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Like Mother, Like Son

by

Roshan Khan

*Names, including the author's, have been changed.

I WAS two months from turning twenty-three and en route to my first sex party. I was wrapped in a vintage silk Japanese smoking jacket and not much else as I drove toward a stranger’s mansion. I had made the list, gotten the code, and now I was in. 

The mansion was modern without the emotionless feel. The antique wood floors spread throughout the home gave it warmth-- the only sound echoed from my black velvet Salvatore Ferragamo slippers clacking along its polished surface. I passed a floor- length mirror.  Is my outfit too much? I was trying to go for a King Mongkut look, you know, the King from the film, The King and I, famously played by Yul Brynner. Except I was the slutty version.

The invitation instructed me to take the elevator down to the basement. I moved through this hallway and that hallway. Some were lined with paintings—is that the original?Not a single person was on the main level. Isn’t this supposed to be a sex party?My stomach churned. It took forever to find the fucking elevator—concealed behind a door in the kitchen. I swung open the door and pressed the button. My stomach was in pain, my heart beat faster and faster, and my silk jacket was becoming damp. I slipped it off and draped it over my right hand. Now all I had on my skin was tight blue boxer briefs that matched the lapel of my jacket. I stepped past the steel doors. I pressed another button, this one big and red with the letter “B” engraved on it. I rolled my eyes. As the door closed I caught my distorted reflection on the steel—are they going to think I’m too skinny?  Ugly?  Fat?  How did I get myself in to this? I wanted to scream. Would anybody hear me? I felt trapped, alone, and crazy.  The only thing I could think of, seconds before the doors slid open, was my mother getting a phone call from the police to come and identify my body.

I inhaled, my chest rising as high as it could, and exhaled slowly as the elevator thumped to a stop. Shit! They knew my face, my body, and everything else I’d written in my profile in order to be accepted by the Clique. I wrote a small profile of myself, which included risqué pictures. The cold door opened. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the light. A coat rack stood next to a table on which sat four metal plates filled with small portions of unidentified substances. I held onto my jacket in case I had to make a swift escape. Naked men filled the room. I was the caracal in a sea of white stallions. I walked slowly through the maze of sections that made up the basement. I stopped at the sling corner where I watched three men taking turns to slip inside some guy. I passed a young man tied to a bed waiting to be fucked. My fear vaporized; the energy in the room consumed me.

“ Roshan?” said G., standing in front of me, gripping my waist. 
“Yes, that’s me,” I said.

G. moved behind me, his strong hands still gripped my waist, his head on my neck. He whispered in my ear as he steered us to the open bed at the other end of the basement.

“What are you comfortable with?” he said, moving his hands forcefully on my flesh.   I showed him. I let him explore the fantasy he had whispered in my ear. Bodies moved closer.  Give them what they want to see. I performed out of insecurity. I heard men murmuring about me.  I endured more, and then G. finished.

“Can we join you?” a man asked. Another man stood next to him.

I grabbed their arms and pulled them into the bed.  I wanted to be possessed, held, loved, but more so I prayed to be desired.

Four hours later I decided to leave.
 “You’re welcome to stay the night,” G. said while I slipped my shoes back on. 
“Not tonight, thank you,” I said looking down.

The truth was I wanted to stay, but I couldn’t trust the person I was becoming so quickly.
I wrapped my silk jacket and walked to the elevator.

“Hurry up, hurry up,” I whispered.

I rode up alone as I had on the way down. I clacked past the beige granite counters, opened the towering front door, and pressed the unlock button on my car key. As the lights blinked, panic settled in me. I opened my car door and hopped in, now pressed against the cold leather. I flipped down the visor, slid open the mirror, glimpsed the bites that stained my neck and chest, closed it, and then the tears rushed down my face, and down my neck, and stung the open wounds.

I’m so sorry, Ma

ellipses

Three months before my initiation into the Clique I was hesitant to leave my home in Northern California.

My closet was emptied, my dresser drawers, too. My clothes, shoes, books, magazines, and a few remnants of home had all been boxed up and shipped to my first apartment where they waited for my arrival. Glimpses of my childhood were uncovered on the walls of my closet. There were doodles and quotes I’d sketched onto the stained walls. I stepped closer to examine them: a quote from Gandhiji, and a weird drawing out of red and yellow crayon of Aishwarya Rai, the Indian actress, and my Elizabeth Taylor.

