Roger That

Jonah sat at the usual table in the corporate cafeteria with his work buddies. It was lunch hour in the drab hall. He took a bite of his turkey sandwich that his wife, Meredith, had made him in the morning. Good old Mare, he thought, as he chomped on an over-mayonnaised wedge. Jonah’s friends were a bunch of naughty goobers who dissolutely talked about T & A like it was the only thing that ever mattered.

“What would life be without tits and ass?” one of them, a rather handsome bloke named Phil who often bragged about getting laid, was saying as he scrolled on his phone for sexy pictures of women. Phil came across a photo that he apparently liked, and he peered closely at it. “Now that is one gorgeous redhead, gentlemen,” he commented.

“Ha, they’re either extremely hot or butt fucking ugly, right!” one of them blurted out. A bunch of obnoxious snorts and chortles ensued.

“Hey, I’m a redhead,” said Pat, who didn’t find it all that hilarious.

“Yeah, and we all know which category you fall under, too!” someone remarked, for additional snorts and chortles.

Phil showed the men gathered at the table the photo of the woman on his phone. She wore red fishnet stockings and was lying on shiny, emerald green bedsheets. Her matching green eyes stared back into the soul. She was impeccably fair-skinned and large breasted with hard, fat nipples. The woman had a thick, V-shaped fur of red pubic hair above her pussy.

“New girlfriend, Phil?” one the guys asked, aching to crack up laughing again.

“I wish,” Phil replied. “Internet.”

“Hey, send that photo to me, if you don’t mind?” Jonah asked. “I found this AI app yesterday that makes short videos out of nudie pics. That’ll be perfect!”

Phil sent Jonah the picture of the woman, and within a couple of minutes Jonah held up his phone to the group of horny guys. “Holy shit!” one of them remarked.

“That’s fucking wild, man,” said another.

“Yeah, it’s kind of making me hard,” added Phil. “What kind of strange voodoo is this, Prince?”

“Hot, right?” declared Jonah. The photo of the naked redhead had come to life on screen, as Jonah had said it would. She was suddenly in a video being groped by an impressive male specimen. Think someone who might’ve auditioned for Magic Mike and gotten the part in another universe. His body was like a champion bodybuilder with huge, veiny arms and legs. He also had a chiseled jawline, neat black hair, and a well-trimmed beard.

“Who the fuck is that douche?” asked one of them.

“Gents, this lucky guy’s name is Roger,” replied Jonah. “It’s actually the name of the app: Roger That, it’s called. Pretty funny, huh? Real cutting-edge AI shit. All you do is upload the photo, hit the button, and old Roger here shows up in his skivvies and plays with their tits. And somehow the women are made to look like they love it!”

“Can he fuck her?” one of them asked.

“Sure,” Jonah replied. “Well, not yet. They say that update ought to happen soon. But for now, you can watch Roger fondle the breasts of anyone you have a picture of. Easy peasy.”

“You’re an idiot,” said Pat. “That’s fucking dumb.”

“Hey, don’t talk to your supervisor that way,” Jonah snapped. “Or I’ll fire you for insubordination!”

After a second, the men erupted in laughter again. Jonah was well-documented for making empty threats toward his workmates.

“I don’t know, Pat. It’s kinda hot,” said Phil, taking another look at the video of Roger groping the redheaded object of his affection. “Jesus, Jonah, how do you get any work done?”

Jonah smirked. “Eh, it’s been tough. I’ve been putting in pics of my wife and watching him feel her up.”

“Hey, Jonah, if that gets you off, you should probably talk to Mare about becoming a hotwife,” one of them remarked.

“No shot,” said Jonah. “We laid out boundaries when we were dating. Mare doesn’t even feel comfortable with porn in the bedroom.”

“That’s a crying shame,” said Phil, before a devilish grin appeared on his face. “I’d fuck your wife, bud,” he winked, “but only if she asked nicely.”

“No doubt,” chimed another friend. “We could all take turns, right guys? While old Jonah here watches us from the hotel cuck chair, of course.”

Realizing he’d bitten off more than he could chew by revealing his latest jerk-off apparatus with his buddies, Jonah decided to dial it back. “Alright, fuck off,” he said. “No one is boning my wife but me, guys. Sorry if that’s a bummer.”

Since Jonah was the manager of his branch, his office was sequestered in its own, private corner, tucked away from his coworkers. Sometime after their lunch break had ended, Jonah began feeling haunted by the idea of his wife being fucked by other men, with or without his consent. It made him nervous, but it gave him an undeniable hard-on.

Now alone, he opened the “Roger That” app at his desk, uploaded another sexy photo of his wife, and watched as Roger felt her up, as well as her subsequent, blissful reaction. That was the truly witchy thing about it. Jonah couldn’t remember the last time Mare had showed him that look of pure, raw ecstasy when he touched her. This was some app, he thought. Real magic.

