Ben’s amusement faltered into something closer to actual confusion. “You mean sex?”
“Yes.”
He studied me for a moment, and for once, the humor in his expression softened. Ben could be flippant about most things, but he was not cruel when confusion was genuine.
“You’ve never had sex?” he asked, eyebrow raised.
“No.”
“Okay… You’ve never wanted to? Because I know for a fact you have more than enough money for all the whores you could ever need.”
“No interest.”
“Until now..? With Cove?”
My hand tightened around my glasses.
Ben saw. “Right,” he said quietly. “Until Cove.”
I put the glasses back on because the clarity was preferable, even if what I saw was Ben looking at me with sympathy I had not requested.
“I find the representations unpleasant,” I said, returning to the research materials at hand and reopening my laptop. “Loud. Inefficient. Often visually absurd. The participants appear to be performing exaggerated discomfort or exaggerated enjoyment, neither of which I find pleasant to watch.”
“That’s because porn is not real life.”
“I am aware of that.”
“I’m not sure you are.”
“I understand performance.”
“You understand performance as a concept,” Ben said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “But sex is not just mechanics plus noise. Porn makes it look like that because porn is usually made to be consumed quickly by strangers who don’t care about the people in it.”
I considered that.
“It seems unpleasant for the people involved.”
“Sometimes it probably is. Sometimes it isn’t. Depends on what you’re watching.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be reassuring. It was meant to stop you from treating one random video like it represents all gay sex.”
I frowned. “I watched several.”
Ben closed his eyes. His shoulders began to shake.
“Are you laughing?”
“No, no,” he chuckled, pulling his lips in.
“You are.”
“I’m being incredibly supportive.”
“You are being the opposite.”
“I am not. Just getting to know what I’m working with.”
