First draft? Lol.

Of course it wasn’t anything like this. He’d imagined wrong and he partially knew that but still. She was just so mysterious that a lecture could be really anything, a public assembly even. He did know better though. This wasn’t distant galaxy. The aliens had not yet been revealed. Disinterested people sat in too comfortable chairs that put them to sleep. Most of them were from the province’s interior. Rural developers waiting for her to say something about how foreign trade agreements would impact real estate values in their quaint lakeside towns. Where were the Chinese? Why weren’t they there yet? They couldn’t wait for their million dollar homes in towns where no one worked. Real estate was a lovely business.
Lydia was the only daughter of a Vancouver businessman. There was a poorly painted mural of him in Chinatown somewhere. He was the one largely responsible for the door that the Chinese walked through. Don was wildly in love with her.
But Lydia had a thing for enormous penises. This was well known but went largely unsaid. Her husband, Nathan, was a little Chinese man who’d once starred in AAA Asian pornography, the kind where the genitals are blurred out with a pixelated filter. It was maybe a little difficult for her to be certain, but the enormous girth of the censored portions between his legs had convinced her that he was the one for her. For now. He liked buying houses, too, so at the time it just kind of made sense. But that was such a long time ago. And there’d been so many more since him. He hung around though. She was making him rich. They hadn’t had sex in seven years. Nathan looked like he was dissolving inside. Don wondered how she could ever do that to a man.

Attempting to quell the anxious lump in his head or stomach, Don scrolled through his email history and reminisced about how they'd met, rather, how she'd contacted him. Don had been three or four years into his microbiology degree when he'd gotten a little note, forwarded to him by his old adult films agent. Not by any means proud of his previous means of employment, the industry had still opened many doors for him and introduced him to a great number of important, intelligent individuals, and had paid for the entirety of his current education. It had been the best decision he'd ever made. That very soft core webcam blog had changed his life when he needed a hundred dollars or so for an overdue phone bill and now, he hoped, it would change his future. Marriage. Wealth. Lydia. Imagine that.
Dear Mr. Don,
A woman I represent, Mrs. Lydia Duncan, cordially invites you to a casual get together in her penthouse suite on the university campus. Please respond with a date and time that would be agreeable. Weekdays are preferred.

And that was that. He'd gone, arrived early, and had been introduced to her by a small Chinese butler who did nothing to quell the confusion and doubt he'd been afflicted with since the first email. What did Miss Duncan want to talk about. What did Miss Duncan do for a living. What did Miss Duncan see in him and why had she contacted him. Him of all people. But Don was, in many ways, well versed in supposed modesty and knew exactly what to say at exactly the right moment in order to maintain a brilliantly amiable agreeability. Because, he supposed, at the root of it, Don believed that he was special. That he was something else. He'd been told it his whole life and now, finally, Jesus finally, his specialness was recognized by somebody else truly special. A rich woman. An extremely rich woman that liked extremely large penises because what in God's name else could she want and what in God's name also made him special and so fortunate to be here and holy Hannah his blog had been receiving a lot of hits lately. Without the butler's help, he'd arrived at something close to the truth.
That was how it began. A tryst. A promise. A fuck. He was a mistress. A misteress. And slowly, with the gradual erosion of a decaying landscape, he fell in love and became something new entirely. He became confident. He became whole. He became the object of someone's desires. And he was allowed to see her twice a week. Even her husband knew. He knew but it poisoned him and soon he would jump from a bridge. Don realized this but didn't care much. If a man jumps, watch him fall. That's all he wants. Don had never brought a man to his knees before. It made him feel powerful. Gigantic. What else could she want.
That was how the beginning had happened. Now, the barely red fly returned, licking at the lip of Don’s beer. He touched it away and wiped his hands on the thighs of his jeans. Did flies really immediately puke on everything that they landed on? He’d read that the other week on the internet. Ten things you didn’t know about flies. The glass was a little wet still. Don’s fingerprints dripped down the side. He wondered if a fly could drown in the condensate of a cold pint.

He’d had quite the time getting here. Here to this chivalry. This waiting. Putting it off, saving it for a rainy day, maybe for one of those rare, Pacific Northwest thunderstorms, when they were just laying about, some ridiculous shorthaired cat meowing for a little more food, just a little more, if you haven’t already seen, you should know that the kibble bowl is empty. And it would be nearing the thousandth night that they’d curse him, laughed at his routine, how predictable he was. And then, no longer able to shift his attentions, Don would get up and pour a bit of a food into the ceramic dish. And, finally, quiet. And, finally, she’d say, “I love you, Don,” and he’d reply, slowly, an stretched silence between them before he finally replied in agreement, “I love you, too.” The lightening would boom like an attack. An accident. And the gods said, yes please, do it, please. And they would, finally.

