The Dragon Con - Chapter V

Toil and Trouble

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS:
I - II - III - IV

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Summer 2021

To ensure I’ve hoovered out the worst of that cinnamon poopdick’s psychic cumstains I dart into a public lavatory covered in posters of Homer Simpson, which seems as good a place as any to prepare myself for tonight’s audience with the Szoke Sisters.

I comb my fingers through my hair to neutralize a few quarrelsome Alfalfa Switzers, then clasp my hands together in front of my balls and squeeze hard. Fuck, that’s prime. My wholly respectable triceps bulge like rocks beneath a regal eggplant dress shirt. Homegirl wasn't wrong—you slick, J!

Remembering women are often sexually excited by male forearms I roll up my sleeves to immediately below the elbow. This look just screams power—really bellows forth into the aether a certain species of untrammeled hard dick competence. I want to rape someone. Once more I flex my triceps, this time even more imperiously.

Then I notice an exhausted-looking brown dude (perhaps Moroccan?) standing behind me and waiting patiently to use the sink.

“Oh shit... My bad, dude.”

He smiles softly. “You’re good.”

This seems a great time to depart the bathroom, so I take my leave and stroll on over to the meeting place—a charming little eatery called “Toothsome,” which to my mind rather evokes a Hobbit serial killer who forcibly extracts your teeth and then sticks his

Christ, what the hell is wrong with you, Jer Ber?! You really need to stop thinking these sorts of thoughts if you actually want to land a girl who isn’t a quasi-prostitute.

Actually, who are we even kidding here, you’re obviously too far gone for that at this juncture. Don’t blame yourself, you’ve been like that since you were fourteen. Normal women are simply off the table going forward. But these days you don’t even want a normal woman—do you?

The real problem is that at this point you’re at serious risk of growing prohibitively insane even for the girls who ARE quasi-prostitutes. Even when there’s real compatibility and mutual attraction these bitches never last more than a few weeks, and that one actually IS your fault. You really shouldn't be churning through scores of Seeking coeds like some lecherous Hobbyist. What a grotesquely fucking unchivalrous mode of degeneracy.

For all you look down on that decrepit old fairy it’s not like your own lifestyle is meaningfully distinct—except, of course, in that you’re screwing women, which if anything just makes you even more of a massive piece of shit. As your sagacious chauffeur quite rightly observed, women are absorbent. They also don’t have prostates.

I slam into the doors of Toothsome and shove my way inside. The AC feels nice in here. Cracking my knuckles I try my damndest to shake out all those lame faggoty thoughts.

The irksome thing about not having any superego is that at times one’s poor id feels a certain obligation to step in and play ersatz moralist, only to do so with all the gravitas of a neglected child and all the genuine moral fiber of a desperate single mom—just tedious tantrums of an anguished amygdala.

Too often I’ll indulge such frivolities to satiate my own vulgar narcissism. But tonight that won’t fly. No sir. Tonight is all about brutally amoral instrumental effectiveness. Darling Natalie offered me that foot in the door, so let's go burgle her fucking chateau.

I'm approached by a mousy little hostess. “Heeeeeeeeeeeyyy, welcome to Toothsome!”

The bespectacled Zoomette is garbed in some kind of steampunk oompa loompa getup that offers me an astonishingly generous view of her sumptuous young knockers—a costuming decision that honestly lends tremendous dignity to the venue's overall aesthetic, which would otherwise strike me as kind of reddit and overwrought.

“Just you today, love?”

Love? Must be working class. Either way, the combination of her ditzy voice and the mildly degrading outfit they're forcing her to wear gives me a powerful erection.

“Just meeting some people at the bar, hon.”

She smiles warmly and looks up at me like a Border Collie. “Okaaaaay! Up those stairs behind me is our pub area, if you need help finding anything just let me knoooow!”

I proceed up the stairwell at her direction and almost immediately see this evening’s quarry in the flesh—the illustrious Szoke Sisters.

Natalie's back is turned to me. She's wearing an Easter yellow sundress and a pair of grimy old Converse, and looks to be stirring some kind of fizzy orange woman drink. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble…

Her littlest sister and I lock eyes first, because of course we do.

