Chapter One

Tiger

My back connected with the bathroom wall and hungry lips sucked at the side of my neck. I blew out a breath, trying and failing to stay grounded. I’d met this guy less than ten minutes ago, well, three hours ago on Grindr, if we were getting technical. A Saturday night hookup. He had a couple of inches on me, perfect olive skin and the kind of smile that made me wonder if he was actually single—not that I cared. Even as his teeth nipped at my skin, I was already forgetting his name.

Mark? Matt? Something like that. Something with an M. The same sound that I hummed as his thigh shoved between my legs and a zing went through my body down to my groin.

M had said he was a six. I liked sixes, because they were usually fives. Decently sized equipment, but not super hung.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the feel of a big dick as much as the next guy, but…

My brain shorted out when M’s bulge brushed my thigh.

Shit.

“You’re not a six,” I murmured.

“Some guys over-promise and under-deliver,” he said. “I like to do things the other way around.”

“Most guys over-promise.” In fact, I counted on it. Ask any dude their dick size and they’d add an inch or two. I’d taken to asking for pictures, but pictures weren’t reliable either—hard to tell girth—so I’d come up with my own system. Tiger’s Perfect Patented Dildo Scale. It was genius. I’d taken a snapshot of ten dildos, lined up in a row from smallest to biggest. Before I hooked up with anyone, I asked them where they fell on the scale, from one to ten.

“How about you?” One of M’s hands strayed toward my groin. He paused, his fingers lingering on the crotch of my pants. “Is my size turning you off?”

I swallowed, because nope, it was not. In fact, I was salivating at the thought of opening his fly and taking his dick for a ride. It had been too fucking long since I’d gotten my hands on something good and solid and girthy.

But M was working my fly open now.

I swatted his hand away.

“C’mon, don’t be so shy.”

I was not shy—but I knew what was going to happen next.

I didn’t pre-select my hook-ups because I hated sevens, or eights or nines. Hell, I would have taken a ten if I could have gotten it. I would have taken it all night and all day. My problem wasn’t with the dicks.

My problem was with the pricks who owned them.

Pricks like M.

Heart pounding, I kept my eyes trained on him as he opened my fly and stuck his hand in my pants. His eyebrows rose. His mouth formed an O.

“Just say it,” I snapped.

He smirked. “You’re not a six either.”

“Never said I was.”

“Aw, don’t be like that. It’s cute.”

The fucking nerve! I shoved him off.

He laughed and reached for me again. “C’mon, baby, I’ll show you what a real dick feels like.”

“Go to hell.” I zipped my pants back up, left the bathroom, and then the club. My ‘date’ didn’t follow me. Thank fuck. I didn’t need him, or his dick.

I had ten dildos waiting for me at home, and not a single one of them cared about my size, or lied about their own. Dildos were great like that. People sucked.

It was only too bad they never sucked me.

***

The light was still on in the living room when I got home to the small house where I lived with my mother and my incredibly annoying younger sister. Stacy didn’t poke her head out of her room when I came in, but our mom lay snoring on the couch. Her glasses had half-fallen off her face and dangled over the stack of boring work documents her head rested on.

Typical.

A half-empty glass of wine sat on the coffee table beside her. I took it and nipped at the liquor—and made a face. It was way too dry. With the kind of night I was having, though, any booze was better than no booze. I took another sip, then set the glass aside and picked up a blanket to spread over Mom’s sleeping form. She cracked one eye open at me, readjusting her glasses. “Tiger?”

“Go back to sleep. It’s almost midnight anyway.”

“Did you just come home?”

I shrugged. “I wasn’t planning to be home this early, but here I am.”

Mom frowned. For a second, she looked as if she was about to scold me, then thought better of it. Too tired, maybe. “Did you see? There’s mail for you.” Half-interrupted by a yawn, she gestured at the table.

My eyes fell on two envelopes. One had my name on it. “Must be spam. Or a bill.” I took it anyway. “Goodnight, Mom.”

“Goodnight.” She sat up while she said it, either to go to her bedroom or to continue working. Probably the latter. I didn’t stick around to find out.

In my room, I put the envelope down on my desk and sat in my swivel chair—my favorite piece of furniture, even though the wheels had become creaky from overuse. I swirled around in it, once, twice, phone in hand. Five minutes to midnight and I was bored. Too wired to sleep and too frustrated to watch porn. This was the worst.

I jumped up from my chair and pulled a box out from under my bed. It held my collection of dildos, lube and butt plugs. If only I had someone to play with me…

I took dildo number 7 out of the box and laid on my bed with it. M had been a 7. At least. I could have stayed and let him ‘show me what a real dick felt like’. Scoffing, I squeezed the toy in my hand. What a show-off. Like he was better than me because he had a bigger dick.

Probably didn’t even know how to use it.

