Vikas, let's call him that. Into drugs. Not an escape. A greater engagement, as far as he's concerned. Good in a strange way. To appreciate it, you need some strangeness. Hard to come by. Alone in the physical realm. A community of sorts, online. Music, trippy. Wisecracks. Heart in the right place. Dogmatic, liberal, an architect. Good with words.

Lives with his mother. Often travelling. His constant companions: two adorable bitches, tails wagging. Silent witnesses. Good, bad. High, low. He knows what drugs do to him. A quiet witness himself. Sometimes we talk. He's down. Will be fine soon.

My art connected us. I offered him to inspire my drawings. Too conscious of his body. Or that state of mind. But high — rarely — he'd send pictures. Erect. Well endowed. Held firmly. An assertion, I gather.

I'm not offended. Impressed. By your boldness. What are you trying to do?

To share.

Okay.

Is there sexuality in it?

I'm straight, he said. Unfortunately.

Why unfortunate?

Doesn't work on me.

Not just to me. To a set of people. His community. Public, indiscriminate. His politics, he says. Even our chats. Love for attention. Appreciating being desired. Not beyond. I respect that.

But — no but — irony.

His manhood, his alter ego. Virgin. Unsoiled. Foreign intervention: none. Then how does he know his sexuality?

In the mind. Conditioning.

Maybe I made too much of it. A man. His phallus. Another man.

I made a sketch. His birthday gift. He shared it. It's me, he said.

It’s not you. You never posed for me.

We never met, offline.

Unlikely we will.

Still: music. Politics. Videos. Not, for a long time, his bare self.

He was open to being written about. Chatting with him is refreshingly engaging.