The Last Romantic: Part 1
"There were plenty of beautiful girls from my high school alma mater that are tattoo artists now."
I wrote this back in 2024 and am now sharing it here on substack in a few parts because… why not? This summer I finished a first draft of a novel (which is why I haven’t posted in ages), so please excuse me for going through my backlog here.
The next part will be posted next week. Same time same place.
Thank you to Will, Calum, and the Rosinski twins for helping me edit this way back when.
All illustrations are crudely done by myself, muji pen on muji paper.
- Ava
Even a little bit of weed gave me paranoid behavior— constantly checking myself like a female— or biting chalky skin off my lips. The sky was a little duller than I had expected. And the sand was wet. It clumped underneath my toenails each time I stretched out my legs— which I found myself doing compulsively, trapped in a loop. I was, though, a little more socially relaxed, albeit physically uncomfortable. And there was, of course, a necessity to the situation. My boss, Chris, laid flat in the cabana next to me, was stoned too. He picked up little finger-fulls of sand, reached behind himself like a contortionist, and let it sprinkle down between his shoulder blades. Every so often a pre-pubescent cabana boy would offer us sunscreen. Chris would catch my eye and then roll his own, exaggeratedly. Carcinogens. I could almost hear that playful sarcasm in his look. I smirked back.
The night before I graduated Northwestern, (this was five years ago, now), I found myself wandering aimlessly around campus. The rest of Pi Kappa Alpha were barhopping. I lied and said I was hungover from Thursday; you know, dealing with residual coke shits, and that my girlfriend was wringing me out. I eventually meandered towards Lincoln Beach, narrowly avoiding campus security that ensured no freshly hazed freshman drowned in Lake Michigan after eight o’clock. The black lake blended into the horizon. I felt dramatic, like I should just run in naked. But I also knew that the water was cold. I hated being chilly. Moments like that, when I could recognize the relationship between cause and effect, reminded me that I was smarter than other people. I had a good head on my shoulders. I called my girlfriend. Asked her to meet me. She was a sophomore Theta girl, so I knew I could trust her with discretion— but honestly my confidence in her went beyond her social reputation. At the time I might have loved her more than my own mother. That night I laid my head on her lap and just cried. It might seem a little melodramatic, but graduation meant that life— real life— was going to end. No more ragers. No more “dartys”. The weekend would condense to two days. My fraternity brothers would disperse to San Francisco and New York and Charleston. I’d sit in a cubicle for the rest of my life. My girlfriend— I really wish I could remember her name— rubbed my scalp until I managed to fall asleep.
Even more than my girlfriend, I loved my fraternity president. He was a few years older than me but graduated in my class as well. We all called him T-Dawg. He had short cropped blonde hair and a square jaw with a cleft. His nose was crooked from a go-karting accident when he was nine. I remember all these little things because of how intensely I’d study him. His cool facial expressions, the ease in which he could talk around someone. He was like an older brother. Maybe a surrogate father. He’d help me with my homework. He’d bring me takeout if I was hung over. He’d tell me to shut the fuck up if I was being annoying. He’d bring me to the best parties of my life if he knew I could hang. When I left T-Dawg, I was scared I’d never feel that honesty in a relationship again. Or, to be completely frank, ever know someone who knew how to get down.
When Chris came into my life, he filled that void. Work wasn’t a sterile, cutthroat environment. It was a playground. Everyone was still young, earnestly committed to enjoying life to its fullest. Chris was only forty and was probably the oldest man I’ve interacted with in what, three years?
The last thing I’ll say on this tangent is that there was no separation between work life and social life. We vacationed together. We drank together. We dieted together. For people who hate their job, that might be a little intense, but for us, it was an extension of home. It’s either something you believe in or something you fear.
“I’m thinking...” Chris rolled over onto his side, facing me. “Jump on Zoom around seven, then hit Club New.”
I furrowed my brow. “Working dinner? I thought...” The paranoia nagged at me a little. I didn’t want to be pushy. “...reservations. Theo’s Taverna. To meet with...” I picked up my phone and navigated to my notes. It might as well have been gibberish. “I can’t even remember their names.”
“Ching and Chong.” Chris laughed at his own joke. “Fuck ‘em. We’ll do brunch instead. Besides, I’m water fasting until nine in the morning.”
“Bet.” The sun began to peak out from the overcast. It stung my eyes. I squeezed them shut in a delayed reflex. Chris threw a hand towel over my head and laughed. I did too.
