My Tinder is like bittersweet purgatory for those willing and those who just board on the train—innocent and fragile to what is coming ahead of them. I’ve decided to meet up with a boy I’ve been talking to for quite sometime. He’s blonde so I ask him if he’s in a frat. No, he says. I directly plagiarize Sheryl Crow’s words and casually integrate ‘i’m not the kind of girl you take home’. He says I seem friendly and that he is not looking for any harm. So, on Thursday at midnight, we sit on a bike rack and talk about our Mother’s occupations. I find out he’s Jewish, probably uncircumcised, and how he hates Christmas. He say’s he’s a dog person so I tell him I live with a kitten, Zoe.

“Would you mind if I used your bathroom? I really have to pee.”

“Ok.”

I say ok because he has diabetes.

I try out about five sitting positions while he’s peeing. My bathroom sees his dick before I do, which is exceptional. I am happy for my bathroom and not the least bit jealous. He comes back to sit on the small couch and Zoe grazes his shoe.

“Yeah, that’s Zoe. Isn’t she cute? She’s kind of crazy. Like psycho! She’s in her stagnant mode at the moment. But yeah, right? Her face is like a cartoon. Sometimes I call her Han Zolo. Or Moo Moo Head, which is like insane! Because she literally never responds.”

“Totally.”

I leave my shark stuffed animal on the couch so he thinks I’m “quirky” or “mentally unstable.” There is no music, because I’m a fucking idiot and forget the fact that he’s a hungry 21-year-old. Soon enough, with enough silence and stares, the sound of graceless lips smacking, and re-locking again fills the air. Most of the lights are on so I make his face so sucked into mine that he won’t notice. Maybe if I drape my hair over the both of us. This is the first time I’ve made out with anyone this semester and I almost tell him that, immediately, until I realize that is way too monogamous sounding.

We are hot. I know it. He’s touching me like we broke up, got back together, fought in the parking lot of a bowling alley, and then stripped in front of one another like we wanted to fight again. I forget where I am and I wonder if I’ve fallen in love with him yet. Yes.

I open my eyes to find that Zoe, actually, has been sitting like a f****** creep in the middle of us. She, to her own pleasure and probably Satan’s, has been a third-party candidate in the midst of him and I sucking face. Zoe groans in his face, without breaking eye contact. I threaten her, through a stare, that death and the Grim Reaper are closer than she realizes.

“Do you want to move to your bed?”

“Yea, for sure.”

We start smacking face again like we’re going straight for hate sex, like people on acid at Bassnectar concerts. Everything is fast between us. Hands are all around his body and my body like we’re blind. I throw my glasses off. It’s these times when I feel sort of sexy.

Actually, surprise motherfuckers, Zoe is right next to us, under the bed, eating cat food. There are no words to describe how loud and sloth-like a cat chews on their dry food. It is unimaginable. For every feverish and urgent way our bodies move together, Zoe starts chewing, one fucking kernel at a time. For so long, I pretend we don’t hear it. I pretend this is a hot thing and that the f****** hellraiser is removed from our hotness. I wonder where her morals are, the vacancy in her heart, what kind of sick motherfucker I own.

“I’m very sorry, again.”

He doesn’t speak and kisses me. I assume this kiss is not a “you’re so cute I love how your cat is cock blocking me you are so quirky and fun” but more like “let’s fuck or I’ll die here”. We change positions on my twin size mattress which feels like trying to get past a sweaty individual on an airplane. He kisses me from above, urgent and rushed, and I smile lightly like I am in love with him and that I am so cute, like a nesting squirrel. He sits up and starts to take his shirt off. Slowly, with passion. In dreaming terms, Gatorade would be streaming down his hair and milk would be pouring slowly out of his mouth. I lay in amazement, of heaven, and love, and sexuality, and the gorgeous hair a man grows on his chest like a fern.

“What the fuck?” he stops everything.

“What, What’s wrong?”

“I think your cat is in the fucking bed with us.”

My Tinder is like bittersweet purgatory for those willing and those who just board on the train—innocent and fragile to what is coming ahead of them.