THE P3NIS MONSTER

“i think he hated high school so much that he started to hate the city and everyone inside of it. i think he might’ve even hated you.” i pause. my lips part. i reach out across from him for the eight-dollar martini that’s on the house. i can see it in his eyes, but i should’ve just kept the thought to myself.

“i remember being the only one he could tolerate, but maybe you’re right,” he smiles.

“no. i’m sorry. i’m not.” a sad expression flickers across my face before i catch myself. pause. then put it out with one of those uncomfortable, well-rehearsed, toothless grins.

“so how’s your free cocktail?” he asks.

“not bad.”

“it must be nice to be a cute girl. cutting lines. free alcohol.” he nudges my shoulder. “it’s getting late,” he adds.

“jaxon” i slide my hand across the bartop towards him.

“not tonight.” he stands before we can even touch, kisses my forehead, slaps a twenty on the counter, and heads out through the back entrance into the alleyway. a little over two weeks ago, he had taken me home, buried his face in my pale white neck, and fucked me up against the kitchen counter of his new apartment. and it almost felt good—because we were just so sad. but to him, i am luc’s girl. i will be his now and forever, and jaxon will take the long way home tonight. a sauced walk through the park beneath yellow streetlights. and in the morning, i will receive a text from him: i booked a flight to san francisco. earlier than planned. slanty face emoji. then something about a friend from college needing help with her move. i’ll always wonder if that’s the real reason.

in high school we’d wander around the west village tenements on nights we were bored, searching for house parties, sucking on our mango-flavored juuls in the gloaming. my home was a palatial, big-windowed queen anne, with ornate bands meticulously painted on every corner of her skeletal structure. the decorated eaves jutting out of her pedimented, rouge face. the polygonal-towered arm that reached up past the base of her neck, towards the dutch gable, which spilled out of her roof like a cowlick-ridden hairline. jaxon loved her eyes most—dark bay windows protruding from her second story. he liked to sit inside of them and stare out. when my parents weren’t home (which was a lot) we didn’t have to sneak up on the roof to smoke a j. we’d litter the butterfly-legged coffee tables with rolling papers and hash debris. jaxon could have an entire eyeball to himself, put his legs up on the seat, and carelessly press his face against the glass.

but i was drawn to luc. boys with fair hair who are cruel to me. i told him about the three freckle-faced boys in my third-grade class. they pushed me down on the playground and scraped my knee. there was a red and purple bruise. it looked like a galaxy. 

on our tenth grade class trip to amsterdam, luc was caught paying some brunette prostitute to suck his big toe behind the dorms. he talked his way out of detention and told me on the flight home it was because a dark haired girl had put her bare feet up on his shoulders behind the jungle gym in kindergarten. from then on, he was a pervert and i fell in love while sitting in economy.

“you good?” the bar-back stinks of altoids. “we’re closing in thirty.” as i gather my things, i think about how much luc would have loved this place. the dj spins rock and roll on vinyl and has large breasts. i would have taken him here. i finger the inside of my glass, once a mojito. “thanks for the free drink,” i tell the bar-back. he smiles, and i notice the single dimple on the left crease of his cheek. asymmetry is sexy, i’m lonely, and his hair looks almost blonde under the incandescent lights.

“what are you doing after this?”

and then i’m leading him up the stairwell to my studio apartment, where the three of them merge inside my head—jaxon, luc, and the bar-back. one twisted, freckled mass of yellow hair and six-and-a-half-inch cock.