the snoot project continued – Amina Snoot

September 18, 2023

part ii – undisclosed location, usa, fall 2022

he comes in the wrong entrance of the hotel. the hostess at the restaurant has to walk him around the corner to the lobby, where i’ve been waiting in my pajamas. i say wait and he says wait and then i say hiiii and he says hiiii. then he says hurry up i have to go to the bathroom. i take him to the room and he remarks on the just ok city view. he immediately lays on the bed and starts scrolling on his phone. i recount my day and he doesn’t listen. i pace around because i’ve only had coffee, four pieces of fish, a beer, and 1500mg of gabapentin. i feel insane. i mention the gabapentin and that gets him on his feet and in my face about having some. we make eye contact and i feel an electric shock run through my body. i shake the bottle into his hand and five capsules fall out. he takes them all at once with no water and lays back down on the bed to scroll on his phone.

he asks me where the tv remote is and i don’t know. he finds it and flips through the channels. he wants to watch the adam friedland show on patreon but can’t figure out how to cast it to the tv. he puts on a movie in japanese (not even from the beginning), then puts on the tv show with tina fey in it. then he realizes he can probably find the adam friedland show on youtube and i chide him for not being a great problem solver. he puts it on the tv but can’t find the right episode.

i say i’m hungry, maybe i’m not, no i am, what should i eat, maybe i’m not hungry, and pace around, stumbling every few steps. i take another gabapentin. i can’t remember if this is 6 or 7 for the day. i keep remembering and forgetting to order food. we wrestle on the bed a few times, sitting atop each other, giggling with delight. i tell him about my day again but he still doesn’t listen. i keep talking. when i call room service, the woman tells me to order from the app. the menu on the app is different than the menu on the website and we go thru the excruciating process of deciding what to eat again. finally we order the food. 

he joins discord vc and talks to asher and alek while we wait for dinner. i’m curled around him and he’s not reciprocating at all. i’m so hopped up that it doesn’t bother me. he talks and says things like what’s popping slime, wassup broski, for real for real, and i just sit there quiet, wrapped around him. at some point he puts his arm around me and i think it’s all going to be ok. he threatens to turn the camera on for a second which would betray our lies about not meeting this weekend. he doesn’t because the bit is too fun and once you tell someone, you can’t take it back. the food comes and i bring it inside. he mutes the phone and says give me my food NOW and we eat with our hands, frenzied and fanatic, like wild animals on the bed. eventually, he hangs up the call.

he flips back through the channels and finds a movie about a girl trying to get into the porn industry. i say it’s important that best friends watch movies about porn together and he laughs. we read tweets and giggle at how insane people can be. there is a picture of a man in dozens of tweets and i ask who the man is and he lies and says it’s a different man in each picture. we think this is insanely funny and laugh about it for the rest of the night. the girl in the movie is getting fucked by two guys and i think he must’ve known exactly what he was doing putting this on. he refuses to kiss me or let me stick my fingers in his mouth so i unbutton his shirt. he doesn’t protest so i start kissing his collarbones. he lets out a sigh. only then does he let me stick my fingers in his mouth.

i try to bite his earlobes but i am sinking into the mattress so much i can’t reach. i notice he’s gotten so tiny since his not-eating disorder diet. i tickle his sides and he gets annoyed. he grabs me by the neck and pulls my pajama bottoms out of the way so he can spank me. he pulls my hair and it hurts. the girl in the movie is still fucking. he twists my nipple and it hurts even worse than the hair. he goes back to scrolling on twitter and ignoring me. i climb on top of him and annoy him until eventually he pushes me off his chest and puts me between his legs. 

his mouth is open and his eyes are unfocused. he finally puts the phone down. i ask if he likes it and he barely whispers, what do you think. i look up from between his legs and say, say it. i switch around my hands and mouth. i start and stop just to punish him. i tell him i want to tie him up so he can’t protest. i tell him i want to do this in front of a crowd of people watching. he likes that. he lets me kiss him and i say gotcha. he pushes me back down and i tell him i want him to fuck me in the window and make it hurt. he says well, tomorrow.

