We found a motel. As I threw off my uniform and showered, the hyung searched for the “All the Lovers” music video on the computer in our room, and I came out of the bathroom almost dripping wet to watch the hundreds of people take their clothes off, form a tower, and make the tower writhe in waves. We watched the mountains of naked people again and again, lay down on the bed, put on Aphrodite, and had sex. I was a little out of my mind because it had been a while, so when the hyung asked if he could do it with the condom off, I said yes. Around the fourth track, “Closer,” he came inside me, and I went into the bathroom first to shower. We’d gone at it a little too hard—there was bleeding. Then it was back to the army after two nights and three days with him. Two weeks later I had a fever and red spots, and after spending a few days in the infirmary, wandering the border between life and death, I was sent to the military hospital.

The first thing the army doctor said to me when he looked up from my blood test results was:

—Are you a bottom or a top?

—Sir? I don’t understand the question.

Apparently, that civil servant dogshit had fucked every man in sight as soon as I had entered bootcamp. I was returned to civilian status so fast my head spun, and the first thing I did to process my new reality was what I did best.

Creatively name things.

I named it Kylie, but not because my life had gone down the gutter while I’d been listening to Kylie Minogue. I just liked the name. If I was going to live with this thing for the rest of my life, I thought I might as well give it a pretty name, so Kylie it was.

Yeah. More than Madonna, Ariana, Britney, or Beyoncé, it’s got to be Kylie. No question.

I’ve never regretted the name since.

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