Eli Doesn't Bottom

Part II: Eli's Bottom Doesn't Quit

    Things had gotten uncomfortably weird long before the doorbell rang, and that was ignoring the Peachy Donut Company butt plug that seemed to be permanently stuck up my asshole.
    I mentioned I live with my very religious, born-again Evangelical Christian-but-still-Jewish parents who host a home church every six weeks. If your brain broke a little reading that sentence, just imagine a lifetime of this psychological torture. To say my parents and I are not the same people would be an understatement.
    But here's the thing: they let me live with them. In exchange, they expect me to show up to every family dinner. I mean, sure, I'd rather live anywhere else, but have you seen the world lately? It's kinda hard to make a living even when you're not an under-skilled, repressed, closeted gay twenty-something with an Orange Creamsicle Push Pop butt plug permanently rammed up his ass.
    Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv.
    An impossible twitch turned into an even more impossible vibration. It started in my rectum and somehow echoed in my skull.
    The thing was ... happy? It enjoyed that I felt like ... a loser? Useless?
    Wait ... how could a butt plug enjoy anything? How could it feel happy? More importantly, how could this thing twitch and wiggle and vibrate when it had no motors or batteries?
    What the actual shit was inside me?
    "It's spiritual warfare, plain and simple," my father was saying. He was talking to my mother, but I'm pretty sure the entire conversation was for my benefit. That's usually how these things go. "They can dress up the TikTok ban however they want, but the truth is that it's the Republicans—and only the Republicans—who are trying to save our country from the influence of Satan's demonic forces."
    I poked at my plate. Broiled chicken that probably had no taste. Over-steamed broccoli mush that definitely had no taste. It was as if my parents were politically opposed to flavor. They certainly were opposed to my being vegan (after all, animals were put on this planet for God's children to do with whatever they wanted).
    "It's indoctrination," my mother replied, her words shooting across the dinner table like heat-seeking passive-aggressive ballistic missiles. "It starts in public schools where the Devil gets a foothold, then TikTok reinforces the grip, and everything else is a mind virus that opens children's souls to demons."
    "Pronouns. Gender swapping. Rainbow flags. Drag queens—"
    "Hamas," my mother interjected, the missile detonating right over my head.
    The Orange Creamsicle Push Pop butt plug flexed firmly in response. There were no words in my head, but the foreign sensation that was there seemed to want something that was definitely not my own desire.
    Say ... more ...
    "I saw on the news a video of an alleged 'boy' calling Jesus the original colonizer," my mother said, indulging the butt plug's silent request. "Jesus. Our savior. A Jewish man. And now some confused transgender thing thinks He's some kind of white supremacist? Jesus?! Sometimes I fear that hope is already lost."
    The butt plug vibrated and pulsed stronger than ever—I definitely wasn't imagining it—and I couldn't help but squirm uncomfortably in my chair.
    "I was thinking we should lead a discussion about Israel tomorrow night," my father said between bites, referring to their turn at hosting the home church.
    I swallowed hard and braced myself. Here comes the justification of the Jewish state cosplaying (rather effectively) as Nazi Germany.
    The justification of genocide.
    The weaponization of bullshit religion to abdicate themselves of basic human decency.
    Vvvvvvvvvvvvv-mmmmmmmmmm.
    The butt plug was very happy. The vibrations felt loud, but I think it was just my body conducting the sensations of the butt plug straight to my ears. My parents didn't seem to notice the sound, nor the beads of sweat that had appeared on my forehead.
    But they knew exactly what they were doing.
    Passive-aggressive antagonization.
    They wanted to get a rise out of me.
    "We absolutely should," my mother replied, agreeing with the proposed discussion topic. "It's our duty, being Christian and Jewish. We have a responsibility to help others understand how integral Judaism is to Christianity—Jesus didn't come to replace us, but fulfill the destiny as it was written by God."
    My father nodded. Of course he did. The more batshit-crazy it sounded, the more they agreed. "Israel is our inheritance—"
    "Never forget your Jewish heritage, Eli," my mother said, addressing me directly for the first time. "By blood and by spirit. An attack on Israel is an attack on all of us—"
    "Jews and Christians. Or at least, the real Christians," my father added.
    The harder the butt plug vibrated, the faster my stomach turned.
    "Which is why we have to always be on defense," he continued. "You think it's a coincidence that the gay agenda and the Free Palestine agenda showed up at the exact same time?"
    I mean, they didn't, but we had clearly entered a fact-free zone.
    My mother shook her head, practically dripping disapproval. "The 'queers,'" she said quietly, as if it were some kind of bad word. "The activists. The transgenders. Gender is fake, so now Israel is fake. The Devil could not speak with any greater clarity."
    My father nodded. "Spiritual warfare," he repeated.
    "Boys think they're girls. Jews think they're the oppressors. Christians think they're separate from Israel. It's all the same demonic force—the Devil twisting his hooks in the brains of his followers."
    If I had actually been eating, I would have choked on the food.
    Sure, it was near-impossible to find a place to live on my own, but this? This was actual, torturous hell.
    ... so why the fuck did the butt plug like it so much?
    "Eli, I really think you should sit in on the discussion tomorrow night," my father said. It was the most directed he had been all dinner, and I knew if I didn't respond, I'd just be inviting even more of the torture.
    I looked up from my plate and met his eyes.
    He knows. He knows you're gay. He knows there's a butt plug up your ass. He knows who you are—what you are. He. Will. Crucify you.
    And that was when the doorbell finally rang.
    In all seriousness: thank fucking God.
    "I'll get it," I said, practically exploding out of my chair and rounding the corner to the front door.
    My parents kept talking, but it was just background noise to the buzzing in my asshole that somehow filled my ears. The thing in my brain was making me dizzy.
    And I still had no idea what had happened to Micah. I had tried texting and then calling, but the calls went right to voicemail, and the texts were all left unread.
    I took a deep, calming breath in an attempt to ignore the growing pressure in my ass. I opened the front door.
    A truck was just pulling away. It wasn't Amazon—in fact, it wasn't any of the usual delivery trucks. Just a plain white, unmarked box truck.
    But it was a delivery truck, because a large parcel had been left on the welcome mat.
    It was addressed to me.
    The butt plug wriggled and flexed and twisted, forcing me to grab the door frame to brace myself.
    The spot for the sender's address was conspicuously empty, save for two characters.
    Two emojis.
    🍑 🍩
    In a dizzying flash, a memory resurfaced.
    I had gone to Micah's. I had knocked on his apartment door. Someone else had opened it.
    A girl.
    In a towel.
    Smelling like sex.
    But I was the one who wasn't "gay enough?!"
    The foreign presence in my head pressed against my eyeballs. The butt plug wriggled like it was possessed by one of those demons my parents liked to fetishize.
    The obscenely large box from the Peachy Donut Company seemed to leer at me.
    But I didn't remember ordering anything.