The blow dryer hissed, the tapping of a brush against her compact in the room adjacent to mine were sounds that disturbed my sleep in the mornings. Those echoes were comforting now.  I sat on my immaculately made bed, every crease and fold sharp as whistles’ blows. My breath kept me company as I recounted to myself all the memories I lived in this room: I’d thought about love for the first time in this room, I’d imagine what it could be. I’d jacked off for the first time in this room, too, and watched hours of gay porn. Here on my bed, reading Vogue, I’d become a fashionista. Over here, against this white wall, I had cried secretly over a high school boy.

My room was not just my hideout. It was also a haven for my mother. Not from her, but for her. I can’t recall when my mother started sleeping in my bed with me, every night for years and years until a few months after my father left. She never loved my father and suffered in their bed. To escape him she slept with me. Nothing was ever said, i t just was. Their marriage was arranged when she was 16 a nd she was married at 18. Jealousy, angst, and rage were how their relationship functioned. Most of it inflicted by my father.

I couldn’t sleep without my mother—she’d become my security blanket, my night-light. A few months after my father left, my mother and I got into an altercation that ended our sleep routine.

“Why can’t you take me? You’re always getting your hair done!” I screamed. She had refused to drive me to the mall to buy my latest outfit.
“Shut up! We’ll go tomorrow,” she said sternly.

She was sitting on a dining-room chair that she’d moved out to our garage, so that her hairdresser, Marie, a Haitian woman from Oakland, could put extensions in her hair. My mother had just cut it short the week before, and now she wanted to have long locks overnight.

“No! I don’t have anything to wear,” I said, crying like a baby. 
She rolled her eyes and didn’t say anything. Bitch.                              
“Babu, it’ll be fine,” Marie said trying to pacify my tears.

I left the garage, ran to my room, and cried on top of my bed. My tears evaporated, my eyes red from itching; now anger pulsed through my small body. I got up, fixed my bed, and heatedly walked back through the kitchen to the garage.

My mother was sitting there, her head tilted to the left while Marie pulled, twisted, and braided extensions into her hair. They stared at me in astonishment. I stood stock- still.

“I hate you! Don’t sleep in my bed anymore!” I said.

I stormed out, slamming the door shut. I slept alone that night. It was the first time since I couldn’t remember when.  She took me to get my outfit the next day, b ut I had lost my night-light. I had to learn how to sleep alone again.  I was almost 15.

ellipses

I got up off my bed, and tiptoed into my mother’s room. “I’m ready to leave soon, M a. Open!” I said knocking on her bathroom door.

“Wait a minute!” she yelled.

I turned around and sat on her messy bed. I felt compelled to make it, as I did every morning, and I got up to start straightening and tucking in—but then I let it go and sat back down. I looked around taking in every inch. I saw the mirror. I remembered my sister and me, making eyes at our own reflections, trying to emulate the grace of Bollywood seductresses. To my left, the armoire I hid my money in and found money in. Not much further, the closet no longer gutted from my manic attempts to establish order, to arrange normalcy.

“Is your car packed?” Her voiced echoed through the door.
“Yes M a.”
 “What’s your rush?” she said.
“Nothing.”

 She opened the door and looked stunning as usual wrapped in her towel, her hair hanging down like strands of silk.

 “What’re you wearing today?” I asked.  She pointed to the middle outfit laid out on her bed.
 “That’s boring.  P ut this blouse on instead. It’s sexier.”
“Iron it then.”

 I plugged in the iron and ironed out the wrinkles.

 “Here,” I said, handing her the blouse.
 “Thanks, Babu.”

I inhaled the smell of my mother’s room one last time—a mix of Chanel No. 5 and Opium by Yves Saint Laurent—as I toddled out.

I paced to the garage. On the way I passed my sister’s room, vacant for years now; my bathroom; the living room I watched my beloved shows in and found my passion for exercise in; the kitchen I cooked my first meal in; the dining table no one dined at. I unlocked my sky- blue BMW, a present from my mother after I crashed my Mercedes. My parents spoiled me with almost everything I wanted. I knew they were trying to make up for their tumultuous relationship and the effect it had on my sister and me. I had made sure I packed everything that hadn’t shipped. Boxes and bags swallowed the interior. The sun beat down, but the chill breeze of the morning engulfed me one last time before I left Purpleleaf St.