21 year old Angelica Szoke is perched daintily atop a barstool beside my First Love, ostensibly chatting with Natalie but making it abundantly clear with those raptorial Meryl Streep eyes (baby blues? can’t quite tell from here) that she’s monstrous bored. As Angelica lazily passes a garish cyan vape between her fingers I can’t help but notice her formidable white-blonde mane is splayed out operatically across the bar without any clear concern for hygiene or etiquette. Why not? She’s hot enough to get away with it.

The moment she clocks me from across the room Angelica’s peepers narrow in delight and her mouth contorts into an amused little smirk. She lazily raises that vape to her lips and takes a long, indulgent drag. Go ahead, dopamine kitten. Chortle at sissy’s simp—that cheugy tryhard wearing a fucking collared shirt to Universal. I’ll have you purring my tune ever so sweetly in thirty minutes max. But first I’ll need to seize back narrative control.

I nod curtly at Angelica, then flash her a wry grin as I slowly raise a finger to my lips. Immediately her eyes pulse back at me in shock. No doubt she imagined me as exactly like all those other spergs in Natalie’s rotation. And if she did it isn’t her fault.

Silently I make my way towards the Szokes, my eyes never leaving Angelica’s, which keep on pulsing back at mine until they’re practically glowing in mischievous elation. Ah—they’re green.

By the time I’m a few stools away Angelica’s smirk has softened into an enigmatic grin as anticipation has her swinging out sandaled feet. Elsa blue pedi—not a bad look on her. I also notice her face is significantly less witchy and Streepy in real life than on Insta; folks would likely deem her the very loveliest Szoke if not for that formidable beak of hers. Ironically though that’s why Angelica will almost certainly never get a nosejob—it’s simply too distinctive, sort of her calling card.

Natalie must be praising God to high heavens for creating that beak, especially now that Angelica’s been skinnier than her for well over a year. To my knowledge this is the very first time that’s ever been the case. Natalie hasn’t been skinny skinny since high school, but she’s never really been fat either, whereas Angelica has yo-yo’d rather aggressively between those extremes over the years. An indulgent kitty when stressed?

Either way she seems to have gotten it under control over the last year (perhaps with the help of her more reliably anorexic sorority sisters) because she’s rail thin now and very obviously flaunting it to the world. Since when do Zoomers wear clothes that tight—especially to a theme park? Meanwhile Nat’s metabolism is undeniably slowing down, and I suspect that fact greatly bothers her, because when she and I last hooked up in December she had her little feefees hurt when I compared her generous birthing hips to those of my emaciated Jewess—entirely favorably, I’ll add!

Obviously they’re a good thing, you silly bitch. I know you’re not 16 anymore… do you realize the same of me? These days I unironically jerk off to pregnant women.

Angelica takes another drag of her vape as her eyes subtly drift off to the right and reveal my presence to her clan’s long-suffering redheaded middle daughter.

Seconds later I meet the gaze of 24 year old Meghan Szoke, who stands next to her sisters with a pissy look on her face and her body pointed vaguely toward the exit. Shit.

Meghan turns her head toward me—happily not enough to alert Nat—and gazes down stoically in my direction. Christ, she’s a titan. At 6’3 this recent graduate naturally draws the eye in just about any room she’s in, dwarfing most of the fellas in her life with the exception of her 6’6 father and 6’8 beau.

And just on a genetic level she might actually have the prettiest face of all three girls; her eyes are blue like Natalie’s, but they’re not her elder sister’s sweet ceruleans—they’re enormous sparkling sapphires. Formidable! Regal. Perhaps they’re the reason Meghan was the only one of the sisters to continue doing pageants of her own volition after their mom stopped making her.

Nah, that’s not it—she was just the most normie. The other girls found higher order venues for that Szoke drive to perform. Angelica’s been highly involved in stage drama since middle school, and ever since fermenting her femininity as an SEC sorority siren seems to have landed somewhere between theater kid and your more standard breed of art hoe. As for Natalie… well, she obviously has her own story along those lines.

Megan and I assess each other in silence. Pageants are also quite a bit more structured in the exact manner of feminine competition permitted. You can obfuscate a lot under politeness.

The tragic thing I’m dancing around here is that Meghan is quite overweight.

I don’t mean to be a creep about that, understand—as Natalie’s sister she’s not even a viable sexual option for me, so it’s not like I’d ever resent her for not being attractive. Spergy and NPD-adjacent though I may be, I very genuinely want to bond with both of Nat’s sisters this evening to facilitate my courtship by landing them as allies.

