The Best

Joe Kelly is the author of “A Few Stories Where the Protagonists Become Worse and Worse.”

“Do you usually listen to music while you do it?”

I wrote the question in my notebook and didn’t recognize my own handwriting. I had just burned my hand in the shower, and the blue athletic tape I wrapped around the wound was making it difficult to handle my pen. ​I was testing the temperature of the water to see if it was hot enough, but then I just… held it there. I wanted to see how much I could take. Or at least that's what I told myself. I wasn’t sure. I pulled my hand out before it got too serious. If I really wanted to know why I did it, I would have had to hold my hand under that water longer. Until I passed through that threshold of pain and fear, I would never know what the force on the other side was that was pulling me.

I closed my notebook and slipped it into my back pocket. I was supposed to meet Natasha to continue our interview, and I was late. Natasha was a sex addict that I had matched with on Hinge. That was literally the first thing she said:

“I shouldn’t be on here. I’m a sex addict.”

Is there a more enticing opening line?

For context, I was working on a play that featured a sex addict character, and I was admittedly a bit over my head. I liked sex, sure, but I didn’t think I was an actual addict. I just wanted to push the ideas and feelings I had about sex to the extreme in order to investigate them in an interesting and dramatic manner. But, suddenly, I had an opportunity to meet and learn from an actual sex addict. Like, she told me an actual psychiatrist had used the words “sex addiction.” Not her psychiatrist, but a psychiatrist that she was sleeping with.

I had told Natasha all about my play over Hinge. I don’t think she believed me
at first, but she still agreed to talk over drinks. We met at ACE Bar on East 5^th . I brought my little notebook. Natasha drank gin and tonics and wore a really loose-fitting tank top that kept slipping off her shoulders. Her posture was hunched and her hair wild and unkempt. Her eyes were droopy and she waved her hand limply from her wrist as she talked. To this day, I have never met a more naturally charming and charismatic person. We talked for two hours before she invited me up to her apartment to drink a fancy bottle of wine she had stolen from an art gallery earlier in the day. I was nervous. I didn’t want something to happen. She didn’t imply anything would, but my head was swimming. I felt like I was talking to someone who was several steps ahead of me and I was intimidated. She had been in complete control of the narrative since we sat down, and I was completely hooked on what she was selling. I could easily see how she managed to have sex with as many different people as she did, as often as she claimed to. Which was a lot. I watched her pull her tank top strap up again and cooly spin her empty glass on the counter. I said no. I should get home. Natasha agreed to meet with me again to talk more the next week. We hugged, and I went home feeling dizzy. I hadn’t taken a single note.

HINGE

JERKING OFF