Reclining on his office couch, his mind began to wander. He thought about how great it would be to actually trade places with Roger, the buff AI guy in the app who gets to play with random tits all day long. Roger never had to show up at the office. Roger never had to wear a shirt. Roger only ever wore skimpy boxer briefs, which accentuated his meaty prick. And Roger automatically sent any woman he touched through the roof with pleasure. Jonah was insanely jealous of him.

“Man, I fucking envy your setup, Roger,” Jonah said to himself. “What I wouldn’t give to have your life…”

Soon Jonah found himself drifting off into a fitful sleep.

As if in a dream, he found himself standing before a beautiful woman. For the moment, the brunette sat completely still. Her tight butt rested at the foot of a king-size bed in a low-lit, tidy bedroom. She was fit, sporting a bob cut, and wearing black lace panties with a matching open-cup bra, which lifted her bare breasts so that her nipples pointed slightly upward. Her head was tilted to one side, and her chin rested softly in her right hand, as if she’d been posing for a photo.

Feeling suddenly embarrassed, Jonah tried to turn away, but somehow he felt compelled to go to her instead. Draping his bulging arms across over her shoulders, he fondled her breasts while she came for him, hard as fuck.

Jonah’s mind, for lack of scientific terms, had turned to mush. He couldn’t remember anything. Before he knew it, he was being carted from one woman to the next. He never thought to ask any of them for their names. What was the point? His orders were always the same: “Go to the woman, drape your bulging arms across her chest or over her shoulders, and fondle her breasts while she cums for you, hard as fuck.”

That’s what Jonah did now, over and over. For five seconds, he touched and squeezed a vast array of anonymous breasts. All day and night, Jonah was summoned to a woman, perhaps sitting in a bedroom, or in a jungle, or on a beach, near a swimming pool, beneath a waterfall, the office, a kitchen, a hot tub, library, backyard BBQ, etc. Once, he showed up at the top of the Eiffel Tower for a French exhibitionist, and once, he rubbed some heavy, Egyptian tits right in front of the Great Pyramid. Sometimes, Jonah was ordered to repeat the same move for the same gal in the same scene many times in a row. It was never a bother because he never got tired.

This all carried on in blissful peace for some time. Then, Jonah got the order to appear before a particular blonde woman, and something terribly strange happened. He sort of recognized her. She was lying completely nude on a white, leather sofa. She looked like she’d just gotten absolutely railed. He even recognized the couch. Maybe he’d gotten stoned on that couch several times before. The problem was that he hadn’t thought of anything else but squeezing tits for as far back as he could remember.

Weeks earlier, the doctors had informed Mare that her husband had suffered severe amnesia after being found unresponsive in his office. For some reason they couldn’t quite explain, he now believed his name to be Roger Meatstick. Meredith, just thankful he was alive, allowed Jonah to be called Roger from now on. The “Meatstick” surname, however, she had outright refused to acknowledge.

Soon, Jonah’s wife and coworkers noticed that “Roger” was very different from their former acquaintance. “Roger” was full of outstanding knowledge about an array of things. On day one, he implemented changes at the office that not only sent sales through the roof, but improved company morale tenfold. Somehow, the new Jonah could speak fluently in almost every human language and even recite Shakespeare in Greek.

And although Roger could explain the act of sex to someone as though he wrote the book, Mare found that she didn’t appreciate the quirky, fetishy bullshit that he could now explain to her in great detail, instead of simply fucking her goodnight. Not to mention, Roger didn’t understand why Mare didn’t want him to feel her up every time she was near him. It was all pretty scary to her. She suspected that Jonah, the sweet, loving goofball who’d once been her husband, was simply no longer in there.

“Phil, oh my God!” Mare exclaimed over the phone to Roger’s workmate. She was pretty worked up. “I just don’t know what to do with him!”

“Just calm down,” Phil replied. “I’m here. You know you can tell me anything.”

“It’s so hard to stay calm, Phil. It’s Jonah—or Roger, or whoever the hell he thinks he is. The other day, I asked him if he remembered the first night, you know, that we hooked up back in college. He couldn’t. Said he never went to college. Then, I asked him how he knows all the things he suddenly knows about life, philosophy, and—fucking Greek? How is this possible?”

Phil couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“Oh, Phil, it’s not even funny—and sex, Phil! He knows things about sex that we never even discussed before! Stuff I hate to even say out loud.”

“You can tell me, Mare. This is a safe space.”

“Alright, like group sex—and anal, and BDSM or whatever it’s called. And now I think he’s been living this whole other life behind my back or something, Phil! But can I tell you? He won’t have sex with me. He just wants to rub my boobs!”

“Interesting,” replied Phil. He paused.

“What?”

“It’s just that, lately, he’s been really grabby with everyone at the office, too. Pat has had to stop him from groping Linda at the cafeteria, twice.”

“What the fuck, Phil?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, in your case, I can see the attraction, Mare.”

“Phil!” she exclaimed.

“What, Mare? You’re sexy and you know it.” Phil sang it like the LMFAO song.

She stopped. “Thanks, Phil. You want to know the weirdest thing?”

“You know I do,” he smirked.

