Gabe Durham

One About Circles

First, know: it didn’t get me off in the slightest. Saw a program on public television where a man jacked off these fish, one by one, while children watched. “Let me try,” one of the kids said. I mention this only to make a point about circles: Persons kissing onscreen is taboo in certain parts of the world. Person jacking person off onscreen is taboo in most parts. Person jacking off person onscreen while children watch is illegal and rightly so. Person jacking off person in a fish suit while children watch is fever-dream fucked and warrants arrest. And yet—and yet—man jacking off actual fish while children watch? We’ve emerged from the tunnel in a new time zone. It helped, maybe, that the program called it milking and they were out by the river instead of in a motel room and that the guy looked bored as hell—he just wanted there to be fish to catch next season and I was not turned on. We all chalked it up to the unfortunate bestiality of continuation.

Gabe Durham lives in Nashville, TN. His writings have appeared in Mid-American Review, Fourteen Hills, Daytrotter, Hobart, The Lifted Brow, The Rumpus, Quick Fiction, and elsewhere. He's a recent grad of the MFA program at UMass, Amherst. He edits Keyhole Magazine.