“He was very persistent!”
“I wasn’t persistent,” I cut in. “I asked only once.”
“You askedoncein a way that made it clear you’d already solved the case and were just giving me a chance to confess,” Finn says, pointing at me. “That’s interrogation behavior.”
“I’m pre-law.”
“Okay. So.” Grant sinks onto Finn’s bed and rubs his face. “What do you actually know?”
“You’re fucking him,” I say, because there’s no better way to put it.
Silence.
“That’s basically it, but…“
“We don’t use that word,” Finn adds immediately. “It’s a forbidden word. It sounds gay, and we are obviously not. We say ‘using the doll.’”
Are those guys for real?
“It started with a dare,” Finn continues. “We didn’t just, like, decide this out of nowhere. There was a bet. Kit won. And then… hm… it kind of evolved.”
“The bet was about staying still,” Grant explains. “Kit went completely still. And then afterward—”
“He told us he liked it,” Finn finishes. “He started it. That’s important.Hestarted it.”
“We established a system,” Grant says. I can tell this is the part he’s rehearsed to make the situation sound less unhinged. “A consent framework. He controls availability. Miles built an app for it.”
I look at Miles. He looks back, and I know he’s not going to perform for my approval.
“It’s a solid system,” he says flatly.
“I’m sure it is,” I say, matching his tone.
We stare at each other for a second.
“So Kit is basically a sex doll?” I turn back to the others. “A toy for the house?”
Grant winces. “When you put it like that—”
“That’s what it is, right?”
Finn opens his mouth, closes it, looks at Grant, then back at me. “...Yeah.”
“Okay.” I process that. It’s a clean summary, I don’t see what the issue is. “Does he like it?”
“Helovesit,” Finn says with conviction, like he really needs me to believe him. “Like, it’shis thing.He figured this out about himself and we’re just, you know, participating. Helping him expand his horizons and—”
“He gets off on it,” Grant cuts in. “We aren’t assholes taking advantage of him, you know? The doll thing is a whole thing for him. Psychologically. He explained it.”
“So,” Finn says, “now that you know, and again, for the record, none of us are gay—”
“You’ve mentioned.”
“—I just want to make sure you understand that this is a very specific situation and doesn’t reflect on anyone’s—”
“Dude.” I look him in the eye. “I could care less about your sexuality.”
Grant lets out a snort. Miles is looking at me with an expression I can’t read, which is annoying because reading people is my best personality trait.