She walked into the garage and turned to her shoe cupboard. “Do you have money?”
“Yes.”
 “When will you arrive?”
“Around 2.”
  “I’m running late.  D o you need anything else?” she asked.
“Some money,” I said sitting on the garage kitchen counter.
 She unlocked her BMW, and opened the heavy black door, pulling out her wallet, “How much?”
 “Whatever you want,” I said. She handed me all the cash she had in her wallet.
 “Thanks, M a.” I threw the cash into my car as she slipped on her shoes.
“Drive safely, and call me every hour,” she said, h er arm wrapped around my neck; I had my hand on her back. 
“Yes, M a.”  

As I pulled out of the driveway, images of my first day at school flashed in my mind.  T he first time I had ever tried to relinquish her was in K indergarten. I couldn’t let go of her hand, a stream of tears rushing from my eyes. She managed to pry me off her fingers and had the teacher escort me to my desk. The other kids played with Play-Doh laughing, smiling. I sat at my desk, spatters of tears hitting its shiny surface. I looked out the window and saw my mother wave goodbye. She left momentarily. Miss Ashley couldn’t stop me from crying.

“Want me to get your sister?” Miss Ashley said.
I continued to cry ignoring her appeasement.

 She phoned my mother. My tears stopped as soon as I saw her coming in the door.
 “Let’s go, Babu,” she said.

Now, I smiled back at her; she stood at the trunk of her car until I pulled out of the driveway. She waved goodbye—this time I let go.

ellipses

Five hours into my road trip, my sister phoned.

“Dude, she cried when she called me,” my sister said.
“Really?” I inhaled deeply, and hung up.
 
Seven and a half hours later I reached the apartment complex. I Parked in spot 113 and yawned as I opened the door, grabbed my apartment keys, and made my way through the maze I had mastered that led to apartment 126. Boxes were strewn everywhere as I opened the door. I walked into my new room and lay down next to a pile of my clothes.  T his was the first time I was alone in my apartment. I didn’t know anyone.
 
“You made it, I see?” my mother said.
“Yeah, I almost feel asleep on the 5.”
“How is it?”
  “Perfect, but a lot of unpacking.”
  “You have too many clothes.”
“Whatever, M a.”
“Call me later,” she said.

Most of our conversations went like this, never lasting for more than 5 minutes. I’ve called in at least four times a day since I was old enough to work the telephone. It would be over three months before I would see my mother again, and so much would have changed before then.

ellipses


I moved in a week before I started university. This was the first time I had lived on my own, four hundred miles away from my family. 

Each day for weeks after school began I would slump into bed. My body ached each night as I ate my ordinary dinners at home. The weekends flew by only because I didn’t get out of bed much. My mother rang me more than I did her now.  

“Did you get your school work done?” she said.
“Yes, M a.”
“What’s wrong?”
 “Nothing, M a. I’m just tired. What are you doing?”
“Going out with the girls.”
 “Make sure you take a taxi.”
 “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
 “Bye, M a.”

I had become a depressed college student. My diagnosis was separation anxiety. I had to make a change! I had to find myself again.
I met a friend for dinner in L.A., my first night outside the confines of my university’s town. The first time I dressed up for a night out since I left home. This was the night I met a member of theClique.

Chic people crowded the bohemian-style restaurant.

“Two hours for a table,” said the host. 
“Bar?” I said to Puja.
“Bar!” she said, her flowing locks glistening against her bare shoulders.  S he wore an Alexander Wang bandeau, skirt, and heels. She towered over me.

We walked past the conversations, past the azure- colored chairs and crisp white tablecloths enclosed by bamboo and shrubbery of some sort all lit up by hundreds of candles. We hopped on the two vacant red chairs at the bar. I felt like myself again, surrounded by all the people and their loud confessions.  

“How’s Raj?” she asked.
“I left him,” I said. “And please not tonight.”

She put her hand on top of mine and squeezed it. We consumed a bottle of white wine before our dinner arrived. “Is he looking at me or you?” asked Puja, lifting her right eyebrow. I put my left elbow on the wooden countertop, cupped my face and looked to the right.

“Cute! I don’t know?” I said.
 “Dessert?” the bartender said.
“Yes!” we said in unison.
“He’s still looking.” The man who was staring moved to the chair next to Puja.
“Hi I’m Andrew,” he said shaking Puja’s hand and staring at me.
“Puja,” she said.
 “ Roshan,” I said, squinting my eyes and tilting my head down, something I do out of awkwardness. My heart beat faster.
“What do you two do?” Andrew said.
 “I’m a university student in New York,” Puja said, nonchalantly.
“I go to UC ,” I said.
 “What do you do?” Puja asked.
 “I’m an actor.”
“You’re kidding me,” Puja said.
 I was thinking the same, but I wasn’t a New Yorker. He shrugged it off and ordered us a round of drinks. “Thank you!” we said.
“Excuse me,” Puja said, sliding from her chair to use the restroom.  

