It Follows

Minimum reading time: 20 minutes

Chapter 1 - Stalking Strangers

I really like driving. I will drive for hours with no real destination or goal. I've been to almost every big enough city in my state, and some of them are over 500 kilometers away. Driving like this is good for my creativity, it gives me lots of ideas.

When I'm driving in the city, I sometimes give myself little challenges. Like going from here to there without stopping, or without ever changing lanes, or as fast as possible. Real dumb shit like that.

My favorite one, though, is stalking someone. I'll pick a car and follow it until it gets to its destination. I can't lie and say I haven't chosen cars to follow because the driver was extremely cute, male or female, doesn't matter to me. It does feel creepy, but I feel it's good to be okay with being a creep and a weirdo sometimes.

More often than not, I'll follow someone who's being rude in traffic. Like when they're tailgating me, or someone else, or weaving through lanes too quickly in a reckless way.

If you've never tried to actually follow someone in a big city, it's super hard. The way it happens on TV, where the guy is following someone from way back so they don't get noticed, is basically impossible unless it's night and there's no traffic.

Any other time, if you let a single car slip between you and your target, that soon becomes two, which then becomes four, and now to catch up, you'd have to weave through traffic in a way that'd defeat the whole point of staying unnoticed.

But you can't stay right behind them either, that gets you noticed. One thing that helps is guessing where they'll turn, then taking the turn just before they do. If I were driving and someone had been behind me for 10 or 20 minutes, and we hit a left-or-right kind of moment, and they moved first, I'd probably stop thinking they were following me, if I were thinking that at all.

From my perspective, it's a coin toss. If I choose right, I buy myself another 10 or 20 minutes of unnoticed following. If I choose wrong, it's fine too, I just lose this person and move on.

Following rude drivers is hard. To keep up, you have to drive as recklessly as they do, otherwise, you lose them. But driving is about being predictable, so it's an interesting challenge keeping up with them while being as predictable as possible.

As an aside, I find that most rude drivers around here are white women in their late 20s or early 30s. Blonde, SUV, above-average looks, well dressed. They seem like they have proper careers and like they have to be somewhere fast.

I think it's because successful women have to adopt certain male traits, primarily assertiveness, which men naturally have and women naturally don't. But without growing up around boys, without the rough games, the fights, the physical chaos, they don't learn how to balance it. With an underdeveloped aggression-regulation mechanism, their assertiveness comes out as pure aggression, and it shows in how they drive.

In any case, this stalking business sounds worse than it is, of course. When the target reaches their destination, it's usually somewhere boring. A shopping mall, a school, a hospital, a generic commercial building.

Often, it is their house or apartment, though. That does sound creepy, I get it. But think about it, what information did I actually get? "Someone lives in this house." Well, duh, that's what houses are for. But I have nothing else on this person other than their plate, which I memorize for every target because I'm bad at telling cars apart. But you can't do anything with a car plate, it's not publicly available information. Not that I've tried.

Sometimes a stalk fails because the target notices me. It tends to be women who notice. I do look somewhat threatening to a percentage of the population, that's a consistent response, so that's probably it. When they notice, they usually pull over on a random street and wait. I have to keep going. Parking behind them would be a dead giveaway, and I don't take risks like that.

This is a good summary of what happens most of the time. But one time was different. A black pickup kind of truck starts weaving through lanes behind me, cutting off people left and right. He gets real close behind me for a few seconds, as if saying, "Go faster, you slow motherfucker!" Then he swerves into the left lane, accelerates past me, and cuts back in just ahead, so close I have to brake or he'd have hit me.

That's when I decide to follow him. It's a mix of anger and curiosity, I just need to know where he's going that's so important. He passes a few more cars, and I try to keep up. I can't say I'm being a perfectly predictable driver, but I catch him at the next stoplight. I pull up beside him and glance over.

He's in his late 40s. He has long black hair, unkempt. Beard down to his chest, just as messy. Deep, dark circles hang under his eyes, like he hasn't slept in weeks. The windows are down, music's blasting, some kind of heavy metal. He shouts into his phone: "Yeah, I'll be there in twenty minutes. TWENTY MINUTES!" He shouts it again and again, like he's making sure I hear it.

The light turns green, and he takes off. I follow. For the next 15 minutes, it's a normal stalk, if you can call this normal. He's the most aggressive driver I've ever followed. Every minute that passes, my anger builds. How can someone be this irresponsible?

Eventually, we hit a smaller road. One lane each way, nothing but trees on either side. Every so often, there's a house, wooden, run-down, just overall poor-looking. He's headed towards a more secluded part of town, I've been down this road before.

This road stretches out for another 15 minutes and eventually connects to a favela. That doesn't bother me. I said earlier that I look scary to some people, that's mostly because I look like I'm from a favela. So when I pass someone on the street, part of their brain thinks I might rob them. Kind of racist, but people have the preconceived notions they have for safety, I can't really blame them.

I've used that to my advantage, too. If I'm out somewhere sketchy, looking like the robber gives me a buff against robbery. Some guy takes one look at me and decides I'm not worth the trouble, or that maybe I just seem too friendly. Either way, nothing happens. I've never been robbed, so it's a good buff.

But the favelas here aren't dangerous. Most of them are quiet, even friendly. I find that poorer places often have a better vibe than richer ones. People wave, talk, you hear arguments, music, dogs barking. There are kids playing in the street, teenagers doing nothing together. I like that kind of nothing. It's real, it feels alive.

In any case, it's getting dark now. Not quite night, but it's that kind of orange sunset glow that's dimming. The dynamics of this road make following him feel normal, due to there being one lane each way. To pass, I'd have to veer into oncoming traffic. It's basically nonexistent here, but I still don't like the risk. Usually I just match the speed of whoever's ahead, no matter how slow, and keep a safe distance.

There are speed bumps now and then. Each time he slows down for one, I get close. And each time, I catch him looking at me through his rearview mirror. I think he knows. I can't see his mouth, but there's something in his face, like a tightness or a curve, that makes it seem like he's smirking.

After a few more minutes, he reaches his destination, an isolated house surrounded by trees. But he doesn't turn right onto the driveway. He turns left and stops his car in the middle of the road, dead center, blocking both lanes. Then he steps out and starts walking towards me.

I shit bricks.

I look for a way out and turn left, trying to go back, but I'm boxed in. Shallow trenches run along both sides of the road, just deep enough to trap a wheel. I assume they're drainage channels. He probably picked this spot on purpose. From here, there's no time to turn around.

I've faced near-death situations before, the trick is to accept it. Once you do, you can think clearly and solve the problem. I perform really well under pressure, so this time, I accept it too. If I die here, at least I died doing what I loved: stalking strangers.

I stop trying to move the car and look at him. He doesn't appear to have any weapons, and he's not moving particularly aggressively. But he's huge. If this turns into a fight, I lose.

I roll the window down and shout at him, since he's still a bit far away, "Hey dude, what's up? Got a problem with your car?" He doesn't respond, just keeps walking towards me. I steel myself and get out of the car, I don't want him to reach me while I'm still sitting and can't move properly.

He gets closer and closer, looking directly into my eyes. His expression seems determined, but not aggressive. I don't think he wants to fight. I'm backed up against my car, which is also partly blocking the road now.

He stops just in front of me. I open my mouth to speak, but before I can, he grabs me by the shoulders. He's not hurting me or lifting me, but his grip is tight. I tense up and try to resist, but he's too strong, so I let him. He looks at me, grinning, and says, "It follows you now!"

He looks behind him. Then at me. Then behind me and my car. He smiles. His weary eyes suddenly show a lightness to them. I can feel, from his eyes alone, the glory of a burden being lifted, of a long, protracted sickness being instantly healed. And then he looks at me one last time, with a tinge of sadness.

He turns and walks to his car. Starts it, then drives away.

I stand there, stunned. Suddenly, a honk jolts me. Two cars, headlights on, are waiting behind me. I raise my hand in apology and get back in my car to unblock the road.

Chapter 2 - The Snake

It follows me now? As I drive home, I try to understand it. The most obvious thought is that I have seven days to do one thing or another or I'll die to some kind of memetic curse. I forgot the plot of The Ring, I don't remember what they had to do to uncurse themselves.

Well, an even more obvious thought is that the guy was insane. But he didn't act like it. He moved with purpose. The shift in his disposition after he passed it to me seemed real. And that last look he gave me... it was like someone who knows they've passed on an actual curse.

How do follow-curses usually work? The only ones that come to mind are The Ring, It Follows, and that stand from JoJo Part 4, something about not showing your back, I think? It's probably worth considering the mechanics of those, at least for the first night, until something actually happens.

I get home and lean my portable stairs against the front door. If anyone opens it, they'll crash to the floor and make enough noise to wake me. I set up the same kind of trap for my bedroom door, but with a broom instead.

My apartment has one large room that serves as both living room and kitchen, plus a separate bathroom and bedroom. My work desk makes my back face the front door, which feels unsafe, so I rotate it so my back faces the window instead.

I fall asleep with my back to the wall, watching The Ring, the original Japanese version, which I remember finding more fucked up and spooky. Nothing unnatural happens.

But I do have a weird dream.

I'm a lich, all bones, floating in a dark cave. At the center there's an egg, which I know to be my phylactery. Sunlight, channeled through a narrow shaft from above, lands directly on it. I know it has been focused on it for centuries.

I know that the egg will hatch soon, and that this is an important event. It isn't positive or negative, it's neutral. It's something I have to deal with.

As the egg starts shaking, snakes emerge from the edges of the cave. I'm filled with great terror. Images of snakes coiling around the egg, suffocating it, flash into my mind as sharp pains.

I try to keep them from reaching it, but I fail. The moment one touches the egg, I jolt awake with a sharp pain in my chest, like I've just been stabbed. I get weird, emotional dreams like this maybe once a year, so that's not too unusual. But it's still interesting, so I write it down, like I usually do.

Normally, I try to figure out what each part of a dream means. Why a lich, why a cave, why floating, why the sun, why the egg, why the snakes. Some dreams take days, but if you think long enough, their internal logic grants you a kind of insight, something hidden, now made obvious. A truth about yourself, or your life. This time, though, I really don't feel like thinking about this particular dream at all.

I get up, walk to the living room, and open the window. The view is nothing special, just a quiet street. People walk dogs, visit the shops downstairs, or enter the building across from mine. It's the kind of street where nothing unusual ever happens.

But this time, I see it. A huge snake, about as thick as a car, and as long as maybe five. It's just standing there on the street, staring straight up at me. People walk past it like it isn't there. No one passes through it, but they walk around it, without ever seeming to notice.

I watch the snake for about 10 uninterrupted minutes. It doesn't move. Maybe four people walk past with their dogs. Only one of the dogs, a fluffy white lapdog, suddenly stops and barks at it, loud and insistent, like it can see it. Eventually, I step away from the window.

This must be what a psychotic break is like. Schizophrenia runs in my family, and it's highly heritable. It was only a matter of time. But it's strange that it would happen now. Usually, it starts in your early 20s or much later in life. And I've never smoked weed or taken psychedelics, so it wasn't triggered by those.

Maybe stalking people triggered it. Was that guy even real? Did any of it actually happen? When he grabbed my shoulders, did he inject me with something? I take off my shirt and check for marks in the bathroom mirror. Nothing.

I can't trust my senses anymore. I pace around the apartment, lost. The snake is still out there, watching me.

After a few minutes, I realize I have to pursue two courses of action simultaneously. I have to assume the curse is real, and also assume that I'm psychotic.

If the curse is real, I need to figure out three things: how much time I have, how it works, and how to pass it on. I could try driving around that area to look for the guy's truck, but that seems unlikely to work. He chose that location to trap me, so he probably doesn't live nearby. Then again, I don't even know if he was real. I can't trust my senses. I need someone else, someone I trust. Can they see the snake?

But of course, being the arrogant loner that I am, I have no actual friends for situations like this. Years spent thinking I was better than everyone else, not mingling with people because of how fucking retarded they are, it all comes down to this. When I need someone I trust, I have no one. Who's the retard now? Well, I made my choices, I don't regret them.

The other course of action is booking an appointment with a psychiatrist. If this is a psychotic break, I'll need someone who can observe me and track what's happening. Schizophrenia often affects memory, so it'll help to document everything and to share those logs with someone else. I should start by writing about everything that's happened so far.

I spend the next few hours writing and looking for a psychiatrist. This website has lots of profiles, but I need someone with good reviews and enough intelligence, I wouldn't be able to respect someone clearly less intelligent than me. I keep searching and eventually find a girl who seems sharp. Good school, strong reviews, a reliable face. She charges a good deal more than others, but maybe that's why there's a slot open tomorrow. I book it.

While I wait for tomorrow, I should assume the curse is real and try to understand it. How does the snake work? It's still standing outside, staring up at me. Is it standing there because it can't get in? If I step outside, will it try to attack me? I need answers to these questions, or I won't be able to leave the apartment.

