[ESSAY][09/15/25]Two Essays
By Tamim Khalanj
When we stop talking I'll set a google alert for your obituary
It feels racist when white men say, I love your curves. My ex had a small waist and it felt competitive. I’m too big to “giggle.” I saw a girl doing ballet through her third floor apartment window. I watched a girl on the bus pick up a spam call and listen for 30 seconds before hanging up.
You used to pick up my calls in your sleep. Want me to meet you in the park and rub your feet? The best version of you can only be given to one person, and who has it now? I say I want things to go back to normal, to the way they were when I was shiny and new. The most embarrassing thing I ever did was mistake this for intimacy.
Birthdays are a countdown clock and the ticking noise makes me nervous. I was never that good at being young and I’m even worse now that I’m not. I want unlimited selves, and each follows a flap of the butterfly’s wing, and one leads to happiness.
You weaponize your 50 years on this planet when it’s convenient. I’m an old man what does NSFW mean? Possibly true but I also think you’ve never had a job. You call yourself that too when you talk about 22 year olds.
This kid—
How old?
22.
22 is an adult.
I’m a dirty old man I have to draw the line somewhere.
I had sex with a 25 year old and remembered why I've only done that twice. How have you been living like this? All old men refer to their exes as lovers and it bums me out. When we eventually stop talking I'll set a google alert for your obituary.
Je ne sais quois is just being white and skinny but otherwise unremarkable. Every woman's thinness is a personal attack. I stopped sexting Zack after he called my tits jugs. When people say I look good they mean I lost weight. My sister’s name means silver pearls, mine is the killer tribe of Arabia. She is short, too, but normal weight so she gets called petite.
In high school a friend said fat girls give the best head because they have something to prove. Conrad wasn’t a Juggalo until years after we stopped seeing each other. Giving him head always felt like staring down the barrel of a shotgun. He said he liked the look of fear in my eyes when he tried to push my head all the way down. Men don’t think it’s funny when you quote Blue Velvet—you put your disease in me—after sex. You were the only one.
I hid my bad days and swallowed yours. Once you want things to go back to the way they were, they never will. The last proof of your existence was a Coors tallboy in my fridge. I gave it to our friend who wasn’t always a crackhead.
I’m being selfish by pretending to not be selfish. I care soooo much about your feelings. Maybe one day being there will be enough. When—if—I get a partner I'm gonna wreak havoc on everyone, absolute terror; get my revenge for the years of living like this. This shit has nothing to do with you, is the worst thing you ever said to me.
What is the point in remembering the difficult parts? I wish I could suffer with quiet dignity but I use a foghorn. I left your family reunion early and your mom gave me $200 because you were such a dick. I watched Tarkovsky's Stalker take off his pants and missed you.
Fat girls give the best head but there are limits
The vomit fetish community needs to get it together. I’m trying to keep an open mind because, like, we’re not supposed to kink shame and I'm not but it’s not for me. Like also imagine being fat and bulimic—these are nightmares I have. The ridicule!
I guess I don't know if it's a community but it's been two men and if there's two of them then there must be—you know—sexual partners who are obliging. So at least four people.
They were both the hottest men I had ever interacted with in the real world and I was suspicious of that but the vomit clicked everything into place. In high school a guy said fat girls give the best head because they have something to prove. Maybe they thought that extended to vomiting.
I've seen my share of penises and they still both had the biggest dicks I've ever been near. It was physically uncomfortable and that made me feel stupid—a woman my size has a lot of real estate. Like how come I can't handle it? I knew a middle-aged 300-pound man who used to buy his shoes based on how they looked proportionate to his body and not because of the actual size of his feet. I kind of feel that way about my cervix or whatever part of my vagina is being penetrated. I don't know, I didn’t pay that much attention in biology or sex ed but the moral is,I should be able to handle a sufficient amount of piping.
