us, a mother chasing her toddler around the café, a server apologizing to somebody. I myself can’t see a thing – okay, I do sometimes peek and glimpse the closed eyelids of somebody else, though I can’t seem to remember their name. And maybe they’re thinking the same thing as me: we’ve nothing to talk about, anyway. At some point, I started to feel like tomorrow’s basically next year plus today all wrapped up in one and I didn’t want to turn down any opportunity because it wouldn’t make any real difference. Now, it seems to be happening all over again: the same people, just with different faces. Thanks to them, I’ve started to wonder if there’s nothing interesting about me, because on the surface I’m definitely the type who drifts around, nodding and smiling. The people aren’t actually people, I mean, which is to say they are, but also kind of like objects, such as a table, a chair, a well, a mixer, a cock, a traffic light, etc. Need-based. Sure, I just looked at my table, cupboard, rug, and canvas board, gave them a nod and thanked them for existing, for being here with me, albeit based on need, but I guess that’s love, too. I feel like my cupboard and rug will come to life at any second now. Half of my heart belongs to a cupboard and a rug. Nobody needs me. Why don’t my cupboard and rug need me? I suppose they do, though.
A bird family lived in the nesting box outside my window last spring. They flew away in summer and now, just recently, I found out there are maggots in the box. I didn’t exactly see them, but the contents (some shit, twigs, feathers) were moving in one place. Gross! I unscrewed the box from the window and let it plummet from the fourth floor. And I resolved to put a stop to my own maggot-life for good measure. I downloaded Tinder. The boy’s name was Philip. I didn’t have a proper chance to study his profile picture before he sent me a dick pic, then another, then another. It made me laugh so hard; it was so positive and unexpected. So refreshing. Our conversation was extremely brief:
Philip: wanna fuck?
Me: yes
P: wanna fuck me?
M: yes
P: I come and I cum on you
M: you come and you cum into condom
P: I will
(P.S. By now, I’ve had it up to here with all the dick pics. I’ve got a special folder that I toss them into, and they certainly do slide their way in off Tinder. A dick pic is like Lars von Trier’s Antichrist: it doesn’t have the same effect the second time around. Lars von Trier himself is a living dick pic, haha – his body looks a little like an erect cock, though it’s a pretty common figure among men. It was the same with the images: the first was like, wow, this is such a novel experience, somebody sending you a snapshot of their cock, no questions asked, an original release. I immediately replied with a picture of my pussy, of course, because it was so thrilling. To cut it short, I don’t know what good it does, and I now despise all the dick pics flying in through the door and windows.)
Sterne planned to move to New York and give prostitution a go
My room wasn’t very messy. After Sterne, I did a deep clean and hauled out all my art, all those mattresses. With Sterne’s help, of course. She lent a hand; the word “breakup” doesn’t suit us at all: the relationship petered out and ended but there was no breakup. I hate the word. Fuck off! We set that junk on fire, stared at our burning life, and held each other close, cheeks pressed close together (I was standing on a crate), until our bodies were the same temperature inside. Neither of us seemed to have any regret – I guess it was just hard for each to go their separate way alone. Sterne planned to move to New York and give prostitution a go. Some people have unique desires, to say the least.
I imagine her wearing a bespangled emerald-green miniskirt on a corner somewhere in the city’s most upscale district, slightly chilly, waiting for a new customer, I see her gaze and bluish lips, I know she’s out to save the world. A restorative bacterium.
