Content warnings

Sexual content. Shame. Homophobia. Disordered eating. Anti-fatness. Racism. Child abuse.

First Date

Spending time with her is like standing at the shore of the ocean. My toes are lapped by the waves and we have an endless expanse before us. Our conversation curls over itself, rises then falls into a comfortable silence before beginning again. She’s so beautiful; the curve of her cheek to her décolletage is begging to be skimmed with kisses. Her laugh starts deep within her, swells to the back of her throat, full bodied to the lush of her lips and like a blue marlin, crests and returns beneath.

It’s just the noise. The rumble, I’m used to. It’s going almost all the time but with her it increases to growls, with no break. The timbre enough to warm the base of my spine. The sound like ongoing building work in an unending city of concrete blocks. When I get home it’s so heavy. As I take off my rings it howls in my ears. Its paw is on my chest and its weight holds my body in place, gaping maw breathing heat and spit against my face. I can barely move my arms under its press. Its taut flesh bursting in places into brittle fur that sandpapers my skin. It lets me do nothing but open the app I keep buried deep beneath three screens of apps into my phone and in a folder after that. I can’t bear to look at what’s on my profile; I pay for premium to see my matches, locate them, respond. Its snarl is hot tarmac pouring through me. When this guy turns up at my door all washboard abs and drunken smile I’m suddenly not blazing any more. I’m cold as he greets me and pushes me into my space. The mattress is pushed down by our weight and my head is in the dip between the two pillows. But, quiet. My head is quiet.

When he leaves I brush my teeth four times. I use a loofah to scrub my skin raw. I stand by the tap and drink three litres of water. Choking it down. Then, I piss for ages. I order an STI panel because I'm a fucking adult. Then, maybe, after all this, these hours, these days, I'm a person again. I don’t notice when the purr starts, it’s there in the back of my mind, a persistent hum and I can almost bear it. I text her back.

Second date

I have a headache all the fucking time. It's so loud. It's like it intensifies when anything good happens. I just need to get enough sleep so I can take this woman out and not fall asleep in my rice bowl. Fuck. I picture Rakiya, the perfect plump of her ass, the little comments she makes when she pretends nobody’s listening.

In conversation she tells me about coming out as bisexual, and I tell her about when I first knew I was a lesbian. Age 12, when I barrelled into a classmate and knocked her over and realised I liked her. That I liked her, liked her. All these thoughts about girls I didn’t know what to do with. Then, I remember that guy above me and I’m terrified I’m lying to her, to everyone, to myself. I can’t do politics of queerness between her saying one thing and me the next. Unpacking this would need a city of time, with attics and basements. I put that thought back into the box. This moment doesn’t belong to her, that me that lives in the reprieve of hot beer-stale breath. I push that me aside, and I’m back, back to the date, back to the gravelly snarls almost drowning out the sound of Rakiya’s voice. Sometimes it gets so loud it makes me jump and Rakiya looks at me to see if I’m okay and I have to wave it off.

At home it salivates behind me. Shining viscous globules of spit grope my shoulders, caress my chest and back. My fingers find the app again and this man is at least ten years older than me. He smells like when your fingers have been touching a crinkled five-pound note in your pocket for too long. But, I guess he’s handsome. A face and body that people would like, but he takes up so much space in my doorway, his shoulders brush the door frame and I can feel the rough touch on my thighs. But, I chose this, and now it’s too late, isn’t it? It’s always too late. I ask him to turn the lights off but he wants them on, to see his fair-haired flesh against my mahogany. I close my eyes and he’s inside me and it’s fucking silent. My head is silent.

Before I make him leave he tells me he messaged because I look like a dyke on my profile. That all dykes need a good lay and he’ll service me again any time I want. There’s not enough space in my mouth, my palms, on the surface of my skin for the words I want to say to him; to myself. But amidst all these torturous thoughts there is quiet. However much I pretend, this is me, the real me, in these moments, over and over. Rakiya is a waterfall of good things, when I’m with her I’m soaked in them; but I know that it will end and she can’t be for me. I don’t deserve her. Nothing is right until I feel this bad. This flavour of hollowed out is what I know. The idea of being filled with something else, sustained by something else, sets off ragged howls that scrape across my skin. I don’t deserve Rakiya. I’ll never be good enough. For her. For anyone. I rest my head on the toilet seat. And, it doesn't matter because really, what's the difference between us?

Third date

For almost a week it’s okay but then the hums become grating, layering over my thoughts so nothing else can get through.

I twist my key in the lock. It’s roaring now, I can hear it. The sound making caverns of my ears, like a construction crew building a tunnel into my soul. When we get into the flat, it’s shaking the walls. It’s beating itself against the door behind which I locked it.

“Hey, welcome to my place!” I say, tangible enthusiasm in hopes to drown out, to return to the ocean, to let it fill this place to the brim and asphyxiate whatever it is that lives here.

Rakiya looks around the living room, taking in my minimalist black and white decor. “It's nice. But, um, what is that?” We’re both silent but I hear the caustic brush against the door and walls punctuating the thundering thuds.

“You can hear it?” Rakiya focuses on me, and gives me a confused look.

“Yeah, Denise. It’s shaking the walls.”

“I thought it was just in my head,” I say, suddenly unsure of where we are. Unsure of the conversation we are having because I thought all this was only me.