I picked my phone up and shot a message to my favorite online friend, Cucumbers4Life. “How big is your dick?”

Only a few seconds later, Cuke was typing. I grinned to myself, glad that my friend was a night owl. “Big enough, but not as big as your ego,” he wrote back.

Cheap shot. “Bigger or smaller than Lobster?” Lobsterboy was a mutual friend of ours. Kind of. He was mad at me right now, because I’d shared a video of his that I shouldn’t have, but he’d forgive me eventually, right? In any case, Lobster undressed for the camera, so his dick made for a good reference point.

“Why do you want to know?” Cuke asked.

“Just curious.” I rolled over, wincing as I rolled over the dildo I’d forgotten was there. The hard silicone poked me in the back. Great. Now even my toys were betraying me. I reached for it and tossed it in a corner of the room before typing again. “C’mon, tell me. Or send a picture.”

“I don’t share pictures online.”

Right. I rolled my eyes at my phone. We’d been chatting for two years now and I’d yet to see a picture of Cuke’s face, much less his dick. “You worried I’m an internet creep who’s going to abduct you?”

“I’m not worried you’re an internet creep. I know you’re an internet creep.”

“When have I ever creeped on you?”

“One minute ago when you asked for a picture of my dick.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll send you a picture of me first.”

On my screen, the three dots that indicated Cuke was typing appeared and disappeared in rapid fashion. What, did he not want me to send him a dick pic? I smiled to myself. As if I ever would…

While Cuke was still composing his message, I scrolled through my phone’s photo archive and selected a picture for him. It didn’t show my genitals, but I didn’t think Cuke would appreciate it anyway.

“Delete that!” Cuke demanded as soon as the image uploaded to our chat, proving me right. “Scrub it from the internet.”

“Aw, do clowns creep you out?” I asked as if I hadn’t known. The picture had been taken at a children’s birthday party a few weeks ago. I’d dressed up and entertained the kids for a couple of hours. Not a bad way to make some quick cash. Getting to freak Cuke out was the cherry on top. “Do you need help getting over your fears? I have more pictures.”

“I’m going to bed.”

I laughed as the icon next to Cuke’s name changed from green to gray, showing that he’d gone offline. He’d be back in the morning. He always came back. In truth, I had no idea why he put up with me, but I was glad that he did.

Who else would I have annoyed while I was bored in the middle of the night?

I tossed the dildo back under my bed and picked the envelope up from my desk. It contained two sheets of paper and a small handwritten note.

Thought you might want one of these. Hope to see you there – Evan

Wow, I hadn’t heard from Evan in ages. He was always so busy now with his job and his boyfriend… His boyfriend who was going to be inheriting half the Fancy Pants Unlimited empire one day. Lucky bastard. 

Speaking of Fancy Pants Unlimited…

What Evan was sending me was an invitation to one of the kinky company’s famous parties. I stared at it. Join us for our Match Mate Dating App Launch Party! it said in large pink letters. Lobster had mentioned this upcoming app once or twice on his stream when he was advertising for Fancy Pants. Was he gonna be at this party? That would be fun. Hell, if the famous Aunt Rosy organized this party, it was guaranteed to be a blast.

I scanned the letter for more information. The date was just about a month from now and the location was roughly seven hours from me, at a beach in Florida. I was asked to come in costume and, if I was single, to fill out the questionnaire on the second sheet of paper and bring it with me.

Grabbing a pen, I gave the questions a cursory glance. There was some fine print at the bottom of the page that I didn’t bother reading. If it was important, they wouldn’t make the letters so small, would they? And besides, the questions were more fun to look at.

Would you call yourself a knife or a fork?

If you were part of a house, what room would you be?

Would you rather go on a date with Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny?

What? Who came up with these questions? Was this part of their new highly acclaimed dating app algorithm?

My eyes caught on a line further down the page. If you have a cock, how many donuts would you say fit around your cock in an erect state?

What the hell?

Maybe two, if I was being honest? Which, I wasn’t gonna be. Who was gonna check?

I picked my phone up again to shoot another message at Cuke. “Hey, how many donuts can you stack on your dick?”

To my surprise, he wrote back. “Go to sleep.”

Hah, so he was only pretending to be offline. “I got this super weird questionnaire. Look at this one: If you were a tentacle monster, how many tentacles would you have?”

“How many would it take to shut you up?”

“One for each hole.”

It took my friend a second to reply to that. “You’re impossible.”

“Don’t tell me you would say no to tentacles.”

“I’m telling you to go to sleep.”

“Fine,” I wrote. “I’m gonna go to sleep and dream of tentacles.”

I didn’t do that, though. Instead, I poured over the questions once more, giddy with excitement.

This was gonna be one hell of a party.

