The Lying Liars | Chapter 1 (3 of 3). Tommy and the Lies They Tell You to Get in the Door | July 2026

Tommy first appears on a street corner. What begins as a sexual transaction becomes something harder to define: part friendship, part rescue attempt, part addiction, and part story the narrator tells himself about what Tommy needs - and what he might still be able to save.

But Tommy is not always abusive. Sometimes, he is affection and a caretaker in his own right, and sometimes he is unexpectedly intimate and suggestive. But when you think it's going right, and you think you've got yourself figured out in this world, Tommy smacks you back. Tommy lies, disappears, returns, and asks for help without always accepting it. The narrator keeps trying to assign meaning to each encounter, even when survival, loneliness, drugs, and immediate need may explain far more than either man wants to admit.

“Tommy” is a dark, intimate piece of queer autobiographical storytelling about addiction, transactional sex, homelessness, harm reduction, unreliable memory, and the dangerous distance between caring for someone and believing you can rescue them.

Part of Lying Liars: true stories about the lies people tell one another—and themselves—when honesty cannot provide what they need.

Content warning: explicit language, sexual situations, substance use, intravenous drug use, fentanyl, homelessness, suicidal behavior, and death.