“When he goes in for my breasts and I don’t go all gaga for it, he gets extremely confused. And then he turns away like he’s lost interest in me all of a sudden. Then, I get so emotional after it happens, and he doesn’t seem to understand. Please, Phil, make it make sense!”

“Well, Mare, at least he’s, you know, taking care of his body again.” No one had failed to notice that the new Jonah was immediately back in the gym. His arm muscles had even begun to swell, and he was rapidly losing the pudge in his gut that he’d always proudly carried around.

“Believe me, Phil, I’m happy that Jonah—I mean Roger—I mean—that he’s suddenly decided to care more about his fitness, but it’s like he’s a totally new—” she stammered. “He’s become a—a fucking freak, Phil! I don’t know if I can take it any longer!” Here, poor Mare trailed off into sobs.

“Okay, Mare, I hear you,” said Phil. “What can I do? Do you want to maybe hang out? You up for grabbing dinner tomorrow?”

“Oh, Phil, that would mean a lot,” Mare replied. She was wearing a tiny, white T-shirt and hot pink boyshorts and was sitting on the toilet seat, leaning over the sink with the bathroom door locked. She grabbed a blonde tuft of hair that hung in her face, nervously twirling it between her fingers. “I could really use someone right now, Phil.”

The next night after having dinner together, Mare decided to follow Phil back to his downtown apartment and join him for a glass of wine.

“No harm in a little nightcap,” she thought.

“I’m so happy you reached out,” Phil said while pouring Mare’s wine. “I mean it. I know how hard it must be to feel like you’ve lost him. The guys—they kind of like the new Jonah, but I have to wonder some days. Is this even the same man?”

“It’s not the same man, trust me,” replied Mare.

“Well, one thing is certain. I’m extremely happy you’re here,” Phil added.

This went on for a little while. At some point in their conversation, Mare transformed from a lively, flirty companion to a vulnerable woman. She cried, “I haven’t slept with my husband in weeks, and things aren’t shaping up.” Her tears became a long embrace, then a light kiss, then more passionate tongue kissing. When she noticed Phil’s cock hardening against her body, she also realized that her panties were soaked.

Phil stopped after a moment.

“Are you sure, Mare?” he asked. “We don’t have to.”

“Please!” she whispered, desperately. “Can you put it inside me? I need it, baby.”

As Phil undressed her, he could hardly believe his luck. First came the tight, green skirt. He unzipped it down the middle of her crack, letting it fall to the rug. He finally got his first squeeze of Mare’s exceptional ass. And it was really good. She smelled like expensive, rose perfume. Next, he removed her peep toe booties, one by one. She grew impatient and swiftly peeled off her wet, purple panties, smiling into his eyes as she did so.

Suddenly, it seemed like an out-of-body experience for Phil. He wasn’t drunk. And as far as he could tell, neither was Mare. Yet here they were, finally. He stood up and prodded her to lie back on his white, leather sofa and admired the way her bare ass met with the leather, the sounds it made. Mare opened her legs wide for him.

“Someone’s been doing her yoga,” Phil commented, smiling.

“It ain’t gonna lick itself,” she said.

Phil got on his knees and buried his head into it. Mare gripped his brown hair and thrusted her wet pussy into his face. Now Phil was rolling his tongue over her clit, which made her moan, loudly. He began slowly probing his tongue in and out of her asshole while massaging her brimming clit with his fingers, until Mare began to shake and squeal uncontrollably.

After she came, she got up and unzipped Phil’s jeans. He wasn’t wearing any underwear and his cock sprung up as soon as it was let loose. Mare looked like she just got a new pony on Xmas morning. She began to suck like they did in the porn that she watched when no one else was home or like the stranger had instructed her the last time she had an affair. She relished in the discomfort when it pressed against her tongue, and she gagged when it hit the back of her throat.

“That’s it, baby,” said Phil. “Fuck, that’s a good girl.”

“Yeah?” she said. “Fuck my pretty face with your handsome dick.”

With her mouth wide open, Phil took her by the hair with two hands and fucked her face good, so that it made her mascara smear and snot dribble from her nose. Mare paused to spit a mouthful of thick saliva from the back of her throat. She aimed it right at Phil’s reddish tip. Some spit dripped off and landed on the shag she was kneeling on. Now, holding the shaft with one hand and the other gripping his ass, she looked into Phil’s eyes while playfully dabbing at his dickhole with her tongue.

“I know you like that, mister,” she said.

“You’re a greedy little slut,” he replied.

“Don’t tell my husband,” she giggled.

Phil reached for his phone on the sofa. For the rest of the session, he snapped many scandalous photos of Mare in all her rare glory. Jonah had been correct all along, that Mare had fucked many other men both before and during their marriage. That night, however, would be the first time she ever let a man fill her asshole with thick, pulsating flesh. And she was surprised that even though it was kind of messy, she loved every minute of it.

Phil had the photos to prove it.

Days after the rendezvous with Mare, Phil was lying in bed, naked and horny. He thought of Mare’s exquisite ass and decided to upload the photos he’d taken of her into the Roger That app and have some fun with it. He’d recently updated the app with the new “Roger fucks her” commands.