I get ready to go outside. My plan is to drive around a little, but first I need to check if the snake will attack as soon as I step out. I head to the building's front door. It's two glass doors that open onto the main sidewalk. Before opening the first one, I stop to check if I can see it.

And there it is. Across the street, off to my left, just standing there. From here, I'm facing a different street than the one I can see from my apartment window. This street runs perpendicular to that one and crosses it to what is now my right. The snake used to be on that street, now it's on this one. It must've moved about 50 meters to get here?

I open the first glass door and step forward. The snake doesn't move. I leave the first door open, then open the second. The snake doesn't move. I leave both doors open and take a step forward. Technically, this is my first proper step outside. The snake doesn't move. I step forward again. The snake doesn't move. I walk backwards into the building, close the first door, then step out again and close the second. The snake doesn't move.

I step down the stairs leading up to the front door. The snake doesn't move. I glance to my right, that's the direction it would have come from, and look for signs that something massive passed through: damage, debris, anything. Nothing. The street looks exactly the same as always.

I look back at the snake. Huh? It moved! It didn't come closer, though, it shifted slightly back. Its head had been right by a tree before, now it's a little behind it.

Did it move because I looked away? Thinking back, I never broke eye contact with it while stepping outside. I glance right again, then back. The snake doesn't move.

I walk five meters to my right without breaking eye contact with it. The snake doesn't move. I break eye contact with it, then look again. The snake moves closer. I walk back the five meters without breaking eye contact. I break eye contact again, then look. The snake moves back.

I get it now. It's like a nicer version of the blinking SCP. It's always at a fixed distance from me, but it only updates its position when I break eye contact with it. As far as curses go, this isn't so bad.

I wonder what will happen if I get closer. I walk towards it, never breaking eye contact. For the first few meters, nothing happens. But once I'm around 10 meters away, I start to feel... uneasy. Its size hits me. The snake is huge, really huge, and suddenly that matters. My intuition tells me to stop. But I need to know what will happen.

I force myself closer. One step forward. Another. Then another. The snake never breaks eye contact with me. Its gaze locks onto mine and stays there, unblinking. Occasionally it hisses, but it doesn't move. I'm now around five meters away, my intuition screams at me to move back.

I blink.

I'm in the car, driving. I keep checking the rearview mirror to see where the snake is. It's always about 30 meters back. I should have measured the exact distance when I walked towards it. It always positions itself to avoid dealing too much damage to reality. It never stays directly behind me, as that would force other cars to swerve. Instead, it keeps to the sidewalk. I guess people unconsciously dodging it costs less than cars doing the same.

I don't know if psychotic delusions work this way, but it kind of makes sense. Your brain, even your insane brain, doesn't want to reshape reality more than it has to, so the delusions naturally would take the lazy route.

I drive around for a while. I want to see what the snake looks like in different places. There's a park I often go to, it looks at home there. There's also a big road by the lake. On weekends, one side is closed to traffic so people can walk, run, or bike, while the other stays open, so I drive on that. The snake places itself on the closed road. People run and bike past it, dodging without noticing. The contrast makes me laugh, it looks absurd.

I don't stalk anyone. Once I'm done experimenting, I go to the supermarket. The snake looks most off-putting in an enclosed space. It's the first time I actually feel scared of it at this full distance, just because of how huge and out of place it looks. I try to shop as fast as I can, then go home.

The next day comes, and I have the psychiatrist appointment in the morning. She looks like a nice lady. About my age, maybe a few years older. Her face feels right to me, confident and competent, but not in a stern or rigid way. Her profile says she studied at a good place, and the reviews all say she's wonderful.

Her office is spacious. There's a big gap between my chair and hers. Probably some kind of psychological trick to make the patient more open. We say our hellos, I sit down, and I start talking.

I really don't like lying to people or hiding things. In a situation like this, I have no issue opening up completely. She's a professional, so she's certainly heard stranger things than this. Still, I start with an abridged version of the story, just the broad strokes, lacking details. I tell her as much, then start explaining. She listens attentively. When I finish, she says, "OK. Can you see the snake anywhere right now?"

When I entered the room earlier, I could already see the snake. Her office is on the 3rd floor, and when I looked out the window, there it was, floating in midair. I thought it was funny and almost laughed, but kept my composure not to seem completely insane.

I say, "Yes, it's right there. Outside, by that tree, floating near it." She glances at the tree, then back at me, and moves on. No reaction. She seems to have no interest in the snake. Instead, she asks questions, and doesn't stop for the next 45 minutes.

"What's your name? Age? Where do you live? Do you live alone? What do you do? What did you study, and where? When did you move out? What do your parents do? Any siblings? Any health conditions you're treating right now? What's your family health history like?"

"What were you like as a kid? Did you play a lot? Were you more outgoing or more shy? Even as more reserved, did you make friends easily? Were you close to anyone in particular? Any early memories that stand out? Were your friends mostly from school, or the neighborhood?"

"What about your teenage years, were you an excellent student? Any sports or hobbies? Were you part of any social groups? Did you go out much? Party? Date? Did you try any drugs? When was your first sexual experience? Twenty-four? Yeah, that's a bit late. Were you the one who initiated, or did he?"

This is the only lie I've told her so far. The real age is much more embarrassing. And yes, it is a bit late. I'm such a fucking loser for wanting to lose my virginity with someone I actually really liked, only to realize it would never happen. Fuck you, lady.

"You said you started withdrawing from your friends and spent more time on the computer. Did something specific happen? You just liked the computer more? What about it drew you in? How did your parents react when you told them you wanted to make games? Did you ever consider quitting?"

"Do you feel sad? Angry? Do you ever cry? Have you ever been suicidal? Do you feel disconnected from people? Do you ever feel lonely? So you're mostly fine being alone? It doesn't bother you?"

"What's your routine like? Do you sleep well? Do you cook? What do you eat? Do you exercise? Do you have friends? Do you talk to people? Do you go out? When you drive, do you go anywhere specific?"

And then, when I answer that last question and mention what I do, her face closes. The conversation, which had felt smooth and maybe even enjoyable for her, turns serious the moment I say stalking. That makes sense. But I keep talking and explain the details. She listens attentively, asks a few pointed questions, but mostly seems to get it.

When I'm done, she speaks.

"Your life seems in order. You had a normal childhood and adolescence, and your current life is well structured. You're introverted, and you don't have any close relationships, but that alone isn't cause for concern. So far, the snake doesn't seem to interfere with your ability to work, care for yourself, or interact normally. That's the threshold I'd need crossed for a formal diagnosis, and you're not there."

"Also, in about 95% of schizophrenia cases, hallucinations are auditory. Permanent visual hallucinations like yours aren't impossible, but they're rare. And when they show up, they're almost always paired with auditory symptoms, which you don't seem to have."

"Most schizophrenic patients also show disorganization before the break. Trouble sleeping, problems at work, poor hygiene, messy homes. It's a system-wide disorder. You don't show that kind of pattern."

She pauses, then adds, "Now, you do have some traits that line up. No close friends, and you're not bothered by that. Unusual speech patterns. And the stalking, while clearly atypical, doesn't seem focused on specific people or types of people. It sounds more exploratory, based on what you told me."

"But the most important tell is something called reduced affect display. Has anyone ever told you that you sound flat or robotic when you speak?"

Well, yes, as a matter of fact. A few people have told me that before. One guy I used to hook up with would playfully call me a retarded robot freak. I know that doesn't sound very playful, but it's what was playful to us.

"Yes, that kind of emotional stability can be useful, but it can also be a trap. You don't miss people, you don't feel lonely, you don't seek others out. That kind of emotional dampening can freeze your social life. And your speech, your rhythm, it's stunted too, likely from lack of regular conversation."

"I'm not prescribing you anything, and I'm not diagnosing you yet. But I am referring you for a brain MRI. You mentioned your grandmother had Alzheimer's. Hallucinations can sometimes be an early sign of that. Even if the scans come back clean, I also want a neurologist to evaluate you."

"And keep logging everything. The level of detail you brought today is excellent. If you can keep that up, it'll help both of us. Come back with your results in 15 days. That follow-up will be free of charge. Any questions?"

I ask her about the snake. Why didn't she ask me anything about it?

She says, "I'm only interested in the snake to the extent that it affects you. If it's not disturbing your life, the details of it aren't relevant to me. According to you, the snake only bothered you when you got close to it, right? Then just don't get close again."

Her answer feels surprisingly neutral. Not dismissive, not patronizing, just practical. It makes sense. From her perspective, the content of the hallucination is secondary to its impact. She's trying to diagnose me, not trying to decode the snake's secrets.

I further ask where she thinks I should get the MRI, and whether she has a neurologist to recommend. After she answers, I pay her, we say goodbye, and I leave.

Driving home, I think about how professional she was. Well, aside from judging how late I lost my virginity, she was great. She listened closely, never needed me to repeat myself, and seemed to just get everything right away. She explained everything clearly, I didn't know reduced affect display was a term, but it makes sense. I always thought my emotional neutrality was just how I was. And in some sense, it is. But I hadn't realized it was so closely tied to schizophrenia, she said it was kind of a risk factor.

In any case, I liked her. I like people who do their jobs well. This was my first time using a psychiatrist, I'd never really needed one before, but I can see why people find it helpful. When someone actually listens, when they care about the structure of your life... it feels good to talk. Everyone likes talking about themselves.

When I get home, I book the brain MRI. They have a slot available tomorrow. I spend the rest of the day coding.

The next morning, I wake up and look at the snake. It's still there, same spot as always, right by the edge of the sidewalk, looking up at me. I get the MRI done, drive around a bit for fun, then head back home.

I spend the next three days inside, working. I go out only for groceries. On the third night, I order food instead. When it arrives, I go downstairs, open both glass doors, take the bag, and say thank you.

Then I turn back to go in, but I notice something.

The snake.

At first, I'm not sure what draws my attention. But when I glance again and actually focus, it clicks. The snake is closer.

When I first tested how it worked out here, it was just behind a tree. Now it's a few meters in front of it.

Could it be getting closer, slowly? That would explain a lot. Why the guy who passed it to me looked so weary, tired, why he was frantic. Having something like that get closer and closer to you...

If it is getting closer, then I'm on a fixed countdown. But how fast is it moving? Oh, fuck, if only I'd measured the original distance. I should at least measure how far away it is right now.

I go back to the apartment, grab a tape measure and, like an insane person, start measuring from the front door to the tree where the snake first appeared. I do it three times to be sure. The distance comes out just over 30 meters. The snake is now about 26 meters away. That means it moved five meters in five days. I could conclude that it's moving one meter per day. But I need to know how. Does it move all at once? Or slowly over time?

There's another issue. From my apartment window, I can't see it getting closer. There's a road between us, and the snake avoids roads, so from that angle, it always looks stationary. I got lucky that I spotted it now, in a place I recognized. I could've gone many more days without realizing it was slithering forward.

I decide to wait outside until midnight. It's the cleanest cutoff point for a day, but there's another candidate, the time I got the curse on the first day, which was around 6pm. It's 8pm now, and the snake is still five meters away. If it moves one meter per day at 6pm, it should already be six meters away. Since it's not, maybe midnight is the true reset point.

While I wait, I also test whether it moves gradually. If it's a continuous process, then in four hours it should've advanced about 20 centimeters. I remeasure every hour, hoping to see a small change. But from this distance, it's hard to tell if it's five centimeters closer or not, there's too much noise in the measuring itself.

But the problem solves itself at midnight. Just like that, the snake moves. It slithers one meter forward, hissing, eyes locked onto me. I have 25 days left.

Chapter 3 - The Park

I can't sleep, and I need to think. Walking is good for ideas, so I head to the nearby park. There are always people exercising there, even this late. And it's Friday, so it's busier than usual. For midnight, that is.

As I walk, I try to think from scratch. The guy who passed the curse to me followed a specific script. He baited me into following him. He was probably desperate, and driving recklessly was likely one of his last resorts. But what exactly did he do to pass it?

I followed him, but I didn't just follow him, I did it willingly. He didn't ask, pay, or convince me. If the curse could be passed through coercion or rewards, he wouldn't have needed to bait people in traffic. It's such a low-probability plan, he got lucky I was there at all.

He shouted it would take 20 minutes. Did I follow him for that long? Yea, probably. About 15 down the favela road, then five more before the confrontation. So it's safe to assume the target has to follow the bearer for at least 20 minutes, and then, to pass it, you touch the target and say the line.

This is a reasonable assumption. And in fact, it's one I can test right now.

As I walk, I spot a guy sitting on a bench. He looks younger than me, maybe around 25 years old. He gives me a fairly long look.