Ten years is still ten years, ten full years, and now we’re releasing air because for those ten years, all we did was inhale. I can’t imagine how long I’ll be exhaling it/her. Maybe I’ll turn it into a film about us and then the fire and smoke, us, pensive, standing, wrapped in a blanket, our cheeks pressed close together, me on a crate. Someday when I have the energy to get out of bed, I’ll make that film. I do regret the mattresses – my art project of nearly ten years. I imagined them becoming a giant museum installation, but that never happened. Sterne certainly tried and I did in my own way, too, but I suppose it was more about the joy of creating. Not that it was a cakewalk, either – bleeding in bed for days upon days. Nah – actually, it was nice watching movies and reading and snacking on Pringles and all kinds of sweets. We did manage to sell one, a two-person mattress, for 20,000 euros, and that kept us afloat for a fair while. We never had to go hungry when we were together. Never. The buyer was a rich man. We went to visit him later. He has the mattress hanging on a wall like a painting and it looks fucking brilliant. I might add that it’s displayed in a glass frame and his cleaning lady polishes it at least weekly. The guy’s content, too. Two weeks earlier, his dog, a little Jack Russel terrier that he loved dearly, got hit by a car. He saw my exhibition by a fluke and the bloodstained mattresses reminded him of his tremendous loss – seeing it helped him to move on, in a way. It’s weird: some people stare loss bravely in the eye, but I, for one, don’t. I don’t look at anything that brings my loss to mind. Not even myself. He says it’s bizarre, but my art gives him as much joy as the little Jack Russel did. Later, he purchased an additional single mattress and a bloody pillow. I totally get it – blood is a great loss. Blood is beautiful, bloodlessness is nasty. When I’m losing blood, I sometimes feel so much pain in my belly that something has to be recorded in the artwork – the pain of loss I feel every month. It’s the very same sensation – pain – that the man feels over the loss of his pet. I might’ve had a chance of becoming a famous artist, but I destroyed everything. I can’t stand the sight of a drop of blood anymore because it’s all so painful. Sterne!!!
And a clump fetish. And a blood fetish.
The pillow had a bloody butt-print. We even had a plan to start producing luxury bedlinens: bloodstain-patterned silk. But it was hard to find financers. Sterne could’ve gotten some, I bet – she’s good at things like that – but we weren’t particularly dedicated to the project and business takes a whole lot of time. I’ve got a stain fetish. And a clump fetish. And a blood fetish. When I see somebody picking at crumbs of food, the hairs on my skin raise a little. When somebody’s got a stain on their clothes, I bite my lip in arousal. We didn’t give a damn about business – sharing is what motivated and stimulated us.
Sterne worked as a male model. I guess I like them tall. Tall and handsome. Height gets you three-quarters of the way there. In the long-run, I should probably land on a short guy. Tall ones hurt me. Tall ones have gorgeous dicks and that makes me jealous, as if I’d want one for myself. No matter how stupid tall men might be, they’ll always get some of my admiration just because they’re tall. I like spindly, awkward arms and legs. They’re amusing to watch though, unfortunately, not all of them are clumsy. And the way they arc their spines forward is mesmerizing. They constantly push their shoulders back because their back and shoulders have started to ache from talking to short people. But you can’t trust them. I certainly can’t, and I guess I don’t trust small or average-sized men, either, though I don’t really care about the latter. Tall guys take a piece of me with them every time – my eyes, probably. My heart has exploded repeatedly. Shorter ones are safe. Mid-sized ones more like, because short ones can turn out to be sly and psychopaths. But tall men are always birches swaying in the breeze. Birches are the zebras and giraffes of the plant kingdom; my favorite animals.
Sterne didn’t have a dick and that’s why she was my dream man. It’s so amazing that I lived a dream. That life slowly dissolved when he decided to become a man. Not that growing a cock happened overnight, of course.
I couldn’t bring myself to get used to it. And I reckon that she wanted to move on, too. She was always so weird. I guess she just got bored; got tired of herself. Half of one and half of another does make a whole. She was so fond of contradiction. It’s boring to be a one. Or a zero. Maybe she was born a Buddhist but got bored of it. She just didn’t want to, nor could she ever have, been self-congruent without contradiction; it’d be too monotonous. We met just like in Blue is the Warmest Color, passing each other on the street. I had no idea who they were, a man or a woman. I guess that question was still a question for me ten years ago – a need to define things. Well, which is it? Male or female? Now, the question makes me feel about the same as when I was painting during university, stoned out of my mind, and started inspecting a varicolored brush up close and wondering – how many colors are there in the bristles? It makes no difference. Sterne was 1.95 meters tall and had long blond hair; a lissome, plank-like body; and broad shoulders. She also had tiny, very pretty breasts, but nobody knows that. I just couldn’t figure out who she was. Her gaze, her demeanor – they made my brain short-circuit. So alluring. Like a film, though I don’t know which one. Such a perfect manwoman, such a perfect human. For a moment, I felt like I as a woman am nothing but thighs; so unappealing. Seeing and experiencing someone fascinating always intimidates; it seems to negate yourself. After that, we met at an exhibition opening and stuck together with mutual intensity from then on.
Love put magnets in our pussies.