I usually spent my downtime futzing around with the beta of Gogh-3D. Being fairly high level in our operation, I didn’t have the same limited access the rest of our employees or even our Kickstarter funders did. They only had seven prompts a day— far less than our competitors’ open-AI projects— and they were limited in commercial usage for the time being. We hoped that would change in about six months or so.
The product was simple but innovative: You create a piece of digital AI art exclusively through our Gogh web app. Tweak it until you have a product you’re satisfied with. That painting is then 3D printed with actual, professional artist quality oil paint in our Bluetooth compatible Gogh 3D printer. The painting is then set and dried through our Gogh dryer. The dryer machine is similar technology to the UV rays you’d use to cure gel manicured nails. The entire process takes about thirty minutes, most of which is dedicated to printing. Ideally, this will be cut in half in a future upgrade. Chris believes that with enough brainpower, we might eventually get it down to only five minutes. My mobile mini printer, not yet in mass production, takes about twenty for more complicated projects.
I already had a foot high stack of my paintings on my desk. I wasn’t stoned anymore, but I was nursing a Jack and Diet-Coke as I came up with a few new creative ideas:
A dense forest with a small tranquil lake. Moonlight radiates off of it. A beautiful woman sits next to the lake, washing her blonde hair. Realistic style. Thin brushstrokes.
A Native American and cowboy shaking hands in the wild west. Wildlife; including buffalo, rabbits, and birds are watching in awe. Stylistic. Thick brushstrokes.
A space alien and an astronaut shaking hands on the moon. Pointillism.
I immediately liked the results of each prompt. Except the last one— the pointillism was messy. The dots and colors felt chaotic, almost random, like a child attempting the art style. I edited my prompt: A space alien and an astronaut shaking hands on the moon. Realistic style. A new, more refined painting was generated. Much better.
My phone alarm rang. Meeting in ten minutes. I took a final sip of my drink and stowed it behind my laptop. Logged onto Zoom.
My role wasn’t on the tech side. I can’t code. All of that was for the Cal Tech recruits to worry about. I was the Senior Brand Strategist. In a small start-up like this, that meant my responsibilities ranged from attending meetings, overseeing, and most generally, communicating asset needs.
The meeting attendees slowly began to pop up. Josh, Jake, Max, Kyle. Jacklyn, our social media manager. She had something in her hair. I full-screened her window, squinted my eyes a little. A little green feather was nestled by her temple.
“Hey— Jacklyn.” I unmuted myself. “Jacklyn, you have something in your hair.”
Instinctively, she swatted the sides of her head. The feather drifted out of frame.
“Oh! Sorry, Mike. My parrot got out today. Sorry. Bleh.”
“No biggie. You know I’m just looking out for you.” I kept her window maximized. She had a certain wide-eyed, people pleasing, nervous energy that was entertaining to watch. And she was attractive for a CUNY graduate. I guess there would be a dice roll, then, if I ever decided to go out with her: the social clout gained from an attractive person can easily be voided if she isn’t really there resume-wise. At a point, if you’re not gaining anything professionally, if she has no real meaningful connections that could bring you to a new level, you might as well just go out with a stripper or a waitress. There were plenty of beautiful girls from my high school alma mater that are tattoo artists now. “Alright, Chris is going to be joining us in about fifteen. We’re meeting with the Koreans tomorrow morning, so we’ll chat again soon. Max will update the Google Calendar. Okay, Kyle, fill me in on the home front.”
“Do you think I should just take half?” I rolled my jaw as I spoke. Chris and I faced each other in the bathroom stall— him, leaned against the door, me, crouched on top of the toilet seat. I didn’t want anyone to see two pairs of shoes and get the wrong idea. When we were in line for the toilets, we saw the bouncer drag a botox-ed middle-aged cruiser out by his collar. It seemed like a hostile environment for any ‘funny’ business, despite what the perfectly flat mirrored toilet paper dispensers might signal.
Me and T-Dawg used to have an excel spreadsheet of the best bar bathrooms to do lines in. Obviously, there’s a lot of factors that went into this— is there space? It is clean? Privacy? A flat toilet back? A flat sink? A convenient tiled ledge? Co-ed? Then, of course, some of the bathrooms with across the board five-star ratings might have overly zealous bouncers and security officers (Club New suffered from this issue) or male-female ratio issues at the bar itself. I felt like Chris wouldn’t really care about that. Ranking things or comparing little details in that way. He was more bullish. “Bullish” is a business term. When he slid the lock to the stall closed, he scanned his surroundings in half a second and immediately went into action— “stand up on the toilet seat, Michael.”
