Act
I, Scene I
A lengthy slide,
much larger than the kind found in a children’s play yard, descends from stage
right to left. Both ends of the slide
extend past the proscenium, so that no beginning or end is visible. Two men sit on the slide, unmoving. Thomas McGrew IV is higher and closer to
stage right. Thomas McGrew III is lower
and closer to stage left. The rest of the stage is dark.
Thomas
McGrew IV: How long has it been?
Thomas
McGrew III (Checks his watch): A
minute.
A minute of silence.
TMGIV:
How long now?
TMGIII
(Checks his watch): A minute.
Two minutes of
silence.
TMGIV:
And now?
TMGIII
(Checks his watch): A year.
TMGIV:
A year?
TMGIII:
They go by quickly sometimes.
TMGIV:
They never used to.
TMGIII:
It will only get worse.
A minute of
silence.
TMGIV:
How long?
TMGIII
(Checks his watch): An hour. (Holds
up his wrist) You should get one of these.
TMGIV:
Don’t believe in them. Too oppressive.
TMGIII:
Well, if you don’t want to know, you should stop asking.
TMGIV:
I will.
I’ll stop.
A minute of
silence.
TMGIII:
That was a week.
TMGIV:
Thank you.
* * *
“Oh,
professor.” A breathy voice, a male
Marilyn Monroe, called out from the next
room. “I want to feel you inside
of me.”
Is this how we
say hello now?
Gavin
closed the front door behind him, threw his book bag onto the couch and
unzipped his snow boots.
“Suck
on my tits!”
“Hold
on,” Gavin yelled.
Sinder
rolled out of his bedroom on his desk chair, his computer on his lap. He handed it to Gavin. It smelled like coffee and dirty laundry.
“Hit play,” he said. “You’re gonna freak out.”
Gavin took his time pulling off his gloves. They were Italian lambskin. Six years ago, right before he moved to
Indiana, he had used part of his first stipend check to buy a dapper winter wardrobe
of items he had never owned before: heavy wool coat, insulated boots, cashmere scarf
and hat in matching austere gray. Only the gloves remained, the frayed fingertips revealing glimmers of red silk
lining. They were the last symbol of a
forgotten dream, the dream of embracing the Midwest with dignity and class, the
romance of an anthropologist, being in the place but not of it.
Now he wore a waterproof Gore-Tex ski
parka from House of Coats just like everyone else in New Buffalo. Indiana was
all about good deals and practicality, and only some kind of narcissistic
asshole would choose their clothing based on wanting it to look good.
“Come
on.” Sinder poked him hard in the shoulder.
“Play. Play. Play.” He was a normally
a dusky guy, what with his parents being from India, but he looked pasty and
sweaty and his hair was all mushed onto his head like he’d been sleeping in a
ski hat.
“Have
you been watching porn all day? Tell me the truth.”
“This,” Sinder yelled, pointing at the screen,
“is the best one ever. You will not be
disappointed!”
It
had been two point five years since Sinder had moved in, and two point two five
years since they had embarked upon their mission to watch every student-teacher
porno ever created, and Gavin hadn’t been disappointed yet. The research process was grueling of course,
but it had resulted in an archive whose scope, Gavin felt quite certain, was
unparalleled in its breadth and complexity.
It was a nice hobby for two definitely-straight roommates to share—easier than taking up exercise
or a sport, and it kept them from talking about things like formal logic all
the time. But Sinder’s qualifying exams were
in a month, and Gavin really didn’t want him to get kicked out of graduate
school, which is what would happen if he didn’t pass. Sometimes it seemed like
Sinder was studying with manic intensity, but then sometimes it seemed like he
was just getting way too high on caffeine and playing a lot of Tetris.
Sinder
reached across Gavin’s lap and started the video. The girl was dark-haired and broad-shouldered,
and she looked like her boobs had probably been big even before the implants. She was wearing tight but unflattering clothes
that looked like they were about to fall off. The guy was there, too. He looked
like a guy.