I mentioned before that some people think I have a scary face, maybe 10 to 20 percent of the population. To them, it looks aggressive, ugly, off-putting. But about 5 to 10 percent see me as extremely handsome. Personally, I don't see it, I don't find myself attractive at all. But I can't deny reality. When I'm outside, it's fair to say that maybe about 1 in 15 people stare at me too long.

Sometimes I'm not interested in anyone. The switch flips off, and it can stay like that for years. But every few years, it flips back on. For a few months, I get insanely horny. Horny enough to fuck anything with a hole.

When I'm in that state, I just approach anyone I find attractive who gives me that look. I want to fuck, they like my face, so why not? It's way easier to have success with guys like that, so I end up fucking more guys than girls. But if someone thinks you're pretty, as long as you're not a complete retard, something almost always happens.

I think one of those phases is starting again. I've been weirdly into it for a few days now. Maybe the curse is getting to me. I'm not the type to get stressed, but maybe this situation's severe enough that I need to relax. And I need people to test the snake on, so I might as well.

Attempt 1

"Hey, top or bottom?" I say as I approach him.

He looks startled at first, but it quickly morphs into a smile. "Bottom. Are y---"

"We're a match made in heaven! I'm really horny right now, and I live in that building." I point to it. A tall, lone building about three blocks away. "Wanna have some fun?"

He looks at me with judging and curious eyes, like he can't believe I'm being this direct. But the smile never leaves his face. He waits a beat, then says, "Sure. I was just finishing my walk. But I haven't prepared, so I can't take it in the ass, is that fine?"

"Yea, that's fine, we can just fool around a bit. How about this, I was just finishing my walk too, so why don't we walk for about 20 minutes more and then head over?"

He nods and starts walking with me. I make sure I'm always the one leading. It'd be weird to ask him to follow strictly from behind, so for this test I'll just assume the curse allows some wiggle room. I don't know if that's true, but it'll have to do for now.

During those 20 minutes, we talk. He's from another city, staying at a friend's place. On Mondays and Fridays he works at a nearby restaurant. His shift runs from six to eleven, sometimes later, since he often helps close up. It explains why he's walking now.

He's very talkative. I ask questions, and he replies endlessly. He says his ex cheated on him. I've always found it weird how common cheating is now. No one respects each other anymore. And with gay guys, it seems to be worse. I tell him as much. He agrees, says his ex didn't even break up with him, he just saw Instagram photos with the new guy.

He's named after an angel and was raised in a religious home. They didn't accept him being gay, his mom especially. He was kicked out after turning 18. But last year, his dad died in a car crash. He was only 56. After that, he says, his mom changed. Maybe she realized how short life is and started reaching out again. They've met a few times, and it's been better, but not perfect. When they talk, they both avoid the touchy subject.

People's lives are fascinating. Everyone's carrying something like this all the time. I'm also surprised at how open he is, considering we just met. So I tell him my dad died last year too. Turns out both our dads died a month apart. I say mine went peacefully, over 90 years old, had me at 60, was bedridden for the last three years, so it was less of a shock.

But then my mom died too, only a few months later. It's common with older couples that when one goes, the other soon follows. But she wasn't nearly as old as him, so it shocked me more. I don't tell him about this, it'd feel too much like trauma-dumping.

After that, we move on to smaller topics. He asks what I do for work, I answer, then he talks about his. Working at a restaurant sounds hectic, but I'm not really listening. I guess I think about how it could be turned into a game, a few existing ones come to mind.

Eventually, we talk about sex. He asks me if I'm always this direct. I tell him not always, he's the first I've approached like this in maybe a year. But I get these phases where I'm just insanely horny. During those, yea, I'm that direct.

I ask how often he hooks up like this. He says not much, maybe once a month, if that. I ask if he's on PrEP, if he gets tested, if he takes care of himself. He says yes, injection PrEP, regular tests. He asks me the same. I tell him I'm not on PrEP, but that I haven't had sex in a while and my last tests were clean. Then he goes on about his ex again, about how he gave him gonorrhea, that's how he found out he was being cheated on.

He talks about the gay scene here, says people are way more open. Where he's from, a smaller city, the scene barely exists. He went to a party once where one room was a full-on orgy, just people fucking everywhere. He was shocked, both positively and negatively.

I don't like parties, I've never liked that kind of environment. But it doesn't surprise me that gay bars are that. These people are always doing degenerate shit. I say that to him and ask if he ever uses the apps, grindr especially. He says he doesn't, he prefers meeting in real life. Says you never know who you're talking to on these apps.

So he's kind of a paranoid-head like me too, cool. We're about 15 minutes into the walk, five from my building. I head that way. We make some more small talk, then we're there. Twenty minutes have passed exactly, I prepare to strike.

In front of my building, without warning, I grab him by the shoulders and say, "It follows you now!"

I look at the snake. It's standing in front of the usual tree. Nothing happens. I break eye contact with it, then look back. It changes.

Its outline is glowing with an almost electric bright green. Its shape looks thinner now. Its body seems to be made of moving strands, like light folding over itself in loops. There's no skin, just this recursive motion. I could watch it for hours. Inside its head, something glows. I can't tell if it's an eye or just a point of light.

I think about getting closer for a better look, but then I notice him. He's staring at me, thoroughly confused. I stop touching him and half-smile.

"Sorry, that was a bit weird, wasn't it? It's just something I do before bringing anyone over. It's like a tic. I get if you think it's too weird and you don't want to come in."

Even though I'm horny, I don't need him to come up. I've already done my test and gotten a good result. If he leaves now, it's fine. Plus, it's a reasonable excuse. Everyone's a little weird sometimes, right?

But I already know how he's going to react. When people think you're attractive, you can get away with almost anything. You have a lot of freedom to act in weird or unexpected ways, they just let you do it. Weirdness becomes charm. They read it as mystery, like you're some riddle they need to solve. So how will this guy react? He'll feign being weirded out, but he'll come up anyway.

He gives me a playful, mock-suspicious look. "Yeah, that's a bit weird."

I head upstairs, and he follows. The moment we're inside, we're all over each other. I take his shirt off and go for his neck. There's a subclass of white guys who have this smell I'm obsessed with. It's... kind of sweet, and divine. He's one of them. His natural body odor, his sweat, it smells so good. I can't get enough of it.

He drops his pants. I take off my shirt and pants, and we head to the bed in my bedroom. Just as I'm about to sit down, he stops me and stares at me with consuming eyes. "You're so pretty."

Yes, I know. It's not unusual for guys who think I'm attractive to think I'm really attractive. Again, I don't see what they see. I'm not some chiseled Greek statue type. I do have an imposing build, and I take care of my face with some grooming, facial creams, skin upkeep, but nothing that explains reactions like this. It happens often enough that I've stopped questioning it.

His face isn't his best feature. Not ugly, but not super pretty either. I'd give it a 7 or 7.5, tops. But his body makes up for it completely. He has that perfect softness: not fat, not skinny, not shredded. Just enough fat around his chest and belly to make them feel just right. His thighs are thick in a way that feels perfect to grab. And his ass... a perfect bubble-butt. A hidden one, too, I didn't notice it when we were walking. His body is a 10 to me.

I sit down. He drops to his knees at the edge of the bed. I tell him to grab the two cushions on the floor for his knees, if he wants. I keep them here for this exact situation. He pulls down my underwear.

Guys from grindr rarely react much. They've seen the pics, they know what they're getting into. But guys or girls from real life? There's always a pause, some kind of reaction.

I got lucky with the first guy I hooked up with, he was also a virgin. The first few times we tried having sex were really awkward. I'd try to go in, but it'd hurt him too much. The first time, I was too excited and pushed in thoughtlessly. He recoiled immediately and let out an actual guttural scream. I went soft instantly. The pain made him want to stop. That same pattern repeated over the next few encounters, just slow, careful attempts until it wouldn't hurt him as much.

I looked it up, and I read on reddit that it was normal. First times are awkward, some people are just more sensitive and need lots of preparation. That's what I thought for the longest time. Then, one day, a few months later, he comes up to me with a tape measure and goes, "Get hard right now." Naturally, I get hard instantly on command, as all men surely can do... He helps me, then measures.

My cock isn't long. It's just over 15 centimeters, or around 6 inches. I think that's average for the country I live in. But the girth... He measured it at just over 15 centimeters too. Since my hands are big and my fingers are long, it never felt thick to me. It did feel big against his hands or face, but I thought that was normal because he was small.

But apparently, that's not normal at all. Google says my girth puts me in the top 1% worldwide. I couldn't believe it, but he measured and remeasured. No wonder it took him a while to adjust. And no wonder he liked sex with me so much. It's a nice thing to learn about yourself.

And so this guy takes my cock out and gives it the horniest look I've ever seen. Then he goes down on it like his life depends on it. Ah, it always feels so go--- he doesn't seem very experienced, actually. After a few minutes, I decide to be more active.

I've got a reliable way to test how experienced a guy is at sucking cock. I get up, tell him to sit against the bed on the floor, then I stand in front of him. My cock lines up with his face, he only has to look up slightly. From this angle, even pros can struggle. It's easily my favorite position for a facefuck.

I start fucking his face and... well, as I imagined, he's not that experienced. He can barely take half of it without choking. And my cock isn't even that long. Honestly, I prefer guys like this. There's something satisfying about training someone, slowly opening them up.

I facefuck him for maybe a minute, and it's clear that if I keep going he's going to throw up, so I stop. No reason to push him too far today. I sit on the bed and let him go at his own pace. I get curious about how experienced he is at bottoming too. I'm not going to fuck him, he isn't prepared, but his ass isn't exactly off-limits.

I tell him to get on the bed and keep sucking, but in a way that lets me have access to his ass. It's soft, really soft. I can't get over how nice it feels. I keep grabbing it over and over. Then, I tell him to bend over so I can get a proper look at his hole.

The more cock a guy takes, the more his asshole changes. I've noticed two main types. One kind just gets bigger but stays round. You can usually tell how much cock he's taken just from the resting size. But the other type stretches into a vertical, pussy-like slit. If you see that on a guy, you can be sure he's taken kilometers of cock.

It's particularly jarring when you see it on kids barely in their 20s. It tends to happen with the really cute ones. Some people say it's genetic, that some guys are just born with that slit shape. But I've personally never met a slit-holed guy who wasn't also a huge slut.

This guy's asshole, though? A perfect, tight, round, little hole. Pristine. Pink. Is he a virgin? He had an ex, and he's on PrEP, so no. But damn, I wouldn't be able to tell from his hole alone, that's how tight he is. I cannot believe my luck sometimes. I need to make sure he becomes a regular, I want to stretch him out so bad.

He keeps sucking me for a few more minutes, and I'm about to cum. I tell him and ask if he'll swallow. He nods. Most guys, to avoid catching anything, either don't swallow or let you cum in their mouth but run to the bathroom to spit it out right after. Some will swallow because they just don't care. I try to avoid repeat encounters with those. If they're careless with me, they're careless with others. Then there are guys like this one. They're on PrEP. They know the risks are lower, so they swallow.

I cum a thick load in his mouth. He swallows and keeps sucking me with that slutty face. I don't have a refractory period, so I stay hard. I tell him, and say he can keep going if he wants. He does for about 10 more minutes, but eventually gets tired. The second load usually takes longer, so I take the lead again.

I tell him to stand up and face the window, with his ass out. I slide behind him, press my cock between his thighs, and tell him to close his legs. Then I start fucking them. His ass slapping against me feels so good I lose myself a bit. He does too and starts moving with me, trying to match my rhythm. I think I really like this guy. And when I like someone, I get a little, uh... possessive. So I kiss his neck and make sure to leave some marks. He needs to be mine.

After a few minutes, I'm about to cum again. I'm hard as a rock. He is too. I'm touching him everywhere, nipples, belly, cock, balls. Kissing his neck, ears, mouth. I tell him I'm about to cum, and he starts moving faster. And faster, and faster, and faster. And then... we both cum. He lets out a loud "ah!" We stand there for a few seconds, then fall onto the bed kissing.

We spend maybe 30 more minutes just kissing and touching each other. He wants me to cum again, but I tell him the third time takes too long and it's late, we should save it for another day. He reluctantly agrees.

He goes to the bathroom to clean himself up. I wipe some cum off the floor. He gets dressed. We exchange numbers. I ask if he wants a ride home, but he says he lives about five minutes away on foot, so it's not necessary.

Usually after encounters like this, I wait about a week before texting again, any earlier feels needy. People can be weird about that, so a week seems safe, maybe too safe. But it's what I tend to do.

This guy, though, I like him. Really like him. I want him to be a regular, so I should ask now. Just to get a feel for whether he liked it as much as I did. If he did, he'd suggest a time. If he didn't, he'd be vague and stall. Say something about needing to check his schedule, that kind of thing.

I ask him when he's free again. He immediately says two days from now, since it'll be Sunday. Yes! That means he liked it. I tell him I'm free too, and suggest we meet in the evening instead of at night. I normally sleep by 10 and wake up around five or six in the morning, so tonight was a rare exception.