“Why?” Chris asked, non-judgmental. He took a little blue pill crusher out of his jacket pocket and slid two ecstasy tablets in. He ground it casually like weed, not really looking at it, more focused on me. I scratched my head sheepishly.
“I’m afraid of fentanyl. I mean, we’re not in New York.”
“Bro. C’mon.” He poured the powder out on the top of the toilet paper dispenser and began to cut it with his Amex. “You think I don’t know exactly what’s in this? You think I’d put this shit up my nose if I wasn’t 100% certain?”
Someone banged the outside of the stall door.
“Facts.” I rolled up a twenty and Chris cut two even lines. Chris was partial to snorting ecstasy rather than ingesting it. The benefit, despite the strength and speed of initial onset, was that you didn’t have to account for how much you ate beforehand. Although, I suppose Chris was fasting today, so it really shouldn’t have mattered either way. I went first. As soon as I felt a familiar burn my mind was set at ease. I had the idea that if I ever took something laced, I’d know immediately. An aftertaste. A nose bleed, like in Pulp Fiction. Another bang on the stall. I looked down towards the space under the door. The high-end shoes and pigeon-toed posture of the aggressor signaled it was someone who was ready to get sick, not a security guard. I looked back up at Chris and clicked my tongue. “I have K for later.”
The nightclub only had one dance floor, but it was surrounded by multiple verandas that looked out towards the ocean. Neither of us really liked to dance. Some girls had migrated to our table while we were in the bathroom—shamelessly pouring themselves shots of Grey Goose and standing on-top of the sofa-back like anorexic venetian statues. I could tell Chris was rolling when he covered himself in the sofa pillows. Somehow, he still looked like a movie-star doing it. Or maybe just strong. Like he was overloading weights at the gym. The girls must have noticed that too. They didn’t leave his side.
I ended up vomiting on the veranda. Doubled over the wrought-iron railing, I could make out the line for the venue a few stories below. And beyond them, the edge of the ocean crashing into the shoreline.
Years of experience taught me that when your vision doubled, it was best to stare at a fixed point on something plain and flat. Like the ceiling, or the floor. That, coupled with gripping something hard— like bedsheets, or placing your hand on the carpet, or, in this case, getting white knuckles over a railing— often would alleviate any dizziness, and replace it with a much more comforting sinking feeling. That was my experience at least. So, I dragged my vision from the nightclub line three stories below me towards my feet, hoping to find something non-triggering to focus on in the tile. The blue and white Mediterranean tile proved too hard to look at— the florals or geometric or whatever type of pattern it was waved and folded in on itself. I wished it was just something normal, like concrete or marble. I kept searching, oscillating between an intense concentrated brow to wide, helpless eyes, until I landed on two polished feet in black sling-back heels. I realized that someone was delicately caressing the nape of my neck.
“That’s alright.” She said. I rubbed my eyes. Turned to look up at her. The first thing that stood out to me was that she wasn’t wearing club attire, or the usual makeup. She had on an outdated-looking shapeless turquoise blue slip dress layered over a faded jean-skirt. Lots of jewelry, all of which looked cheap, a little costume-y—which isn’t entirely out of the realm of normalness for women, but again, it wasn’t cheap in the way I was accustomed to. Her hair was very long and frizzy. The next few observations I can only attribute to the fact that I was rolling hard at this point: She looked young and old at the same time. Half of her seemed worn in and dirty. The other half was youthful in an unperfumed sort of way. She reminded me of the water-damaged American Girl dolls that were collecting dust in my older sister’s basement. There was something very unsanitary about it all. Maybe the effect came from my double vision. If I was in a sober state my primal reaction would be to get away from her as soon as possible.
When I straightened up, I realized she was only two inches shorter than me. I still felt queasy and had to brace myself on her shoulders. Her hands hung limply around the back of my neck, fingernails lightly scratching. I decided to adjust my grasp from her shoulders down to her hips, so that it could look like we’re dancing.
“Good?” She said. I realized I hadn’t answered her yet.