“You’re not hallucinating.”

“It’s not always this loud. But, it’s everywhere.”

“Fuuuuck, is that your shame monster?” She steps back from me and looks around.

“My what?”

“You’ve never—” She cuts herself off and starts again. “I have one of those too.”

“Is it at home?”

“No, it comes with me everywhere, here.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a pink cloud-like squiggle, with eyes and hands and two legs. It looks… docile. Actually kind of cute, with its wide eyes taking in the room. No mouth that I can see.

“It’s tiny.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t always. It used to be huge, like take over my life huge. Like, wake me up in the middle of the night and force me to eat three tubs of ice cream huge. Like, me driving around at three AM to find food because I never kept any in the house huge. It was big.” She says this with an ease that knocks me off my feet. As if she’s a wave gently lapping at the shore; regular, effortless.

“Oh… How come?”

“Oh, my mum had me on diets since I was six. She used to take me to the park make me run up and down this massive hill. For exercise. Rain or shine, winter or summer. She thought I was fat and it didn’t matter if I was sick or if I cried. Sometimes I laid on the floor and sobbed and she’d make me get up.” Rakiya takes a deep breath, then releases it. “I really thought we were going to fuck tonight. I put on nice underwear. I went home after work to shower. This was not the vibe I was going for.” It’s hard to explain how she says this, in that sing-song voice she puts on when she wants me to pretend not to have heard her. It’s almost under her breath and my lips twist into a smile in spite of the conversation. I reply to what she said to me though. I don’t want to ignore her.

“That’s fucked.”

“Yeah, and I’m fat. And that’s okay.”

I raise my eyebrows and look her up and down. She is fat but that wouldn’t be my first descriptor of her… “Your collarbones are so delicately shaped. You have thighs I want to take a bite out of, and your personality radiates out of your skin like some halo of light. And, you’re fat. Beautifully, deliciously fat.”

“Look.” She directs my attention to the… thing on her palm. It isn’t moving and I can’t hear it at all. In the silence between us and her monster, the incessant boom of mine continues.

“Fuck, it’s gotten smaller.”

“Yeah. Telling people helps. Therapy fucking helps. I know it won’t disappear. I’ve been at this for years, but I kinda want it to be the size of like a button on my coat? I wouldn’t have to clear a pocket for it. And like, it could still be a little quieter. It’s not screaming every time I take a bite of food, but every meal it asks about like, portion sizes or calories. We’re working on it. What’s yours?”

The beast somehow gets louder, more guttural. It’s throwing itself against the door now, with longer pauses between like it’s taking a run-up.

“I can’t.” My throat closes, churning. Little chunks clogging my windpipe. Words can’t get past the debris, the gap is too small.

“Right.” She deflates a little.

“When will you stop working on it?” I ask. I know it’s invasive but I don’t want to retreat to lighter conversation and leave this part of me closed. I want it open. I do. I think maybe I can volunteer something if we keep going. Something so she knows this wasn’t all for nothing.

“I won’t. I have to keep working on it to keep it small. Once you start the work you're always doing the work, it never ends.” She puts on a voice for that last bit, like she’s haunting me.

“Bleak.” I picture the endless amount of therapy and work before me.

We both turn to hear the beast, my shame monster, claw at the door. Its long thin talons, crackling against paint, disturbing asbestos.

“I don't know babe. Is it?” She tilts her head. She doesn’t say the words, but she doesn’t have to. The cacophony says it for her, screams it, coats the shaking walls with ‘bleak’ in a modulating chorus. “Even deciding to do the work makes it smaller you know.”

“You’re really open about this stuff.”

“Chronic over-sharer. Some people blame my autism.” She uses her sing-song voice again, wry smile, head bobbing from side to side making her gold earrings jiggle and tap at her neck. “So, maybe let's give it three weeks until we see each other again this time? You don't need to be where I'm at, but like you need to be going somewhere for me to want to invest time in this.”

“We could, ah, still fuck. You wanted that, right? I want that.” This tumbles out of me. As soon as I say it, I regret it.

“No,” she says. She draws out the ‘o’ of that no for a very long time, until she sees my face. “I mean, respectfully, no, Denise. At some point in all of this I started to like you and I don't want this to be a short thing. Aiming for healthy and sustaining. Enduring.”

“I like you too, Rakiya.”

“And, I don't want to fuck you when your shame monster is that loud.” Her palms loosely circle her head. “It will give me a thing and it will be a whole thing. I know me.”

“Okay.”

“And since we’re… with a monster that big… it must be taking over your life. Am I because of the monster?” She studies my face.

“No. No. If you were it would be like crescendo-ing to a quiet. Or quiet already. This is like standard monster volume. You’re. You’re what I want.” I put my palm out between us. She takes my hand and I squeeze hers. Her palm is soft and warm and I want, in any future, to trace the lines of it, to see where we end and ensure that we start.

“Okay. Good. I’m going to kiss you know, if that’s okay with you. Then, I’m going to leave because it’s really loud. And, I’ll see you when you decide, maybe in a few weeks? Call me?”

And, I do.

END

Mon Misir

Mon Misir (they/them) is a queer Black British writer based in London, UK. Their writing explores facets of their experience as a Black woman with a speculative bent. They have work published in Torch Literary Arts, Oh Joy Sex Toy and were nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2025.