“You know you can pay for sex, right?” I never saw myself as the voice of reason, but shit.

This time it’s Brando that scoffs. But I’m ready for it, almost fully facing him as vibrations of slow, grumbly laughter tremble up and out at me. “Paaaaaaaaaay for seeeeeeeeeeex! That’s nooooooooot...”

“That would be beneath us,” Jeeter sneers. His claw fingers start to swirl near the sides of his pointy face, twirling whiskers that aren’t there.

“Why?” I ask, unsure if I’d prefer defending my own whore-based life goals over lashing out or simply leaving.

“Why should we have to pay for sex, Uncle X,” Candy begins (calling me fucking Uncle again!), “when everyone else can find that same satisfaction for free?” He sounds like he’s just climbed up on a soapbox, and is putting his whole heart and soul into every word. “We’re the good guys. We’re the ones willing to give all we  all we have for the ones we want. Yet because of how we look, we get nothing. Just because we can’t function in their game, should that most basic human right be, to us, a commodity we have to pay for?”

“Fucker!” Jeeter squeaks at me. I swear he’s getting closer and closer to revealing his true form.

My options haven’t changed, though they seem way more fucking slim than seconds ago. I bite the bullet and choose the cringiest path of all (maybe sometimes you have to fight cringe with cringe…?! Oh my God, that’s so fucking stupid). “Please don’t call me Uncle,” I say, my voice soft and light like a flight attendant instructing a cabin on their nearest exit doors. “And I guess I’ll tell you, for the sake of argument or whatever, I happen to be planning on paying for sex. I don’t think it’s that big a deal really.”

Candy gasps. His skin turns yellower. 

“Then you’re a fucking loser!” Jeeter belts. He’s on his feet now, inching toward me. I expect to soon smell cheese stains on his breath. “You don’t matter, you old beta soyboy cuck! Be warned, though, lest you end up a casualty in our war, asshole! Wake the fuck up! Why should any of us have to pay for what we’re owed by birth?!”

“Giiiiiiiiiiiiirb!” Brando agrees.

I sigh. There’s no talking to clueless shits who’re just gonna preach at me their prophecies of a coming militia called forth on the internet from basements of severely disappointed parents to congeal into this pimpled, flabby, poor-postured army of dorks who think having a dick means the golden pussy of their dreams should be handed over on a plate.

“Why should you have to pay for sex, Unc… I mean, X? You’re married.” Candy says it suggestively, as if he’s giving me new information.

My mind skips back to the last time Caylee and I did whatever you’d call the closest we get to sex. I can’t help but hear and feel that strange laugh we shared when she first touched me that night and my obvious repulsion hovered in the air with . . . other feelings. “Well, sex with my wife isn’t always…”

“See!” Jeeter cuts in. “That’s what the saints warned us of. So, some less-than-Becky fem pulled this withered geezer once she got too old to keep working her thot-status out in clubs and whatnot. Happens every day. A fembot will only settle when she has to, when she knows we’d be settling for her track-marked, beat-to-shit cootch. And now he believes his only option is to pay!” He’s pointing at me, but I guess he’s never not pointing. “It’s a fucking travesty!” He’s shouting now, causing a few masked heads nearby to turn.

I hope we get kicked out of this place, and I never have to see these dorks again. I mean, I don’t know fembots from thots, but I definitely get the gist of Jeeter’s weak little crybaby tirade, so yeah.

“X,” says Candy, his eyes now narrow and gleaming, “tell us where you think we’re wrong. Should you really have to settle for life with a subpar wife? Why? What could you have done to deserve such a sad existence?” He lets the questions sit for a minute as if they’re the most logical string of queeries ever posed. “I’ll put it this way,” he goes on, “I could follow Jolene to GameStop right now. I could make all my little jokes to get her and that sister of hers laughing. I always do. But it wouldn’t matter. Before long, they’d leave, and make excuses for not going with me. And then what option would I have? It sounds like you’re saying I should settle for the nerdy girl that works at GameStop who’s, at best, a six . . . maybe a five when she’s out of those trousers and polo. But if I settled, wouldn’t I always yearn for Jolene’s sweet little perfect angel body every single time I gave it to GameStop girl? Are you really saying that’s the best I could hope for? Should I never, ever find real satisfaction?”

Of course my inner eyes start to scour Candy’s hypothetical GameStop girl’s imagined ass like they would anyone else’s. Honestly, most of the girls whose behinds make up my escape fantasies are definitely not perfect cartoon-character beauties like Jolene and fucking Sandradee. 

But how could I get that fact through to these dogmatic pricks? 

Surely there’s a world of nuanced scenarios between seeing every girl’s body as a unique wonderland and losing interest in trying to get my tired, elderly cock into the tight rock clusters of my wife’s droopy, closed off crags.

These guys are unwilling to find out what a six (or, shit, a good four) could be like under blankets with the lights off. So…

But Candy mentioned Jolene again, which gives me a little flash of a partial idea as I think about my time with her lately. I don’t know exactly where I’m headed as I begin piecing things together out loud, saying, “You’re thinking about Jolene and how happy you say you could make her. But it sounds like you don’t want her to really choose to be with you. Am I wrong? You don’t want her to go out, live her life, figure out how to make the most of her twenties, date all sorts of different types . . . try everything, have fun, and gradually get more of a handle on who she actually is . . . and then maybe decide you’re the kind of guy she wants to be with long-term.”

Jeeter smiles. It’s just about the smarmiest, most sinister thing I’ve ever seen. The sight makes me breathe in so hard and fast I almost choke. “And there we have it,” he snivels in a tone that can only mean gotcha! “You’re advocating we sacrifice our very best years, from twelve to twenty-nine, waiting for thots to realize they’re no longer fuckable by brainless Chads, and that all they have left to do is turn to us so we can take care of them after they’re too old and crusty to be worth fucking anyway?! Yeah, you deserve your shitty life and D-minus wife.”

I look to Brando, but his eyes seem vacant.

Candy nods along, gazing at me as if waiting for the obvious truth of Jeeter’s words to sink in.

I nod as well, no longer even all that angry. I’m just sad now. I get it. I see what these guys have been led to believe. And no, nothing I say is gonna change their mind.