“Yeah, yeah.” I needed to level myself out. I reached into my jacket and pulled out a little plastic baggie, very non-discreetly. I looked at it for a second. The blue and purple lights from the dance floor inside made the substance look grayish and opalescent, like crushed up pearls. “I can’t remember if this is blow or ket.”
She gave a little sympathetic smile. “What do you want it to be?”
“I want to wake the fuck up.” I replied, a little shorter than intended. I could tell it annoyed her. She unwrapped her long arms from my neck. I realized my left hand was still on her hip. I reflexively shoved it into my pants pocket. I softened my tone: “Like, I need to rally.”
She nodded. She carefully took the baggie from my fingers and examined it, holding it up high towards the moonlight. “I think we should trade, then. This looks like ketamine. Unless it’s something really crazy.”
She reached into what I could only identify as a stiff mini-tote bag and pulled out her own little baggie.
I was surprised, I didn’t think people like her did coke.
“Fire. That’s what’s up.” I said.
“Here. In the spirit of harm reduction.” She handed me a key chain and her baggie. I took the bump. Blinked. Now I felt like I could really see her—the details of her face finally came into harmony. She was extremely proportionate besides her nose and the size of her eyes. Not a big, hooked nose, just large. And her eyes were large, too—but downturned. She glowed. She brought the key up to her oversized nose and took a bump.
“Are you wasian?” I wiped my nose. “I’m asking because, like, you’re the coolest looking white person I’ve ever met. You dress cool too.”
She gave me a little caught-off-guard expression. “Uh, no— but thanks! But you are?”
“No, I’m not. Sorry if that was random.” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Anne.”
“Oh yeah, that’s a white ass name.”
We both laughed.
“Okay Anne, what do you do?”
“I’m an oil painter.”
I was taken aback.
“No way. No fucking way. I’m a painter too.”
We talked for some time after that.
I really only ever enjoyed sex when I was rolling. I popped a second ecstasy— I didn’t snort it this time— in the taxi with Anne. I cupped it in my hands so that she couldn’t see and told her it was an Advil. I’m not sure if she believed me.
She wasn’t staying in a hotel. She was renting a room for the foreseeable future. Her laundry was hung up on her balcony— which was left open to air out the smell of turpentine. She worked in a large format. I was a little shocked that she didn’t have a separate studio for it all— the room was cramped and overrun by hand stretched canvases, jars of brushes, and boxes of takeout, and bottles of wine. There were more sketches hung up around the room than completed paintings. Mainly nudes. Figures bent over themselves, twisting their arms backwards, laying with their spines arched or sitting in the splits. Some of it was erotic— but in an acutely weird way. They reminded me of films I had to sit through during college classes— always cringing at the screen, somehow both bored because of the lack of discernible exciting plot and viscerally disgusted by the images projected. Blue Velvet comes to mind. I always hated movies with sex scenes. Movies always made it weird. I had a strong preference to porn. Anne sat in the center of her bed.
“My landlady doesn’t like it when I bring strangers— you know, strange men like yourself, haha— over. So, you know, don’t be too loud.”
I bent forward and grabbed a handful of the blankets. I imagined tumbling forward in a somersault onto the bed. I settled on pressing my forehead against the comforter and standing on the balls of my feet. I closed my eyes and hummed.
“Soft, right? They’re new, I had bedbugs last month so everything’s new.”
I looked up. She was already in her underwear. Boring white set with printed-on flowers. I figured now was the time to get started.
In college, there was three distinct ways I’d fuck my girlfriend.
The first was a drunk fuck. This was an obligatory fuck— something that I knew I was socially responsible for doing after we returned home from a party together. The good news was that this one was extremely low pressure. No pressure to finish. No pressure to make her finish. One of us might fall asleep mid-way through the act. She might be extremely involved— riding or taking control— and I’d just have to sit back until the act was over.
The second was the porno fuck. In these situations, when I had my wits about me, sober, I’d reenact the motions of a porno. The order and style of foreplay, and then the act itself. I’d pretend my mind’s eye was a 4k go-pro camera. This was the most successful sex I’d have. Although I never would, so to speak, have “fun”, I’d usually always finish.
The third was the failed fuck. Sex like this would be a normal porno fuck, usually one in which I would really be in a flow, absolutely zeroed in on the task at hand, but it would be ruined when my girlfriend (and I say this with no ill will towards her) would try something that didn’t fit with my pre-determined narrative of how the encounter should turn out. This would lead to frustration on both ends. Thankfully, the passive aggressiveness that would result never became anything too catastrophic in our relationship. And I do think that my girlfriend had some level of natural shyness when it came to asking for something specific sexually, so it didn’t turn out that way all that often.