The sun rainbowed onto the table, refracting through his empty glass. Students whispered behind him. Pretty ones. Their UBC sweaters and study pants bunched in folds over their young limbs. Don changed the subject. Thought of something else. Naked old ladies. Gore. He tried to repent. There’d been a time, not that long ago, shortly before he’d happened upon Ms. Lydia Waits. There’d been a time when he’d watch closely, when previous, serious thoughts became a pariah to new ones, new, dirty ones about the students and their clothes. They’d leave but only in person and he’d obsess, obsess, growing larger, excusing himself to the men’s stall, faking a poo, the folds of their clothes burned into the floor in his brain. And he’d do business. Just like that. Trade his big one for his little one. He’d flush. Wipe. Wash. Red-faced, he’d return to the bar stool, walking to a shameful beat. But that was the old Don. The new Don didn’t do that. The new Don was in control. In all manners. No TV—books. No games—hikes. No hard liquor—pints with friends. No slaying made up dragons—evenings spent courting Princess Lydia. This was the new Don. The old Don made him sick, made his neck tense, made his skin peel. How could he have spent so many years with so many sins and so little thought. Consider the time that he’d wasted. Consider all the things he could have done. But that was the old Don. The new Don imagined blocks being stacked one on top of another after another. It was progress.

Lydia had asked him to wait. For a text or a sign or for her, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure if it was important that he listened. Some people are remarkably apt at speaking things that didn’t really mean or care about. But Lydia was something else. She would ask men for favours, and women too he supposed, a hand to do this, a hand to do that, a “Could you swing by the house for a moment tomorrow, the next day, today, whenever? I have something to show you.” And the thing was she didn’t care about any of them. The favours. She didn’t have anything to show you and wasn’t wanting of any perhaps more masculine abilities. Often during Don’s early courting period, he’d arrive at her place and there would be another man or even two sometimes waiting in the lobby alongside him. They’d chitchat. Oh yes, and what do you do for a living? How do you know Lydia? Or you know Ferdy? What a splendid man. A faggot though. Yes. So many of them around here. Nearly an army. Heh. The Sacred Army of Thebes. This is how it went. The joust. Who had the longer line to draw from. They came from various personal histories and educations. Craftsmen and lawyers and professors and businessmen. Mostly white. Some black. Her husband Nathan had been the only Asian one. Because there’s a difference you know. Between the races. Indian men for instance the girth just simply isn’t there. And it always returned to this for Don. Regardless of the stories and anecdotes that he and the other men endured for the sake to lend a helping hand, a viewing, really, Don knew what each one of them had in common. A weight between the legs, something substantial. And he supposed, too, that they’d all been involved in the pornography industry at some point in the lives because, well, how else could she know. How else could she decide who to approach. (para continued)

Initially, Don’s paranoia had got the better of him and he had nearly decided that Lydia, a prominent member of some multinational non-profit, had a personal line to private, laptop mounted webcams all over the city. She wouldn’t be going out searching through all of them. No, impossible. But she could probably hire a village of Malaysian families or Bangladeshi wives to sort through it all. Webcam to webcam. Click click click. Big small small small big small. Wait. There’s a special one. And she’d be notified. Or maybe there was an algorithm. Probably an algorithm actually. But he’d be okay with the wives. Suppose he had a thing for being watched. But no. None of this was true. After a number of these little lobby chats, Don had gleaned the pattern in the pack. Some form of physical voyeurism for each and every one. A little show one day. A bit of amateur porn that somehow got out. Ex-girlfriend likely. She never did respect me. And she thought it’d ruin me! Stupid girl. Tricks are for dicks, they’d wink and soon move on to different things until the door at the top of the stairs would open and Lydia, fair skinned, black dressed Lydia, would appear, her glowing face happy to see and recognize the men happy to lend a helping hand.