Before leaving, he stops and gives me a long and passionate kiss. We say our goodbyes and he leaves. I head to bed. That night, I sleep with a permanent smile on my face.

The next morning, I wake up. I look out the window, and reality hits me again. The snake hisses.

It still looks green, even brighter in daylight. I can see clearly now that its entire body is made of light. Thin green-yellow filaments twist in constant motion, wrapping and unwrapping around an invisible spine. The light moves in loops, recursive, coiling around itself. At the center of its head floats a single ring of light. I guess that's its eye.

The fact that it changed after I tried to pass the curse means something. It likely counts as an attempt every time I say, "It follows you now!" to someone. I should test it more. What would happen if I just walked up to someone and said it?

I shower and get ready to go outside. It's a beautiful Saturday morning, the park should be busy.

Attempt 2

I scan the park, looking for someone who has the right face. Someone calm, not easily annoyed. Someone who won't make a scene if I grab them. Eventually, I spot a guy. An older man, probably in his 50s. He looks cheerful enough. As he walks past, I step in front of him, grab him by the shoulders and say, "It follows you now!"

I wait a second, then turn to check the snake. It's changed again. But this time, it's reverted to its original state. No glow, no light. Just a normal, huge-ass snake.

The state change means it counted as a valid attempt. But whatever conditions are needed for the curse transfer to succeed, this interaction likely met none of them. If I had to guess, the one from yesterday worked because he followed me, however loosely, for the full 20 minutes. I should try to get the snake into that state again.

Attempt 3

I scan for someone new. This one doesn't need a calm face, he just needs to look broke. Most people here don't, this is a relatively nice neighborhood. But eventually I find a guy who looks out of place. Not homeless, just off. He's got that vague, you know, "I'm poor" kind of look.

I approach him cautiously and say, "Hey man, sorry to bother you. Would you like to make some money?"

He turns and looks me over, calmly scanning me up and down. "I'm not a faggot. Get lost, man."

What the hell, how could he tell? Nothing about me reads as gay. I'm dressed like a normal guy. I don't have a gay face, or a gay lisp. I guess some guys just have a sixth sense for these things.

"Oh, don't worry about it, that's not it. I'll pay you 200 bucks if you just walk behind me for 20 minutes. That's all you have to do. I'll walk around the park, you walk a few paces behind me. You don't have to talk to me, or do anything other than follow me. What do you say?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Two hundred bucks? And all I have to do is walk? What's the catch?"

"There's no catch." I take out my phone, open my banking app, and show him the balance, a few thousand bucks. "See? I can pay you 50 right now, and then 150 when we're done. Does that sound good?"

He nods and gives me his email, which is his transaction key. I send the 50 and start walking. I check behind me often, expecting him to bail, but he doesn't. When the 20 minutes are up, I turn and walk toward him. I reach for his shoulders, but he flinches away. "What the fuck?" he says.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything. I just need to say something to you while holding your shoulders. If you want the 150 bucks, I need to do this."

"Aw, hell no! I ain't kissing you or whatever. I told you, I'm not a faggot. It's been 20 minutes. Send me the 150 already."

I could force it and grab him, he's smaller than me, but I have a better idea. What if I don't need contact at all? What if just saying the words while aiming them at the target is enough?

I stand a few steps back, look at him, and say, "It follows you now!"

I wait a second, then look at the snake. It's changed again. I need to go check it in more detail.

But first, I pull out my phone, send the guy his 150. "Thanks," I say. He glances at his screen, doesn't reply, and walks away.

I walk up to the snake. Its skin isn't rough or scaled, it's smooth, almost liquid-looking, but solid. Its color is a dark, glossy red, like dried blood. As I move, the surface reflects me in distorted ways. I circle it slowly. It doesn't turn or react. Just my reflection, bending differently with every step.

As I walk, I replay the three attempts. One failed, two succeeded. The failed one had no interaction. No contact, no following, so the snake went back to its original state. The two successful ones both involved being followed, but the outcomes were different. #1 followed willingly, but walked beside me. #3 followed from behind, but I paid him. I touched #1, didn't touch #3.

It seems clear that there are three variables: willing or paid, alongside or behind, touch or no touch. I need to map all the combinations as a truth table so I can think. I can't conjure up the image in my head, so I head to a nearby bar. I ask the guy at the counter if he has a pen and some paper I can borrow. He does, and hands them over. I order a drink, sit down, and start drawing the truth table.

Willing or Paid	Alongside or Behind	Touch or not	Snake State
T	T	T	Green
T	T	F	?
T	F	T	?
T	F	F	?
F	T	T	?
F	T	F	?
F	F	T	?
F	F	F	Red

Three binary variables, eight possible combinations. T means true, F means false. First column: willing (T) or paid (F). Second column: alongside (T) or behind (F). Third column: touch (T) or not (F). I mark what I know: #1 was TTT, Green Snake. #3 was FFF, Red Snake. Everything else is blank. I don't need to fill all the rows, just enough data points to rule out which variables matter, and which don't.

Thinking logically, paying someone to follow probably doesn't work, otherwise, the original bearer wouldn't have needed to resort to baiting people in traffic. So red likely means an incomplete follow. Some conditions met, but not all, it's weaker than green.

Touch is the easiest variable to isolate, so I'll test it first. I'll replicate #1's conditions: a willing follower walking alongside me, but at the end, I won't touch them. I'll just say it from a distance. That gives me TTF. If the snake goes green, then touch isn't required. If it goes red, then touch is likely what makes the difference.

Another possible test: pay someone to follow me for 20 minutes, but make sure to touch them at the end. That gives me FFT. If the snake turns green, touch is likely required. If it stays red, then touch isn't the deciding factor between both states.

I finish my drink and head outside.

Attempt 4

I scan again. Anyone who seems approachable. An older woman catches my eye. She seems friendly enough and gives me a particularly long look. No, I am not going to fuck her. It just gives me an opening to start the interaction.

"Hey, sorry to bother you. But can I ask you something weird?"

"Oh, my, I was just looking your way. You're such a handsome young man, aren't you?"

"Thank you so much for the compliment. You look very friendly yourself," I say. She giggles. "You're exercising here, right? I'm exercising too. Would you like to walk for about 20 minutes with me? I like walking with someone else, but my walking partner didn't come today."

"Why, yes, dear. Let's go!" She walks up and links her arm with mine. "Now, tell me about yourself. You got a girlfriend?"

We start walking, I make sure to lead. She's very talkative and inquisitive. I answer all her questions truthfully, even if most of what she says doesn't interest me. But she's joyous and energetic. And unlike most older ladies, she doesn't hog the conversation. For whatever reason, people sometimes see my face as kind or approachable, so I end up in these situations, old ladies treating me like I'm their son, rambling at me in parks or supermarkets.

After exactly 20 minutes, I distance myself from her and say, "It follows you now!" I wait a second, then turn to the snake. Its skin is green again, with its recursive, hypnotic patterns.

So touch doesn't determine the difference between green and red. It probably isn't required at all. I should move on to the next test, the one that gives me FFT.

Attempt 5

I scan the park again. This time, not necessarily someone poor, but not someone already walking either. I need someone who looks idle, like the first guy I paid. I want the variables to match as closely as possible.

Two guys turn me down. I decide there's no point looking for someone with the right face. I just approach the next guy who's alone and doing nothing.

"Hey, if I pay you 200 bucks, will you walk behind me for 20 minutes? You don't have to do anything, just walk, and by the end I'll pay you." I show him my bank account.

"Sure," he says, and immediately gets up.

Well, that was weirdly easy. He walks behind me for 20 minutes. I turn, grab him, and say, "It follows you now!" He doesn't resist. Maybe he's bored, and this is the highlight of his week. He'll tell his friends about the weird guy at the park, laugh, and move on. I pay him, he says thanks, and leaves.

The snake changes back to its red mirroring state, which means touch isn't the deciding factor. Both paid attempts turned it red, but both were also from behind. Tsk. I now see my mistake. I should've had this guy walk alongside me instead, as that would've isolated that variable too.

If I'm making mistakes like this, I need to slow down and think through my next attempts more carefully. Noon's approaching, and I'm getting hungry. I head back to my apartment.

When I reach the front door, I check the snake. It's still in its red mirroring state, but it's closer. Last night it was 25 meters away, near a tree. Now it's clearly advanced, though I can't tell by how much.

I go inside, grab the tape measure, and come back out to check the distance. A few people passing by give me looks.

Twenty meters. I've just finished five attempts. That likely means the snake moves one meter closer per attempt. If that's true, I need to be more efficient. Each attempt has to give me as much information as possible. Like in Wordle, where you use broad guesses early to narrow the search space.

I also start thinking about how the snake moves. There are two main possibilities. One: each attempt causes the daily movement, and the snake won't move again that day unless I make another attempt. If that's true, I need to do at least one attempt a day, or I'll waste my resources.

The second possibility: the snake moves one meter daily no matter what, and each attempt also brings it one more meter closer. If that's true, then I'm just fucked.

I'll find out which is true by midnight.

I wait until then without making another attempt. Just before it strikes, I head to the front door. I look at the snake. Midnight hits. It doesn't move. I glance away, then back. It hasn't moved. At last, a sigh of relief.

So I have five idle days now. If I keep doing attempts during that time, I'll just be cutting my time short. I need to think hard about what each next attempt will be. I need to extract as much information from them as possible.

Chapter 4 - Zero to One

I wake up and log everything. Each attempt, its details, the way the snake looked, what we talked about. Everything matters until I can be sure it doesn't. The current truth table looks like this:

Willing or Paid	Alongside or Behind	Touch or not	Snake State
T	T	T	Green
T	T	F	Green
T	F	T	?
T	F	F	?
F	T	T	?
F	T	F	?
F	F	T	Red
F	F	F	Red

The only conclusion I can reach is that touch doesn't decide the snake's state. Willing or alongside generates green. Paid or behind generates red. This means I need to isolate one variable: either willing vs. paid, or alongside vs. behind.

To confirm if willingness generates green, I need someone to follow me willingly and from behind. That would give me the states for TFT and TFF. If the snake turns green, willingness is the deciding factor. If it turns red, then either alongside is the deciding factor for green, or behindness is the deciding factor for red.

The snake turning red yielding two possible outcomes makes me reconsider this plan. That makes the test too ambiguous. I need cleaner tests, ones that give me more information. I need an attempt that isolates position directly.

I think through my options and land on one idea: the internet. Does following need to happen in physical space, or can it happen online? I already know it doesn't have to be a strict from-behind follow for it to register. But if the rule is broader and allows command-following, then it widens the search space for future attempts.

So I need to get someone to chat with me online and follow my instructions for 20 minutes. If the snake turns green, then position doesn't matter, and "follow" has a broader definition. If it turns red... uh, I need to control for willingness? Yea, that makes sense. A red result on a willing chat means position still matters, but... it has the same ambiguity as the first test. A red result from a paid chat confirms that paid always generates red. But if a paid chat turns green, the model breaks.

Hm, both of these tests seem promising. In the positive scenario, they expand the model and unlock more options for future attempts. In the negative scenario, they might still have some ambiguity, or they break the model decisively and force me to reset. I prefer the positive scenario, obviously, but a possible clean reset is also progress.

I realize I've spent the entire morning thinking this through, and that I need to shower for the meetup with #1.

Evening comes and #1 comes up. He smells freshly showered, but his scent still comes through. That sweet, divine smell. It alone makes me hard. We're already kissing and undressing as we head to my bedroom.

We agreed over text not to use condoms, as we're both clean and showed each other as much. I bend him over the bed, get the lube and apply it to my cock and his asshole. Then, I slowly go in.

My cock's thickest right after the head, but the head alone surprises him and makes him flinch. I keep pushing in, slowly. Eventually, half my cock is inside him. He's moving, adjusting, moaning softly. I keep going. As my cock is almost fully in, it hits the spot. His head drops to the bed, and he lets out a sharp "ah!"

I fully insert myself and wait, giving him time to get used to it. But he asks me to stop because it hurts too much. This repeats for the next 20 minutes. I swap between using my fingers, inserting myself slowly and staying in without moving for increasing amounts of time.

Eventually, it seems okay to thrust. I do so and... ah, it always feels so good. His hole is so warm and tight. I close my eyes and look up, focusing on the feeling. He keeps moaning. After about a minute, I'm about to cum. I tell him. Usually I last longer, but he's super tight, the pressure is insane. Since I don't need to wait to recover, the first load coming this fast isn't an issue.

After thirty more seconds of thrusting, I cum. As I finish, I look down. That's when I see it. Blood! Blood everywhere! My cock is slightly bloody, and some drops seem to have hit the sheets below. I take my cock out and ask, "Dude, are you OK?" His face is down on the bed. He turns it slightly, and I can see his cheeks and eyes are red. Fuck.