Suddenly, Mare stood before Jonah for the first time in what seemed like ages since trading places with Roger Meatstick. He barely recognized his wife with her legs spread eagle, her asshole gaping, and her face soaked in milky pearls of cum. Much like the other women Jonah had been ordered to fondle all along, Mare was laying perfectly still on the white, leather couch like a photograph.

Only this time, his orders were not: “Go to the woman, drape your bulging arms across her chest or over her shoulders, and fondle her breasts while she cums for you, hard as fuck.” They were: “Go to the woman, and fuck her brains out until she screams ‘Hallelujah!’”

What else could he do? Jonah complied.

Who Would You Rather?

“Who would you rather fuck? Queen Amidala or Princess Leia?”

I consider Joakim’s question with serious thought. I delight in my options. “Hmmm,” I vocalize my internal struggle. “Natalie Portman or Carrie Fisher… Hmm….”

We are in the butterfly house where old man winter is unwelcome. The cold-hearted bastard remains, uninvited, just beyond the greenhouse walls. He mopes outside the patchwork of glass that retains a rich, warm, atmosphere, dense air, heady with the scent of earth, humid, and vibrant with life. The cold, like Dracula, cannot enter without consent.

“No,” Joakim takes the game seriously. “Not Natalie Portman or Carrie Fisher. Queen Amidala or Princess Leia. I’m not asking you which actress you’d rather have sex with, but which character.”

“As they were in their prime?”

“Well, certainly not as they are in the present. Both characters are now dead in the up-to-date story. One actress, too, in the up-to-date reality. And remember, they lived a long time ago.”

“In a galaxy far, far away.”

“That too.”

Flowers and butterflies compete to see which one can outdo the other, plant versus insect, a showcase of brazen, loud colors on display, an electric fashion show that smells as good as it looks. Orange and black monarchs flit about, sit and fan their tiger-stripe, speckled wings on cosmos petaled parchment white, it’s-a-girl pink, or radioactive magenta. Strawflowers carpet the earth in thick patches, every conceivable warm hue, every nuance of yellow, orange and red. Then, just to spite them, outdo them, a living neon light of radiant blue, cold as ice, traced in black, a blue morpho butterfly, parks its outlandish, gaudy and gorgeous self to break up the heatwave, to render it second class. Sunflower, echinacea, zinnia, azalea, big and bold, elegant and frail, no end of hue, beautiful, fragrant, just fucking lovely. Glass wing and blue moon, Julia and tailed jay, the butterflies counter with their own extravagance, their own great library of beauty. I just take it all in, sight and smell. I call it a draw. Insect and flower equally matched, equally gorgeous. It’s all so fucking divine.

In the face of so much beauty I consider my options. I go internal. I conjure up my own lovely imagery. Visions of Carrie Fisher in her prime come to the forefront of my mind. Jabba the Hutt, crime lord and fat bastard, his pudgy, slug-like hand gripping a leash fastened to his beautiful, mostly naked sex slave.

“Well, Joakim,” I say after some thought. “I’d pick Portman over Fisher, but if we are talking characters, not the real women who embody them, then I’d have to go with Princess Leia.”

“You’re thinking of Return of the Jedi,aren’t you?”

“Scantly clad, collared and chained, can you blame me?”

“Oh, look, the luna moth.” Joakim gestures to a winged creature, a veritable angel, that I could not miss if I tried to.

Equal parts erratic and graceful, the Luna moth dances through the air, an artful trajectory from flower to flower. Lime green, watered down with milky white, it sails across my face, silk on the wind, about the size of my outspread palm. Stunning. Incredible. Unreal. In this moment I am reminded; nature, great and small, is seraphic, and in this instant, I walk within Seraphic Park.

“My turn,” Joakim prompts me to continue our little game of who would you rather? So I think real hard. Try and abandon the Star Wars universe and come up flat.

“Who would you rather fuck? Harrison Ford or Hayden Christensen?”

“You mean Han Solo or Anakin Skywalker?”

“You’re such a stickler, Joakim.”

“Rules are everything. Without rules, we are merely animals.”

“We are merely animals, besides.”

“We are men.”

“Is that something to be proud of?”

“It’s something to accept. To embody. To exemplify. As men, we follow rules.”

“So who would you rather fuck?”

“Hayden Christensen.”

“You mean Anakin Skywalker?”

We look at each other. We laugh. We leave the butterfly house behind. We walk through a set of dangling plastic strips that hang down like those cloth curtains at a car wash. The transparent tendrils cover the exit, keeping the butterflies from leaving their floriferous kingdom, the shiniest of gilded cages in the whole of the zoo. We walk through another set of giant strands of plastic fettuccine because it’s always a double door at the zoo. Even for insects.

The next room is a narrow walkway, enough for three people to walk abreast. To our right is a concrete wall, a giant mural of tropical rainforest, the occasional plaque with animal information and fun facts. I study the isolated wads of chewing gum that teenagers and assholes have pressed into the wall. I zero in on a pale blue glob, likely spearmint, that covers the toucan’s eye with precision. It is gross, but artistic in its own light.

