Pheromones & Psychosis

by D.T. Robbins

I don’t say anything to Dave after the orgy, and he doesn’t say anything to me either. We sit in my truck, waiting for the heater to kick on and unthaw the sweat stuck to our guts and spines. Dave had a great time at the orgy. At one point, while he occupied himself with three women at once, I couldn’t help but watch him and think to myself, That’s my best friend!

I didn’t have as good a time as Dave. I stood in the corner, cranking hog, trying to avoid eye contact with the guy who organized the orgy, who wanted to maintain eye contact with me throughout the whole fucking thing. 

Dave and his girlfriend, Leslie, broke up, and he says he needs to get her out of his system by any means necessary. The orgy is a means. He asked me to be his wingman because he’s never been to an orgy and wanted someone to go with him in case it ended up being some sort of ritualistic sacrifice or something reasonable like that.

Dave goes, “You’re a good friend.”

I go, “Yeah. Do you feel any better?”

Dave looks out the window, watching as people pile out of the house we just waxed with bodily fluids, and begins sobbing. “No! I can’t do this. I fucking miss her, man. That was the worst best sex I’ve ever had. I don’t want to fuck anyone else. I want to fuck Leslie. I want to die. I want to die inside of her. I wish she’d just fuck me and kill me now. I love her so much.”

I don’t believe in being or falling in love. Love is not real. Pheromones and psychosis are real. I believe in that.

***

Dave wants to take a bunch of drugs and go into a sensory deprivation tank. I quit taking drugs after I got trapped in the sun for a thousand years and almost died there, but Dave’s a mess and he’s a homie, and sometimes you have to stop being a bitch and just be there for the homies. 

We pay for an hour in the tank, but we only make it twenty minutes or so. 

In the tank I’m imprisoned in, my mom and grandma take turns spanking my bare ass and telling me how disappointed they are in the way I turned out, that they raised me better than this. Jesus stands over their shoulders, wagging a foam finger that’s in the shape of a cross at me. 

Dave screams from the tank next to mine, “I don’t want to give birth! You’re gonna rip my dick off!” This goes on so long that my mom, grandma, and Jesus stop yelling at me and get really concerned about Dave instead.

Jesus goes, “Dude, is he okay?”

I go, “No, Jesus. He’s in hell, getting his dick ripped off

***

Dave hears from a friend of a friend of a friend that if you commit to staying awake for a week, you actually awaken your inner, higher self that heals all wounds and gives you a new sense of direction and purpose in life. But I know he’s afraid to go to sleep because when he does, he just dreams about Leslie. I hear him crying, calling her name in the middle of the night, begging her to come back to him. 

We vacate our attempts to stay awake on the fifth night after Dave tries to cut himself open with a spoon because he’s convinced the remote control is stuck in his arm. 

***

Dave tries and tries and tries to get over Leslie. 

I try and try and try to help him. 

Dave wants to die. 

I keep Dave alive, though I wonder if I’m being a bad friend and should just let him go.

***

Dave disappears for a week and a half. He doesn’t answer his phone, doesn’t come home to feed his fish, doesn’t let me know he’s not dead or anything. I go around town showing a picture of Dave to everyone I encounter. “This is my homie, Dave. Have you seen him? Do you know if he’s still alive?” No one can provide any information on Dave’s whereabouts. 

When Dave finally comes home, his eyes are wide and filled with a universe of stars like fiery arrows fighting back against the gravitational pull of his inevitable collapse. 

Dave goes, “She took me back!”

I go, “What the fuck, man! Where have you been?”

“Leslie took me back. I went over to her house and told her how miserable I’ve been without her. I told her everything: about the orgy, giving birth in a tank, awakening my higher self… everything!”

He’s manic, purely insane, but I think maybe he’s happy. “How do you feel?”

Dave wraps his arms around me. “You’re a good friend,” he says. 

I go, “Yeah, thanks.”

“But we can’t be friends anymore. Leslie is pretty pissed that you let me do all of that stuff, and she thinks you’re trying to keep us apart.”

A lump in my throat like concrete swells. “What?”

“I’m sorry, dude. I can’t lose her again.” He pats me on the shoulder and leaves. 

I stand there, staring at the door until the sun comes up. 

***

The sidewalk carries me until I regain feeling in my legs, then I walk until I lose all feeling in them again. The oxygen attacks my lungs despite having quit breathing after Dave broke the news. My heart calcifies and sinks into my stomach, gets stuck in my large intestine, breaks apart into a million pieces. Or maybe it was already broken. Maybe Dave broke it. Dave broke my heart. Because I love him. I love Dave. Wait, no. Love isn’t real. So, I can’t love Dave. 

I do a bunch of shit that is real:

                                  I join a cult. 

                            I donate all my sperm to a sperm bank. 

                            I shave half of my head and grow the other half out. 

                            I get a dog. The dog runs away. 

                            I get a cat. The cat tries to kill me in my sleep. 

                            I swim across the ocean.

                            I fuck two nuns. 

                            I rob a bank and give the money to charity. 

                            I rob the charity. 

                            I fistfight Death. 

I walk the streets of Earth and scream at the top of my lungs over and over and over, “LOVE IS NOT REAL! LOVE IS NOT REAL! LOVE IS NOT REAL!