But bonding with Meghan will always be an uphill battle, because it’s just a brute law of reality that whenever you’re interested in a girl her most overweight female loved ones will all come to hate you. It’s just a thing that happens—don’t ask me why.

Circumventing this particular hazard is going to be my primary challenge this evening, far over and above anything else. But if I can discern a consistent way to neutralize Meghan’s fat girl rage we might all have a perfectly lovely time.

I extend Meghan the same curt little nod I gave her baby sis. Not the grin, though—Angelica’s still watching. Following a tense few seconds she does the nod back and I see the edges of her mouth start to lift. She doesn’t want to be here. But maybe I can use that…

I’m within arm’s length of Natalie now.

I want to reach up from behind and fondle those fat golden titties with zero concern for her comfort; I want to pinch, pull, tear, rip at those gargantuan pink nipples until she squeals and cries and begs me to stop; I want to pull up her stupid yellow dress and terrorize her hairy brown asshole; I want to rip her feet out of those disgusting shoes—size 8, downright miniscule against her 5’10 frame—and bite down hard on the fleshy midsection of her lateral arch until she shrieks like a banshee; I long to put the cunt in a headlock and choke her purple so I can impregnate that passive soft inanimate body; but more than anything I yearn—so wretchedly yearn—to kiss her deeply, and earnestly, in the manner of a lover. She hasn’t let me do that to her in nearly half a decade.

All in good time. For now I’ll make do with that lustrous golden mane… I reverently clasp a few of my beloved’s thick honeyed locks and drop them back onto her shoulder.

“Huh…?” Somewhat clumsily Natalie spins around. God, you’re such a little sperg, babe. She’s not wearing any makeup except that shit girls put on their pimples, and it looks like she actually has a pretty terrible breakout going on. Otherwise she looks exactly the same to me as she did at 22 on my first trip to see her.

That night was my first kiss.

She’d picked me up at the Atlanta airport with this colossal Elsa-blue bow in her hair, which was several shades brighter at the time (note that isn’t a metaphorical device; she was simply leaving the house more in those years and that had bleached her out). I’d told her for months she’d look hot in something like that, but she kept saying nooo I can’t it’s way too cringe. That made her choice to wear the bow a lot more impactful.

I think one of the things Nat liked about me is that I gave her permission to be cringe. She unironically wanted to be Elsa—related to her more than is probably dignified for a girl born in the early 90s—and looking back our relationship often had something of a middle school vibe. Compared to subsequent girls I often spoke to her in this sort of toothless singsong cadence other dudes would make fun of me for whenever they overheard our phone calls. They just didn’t get it.

But maybe I didn’t either.

I remember first stepping into Nat’s car—that messy lesbian hatchback. Tank green. She seemed so very terrified when I said she looked different in person. Was she really?. Too long ago to say, I guess. Also, who knows how much this I’m even remembering accurately? It’s just scientific fact that all memories are to some extent self-gaslighting.

The only things I do remember super distinctly are that we were both quite relieved when we got out of the car to compare heights and I was indeed palpably taller… and also that after getting back inside I informed Natalie: ”Hey—I’m gonna kiss you now.”

She kept covering her face and “getting embarrassed.” She proved a remarkably skilled actress along such lines—far more so than any of the real actresses I dated thereafter. Then on the drive back to her high rise I asked her how I was as a kisser and she compared the way I held my mouth whilst making out to a fish and giggled heartily.

I laughed too. It was funny.

Natalie smiles mysteriously and stirs her drink. “Hey... I’m sort of drunk right now.” Why is she saying that almost apologetically? She know it turns me on, makes my job easier…

Right—she’s establishing runway for herself to dismiss anything that happens tonight if I actually manage to do a good job. She’s not yours, it’s just your turn...

I shift my gaze to Angelica. “It’s a good thing you’re here to keep a close eye on her. Make sure nobody takes advantage…” Two years ago I probably would have said that to Meghan and fucked everything up from the get-go.

The coed leans back her head and grins deviously. “It’s like she always has to order the craziest drink on the menu.” Angelica giggles and takes another drag of her vape

I cock my head. “She has good taste.” Don’t worry, babe—I’m not here for your little sis.

