In Cuba, I smoked filterless cigarettes called Flor de Aroma. They’re the best cigarettes I think I’ve ever smoked, hand-rolled in the region. They smell of tobacco flowers. They weren’t as strong as cigars, but they were still intense. I smoked up all of them right after I left the tropics.

He thinks smoking is ridiculous. Only idiots smoke, he says. I’ve really cut down on my smoking, and now I only do it when I’m out or if I’m at a café. But after I’ve smoked, he sniffs me, frowns, refuses to kiss me. He says that I stink. The other day, he took it to the next level—he wants me to quit smoking, and for every cigarette I smoke from now on, he’s going to fuck eight women. I don’t want him to sleep with more girls. He should only be with me. I’ll never smoke again.

Non Grata

Non Grata

He’ll never be my boyfriend. I don’t understand why I’m always with him. When we run into people he knows, he doesn’t introduce me, he talks to them as if I’m not there. He’s very private. He would be uncomfortable if everyone knew everything about him, but sometimes I feel like I’m disappearing. Especially when he doesn’t come back to his apartment, even though he knows I sleep there most nights. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. The other day I stayed up all night watching DVDs, waiting for him to come home from the bar. He was surprised that I was still awake in his living room when he finally came home in the morning. He’d been with some redhead. She lives with her boyfriend, so they fucked on the old, crusty couch in the study hall at the university. I know that I have to end things, but I can’t tear myself away from him. If I were better, then I’d be enough.

Oral Sex

Oral Sex

I’ve been working on my blow jobs. It’s not going very well. I always gag, sometimes loudly, and throw up in my mouth. But now I’ve started to swallow the puke and the bile and keep going instead of giving up right away, like I always did before. When I blow him, tears run down my cheeks, but I’m not crying, it’s just a reflex. I’m always surprised by how long it takes—I’m at it for half an hour or something before he cums, but in porn, it only takes about two minutes. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. But sometimes I can’t keep going, and it’s always right before he ejaculates, and then he gets pissed off and looks at my face, which is usually covered in tears, and says, “Wow, is being with me really that good?”

Plato’s Moon Child