Protagonist: Mateo Martin Wim Gonzalez Escogido (Catholic with Sephardic Jewish father/Pueblo mother)
Born in El Paso, Texas. 35 years old. Gay. Out but self-loathing. Alcoholic, addicted to porn, poppers and sex but is functional. Moved to LA for a relationship that lasted 3 months. He stayed and found a steaqdy but dead end job. Friends drift in and out of his life. Relationships crumble around him. He rescued a lost kitten but she died the next day. Stops returning people's calls until he feels utterly alone in a city of four million. Begins to frequent bathhouses and sex clubs more often. Once good-looking, he keeps in shape but has lost the spark of youth. He projects a jaded, tough exterior but cries every night before falling asleep.
An only child, Mateo is distant from his family, particularly his mother, who immersed herself in Pueblo politics and constantly encourages him to rejoin the clan, as he represents the last of his mother's lineage. The Pueblo welcome two-spirit members but still encourage them to procreate. Mateo's father ran off with a co-worker when he was five years old. His mother reminds Mateo that his names, with the exception of "Wim" which means "moon" in Tiwa, serve as a reminder of his father's betrayal. Mateo, 35 years old, lost a scholarship after he failed too many classes.
He wakes up after having sex with the fifth guy of the night and leaves just before dawn. Later that day, he reads a small news blurb on his phone about a body that was found in the basement of Midtowne
Spa in downtown L.A. where he had spent the evening. He shudders when they describe the victim, "a stocky Latino between the ages of 35-40 years old. Foul play has not been ruled out." Several of the guys he had sex with that night fit that description. He is shaken but not enough to prevent him from visiting another one later that evening.
Born in El Paso, Texas. 35 years old. Gay. Out but self-loathing. Alcoholic, addicted to porn, poppers and sex but is functional. Moved to LA for a relationship that lasted 3 months. He stayed and found a steaqdy but dead end job. Friends drift in and out of his life. Relationships crumble around him. He rescued a lost kitten but she died the next day. Stops returning people's calls until he feels utterly alone in a city of four million. Begins to frequent bathhouses and sex clubs more often. Once good-looking, he keeps in shape but has lost the spark of youth. He projects a jaded, tough exterior but cries every night before falling asleep.
An only child, Mateo is distant from his family, particularly his mother, who immersed herself in Pueblo politics and constantly encourages him to rejoin the clan, as he represents the last of his mother's lineage. The Pueblo welcome two-spirit members but still encourage them to procreate. Mateo's father ran off with a co-worker when he was five years old. His mother reminds Mateo that his names, with the exception of "Wim" which means "moon" in Tiwa, serve as a reminder of his father's betrayal. Mateo, 35 years old, lost a scholarship after he failed too many classes.
He wakes up after having sex with the fifth guy of the night and leaves just before dawn. Later that day, he reads a small news blurb on his phone about a body that was found in the basement of Midtowne
Spa in downtown L.A. where he had spent the evening. He shudders when they describe the victim, "a stocky Latino between the ages of 35-40 years old. Foul play has not been ruled out." Several of the guys he had sex with that night fit that description. He is shaken but not enough to prevent him from visiting another one later that evening.
Two ads for L.A. bathhouses (top one opened in 1895).
This is an intro of sorts...I just started writing. Field notes to follow.
Tainted Love by og
The night blankets the streets with an erotic layer of yearning. The sexual energy of the streets beckons me to partake of the forbidden fruit continuing to curse me to perdition. The netherworld of taboo desire calls me. Like a cruel master, these wants flagellate me into submission. I venture into the night breathing in the sea air, hoping it will provide me the strength to fulfill my desires. As I drive away from the maternal comfort of Yemaya’s waves, the hard, straight edges of the city present a cold masculinity preparing me for a night of emotionless, anonymous sex. The more I resist, the more I am engulfed by thoughts of random men’s bodies performing a cruel choreography. My body convulses with thoughts of the subjunctive--I will enter the mouth of the bathhouse and shed another layer of my soul to faceless, nameless men. My mind vivisects their bodies into disparate parts; I focus on those necessary to fulfill my desires. In this realm, I am beyond necrophilia. I wish for body parts—orifices supplicating for my cursed communion, nevertheless craving the everlasting death streaming through my veins. These supplicants will undergo their own transformation, remaining part of my flock. The full moon illuminates the path towards the paradise that also symbolizes my destruction. She promises to keep my secrets hidden in a deep reservoir of mystery and death. Tonight, my hunger trespasses into darker crevices—interstitial spaces that should remain hidden beneath the cloak of night. I willingly relinquish more of my soul to tread upon the hallowed ground of inflicting physical pain to mask my emotional scars. As my soul deadens, my dark desires awaken until all the light of life escapes my eyes, when I can only see the depths of my own depravity.