I tell him to stay put while I grab some toilet paper and a towel. I clean us both up. Then I lie down next to him.

I ask, "Why didn't you say anything?"

He says, "Sorry... It didn't hurt much at first, but it started to later. And then you said you were about to cum... I didn't want to ruin it." He pauses, looking embarrassed, then adds, "I also didn't want to disappoint you. I haven't had sex in a while and... I didn't want you to..."

"It's okay. You don't have to tell me everything now." I hug him and kiss his forehead.

We spend a few moments in silence, hugging. Then he says, "I haven't had sex in a while and my hole was too tight. I saw how thick your cock was and it'd hurt too much as it was, so I spent yesterday trying to prepare, but I guess I overdid it."

That makes sense. He's not the first guy to tell me he prepared with toys beforehand. But he's the first I've made bleed. And the way he handled it was also... so cute. I might actually fall in love with him.

"It's okay. You really should have told me, though. You got lucky it was with me. Someone else might not care you were bleeding, some might even enjoy it."

I pause. I have a tendency to take things too far, then panic when I realize I've said the wrong thing. 'Some people might enjoy making you bleed,' great, what a wonderful thing to say to someone. I scramble for a save.

"Bleeding like that can build up over time. If you're not careful, you can end up with permanent problems, like pain, loss of control, and just things that don't heal right. You don't want that."

He looks neutral. I can't tell if he already knows this or if it's new information. Not everyone appreciates when I launch into infodump lecture mode. I take a risk and ask, "Do you want me to be more specific?"

"Yes," he says.

"I've met guys who were too slutty for too long and their holes stretched too much. Some lost sensation in the area, others lost control. They'd poop themselves sometimes, basically. That's what can happen."

He looks shocked. So he didn't know it. People really don't know about it, huh? I add, "It's not common. It doesn't happen to everyone. But it can happen. You don't have to worry, though, we can make sure that you won't bleed like this again."

"How many guys have you had sex with before?" he asks.

That's a good question. I don't like lying in situations like this, but I honestly don't know. I've had six or seven horny grindr arcs before. In most, I met 10 to 20 guys. Over half of the encounters didn't involve penetration. Some of those phases also included regulars, which reduces the total count.

If I had to guess the total number of meetups, it would be between 50 and 100. I can't say if it's closer to 50 or 100, so many encounters are so unmemorable, it's as if they never happened. I'd guess it's closer to 50. A hundred feels too high, even if I'm forgetting a lot. Based on that, penetrative encounters are probably slightly under half. So like, between 20 and 40? That feels right.

"I don't know for sure, but maybe between 20 and 40, probably closer to 20." I can see a faint hint of disgust on his face. Not good. I wonder if it's because 20 is too high, or because the range is too wide. Either way, I'd rather be honest than lie.

"I'm being honest. I told you the other day sometimes I just get really horny, and you saw how direct I can be... so it just happens." I try to defend myself. "But it's 100% true that I haven't met up with anyone in about a year, and you're the first since then. I also really like you, so if we keep meeting like this, I won't need to go for anyone else."

He looks at me for a few seconds, then kisses me. I get hard again, he notices. "Wanna go again?"

"No. Your ass needs to recover. You shouldn't put anything in there for a few days. You'll probably have some pain while pooping for the first few days too."

We keep kissing and touching. I can't get enough of his smell, his saliva has that same divine sweetness to it. I want him to smear it all over my face, to drench me in it, to bathe me in it until I'm soaked. I want him to let it drip into my mouth, to spit it down my throat, to keep going until I'm full of him. I don't say any of this, it'd be too weird this early, but that's what I want.

Eventually we're just spooning. He's partly resting on my arm, and it's getting tired, but it's okay. He fell asleep a while ago. I'm not sleepy, so I just keep watching him. He's so cute. He's so so so so cute. His skin is so smooth. His smell is so perfect. His eyes, his ears, his cheeks, his neck, everything. It's all perfect. I'm....

I tear up. I can't believe I have him here like this. He's mine. All mine. I'm... this isn't good. I get too attached too fast.

For the next few days, I can't do much. #1 needs time to recover, so I can't meet up with him. And I can't make any new attempts, since that will decrease the time I have left. So I rethink my next steps. The online attempts still seem like the best path forward. I also prepare in case the good outcome is true. If "following" includes following instructions, I already know exactly what my next attempts will entail.

Attempt 6 --- Thursday, 20 meters

When the day comes, I get ready for the first online attempt. It's an unpaid one. There's a guy I've been talking to on Discord for a couple of years. After SNKRX came out, people started messaging me with questions, and I always respond to the best of my ability, but I try to signal that I don't enjoy chatting over DMs. I'm never rude about it, but most people get a clue quickly.

I don't like interacting with people on Discord, I don't have a server for myself as a developer either, because... well, I mentioned I get horny sometimes. So why would I put myself in regular contact with a bunch of 20-year-olds online, while in a position of power over them? Or if not power, at least influence? I know myself well enough to know that kind of dynamic wouldn't end well.

So I usually avoid long private conversations like this. But this one guy, he never got a clue. Or rather, I think he got it, he just didn't care. Even when I didn't reply, he'd send a new message every week or so, always trying to restart the conversation. Most of it focused on my blog posts. He clearly thought I was smart and wanted to engage more with my ideas.

One day I was feeling unusually open, so I indulged him and tried to have a real conversation with him. It was... great, actually. He was fairly smart and perceptive himself. After that, we started talking more. From my blog posts to gamedev, games, philosophy, politics, personality, online group behavior, astrology, music. Then random tweets and videos. Eventually, our personal lives. These days, we talk about pretty much anything.

I'm not sure I'd consider him a friend. We've never met, and it's hard to think of pixels as friends, they might not even be a real person. He lives in Sweden. If I ever went there, we'd meet for sure. But more important is why he talks to me: he thinks I'm smart. I don't mind it, it's just... this always happens. People are always drawn to me or repelled by me, and always in an extreme way. There's no middle ground. My face, my mind, my personality, how I act, there's no neutral reaction.

I can't say I have no fault in it. I, myself, tend to be binary with people. Either zero or one. Within five minutes of talking to someone, I know whether or not I enjoy being around them. For most people, I feel nothing, no interest, no emotional connection, I'm a zero towards them.

I've tried to test if this is something that can be changed. Some people say they grow into liking people over time. I'm not like that, at all. No matter how much I try, my first impressions tend to hold.

And naturally, all the people who like me are the ones who I'm zero about. And the ones I'm one about rarely feel the same. It's not like I have super high standards either. The only common trait among people I enjoy is intelligence, I think it's fair to want to be around people at least as smart as you.

Also, when I say I have zero emotional connection to people I don't like, it's not like I would torture, rape or murder them without remorse. Obviously, I'm not a sociopath, I have empathy! It's just that, you know, I just don't like being around them. Yet, for some reason, they seem drawn to me anyway.

Sometimes it makes for interesting interactions, like with this guy. I can't really say I'm one towards him. Sometimes I joke that I could start a cult if I wanted to, I actually believe that. I'm not going to, of course, I have no interest in manipulating people like that.

Or, if I were roleplaying as cult-me: "I have no interest in helping people that way. I'm too selfish for it." Still, I'd keep talking to them. "Helping" them. Eventually they'd ask, "If you don't like helping people, why are you helping me?" Ah, yes. "You... there's something special about you. You are..." Then I'd switch into chatbot mode and tell them just how special they are based on all our previous conversations. And they'd be amazed at how thoughtful, perceptive, and honest I am... yes. Actually doing that would probably be intellectually interesting, and somewhat sexually gratifying, I just don't have it in me to spend time around people I don't like.

But the cult buff enabled me to do things like this:

adn: hey, im going to ask you something weird. i need you to talk to me for 20 minutes, without any interruptions, and for you to follow my instructions while doing so. ill need you to have your cam enabled, i can also enable mine if you want. im not gonna ask you to do anything weird, or embarrassing, or sexual, or anything like that. just real dumb shit like put your hand up in front of the camera with 2 fingers up, shoe on head. its important that you have a stretch of 20 minutes where youll be sure you wont be interrupted by anything. i know this sounds weird, but if you have any questions just ask

A few minutes later, he replies. He has no problem doing it, but wants to know why. I think about giving a short version of the story, but he'd probably just say it sounds like I'm having a psychotic break, while still agreeing to help. I decide against it. It's possible that explaining the curse introduces another variable to the problem. I need this experiment to match the others as closely as possible.

So I lie. He asks if this is just a weird, roundabout way for me to find out what he looks like. I say no. He agrees, but asks me to have my cam on, he's curious about what I look like too.

I used to hide my face online. My looks are divisive, and I didn't want people projecting that onto my works, I saw it as unnecessary noise. But I've come to conclude that trying to control people's reactions to my works is a mistake. So if people know what I look like, it shouldn't matter. I am a human being. I have a face. It is what it is. If he leaks a picture of me, I'll stop talking to him, but it won't be a big deal. I tell him as much.

About an hour later, when he said his mom would leave, we start. I'm surprised by his looks. He's... really cute. We talk like we usually do, but it's a bit awkward. We both have accents speaking English. Mine isn't terrible, he understands me fine. I've been taking some classes to improve it, I super don't like how it sounds. His isn't bad either. Still, it takes a few minutes to stop feeling weird. Every minute or so, I tell him to do something simple that I can see on camera.

When the 20 minutes are up, I say, "It follows you now!" I wait a second, then go to the window to check the snake. Green! Yes. That confirms two things: position doesn't matter, and following includes following instructions. Maybe other kinds of following count too. This simplifies everything.

I thank #6 and end the call.

Attempt 7 --- Friday, 19 meters

The next day, I prepare for the second online attempt. I'd already done the setup a few days earlier. I searched fiverr for people who'd be willing to chat with me and follow my instructions for 20 minutes. I found many profiles offering virtual friend chat services, things like, "I'll talk to you about anything you want for 30 minutes," and so on.

I searched until I landed on the profile of a girl from Singapore. Smart-looking, good face, clear writing with no grammatical mistakes, solid reviews. I messaged her, and she replied almost instantly. I explained the request, same as with #6, and offered her doubled payment for trouble. She agreed, and we scheduled a time.

As soon as we start, she asks what I want to talk about. I think of #1. We've been texting more often lately. Sometimes, he takes too long to respond after reading my messages. I hate it. It makes me wonder what he's doing, why he's so busy.

Maybe I ruined it already. Maybe my last messages were wrong in some small way I can't see. Like they were too needy or clingy. He's probably talking to someone else. Someone who's funnier and easier to be around. People always drift towards better options.

I can control myself for now because he always replies, eventually. But that's how it always starts. The silences stretch longer, then they can't find time for meetups as often, then suddenly they're just gone. I need to meet him again soon.

I tell her about him. How we met, how it went, what we talked about, and so on. She responds carefully at first, asking some probing questions. I tell her to make a "V" with two fingers and point it at the camera.

Eventually she asks, "Do you want something serious with him?" Uh, yes, obviously. Out of everyone I've been with, he's easily in, like, the top three. But... uh.

Most people who get closer to me end up reaching the same conclusion. If they somehow don't find me too needy or clingy, they eventually describe my thoughts and behavior as alien. Another word that comes up often is vampire. An alien vampire, like being around me is so strange and so draining they just can't deal with it anymore. Do I agree with those descriptions? No. But it happens consistently enough that I can't deny reality.

"I don't know," I tell her. "Please stand up and spin around yourself three times clockwise."

She spins. "Do you not know because you're unsure if you like him, or because you're unsure if he likes you?"

I guess it's the latter. But I don't say anything. I'm not comfortable going into more detail with her.

She fills the silence, "Whichever way it is, remember that love is something you learn. When you first listen to a song, it sounds strange. You have to be patient, gentle about how odd it is. But over time, it reveals its beauty. You play it again and again, and it keeps drawing you in. Eventually, you can't imagine life without it. And all you desire in the world is it, and it alone."

She seems to tear up, but continues. "Love is the same way. You have to give it room to grow. If you're not sure you like him, wait. And if you're not sure he likes you, wait for him too."

I assume most people who paid her brought up similar topics. She's probably given that little speech a hundred times before. Maybe even the near-crying was part of the act. Still, as far as analogies go, it wasn't bad.

But I couldn't help thinking... After I listen to a song 24/7 for a few days, I just get bored of it. There's only so much to a single song. But maybe that's where the analogy breaks. I can't say I ever got bored of any of the people I've been one about, for instance. People are way more dynamic than songs.

On further thought, I don't think this analogy really fits me. A better one might be this: someone starts listening to me like they would a strange song. At first, they can't make it out, but they give it time, hoping a clear melody will appear. Eventually, it does, and it's just some bullshit. Maybe it's just noise, maybe it's some highly dissonant and syncopated avant-garde nonsense from another planet. They just don't vibe with it at all.

