Pornography

Rhian Sasseen depicts the relationship between a lonely man and his phone—one that takes a sudden, surreal turn—in a short story from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”

By Rhian SasseenAugust 15, 2024

• LARB Lit

• Fiction

• Gender & Sexuality

This story is a preview of the LARB Quarterly, no. 42: Gossip. Become a member for more fiction, essays, criticism, poetry, and art from this issue—plus the next four issues of the Quarterly in print. And join us to celebrate Gossip’s release at our end-of-summer launch party on August 22.

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THE SHOULDER OF a man resembles nothing so much as the sideways petal of a tulip. The two lips of a man resemble nothing so much as an archaic arbiter of might. The man sits on his bed and purses his lips. Below him, the video on his phone screen begins to play.

A language is a hideous thing, concealing as much as it reveals. The language used by the woman on camera resembles nothing so much as a code, an argot, a compendium of secrets. Men’s language, women’s language—they’re all the same. They all serve one purpose.

“Touch your cock,” the woman on-screen commands, sitting in a dimly lit room somewhere, anywhere, who knows. Off-screen, the man sits in his own dimly lit room and obeys. It is always like this. In every one of this channel’s videos—and he has watched a few—this woman sits there, whispering. No one tells her what to do. The man has perfected his routine; he has his favorites. That curdled feeling, deep in his lower half—his desire rises and his impatience does too, and away to the internet he scampers, ready to blow off some steam to the banality of a woman on-screen.

It’s always near him, his phone. He regards it with a kind of affinity, affection, as though it were a pet or lover. Rarely are they apart. It sits right beside him, at most tucked inside a pocket, close enough to his body that it feels like another appendage, and when it buzzes with a message, he can feel that buzz spread warmly across his skin. At night, he falls asleep with it beside him, half-hidden beneath the covers. Sometimes he wakes up and can’t fall back to sleep, and there it is, his phone, his comfort, its blue light familiar on his face as he takes it in his insomniac hand and scrolls and scrolls.

Is he lonely? Well, who’s to say. What does loneliness mean, what did loneliness ever mean, now that for the last 30 years every human being has been supposedly a mere computer click away? Alright, yes: he’s lonely. Past three a.m., only foreigners and the friendless remain online, and that’s when the loneliness really kicks in, seeping out from his typed-out sentences like a stain. Past three p.m. too—in the daylight hours, he’s still lonely. It’s always there, this surprising yet indelible emotion, iris-shaded and soft to the touch. There is not a moment during which this loneliness does not lurk, and when he thinks about it, that’s when he turns to the screen, his phone, the distraction therein.

The screen, the screen. The screen! The thought of it evokes some quality, some emotion, but who’s to say what that is exactly, it’s a wordless humor, a feeling of bemusement, of terror. He feels drawn to it, even more so than the screens that surrounded him in childhood, the televisions and the bulky word processors. Sometimes, the desire to merge with the screen overtakes him, though he doesn’t know what exactly he means by that. But he doesn’t need to articulate it, the phone already knows—this new model unlocks itself with the touch of his face.

The screen. His eyes are on the screen. His eyes stare at the woman, they trace her body, her body that is all he needs in this moment, all he cares about, he’d prefer not to know any of the thoughts inside her head, please and thanks. She’s wearing some kind of frilly slip, a scarlet-colored bra. The way she poses is designed to fill the screen, she’s half-bent over, plush and pushed-up breasts prominent. What’s her age? Well, it’s hard to say. She’s young, yes, but it’s that kind of ageless, oversexed youth that could be anywhere from 18 to 40, a beauty that relies entirely on the signals in his mind that fire off when he glances at her heavy makeup. Oh, but that’s mean. From the windowless room where she sits, she whispers eagerly about what she’d like the man to do, she’s desperate, you see, she needs it, him, she craves it, she can’t stop, she’d really like to see this faceless stranger’s cum!!!

As he watches her act, his breath grows heavy. What he likes best is turning off his mind and letting this woman do all the work. It is a one-sided affair; he has no need to worry about her pleasure, the pressure that comes from another living, breathing human being. It’s a different experience from sex, one that precludes any real form of connection.

The man’s eyes are shut now, furiously so. As he grips his penis tightly, he lets his phone fall beside him onto the bed. A delicate feeling begins to curl around his balls, his lower stomach; he’s close, and his body takes over. No more thinking, his body knows what to do. As he strokes, his phone moves, almost as though it’s being kicked aside, but of course that’s not possible. He’s close, he’s so close. Has the video finished? There’s no more noise. Something brushes against his thigh—the orgasm leaps away from him.

Annoyed, the man abruptly opens his eyes. And there she is. The woman. She’s sitting on his bed.

“Shh, shh, shh,” she tells him as he begins to shout. Even now, there is a seductive quality to her voice, a maternal gleam—what? You don’t think Freud was right?—and she waves her hands in the air as she attempts to soothe him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she says. “I promise. It’s just me. You recognize me, right?”