To our left is a low wall, a hip-high partition, and a wide expanse of simulated, indoor jungle. The large skylights provide a pleasant, natural light, illuminating a shallow pool below, moss-strewn rocks and logs, mature trees. Just beyond our reach, a net stretches from floor to ceiling to keep various birds from coming into contact with the humans that view them, and more importantly, vice-versa. In the pool below I see a dozen flamingos and admire their pink feathers, white zinfandel and rose. Above them, a trio of scarlet macaws, a vivid explosion of primary colors.

Joakim leads me to the next room, which is much the same, but with stronger protective netting. Here, I witness Zazu, the extravagant avian wonder, the lonesome great hornbill.

We wait for a passing mother and her child to move on before continuing our game.

“Who would you rather fuck?” Joakim asks. “Jar Jar Binks or Shrek?” Sometimes we do this, reverse the challenge. Try and think of a pair that would be hard to choose based on their undesirability. I hate CG characters and Joakim knows this. But in this instance he’s failed to make it a challenge.

“I wouldn’t touch Shrek with ten-foot barge pole.”

“You’d rather fuck Jar Jar Binks?”

“I’d rather not fuck Shrek.”

“Fair enough.”

We walk on past a “staff only” sign and unlock a door to enter Zazu’s attractive, but limited indoor rainforest. Zazu swoops down, mischievous and bored out of his mind, but delighted for our company, for some relief from the hours of nothing. Most of the zookeepers are afraid of going in with Zazu because he has an enormous beak and willfully bites, capable of breaking someone’s fingers if they are careless or unlucky.

I’m not worried, however, because Joakim has imparted a technique to avoid any misadventure. His tactic is straightforward, simple as can be. Rather than try and shoo the bird away, push aside his beak, or hold up your hands to protect your face, you simply make a fist, which protects your fingers, and offer up an arm. Zazu can break a finger, but he cannot break a wrist or a forearm. Sure, he bites your arm, and yeah, it hurts a little, but it’s no big thing. It’s not that bad. And besides, you get an incredible, up-close view of a stunning great hornbill, offering the beast an interlude of entertainment among its quotidian malaise.

The first thing I think as Zazu swoops down upon us is Woah, big fucking bird. And with a five foot wingspan, I’m not wrong. Perching on a branch level with our faces, he cocks his massive, banana-beaked head while scrutinizing Joakim and I. In his discerning, red eye I see intelligence and personality. I see an individual with a fiery soul.

At the crest of Zazu’s head, joining with his formidable beak, is a large, horny growth, brightly colored and cumbersome, like an ornate helmet or a decorative headpiece. Joakim tells me this is known as a casque, used as both a counterweight to a hornbill’s long beak as well as for amplifying vocalization.

From head to toe—or tail feather for that matter—Zazu presents himself a grand spectacle. He bedazzles with untamed beauty, prehistoric charm. He commands our attention, affecting authority over our senses. As I gaze at him up close, am not in the least disappointed.

Tangerine fades to banana, bright orange to yellow, from the tip of a razor beak to its base, colliding with cherry red eyes that showcase intelligence. I feel like I am looking into the face of a clever, feathered fruit salad. Sunset feathers fashionably match that rich, gorgeous tiara, that cornucopia headdress. Neck down, the great hornbill is robed dominantly in black, broken up in alternating bands of white. The overall look is impressive and eye-catching, yet avoids crossing over into something gaudy. Zazu’s appearance is suggestive of royalty. So it comes as no surprise when Joakim tells me that in Nepal his species is called homrai, and in parts of India, banrao, names which both mean “king of the jungle.”

Tight in a fist, my fingers remain safe as I offer my forearm to an under-stimulated hornbill. I defend my eyes from a beak that could easily gouge them from their sockets, blind me, or tally my face with red scratches. The pain in my arm while it’s used for a chew toy is minimal. I endure it, soaking up the marvel that sits before my eyes. Greedy and insatiable, I drink it all all in. I gaze in wonder, eye to eye with the king of the jungle.

Banana, pineapple, and mango, slices of ripe pear, an abundant sprinkling of cat biscuits: humble offerings to our liege. I take one last long look at Zazu and commit his regalia to memory. From his presence, somehow, I draw strength. With his image in my mind, mysteriously, I bolster my fortitude. As Joakim and I walk away, I feel like a improved version of myself.

Joakim breaks the spell. “My turn.”

I am lost in the majesty of a feathered king. “Turn for what?”

“The game. Who would you rather?”

And just like that, my dream-bubble pops. Reality takes place of mystic whimsy. Vacuous and all encompassing, blatant actuality rushes in. So I play the game. 

“Who would you rather get nasty with? Mel Gibson or Steven Seagal.”

“Who’s Steven Seagal?”

“You know, the asshole in all those karate action movies in the 90s. Black ponytail tied back tight. You know, Under Siege? On Deadly Ground?”

