What purpose, if any, does your fantasy partner serve to society?

What purpose, if any, does your fantasy partner serve to society?

I spent a few minutes roughly grinding my pussy into Charlotte’s lips. I had to admit, her being helpless and having no choice was very hot to me. It was just like yesterday on the couch, except she was much weaker. And I was trying—and failing to keep up with her massive loads. Her dick must’ve been nine or ten inches long and her smooth balls felt so big, even in my hand.

Sixty-nining was not the best way to drink more cum than my mouth could handle. A lot spilled out of my mouth and I kept coughing after every orgasm Charlotte had. Before I could ask how long this would take, there was a ray gun pointed at me and I fell asleep. Somehow I knew I wasn’t dead.

Clicking heels echoed in the darkness, a space of infinite size and no definite shape. Approaching me was… me. Mommy. She was taller, stronger, younger, than last time, just like me. This must be like yesterday. Shared dream or whatever.

“Ugh…” I shook my head. “Come to gloat? I finally did it. If you rub it in, I swear to God I’ll get her back just to spite you.”

“Oh, Moonlight,” she cooed, her face wearing Charlotte’s patented sad smile. “You forget, I’m mostly the suppressed parts of her projected onto a mental image of your perfection.” She put a strong hand on my shoulder, gently rubbing my back. “A lot of that frustration and anger is being used consciously, so Mommy’s drawing from the loving, selfless feelings my babygirl is pushing down.”

I scoffed, pulling away. “So what? You like me, now?”

She chuckled, smiling at me with paternal affection. “No, I don’t like the woman you choose to be. But I’ve always loved the woman you are, Moonlight.”

“Yeah, well guess what? Same fucking person. I’m evil. That’s who I am.”

A collar appeared around my neck, leash leading to Mommy’s grip. “Something I want to show you. Something she needs you to see.” I tried yanking back on the leash, but it was like being died to a concrete wall by the neck. This was her realm, she controlled it. I ran along to avoid a choking that never came.

After a moment we appeared at a door with a brass handle. It was familiar somehow. Mommy opened it and stepped inside. It was Charlie’s college dorm. His room, specifically, having lucked into a dorm that was shaped more like an apartment with two bedrooms. Well, more like made a friend in the housing board who hooked him up. It smelled like the musk of a teenage boy’s room. It was cluttered and disorganized with clothes in a pile on the unmade bed, guitar leaning against the closet door, and piles of letters sitting on his desk. Mostly a collection agency from the credit card his mom took out in his name to pay for his sister’s funeral and then to fund her always depleted wine collection. I still was furious over that, I was glad that bitch was dead.

“Sit.” Mommy offered, pointing to the ratty second-hand chair at the computer. I looked around the room again. I’d never seen it like this. Every time I had seen it, this room was clean and tidy and smelled like berries. Charlotte despised mess. “Please, Moonlight.” She said, dragging me to the chair.

As soon as I sat, it was like all of me was overlayed with someone else. Their senses, their thoughts, their emotions were all more real than mine. I had no control over the body I inhabited, whose hand was holding his dick, heart pounding while staring at a paused video of a naked woman dancing in 480p on the computer. I had been jerking off, but had stopped suddenly.

It was a weird feeling to know people are talking about you, unaware that you were present. I knew they were talking about me—about Charlie. The voices I recognized as Blake and Sheri, who would eventually marry.

“Please, babe. He just needs his confidence boosted.” Blake said on the other side of the thin wall. “He’s having a rough time and I’m worried about him, ok?”

I felt myself dreading what they were about to talk about. When Blake first asked Sheri to set me up with some of her friends, I had been excited. I could finally stop worrying over how to approach girls or making them uncomfortable with my advances. I didn’t want to ruin anybody’s night, but it was like nobody wanted to come up to me unless they needed help. My excitement turned into depression once I realized I only got set up with the ugly ones.

That’s an unkind thought. You’re not a looker, either, you worthless piece of garbage. There’s a window right there. Just jump and save everyone the trouble of trying to manage you.

Whoah! I thought my internal monologue could be rough!

It really did tank the already low self-esteem, though. I felt gross about the ‘nice guy’s finish last’ mentality, but I saw some very unkind men dating some very beautiful women. I just wanted to make someone happy, was that so bad? Someone who could validate that I wasn’t some goblin.

“He needs to lower his standards.” Sheri argued. It was fair. I was ugly and scrawny. But I was funny and helpful. All the girls Sheri set me up with were, on top of being ugly, very bitter and could only hold a conversation if it was about themselves or putting down some girls who were perfectly decent but committed the crime of dressing nice or dieting. Despite all my flaws, I didn’t blame anyone else for my being pathetic, and I did take care of my appearance.

