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Kenzi motions to me. “Donovan gets me.”
Jason shakes his head. “I didn’t say it was wrong. It’s just…funny.”
Kenzi scoffs. “Don’t sit there and act like you don’t jerk off.”
Jason shrugs casually. “I don’t.”
I roll my eyes. “Here we go…”
Kenzi’s mouth drops open. “What…? Like, you don’t often? Or you don’t ever?”
“Ever,” Jason says, and I do my best not to let it get to me that we’re having a conversation about masturbation as casually as we’d talk about the weather.
Kenzi squints at Jason as though he’s grown a second head. Kenzi, to her credit, never leaves a stone unturned, no matter how strange the topic. “Okay,” she says, clearly trying to understand. “Is it like…a self-control thing?”
Jason shifts to his elbow, leaning in. “Let me ask you a question first. Why do you masturbate?”
Kenzi’s throat reddens a little, but she’s too stubborn to let something like shame get in the way of her query. “It’s my only me time,” she says. “Look—I became a single mom really young. And I love every second of it. But my entire life is devoted to being a mom. It’s…the only thing I get to do that’s for me.”
“Self-care,” I clarify, and she nods.
“Yes, exactly.”
Jason swallows—I can tell because that Adam’s apple bobs underneath his beard. “Okay,” he says, “I get that. But like, for me, what turns me on is connecting with someone. Looking a person in the eye. Making them feel good. So when I’m flying solo…it just doesn’t really do it for me.”
Kenzi looks soft and hazy as she stares at Jason, and she rests her head in her palm. “Must be hard,” she wonders out loud, but I can’t tell if she intends for the pun or not.
A grin ghosts on Jason’s mouth. “I live,” he says.
“Can we get back to the game?” I ask.
“Truth,” Jason says.
“What’s the most annoying thing about living with Donovan?” Kenzi asks.
I roll my eyes. “Now you’re asking for a fight.”
Jason squints at me as though he’s thinking. “I don’t know. He’s a pretty good roommate. Well, except…”
“Lay it on me.”
“You vanish down these…video rabbit holes.” He turns to Kenzi, waving his fork dramatically like a conductor. “He’ll come home, sit on the couch, and scroll through YouTube or whatever for hours. It’s like a constant stream of mindlessness.”
I scoff. “It’s called decompressing. And you’re one to talk.”
“What’s that mean?”
I turn to Kenzi. “You want to talk annoying noises—he listens to recordings of himself.”
“Fuck you, it’s meditation.”
“Wow. Sounds like that meditation is really working for you.”
“Hold on, settle down.” Kenzi lifts her palms, lowering the temperature in the room. “Jason, explain.”
Jason thins his lips, but then he straightens up in his chair—going into performance mode. “Okay. So you know how you have negative thoughts in your head, right? Like…there’s always that voice that tells you that you’re doing something wrong or you’ll never amount to something. So I combat that by recording myself saying the opposite of those negative thoughts. It’s positive affirmations.”
I pretend to vomit, and Jason casts me a dirty look. Kenzi, unfortunately, looks fascinated.