My heart beat faster and faster. He moved to Puja’s chair. He wore a white shirt tucked into his black jeans, the sleeves rolled up. I smelled his skin as he put his large hand on top of my small hand, his pale skin against my brown skin. 

“I think you’d be great for the sex party tonight.”
Fuck!  W here is Puja?

 My muscles tensed and I tried to move my hand from under his, but the pressure from his hand didn’t let mine budge.

“Is this a joke?” I asked, squinting my eyes again. 
“No,” he said.
 “I’m not into that scene,” I said.
 “ Roshan, these guys would love to see someone like you.”
 “Why is that, Andrew?” I asked, doing my best impression of Puja.
 “You’re Indian, right?” he said.
“Mmmhhmmm,” I murmured. He’s trying to play me. I could see Puja out of my right eye. She furrowed her brow as she moved closer.
 “Andrew, are we playing musical chairs?” He moved out of Puja’s seat and moved to the one next to me. We resumed a casual conversation. Andrew got out of his chair and fished two cards out of his wallet.
 “I hope I see you two soon.”

Andrew put his arms around Puja and gave her a tight squeeze. I moved off my chair. His grip was strong, my body ant-like compared to his. The smell of his neck so sweet, the force of his chest inhaling against mine, his fingers wrapped tight around my ribs was an embrace I hadn’t felt in months from a man.

I had never dated a white man. I had always wanted to date outside my own ethnicity. I was single now. I was always curious about dating them—my mother dated several when I was younger.

ellipses

Pictures of her hung on the walls like wallpaper. My eight-year-old eyes feasted on an ornate glass jar filled with gummy worms, but only for a moment. My attention shifted to the large black and white images of my mother. Her almond eyes, full lips, and round face were stunningly captured in these photos. I didn’t know where I was, nor did my sister, but we knew what was happening.

“Take a handful and let’s go,” M a said, dropping off a package.

This was a new man, but something was different about this one. There were no images of him, but he wasn’t like the ones before. This wasn’t the home of an Indian millionaire, or the office of one, or the company of one. I hoarded as many gummy worms I could in my little palm, put the top back on, and as I reached out for my mother’s hand with my free one I saw the yellow package.  I t read “To Cliff.”

The idea of my mother with a white man intrigued me. It wasn’t a foreign concept; my uncle married a white woman. Their kids were the cousins I grew up with. I guess it was a departure from what I was used to, a departure I was excited about.

My father was jealous, controlling, and traditional. She was anything but—the reason my father’s sisters-in-law envied her. I hated the way the men in my family gazed at her. My stomach would churn and my body would tense up when these family members would hiss and gawk at her, because I knew my dad would beat her for something she had no control over. Our home was a battleground. The sounds of slaps and the traces of pulled hair filled the hallways, the kitchen, the family room, the living room, each bedroom, and the cars. Every part of our home was tainted. Her only escape was the men, and I became complicit in her game. 

My mother took me along on most of her dates; I think it elevated her fear. I was also the perfect cover. These men were obsessed with her, and I think with me too. It hailed gifts every time I was with these men. Anything I wanted was easily mine. These material perks were trivial; w hat mattered were the laughs, the smiles, and the outward appearance of being a happy family for just several hours a week.

I fell in love with each of these men, thinking I was a part of their secret affair. The Indian men were reserved and the closest they came to doing anything physical with her in front of me was holding hands and whispering to each other. They also scared me more than the white men, only because I knew they would end up being like my father in some manner or other, and most lived up to that expectation.

The white men were different. I liked the way my mother’s skin looked against these men’s. There was something forbidden about it all at the time. These men displayed more passion. I came out of the dressing room of some department store and couldn’t find my mother and I went looking for her. She was in the section across from me—I balked and stared at them. His hands cupped her breasts, her hands on his waist, their mouths moved in squiggly directions. This was the first time I saw my mother kiss a man. A part of me wished I was her.

Despite the affairs with the white men and the passion they displayed I knew they wouldn’t last. They were a pastime in between the Indian men that she seemed to desire more. My family was opposite of the like father, like son, and like mother, like daughter standard.  I t was like father, like daughter, and like mother, like son.

Two years after my parents divorced my mother married one of those Indian men, the one she had had the longest affair with, in a small ceremony of six.  Her impulses continued and so did his. Their relationship was tricky and for years they tried to settle into normalcy. I was an adult now and, at 20,  my first relationship was on the horizon.

