The Sharpie Escalation

Kelsey wrote on his thigh with the Sharpie, in letters large enough to be read from across the room:

**"0.5" HARD (MEASURED 2:32 AM)"**

Then she added, beneath it, smaller:

**"AGE 25. CONFIRMED. NOT A TYPO."**

Zoe zoomed in on the Sharpie inscription, then panned slowly down to the actual subject of the inscription, then panned back up to the inscription, then back down. It was the kind of comedic timing you couldn't script. When she finally posted the video a week later, this pan would become the single most rewatched three seconds of the entire thing.

"Okay," Brianna said, wiping her eyes, "but we haven't even gotten to the *really* humiliating part yet."

"What's more humiliating than a half-inch dick?" Madison asked.

Brianna pointed at the panties, which were now around Marcus's ankles.

"He's wearing them on purpose," she said. "He didn't just fall asleep in them by accident. He *chose* this. He went into the laundry room, he found lingerie, and he put it on. That's a *decision*."

"That's not a decision, that's a *lifestyle*," Kelsey said.

"Exactly," Brianna said. "Which means we need to find out how deep this goes."

She looked around the living room. Marcus's things were everywhere, in that specific way that nerds' things are always everywhere — a stack of manga on the end table, a charging cable snaking across the floor, a hoodie draped over a chair, a backpack with three different buttons pinned to it. Brianna walked over to the backpack and unzipped it.

"What are you doing?" Zoe whispered.

"Investigating."

She pulled things out one at a time. A laptop. A mouse. A graphing calculator that he probably hadn't used since college but carried anyway, because Marcus was the kind of person who carried a graphing calculator "just in case." A small pouch of pens. A travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer. A pair of wired earbuds, because of course he still used wired earbuds. And then, at the bottom of the bag, underneath everything else, zipped into a small interior pocket with the kind of care that suggested it was important, she found it.

A Nintendo Switch game case.

But it wasn't a normal game case. It was a *custom* case. The kind you ordered online. And on the cover, professionally printed, was a picture of an anime girl.

Brianna held it up.

"Oh my god," she said.

The other three crowded around.

The anime girl on the case was, in the way of anime girls, extremely specific. She was small, she was pink-haired, she was wearing a maid outfit, and she had the kind of expression that suggested she was about to say "yes, master" or "uwu" or possibly both. Her name, printed at the bottom of the case in a font that was trying very hard, was "SAKURA-CHAN."

"Who is Sakura-chan," Madison said.

"More importantly," Kelsey said, "why does he have her on a *game case*."

Brianna opened the case. Inside was a game cartridge, and taped to the inside cover was a small piece of paper with a hand-drawn sketch of the same anime girl, signed at the bottom: "M.W. — 2019."

"He drew her," Zoe said, breathless. "He drew her *himself*. And then he printed a case. And then he *carried it around*."

"This man is a treasure," Madison said.

Brianna kept going through the bag. She found a notebook. She opened it. It was, as far as anyone could tell, a notebook full of notes on a programming language, interspersed with doodles of the same pink-haired anime girl, sometimes with little hearts around her, sometimes with little stars, once with the words "best girl" written underneath.

"Best girl," Kelsey read aloud. "He wrote 'best girl' about his own drawing of a fictional anime character."

"His own drawing," Zoe emphasized. "Not even a real character. He *invented* a girl and then wrote 'best girl' about her."

"Guys," Brianna said. "Guys. It gets better."

She had reached the very bottom of the bag, and she pulled out a small, flat, rectangular object wrapped in a microfiber cloth. She unwrapped it carefully, like it was an artifact, which it kind of was.

It was a phone. An old phone. An old phone that Marcus clearly kept charged and functional because when Brianna pressed the power button, the screen lit up. And the lock screen was a picture of the same anime girl, Sakura-chan, this time in a different outfit — a school uniform — with the words "GOOD MORNING" written in cursive across the bottom.

"He has a *second phone*," Madison said. "Just for his anime girl."

"He has a second phone *exclusively* for his anime girl," Zoe corrected, filming the screen.

"Okay, but the question is," Kelsey said, in her best biology-major tone, "is he in *love* with her, or is she his *ideal*? Because those are two different psychologies. One is romantic, one is aspirational."

"He's twenty-five and he invented a waifu," Brianna said. "That's both."

Zoe had stopped filming for a second and was just staring at the sleeping Marcus with a kind of wonder. "This is the most interesting man in the world," she said. "And he's been living in our basement for four months and we had *no idea*."

"We knew a *little*," Madison said. "He has the figurines."

"Thirty-seven figurines," Zoe said. "We counted."

"And now we know about Sakura-chan."

"Who is, presumably, one of the thirty-seven."

"Probably the centerpiece."

"I bet she's on the top shelf."

"She's definitely on the top shelf."

Marcus snored. His mascara'd eyelashes fluttered slightly in his sleep. The word "PRINCESS" on his forehead caught the light from the kitchen. And the Sharpie on his thigh, "0.5" HARD (MEASURED 2:32 AM)", looked almost official, like a medical record.

## The Dildo Situation

But they still hadn't used the dildo.

Kelsey had brought it down from her room and set it on the coffee table, and now the four of them stood around it like it was a sacred object, which — given what was about to happen — it kind of was.

"Okay," Kelsey said. "Decision. We have an opportunity here. He's out cold. He's already been measured. He's already been written on. The makeup is done. The only thing left is *this*."

"What's the plan?" Brianna asked.

"The plan," Kelsey said, "is that we see how much he can take."

"Take where?"

Kelsey pointed. She pointed at the panties, which were still around his ankles, and then she pointed at the space between Marcus's legs, which was currently unoccupied and — crucially — accessible.

"You want to put it in his *ass*," Madison said.

"I want to put it in his ass," Kelsey confirmed.

"While he's asleep."

"He won't wake up."

"He *won't wake up*," Zoe echoed, because she had already clapped in his ear and stomped her shoe and gotten nothing.

So they went to work. This was a team effort, and it required coordination. Brianna held the panties out of the way. Madison positioned herself at Marcus's head, in case he woke up and needed to be gently shushed. Zoe filmed. And Kelsey, holding the dildo like a conductor holding a baton, approached the target.

The dildo was not, in the grand scheme of things, enormous. It was a mid-sized one. Maybe six inches. Kelsey had bought it on a whim sophomore year and used it exactly twice. But it was, in Marcus's case, about to become a *significant* object.

"Lube?" Madison asked.

"I brought lube," Kelsey said, producing a small bottle from her pocket. "Obviously I brought lube."

She applied a generous amount. She applied it like a professional. And then, with the delicate precision of a woman who had watched a YouTube video on the subject at 4 AM one time, she lined it up.

"Okay," she whispered. "Here we go."

And she pushed.

Gently. Slowly. Carefully.

And then she pushed a little more.

And then a little more.

And then, with a small and almost imperceptible *pop*, the head went in.

The girls held their breath. Marcus did not move. His face was serene. The word "PRINCESS" on his forehead was undisturbed. His breathing continued its regular, deep rhythm.

"It's in," Kelsey said. "It's *in*."

"Keep going," Zoe whispered, filming. "Keep going, keep going."

Kelsey pushed further. The dildo slid in with the ease of something that had been adequately lubricated and was being inserted into a person who was, apparently, completely unaware of the process. Two inches. Three. Four. Five. Six. All the way to the base.

And Marcus