Neither Luc nor Ilya are looking for a relationship, a little fun maybe? But it’s not so easy for queer men to have fun in the international chess elite dominated by Russian influence when queer rights are threatened across much of the chess-playing world. Maybe that’s what brings it together, the need for someone to hold on to when the world seems to be collapsing?
The story picks up in the Summer of 2022 lockdown is setteling down and Luc and Ilya are working together at a training camp. They have had a somewhat superficial relationship until now, though they have played in the same tournaments for about fifteen years they have not really ever spoken much maybe becuse mutual attraction has lead them to avoid eahother. Maybe because Ilya tended to skip out on Luc’s infamous afterparities, game nights and most other non obligatory socialising to get railed by strangers on Grindr when he is out of his less and less beloved home country. Regardles, it happens, and once it’s started happening it is difficult to stop. Difficult to keep up the pretence the running away, and sex is a pretty good way of dealing with the world.
Until it is too much, untill everything changes.
Vibes: Meandering conversations about what it means to be a queer chessplayer with half a moral in a world like this. Cuties getting it on cause they deserve that. Russia. Brazil. Nerds. Ukraine War. Dealing with chronic illness. Dissability. Bringing my queer anarchist ass to chess.