Don vibrated. Salivated a little, he thought. Me, the dog. A text message. From Lydia, probably. He grabbed the skinny phone from his skinny pants and pressed the home button.
“I’m ready. Done. Come see me. I want you to meet someone!”
Who could that be though. Nathan? They’d already met. Hadn’t of gone very well either. Nathan seemed to almost cry. Red faced. Drunk. His eyes almost closed. More than usual at least. No, not Nathan. But who?
“Nathan? I met him already Lydia. DID NOT GO WELL. Abort?”
He got up and paid the hip boy his tab. Two beers. An order of pork bites. Sausage rolls? No, the pork bites. He said thanks for coming and have a good day. And if not? What then. Texts seemed to haunt him. He walked down the stairs of the student union building, texting, everything abuzz.
“Not Nathan. He didn’t show. Just come. Did you like it?”
“Like what?”
“The talk. Globalism, amiright?”
“I didn’t really understand all of it. But you sounded really smart. Pretty too.”
“How can you sound pretty :)”
“The way you moved your arms around.”
“That’s not sound. :)”
“Is it a woman”
“Who”
“The woman you want me to meet.”
“No it’s a man”
“I hate your men”
“Just come”
This troubled Don. Was this how it ended. He didn’t know she was still seeing them. The men. The grovelers. The submissed. Submitted. Whatever. Don wasn’t ready for this. Don had a future for himself. He liked what she said about the Open Society. He wanted to be on top of it, he guessed. No, on top of her, the one on top of it. If only he’d been born that way. That other way. Rich. Then he wouldn’t need this thing. This weight. The weight that could only take him so far until something heavier came along. Who was the man he had to meet. Who was the man who’d ruin him like he had ruined Nathan. Oh Nathan. Where are you today. You should have been there. Did I really make it so hard. How hard can it be. What am I about to feel next. Will it be awful. And how will I react? What’s next now. He walked towards the Chan Centre of Performing Arts. Lydia was waiting for him.

There was a very slight stain on the cuff of her blazer and she wasn’t sure if anyone else could see it. It looked like a charcoal stain, if that was possible, only it wasn’t black, but almost burgundy like lava rock or brick. She could have bumped into any number of walls without realizing it, grazing her wrist. She’d wiped and wiped, but it wouldn’t come out. Not like rock dust should. Like rubbing dirt off of your knees. The worst though was that she wasn’t quite sure if it was there. No, really. She swore she could make out a ghostly contrast of colours there, but she’d asked her assistant if he had a Tide pen or something, he checked, said no, sorry, ma’am, and then asked to see the stain. He said there wasn’t anything. Not even a tiny one? Barely there? No, ma’am. I can’t make it out. She said something positive like Oh good. That’s wonderful. I was certain! Thank you. But despite his assurances, she wiped anyway, over and over, as if bit by a mosquito, and she worried that her new friend, Patrick, might think she was crazy. He didn’t. Glass eyed and bushy tailed, he stood beside her, said nothing, and wondered why she’d brought him here. She’d slipped him a small envelope after her lectures, after the applause, and he’d gone to the bathroom to inspect its contents. Patrick. Meet me at my loft at 11:30 on Thursday, just before noon. There’s something I need your help with.

Yes, he was the new one, and Don would be upset. Very upset. Horrified maybe. But he shouldn’t have fallen in love. If that’s what he wanted to call it. He shouldn’t have trusted her. He should have looked at her and the way he’d seen her behave and her traditions of courtship and he should have formed some kind of hypothesis about her and the entire situation. He should have made an informed decision. He should have been a man about it. But they all seemed like little boys. Every last one. Except Patrick. Of course. He was the big boy now. He was winning. And maybe when the time came he’d be more of a man about being the newest little one.

Why though. There’d been someone, hadn’t there. There’d been someone first, before it all began.

And she remembered so much about him. The way he’d look in the mirror, raising his eyebrows, slightly surprised, because, he said, he felt more handsome that way. The way he told stories, never right, but always better. The disgusting way he cleaned his teeth with overgrown fingernails.

The way he said “I love you” while they fucked. They way he’d smile when he came. The way he’d fall asleep still hard and snoring in her ear. The sound he made when pushed away and the sound he made when she cupped his face to try and wake him up. There was still too much to do today. It was only noon. But they’d share dreamy nothings until the phone rang.

That’s when it began to fall apart. Whenever the phone rang.

She was a developer. A real estate agent of sorts. Of the highest sorts. Her contacts in China helped flood the Vancouver market with a billion dollars in foreign money. Enough to ruin it for the people who grew up there, they said. The price of progress, said others. Either way. That’s how they met. He was a local politican tasked with investigating the Chinese link to the impossible price of homes. They were supposed to fear one another. Maybe they did. Maybe that was why they fell in love.