Well, whatever. I change the subject, and we keep talking about lighter topics until the end. After 20 minutes, I say, "It follows you now!" and check the snake. Red. Which means success.

As the day passes, I have only one task left. I've already planned for this outcome. The online unpaid attempt turned the snake green, the paid one turned it red. That means I have a good understanding of the curse. Willing follows generate the green snake. Forced ones generate the red one. Position doesn't matter. Following instructions counts as a "follow," and the concept might extend into even more abstract territory.

This suggests the original bearer never figured it out. If he had, he wouldn't have needed to bait random drivers in traffic, hoping one of them might follow him by chance.

My goal is to pass the curse, or learn more about it. But I need scenarios where I can command someone for at least 20 uninterrupted minutes. I could keep using the internet, but I don't like doing important things online. Whenever possible, I choose physical. And in this case, there are also practical reasons. I need maximum control over the highest number of variables in each encounter, and I need the flexibility to improvise. Online limits both, real life doesn't.

This leads me to an obvious conclusion: grindr. It gives me all I need. Needy subs willing to follow your commands for 20 minutes are common. And the way people who like me tend to like me, they tend to really like me, means I can test a wide range of strategies with almost no pushback. That makes it easier to trigger different snake states with fewer attempts.

I planned for this six days ago, when I first came up with the online attempts and mapped out the outcome tree. I assumed I'd get the favorable one, and I did. So, I started PrEP on the same day. It takes seven days to reach full protection, and tomorrow is day seven, which is perfect.

That unfortunately means I can't keep seeing #1 while I run these grindr attempts. I don't want to pass anything to him. PrEP covers HIV, but not other STDs. And if I catch something, I won't have time to do STD tests or wait. It's better not to risk it. We're meeting tomorrow, I'll tell him then.

I wake up to a text from #1. I don't have notifications on, I don't like being emotionally controlled by things outside my control. But by chance, I wake up as he's sending a few messages. I wait until he's done typing, even though he can already see I read the first one.

"Hey, I know we have an encounter planned for today, but my friend's dad got home early and I I'll have to go back to my city one day earlier. Sorry, I really wanted to meet up with you again :("

If I remember right, he mentioned he'd be going back to his city for a month sometime soon. I guess that ends up being today? But that doesn't mean we can't meet. He could stay at my place for another day if he needs to, it's not like I don't have the space or the money. I type back as soon as he finishes:

"Hey, you can come over now if you need to and we can figure something out. You can also stay here for another day, I really don't mind it. In fact, I'd love it!"

Was that too eager? I don't think so. He reads it immediately but doesn't reply. Five minutes of nothing. Why isn't he replying? He read it.

Five minutes turn into ten. Did I say something wrong? Maybe I shouldn't have added the exclamation mark after I said I'd love for him to stay here, it makes me seem too needy. Is he looking for other friends to stay with instead of me? Probably. I'm probably his last choice. Why would he want to stay with me instead of someone else?

Ten minutes turn into twenty. Was that just an excuse to not meet up with me? Did he not like me at all and just wanted to cancel? No. He knows I live by myself and that I'd offer him my place if needed, he was just being polite and trying not to impose himself.

Twenty minutes turn into thirty. His rate of texting me back is asymptotically reaching never. It's over. He's already on the road, going back to his city, already forgetting me. He never liked me, and I'm never going to see him again. I knew I shouldn't have allowed myself to like him. This always fucking happens, I'm so fucking stupid.

I tear up and place my head down on the pillow. Then I start profusely crying. I'm such a fucking loser.

I check my phone again, and I see it.

He's typing.

I freeze mid-breath, the sobs suddenly stop, and I wait.

"Hey, I was showering and getting my things ready. I'm ready to go over, just tell me when and I'll be there in like five minutes."

Oh.

I see...

Would it have killed him to say so earlier? Whatever, it's not productive to ask him to change his behavior around this now, or even today. There's no way to bring this up without losing tons of aura.

"Yes, you can come over now. I'm going to shower too. When you get here, just open the door and let yourself in, as I'll likely still be showering."

When I get out of the shower, he's waiting for me in bed. Without a word, we kiss. I take his pants off slowly, sliding my fingers toward his hole, but he stops me.

"I didn't have time to prepare, sorry."

We end up just kissing. We kiss a lot, for maybe an hour nonstop. Eventually, he sucks me off, but I mostly just want to keep kissing. After we cum, we cuddle. His skin, his body, his smell... I'll never understand how perfect he can be.

He notices me getting hard again and grabs my cock.

"Your cock is so nice to hold," he says.

He grabs it tight and strokes me, matching his own rhythm.

"You don't have to keep stroking mine, I won't cum again."

He stops, squeezing hard, like it's a toy, biting his lip as he does. It doesn't hurt, his hands are small, his fingers thin. After a moment, he slides under the sheets and sucks me again while jerking himself off. He seems to really like the way it feels in his mouth.

He comes back up sweaty, and I lick his face all over. He laughs and pulls back when it tickles near his ears. I tell him how much I like his smell. I lick and sniff every part of him. His forehead, eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth, ears, neck, armpits, chest, belly, cock, balls, ass, legs, behind his knees, his feet. I want every part of his body to be marked, to be mine.

When I'm done, I come back up and he mounts me. His face hovers above mine, spit falling from his mouth. I let him cover me in it. I'm soaked in him, drenched in him, and I'm in heaven.

When he's done, he guides his cock into my mouth. Then he fucks my face roughly until he cums. His cum tastes... neutral? It tastes like nothing, and it's thick and creamy. I feel like that's the best you can get. Some people say it can taste sweet, but I've personally never experienced it.

Although I'm no huge cocksucking pro. Have I sucked more cock than the average woman? Probably. Have I sucked more cock than the average gay man? Well, that, no, probably not. Gay guys are a different beast altogether.

He rests his cock on my face. I keep sucking, tracing his balls with my tongue. I don't know what's gotten into him today, he's more assertive, commanding. But I can't complain. I like dominant bottoms, and the smell of his perfect body.

After he's satisfied, we cuddle again. His breathing slows, then he falls asleep. I lie there, touching his skin and breathing him in before drifting off myself.

I wake up around four hours later, at 2pm, starving. The fridge is empty, so I reach for my phone to order food. He wakes up as I do. I ask him if he wants anything specific, he says anything's fine, so I order it. When the food arrives, I go down to get it, set the table, and call him to come eat. We eat in silence at first, until he breaks it.

"So, you play the piano?" he asks, nodding towards the electric piano in my living room.

"A little. I'm not terribly good, though."

"Can you play something for me?"

I kind of just want to finish my food, but I guess I can. I practice sporadically, and I usually only have one song stored in muscle memory. I head over to the piano, turn it on, unplug the headphones, and start playing.

There are mistakes here and there, and I've only learned about 75% of this particular song, the climax at the end still missing, but I manage to play it well enough.

"Wow, I love her," he says when I finish.

"Her? You know this song?"

"Not only do I know this song, but I know every one of her songs!"

That's... unexpected. Shiina Ringo is a popular musician, but not really here. When Spotify still showed listener locations, she was primarily popular in Japan. But with many Japanese artists, the next biggest listener base was always Santiago, Chile. In Brazil, it was usually São Paulo, which makes sense. Finding someone who likes her here, in this smaller city, is rare.

We go back to eating and keep talking about music. We have a lot of bands and genres in common, though there are some differences. But both of us are into progressive rock, metal, and anime, so there's plenty of overlap.

After we eat, we go back to bed. He sits up with his back against the pillows and the wall, and pats his lap for me to lie down. I do, and he caresses my head with one hand while using his phone with the other. I close my eyes and enjoy the moment. I've never had anyone do this to me before, it feels absurdly good.

Eventually he drops his phone, looks down at me with penetrating eyes, and asks, "What are you thinking about?"

That directness catches me off-guard. I break eye contact with him, then look nowhere.

What am I thinking about? Well, about how much I like spending time with him, how it doesn't seem to matter how bad my days or weeks or months have been because a minute with him makes it all disappear, how I want to spend more and more time with him, how I want to know everything about him, his past, his present, his future, what he's doing and where he is and what he's thinking at all times, how I want to know him so completely that I can predict him, until I always know how he's going to act next, how I want his mind to fold over mine until I can't tell which thoughts are his and which are mine, how I want to dissolve into him and for him to dissolve into me, how I want him to love and need me and consume me, and how I want to love him and need him and consume him back, until we stop being two separate beings and become one.

But...

I can't say that.

So I just tell him he's beautiful, that he's cute, and I climb up to kiss him. We kiss for a few minutes, then we're back to cuddling, and then we're asleep again.

We wake up at around 5pm. He says he has to leave and go back to his city. He grabs his phone and opens an app. I watch as he does and ask what it is. He explains it's a cross-city ride-share service like Uber. You share a ride with four other people, and each covers gas costs plus the driver's profit while going to a specific city. His city is about 200 kilometers away, so it costs around 60 or 70 bucks and takes about three or four hours. He says he uses it often.

I tell him I can drive him instead. He says no, but with a half-smile on his face, just a polite refusal. He knew I'd offer from the start. I tell him I don't mind being used like this, that I like driving and spending time with him. He smiles more. But I add that it's a long drive, so we should get going fast, otherwise, I'll be sleepy on the way back and driving sleepy is the worst fucking thing ever.

We get ready in about 10 minutes and then leave. It's around 6pm on a Saturday, so traffic out of the city is heavy, and we get stuck on multiple jams. But eventually we break free and we're out onto the open road. The drive's about three and a half hours long.

I'm nervous because this is my first time doing this with anyone. Should we keep talking the whole way? I don't think so, right? We make some small talk, but it's normal to have moments of silence, and it won't be weird, I think. I put on some music, random on Shiina Ringo's discography, and ask if he's fine with the volume, he says yes.

After about 10 minutes of driving in silence, he breaks it. "So, you told me you made games. What kinds of games? I didn't ask last time."

"PC games," I say. "Do you have a computer?"

Ninety-five percent of gay guys I meet don't play anything. More importantly, they don't even have a computer. This drives me insane. I'll go into these people's apartments and there's just a sofa and a TV. What do these people even do all day? Just watch TV and use their phones? Absolutely fucking insane. Normies are another species entirely.

"Yeah, I do. I play, uh, you know Dead by Daylight? I play that a lot. And I also play Minecraft with my friends sometimes."

I'll never understand why Dead by Daylight is so popular with women and gay guys. He's not the first to tell me he plays it all the time. Actually, I kind of get it. People with more feminine minds seem drawn to horror, true crime, and all that. The psychology of it probably has to do with feeling fear safely, something about that hits feminine brains harder. Maybe it has to do with learning how to be safer overall? Like it's a way of turning danger into control. Something like that, if I had to guess.

"Yea, so I make games on Steam, if you know that. I release them there, sell each copy for some amount, and they keep 30% while I keep the rest."

"What games have you made?" he asks, grabbing his phone and getting ready to search.

"The most popular one is called... uh, you ready to type?" He nods. "S, N, K, R, X." He asks me to repeat it, and I do.

"This one?" he shows me the game's trailer on the Play Store. I nod.

"It seems pretty cool. Did it sell well?"

"It sold around two hundred thousand copies."

He goes quiet for a moment as he reads more about it. Eventually, he reaches the Steam page and starts reading its description out loud. He has no accent when reading in English, that's pretty impressive. Then he finds the game's price.

"Two hundred thousand copies at three dollars... that's..."

I can see him working the numbers in his head. I stay silent. Most people who ask about what I do never ask any specific names, and the few who do never ask for numbers. The fact that he got to the bottom of it either means he actually likes me and is paying attention, or he's just naturally curious. Either way, it makes me like him more.

He stays silent for a moment, then composes himself. "How long have you been making games for?"

"About 15 years, almost that, yea."

"And how did you start? Did you study anything for it?"

"I studied computer science. I didn't go in planning to make games, but one class had a final project where we had to make one, and I got hooked immediately. Like, I remember starting the project on a Friday night, and suddenly it was Sunday at 3am and I had a class in five hours. Time just disappeared. That's when I understood what people mean when they say they love what they do. And that was it from then."

"Where did you study?"

"At the federal university."

"Oh my god, me too!"

"Really? What's your major?"

"Math."

No fucking way. I knew we got along a bit too well. Of course he studied math. I did it for a year too before switching to computer science. I tell him as much.

He laughs softly. "You know, I thought about doing something like that, but I'd have to take the exam again, and I was just... over it."

The way the federal university works here is simple. There's an entrance exam once a year, and if you pass, you're in. But because it's the best university in the state, and it's free, everyone wants a spot. It's easier to get into math than computer science, so I did that first, instead of wasting a whole year after high school only studying for the next exam.

"Yea, I did retake it. That year I was juggling both, studying for the new exam while still doing math. It was brutal, but it worked out in the end. Are you still studying, or did you graduate?"