he’s back to scrolling on twitter. the adam friedland show is playing in the background and it’s not funny. he says i love torturing him and i say yeah and he pulls me off him. it’s 1 am and i think maybe he will spend the night. he’s falling asleep and i try to masturbate but the adam friedland show is so profoundly unfunny that it makes me not horny. i want him to suck on my nipples but he refuses. i give up and go brush my teeth. he’s taking a nap and his phone alarm goes off a few times but he keeps snoozing it. he wakes up when i turn the tv off because it’s so bright and i want to go to bed. he demands i turn it back on and when i don’t he says ok gotta go and gets up. i ask if he’s going to spend tomorrow night here and he says if he remembers to pack a bag. i take this as a no but remain willfully ignorant to it. he leaves and i think maybe if i lost weight he would like me and immediately fall asleep. 

the next day i spend in a haze of pills walking down a series of roads that seem like all the wrong places to be. i text him; he’s busy; he’ll see me tonight. it’s saturday. he can’t still be working. dejected, i plod along, sweating, looking at whatever thing is in front of me. brick building, taco bell cantina, antique store, caribbean market, the tropical dimension. none of it matters. we meet at 7 outside the whole foods. he’s only eating cheese cubes these days. he looks gaunt. i coo and caw and bristle and mew and call him my sweet boy. we try to hide from all the vigilant store employees. i buy him his daily ration of cheese cubes.

we end up at dinner. me pulling and prodding, him looking at his phone. he gets up to wash his hands immediately upon sitting down. the waitress comes by and i’m so hungry and strung out i say something insane. she comes back and i order half a dozen dishes and ask what he wants to eat. the waitress laughs. he orders one single scallop. she laughs again. for the first time though, we’re deadly serious. i eat and he takes the opportunity to wash his hands again. for a minute, i wonder if he is going home. i make him stick around for dessert and offer to feed him a cheese cube for being a good boy. the waitress gives him the bill and he gives it to me.

we go back to my room screeching and pushing each other around in the mirrored elevator. someone else gets in midway and we try to look normal, smudge marks on the glass from where my face was pressed into it. he tries to put on another podcast but i hid the television remote so he can’t. we decide what to do for an hour by asking each other “what should we do” without looking up anything to do. we become very, very late, although we don’t know it yet. we’re killing too much time now. he tells me we’re going out and i say yeah sure.

we leave the room just barely with vague ideas of going to the jazz club. it’s almost midnight when we get there. there’s 10 minutes left in the set so they let us sit in for free. we get our 10 minutes then panic about what to do next. we’ve come so far for next to nothing. i get someone on the street to rank a list of clubs in the city. we decide to go to the furthest one away. he asks if i’m having fun and says i can’t be mad he didn’t hang out with me all day.

we run to the train screaming at each other that we’re going to be late again. he makes me run up stairs at the station then turn around and go back down. i beat him onto a train that’s about to leave but get off because he’s too slow. the next train is in a half hour. we decide that we must wait. and wait. i sit on his lap on the train and he tells me i’m so annoying. we get to the club ticketless and i tell him to follow my lead. no one bothers us on the way in. i do a loop around the building to scope out the scene. the music is ok at best. we stay for 20 minutes. i try to dance up against him but he puts his hands over his head every time i get close. we stand outside screaming at each other about how to get home. people stare and we yell louder so they can hear. someone pays for an uber back. i beg him to stay the night so he can drive me to the train station in the morning.

i try to get him to shower with me. i try to get him to hold me. i try to kiss him. he tells me to keep my hands to myself. he says he did everything i wanted to today and i can’t be mad at him. he looks like an angel sleeping besides me. just, not my angel. i toss and turn thinking about how badly he doesn’t want me.

in the morning i pack my bag, pull the phone out of his permanently curled hand, and get him to drive me to train station. i take the container of cheese cubes, unopened. the ac in the car doesn’t work. he plays a bunch of songs while driving and says they all remind him of me. he barely pulls over and tells me to get out of the car. he’s on the wrong side of the station. i tell him this and he tells me to get out. i open his door to give him a hug and he pushes me away and says i’ve failed the experiment and that my project is coming to an end, expect notice in the mail. he slams the door, turns the music up even more, says “this song reminds me of you” and speeds away.

i walk a mile around the block to the front of the train station. it’s ungodly hot again. the train is naturally the furthest one away. i drag my stuff around a little more for good measure. i get to my seat and check my phone. he’s already texted me that he misses me, did i have fun i had to have had fun, i can’t be mad at him, he did everything i wanted to do, and ohhh i’m so distant. i open the cheese cubes, feel the hand shaped bruises he left on both of my arms, and wait for the train to depart.