A Flipped Switch

During my lengthy and delirious illness last month, at least I managed to bring a little comedy into the household. There was the time, for example, that I decided it would be nice for everyone in the immediate vicinity if I took a shower. I got up, blundered into the bathroom, turned on the faucets, and then went back to bed to wait for the water to warm up . . . then I promptly fell asleep for ninety minutes. On the minus side of that, all the walls of my flat were moist for the rest of the evening. On the plus side, no one complained about dry skin for a few days.

I also discovered that an extended illness makes me even more absent-minded than usual—and here we’re already talking about a pretty high baseline in which I’m doddering around mumbling, What was I about to do next? or Where are my pants? or What month is it? I got up one morning determined to be helpful, emptied a can of food onto a plate for the cats, and then left it for some reason on top of a bedroom dresser. (The cats found it, eventually.) I put a DVD box set in the refrigerator, and left a half-full container of ice cream in a cupboard. (The cats found that eventually, too.)

But I think the oddest mistake I made during those long weeks was when I accidentally switched from top to bottom for a couple of weeks. That was interesting.

I think I did it on one of my more feverish days. I logged into a site and saw that for some reason, the little ‘About me’ box still had some travel plans listed in it from, well, 2012. I went to change it. Somehow I managed to do so. But along the way, the same way I ended up putting ice cream next to the spaghetti in a cupboard, I managed to change a menu item from top to bottom.

And I didn’t notice, or even think about it, for a few days. I was feeling decidedly unsexy during my illness. I think it was the first time in my life I’ve gone a month without even so much as an erection. I wasn’t online much. If I was, it was to look at the pretty pictures, not because I was actively cruising. But a couple of days after I think I made my little error, I started to get emails from guys I’d never seen before.

Nice dick, but what’s your ass like? one guy wanted to know.

Damn boy I want to shove this dick up that tiny pink hole, said another.

U pretty. how hard u like 2 b fucked son? read the third. By that time, I was kind of noticing a pattern here. (Actually, I was busy blushing and modestly muttering, “Pretty? Son? Oh, go on,” at the last guy’s mail.) At first I ascribed it to something in the air—some random alignment of the stars that was making all the guys in the area feel more toppish than usual. It took me a full week to figure out I’d been a dumbass who’d accidentally flipped the switch on my profile.

By the time I’d actually clued in to what I’d done, though, I’d come to a couple of conclusions. The first was a gratifying realization that if I ever did decide to pack up my erection and take dick for a living, I at least wouldn’t be coming up totally dry. The second was that my bottomy profile seemed to attract a definite type—namely, uncut men of color.

I mean, some of the dicks on these guys who were messaging me about my little pink fuckhole were massive, meaty slabs of thick dark meat that made me look like a wee little tadpole in comparison. The men themselves were hot and handsome guys for the most part. Muscular. Built. Some in their twenties, some in their fifties, and lots from in between. Most of them were outspokenly aggressive. No white guys. Most were black, but there were a good number of Latin men in there as well.

And I kept looking at those profiles and thinking to myself, Damn, that is really tempting.
I’m not really sure what the attraction was on their part, unless it was the notion that they weren’t going to find a better contrast to their own skin than my lard-white complexion. I was flattered enough not to question it.

Don’t worry, full-time bottoms. I know you’ve got enough competition amongst yourselves without a fever-addled amateur mucking things up. I’m not flipping. If I were, though, at least I’d be consoled by the thought that I’d still be popular in some beds.