Raj was everything Indian parents desired from their child’s partner: an up- and- coming cardiac surgeon, rich, and from a respectable family. Unfortunately his family wasn’t as open, nor was he. This was my first affair I kept from my family. We met at his university in northern California. Our first meetings were entrenched with passion that I’d only witnessed and never lived. Suddenly it was happening all at once.

“Where are you going these days?” my mother asked.
 “My friend’s, M a. I have friends you know.”

 I had two friends that were busy at university in different states. Raj was my escape, and being his lover, plaything, whatever it was, was tolerable. I was always introduced as his “ friend” to colleagues and to his pretentious parents.

Then it happened. The agony of punches, slaps, and slurs came my way . I’d become my mother’s past self. I was so typical. I made excuses for his lashings. I convinced myself, repeating over and over again like a mantra. It’s his board exams coming up. It’s his parents trying to arrange a marriage again. 

I worked out harder and even learned how to cook. Isn’t this the recipe for the magic spell to make a ma n fall in love with you?  The images I stored as a kid of my mother pleasing her boyfriends wasn’t the right concoction for me, but did it really work for her then? 

My mother wouldn’t see the marks; she knew how one could easily hide them. I stayed with Raj until they healed. I would spend a week each time without coming home. Meanwhile she settled into the humdrum relationship she found herself married into. My stepfather was gentle; he never raised his hand to her. They had other issues to overcome. I didn’t worry about her when I was away. My father wasn’t coming back. 

I stayed with Raj for two more years. His marriage proposals were coming in every week, his temper would worsen every week, and his parents’ pressure would tighten every week.

The night I left him was brutal. He had just moved into his new home in Marin County. He hoped it would be the home we cultivated together. “I’ve decided to go to , Raj.” I hadn’t told him that I picked a Southern California school over another sister university in the Bay Area.

His eyes would change when he was about to do something physical. He paced the kitchen as I sat on the new dining table I had selected from Crate and Barrel.

“Sorry, I don’t want to be stuck in a program I don’t care about,” I said as I moved out of the chair and slowly away from the kitchen. I hurriedly walked to his room and locked myself in the bathroom. My stomach had the worst piercing pain of panic. I had left my cell phone on the counter. He walked into the room and locked the door.

“Get the fuck out of the bathroom! I need to talk to you,” he yelled.

Images of my father yelling at my mother raced into my mind, blinding me and suffocating my thoughts. I turned the sink on full speed to drown out his voice, to let him cool down before I opened the door. He didn’t calm down.

The slurs worsened, “You’re a slut aren’t you, go then be someone else’s whore.” He would’ve broken the door down before he calmed down. I opened it.

 I left for home the next morning, swollen, bruised, and heart broken.
 I left for school three weeks later.

ellipses

I texted Andrew the following week. He told me to email G., and if I was  ‘worthwhile,’ I’d be contacted soon. G. replied an hour after I emailed him. That’s when I made the list, and got the code. I was sucked into this world after my first night with the Clique. But soon things spiraled in another direction. 

I couldn’t phone my mother for days after it happened. I was ashamed of what I had done, of who I had become. When I did phone my mother I felt relieved and safe. But something had transpired in the absence of my calls.

“Why won’t you come visit me, M a?”
“I have too much going on here, but we’ll try to come,” she said. Her tone was unusual.
“What’s wrong M a?”
“I have to fix something, I’m fine.”
“Tell me!”
“Call me later, bye.” 

I phoned my sister moments later.
“What happened, Bobu?”
“She told you.”
“No, she didn’t.”
  “I can’t tell you because I promised. Someone did something really fucked up to M a, someone you’d never imagine.”
“Who? What happened? Is she okay? Tell me. Please!”
“I really can’t. Ma told me not to.”
“So you’re listening to her now, bitch? ”
“I can’t. I said too much already.”
 I hung up.
 
My mother always told her everything. Something I always resented about my sister. I never understood their dynamic. She was like my father, and my mother always confided in her and not me.

What happened? Who? Why?   These questions were etched in my mind moments after my sister told me someone had done something to hurt my mother. So many people raced through my mind.  W as it someone from the past? Who? Why won’t they tell me? I pleaded for days with my sister. I sensed she wanted to tell me, but her vow to my mother prevented her from spilling information.

The Clique was my escape from the questions troubling my thoughts. I needed to be held, desired, and loved. I would rotate throughout the night with the few other young sluts the Clique let into their sanctum. I thrived off the exoticism, and so did the other two young, brown- skinned men.