Natalie smiles. Then she sort of bats her eyes at me and hands me her orange drink. “Would you like a sip? It’s really good… but there’s no way I can finish it. It’s called, Candy Smith’s Sweet Tooth!” Angelica rolls her eyes and Meghan pulls out her phone.

“Don’t mind if I do.” I pluck the libation from Nat’s elegant little paw and take a generous swig. She wasn’t lying—that is really good.

Rather theatrically I roll back my head and chug the rest of her drink down in seconds.

“HEEEEEYYYY! That was MY drink!” Fantastic—she’s already doing Sexy Baby Voice. Natalie flicks a few wandering threads of gold from her face and puts her hands on her hips indignantly. God, I really love this girl —she’s almost as much of a theater kid as I am. Did she make her tits bounce like that on purpose, or was it all just an accident?

Jerome’s words echo darkly in my head:

It’s virtually always both… not even the girl can truly separate them

I got to play with those boobs our first night in Atlanta. It was my very first tiddy grab. We’d gotten sliders from this joint Krystal’s after I kissed her, then went back to her high rise—she’d told me Meghan was staying over, her absence was another surprise—and watched Tarzan together. We only got like halfway through the movie before I started feeling her up. She made this astonishingly funny Who Framed Roger Rabbit honking noise whenever I squeezed her tits. She kept giggling, rubbing my face.

The next morning she took forever to wake up. It was almost noon when we left for Disney World and I had to cancel our special movie reservations at Disney Springs. Fuck, I got so pissy about that—overreacted. Then a rainstorm clogged up the highway and delayed us further. It frazzled me. No kid from Phoenix is used to that type of rain.

She started getting mad at how mad I was getting. Wanted to hurt me. I forget how it even came up, but at one point she insisted she’d only overslept because I wouldn’t leave her alone the night before—that she hadn’t REALLY consented to anything we did together, and only went along with it for my sake.

Now, to her credit, when Natalie saw how much her words had gutted me she almost immediately began prevaricating, soothing, comforting—not apologizing, of course, but for sure hinting at that subtextually: “Hey it’s fine you’ve never been with anyone before and you’re autistic and can’t read body language so I’m not mad or anything…” The issue is I took her words at face value, perhaps because this was at the height of #MeToo and it would be years before these gals faced pushback for cynical overreach.

So I let Natalie control the narrative of our first night together however she wanted…until almost half a decade later, when I learned how to distinguish when a girl is actually fawning from when she’s very genuinely into it, and it gradually occurred to me that Natalie had casually dumped a load of ricin in my first sexual experience just to seize the upper hand in some childish argument about movie reservations.

I gently place her glass on the bar, then gaze into her baby blues and smile sweetly. “You said you couldn’t finish it…” Angelica bursts out laughing and Meghan beams down radiantly at me as she leans back against the wall.

After a moment Natalie smirks and runs her fingers through that thick pagan mane. “Fair.” She turns to Meghan. “Best thing about going to Disney with him is I could order whatever I want to taste and he’d just finish it off. Like a symbiotic relationship.”

Angelica’s eyes start to glow like uranium rods. “Does Christopher do that for you?” She covers her mouth to suppress a cackle while Meghan scoffs and crosses her arms. Natalie regards her rather like a toddler who just smeared shit all over the walls.

My eyes shift to Angelica and I address her with mock admonishment. “You know, you really shouldn’t let your hair fall over the bar like that. I think I saw that bartender giving you the stinkeye a few times—you want him to spit in your drink?”

Angelica stares me down and takes another drag. “I wouldn’t mind. He’s sort of hot.”

Momentarily I abandon Natalie, lazily circumnavigating Angelica and her long outstretched leg to plop myself down on the barstool next to her. My expression is flat. “Oh yeah? How does he stack up against Christopher? Pour the tea, sis.”

Angelica punches my arm and cackles uncontrollably. “It’s spill the tea, you nerd!”

Natalie’s eyes begin to sparkle as she pointlessly stirs the ice inside her empty glass. “He knows that, Ang. He’s just messing with you.” Now Meghan is smiling faintly.

Angelica regards me carefully, then adopts a LARPy rich girl voice. “Well, if you MUST know… Christopher is nice. And cute. But honestly shorter than I expected.”

Natalie stops stirring. “I literally told you he was short.” She sounds like a 16 year old.

