Sex is everywhere. You can find it in the cracks and seams in every aspect of our lives from when we are young and still wondering what exactly it is to when we are old and we consider that we should have stuck more fingers into said cracks and seams.

Sex is so prevalent that they have a hard time giving it away these days. Sex has to be dressed up or modified until it isn’t sex at all, but a part time job at a hardware store, or a strongly worded letter. There is so much sex in the world that it has become the thing by which we describe how mundane something is. How often have you heard the term, “it’s better than sex,” huh?

There is no fucking behind the bar because it is a refuge. I can pour drinks and I can cast my gaze over the small empire I have carved for myself out of the crater in which this city resides.

There is no fucking behind the bar because there are forces at work which I may have had a hand in creating, or may not exist at all, aside from in my imagination.

Once, drunkenly, I masturbated behind the bar when everyone had left. I drank that night harder than most nights. I drank with the customers and watched a young couple in the corner touch and talk and for some reason I could taste and feel them together and once they had gone I rubbed myself until I splashed my jizz all over the already dirty mats that lay at my feet behind the bar. I remember coming to my senses then. A clear sobriety that echoed through my body and seemed to vibrate out into the very room.

I knew I had done something wrong. Perhaps, one of the gods who watches over this place saw me bend or break a rule that I had been resolute to follow. I’m not sure. All I know is, what followed was a terrible week. It was like I had been cursed. Looking back it must have all been a self-fulfilling prophecy, but at the time it felt like the only way to atone for my sin was to wash my mouth out with the shotgun I keep underneath the bar beside the dusty unused wine glasses.

I made it through, though. I made it through and learned my lesson, that the rules you set for yourself in the realm you created are the worst to break and bear the harshest consequences.

So, now, there is no fucking or sex of any kind behind the bar. Don’t get me wrong. I’m still a red-blooded barkeep and my perversions remain intact. I saw that couple again that had caused me to violate myself that night I broke my own rule and I slung them drink after drink. I flirted with them both and told them about the after-hours special where they could drink and touch and play and fuck all for free as long as they let me watch. I watched. I helped. However, we did it all on the other side of the bar. Where it is safe and the rules are different. We didn’t fuck behind the bar and because of that the week proceeded without darkness or fear.