by Ezra Fox
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\nSocrates is one ugly mother fucker.\u00a0 He’s got bug eyes and a snub nose, but confidence goes a long way.\u00a0 He strolls over to me, I’m at the bar, waiting for a friend, and he says, “Yes, I actually am Socrates.”<\/p>\n
Before anything else, he just comes out and says it.\u00a0 And yeah, I was curious, if it was him or not, but it takes some balls, doesn’t it, to come right out and say it?\u00a0 But I’ve read the Symposium and I know where this is going, so I put a stop to it before it gets any further.<\/p>\n
“I’m not gay.\u00a0 If you want to talk, that’s cool, but we’re not going to bone.”<\/p>\n
“How do you know you’re not gay?”<\/p>\n
“Because I’m not attracted to guys.\u00a0 And you’re one ugly mother fucker. No offense.”<\/p>\n
“None taken.\u00a0 So you’re attracted to girls?”<\/p>\n
“Yep.”<\/p>\n
“All of them?”<\/p>\n
“Well, no, not all of them.\u00a0 Just the attractive ones.”<\/p>\n
“What are they like?\u00a0 Point them out to me,” Socrates says.\u00a0 And I pick up on a pale-skinned Russian girl in a black top, rolling a tooth pick between her lips as she waits for another dirty martini.<\/p>\n
“Her,” I say.\u00a0 “I’d hit that.\u00a0 Twice.”<\/p>\n
“But she’s a man,” Socrates says.\u00a0 “I thought you said you weren’t gay.\u00a0 If you were trying to convince me of your heterosexuality you didn’t do very well.”<\/p>\n
“She’s not a man, is she?”<\/p>\n
“Could be, could be.\u00a0 It seems possible, then, that you might be attracted to a man,” Socrates says, carelessly grazing my elbow with his hand.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make me gay.”<\/p>\n
“No?\u00a0 Then what would?”<\/p>\n
“If I was attracted to guys a lot,” I say.\u00a0 “And I’m not.\u00a0 Just the ones that look like hot Russian girls, apparently.”<\/p>\n
“Then let’s have an exercise,” he says, eyeing my half-finished pint of
\nGuinness.\u00a0 “Do you like beer?”<\/p>\n
“Sure,” I say, raising the glass.\u00a0 “It’s great.”<\/p>\n
“And did you like it the first time you tried it?”<\/p>\n
My mind shot back to a sip of my dad’s Pabst when I was ten.<\/p>\n
“No,” I say.\u00a0 “No, I didn’t.”<\/p>\n
“But you kept on trying it, because you wanted to like it.\u00a0 Like coffee.\u00a0 Like modern art.\u00a0 Like…”<\/p>\n
“Gay sex?”<\/p>\n
“Could be, could be,” says Socrates, smiling slowly.
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\nSocrates continues clutching at my hips and rhythmically pressing against the backs of my thighs.<\/p>\n
“It’s not terrible,” I say, “but it’s not what I’d call pleasurable.”<\/p>\n
“What is pleasure?” he asks, placing one hand on my back to steady himself.<\/p>\n
“It’s an irreducible phenomenological experience,” I say, as Socrates breaks a sweat.\u00a0 “I feel it immediately.”<\/p>\n
“But is that the only kind of pleasure?” he asks, moving his hand up to my hair and tussling it.<\/p>\n
“Well, no,” I say.\u00a0 “Doing community service is different than eating chocolate.\u00a0 One kind of pleasure you feel right away and the other you feel later.”<\/p>\n
“So something could be pleasurable later that wasn’t pleasurable in the moment,” he gasps, quickening his gait.<\/p>\n
“So… that could be this?” I ask.<\/p>\n
“Could be,” Socrates exhales, stroking my head.\u00a0 “Could be.” by Ezra Fox Socrates is one ugly mother fucker.\u00a0 He’s got bug eyes and a snub nose, but confidence goes a long way.\u00a0 He strolls over to me, I’m at the bar, waiting for a friend, and he says, “Yes, … Continue reading
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\nEZRA FOX<\/strong> is an MFA fiction student at San Francisco State University. He and his friends make fun of the worst books in the world at read-weep.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"