He shakes his head, looking out the window. "Nah, I dropped out with, like, a year left. I just lost all motivation. I didn't know what I wanted anymore, I guess."

"Oh my god, same," I say with a short laugh. "Except I was spending all my time making games instead of studying. Plus, the campus was too far. I had to take two buses every morning. Eventually, it just got to me."

He half smiles. "Hmm. I lived close, so that part wasn't so bad."

It's obvious now why we seem to get along. We both have math brain. He's smart too. Getting into math isn't hard, but lasting three years takes something, it's a hard major. It's also clear that he's smart from the way he talks. The way he jumps from topic to topic, how he pulls on threads in that quick, odd and precise way that's kind of... it's the kind of associative thinking only smart people have.

"You know what was also the worst? The CS department's way up there, right? Up that hill with the endless stairs. We had to go down for lunch every day and drag ourselves back up. It fucking sucked."

"They didn't have a university restaurant up there back then?"

"No. Did they add one?"

"Yeah, they did. I've never eaten there, but it's been there a while now. CS guys don't have to hike anymore."

"No fucking way, that's huge. Is the price still the same?"

"Around two bucks, I think. Was it that in your time?"

"Yea, maybe a little cheaper."

And then we keep talking like that. It's strange how easily the conversation flows. The overlap between us feels endless. We go from math and computer science specific topics, to music, games and then anime.

"My favorite's Shin Sekai Yori, you know it?"

"I don't. Is it, like, old?"

"It's from 2012, so kind of. What's your favorite?"

"One Piece. You know it, right?"

"Yea, but I haven't watched it. It has way too many episodes. But I saw some clips on Twitter a while ago. The main guy, uh, Luffy? He has fluffy white hair now and like, his eyes are popping out, but then he's putting them back in like a cartoon, and I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Did he get the One Piece? Is he a god now? Did he win?"

"No, that's part of his Gear Fifth. It's like the awakening of his actual Devil Fruit ability."

"Right."

He smiles, half mocking. "If you ever want to watch it, I wouldn't mind rewatching it with you."

Jesus fucking Christ. I'm not watching a thousand episodes of this shit. But... with him... ah, the things we do for love.

"Yea, that'd be fine. I'd tank it, but only for you. xD" I actually say ex dee out loud. Do zoomers still understand emojis like this?

He laughs. I guess they still get it.

We drive in silence for a while after that. I realize we've been talking for almost two hours straight, and there's one hour and a half left. It's now night, and the road's monotony starts getting to me, but the music keeps me alert. Eventually, he speaks again.

"Hey, do you mind if I sleep a little?"

"Yea, sure. You want me to turn the music down or change to something calmer?"

"Yeah, that's fine."

And just like that, he's asleep. He's a real sleepyhead. We slept all day already, but he can still do it. And he always goes down so fast too, it's crazy.

I think about our conversation, about just how many coincidences there are. We both lost our fathers around the same time. We studied at the same university, almost the same major. We have similar taste in music and anime. Even his taste in games isn't bad, he does use a computer, at least. And, more importantly, we actually like each other. How rare is it that I'll find someone this cute, this smart, this hot, this unique, and who actually likes me back? I'm never going to find someone like this again, I cannot fuck this up.

After about an hour of driving, I start to feel sleepy. I am absolutely not driving four hours back like this. Driving tired is actual torture, on top of being dangerous. But I can't ask #1 to sleep at his place, that would be too forward, even though I want to cuddle with him more.

Suddenly, he wakes up.

"Hey, there's about 30 minutes left for us to get there."

"That went faster than I thought," he says while stretching.

I don't reply. We keep listening to music in silence. I get the urge to yawn, and I do. He notices.

"Are you sleepy?"

"Kinda, yea."

"Will you be able to drive back?"

"We'll see."

Perfect. He knows I'm tired, I'm not overstepping. I can just hope he invites me to stay.

We drive the next 20 minutes in silence. When we reach the city, he starts talking, pointing out places as we pass. We drive around a little away from his place, and he gives me a small tour. He talks with that half-proud, half-apologetic tone people use when they know their hometown isn't much. He seems aware of it and says it himself, the whole city is like a middle-class neighborhood in the city we came from, the capital of the state. I have to agree with him.

He does show me around the nicest neighborhood, though. And it is really nice. It's like a gated community, but without gates. Everything circles a beautiful lake, and you can live your whole life there and never leave. Stores, apartments, schools, all neatly organized. The architecture's more daring than in the capital, like the architects here have more freedom to try crazier concepts.

Eventually, we reach his apartment complex. I park on a muddy side road. He gets out, but I hesitate, from my side of the car, I'd step right into wet dirt. I also don't know if he wants me to go up with him or if I should just say goodbye.

He notices my hesitation immediately. "Aren't you coming up with me?"

Well, that settles it. I climb over to the passenger side and step out.

I follow him up, just watching him walk makes me horny. Now that I can see him walking from behind, the reality of his body's perfection hits me again.

We get to his apartment. He notices I'm hard and starts kissing me.

"You're too tired to drive back, right? Want to spend the night here?" he asks between kisses.

I nod, and we head to his bedroom.

His apartment is clean and organized. The style isn't great, but it's a nice place. People say your living space reflects the state of your mind. If that's true, his mind was in a good place when he last left.

His bedroom has a single big bed, a small desk, and a closet. We fall on the bed, kissing.

"I want to shower first, is that okay?" he asks.

I nod. He undresses and goes to the bathroom. I undress and---

I wake up to him kissing me. I guess I fell asleep.

"I spent some time preparing," he whispers. "Wanna try again?"

I nod. He hands me the lube, his eyes calm, expectant.

He lies belly down, and I move on top of him. I'm slow and careful, he moans as I go in. I look down to see if there's any blood. There isn't. We stay like this for a while as I kiss his neck and ears. Then I start moving, slowly at first, then faster, then slow again.

This time he takes it much better. There's still no blood, and his moans don't seem to involve any unnatural amount of pain. Every time I breathe, his scent fills me and envelops me, and my cock gets harder inside him. Even after showering, his smell is still strong, and still uniquely his.

We change positions so we can kiss better. Then we spend the next 10 minutes kissing as I thrust slowly. It feels so good, I can't believe it. Honestly, the kissing feels way better than the feeling on my cock.

But to him, the feeling of being penetrated seems incredible. The redness in his face, his breathing, the way he looks at me, how sometimes he'll just say "please," almost moaning. It's all so good.

I want to say something like "I love you," over and over, but... it'd be too weird. So I stay silent.

We keep going for a few more minutes before I decide any longer would start feeling boring. I also notice myself getting slightly softer. If I've been 100% hard up to here, I'm now, like, 80% hard. "Do not go gentle into that good night, Master Bruce." Yes, I will not. Wait, did the butler say that to Batman? Am I getting confused? Whatever. Focus. Actually, I wonder how people with ADHD have se--- FOCUS!

"Are you mine?" I ask, looking deep into his eyes, our faces close.

"Yes," he moans.

"Is your little boyhole mine?"

"Yes... please."

There. Possessive dirty talk always gets me rock hard.

With my newfound resolve, I increase the pace so I can cum as I stroke his cock. As I get closer, I kiss him more passionately. Our rhythm breaks down, it's just mindless motion now, repeating itself until nothing else exists. His body feels like it's merging into mine, our breaths tangled. With every thrust, I claim him further. He's mine, mine, mine. And then I cum. A few moments later, he does too.

We look into each other's eyes and kiss once more. Then I lie beside him, and we stay cuddled in silence for a while.

That while turns out to be a long while. When I open my eyes again, a thin line of light cuts through the window. It's already morning. We didn't stay cuddled all night, I think, it was probably too hot. He's still asleep, so I just lie there, thinking.

Last night was perfect. Perfect. There's no other way to describe it. I haven't felt anything like that... I haven't felt that connected to anyone in... ever? Yea, that's probably true.

I move closer to smell him, careful not to wake him. But somehow he does.

"Good morning. How did you sleep?" I ask.

"Good m---" he starts, stretching, "---orning." His voice cracks in a cute way. "I slept fine... with you here." He smiles and leans in to kiss me.

I pull back slightly. "Can I use your shower? I feel really dirty and there's dried cum all over my belly. Yours must be like that too."

He looks down, touches his belly, and nods. "Sure. I'll grab you another towel. The one there is dirty."

I shower first. He showers right after. While he's in there, I spend some time in the living room messing with his PC, he gave me permission. I must confess that I try to get as much information out of it as possible. His email, his Steam username, his Discord, Twitch, Instagram. I don't plan on using these usernames without him giving them to me, but it's always good to have more information.

He comes out of the bathroom, toweling his hair. "Are you hungry? I'm starving. We haven't eaten since yesterday."

He's right. It's around 11am now, and not only haven't we eaten anything since yesterday, we've also spent an entire day together. Literally 24 hours. Have I ever spent that long with anyone before? Maybe when I was a kid, sleeping at a friend's place. But as an adult? I don't think so.

I nod. He continues. "I know a great place. It's probably the best restaurant in this city. It's a bit expensive, but it's fantastic. We should go now before it gets too full."

"Sure, let's go. By the way, I can pay if you don't mind. It'd be a thank you for letting me stay the night."

He looks at me with an unreadable expression, but it's definitely not positive. Did I say something wrong? It doesn't matter, his face shifts back into a smile almost instantly.

"Yes, that's fine," he says.

We get to the restaurant, and it's a nice, cozy place. The amount and variety of food is huge. We both end up getting way more than we can eat, but it's all delicious.

As we eat, we make simple small talk. "Simple." Somehow we end up talking about algorithm complexity. He explains how something he studied maps to it in a particular way, but I can't really follow. Eventually he starts auto-translating what he's saying into "lower" terms I can intuitively grasp, and then I get it.

I think he just IQ-mogged me. It's not unexpected. Math can get very abstract and high-minded in a way that borders on schizophrenic. You need a smart brain to survive it for three years, like he did.

I noticed something like this with some of my CS professors. There was always this sense, especially in the more theory-oriented classes, that they were frustrated mathematicians. Like, they wanted so badly to be in the math department but somehow ended up in CS instead, as if it were a punishment.

One of the reasons I disliked math was this abstractness. I'm a practical guy, I like doing things in the real world. I need goals, objectives, some kind of interaction with reality. The computer gives me that, cause and effect, a clean feedback loop. Math always felt too floaty in comparison.

Anyway, we finish eating, leaving plenty of food behind, and head back to his place. We're both a little sleepy after eating so much, so we just lie in bed and cuddle for a couple more hours. I kind of never want to leave, to be honest.

But eventually we wake up. It's 5pm now.

"Hey, it's getting late and I really have to go."

He makes a fake sad face and kisses me.

"I'm going back to the capital in about a month. We can meet again then, okay?"

I nod. I want to ask if he wants to be exclusive, but exclusivity followed by a month apart feels like asking for trouble. I'll probably stay exclusive on my end anyway. I don't think I've ever felt like this about anyone. It'd feel wrong to be with someone else after today.

But I do need to ask him one thing.

"Do you want to text while we're away, or do you prefer not to? I'm fine with it either way."

I genuinely am fine with it either way. I won't mind not talking to him for a month. I just need him to be clear about it.

"Uhm, yeah, we can text," he says.

Great. I get up, go to the living room, and start gathering my things. He follows.

"Well, I should get going then."

He walks up and kisses me. I get hard instantly. He notices and slips his hand onto my cock.

I stop kissing him and smile. "No. I really need to go."

He hugs me. I take one last breath of him, memorizing his smell.

"Send me a text when you get back home," he says.

I nod and leave.

The drive back is uneventful. At some point, I stop for gas and realize I don't have my debit card. I must have left it at his place by accident. I send him a text:

"Hey, I think I left my debit card at your place by accident. If I did, it's probably on the table in your bedroom. It's a pink card. Can you check for me if it's there? Thanks."

It's not a big enough deal to go back for. I can pay with my phone. Still, it's annoying.

When I get home, I check my messages. He replied about two hours after I sent mine:

"Hiiii, I just woke up. Let me check and I'll tell you."

"Yup, it's here. What do you want me to do with it? Should I just give it to you when I go back there?"

I reply:

"Yea, that's fine. I got back home safe btw. Thanks and good night. *kiss emoji*"

"I'm glad you got home safe. Night night *kiss emoji*," he replies.

It's 10pm now. I won't have time for another attempt, especially since I don't want to use grindr anymore. I need to figure out how to handle the curse without it. I already lost two days due to #1, so I need a plan for tomorrow.

But for now, I just need to sleep. Driving is surprisingly tiring.

I wake up and I can't stop thinking about #1. I should send him a good morning text, he did say he wanted to keep texting. But maybe just a good morning would be too weird, I could add a video related to something we talked about, but... no, a video is like giving him homework. It has to be easy to reply to, as frictionless as possible. I'll just send the good morning. No, better, "good morning. did you sleep well?" Ending with a question makes it more likely the other person will reply.

