Lunch

by: justice taddeo published: 05/17/2025 I meet this older American guy for coffee. He gives me life advice and then says, “Sorry—this must feel like talking to your dad.”

I tell him, “Sort of.”

But I don’t remember my dad ever texting me: “When are you coming over, you little slut?”

He almost seems disappointed. It’s kind of fun—teasing him. Not letting him get his way. I’m used to being disappointed. Now, I get off on being disappointing to someone else. It’s fun. He seems a little entertained by it, too—I can tell. I’d just come from a run. He said I smelled like a boys’ locker room, which I thought was erotic, though I don’t know if he did. He asked what I listened to when I ran. I said angsty Placebo songs. Really, it was a Can’t Fight the Moonlight remix on repeat.

He said, “Oh yeah, you’re so Brian Molko.” I said, “I hear it all the time.”

He’s a hoarder. Spends every weekend at Marché d’Aligre picking through junk. Says his partner of twenty years is leaving him because their house is full of too much shit.

I ask if he’s bothered that he might have a problem. He says, “I would be if I did.” Then pauses.

“Look what I bought!” He pulls out a plastic frog head with googly eyes glued to a cloth napkin.  “What is that?” “I have no fucking idea.” “You hungry?” he asks. Then says I look like I need to eat, which, to my surprise, doesn’t sound like a compliment. There are leftovers from a date last night. Another thirty-year-old.

“Let’s eat.”

Why not? But, mostly, I just want to see his apartment. It’s filled with shit—amazing shit. Sculptures he made are everywhere. He talks about them casually. I start to suspect he’s a famous artist and doesn’t want to say. I end up staying all day. It’s like Tuesdays with Morrie, but make it psychosexual.

We lie on the couch and talk about everything while he plays B-side Morrissey songs to test if I’m a “true fan.”  Now and then, he asks if he can touch me, grab my crotch.  I let him.

I’m lying there in what he calls my “70s shorts,” eyes glazed, head tilted back.

“So,” I ask, “when’s the last time someone painted these walls?”

He says the last thirty-year-old asked the same thing. “What’s with you young guys and walls?”

“I guess it’s the affliction of my generation—always slightly horny, endlessly curious, but too detached to do anything about it.”

He laughs. “Well, that’s fucking annoying.” I hear it all the time.