Something Fucked Up

Eddie was standing in the kitchen making Spanish rice. The recipe for Arroz con Pollo came from Carmen Aboy Valldejuli’s “Puerto Rican Cookery”, a Bible his grandmother always kept beside the stove when he was a kid. He was deep in the nostalgia of the dish; it always brought back tender memories of staying at his grandparents’ house.

Suddenly his phone went off. It was a digital shock, and he flinched, snapping his attention away from the comforting aroma. The ringtone sounded distorted, competing with the song in the background. It didn’t just cut through the room—it felt wrong, like a glitch in the Matrix.

"Hello?" he asked, his voice still breathless from the startle.

On the other end, a deep ominous voice said, "Massage?"

The moment the man spoke, the air around Eddie felt denser, heavy, and gross. Eddie sighed, running a hand through his hair.

Something about the man’s voice was flat and soulless. Eddie was broke and needed the cash, or he would’ve marked himself “unavailable.”

"Ugh, yeah. When were you thinking of coming over?"

The man replied, "In about an hour?"

"Okay, great," Eddie responded, trying to sound professional despite the knot tightening in his gut. "Can I text you the address and parking instructions, buddy?" Something about the man's energy felt unsettling.

He heard a brief silence, then the same monotone voice said, "Yeah, go ahead."

"Great. I'll see you in an hour," Eddie finished, hanging up the phone quickly. He sent the client his address and instructions, and then, with a feeling of unease, left the stove to start prepping his massage room.

“If this guy acts a fool, I’m kicking him out,” Eddie said to himself as he dressed his massage table.

An hour passed. He glanced at the pot. The rice was still holding. Then he heard a knock at the door. When he opened it, he could feel a funky energy entering his apartment.

Standing on the threshold was a man who made the hair on the back of Eddie’s neck stand up. He was tall and broad, taking up the entire door frame, and was dressed in black from head-to-toe, topped with a long, heavy trench coat and a gold chain around his neck.

The overall impression was less "client" and more "mafia," like a character lifted straight out of a Quentin Tarantino movie. Eddie's professional smile froze. Every instinct he possessed screamed for him to slam the door shut, yet he swallowed hard, fighting a rush of fear.

"Hello, please, come in." Eddie gestured toward the amber-lit room. "Right this way," he said, trying to maintain his composure.

The room’s light seemed to bend away from the man instead of reflecting off him. He moved slowly, his heavy trench coat seeming to absorb the light.

Eddie extended his hand toward the table and said, "Ok, get naked and lay face down on the table buddy and I will be right back.” Eddie stepped out of his massage room leaving the door cracked so he could monitor the guy while disrobing.

“Ok, let’s get this shit over with,” Eddie said under his breath as he walked back into the room and started the appointment.

He climbed onto the table and started the massage. The man’s body was covered in matted black hair thick as a Brillo pad. His skin was damaged and hard, more like scar tissue than skin. He had patches of psoriasis under his arm pits and between his thighs. As Eddie got closer, the smell of sour milk went up his nose.

“Fuck, I want to throw up,” Eddie said to himself. “It’s ok, I can survive an hour with this guy.”

As Eddie straddled the man to begin working on his back, the client abruptly started humping the table, causing Eddie to bounce up and down as if he had mounted a mechanical bull.

Eddie’s internal dread turned into rage. "Fuck this guy," he thought, trying to stay professional. "This is going to be over in a few minutes."

He quickly dismounted the client and told him to flip over. When the man rolled onto his back, he was fully erect and staring directly into Eddie’s eyes with a look of intense anger and vitriol.

In that instant, a terrifying feeling overwhelmed Eddie. "This is it," he thought to himself. "This is how it ends."

He felt certain the man was about to attack him, and his eyes darted to the concealed dagger he kept close to the table. It lived there. This work could go sideways.

But then, the man said with a snarl, "I want to ask you a question."

Eddie gulped. "Okay, buddy, what's up?"

The man kept a deadpan face and demanded, "Look at my cock. Is it small?"

Absolutely horrified, Eddie reluctantly gazed down at the client’s penis. The man was not small; he was clearly above average. Eddie quickly said to him, "No, man. You look above average to me, and I would know—I see a lot of cocks."

With an explosive outburst, the man yelled, "My wife is fucking a nigger!"

Eddie was mortified. "Ohhhhh... kayyyyyy," he responded carefully.

The man continued his emotional rampage: "She told me I had a small cock, and I can’t satisfy her. So, she went and found a big black cock."

Eddie's heart sank and he tried to sound as comforting as possible. "I’m sorry to hear that, buddy. It was wrong for her to say that to you, because that is not true, and I think it might be time to dump that bitch."

The man flew off the table to put his clothes back on. Eddie was still standing a few feet away, butt ass naked, his own genitalia having shrunk to the size of a Vienna sausage.

Once dressed, the man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. He tossed a single hundred-dollar bill onto the table and said, "Okay, thanks," before turning to exit.

Eddie hurried, running around the man to open the front door for him. With a stone-cold face, the client left without saying another word.

Eddie was absolutely freaked out. The man had left a terrible, sour funk in the apartment. Eddie took a deep, shuddering sigh of relief. Eddie threw the deadbolt and leaned his back against the door, sliding down until he hit the floor.

This wasn't just a bad client. This was a violation.

For twenty years, Eddie had cultivated a vibration of "Sovereign Joy." He was a lighthouse for men like Mark—men who were seeking healing, intimacy, and safe harbor. But lately? The light was flickering. First the string of no-shows, and now... this.

He realized with a sick feeling in his gut that he wasn't just having a run of bad luck. His signal had been jammed. Something—or someone—had messed with his spiritual algorithm.

Instead of broadcasting "Sacred Intimate," he was broadcasting "Dumpster Fire." He was attracting the broken, the angry, and the spiritually infected because his own frequency had been dragged down into the gutter.

"Why am I attracting these bottom feeders?" he whispered to the empty room. "It's like my spiritual SEO is totally fucked."

He ran to the bathroom to start his spiritual bath protocol to clean the negative energy off as fast as possible.

Then he opened all the windows and lit Dragon’s Blood incense. As he circumambulated the apartment, he chanted, "Om Maha Kalyai Ca Vidmahe Smasana Vasinyai Ca Dhimahi Tanno Kali Prachodayat" calling on Kali Ma to remove the asuric energy.

He was starving and ready for his chicken and rice. After a few minutes of getting his composure back, he stumbled into the kitchen.

"Well, ain't that some shit," Eddie muttered, grabbing a large spoon to dish out some of Grandma's comfort food.