You've got a friend in me
An erotic parody of a certain well-known toy movie
Disclaimer: Remember those old maps with big X’s that warned, HERE BE DRAGONS (or occasionally LIONS) because we didn’t really know what was out there? Well, HERE BE EXPLICIT CONTENT! Maybe don’t read it at work—unless you have a cool job or work from home.
A conversation I had with myself while writing this sexy parody of Toy Story:
“Really? Isn’t this a bit silly and absurd?”
“100%. But, I mean, maybe not as absurd as that Winnie the Pooh slasher film.”
“I didn’t need to know that existed.”
“Sorry.”
“But the world is literally on fire right now! Don’t you have more worthwhile things to do?”
“Well, yes, of course I do. But also no, of course I don’t.”
“You sound like the double-sided dildo character in your story.”
“Why, thank you. What I mean is we need joy to sustain us in dark times. I wrote this for my own amusement—and for yours, I hope. But it didn’t stop me from donating to those affected by the LA wildfires, the ACLU, volunteering for a local two-spirit powwow (next Saturday! Come!), and trying very hard to not let every news headline rage-choke me into submission and despair. As Rebecca Solnit put it in Hope in the Dark, ‘Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.’”
“You’re saying gay porn is a form of activism?”
“I’m saying pleasure is a form of rebellion as well as power, particularly queer people writing about their own joy. As Audre Lorde put it, ‘When I speak of the erotic, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.’”
“I do love Audre Lorde. Her memoir was very erotic.”
“I know! There’s also a ‘Stack I came across recently by Austin Kleon, who said, ‘I don’t think we talk enough about amusement as a worthy enough reason to do things. I am struck over and over by how many of my favorite artists started their signature work just because they were trying to pass time in an amusing way. Playing. Fiddling. Messing around. … Amusement [is] the antidote to weariness.”
“Well, fine. If you put it that way, I guess I’ll read your gay porn.”
“Thanks! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.”
Sex Toy Story
Subject: In town next week
From: Rachel Pham
Hey Andie,
Hope you've been well! I'm gonna be back in town next week and I’d love to see you if you're free. I know it's been a while, but I've been thinking about us lately. Maybe we could catch up Friday?
-Rach
Andie walks into her studio apartment clutching a plain brown gift bag, nose glued to her phone. Even from my not-great vantage point in the half-open nightstand drawer, I can tell that she’s read the email from Rachel multiple times. It’s in the way her excitable, emoji eyes scan the screen and the flush that appears at her neck. Oh, Andie.
She drops the gift bag by the side of her unmade bed and lays down on it. “I’d love to see you,” she repeats to the empty room. “I’ve been thinking about us.” Her eyes flutter closed as she clutches the phone to her chest. She reaches into the nightstand drawer without looking.
Pick me, I think. Choose me. Love me.
She touches the soft curve of my head, then stops. She remembers the brown gift bag, and her touch vanishes. I sigh. So close.
The packaging looks space-aged, solid black, matte finish, about the size of a Barbie coffin. Andie tears into it like a starving animal. The toy is black too, and sleek, with teal and purple lights that blink. It looks like a karaoke microphone from the future. She pushes a button and it purrs softly, a truck engine with a pillow smothering its roar.
Andie reads the email out loud again, tugging her gray joggers down to her knees but not removing them entirely. Her polka-dot underwear she doesn’t bother with. She keeps them on.