The white men became a game to us:  w ho could sleep with the most and who could get the most men wanting them. It was sick and we knew it. We all had something fucking with us that kept us coming back. I tried to escape the impulse.

“Hi, M a!”
“What?”
“I need to see a doctor for some disability thing?”
“What?”
“I have to go to Kaiser, and go through a test, so can you put money in my account now, please?”
“Okay, let me know right away.”
“I will, Ma, thanks.”

I lied. I needed money to see a therapist, and eventually a psychologist. I used to look down on the people who needed to spend money on such things. I never understood why people couldn’t get it together.  I mean, they could use that money better at Barneys.
I checked into the psychiatric ward at Kaiser Hospital, and sat in the waiting room. I wore the biggest sunglasses I could find in my collection, Tom Ford Campbell s, a black 3.1 Phillip Lim hoodie, Acne jeans and Vans sneakers. I was too obvious trying not to be obvious.

“ Roshan!” my therapist called.

The pounding in my chest was palpable. We greeted each other and she walked me into her room.  I t wasn’t like the therapist rooms you see in movies, it was filled with mementos of her past, and a big comfy couch I sank into. She sat at her desk, typing furiously every word I said.

“Why are you here, Roshan?”

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I wanted to spit out why I was there, but I didn’t have the courage.

“I have too many shoes,” I said.
“How many shoes?”
“I don’t know… a lot. I even have a shitty shoe closet, where I discard shoes I’ve worn twice.”
 Shit, she thinks I’m crazy.
I did have a shoe influx, five boxes full that I carefully unpacked and placed in my new room.
“Where do you get the money?”
 “My parents, mostly my mom.”
 “Tell me about her.”
 Bitch has lost her mind. I had lost my mind. I was sitting in a therapist’s room lying about what was really going on and she just touched on what the real problem was. “She’s my best friend,” I said with my best poker face.
“Have you had a job?”
“No.”
 “Friends?”
“Not here.”

The session was over after she prodded me with more general questions she had to ask and typed into her computer.

“Buy a journal and write in it everyday, and try to get involved with a school club.” I paced out of the building to my car, raced home and fell into bed. I woke up, got ready, and drove to G.’s party. This time it all changed.

ellipses


It became routine going to the Clique’s sex parties. I knew all the men, slept with most of them. It became generic, easy, and safe. I didn’t feel that nerve-racking surge of energy with the Clique anymore. I needed the element of danger to forget about the pain. I turned to the Internet to get my fix. I had to be in danger. 

Craigslist post: Men seeking Men
Subject:  Indian Spice for Wild Play
Love to be dominated, and love to please my TOP.  I’m a fantasy pleaser. Into most things besides: blood, and scat. Please be sane and GL. Tell me a fantasy in your message. Please include face and body pics.
I’m 5’5, 110 lb., skinny/toned, smooth/trim, clean/DDF (You be too). Bareback has to be discussed prior, and documentation has to be shown. Can host, or drive. Prefer to host. 

My inbox was chock-full of messages 30 minutes after I posted. Each click was like taking a hit — at least what I imagined taking a hit would be like. I forgot about the questions that bombarded me about my mother and the pain of leaving Raj. Most of these men were white. Their fantasies were sick, but the more twisted they were the more I forgot, the deeper I fell into a high. 

I stopped asking my mother to come see me. Her voice was like a million needles pressing into my flesh. I didn’t need her to see me now, not like this. I could smell the scent of all the men on me, and I was sure she would, too. I was addicted to these men and to sex with complete strangers.

A little less than three months on my own and I fucked up. My mother was in pain and I could feel it acutely over the phone in her voice. What happened to my mother? Who was responsible? Had she started up her cycle with a new crop of men? Who were they?

 I posted each day at least two or three times in different counties and states. I spent hours and hours online, reading, responding, and selecting my escapes.

What’s wrong, what’s wrong? became a scroll that loop ed around my mind, never ending. I sat on my couch and tuned into CNN, images of dying people flashed before me, like the flashes of worries and concerns zigzagging through my body. A network of pain released itself from all the built-up anxieties and pain f rom the past and the present. At times when my mother and sister entered my mind, I could only think fuck them. I had somewhere to be, someone who desired me. I had a life all my own. I could tune out the white noise with these white men.

I picked up my phone from under my couch, no messages. I leaned over and grabbed my laptop from my desk and scrolled through the responses. I selected two. My phone buzzed.