Although she’s much taller than me and has a totally different physique, our pussies are like twins. Maybe I’ll publish a photography book. I’ve amassed a trove of pictures of pussy, love, and art in general; it’d be shitty of me to keep it all to myself. Someday when I get out of bed, I’ll go through with it and Sterne will come to the book release wearing a green spangled dress with translucent black pantyhose and platform shoes, clocking in at over two meters tall. She always dares to dress that way. Her hair spilling down over her shoulders, bleached and disheveled – hair like that suits her.
I relished the scent and friendly warmth of fresh blood.
I’d never felt so free with any man before. Maybe feeling uninhibited with someone so intrinsically different has been a challenge for me. She’d stopped menstruating. Otherwise, we always had a great time. Couples, maybe not all couples, start synchronizing their periods. It’s dictated by cosmic waves of some sort. Like electronics. I like blood so much. It’s warm and beautiful. Feral. Menstruation is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I thought when I was twelve and painting my first bloody-faced self-portrait. I relished the scent and friendly warmth of fresh blood. I’d press a warm, heavy Always Ultra Night pad plump with blood to one side of my face. There are little holes in the texture, making my skin look like a cool pad-screenshot. My own blood started seeping and I no longer had to masturbate to stupid action films. Sterne was the first person I was ever able to share it with. Monthly purification. It’s a weird thought, but appropriate here. My personal blood fetish. We’d sometimes lock ourselves in the apartment for the whole period, lounging around and just letting the blood flow, which is what led to my mattress-art concept. It came out of love. Sometimes, we looked like bloody monsters padding around the apartment naked. We drank wine and ate sushi, bloody. Sterne often opened the door to the food-delivery driver like that, naked and bloody. I so wish I could tenderly rest my right cheek against her right breast with the arch of my nose nestling into her armpit right now. The position always made me feel safe and secure.
We went out together too, of course. We’d roleplay. Usually the same game over and over again. Sterne and I would pretend to be strangers waiting for a bus. She’d stand there checking the schedule in her skirt, blood trickling down her inner thigh. The two of us would occasionally walk around town like that together. She’s extremely brave and audaciously spontaneous to boot. Whenever I see blood, I become like a leech. I know exactly what bleeding will be like: I’ve observed, photographed, and filmed it. If there’s anything I’m good at, then it’s pleasuring a girlfriend. Blood comes like impulses: the flow increases when you press gently on certain parts of the lower abdomen. It can be played with and is so arousing. It’s weird how special it is, flowing blood. I’ll be standing around chatting and at the same time, a clot of blood is deposited in my panties. Clots are my favorite. I’d just lie with my face in her pussy; sometimes I started to cry, and I can’t explain why – it’s simply so incredible. Love. I’ve got tons of amazing photos where we’re bloody all over, our faces and everywhere else. I’ll make it into an exhibition someday; as soon as I can get out of bed. A book, too: Soldiers with Pussies and Bloody Faces. Every menstruation over a decade, more or less, signified a happening, a performance, and countless spontaneous photo sessions. It was fascinating every time.
I think I started to feel distanced when her menstruation stopped. I can’t live with someone who’s dry. Jesus, I really acted so shittily and selfishly towards her. I called her “dry”. I regret it.
I felt lonely and abandoned when we were still together, and her dick-bullshit started picking up momentum. I kept bleeding, embittered and alone, after she’d lost the ability. So, I put on my favorite movie (Carrie, the original 1976 version), masturbated, and sucked on my bloody fingers. It wasn’t the same. A whole lot started and ended with Sterne.
So long as she didn’t have a real dick, everything was more or less hunky-dory between us. But when it arrived, a new appendage that gradually began to work, my frustration grew. Or maybe I was getting afraid it’d hurt me, though her dick was far from attractive and in no way big, kind of resembling a dolma from the chebureki stand by the train station – yeah, that’s exactly it – and similar in color at first.
You can’t imagine how hilarious it was
Now, Sterne started to like wearing tight spangled dresses and super-high stilts and performing “erotic” dances in the living room, at the climax of which she’d reveal her new body part – by then a plump, ordinary, skin-colored dolma. You can’t imagine how hilarious it was. The best part was just seeing Sterne – how happy she was. Every emotion surged inside of me, intense happiness and joy, but nothing sexual. We tried out all kinds of tricks in bed at Sterne’s request. Somewhat to my annoyance. Sorry, Ster! I hated the transformation she’d undergone and could just barely tolerate it inside of me.