“Ok, maybe, but he’s better than Trixie.” Thank you, Blake. Trixie was fat and could not tell a joke to save her life despite her insistence on doing so constantly. She would only ever describe in great detail why something could be funny, followed by an info dump about something traumatic that explained what made her think of it. Our date had consisted of me serving as a therapist for nine hours.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Set him up with someone who couldn’t eat him and still be hungry.”

That’s a mean thing to say. The girls lacked beauty or charm, but they all had hard lives being treated like dirt over it, making it harder to be charming or pretty. On our dates, regardless of how unexcited I was, I always listened to them, let them feel heard. I just wished I could help someone more my taste one day.

“Look, Charlie wants the love of his life right here, right now.” Sheri started. Doesn’t everyone? “You know who else wants that? The girls who are desperate to be out of the dating pool. Everyone else wants to have fun and find themselves and have sex. Girl brain for a moment: Charlie doesn’t go to parties, he isn’t mysterious, his dreams are nice and practical. He’s reliable, he’s kind, he’s… safe.”

Window. Now. Do you want to be the safe choice? “If he wants pretty, he’s going to have to wait for the pretty girls’ priorities to change. When they get sick of all the partying, the mystery, or hanging around men who either succeeded and think they’re hot shit or failed to achieve their goals and are insecure adjusting to being the average Joe. If he can build a nice nest and stay kind, then he’ll have prime real-estate on girls ready to settle down. He’d make an excellent stepdad—does that make sense?”

Ow! I don’t want to be a stepdad! I don’t want to raise someone else’s mistakes!

“Guy brain?” Blake offered, which Sheri granted him. “Everything you just said, if it was about me, would make me want to kill myself.”

Good idea, Blake.

“What’s wrong with being safe? That’s a good thing!”

“No, it’s good to feel safe around a guy. It’s good to feel safe with him. If you call a guy safe, it means he’s a placeholder. A backup.”

“Well, that’s what he is. All my friends like Charlie even if he stares. There’s like a race to see who’s going to get married and divorced first. When we’re thirty, it’ll be nice to have a thoughtful guy with no experience who’s satisfied with a little bit of cleavage and phoned in sex to give the kids a good role model and some stability.”

I could feel an overwhelming sense of dread build up inside of me. It felt like my life was over. Is that really what I have to look forward to? Virgin till thirty before being second choice for a washed up single mom who just needs a security blanket? Are those my options? Fat ogres now, exhausted hags I have to babysit for later? Why can everyone else just show up to a bar and get laid but I have to tolerate annoying uninteresting uggos or screaming children?

“I just feel like… I don’t know. He deserves better than that. I think with some more confidence he could get something like we have, you know? Love at first sight with bad timing. Dude’s made me a better man, I don’t want him leaving college feeling like a nobody. He’s not the best looking guy, but he’s not that bad, right? I just think he’s insecure being a virgin.”

Thanks, Blake. I guess.

“Well, unless you have some coke or addy to bribe the raging business gorilla he’s obsessed with…” She paused. “Actually, you know Zoe? Tanner’s cousin? Theater major? She makes money doing that shit. Devirgining.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah, if you think that’s all that’s in his way.”

“Maybe… I don’t know, I think his first time has to be special, you know? Someone he’s comfortable with. He’s not going to go for a prostitute. Maybe, though. Even if it just gets him over his obsession with Tori.”

“At least we agree he’s better than that.”

Everything faded out and I felt myself again—like Tori. Mommy stood in front of me with her sad smile. “Did you hear those thoughts? She has a million of them every day.”

Charlie’s voice began echoing around.

“Oh, great. This is your third relapse, Darius. Please stop talking to me and just go to the fucking rehab where they’re paid to help you!”

“Yup, sure. Everybody else’s fault you gambled your life’s savings away…”

“Please just bend forward a little bit. Just a little. I know you’re not wearing a bra.”

“I don’t want your disgusting used pussy! Stop leaving these vibrators everywhere!”

“Oh sure, Fiona, now that you have two kids you suddenly want to catch up. Blake probably told you I’m getting divorced. Bet you think I’m getting a big payout. Gonna take your kids to Disney.”

This was Charlotte’s mind? It sounded… It sounded like my mind. No, this was a nightmare. Charlotte would never have thoughts like this. It wasn’t in her nature.

Mommy rubbed my back, giving it gentle pats. “No, sweetheart. Most people have thoughts like this. The difference is that you just take those thoughts and assume they’re you. Everyone does things they’re not proud of.”