I look at her thoughtfully. Convey abundance. “Hey, nothing wrong with short guys. Christopher and Nat are probably cute together. Like Mario and Princess Peach.”

Natalie grins back faintly. Meghan looks surprised and gives me a gentle smile. Angelica clicks her nails against the bar. “So I guess that makes you Bowser?”

Now all of us are laughing. Little bitch has great timing.

I lean back and look at Nat incredulously. “Okay—did you unironically bring me here to have these girls compare me to your current boyfriend?”

Meghan leans forward and glares at her sister. “YES!”

Natalie turns beet red. “I figured you’d have fun! This is clearly something you’d like… you know, showing off for a bunch of young girls?” God, she’s good.

Angelica takes a bratty suck of her vape as her birdy green Streep eyes narrow on me. “Gonna show off for us, Jer?”

My heart starts to pound a bit. Why? She’s just some silly college bitch.

I grip the bar tightly and lean towards her. “That’s sort of what I have been doing, Ang. And so far I'd say I’m doing a pretty decent job. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Angelica’s eyes harden as her grin turns to something demonic. “You were until now…” She takes another drag, handling that delicate cyan vape rather like a loaded gun.

Meghan sighs and leans back against the wall. “It doesn’t work if you talk about it.”

Natalie starts stirring her drink again, her eyes unreadable.

My eyes dart towards a steak knife on the plate of some fat boomer sitting next to me. I should really murder all of you. Then I take a deep breath. This is all part of the game, Jer. Remember—it’s just sport. Great fucking sport. I look at Natalie. The only one that matters.

My eyes drift back to Angelica, and then to her stupid vape. “Hey, could I see that?”

She cocks her head and giggles. “Why? You want a hit?”

Calmly I extend my hand. “Don’t smoke. Just want to see it.”

She tightens her grip, her suspicious eyes shifting to Meghan and then back to me. Then her face softens. “Yeah. Sure.” Angelica gently drops the vape in my palm, lightly grazing my skin with neatly manicured French tips as she pulls away her hand.

I examine the device carefully. It’s covered in little white snowflakes—exactly as suspected.

I smile warmly at Angelica. “Is this an Elsa vape?”

She drums her nails energetically atop the bar—suddenly her eyes don’t seem so birdy. “Yeah, dude… Yeah it is.”

Natalie jostles her ice cubes aggressively. “Well, it’s not a real one. She got it when we drove in at one of those knockoff stores in Kissimmee that sell fake Disney stuff.”

Angelica rolls her eyes and turns to her sister. “Oh, fuck off, Natalie! They prolly don’t even make, like, real merchandised Disney vapes.”

Meghan crosses her arms. “Indoor voice, Ang.”

I lean back and lock eyes with Natalie. “I guess you’d know, right Nat? Did you ever see any… authentic Elsa vapes when you were doing the college program?”

Natalie rolls her eyes. “If they do make them it’s not like they’d sell them in the parks. I mean, a literal nicotine product? With all those babies walking around? Come on.”

Angelica shifts uncomfortably as I turn to Meghan. “You did the college program too, right? A little after Nat? I think she said you were at one of the hotel restaurants...”

Meghan nods. “I didn’t see any themed vapes in the gift shop, if that’s what you’re asking. Maybe they had them hidden away? Probably not.” She cracks her back.

Angelica is annoyed now. Spicy kitty peeved by dangling string? My eyes shift back to her as I pass her vape through my fingers. “You never did the college program, right Ang?”

She drums her nails again and gives me an insincere smile. “Wow, dude. You really just know everything about our family, don’t you?”

“I actually mod the wiki.”

Her smile becomes a bit more genuine. “Hysterical. Can I have my vape back now?”

I ignore her request and grin darkly. “It just occurred to me that it’s kind of a shame you haven’t done it. When Nat was in the DCP she was always complaining she was too tall to play any of the princesses. But what are you—like, 5’7?”

She looks back at me carefully. “Yeah, 5’7 exactly. I guess she told you that too? Anyway it doesn’t matter, I’m pretty sure that’s still too tall to play Elsa...”

I shake my head. “No, that’s actually her official height. She’s taller than the others.”

Angelica sighs and smiles at me. “You sure know a lot about princesses, dude…”

“I mean, I should, having dated two of them.” I hand Angelica back her vape and lean back at Natalie. “Mara says hi, by the way.”