The freeways—a jangled corpse of cracked cement and glass shards—contain moving coffins of deadened souls, zombies fooled into living. The Smiths’ existential moans blare from my speakers, a fitting soundtrack for self-injurious desire, “Call me morbid, call me pale…and if you have five seconds to spare, then I’ll tell you the story of my life…Young bones groan and the rocks below say ‘Throw your [brown] body down’…and I’m not happy and I’m not sad…and when I’m lying in my bed I think about life and I think about death and neither one particularly appeals to me.” Should I end it here by driving into oncoming traffic? No, my demise must be more subtle, more subterranean without such spectacle. I descend into the depths of hell, ultimately crossing a threshold that can never be uncrossed. Dark angels of hell welcome my soulless existence as I lure more pilgrims into a purgatory with no escape. Eventually, my lifeforce will flicker and extinguish. My bodily remains will dissipate into a void of nothingness, a meaningless speck of refuse in the coldness of the universe.
Tainted Love by og
The night blankets the streets with an erotic layer of yearning. The sexual energy of the streets beckons me to partake of the forbidden fruit continuing to curse me to perdition. The netherworld of taboo desire calls me. Like a cruel master, these wants flagellate me into submission. I venture into the night breathing in the sea air, hoping it will provide me the strength to fulfill my desires. As I drive away from the maternal comfort of Yemaya’s waves, the hard, straight edges of the city present a cold masculinity preparing me for a night of emotionless, anonymous sex. The more I resist, the more I am engulfed by thoughts of random men’s bodies performing a cruel choreography. My body convulses with thoughts of the subjunctive--I will enter the mouth of the bathhouse and shed another layer of my soul to faceless, nameless men. My mind vivisects their bodies into disparate parts; I focus on those necessary to fulfill my desires. In this realm, I am beyond necrophilia. I wish for body parts—orifices supplicating for my cursed communion, nevertheless craving the everlasting death streaming through my veins. These supplicants will undergo their own transformation, remaining part of my flock. The full moon illuminates the path towards the paradise that also symbolizes my destruction. She promises to keep my secrets hidden in a deep reservoir of mystery and death. Tonight, my hunger trespasses into darker crevices—interstitial spaces that should remain hidden beneath the cloak of night. I willingly relinquish more of my soul to tread upon the hallowed ground of inflicting physical pain to mask my emotional scars. As my soul deadens, my dark desires awaken until all the light of life escapes my eyes, when I can only see the depths of my own depravity.
The freeways—a jangled corpse of cracked cement and glass shards—contain moving coffins of deadened souls, zombies fooled into living. The Smiths’ existential moans blare from my speakers, a fitting soundtrack for self-injurious desire, “Call me morbid, call me pale…and if you have five seconds to spare, then I’ll tell you the story of my life…Young bones groan and the rocks below say ‘Throw your [brown] body down’…and I’m not happy and I’m not sad…and when I’m lying in my bed I think about life and I think about death and neither one particularly appeals to me.” Should I end it here by driving into oncoming traffic? No, my demise must be more subtle, more subterranean without such spectacle. I descend into the depths of hell, ultimately crossing a threshold that can never be uncrossed. Dark angels of hell welcome my soulless existence as I lure more pilgrims into a purgatory with no escape. Eventually, my lifeforce will flicker and extinguish. My bodily remains will dissipate into a void of nothingness, a meaningless speck of refuse in the coldness of the universe.