Ecstasy, for me, combined the allure of the drunk fuck and the porno fuck. The drug left me compelled, by forces beyond myself, to shamelessly enter a sexual situation headfirst. I felt empowered to try whatever I wanted. And although I wouldn’t reenact sex like my porno-strategy, I was able to feel like I was on a Brazzers set. It was almost like a VR experience.
I took Anna’s ankle and pulled it forward. She laid flat down now and I hovered over her.
This was what I could only describe as a delayed love-at-first-sight. Because I realized, then, somewhere inside of myself, that this wasn’t going to be a one-night stand. I pictured myself waking up in the morning, half hard, looking around her bedroom at all the charcoal drawings on the ceiling, with my little artist by my side—and then going out in that very big world and making my art as well— in my own way— informed now not just by my own imagination, but by the real thing.
I had the stupid passing thought that I should finish inside her and get her pregnant. I don’t know why it came to mind— but anyway, she handed me a condom, so the point is moot.
Brunch with the Koreans was moved to lunch. Late lunch. Thankfully, it was Chris who proposed that and not me.
He was blowing up my phone. Anne was still asleep, turned away from me, lightly drooling. I scrolled through the texts:
3:30AM Getting laid?
4:17AM Bout to dip.
8:00AM Hung over as fuck.
8:23AM Kim Jung Un or whatever is going to have to wait.
8:24AM Lets meet at 10 and talk strategy
I laughed to myself—classic Chris. I texted back that he should take some ashwagandha.
Anna rolled onto her side and wiped the sleep off her face.
“How long are you staying in Mykonos for?” She asked. I put my phone down.
“Till the end of the week. Or we might stay another weekend, I’m not sure. We can work from here, which is nice. So, it’s not urgent to get back to New York.” I said.
“But it’s expensive. The scene here is expensive.”
“Yeah, but it’s all a write off.”
She raised her brow inquisitively. I supposed at this point she might have pegged me as a mark. Some rich guy, maybe in tech or finance or somewhere in between. It didn’t really bother me. I knew that was how people assessed one another’s worthiness.
“Do you want to get food? Brunch?” She said.
“Yes.” I answered immediately. I corrected myself: “Yes, but I can’t. I have to meet up with my boss.”
She nodded. “No big deal.”
“We can get dinner though.”
She perked up.
“Tonight?” She asked.
“Mhm.”
“That sounds cool.”
She climbed up onto my lap.
“It’s nice.” I rested my hand on the small of her back. “I feel like I’m always running into the same people. Here, or in New York. I feel like I never meet anyone who’s also creative.” I gestured at the artwork around the room. “You’re really good too. I like these. You have a lot of technical talent.” She smiled. I got the sense she didn’t like to brag. “When you’re not traveling the world, where do you live?”
“My parents’ house in New Jersey.”
“That’s extremely good news.”
Sometimes the best strategy is to chase hard early on. A lot of men are embarrassed to chase—but I think when you’re in a private situation, a morning-after like this being the prime example, it’s a perfectly acceptable plan of attack. Attractive women won’t wait around for you to show interest.
I checked my Rolex. Half past nine. I said goodbye and left my number. Not snapchat, not just an exchange of Instagrams. I wanted to let her know I was serious.
By the time I reached Chris’s hotel it was closer to 10:15. He had given me his extra room key, so I was able to survey last night’s damage in the living room independently before entering his bedroom. A few empty bottles of Moet. Remnants of a line on the coffee table—I wiped it up with my fingertip and rubbed it against my gums. Waste not. Clothing was scattered. No women’s clothing—whatever girl was here must have grabbed her things before getting kicked out in the morning—but Chris’s blazer and jeans. I picked them up and folded them, placing them neatly on the couch. As I did so I noticed a wet spot on the sofa fabric. Either spilled champagne or a biohazard. I grabbed a paper towel from the kitchenette to soak it up. I was pleased with my handywork. I knocked on the bedroom door before I entered.
Chris was laid on his back, all the covers off. He hadn’t gotten dressed yet—he still wore his black boxer briefs. He was also wearing a red-light-therapy mask on his face. The white plastic was raised up in such a way that I could see a little bit of morning time stubble—something I had never considered Chris might have before.
“Rallying?” I said. I sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Mhm.”