“How—how exactly did you—”

The woman scrunches her nose up to pout. “There’s no need to sound accusative,” she tells him, her voice taking on a sexy, babyish whine. “I just want to talk. Can we talk?”

“What exactly do you want to talk about?”

The woman moves off the bed, pulling a high-heeled shoe out from where its curve is still stuck in the corner of his phone. She crawled through my phone, he thinks, and he watches in amazement as she begins to pace around his room.

“I just want to talk,” she repeats, turning in a circle. Her red slip shines in the bedroom’s dim light. “Does it actually feel good for you, when I say those words? I always wonder. I’d like to talk, but about anything other than that … I get so tired of all those words—cock, prick, dick, you know. It’s so boring, so one-note. This endless litany, there are really only so many variations. I’m always repeating myself; I never have anything original to say. But I don’t think anyone cares … Pussy, that’s even worse. I can never get into it, you know? What I’m saying. I’m always so fascinated by you, by the others. I really need to feel a connection to get off, you know?” She smiles ruefully. “But, and I know this sounds a little silly, I think … I think I might feel a connection with you.”

The man’s hand is still on his penis, only now he is protecting it, covering it, instead of wielding it for her to see. “Do you?” he asks.

She nods. “I’m just so bored of living inside that box,” she tells him, launching into another monologue. Her red vinyl heels are a different shade of red from the rest of what she’s wearing. Her red lipstick too. So many reds, surely this reminds him of something. Surely it’s all in his head. “I’m so sick of only existing online. Sometimes it feels like I can only come to life when someone needs me, that it’s my only chance to interact with another human being. Through a search bar.” She laughs, though the situation doesn’t strike him as happy. “I’m a genie, a porn genie. Rub one out and I’ll appear.”

Her pacing begins to grow more frantic. “All day, all night,” she says, voice low, “always having to whisper these fantasies, these endless fantasies—the stuff of other people’s fantasies—I can never speak above a moan. My throat hurts. I’m so sick of groaning! I’m not ashamed about my work, I have no reason to be, I’m doing nothing wrong. It’s not the worst job in the world, not by far. But all I do is whisper. All I do is pose. No one ever wants to hear about my fantasies, not my real ones, anyway. I don’t think I even have any. I think that to have a fantasy, you need someone who’s willing to mold themselves to fit it. But look at me—I’ve crammed myself into someone else’s outline, someone else’s dream.”

The man hesitates before finally speaking. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You never looked that bored to me.”

“Really,” the woman says flatly, stopping to stare at him.

“Really,” he says, shrugging. “But I—I have to admit, when I’m watching you, I’m not … I’m not really paying attention to how you’re feeling. Sorry. It’s just not a consideration.”

“You’ve watched almost every one of my videos, I think.”

“Sorry,” he says again.

“I thought … you know, I thought that perhaps you might want to grab a coffee or a drink, or something. Oh, I don’t know what I was thinking. I just wanted to say hello. You seemed so interested in me.”

“I don’t really know what to say,” he tells her. Carefully, he tucks his penis away, zipping up his jeans. “I don’t really think of you that often, to be honest. Only when I’m watching. It’s a very in-the-moment kind of experience—it’s like, like a bodily function. Like a sneeze. When I’m done, I’m done. That’s why I like your videos: I don’t even have to imagine that I’m getting another person off. And don’t you think showing up here, uninvited, appearing in my room—well, it’s a little awkward, don’t you think?”

He watches the woman as she attempts to hide her disappointment. Carefully, she has constructed an intricate what-if scenario in the privacy of her own head, and now he’s cocked it up, he’s destroyed everything that she’s built. Foolish, she feels so foolish. To get excited over this, to start planning a future, a family, a possibility, with someone you’ve only met online, someone who may or may not really know that you exist—

“I’m not a bot,” she says defensively.

“I never said you were.”

On the screen there is the possibility of constant revision. The river, you step in it; the dial-up tone, it disappears. Technologies move forward with a buzz and a whir, but is the human still there? No one really knows! Sometimes you have to remind yourself it’s not a robot that you’re talking to, it’s a human being tweeting that response. No one need be the same self that exists online. The only thing in life we can trust is money, the only constant is debt. A relationship is just a transaction, right? In commerce there is truth—the woman stares at the man—if not exactly love.

“We know each other better now,” she says finally. “I’m glad.”

“I don’t know if we do,” the man responds, confused. “I think we’re talking about two very different things.”

“Oh, give me your phone,” the woman says, and rolls her eyes when he hands it to her. With a frustrated air, she turns away from him and crawls back into the small screen, having had enough.

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Featured image: Robert Spear Dunning. Red Cherries, 1866. Gift of William and Abigail Gerdts, National Gallery of Art (2018.44.140). CC0, nga.gov. Accessed August 10, 2024.