I was seeing John in 2019 and he brought it up very casually at first. A girl threw up on my dick once and it was kind of hot. Okay king, not for me but no (or not too much) judgment. The questions built up over time. Where in your throat does your gag reflex start? When's the last time you threw up? Would you ever throw up on my dick?
We saw each other for two more months until he told me that the vomit thing was not just a one time thing he found kind of hot but something he needed to happen regularly if this was going to continue. We have so much fun together but I really can’t do this if you’re not willing to vomit for me. I wasn’t, so we stopped seeing each other. He texted me recently wanting to catch up—when his photo popped up I remembered how hot he was, like some Grecian god in one of those paintings where an earthling drowns herself in a shallow pond while reaching for him as he begins his ascent back to the heavens. We got a drink but I thought he would be over the vomit thing and he thought I would have come around by now.
Blake was not a demigod, but still so hot and one time after we fucked he asked me how I felt about bodily fluids.
I said, I don't know, I mean they make sense in the context of sex.
Oh really, that's kinky.
Wait what are we talking about because I just mean you know, spit, cum, sweat.
Well how do you feel about vomit?
Noooooooo not for me.
He got cold and weird and basically said, Okay so you can't do that during sex, you won’t do that during sex, you’re being a prude…that’s so weird… and like, my guy, don’t make me break down who is on what side of that equation right now.
I’ve thought about it and I think this is how they discovered it: they have these giant penises and maybe one day some girl is down there unhinging her jaw, trying her hardest when the gag turns into projectile vomit of acid and they’re forever altered. Just like, Okay yeah lets do that again.
But I have so many other questions: where does this happen within the scope of someone's home? One of them was at my apartment the first time he brought it up and like—sir, what is your plan? What if I said yes, then what? What is the setup, I don't have Patrick Bateman plastic sheets so I'm just gonna vomit on your dick and then you're gonna????? Cum??? Are those fluids mixing together because that’s making it sound even worse. And after that, I get rid of my bed sheets or the floor needs to be mopped up immediately? Is the post-nut clarity even worse because it's post-puke?
Other men need to thank the vomit men, though, because it made me appreciate them more. Like the dick videos seemed almost nice after that. I had found them sometimes offensive, but when your bottom line dives down 100 feet deeper, shiny turds look like diamonds.
Devon from Kansas got mad that I kept confusing it with Oklahoma, and when he’d send me a dick video, I would wait a minute or two before responding. I’d skim through the thumbnails and then say whatever made sense, like Oh my god you're so big, when’s the last time you came, or sometimes non-sequiturs, When are you coming over? That doesn’t look like your apartment, are you back in Oklahoma?
It’s the same courtesy I extend to my friends when I pretend to watch the TikToks they send me and I respond with one of those “haha” or thumbs up reactions. One day though, they reference it and clock me for having lied to them about watching it. Devon started doing that too—the next time we were together he asked if I liked that he was making personalized videos for me.
I thought he was trying to make a point that he could differentiate me from whatever hypothetical women he may have been sleeping with. I didn’t care but with him I thought it was funny to say, You must be talking about one of your other bitches, when he’d ask me is your boss still giving you a hard time? How was your friend’s show? It didn't matter how many times I did it he just got flustered—like wow, why doesn't he want to sleep over?
I told him yeah I like the videos, and he asked,
Do you remember what I said in that last video?
I said, you know, dirty talk I’m too shy to repeat.
Please, when I met your friends, you said we had to go home so I could rail you with my giant dick, so no. We played this back and forth and he said,
You don’t watch my videos, do you?
Of course I watch them, just without sound.
Then he quizzed me again about some stupid details, like he’s hiding Easter eggs and Marvel character reveals in these videos.
I thought it was all stupid but after the second vomit guy I thought, you know what Devon is going out of his way to make “nice” videos for me that only involve one bodily fluid at most. Now I listen to them with the sound on and respond with answers he likes better, It’s so hot hearing you say my name before you cum.