Everything shifted. I was suddenly sitting in a study room with Zoe Stevens. Her Shakespeare homework highlighted and annotated in front of me. She had issues finding meter and I had just spent the last hour coaching her. Stalling. I had a fat wad of cash in my jacket that I both did not want to pull out and wanted to more than anything.

You can barely even look at her. You’re a pathetic virgin. Just pay her and get rid of it already.

I’d spent a week researching prostitution on internet forums and finding books in the library on sex work. I had spent many hours weighing ethical concerns and the economic incentive I was creating. I’d worked out a fair price and added 20% because I felt like it would seem less like taking advantage of the situation. It felt more like giving her a gift and then she’d give me one back. I picked up extra shifts and started driving people to and from parties to save even more money to replace what I’d taken from my savings, which cut into my time at the shelter.

I should know better. I helped women who had their lives destroyed doing this kind of work. But I was so desperate, so scared. I didn’t want my first time to disappoint someone. I wanted to learn how to be good at sex and finally get rid of the unbearable weight of virginity.

Blake was right, it was destroying my confidence. I was afraid of women. It was pathetic to admit. I felt like I constantly needed to do stuff for them to justify being in their presence. I treated them like they were angels more than people. And one of them was even a Goddess who did not want my worship. I was a creep. I was haunted by perversion fueled by a desperate curiosity and I just needed the specter of ‘sex’ to have its magic taken away. I needed to have an experience where the boundaries were clearly set and the ambiguity was entirely missing.

No worrying about motives or destroying a relationship. Just a transaction. I could know she was doing it for a specific reason. I didn’t have to worry about what came after. I didn’t have to worry about being bad.

“So, uh… there’s this rumor,” my voice cracked from nerves. I looked to the small window in the door, making sure nobody was listening in. What if Sheri was wrong or bullcrapping? “Sorry, it’s a mean rumor.” This is wrong.

“That I pop cherries for money?” Zoe shrugged unashamed. I let out all my breath at once looking nervously to the door window again. “Yeah, I do. Five hundred and I’ll take you back to my dorm right now. Even give you two rides if you finish too quick.”

Five hundred!? I have fifteen-hundred in my pocket!

For some reason, this being true was even scarier. Part of me was hoping it wasn’t true. Was hoping this fantasy of a clean break from virginity could get dispelled and I could just go back to trying to find a soulmate. I couldn’t lose my virginity to a prostitute could I? How pathetic would that be? “I, uh,” I pulled out the entire wad of cash. “Had something different in mind…” I whispered.

“What, right here?”

“No!” I jumped at the volume of my own voice, suddenly looking back at the vacant window. I lowered my voice again. “No. Nothing like that.”

“How kinky are we talking, here?” Oh, heck.

“No, nothing like…” I’m not losing my virginity to a prostitute. I’m too scared to do it today. But I can’t just chicken out, now. “Listen, next semester, right before midterms. That’s when. But I don’t… I don’t want to think about this being…” I held up the money. I wanted the piece of mind, but in the moment? I didn’t want to think about how I was one of those disgusting pigs that pays for sex.

She snatched it out of my hands, quickly counting it. Her eyes flashed and she set the money on the table, pleased. “You want the girlfriend experience?”

“The what?”

“For this much money, I’ll pretend to have a big crush on you, play a little scared and awkward too. We do a few meet-cutes at parties and stuff, ease you in, teach you how to flirt, how to recognize hints, how to approach girls without creeping them out, get you comfortable. Then when it’s time, I’ll pick you up, take you back to my place, and make it special. You’ll forget about the money, nobody will ever know.”

I nodded, reaching my fingers over and pushing the money all the way to her. She smiled. “All in advance, huh? Not a selfish bone in that body?” She grabbed the wad, slipping it into her purse. “Congratulations, Mr. Parvel. That girl, Zoe, from your Shakespeare class? I think she has a crush on you. Pay very close attention to how she behaves.”

The scene faded and I was back to being Tori. “Wait.” I tugged on the leash as Mommy walked us forward. “Why are you showing me all this?”

Mommy turned back around, taking my face in her hands. She stared deeply into my eyes with maternal love. “Because neither of us think you’re good enough for her.”

I tried stepping back, but she held me firmly in place, her expression unchanging. “Yeah? Well, clearly she’s no fucking saint either, ok?”

“Exactly my point. You seem to think that there’s good people and bad people. And if you’re a bad person, you’re excused from being held fully accountable for what you do or don’t do. You don’t have to be better because it’s not what you are. But at least as far as your wife understands it, people are just people. The good people and bad people only exist from moment to moment.”