Meghan raises an eyebrow. “Who’s Mara?”

Nat looks away. “Some girl I sort of knew in the program. She plays, what—Merida?”

I cross my arms. “Ariel.”

She smirks. “Right. Anyway we weren’t, like, besties or anything... But we auditioned together once and I texted Jeremy that she’d be, like, the absolute perfect girl for him.”

Meghan cocks her head. “Why’d you think that?”

“She was just… super LARPy. Like kind of a theater kid, ya know? No offense, Ang.” Natalie looks back at me. “Looks like she’s back together with Tim now?”

I frown. “Turns out she never stopped being with Tim. I was the side nigga.”

Angelica smacks my arm. “You can’t fucking say that, you’re white!” I ignore her.

“I saw on Facebook they’re engaged…” Natalie gazes out the window a bit wistfully. Then she turns back to me with a mischievous glint in her eye. “But I can’t say I blame Mara for cheating. Even to this day Tim is still Snapchatting me dick pics.”

Meghan gasps. “With a fucking fiancée? Disgusting. What a prick.”

“Not just dick pics, either. Like, videos of himself peeing. It’s really quite vile.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, you were always his first choice, weren’t you Nat?”

Natalie shakes her ice and considers her words carefully. “I just remember him being super creepy with me. He was, like, BFFs with this dude who worked at my restaurant, and the two of them would always come over and tease me. Anyway he asked me to be his date for some Christmas party for managers at the parks, and then he freaked the fuck out when I sort of maybe flaked on him last minute.” Her eyes drift up into mine. “Because I wanted to hang out with you instead.”

I look back at her gently. “I think I remember that night. You were in that red dress?”

“Oh, I don’t remember… Yeah, maybe.”

“We had a good time. We rode Splash like ten times in a row cause there was no line… and then you asked me to buy you that Oogie Boogie popcorn bowl.”

Angelica’s jaw hits the floor and she looks at Natalie incredulously. “Omigod, Nat—that’s where you got that bowl?! That’s soooo sweet you kept it after all these years!” She turns to me twirling her hair. “Dude, you’ll fucking love this. Last night we all watched a movie together at Christopher’s house and Natalie fed us all popcorn in it! Isn’t that sooo sweet she still has it?”

Natalie grins at me sheepishly as I roll my eyes and continue. “Yeah. It was a pretty fun night. Then I kind of just ruined everything, so you ghosted me for two weeks.”

Meghan looks down at me sympathetically. “How’d you ruin things?”

I sigh. “By joking about the fact that she’d… just turned 24 and needed a husband.”

Meghan crosses her arms. “Pretty gross. I don’t blame her for ghosting you.”

I stare the giantess down. “Neither do I.” After a few seconds her pretty face softens.

Then I turn back to Natalie. “On a lighter note… you flaking on Tim was actually the start of his beautiful little love story with Mara. It turns out she was his backup.”

Natalie covers her mouth with delectable little fingers that honestly need a manicure. “You’re kidding.”

I shake my head. “That’s where they… ‘fell in love’… according to her. Mara and I did the math and it was definitely the same party. Turns out she was his silver medal.”

Meghan furrows her brow. “So that’s when Mara and Tim started dating? It sounded like Natalie had set you up with her...”

I shake my head again. “Nah, Nat just texted me we’d be compatible. But I never even met Mara until like three years later. I guess Tim was being really stingy with a proposal or something so she just decided to cheat on him.”

Meghan scrunches up her face. “God, this story... So where’d you meet her, Tinder?”

I shake my head a third time and cut her a shit-eating grin. “SeekingArrangement.”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s honestly really gross, dude.” Natalie gazes out the window while Angelica’s face turns to stone and she takes her longest drag yet.

I shrug my shoulders. “I dunno… it’s not like she was my hooker. I never actually sent her cash or anything like that. Though maybe two weeks before she ended our little affair I took her to Victoria’s Secret and probably dropped like $800 on fancy lingerie.”

Angelica smirks at me. “Fancy, huh?”

I get a bit pissy. “Yeah, fancy. Not everyone’s dad’s a surgeon. Mara’s parents are teachers, so for her it was a big deal. She doesn’t take that kind of shit for granted.”

Angelica’s face hardens for a good long while, but then she smiles sympathetically. “Well… if it makes you feel any better Christopher isn’t spoiling Natalie like that.”