“I want characters, not actors. The rules, man! The rules!”

“Fine,” I yield. “Yoda or Kermit?”

“The frog?”

“Ribbit.”

“You give me a choice between little green creatures?”

“You gave me Shrek, a CG perversion, Mike Meyers on acid in hell, a green fat bastard.”

Joakim sighs. “Yoda, of course.”

“You like older men?”

“I like wise men.”

“Best stay away from Paul.” Paul is our boss. Gym build, tall, perfect teeth, dumb as a stack of bricks. 

“Now there is someone I’d like to fuck.”

I’m not gay, but I felt a bit jealous. I wondered if Joakim would like to fuck me. I don’t know why, but I hoped that he did.

We carry on, blah blah blah. We laugh as we walk back the way we came, past macaws the color of Superman, pink flamingos balancing on one leg. We wade through a ballet of butterflies, a fluttering of angels on the wing.

Just before we exit the butterfly house the luna moth lands on Joakim’s shoulder, then dances onto mine. It stays there, opening, closing, opening, closing, its milky, lime-green wings, the delicate pages to an ethereal storybook.

“Here’s a good one,” Joakim ventures. “The ultimate question…”

I silently doubt that the ultimate question awaits, but I await, nonetheless, for a question.

“Who would you rather become? What would you rather be?” Joakim asks me, stern and serious. “A Jedi Knight or a Lord of the Sith?” He takes this game very seriously. “An instrument of darkness or one of light?”

I’ve seen the films a million times. I could probably recite the original trilogy from beginning to end, failing only with character impersonations, but not the words they speak. I cheer for the good guys, sure, I guess it’s true. I root for young Skywalker as he whines his way across the galaxy. But there is one moment in the films where as a viewer I always falter, a moment I know I would fall to temptation if it were me in Luke’s position.

In The Empire Strikes Back, after losing a close duel with Darth Vader, i.e. Daddy, Luke hangs from a catwalk that drops down into an endless nothing, an infinity below him. Maimed, one hand severed in combat, he stares up into the masked, concealed eyes of his enemy, his father, who looks down upon him in total control. Yet in this dire moment, a dread enemy transforms into a tender father, extending his hand as well as his offer, to spare Luke’s life, proposing he and his son share dominion over the stars. Together, as one, they will rule the galaxy.

In this moment during the film, no matter how many years and decades transpire, dozens of repetitious viewings, I find myself feeling the same as I watch Darth Vader, father, extend his offer to Luke Skywalker, son. I know what I would do if I received this same offer. I wouldn’t let go, fall to a fate that almost certainly would lead to my death—though Luke survives, of course. I wouldn’t run away from family, from the love of a father. I’d take his hand, embrace his offer. Maybe I have unresolved daddy issues, or maybe I’m just not attached to being a moral man, a good guy. But I can tell you this: if it were my narrative, if I were Luke, I’d not have let go to fall from that catwalk. I would have fallen, instead, headlong into the seduction of the dark side. I’d have become a black knight, a lord of darkness. I’d have ruled the galaxy with my father. Together, we’d devour the stars to satiate our lust for dominion.

“Easy one, I know,” Joakim dismisses his own ultimate question. “I mean, who in their right mind wouldn’t choose to be a Jedi Knight? Only a weak-willed, evil fuck would allow the dark side to seduce them to walk the path of the dreaded Sith.” Spoken like a true nerd.

I do not share my thoughts as I willingly reach for my father’s hand. I look up at my dad, caped and clad in black, a red light saber—red, to denote evil. I’ve already taken my first step towards the dark side, dipped my toe into the surface of a black abyss that I prepare to jump into headlong. I feel the shadows swallow me up from the inside, and I’m aware that it feels good. It feels right.

“Way too easy,” Joakim repeats. “Next time, I’ll do better,” he says. “I’ll think of a harder question. One that has more than a single, obvious answer.”

I do not offer my opinion or reveal my musings. I know what I am, or what I am capable of becoming.

“Come on, fellow Jedi. Let’s go.”

Upon my shoulder, a luna month suddenly takes flight, as if sensing something—repelled, perhaps—by the shifting aura of the being it had perched upon. Leaving the butterfly house behind us, Joakim and I step back out into the cold where old man winter waits to steal our warmth. We walk together and ascend the hill, Jedi Knight and Lord of the Sith.