Sterne had dreamed of having anal sex for years. Maybe she’d been having it her whole life and that’s what motivated the gender-change operation. Actually, I wouldn’t call it a “gender change”. It was, technically, sure, but she didn’t switch genders – she’d never had one to begin with. She was always fascinated by anal stuff on every point of the spectrum, devouring it in plays and films. Previously, we’d even invited anal specialists to come to our place and perform for us.
We were flames of goodness. We supported each other’s fantasies.
The time we had anal sex was the last physical sexual act between us. I guess me merely trying to enjoy it for her sake ended up being a turn-off. False intent and a desire to please are turn-offs in bed, sex, and just about anywhere else. We despised suck-ups. But I feel like I’ll have to become a suck-up sometime in the future anyway, because I do want someone to like me. I don’t like myself at all anymore. Or, well, I guess I could just as well die.
We had our share of relationship issues over those ten years, as partners always do, but love never truly stalls the engine. I do want this buzzing to die and the cement to harden already, though. I’m no longer a flame of goodness.
I suppose Sterne was a little disappointed in her dolma. Our “anal sex” climaxed in hysterical laughter made up of equal parts hysterical crying, but we both just opted to laugh. First of all, making the dolma erect demanded strenuous effort on her part and tightly gripping the scrotum. I never saw if it ejected anything or not. The process of merely getting hard took immense concentration and will. Sterne had both in spades, and I also did my best to arouse us. Even so, anal sex made her so nauseous that couldn’t hold it down and puked on my back. Sterne said she disliked the sensation – it was uncomfortably warm and tight and that’s what made her sick. I couldn’t suppress it either, so we both ran for the toilet. She was holding her hand over her mouth, I over my ass. She retched onto the floor and into the sink while I let off fireworks into the toilet. Puke was dripping down my back. It was green from a green smoothie she’d had earlier: 1 banana, 1 kiwi, 1 orange, 1 apple, about half a cucumber or less, fresh parsley, lemon, ginger, optional honey and oil.
That was the point where we both realized we no longer worked together. Our settings had been knocked totally off-kilter.
We shared our bodily fluids
There was disappointment on her face; I suppose she was in shock. I wrapped my arms around her, smearing puke all over her, too. We shared our bodily fluids. We were so intimate. So sad.
The Tinder-boy had some issues, too: he couldn’t blow his load. I don’t know, maybe it was because of me. I didn’t feel anything, either. I couldn’t tell if his dick was even inside of me. Apparently it was, judging by his expression, but I certainly couldn’t discern it. I’d also slid into the dip in the mattress. I could see the strain on the boy’s face. I felt bored. At one point I discovered half a cookie in the bed and jammed it into my anus to at least feel something. I reckoned I’d just stick to fucking cookies from then on. Sweaty cookie crumbs stuck between your butt cheeks totally works if you rub them back and forth.
I told the boy I was tired and needed a break. He, Philip, rolled a joint and played my keyboard a little – he’d studied piano for twelve years. I sipped a beer and stared out the window, then took a hit from his joint; my mind was already frazzled. The boy interrupted the piece he was playing and asked: “Do you wanna jump on me?” (I took a swig of beer.) “Do you want to eat cookie from my ass?” I asked in reply.
After about a minute of silence, I got out of bed, stood naked in front of him, nothing but the beer bottle touching my body, and made a very cinematic statement: “I think you should be leaving now.” The boy said that was too bad. He asked if he could take a shower first and I said no, unfortunately it’s broken. To which he said that explains a lot.
I walked him to the door, somewhat awkwardly wished him a good life, still nude and holding the beer, and shut it behind him.
I went to the window and fantasized about jumping out in a way that I’d land right on top of the splinters of the maggot crate and then lie there like a maggot myself, only exponentially bigger – the tone would match, alright. Or maybe I’d at least toss the beer out. But I didn’t jump, didn’t toss. I started wondering if the maggots survived their four-story fall or if it’d killed them. I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, grabbed my camera, and went down to take a look.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margit Lõhmus (b. 1985) is an Estonian artist and writer. Her explicitly transgressive short prose explores radical femininity, alternative approaches to sexuality, and the position of the artist in contemporary society, within both Estonian and German contexts. Her texts are characterized by a distinctly confessional and autobiographical quality, occasionally enriched with an uncanny, psychedelic sensibility. Her short story collection Sterne (2019, Kultuurileht) was met with critical acclaim.