“I need one of those.” I pointed at the mask. Chris stretched his arms out and cracked his knuckles.
“Use the Amex bro.” He said. “I just got off the phone with the Koreans. They said 3pm for lunch is too late in the day.”
“So are we going now?”
“Nah, we’re just going to do it tomorrow. We’ll figure out a time.” He took off the mask. A mischievous smile was planted on his face. “Look what’s drying in the bathroom.”
The bathroom door was slightly ajar. For a second, I was overcome with a wash of fear. Maybe there was a woman in there, half naked, passed out in the bathroom. Her chest barely moving. I’d be forced to hold myself together under an extreme pressure— and although me and Chris would be bonded by a new secret, something we could only hint at together, joking a little over drinks, or a knowing glance every so often—there’d now be a stain on this vacation. I looked back at Chris, casually, trying to conceal my apprehension. He was still smiling. I realized I was being ridiculous. There was nothing macabre in there. I pushed the door the rest of the way open.
Sitting in the center of the tub was a large canvas, still shining and wet. The entire thing was a mess of earth tones and fleshy pinks. I spoke before I even realized what it was:
“Why is it still wet?” I called out into the other room.
“I spilled 1942 on the dryer.”
I took a step closer to the painting. The subject was oblong and textured. An alien pink skyscraper over a brown horizon. I cocked my head like a parrot.
“What is it?” I asked. Chris laughed from the other room.
“It’s my dick, bro.”
I squinted. It was a little abstract for my taste.
“That’s so funny,” I said.
I tapped my fingertips against the paint, forgetting momentarily that it wasn’t set.
I felt a little psyched out. The feeling persisted throughout the rest of the day, nagging me in my hotel room, and carrying on into my dinner date with Anne. It wasn’t so much that I was uncomfortable seeing a rendition of Chris’s penis. I wasn’t recklessly homophobic. In all honesty, I had probably seen the real thing before—only for a millisecond—at a urinal or in our office’s gym locker room. Chris wasn’t shy about things like that. Most of the men I had admired, all throughout my life, were never self-conscious in that area, despite or in spite of how ‘impressive’ their anatomy might be. What bothered me more was using Gogh to illustrate it. It felt so childish—a cheapening of what we were working towards. In my heart of hearts, I knew it was a momentary lapse in Chris’s judgment. One of his first mistakes. When he first brought me on to this project, there was a light and vigor in his eyes that let me know that this was a cause he truly believed in. It was a space we were both new to, but felt a deep spiritual passion to inhabit and conquer. We were futurists. And our mission was nearly humanitarian—knocking down barriers and sponsoring the proliferation of a new, efficient, and boundlessly creative artist. As I watched Anne pick apart her food (she did so compulsively, I realized. And she tore her napkin into little pieces under the table in the same pattern of anxious behavior), I contracted the muscles in my ears to make them hum—to give myself a little veil of privacy—and silently forgave Chris. I also forgave myself for being so miffed. It was uncool of me, and I acknowledged that.
I was then able to relax. I ordered another bottle of wine for the table.
“Annyeong, it’s an honor to meet you both.” Chris said, nodding his head in a gesture leaning towards a bow.
“Annyeong. How have you been enjoying the good weather?” I said, outstretching my hand.
The Koreans appeared to be older than us. Mid sixties or late fifties. They were both dressed in business attire, clean tailored lines, which made me self conscious. Chris and I liked to keep it casual—I was wearing slacks and a fitted t-shirt, Chris was wearing his Gogh 3D branded crewneck. It wasn’t a dynamic I often encountered. Most investors we met with were more aware of the ‘vibe’.
“We’ve been here for a bit longer than intended.” One of the Koreans said. He took my hand and shook it before they both sat down. I followed suit. Chris did as well.
“We really kept missing each other, didn’t we?” Chris laughed. He didn’t seem as caught off guard as I did by their formal wear, but he still had a subtle nervousness to his demeanor. Usually, Chris would be leaned back in his seat, completely comfortable and ready to hold court. But tonight he was sat extremely upright, suspended at the crown of his head by an invisible string. He gave me a side glance, checking my own posture. I rolled my shoulders back, now sitting at attention. “You like the app?”
Thank you for reading! Part two releases next week. Please consider subscribing, commenting, liking, or any combination of the three.
The psychosexual makeup of this main character is frightening
I’m so happy Michael’s story is finally seeing the light of day…