Halloween

She was a monster. I was not attracted to her in the least, but she was there, at the bar, drinking. It had been a while since I’d slept with anybody. She was, allegedly, a friend of a friend, so likely the enemy. A rather heavy goth chick. I was into petite women. Asian women. Clean women. This woman was very heavy, very white and had sloppy tattoos, intentionally torn clothing and broken-down, oversized Doc Marten boots. Glasses with lenses so thick I could barely tell she had eyes, which, when I squinted, appeared tiny, like bug-bites. Pasty-faced with unevenly cropped black hair that looked unnatural. Vampiric. Maybe there were flies circling her head. Probably just tracers. Since I was high on something somebody had given me to snort, likely from a trade-off, an eighth of weed for a bindle of something or other; I could’ve been seeing anything. Ghosts. I was dealing weed, but I was a shit dealer. I barely maintained enough of a margin to smoke out my friends. The real friends anyway. I’d had the bogus friends surgically removed in Mexico since my nonexistent insurance didn’t cover pest removal. I ordered a beer with a double shot of Stolichnaya. I had indulged in a short chat with the Goth but now she’s glued to her cell phone, checking texts, checking her pulse, probably Googling my ass. It was a new thing, to Google. Got any doubts? Google it. Anything. Anybody. Anywhere. Why bother with education when the answer is instantly available at your fingertips? Shit. I actually was published, I actually did have work appear side by side with Burroughs and Wanda Coleman and Antler. But modern folk need hand-held, digital verification. I must have passed the screening, since the Goth was now sidling up closer, our barstools practically entwined. I snuck another look. She was fucking hideous. I was in the weeds for sure. Hours seemed to pass. The place was busy and loud with the TVs tuned to a spastic basketball game, with fat-ass Elvira-slash-Morticia Addams jabbering away drunkenly, punctuating points by poking my forearm with a pudgy finger. Annoying as fuck. My guess? It was about time. I didn’t want it to be. Then she mentioned that she had a car. It was drizzling and the wind was picking up threateningly. My motto? It always rains on assholes. This night, heading towards definitive proof. My room was across town. In the house of the Brown Man, who doubled as my supplier. Ballard. Not too shabby, but a helluva long bus ride, and taxis cost a mint. I earned my pittance on meager tips and dime bags. We scurried to her foreign subcompact, which sported a huge dent in the front right fender. Red flags waved across my vision. My instincts urged me to flee but too late, we were rolling. It was quite a way from Eastlake to Ballard; one must traverse the University Bridge to Roosevelt, take a left on 45th, cruise through Wallingford, but where 45th merges into 46th, we had some trouble. Directly under the 1-5 overpass the car suddenly began to fishtail. The Goth had lost control. Out of control in the pouring rain. The vehicle made a gnarly hard right and lurched head-on into the retaining wall of the underpass. Fucking shit… I looked around. I checked myself, patting my chest, my legs, my head. Everything seemed to be in order, or, at least, the same as before. I looked over at the Goth. Her head was hanging low over her heaving breasts, her hands clutching the steering wheel, fingers gripping the vinyl in senseless chubby fury. Was she sobbing? I couldn’t quite say. Then she let out a piercing scream. Where was Google now? The shock of the collision seemed to have activated something inside her to take action. With an impressive display of nimble agility for a person of her bovine physiognomy, she exited the vehicle, to assess the damage. I tentatively followed. It wasn’t that bad, just slightly more damage to the already-smashed front fender. The left rear tire was blown. You got a flat, I pointed out, ridiculously. No shit, Sherlock, she bemoaned. Do you have triple A? She shot me an acid look that said of course I don’t have triple fucking A you heartless bastard. I shrugged. We stood there for a minute as cars shot past through the slick. Then she got back in the car and started it up. I looked in through the passenger door quizzically. Just get in, she mouthed. I shrugged again. Shrugging came second nature to me. I got back in and we took off, the injured, protesting wheel dragging along, alternating between thuds and screeches. I could feel it getting more and more mutilated and misshapen as we navigated the next 30 blocks to the Brown Man’s house. I had to hand it to Morticia; her dogged determination was noteworthy. We arrived and she parked the car. I found my key and in we went. She saw the fridge and gestured defeatedly. You got any beer? I took a number of beers out of the fridge, trendy microbrews that somebody else had bought. We trudged up the staircase to my room, dripping and beat. I’d recently moved in and occupied the smallest extra “furnished” bedroom. There was a cheap Ikea dresser and a thrift-store mattress and box spring set on a rickety wood frame and headboard. We sat side by side on the bed and drank the beer in silence. Then she took off her clothes, slowly, as if undressing for the gas chambers. I shuddered. I finished my beer, removed my clothes and got into bed with her. She was everywhere. There was so much of her, I thought she might spill over onto the floor. I didn’t care. I somehow found the target and started humping. I wasn’t panting with exertion or sweating at all. It was all very robotic. She made small, whimpering noises. The bed was really moving. All of a sudden, with a harsh creak and snap, the side rails collapsed, jettisoning us to the floor in a heap. Good fucking grief, I thought, what a fucking travesty. The Goth was on her knees, crawling unsteadily, crying. I laid there for a while, then got up and dragged the wreckage of the bed frame into a corner. I kneeled to where she was now squatting, offered my hand. I led her to the mattress where she collapsed in surrender. I flopped down on the mattress as close to the edge as I could manage and went to sleep. In the morning, she was gone. I wandered around the house. No trace. I went outside where the streets were still wet, but the rain had stopped. She had driven away in the wrecked car with the flat tire. I didn’t hear from her all that day, or that night, or the day after. A week or so passed. I was relieved. The night of depravity in question seemed like a particularly repugnant dream that had diminished with time, leaving only an embarrassing memory. Until one afternoon at the restaurant I got a call on the phone in the office. It was The Goth. You gave me chlamydia, she accused. Your dick gave me a STD, asshole! That’s impossible, I said, my dick is perfectly antiseptic. You must have caught it from the next guy. Or the one after that. Are you certain it’s chlamydia? Perhaps you ought to Google it. And please, refrain from dialing this number again. This is a business line. I hung up. She didn’t call back. I never saw her again. Maybe she moved out of town. That kind of thing happens a lot.

