Over the next year, Brad Phillips and Gideon Jacobs are writing a 12-chapter "serial novella" for Autre. It will be written Exquisite Corpse style — they will alternate who writes each month's chapter, and won’t have access to the previous chapter until it has been published. Brad and Gideon have not discussed plot, structure, format, themes, characters, etc, and promise not to do so even once the project is underway. The idea is to react to each other's work, and hope the final Frankensteinian product is something that deserves to exist. If the authors like what they've made when it's done, the editors might publish it as a "zine." Installments will go up on the 15th of every month.
text by Gideon Jacobs (and Brad Phillips)
At Guillermo’s funeral, his son Bernardo said something like, “Hello everyone, and thank you for coming. As you all know, my father liked to keep the world on its toes, so I’ll honor him by formally announcing that he isn’t dead.”
The mourners laughed.
Bernardo then said something like, “I mean it. There was no suicide. Has anyone seen a body? I didn’t think so. My father is currently shopping for groceries to stock the fridge of his new condo situated on the beach of a tropical island nation.”
The mourners shifted in their seats.
Bernardo then said something like, “This funeral is another one of his projects. It is part of the thesis he spent decades beating like a dead horse and yet never actually articulated because he wanted to remain mysterious—his big idea that there is nothing funnier than a mismatch of perceived stakes. This is why, as a child, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and find him playing my most violent video game, giggling to himself as he committed heinous acts against the game’s innocent characters, bystanders just running errands or commuting to work. And it’s why you’re all gathered here today laying flowers on an empty grave.”
The mourners exchanged looks.
Bernardo then said something like, “In short, my father is alive and well, and apparently a bigger prankster than ever. Thank you for participating in his funeral, thank you for your time, and my sincerest apologies for his unique sense of humor.”
Bernardo returned to his seat. Guillermo’s sister walked to the podium and delivered a really beautiful and moving eulogy.
Gordon didn’t want to fuck Ben in person because Ben wasn’t that cute, but he thought sexting with Ben could be fun, especially if he was able to convince him to send him videos of his winking asshole, so he messaged Ben on the dating app they matched on, saying, I know it’s only 9PM but I’m in bed already and it feels VERY good. What are you up to?
Gordon played chess on his phone for a bit and was starting to fall asleep when Ben messaged back saying, I’m also in bed early like a grandpa and proud of it. Am watching bad TV. Gordon thought about ignoring the message, silencing his phone, and rolling over, but the small chance that this interaction might lead to him ejaculating soon was enough to make him rub the fatigue from his eyes and respond with, I think getting to know each other a bit would be more fun than bad TV, don’t you? Ben said, I agree.
The question now was how quickly could Gordon drive the conversation to sex. Would Ben be turned off if he didn’t warm things up with flirtatious banter? Or would he be refreshed and relieved by honesty and transparency, as he also didn’t think Gordon was cute enough to fuck in person, but also wanted to see some dick and butt before bed?
Gordon decided to cut to the chase but to do so in a way that made it clear he was aware he was cutting to the chase. OK, so forgive me if this is too sudden and out of left field, but I have to be up super early in the morning and I think you’re super cute. So, I propose a game: You tell me something I can send you right now—words, photo, video whatever—that would make for your ideal stranger-made masturbation material, and I’ll tell you what you could send me right now that would be my ideal stranger-made masturbation material. Then we’ll both take a sec to make each other our perfect customized little sexy gift, and then when we’re done, we’ll press send at the exact same time. What do you think???
A few minutes went by with no response from Ben. Gordon started to suspect he’d just offended an innocent, possibly prudish man. The thought of it made him feel sad, so he messaged, Shit, I’m sorry if that was not at all what your looking for one these apps. Please feel free to ignore that dumb idea if I offended you! Either way, hope to run into you sometime somehow somewhere. Sleep well :) Ben immediately responded, Sorry got distracted by the bad TV and didn’t see your message. But YES lol that’s a brilliant idea. Les do it.
Gordon felt more awake now. He sat up in bed and composed his request. OK, so I think it would be really really sexy if you placed your phone on the floor and stood over it, naked, spreading your ass cheeks slightly and flexing your pelvic muscles so that your asshole winks. I know that’s a bit of a specific ask, but I think it sounds hot and if you do that for like 30 seconds I’ll probably explode very quickly over here. I’d love to cum long and hard while seeing you do that for me...He considered how he would feel receiving this message. He also considered how he would feel if it was screenshotted and ended up on social media and everyone he knew saw him ask a stranger for this video. Then he pressed send.
Ben responded, I love it. OK, I want you to send me video of you putting a wine bottle in your ass. Gordon laughed out loud. He wrote, lol I’m not sure thats possible. Ben didn’t say anything. Gordon touched his asshole with his fingertips. He messaged, OK. I’ll...try...
He went to his kitchen to get a wine bottle. He emptied out what was left of a cheap red into the sink—less than a glass. He grabbed lube from his bedside drawer, and thoroughly lubed up his asshole. He lubed up the skinny end of the bottle. He propped his phone up onto his pillow, pressed record and laid back, lifting his hips to make his asshole visible to the camera.
It quickly became clear that he had far too tight a sphincter for the job, but he managed to get the bottle almost a quarter of the way inside himself, and he hoped his effort, paired with some theatrical moans, would make up for the incomplete task. He stopped the recording. He edited out the beginning few seconds, the part that showed him pressing record, leaning back and putting his hips in the air, and he edited out the last few seconds, the part that showed him removing the bottle and stopping the recording. He messaged Ben, I’m ready when you are. Send on the count of three?