Chapter Two

Daniel

I woke up to my phone vibrating with text messages. Tiger. Or ‘Bounce-and-Pounce’ as he called himself online.

“What do you think I should dress up as? I still have the clown costume. No, forget about that. Not kinky enough. I could be a bottle of lube. A gallon drum of lube! Everyone needs lube, right?” His text continued on for another two paragraphs. I closed the app and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. How did Tiger always manage to be up and bouncing at the crack of dawn even when he went to sleep later than me?

It was irritating.

Almost as irritating as the fact that he would be at the party.

How had he even gotten an invitation?

Slowly, I peeled myself out of bed and decided to tackle the problem at another time. A time after coffee.

The world didn’t look dramatically better when I’d gotten my morning joe into myself, but at least I felt more prepared to deal with it. Snacking on a cucumber—fresh from the fridge—, I sat down at my desk and booted up my laptop. Emails started pinging my inbox as soon as I logged in. Some were feedback on the articles I was writing this week. I’d gotten one about fetish wear into Kinksters United and I’d pitched another one about the advantages and disadvantages of circumcision to Men in Focus. They were still considering it. Probably too controversial for a magazine that mainly ran stories about how to make it look like your dick was bigger than everyone else’s—or that’s what their content boiled down to in my eyes, anyway.

Once I had my own magazine, I could write about things that actually mattered, but until then…

I sighed and stretched to work a crick out of my neck.

Bills had to be paid.

And besides, I still had my blog. I could be as controversial as I wanted on there, even if my pieces on medical and bodily autonomy weren’t what got me the most clicks. What got me the most clicks were my advice columns. Each week, I picked a couple of reader emails and answered them on the blog. Topics ranged from teenagers asking how they could hide their dirty sheets (learn how to do your own laundry!) to older men wondering if they really needed to see someone about that ‘kinda itchy rash’ they got down there when it ‘wasn’t even that bad tho’.

I glanced at the blog-related emails that had arrived in my inbox this morning. The first one I clicked on came from Hard-Wine89.

Hi, I just wanted to know, you sometimes talk about food and your friend did that cucumber video and I was thinking I don’t like to waste food so if I use a condom on the cucumber do you think I could still eat it after??? Thank you so much!

I moved the email into my ‘weird shit people ask’ folder. Yes, I got so many of these emails that I had a whole folder dedicated to them. My job was truly the best.

Leaning back in my chair, I stretched once more.

What a way to start the day.

Could you eat a vegetable that had been inside of you if you used a condom? I didn’t want to think about it, but now I had to. My gut reaction was no. Hell no.

I turned to Google, but was stumped on how to start my research. What kind of search terms did you google for ‘post anal play vegetable consumption’?

Deciding that I had more pressing issues to deal with, I opened a chat window instead. Lobsterboy—Emmy—showed as online. I sent him a message. “Bounce somehow got a party invitation.”

Emmy responded after about a minute. “What, to Aunt Rosy’s party? How did he manage that?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “I didn’t think he’d be going.” Personally, I’d received my invitation weeks ago after promising that I would cover the event on my blog and any magazine that would let me write about it. I’d filled out the stupid questionnaire too. It lay by the side of my laptop, teasing me with its ridiculousness. 

If you were a planet, how many moons would be in orbit around you?

If I were a planet, I wouldn’t have problems like this.

“It could still be fun,” Emmy wrote. “I’m actually kinda curious to see what he’s like in real life.”

“Every bit as bouncy as he is online.”

Emmy’s reply took a moment to arrive on my phone. “You’ve met before? Without me?”

“It was before I knew you,” I explained. “Back in my first year of college. We–” I stopped typing, my fingers resting on the keyboard. How much did I want to tell Emmy? If Tiger was going to be at the party, I needed Emmy on my side, to keep my secret for me.

My only other option was not attending, which was out of the question. This was my chance to forge some new connections in the industry… and maybe more than that. My gaze found the questionnaire again, lingering on the fine print. Anyone who handed in the questionnaire was going to be matched up with another single for the evening. Three of these couples would be picked to enter a competition that would promote the new dating app. I didn’t count on being picked, but there was a nice sum of cash to be won. Any penny I gained could be put toward my future magazine’s start-up funds.

“How did you and Bounce know each other?” Emmy asked again.

“We used to date,” I admitted.

Emmy sent me one of those emojis with the big eyes and the wide open mouth. Actually, he sent several of them, followed by, “You and BOUNCE?”

“It wasn’t serious.” I left my computer on a quest for more coffee to combat the building headache. When I returned to my keyboard with a steaming mug, a new message was waiting for me.

“Why did I never know about this???”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and composed a reply. “You didn’t have to know. It wasn’t serious,” I repeated. What I didn’t tell Emmy was that it could have been serious. If Tiger hadn’t climbed out of my bathroom window rather than come back to the bedroom the first time I dropped my pants around him. “Point is, I don’t want him to pester me about it at the party, so he can’t know who I am.”