But it didn’t work. It couldn’t work. They were bigger than themselves. It was war. She wanted the best for the world. He wanted the best for his city. It was the same, they kidded. One thing helps the other, they bluffed. We’re all in this together. They were afraid of war. So they lied through it.

One morning, after the phone rang, after he talked, thanked whoever spoke on the other end, he got up and put on his clothes.
“The mayor. He wants to see me. Sorry.”
Because everyone was in bed and the mayor had to tell him that. Who did it hurt if the city got a little extra money in home sales tax. What about that school. Do you know where they found the surplus for it? The hospital? Do you realize where the money is. It’s here. Under our feet. They want it. We have it. End of story. Dismissed.
But it was so much more than that, he knew. They’d barely tipped the scales. They didn’t even see the dragon yet. And here was a bit of the smoke, a wisp of the flame, a sharp, ravenous tooth. Right here beside him. Naked. Purring. Telling him about love. Tracing her finger along his cute little penis. The phone rang. He’d gotten up. Spoke with the mayor while rolling up his socks. Yes sir, okay sir. Right away sir. Yes, sir. You’re right. I think the public does deserves this. And hung up.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” She wanted him.
“For leaving you.”
She wanted him.
“I’m sorry.”
She wanted him.

He left.

Don face vibrated.
“Fucking size queen.”
“Hey. That’s not what that word means Don.”
“You like big cocks and they always have to get bigger. Everyone knows it, Lydia. You’ve developed a mighty reputation.”
“Size queen describes homosexuals, Don. I thought you’d know that, living in the neighborhood that you do.”
“What the fuck, Lydia. Jesus, it’s the same fucking thing.”
“Hey. Don. Just shut up please. Not here. This isn’t what I meant.”
“Only you’re an actual queen, Lydia. You inherited the Earth. A portion of it. An always growing portion. Jesus. You always need a bigger slice. Now I fucking get it. Jesus.”
She grabbed at the cuff of his grey, greying hoody and walked him away, further and further from the crowd.
“You’re fucked, Lydia. Straight fuck. Heh. Finally. I get it.” His tilted head exposed a pair of flared nostrils.
“Shut up Don. Just wait a minute.”
And they walked further. The few steps that students and associate professors made towards them and their eventual destination—further—were turned the other way with uncertain pirouettes to the other direction. It was obvious that something was wrong. They guessed that now was not the right time for mingling.
“You calculated, you cunt. You empty cunt.”
“Don!”
He tore his arm away. She flung herself at him but he strafed, stepping off the sidewalk onto the grass, lightly twisting his ankle without realizing it. He didn’t feel anything expect an odd, sulfurous sensation of holding his stomach in his arms like some baby. The adrenaline dilated his pupils. He was afraid of what was next. But he wanted to see.
“You’re just leaving me to stare into that pit again. That pool. You know that, right. That you destroy people? Me? That you destroy people like me? Am I even a person to you?”
“Jesus Don of course you’re a person. It’s just. Fuck. I’m fucked Don. You just don’t get how or how much.”

>>8331286
You're not too good to post in the Critique thread, fuck off.

>>8323650
>>8329107

“No, Lydia, I get it. It’s perfectly clear. There’s a void in you. A hole. Like this.”
His fingers bent, “A-okay.”
“And do you know how big this hole is inside you, Lydia? It’s as big as the next biggest dick you’ve witnessed in this city. Why? Because you’re absolutely fucked. That’s why. Because you’re this little fucking progressive liberal globalist queen and you just need to expand. Everything you own needs to get bigger and bigger and bigger until it’s just everything and you can’t tell the difference between something and another thing because it’s all the same thing.”
“Don. Please.”
“And you know what’s getting biggest of all? It’s that whole in your probably wonderful looking little lady part. It’s just going to keep getting bigger until it gets so big and everything around it gets so small that it just destroys everything, men, worlds and all. Because you, Lydia. You are the destroyer of worlds. ”
She was looking down at her feet and then above of his head, to the side of his head, beside his chest, through him. But she couldn’t look at him. She wanted to die.
“Don,” she said, quietly, almost a whimper. She sighed again, “Don.”
He wanted to hit her but he was already gone, saving himself and her. He walked towards some deep, underground parking lot, and sunk into it through a transparent elevator shaft. She never saw him again.
She cried because she’d been in love. And she’d remembered so much.

THE END

>>8331330
Oh sorry.