“Oh,
professor,” the girl said. “I really
enjoy your class. I find it extremely
stimulating.”
The
guy adjusted his ugly brown necktie. “Stimulating? Well, I hope it’s not too stimulating.”
She seated herself on his desk. You could tell by the length of her skirt that her bare ass cheeks were touching the desk’s surface. “I can handle it,” she said. “The only thing is, I’m having a lot of trouble with my term paper.”
“The
one due next week?”
Sinder
was clutching Gavin’s arm like he had just won a beauty pageant. Whatever was about to happen was going to be
exciting. Maybe the professor had a twelve-inch dick. Maybe the girl had one. As long as it didn’t
involve shit, Gavin was cool with it. Shit was okay when you were resilient or
drunk, but not on the first day of classes.
“Yes,” the girl said. “The one analyzing Liam Stump’s The Divine Sharpness in the Heart of God. I’ve been working on it so hard. I was up all last night. My back is really sore.”
“I’ll show you some Divine Sharpness,” murmured the professor. Sinder let go of Gavin’s arm and punched it. Holy fucking shit, Gavin thought, but he wasn't going to ruin his cool by saying it.
“What?” said the girl to the professor.
“Nothing,
sorry. Just talking to myself. Let’s
have a look at that sore back of yours.”
The video jumped, and now the
girl was naked and sucking the guy’s dick.
It wasn’t twelve inches, just normal, and he had kind of a weird
potbelly. But yeah, Sinder was
right. The premise of Stump acting as a
catalyst for getting laid made this the most far-out porn ever created.
“You
must use that line all the time,”
Sinder said.
“Oh
yeah, like three times just today.”
“Well,
it’s still early.”
“I’m
pretty sure this movie is based on my true life story. Especially this
part.” In fact, there was no way Gavin
could move his tongue that quickly. It
must be this guy’s special skill—to make up for the potbelly and average
dick.
“How’d
the first day go?” Sinder asked, after the guy ejaculated. The video automatically forwarded to another
porn, with two guys and girl. Gavin and Sinder let it play, but they didn’t
watch it. They didn’t watch porn
together, except student-teacher.
“Predictable.”
“Let
me guess.” Sinder put his fingers to his temples and channeled psychic
frequencies. “They loved the Stump,
right?”
“You
should have seen their faces light up when I announced it. It was like
Christmas.”
“Yeah,
baby, just like that,” said one of the guys on the computer. Gavin turned the volume off.
“And
then they all pulled their well-worn personal copies of The Divine Sharpness out of their backpacks,” Sinder said. His feet were planted on the tan carpet and
he was rolling his chair forward and back. “And they were all like, No way, that's your favorite book? It's my favorite book, too!”
“Exactly. But the best part was when they took turns acting
out their favorite scenes from Time Slide.”
“It
was all hot girls, right? Just like that
nice lady.” He pointed at the screen. The girl was licking semen off a blindfold.
“Well.” Gavin shifted his weight on the couch and a
spring poked him in the ass. “Ow,” he said.
“Oh
my god,” Sinder said, rolling more quickly. “There were hot girls? What did they look like? Did you talk to
them?”
Gavin
could feel his face growing warm with excitement like some kind of fucking
undergraduate. Get yourself together, man.
“A
gentleman never tells,” he said.
“Please.” Sinder ran his thin brown fingers through his
sweaty hair, fluffing it out from his head. His eyes were bloodshot and his pupils were
the size of dimes. “I’ve been reading Kant for seventy-two hours. I haven’t slept in three nights. Help me out here.”
“Okay.”
Gavin didn’t like to brag about his romantic life, but if it would cheer Sinder
up. “There was this one Ashley who was pretty cute. She seemed into me. I’ll probably ask her
out.”
“Aw,
man,” said Sinder, launching himself three feet backwards. “You always get all the women.” It wasn’t
true, but it was sweet of him to say.
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