Zoe replaced mommy, placing her arms around my neck as we swayed to the sound of Hey There, Delilah. She guided my hands to her waist, then flashed me a quick grin. Zoe, despite her lack of respect for the text of theater, was an exceptional actress. I almost couldn’t believe I’d paid her any money. I felt real. I felt unworried. I was nervous, but not insecure. I liked dancing, even when it was just bouncing or swaying.

I was ready. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to go back to her place and make love. Even if I was bad. I looked down and she looked up and smiled, giving me a quick nod of approval. I’d read the signals right. Once I learned what to look for, I noticed that I had been receiving more female attention than I realized. I wasn’t turning heads, but girls did seem pleased in my company, one or two I wouldn’t mind dating even expressed signs of interest I hadn’t noticed before. I wasn’t ready to approach them, but I felt secure. I would be ready after tonight.

I craned my neck down, closing my eyes and—Crash! I jumped at the sound of shattering glass, my eyes instinctually turning to the source. There she was. I hadn’t thought about her for a while, now. Normally I couldn’t stop looking at her. She was a fantasy—the moon: out of reach to me despite her beauty in sight, a thing for greater men to conquer.

She was sat alone at a table occupied by too many drinks. I kept my ear open about enough drama related to her that I knew she was probably drunk because of Desmond. I’d driven him home last month and he had drunkenly told the other passenger his plan for vengeance. Zoe had gotten me to finally forget her as a fantasy.

I knew she had vices—everyone at the school of business seemed to engage in several forms of degeneracy just to stay sane for the demanding programs. Victoria was in an unenviable position with her volleyball scholarship and needing to keep the full course load. I’d heard stories of her drinking, her cheating, her coke and weed use… I’d seen a lot of people at the shelter who lost a lot to each of those vices.

Let her go to rock bottom. Tonight’s for you and Zoe.

“Sorry…” I blushed, but Zoe just shook her head with an amused smile. She closed her eyes and started leaning back in for my first kiss. The moment still felt right. I closed my own eyes and—

“Uh-oh… she wants her keys.” I heard Desmond laugh, my chin redirecting as Zoe’s lips suddenly hit my cheek. “What do you think, baby? Want a threesome, tonight?”

I looked back to Victoria, one girl half-heartedly discouraging her from driving, but clearly quickly losing interest in arguing. None of these people really gave a darn what happened to her.

In a few years she’ll be telling a sob story at a shelter. If she even lives that long.

I looked back down at Zoe. I wanted this. I was ready for this. I paid for this. I could just go back to dancing and let Victoria sow what she reaped. I wasn’t one of her friends. She actively disliked my presence. She made bad decisions and was going to continue to receive bad outcomes.

“Dude.” Zoe grabbed my chin, redirecting my eyes. I could have this. I earned this.

“None of her friends are going to help her.”

“That’s not our problem, handsome.” She put her finger on my lips. “That’s the kind of person she is and the kind of person they are.”

“I see it at the shelter a lot. Unfortunately both feed into each other.” I sighed. “Most of them just needed a kind deed at the right time.”

Zoe stomped her feet, frustrated. “Charlie: you can’t be Wonder Boy every second of the day. Not everyone can be saved, some of them don’t even deserve it.”

Don’t do it. You will die a virgin.

“Focus on the girl right in front of you, and let her feel like you’d let the world burn around her.”

What am I doing? Would I let someone die just to get laid?

“Thank you for everything. You can keep the money.” Why the heck would I say that? I turned starting to walk away. Her hand grabbed mine and pulled me back.

“Listen to me. There is a reason nobody is helping her right now. If I was a real girl—“

“My sister was killed by a drunk driver. That’s real. Maybe Tori doesn’t deserve help—I don’t believe that—but someone else does.” I argued, my heart stinging trying to push down the memory of that night.

Zoe sighed and kissed my cheek. “Emotional vulnerability, principles, that’d get you points back with a real girl. Swing by tomorrow night, we’ll make up and bang this thing out, ok?”

Well, at least I won’t have wasted my money. How the heck can I think of money right now?

The scene once more disappeared and I stumbled at the sudden tugging on my leash. “Mommy? I hate these mind fucks. Please stop and just tell me what the fuck I’m supposed to be seeing, here?”

“Do you love our babygirl?”

“More than anything.” I said without a moment’s hesitation. Fuck! How can I let her go? This is going to hurt so bad!

Mommy strutted up and pulled me into a deep kiss, devoid of sensuality, but full of butterflies that flew right into my stomach. “Then stop wanting better for her and just try to be better. The endeavor alone is enough.” She reached her hand behind me, opening a door labeled Piercing Controls. “Is the next moment a good person moment, or an evil person moment?”