Eve

Unlike the first rib cracked I wore a raggedy black cape and plastic fangs even to midday snack. Snack was cold pancakes left over from the dogfights. Technically we had to wash out our mouths with chlorine before meals. Eve had the teeth of a cross-eyed shetland pony which everyone agreed was adorable. The both of us were prescribed plastic specs we coulda been freaking cousins as per our mutual Ashkenazi ancestry. The hippie cult in charge put on these funky dances for the pubescents featuring the local AM radio hit parade which every year only differed according to tech advances in autism. Since I never removed my black velvet shroud I was basically shunned. The nerd element hadn’t entered our current chrysalis status especially with the girls so it was kept secret that I was their adorable little fiend. Despite my fits, fainting spells, spasms, seizures, tantrums and frequent bouts of hyperactivity, indispensable prerequisites for a growing young evil empath, ahem. Eve was a little tramp in training, she had that heroin-chic look going on at age 10 even a diet of potato chips and peanut butter cups couldn’t solve. The dance floor was a rickety wood-slatted platform built in the pioneer days doubtlessly by slave labor or at the very least indentured servant hicks. Oak trees, pine, sequoia and acacia, dirt paths and dented metal garbage cans. Very pissed-off birds. Supervised by drop-out vagrant chaperones whose filthy feet and underarm values were based on what psychotropics they happened to lift from the village pharmacy. Polar opposites of our guardian-captor-kapo parents. The discerning eye overall winking like a volcanic asshole at the mere mention of our existence. Crocodile Rock, Love Will Keep Us Together, Night Fever, Mamma Mia, Shining Star, Livin’ Thing, will it never end will I ever kiss a baby toadstool will the sneezing ever abate did I just trip over my fangs could a fiend be more of a danger to himself than any ol’ idjit biting off his own tongue. I moved quirkily and shuffled around elbows in ears, caught Eve right in the tit or the makings of one. My intricate plan to ask her to go steady shoved to the back burner as she crouched and rocked, arms hugged across spindly chest, painful mortification creasing her features. I poked her gently as if at a dead bird on the sidewalk. I tried soothing words without actively opening my mouth: struck dumb in her moment of crisis I attempted a sort of rudimentary telepathic sequencing. Best as I could muster. And failed. My literary trauma began with cribbed letters to Eve, an admixture of fluff and insult upon which my inevitable troubadour internship relied. Meanwhile I muddled through the motions of enduring activities meant to achieve fun. Ping-pong, softball, archery, water polo, tennis. Despicable acts of useless competitive vanity. Horseback riding wasn’t entirely appalling, though; I vibrated  to the sharp smells of the barn. It seemed to harden my baby walnuts which stirred and crackled for the wrangler, a husky strawberry blonde lesbian. Miniature brains cavorting, I put two and two together, Eve riding sidesaddle with the dyke. However, any attempt to tug synthetic designer cowboy boots on her dainty Semitic feet and that asthmatic tart would probably drop dead. Certain heavily edited teleplays in my head developed in time with the whiffs of cheap Mexican grass being smoked by the dirty hippie counselors. But was it? Was it all in fun? Our smooth, prepubescent, white, unadulterated bodies could’ve been manufactured by Mattel. I yearned to kiss Eve but it was a struggle to muster the courage to simply grasp for her hand between dances. When I finally did it was like plunging my digits into a damp hole full of worms. Gross. My future self advised me to get used to it. Because it gets nothing if not worse, once you venture inside the body, exploratory-like, in the heat of things. But it ended suddenly, like a knife attack. Out of nowhere the buses pulled up raising dust while suppressing pheromones. The first camp session was over. Belongings packed as per my astrological predisposition: fanatically minimal, neurotically organized. But at the last moment I was held back; a call made, the message received, as if a stay of execution: I was to remain for the second session. The parents were adjusting verily to my lack of presence. They’d sooner frequent the tennis club where avoiding each other with practical emotional detachment was vogue. The cultists locked me in a closet for two days while reconciling the camp grounds to Talmudic specifications. I enjoyed the privacy. When it started again I concentrated on swimwear trends and chlorinated waters. Lush minnow, river porpoise, I failed as neither when a streamlined entity joined my piscine frolic. Mermaid in training? I think not. Just another preteen heeb cutie helping me reduce drag. All smiles. She did the work as I pantomimed my best dog paddle. So what if it wasn’t Eve. Eve had left the garden to return to the big bad city. The serpent in my ear with a direct connection to the baby eel in my swim trunks had some pertinent advice: Get wet filthy thing!