I walk bowlegged back to my car, shuffling from side to side as feverish pain and tiredness overtakes my thighs. 

Candy follows like a colorful, deflated, chipper beachball. 

We’re followed by the shrill voice of Jeeter (and silence of Brando), but my work phone buzzes, immediately blocking out all of Jeeter’s tense warnings and proclamations. 

I pause and glance down at the phone. It’s a message from my boss with a string of documents she’s asking me to reformat and turn into pdfs. With a couple swipes and taps, I set a macro working to take care of the whole task for me. And that’s probably gonna be it in terms of earning my keep for the day.

Fucking government job. Whatever.

Anyway, we’re at my car. I can hear that Jeeter’s closer now, so I turn and stop. I feel the soreness pooling everywhere, worse than before. We can’t stay here for long.

Candy plods around to my passenger door.

“You think you’re better than us,” Jeeter winces, “but you’re not! You can delude yourself and Candy into believing you’re on some noble quest to understand and validate women. But I know you ache for the comforts you deserve just as we do . . . for the sweet touch of young, supple, nubile flesh, and for loving release with a Stacy who sees your innate superiority over all ape-like Chads.”

“Ok,” I say, aching only for the comforts of my car seat.

“I’m sorry,” Candy enunciates to Jeeter, leaning fully into his rich announcer voice. “I have to see if both can be possible . . . a fulfillment of both lust and love.”

I’m not sure what he’s getting at.

“You’ll be back!” Jeeter sneers. “I make it my personal mission to show you both just how wrong you are!”

“Ok,” I repeat.

My phone buzzes again. The pdfs are ready. I tap to select them all and save a draft message to send later (of course my boss can’t know just how fast I finish a day’s worth of work).

“Let’s go,” says Candy. I imagine he sees himself as some ultra-cool protagonist who’s just metaphorically donned gark sunglasses and climbed up on a Harley ready to head off into the sunset.

Shit, am I like his actual mentor now?

With a meh-fueled shrug, I open my door and slide down into the car.

I guess my only real concern as I turn the key and pull out onto the road is whether Jeeter’s on our tail. He’s not. I see him still perched in the same spot next to the humanoid tree stump that is Brando. Jeeter’s rat face is clearly still etched with rage as it gets smaller and smaller behind us.

I guess he’s my fucking nemesis now. Jesus.

“He’s wrong, right?” Candy’s face looks all concerned.

“About what?”

“We’re not just the same as him, are we? We won’t both come crawling back?”

“No, he’s wrong.” But my voice sounds so flat and brittle in my own ears, empty of conviction.

Is Jeeter right?

I mean, I’m definitely a disgusting piece of shit who’d give just about anything for a stretch of uninterrupted ass time with way more than half of all the women who aren’t my wife. 

Doesn’t that make me even worse in a way?

Of course my horny-as-fuck mind will gravitate to the sweetest of asses, naturally narrowing down the endless barage my eyes send its way as I scope every curve I come across everywhere every fucking second of every day.

Dude, I just came from a fitness class led by Candy where seeing the top of a hot Asian girl’s crack peek out above her loose pants felt like fucking Christmas.

The only reason I’m still alive is the prospect of hot whore ass once COVID lifts or settles, and I can afford to make the trip out to go whoring with my old buddy Figgles in New Zealand.

And now I’m driving Candy, my fucking mentee, to GameStop to go see the two girls whose rears I’d really most want to inhabit (all things considered/all things being equal) in the entire fucking world.

Shit. 

This is about when I start to think: What even is my fucking story? It’s gone from a prolonged suicide note to logging my whole big overseas ass quest, with every sordid detail in-between. What good could I possibly impart to young Candy here, or to anyone else who hears my real tale? Am I telling folks it’s fucking ok to be this dark, deeply perverted, dumbshit who might really be no better than the rat-like likes of Jeeter?

We drive on, passing rundown shops no one goes to anymore and empty streets littered with trash. I see a few people here and there, and wonder if they’re at all like me. Doesn’t seem like it. They just look normal . . . moms with kids, and dudes hanging at corners trying to look all tough. I see a young couple arm-in-arm, and could not be more aware of the way my eyes hungrily take in the lady’s hips and thighs, as if I can make her (partly) with me instead of him.

What could possibly convince me I’m not literally the worst shithead loser ever to eye-fuck a stranger’s gal?

I want to go back and drop Candy off so I can go home, shut myself in my room, drink shitty wine (because it’s cheap), and squeeze out as many bursts of dusty cum at my computer screen as my old-ass dick can fucking muster.

Instead, we continue on. Neither of us says anything.

Does Candy know I’m completely full of shit? Is he as filled with regret as he should be for leaving Jeeter and joining me on my doomed quest to nowhere?

I picture the rooftop I climbed down from not too long ago after messaging with Figgles back and forth about the joys of proper whoring. Now in my mind those messages sound like the anxious desperation of two grown dweebs still dorking out just like in high school over shared dreams of sex.

I see myself stepping forward where I pulled back that day, past the point of no return, over the edge where all this ridiculous hype-driven bullshit about being better and living better gets snuffed out like the mental smoke and mirrors it really is.

I guess it’s never too late for the end of everything.

Is that . . . comforting?

We’re almost at the GameStop now. 

“What should I say when I see her?” Candy asks, his sparkly eyes now awash with childlike wonder and innocent glee.