“Wait, he doesn’t know?”

“No, he doesn’t, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Emmy typed for a long time, but in the end, only four words appeared on the screen. “Are you stalking him?”

Reasonable assumption.

God, I needed more coffee. Raising my mug to my lips with my left hand, I typed with my right. “No. I didn’t know who he was at first either. Now I just want to let bygones be bygones.”

Emmy kept me waiting for his response once more, making me wonder if he was going to challenge me on that, but then he only said, “You’re going to need a really good costume.”

Wasn’t that the truth… My head hurt again. Honestly, I should have stopped talking to Bounce when I figured out that he was Tiger… Except I’d been too curious.

Even after all these years, I had no idea why he’d climbed out my window and I never saw him on campus again. In the book of my life, Tiger was an unfinished chapter. A cliffhanger.

And who could ever resist a cliffhanger?

“What if you dressed up as a ninja?” Emmy asked.

“I don’t know. Can you see me as a ninja?”

“How about a tentacle monster?”

I snorted into my coffee at that idea. “Oh God no, he’d come running.”

“You could go as a clown!”

“Hard pass.”

“A biker? Or an astronaut? With one of those giant helmets.”

I pictured myself stumbling around the party trying to see through tinted glass and falling headfirst into the buffet table. “Let’s keep thinking. I still have a few weeks to figure this out. What are you going as?”

“Pirate. I’m bringing Soda.”

“Great idea. Your parrot is going to make that costume perfect.”

“I probably won’t take her out of the hotel room much. She hates crowds.”

“Understandable.” I wasn’t the biggest fan of crowds either, especially not crowds that contained Tiger. Dear lord, what was I getting myself into?

***

When lunch time rolled around, I had finished editing my article on fetish wear (leather still beats all other options) and coined a reply to the cucumbers and condoms question that basically boiled down to why on earth would you?

I nuked some cup noodles in the microwave and settled back down in front of my laptop to eat like the worst kind of bachelor. Not that it mattered. Wasn’t like anyone was watching me—or like I could cook.

Tiger was messaging me again, completely disregarding the fact that I hadn’t responded to his earlier texts. He was showing me pictures of different costumes now. One was a firefighter suit and one was a… what was that? I squinted at my screen. Looked like some sort of woodland creature with a massive penis dangling out in front. Classy.

I slurped down my noodles and typed out a response. “How did you even get invited?”

“Evan sent it in the mail. Remember him? We set him up with his boyfriend.”

“We did not set him up with his boyfriend,” I reminded Tiger. “We only helped him along on his way to discovering that he was gay.”

“Same difference. Anyway, his boyfriend is Aunt Rosy’s nephew right? And Aunt Rosy owns Fancy Pants Unlimited so he’s sitting right at the source. Hey, you should ask him if you can get an invite. You were kinda helpful too.”

Drops of broth landed on my keyboard as I let my fork sink into the cup a little too quickly. Shit. I wiped at the stains before replying to Tiger. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” We were only texting, but I swore I could hear the whiny note in Tiger’s voice. “Think about how much fun we could have! You could be my wingman!”

“Your wingman?” I stared at the screen in mild disbelief. How would that even work?

“Yeah, we could coordinate our costumes. I could be lube and you could be a condom, or a box of condoms. Then every time someone laughs about my costume I’d point them to you, like, you got lube now, but do you have a condom? And you could do the same for me.”

Sometimes I wondered where the hell Tiger pulled all these ideas from. There had to be some very colorful space in his head that was made entirely of rainbows and insanity. “As lovely as that sounds,” I typed, “I’m too busy to go.”

“Really man? You don’t get out enough. When was the last time you even got laid?”

“None of your business,” I said—out loud, rather than typing it. “You don’t have to worry about me,” I texted at Tiger. “I get out often enough.” So what if it had been a while? I was fine.

“Reeeally?”

“Do I need to take pictures next time?”

“Yes. Selfies.”

I chuckled at Tiger’s attempt at getting a visual on me. If he knew who I was… would he still want to talk to me? Unlikely. A sigh escaped me. Why was that thought so unpleasant? I shouldn’t want to talk to Tiger. He gave me headaches.

He also made me laugh, though.

He was unlike anyone else I knew.

That was a good thing, right?

If I didn’t surround myself with people different from me, I would stagnate.

Yes, that was it. I needed Tiger in my life so I wouldn’t get too comfortable.

“No selfies,” I texted, “but I’ll let you know the next time I hook up with someone.”

“I’ll want details.”

“Sure!” I wrote, with an exclamation mark, as if I meant it.

What was it about talking to Tiger that always made me think I needed to get laid?