N. A. Melamed - Experience Points: Illustrated Queer Smutty Stories (Queering Consent)

Experience Points: Illustrated Queer Smutty Stories

2022 Nicholai Avigdor Melamed

This edition Microcosm Publishing 2022

First edition - 3,000 copies - March 8, 2022

eBook ISBN 9781648410758

This is Microcosm #673

Cover by Nicholai Avigdor Melamed

Edited by Lydia Rogue

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Contents

Introduction

A Study in Charcoal

Saint Sebastian

The Floor is Lava

Epilogue

Dramatis Personae

About the Author

Introduction

T here is a passage I remember from a story I read when I was younger. A passage about an aging actress singing over a weathered gramophone.

I no longer remember the name of the story, or even the language it was written in, but I do recall how the narrator described her.

She was beautiful once.

I didnt understand this sentence at first. But as the story went on, I realized its author meant for us to pity the actress. He wanted the reader to envision her wrinkled face, gnarled hands and love handles. She was a symbol of faded glory, existing between the pages of that book only to compliment the deteriorated scenery of a shabby boarding house.

And though I continued reading, I recall nothing elsebecause I was already telling myself another story.

It was the story of the actress.

I imagined how she carried herself, with her proud eyes and aura of majesty. She was larger than life in dresses from a bygone age, the rich shade of lipstick she still wore, and the powerful voice that echoed through the walls of her small, but dignified apartment like a force of nature.

This was a woman of a thousand stories, the tamest of which was still more interesting than the protagonist of a clich-ridden narrative that compared her to a run-down building.

That actress wasnt just beautiful. She was more beautiful than ever.

So now, the only reason I remember this story at all is because it made me find the words to express how my understanding of beauty differed from that of its author.

The beauty that the aging actress embodied couldnt be found on runways or airbrushed photos. It was the rare outcome of being wholly yourselfnot in the way of a marketing slogan that had packaged and commodified authenticitybut with the well-earned scars, eye bags, creases and sags of a life richly lived.

There was a time when I believed you have to be old to earn that kind of beauty. That being unapologetically earnest about who you are and what you want is a privilege reserved for those too old to be punished for it.

How many people have I heard tell me just wait wait until Im old and Ill wear that shade of red, Ill go to that faraway place Ive always dreamed of, and Ill state my opinion in an unsympathetic crowd.

Its an idea that holds a special kind of dreamy allure when youre not sure youll live long enough to actually look in the mirror and see it.

But Im still alive (against all odds). Im not yet old, and I do look in mirrors and see someone I never thought Id see when I read that half-remembered passage.

That someone is myself.

The story youre about to read isnt about me, or an aging actress. But it is about people who were a part of somebody elses scenery for too long, and who found a little more of themselves in each other.

There is only one hope I have for itand thats for you, the would-be reader, to look up from it at journeys end a little more horny, a little more entertained, and feeling a little more yourself as well.

Dedicated to those of us who were
taught to feel unloveable.

THE TRUTH IS

We can love and be loved in turn.
We can be attractive.
We can choose to have sex lives.
We can take ownership of our bodies.
We can desire.
We can experience pleasure.

AND WE HAVE OUR OWN STORIES TO TELL.

I read this book once. About human brains, and how you can trace their evolution through structure, almost like rings on an old tree stump. Fleshy, misshapen rings.

Right now, some part of the pre-mammalian web that channels my soul is making a judgement about the man in front of me.

Potential mate sighted. Prepare body to fuck.

Of course, what the evolutionary biologists failed to account for is that we cant actually reproduce. Didnt account for gay in their little theory.

So this would be termed anomalous behaviour. Neurons misfiring. Critical malfunction detected.

Or you could choose, instead, to explain it by way of the pleasure principle. A good fuck makes for better social cohesion.

But the unasked-for rush of hormones flooding my body at this very moment tells a very different story.

Its too distracting for social anything. I can barely hear him speak over the sound of my own heartbeat.

Hey, so this is your apartment.

I prefer another theory. Cant remember where I read it. For all I know, its coming together on the spot as I struggle to maintain a semblance of chill.

Thats right.

An ally in mutual survival.

Thats what my prefrontal cortex thinks its spotted.

The right amalgamation of genes, read through a series of subconscious signals. Everything from the nervous way he smiles to the imperceptible emissions of his sweat glands.

Better seal the deal, it figures. Quick, do something to make his hypothalamus produce oxytocin before he gets away!

And if you think all this theorizing is making the moment any less romantictrust me, Im doing my best.

You want tea, coffee? Ive got cream.

Have I ever.

Just water would be great, thanks.

Alright, Mr. Just Water .

Well, Ill boil some water for me. Come into the kitchen. Well talk there.

Sure.

I feel like that dumbass teenager from The Lost Boys . Hopelessly clinging to anything thats nailed down before his newfound float reflex carries him through the open window. Right off into the night sky, like an anchorless balloon.