Meghan rubs her eyes. “Can you leave it alone, Ang?”

“I mean, it’s true!”

Natalie puts her elbows on the bar. “It is true. But it’s not like I asked him to, either.” She sighs. “Anyway, he’s up for a promotion really soon…”

I can’t help myself “I thought he teaches at DeVry or some shit? He getting tenure?”

Natalie rolls her eyes. “It’s, like, a special college for game designers—you know that. And he’s getting more classes soon. I think.” She looks back out the window.

Angelica turns to me. “So what do you do? I think Natalie said you’re an accountant?”

“Actuary. Let me guess—never heard of it?”

She feigns offense. “Excuse you! One of my boyfriend’s Asian friends told me he was considering it. You, like, do all the math for insurance companies, right?”

I nod. “Impressive. Kind of racist you had to point out he was Asian, though...”

Angelica crosses her arms but can’t conceal her grin. “How is it racist just to, like, observe that he was Asian? I didn’t say that’s bad or anything.”

“Well, you’re otherizing him in the context of something, like… mathy.”

Angelica bites her lip. “Sounds like someone’s being oversensitive. Also, dude—didn’t you literally just say the n-word?! Look, all I’m saying is that it’s actually kind of cool Natalie has a guy in her life who could actually, like, take care of her.” She grins a bit enigmatically as her Streeps flicker over to her sister before returning back to me. “You know, in case she ever needs that...”

Is she making fun of me? Making fun of Natalie? Actually being earnest? Some or all of these things at once? Fucking Christ, you literally can’t tell with Zoomers…

Meghan shifts her weight and sighs. “It actually is kind of cool.” She proceeds to give Natalie a very weird look I couldn’t possibly hope to read.

Suddenly Angelica’s hand darts out and lands atop mine. “Wait, so did Mara give back the lingerie? I wanna know how the story ends!”

I roll my eyes. “I mean, would you give it back?”

“Oh, definitely not. I mean, I guess I might if the dude, like… ASKED me to…”

Meghan sighs. “But what guy would?”

“Exactly!” Angelica giggles, rather evoking her Rugrats namesake.

I roll back my head. “Well… there’s your answer, I guess. At least she promised she’d never wear them for Tim. Swore she’d lock everything up in a safety deposit box…promised me we could try again if things don’t work out with Tim...”

“Did you believe her?” Natalie’s eyes are kind of glistening now.

I can’t help but laugh. “Obviously not! She almost certainly wore them for him the very first time they had sex after their fake-ass break. Hell, she’s probably sort of sanitizing her own infidelity by enjoying the thought of betraying me like that.”

Now all of the Szokes are silent—even Angelica can’t think of anything witty to say.

But being me I can’t help but keep going. “As for whether we’ll date if they break up… probably not, no. It would be absolutely humiliating for Mara if she pulled this little gambit with me to get him to lock her down only for him to keep stringing her along with some fake ass engagement that ends with him leaving her for a rando 23 year old. She’d need to find an entirely new guy probably. Only men really go for silver medals.”

We all sit there for a minute until Meghan breaks the silence. “Well… at least based on what Natalie said, he doesn’t exactly seem like a gold medal to me. Not at all.”

Natalie shakes her head. “He’s not. He’s just, like… tall. Same height as you, Meg.”

Meghan smirks. “That’s not so tall.”

Natalie grins back softly. “Well, it’s the only reason I said yes to his Christmas party.” She shifts her eyes onto me. “But then I realized Tim was just a giant fucking loser... cause I’m not a cringey-ass hoe like Mara who’s too naive to spot an obvious-ass narc.” She glares at Angelica. “Obviously if I put that much weight on superficial things like height or money I wouldn’t be with Christopher.”

I see what she’s doing now. “Because the fair Natalie thirsts only after a man’s higher order virtues—wit, wisdom, alignment of values and temperament…”

“Well… yeah. I mean, I actually need to like him. Problem is I don’t like anyone.”

You sure seem to like Ian…

“Even Christopher?” I ask softly.

She sighs. “He’s… alright.”

“You shouldn’t talk about your boyfriend like that.” Meghan’s hands are on her hips.

Natalie looks up defensively. “I mean, he’s like… steady. He isn’t going to cheat on me. Guess that means Ian cheated again. “And even when he gets mad he’s not, like, scary…” She looks over at me somewhat resentfully. Oh, fuck off.

