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CHAPTERONE
TESS
“Do you know what time it is?” I asked when I walked into the shared break room of my office co-op. It was empty except for one person, my work friend Marie, a freelance journalist who rented the office across from mine.
She looked up from her yogurt and broke into a grin when she saw me holding my phone in my hand. “Is it time to play How Many Dick Pics?”
“You guessed it.” I already had my cynicism pants on as I opened the FindUrPartner app. Not literal pants, mind you. My cynicism pants were purely metaphorical. They matched the metaphorical chip on my shoulder and provided protection from the metaphorical bitter pills waiting in my inbox.
As a single woman in my late forties who’d been online dating much of my adult life, I’d developed a cynical attitude about it. All my efforts had ever won me was some temporary companionship, a few brief but ultimately unsatisfying relationships, and more bad dates than I cared to remember. I no longer had any expectation that the dating apps I dabbled with would lead to any sort of meaningful connection.
And yet I couldn’t quite give them up. It was almost an addiction at this point. I knew I’d probably never hit the jackpot, but I couldn’t quit feeding nickels into the damned slot machine.
At least it provided some amusement. Marie and I always had fun laughing at the social ineptitude of the men who messaged me. As conversational overtures went, sending a photo of your junk to a stranger was about as clever as prank calling them to ask if their refrigerator was running.
“Place your bets,” I said as I refilled my coffee mug. “How many dick pics from prospective suitors will I find in my direct messages today?”
Marie closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples with the gravity of a Jedi Master. “I’m sensing a lot of dicks in the Force today. Feels like…three—no—four.” Her eyes popped open and she nodded, satisfied with her prognostication. “Definitely a four-dick day.”
“Bold guess.” I tended to average one or two daily dicks, although my all-time record currently stood at five.
Honestly, how were there so many grown men in the world with the interpersonal skills of twelve-year-old boys? How did they manage to navigate other areas of their lives? Feed themselves? Dress themselves? Hold down jobs? It was one of those unfathomable mysteries of the world. Neil deGrasse Tyson should do an episode ofThe Inexplicable Universeon it.
Marie offered a shrug as she licked berry yogurt off her spoon. “I don’t control the dicks, Tess. I only predict them.”
“All right, here goes. There are seven new messages waiting for me this morning. Let’s see how many of them include a penis.”
“I’m on the edge of my seat.” Marie scooched her butt forward on her stool. “Literally.”
I sipped my coffee as I opened the first message—which turned out to be a grave mistake because I nearly spit the hot liquid all over my phone.
Marie snickered as I covered my cough. “That bad?”
“Well…” I winced as I squinted at it. “He used the mirror filter so it looks like a dick growing out of a dick.”
“Ohhh, lemme see.” Marie hopped off her stool, then stopped and shook her head. “No, never mind. I don’t want to see it.” She frowned. “Or do I?”
“It’s your call.”
Sighing, she flapped her hand. “Lay it on me.” I held the phone up, and her nose wrinkled as she studied it. “Is he trying to be artistic, do you think?”
“Beats me. Maybe he’s trying to imply he has two penises like a snake.”
Marie’s eyebrows raised as she transferred her attention from the dick pic to me. “Snakes have two penises?”
I nodded as I blocked and reported Mr. Double Penis. I blocked and reported every unsolicited dick pic I received, and yet they still kept coming. Like a snowstorm or a zombie horde. There seemed to be an unlimited supply of men eager to send photos of their genitals to total strangers. Which went a long way to explaining why I was still single at forty-eight.
“They’re called hemipenes,” I said, referring to the snake penises. I was a voracious reader, which meant I’d collected a lot of weird and useless information that I enjoyed trotting out like a party trick when the opportunity arose. “They’ve got one connected to each testis. Fun fact: they can choose which penis they want to use when they have sex. And female snakes have two clitorises called hemiclitores.”
“That just sounds like a lot of extra trouble.” Marie brushed her blonde hair off her shoulder with a sniff. “If that’s what this guy is going for, it’s not as appealing as he thinks it is.”
“Penises rarely are.” I made sure to swallow my coffeebeforeopening the next DM to avoid further spit takes. “Message number two…also a penis, but an uninspired one.” This was a standard-issue shot of a standard-issue penis: bad lighting, awkward angle, poor composition, unflattering background.Yawn.
Marie went to the sink to rinse her yogurt cup and spoon. “At least the last guy gets credit for trying something.”
“I don’t get why so many men think we’re dying to see their trouser snakes. Don’t they know women pass these pictures around to their friends and laugh at them?” I moved on to the next message, which contained only two words:Hi dear. Having been at this for so long, I instantly recognized it as the trademark salutation of spammers, scammers, catfishers, and volatile old men. Delete.
“My friend Sandra is a psychiatrist, and she says unsolicited nude photos aren’t about sex—they’re a way of exerting power and control.”
