AUDEN
People in Los Angeles can't say my name right. It's Auden, not Aiden—but it does not matter. Everything gets lost in translation here.
I came to L.A. for a new start or maybe to stop feeling anything at all. In Norilsk, lust was a secret language, spoken behind concrete walls. In Los Angeles, it's a religion. I used to worship faithfully: new names, new sheets, the brief mercy of forgetting myself in someone else's insides.
Every night, I came home emptier. Every morning, I told myself it was freedom. I used to think I just had a high sex drive. I could stop when I want.
Turns out, that's what all people with an addiction say before the crash.
For me, it started as a distraction, one-night stands, blurry mornings, the usual L.A. anaesthesia. But it got messy literally and metaphorically.
After one scare and a panic attack later, I quit cold turkey.
Celibacy.
No sex, no flirting, no temptation.
Davey said I wouldn't last a week.
Spoiler: I lasted exactly six days.