Natalie sighs and gazes out the window again. “But I dunno, yeah… he’s also just not brilliant or exciting or anything like that… I can handle poor and short… but boring?” She’s giving away her hand so freely… right? She rubs her eyes and smiles at the rest of us. “Hey, I’m really sorry guys… I got way more drunk than I intended here.”

I slide off the stool and take charge of the discussion. “Look… I don’t know about y’all, but I could really go for a greasy fuckin’ burger right now. How about we amscray and I take you ladies to Cowfish?” I lock eyes with Natalie. You remember babe—our place?

She smiles. “A burger sounds lovely. If… that’s okay with you?” She looks to her sisters.

Meghan sighs and shifts her weight around. She probably wants to head back to the hotel. “Yeah, I s’pose we can get a burger.”

Angelica slides off her own barstool and cuts me a cheeky grin. “So when Natalie said you were buying us dinner… did that mean you were gonna cover our tab here too, or…”

I raise an eyebrow. “How much we talkin’?”

“Well… Meghan and I each only had one drink, whereas Natalie ordered, like, three… and then they’re, like, fifteen each, so… man, I don’t know, dude, you’re the actuary.” Angelica sucks on her vape through a toothy grin.

I pull out my wallet—dashing brown snakeskin—and slide a benji under Nat’s glass. “If you need someone to take sums for you, set her up with an accountant.”

As an actuary my training is in probabilistic forecasting. That’s how I see the world. Very rarely is anything in life a matter of yes or no, or at least not anything interesting. Especially with women. Nearly everything boils down to shifting probabilities—generally girls just wait at the finish line cheering everyone in the race, only to inform the victor he ackshually had her favor the entire time. What utterly rancid baloney.

Of course, women themselves never perceive things this way. Instead their fanciful girlbrains rewrite history into a Lana Del Rey song to justify why the gold medalist deserves heaven while the silver deserves to be thrown violently into the pits of hell.

Yet that’s hardly their fault—it’s simply the tragic legacy of paleolithic bride capture. Also nobody complains about this dynamic when they’re the one taking home gold, which is why women get away with it. Better to be Nixon in 1960 than Gore in 2000 (I’m rather proud of that analogy; interrogate it a bit and you’ll find lots of wisdom).

At any rate I myself am probably more comparable to George Wallace or Ross Perot in this situation, as I haven’t been a real threat to Ian since, what—like 2017 at the latest? The two of them are just more compatible, and there’s nothing I can do to change that.

But the dude is also enough of a fuckity loser that he’ll keep on alienating her and she’ll keep on offering me a foot in the door or penis in the door or foot on my penis. Kind of like the whole Mara situation on repeat. If anything it’s Natalie’s inability to properly despise the silver medalist that keeps her love life in such a purgatorial state. And as much as that dynamic hurts me, it’s also clearly benefited me in certain ways.

As for Christopher? Well—let’s just say there’s a reason Angelica’s provocations keep washing over me like an Orlando rainstorm. Nat’s already cheated on him with me once, and will almost certainly do so many many times in the future.

The poor dude’s not even her bronze medalist—that’s some manchild in Indiana she occasionally hooks up with at conventions. He’s literally just a participation trophy; someone easy and nonthreatening who’ll let her sit around and rot between dalliances with more interesting fellers. It seems Meghan has that mostly figured out by now and is entirely bored with the whole affair. Meanwhile Angelica still half-worships and half-resents her eldest sister, and obviously wants to use this situation to sort of practice toying with men vicariously. Mischievous kitten—I’ll give you some twine.

Obviously none of this is to discount the obvious fact that my performance has likely shifted probabilities a bit in my favor—maybe from 2% to 5%? Certainly not enough to actually stake my heart on. I’m playing more for pussy from a bitch I’m in love with.

Oh, shut the FUCK up, you lying faggot! Now you’re just narrativizing away your own feelings. There were probably like five times in that conversation where you showed your own cards way too openly for the fuckboy game. That’s obviously why she got real with you at the end…

Once more I smash into the doors of Toothsome to silence my mewling amygdala, sauntering out into CityWalk with a clear head and clean conscience.

Natalie and I have loads of good memories at Cowfish. Let’s go make some more.