Ben messaged back, One. Gordon messaged back, 2. Ben messaged back, Three. Gordon selected the video and pressed send. He sat waiting for Ben’s video to arrive, his dick hard with anticipation. He waited a minute, assuming he hadn’t received Ben’s video yet because Ben’s video was a big file, that Ben had gone above and beyond the call of duty and winked his asshole for more than thirty seconds.
After a few more minutes, Gordon started to feel impatient. Resend? yours didn’t go through. An error sign popped up saying the message couldn’t be delivered. Gordon closed the dating app, reopened it, retyped the message. Resend! Your video didn’t g through or something?! The error sign popped up again. Gordon closed the dating app, reopened it, and this time, when he tried to message Ben, Ben’s profile was gone from his list of matches. Ben had unmatched with him.
Gordon jumped out of his bed and opened Instagram. He searched users who had the word Ben in their Instagram handles and scrolled through hundreds of profiles, squinting his eyes to see if any of them were Ben. After a while, he started to feel tired again, so he wiped the leftover lube off his slightly sore asshole and started a new game of chess that he eventually forfeited because he fell asleep before either player achieved checkmate.
Guy was the name Bo gave his French alter-ego that came out sometimes when he was in a good mood, usually after meditating for twenty minutes, practicing gratitude for ten minutes, doing one hour of aerobic exercise, and eating a home-cooked, high-protein, low-carb meal.
When Brett was ten years old, his best friend Gregory started hanging out with other kids in their neighborhood because, deep down, they both knew that hanging out with each other didn’t count as hanging out at all, and Gregory had reached the point of his young adulthood when he wanted stuff to start counting.
Brett wasn’t offended or hurt by Gregory’s disloyalty. His leaving the bubble of their best-friendship felt natural and unavoidable. In the moments when Brett felt like confronting Gregory, he’d put on his sneakers and start the five-block walk to go knock on Gregory’s front door, but always end up turning around when the house came into view. Then, on the walk home, the left side of Brett’s head would ache a little, an ache that was the result of some inchoate part of his brain trying to come to a realization about inefficacy, about how you can’t change what is already in motion, and since everything is always in motion, you can’t change anything.
If Brett was just a few years older, this might have led him down an existential rabbit hole about free will, which might have led him to his first proper dalliance with suicidal ideation, followed by an involuntary slap to his own face that was equal parts self-harm and self-preservation. But, at this moment, Brett still had the prefrontal cortex of a child, and so, he just hummed the tune of a song that didn’t exist and kicked a stone down the street like some 1950s sitcom kid.
In late August, not long before school was due to start, Brett and Gregory hadn’t seen each other in two weeks, the longest they’d gone without contact since they were toddlers. Brett’s mother noticed Gregory’s recent absence from her house, so she called Gregory’s mother, who she tolerated more than liked, and asked if the woman’s son wanted to come over and play. Gregory’s mother said yes, Gregory would like to play, and that he’d be there in ten minutes.
An hour later, Gregory knocked on Brett’s door. Brett answered and saw that Gregory was with another boy, a lanky kid from the grade above them. Brett told them to come in the house, but they said they were supposed to meet up with a group of kids near the old out-of-commission train bridge behind the public tennis courts, that they were playing Capture the Flag. Brett asked his mother if he could go, and she said OK, just be home by dinner.
They walked in the direction of the bridge. The older boy was leading the way, then Gregory, then Brett. No one said anything for a while. They just walked. Brett tried to think of something to ask them to break the silence. He remembered that the letters notifying students which class they would be in in the fall were about to be mailed out, and he considered asking if they’d received their class assignments even though he knew they had not. He was about to open his mouth when, out of nowhere, or maybe out of somewhere that’s just not somewhere people know about, it dawned on him that Gregory and the older boy were giving him the quiet and stillness he needed in order to hear the soft soundtrack of everything that was about to happen.
So, Brett focused. He tuned out his footsteps and heartbeat, and he listened carefully. He heard the following: the distant voices of more boys from the grade above, chatting and joking in a tone they would not chat and joke in once he arrived at the bridge; the whispers that the boys in the grade above whispered to each other once he did arrive at the bridge; the slobbery licks of a dog’s tongue lapping at a chocolate milkshake one of the boys had spilled into an empty pizza box; the loud rushing of the river below, deep this summer because of unusually heavy rains; the scrape of an old rusted car bumper being dragged by two boys across old rusted steel beams; the soft “here boy” and “good boy” and “thatta boy” that one of the boys used to coax the dog into standing still enough for him to tie a rope around its torso; the buckling crunch of the metal bumper as the other end of the rope was tightly secured around its torso; the heightened silence of having everyone’s eyes on you while your body is carefully positioned to create enough leverage in your heel to do the very thing those eyes don’t expect you to do.
Gregory’s sneeze broke the silence when they were still a few blocks from the tennis courts that abutted the trailhead that led to the bridge. Brett started to hear his own footsteps and heartbeat again. He said, “God bless you.” Gregory acknowledged the courtesy with a small nod and unleashed a hard kick on a soda can that was sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, sending it tumbling into traffic.
Baxter said, “Ha. Ha. Ha...” With pauses in between each “ha” to make it funny. Gerald said, “Ha. Ha. Ha...” with even longer pauses in between each “ha” to make it even funnier.
For more from Gideon Jacobs, follow @GideonsByeBull on Instagram. Click here to read Chapter 2: Guillermo’s Funeral.