In the shower, I try to think about how to handle the curse, but nothing comes up. When I get out, I check my phone. No reply. I decide I'll only check every two hours while waiting for him, otherwise, it'll be too distracting.

Two hours pass. I check if #1 has replied, nothing. He's probably still sleeping, I did wake up at 6am. I launch Artifact, queue a match, and try to come up with curse ideas.

Two more hours pass. #1 has read my text! But he hasn't replied. If he saw it as he woke up and decided not to answer, doesn't that mean something? Maybe he's busy or running late. But he didn't mention any plans yesterday. I queue another match of Artifact.

Another two hours. Still nothing. Why isn't he replying? Whatever he's doing, he surely could've taken two seconds to say good morning back. Didn't he say he wanted to text? If he didn't, he could've just said so, it would've been fine. But why say you want to text if you don't want to do it? Artifact.

More two hours. No reply. Did I do something wrong? Did he not like me? When I played the piano for him, I made a lot of mistakes. The song wasn't even finished. Did he hate it? I just lost to a guy named retarded 0 iq ape. I should stop playing Artifact, I keep queueing anyway.

Another two hours. When he asked what I was thinking about, I probably took too long to answer. I said he was cute, but he could tell I was hiding something. He must have felt it, the delay, the calculation. Maybe he thinks I'm fake, or worse, dangerous. He doesn't trust me, that's why he's not replying.

An hour passes. I check early, nothing. Maybe it's how I talk. When we were talking in the car, I kept going on about myself. I do that sometimes, just talk and talk, giving few openings for the other person, asking them too few questions about themselves. I notice it when others do it, it makes me think they're selfish. He probably thinks I'm selfish, he's right.

Another hour. I couldn't even keep the conversation going the whole drive. We talked for two hours, sure, but the rest was mostly silence. People who like each other talk endlessly, right? They can't stop, they have things to say, they want to say them. He probably thinks we're not a good match.

Thirty minutes. Did he notice me getting softer near the end? He noticed. He probably thinks I'm a limp-dicked loser who won't be able to fuck him properly. It's so fucking over.

Another thirty minutes. When I said I'd pay for lunch, he made a weird face. Why? Is he weird about money? Guys who are poorer usually have issues around money. I don't mind what someone's financial status is, I get it. If money's a constant concern, you think about it more, take it more seriously. So, when someone gives you something for free, it probably feels wrong. But he didn't seem poor, his neighborhood didn't seem poor, his apartment seemed fine. So why the face?

Thirty more minutes. I can't take this anymore. I need to know what he's doing. I open Discord, create a new account, grab my phone and check my notes. Then, I join one of the public servers he was in. Like most people with computers, his is always on. So I'll be able to see if he's online or not. I scroll through the members list and... he's away. Did he spend the entire day outside? It's Monday, so it'd make sense. But what is he doing?

I notice he has his Steam account linked to Discord, but I can't see his actual status from the profile. It just says he's online, even though he's clearly AFK. I check his Instagram instead. There are no new pictures. I scroll through his older ones, checking who he's taken photos with or of. I find a few of his friends, some of them comment often, so I open their profiles first. None of them yield any new pictures.

I go through his following list. If he spent the day with someone new, maybe they followed each other and their profile would show up near the top. I'm looking for anyone young and attractive. #1's attractive, if he went out with someone else, he could probably pull some really fucking hot guys.

I spend around thirty minutes looking and find nothing. I do find more of his friends, and some people from college. One math major in particular seems interesting enough that I google him. Turns out he has a popular GitHub account, around 500 followers, which on GitHub is a lot. But other than that, no one stands out, and no one has recently posted any pictures.

Until I find him. This non-assuming guy, not too attractive, but not too ugly either. I click his profile. That's when I see it. A picture of him and #1. The guy's closer to the camera, holding a drink, looking straight at it. #1's beside him, left arm around his shoulder, laughing at something off-camera. They're at some kind of bar, but it's not a closed space, and it's still sunny outside. The post went up two hours ago. I open the comments and I see it. I see it. #1, thirty minutes ago: "looking good *laugh emoji*"

I've been stabbed. A sharp pain hits my chest. I jolt back as tears well up. The sharp pain subsides, and it gives way to a heaviness. My chest is heavy, dense. It's a heavy hole, pulling the entirety of me inwards.

Why would he go out with someone new and spend the entire day with them, right after the days we spent together? Why? Did it all mean nothing to him? Did he dislike it so much he had to go out with someone else immediately? Why would he do this? Why?

The built-up tears finally fall, and I start profusely crying. I press my head against the desk and sob. My throat makes a terrible sound, and I want it to stop, but I can't control it.

We slept together. We ate together. We talked for hours. We had sex. We spent an entire day together. Did it all mean nothing to him? I promised I'd watch a thousand episodes of One Piece with him, a thousand. It meant nothing to him. Nothing.

The heaviness in my chest expands to my stomach. I can't stop sobbing. My throat tightens until it hurts. Tears keep coming, and I can't hold them back for even a second. Suddenly I feel like I'm going to vomit, and I rush myself to the bathroom. That distinct pre-vomit taste fills my mouth. I kneel, my throat opens, and that awful noise escapes as I throw up. I retch once, twice, again and again, until there's nothing left. As soon as it ends, the sobbing returns. Weaker now, quieter, with fewer tears.

I rest my head against the toilet seat, defeated.

It all meant nothing to him. Nothing.

I'm...

Whatever.

I get up and walk back to my computer. Discord is still open on the second monitor, and by accident I notice he's now online instead of away. It's 8pm, so he must've just gotten home. I check my phone again. Nothing.

I look up, close my eyes, and focus on my chest. Did seeing he's online and that he still hasn't replied make me feel anything?

No.

Good.

I block him and delete the chat.

If I mean nothing to him, he means nothing to me. Nothing.

Chapter 5 - The Grind

I wake up refreshed. Sleep has a way of rebooting me emotionally. It's hard for positive or negative emotions to cross the sleep barrier unless I consciously bring them over.

I lost three days to #1, I can't afford to lose more. So I spend the rest of the day preparing. When night comes, I know what I have to do: create my grindr profile. I've done this six or seven times before. Each horny grindr phase, I make a new account, then delete it when I'm done. I add any new regulars on WhatsApp, that way I never really lose anyone.

I get started on the usual routine. Three pictures of myself --- two of my face, one of my body --- then three of my cock, from different angles. With these pictures, it's usually enough. Once people think you look good, all they want is confirmation you're healthy and clean.

The face and body shots go on my public profile. The cock pics go in the private album, a grindr feature. You can share it with anyone you talk to, and unshare it anytime.

My bio is simple: "Looking for a submissive slut." Guys who actually want to fuck rarely write much, either nothing or just the basics. I usually leave it blank myself. But this time I'm looking only for very subby subs, so it makes sense to say it up front.

Some people on this app treat their bios like warning labels --- long lists of what they hate, who they hate, how not to talk to them. I find that off-putting, it reads as neurotic. If you're that easily annoyed, maybe you're not built for casual gay sex. Some guys will just block you over nothing, I don't get it, but to each their own.

It's no surprise that so many people think the app is bad, they obviously bring a bad attitude to it. I rarely block anyone, only the persistent types who never get the hint. One guy literally messaged me every day for two weeks straight. That kind of autistic-level fixation is almost admirable --- but if I'm not interested, I'm not interested.

I fill out the rest of the profile. You can include lots of details, but the ones that matter most --- if you don't want to leave it blank --- are: position, age, height, weight, and HIV + PrEP status. Anyone asking for more info, more photos, more conversation --- they're stalling, they don't know what they want. If you let them, they'll waste your time. A minimal profile filters them out.

Once I'm done, I open the app. And... ah, grindr never changes. The first profile I see --- a guy named "PAYFORFEET," mouth stretched open by two huge toes. What a god-awful sight. A faint feeling of sadness, mixed with regret, hits me. I don't hate the app itself, it's just that the people in it can be so...

Well, degeneracy always wins in the end, unless it's stopped at the source. This is the world we live in. In many ways, it would be less gracious of me to fight it than to just accept it and live with it.

Grindr works as a grid of profiles sorted by distance --- the closer someone is, the higher they appear. I like this design a lot. It's way better than the match-based designs most other apps use. Waiting for a mutual match just to talk is ridiculous. But I get it, those apps are made for women. Men are different about sex with each other, they're more efficient.

Grindr, being grid-based, naturally has to solve a visibility problem. In a city with thousands of users online, you can't see everyone at once --- so the app adjusts visibility based on various variables. "PAYFORFEET," for instance, was probably the first profile I saw because he used grindr's boost feature --- a one-time paid option that shows your profile to everyone in a given radius for an hour, increasing both views and messages.

New accounts also get more views, so do accounts that just paid for the subscription. Free users get ads every few interactions, and grindr's ads are awful.

I don't really use phones much --- I was forced into them by society, and I was late to it, I don't like them. On the rare occasions where I happen to browse the internet on a phone, I realize there's no adblock and no way to add one. I'm like, what the fuck? Normies are disgusting.

But there's one nice thing about some mobile ads --- every so often, one shows a game idea that's actually good. I've built multiple solid prototypes just from seeing those. So even in hell, there are glimmers of salvation. But not in this hell.

I pay for the subscription immediately. This means my new account --- with a fresh subscription, and my extremely handsome face on it --- is immediately flooded with taps and messages.

Most of the time, I only open grindr when I actually want to fuck, so once every few days. On a normal day, in about 10 minutes, I get five to ten messages. That's usually enough to find one or two guys I'd actually go for. But people aren't always available right now, so sometimes I have to wait around for more.

This time, though, I get over 30 messages in 10 minutes --- extreme levels of attention. I guess the subscription must be working just like a boost. It doesn't take long to find tonight's target.

Attempt 8 --- Tuesday, 15 meters

I go into the next attempt with a simple plan. The green snake is probably closer to a pass than the red one, which means I need to test how much willingness matters. When I followed the original bearer, I was willing, but driven primarily by negative emotions. There's a chance this is a necessary component, and I should test it.

There's also the chance it's about intensity. The first 15 minutes of the chase were full of adrenaline --- things only calmed down a little once we hit the favela road, due to the speed bumps. But even then, the tension stayed high, and then it peaked after he trapped me. That might be also required variable that I should test.

I decide all I need is a willing sub. I'll push his buttons a little and see what happens. When subs are with me, I can usually push them out of their comfort zone pretty easily. And even though they don't like it, they never say or do anything to stop me. Then, a few days later, some of them tap or message me again, and I repeat the process.

It's not hard to take someone to places they didn't envision themselves going to --- if you do it slowly, over multiple encounters. But I tend to prefer the ones who spiral into a frenzy and are 100% horny for you after a single encounter. They're more desperate for your cock, which means you can do almost anything to them. It makes me hard as hell.

There's a guy nearby, within walking distance, who matches what I want right now. He agrees to come over. I shower, give his name to the doorman so he doesn't have to wait outside, then wait. When he arrives, we go to my room and start.

I tell him to do everything I say for 20 minutes --- if he doesn't, I'll punish him. He nods. When we texted, he said he only wanted to suck me off, no penetration. That's good. I'm already fully covered by PrEP, but sticking to oral for the first encounter keeps the risk as low as possible.

He tries to kiss me, but I stop him and tell him to kneel. In general, I don't like kissing random guys unless they're really pretty --- and this guy is not really pretty. Kissing is way more intimate than just getting sucked off.

He kneels. I tell him to smell my cock and balls through the underwear. He does. Then he starts to lick. I slap him. "Did I tell you to lick it, you fucking retard?" He looks up and shakes his head. "Sorry, daddy."

After a while, I tell him he can lick it, to get the underwear wet. He does. A few minutes later, I tell him to take my cock out and suck it. We continue like this for the next 20 minutes. Every time he fucks up, I slap or spit on him. Otherwise, I just tell him what to do.

Over time, I've developed scripts for these sessions. What all these guys want is someone in control, and an overall good time. But doing that properly takes actual skill. My first attempts were bad --- I didn't know what to say or do. Even if they liked it, I felt off, like I was guessing. So, I made a template for first encounters. I always did the same thing, and over the years kept refining and adjusting it based on their reactions.

Eventually, the original script branched out, with different versions for different kinks. Some guys like facial abuse, some are into feet, some want verbal degradation, others just want to worship your body. Each variation hits the same structure, but it's tuned to their preferences.

I've also built a multi-encounter script. It follows what I call the 1-1-2 rule. It's a general principle that works for everything, I use it in my games too. People respond better to escalation when it follows this pattern.

The first encounter is gentle --- it works. I stick to the script, sometimes improvising a little, but I mostly act like a nice dom, pushing the sub's buttons very little or not at all.

The second one's similar --- except I insert a short segment that pushes them, something the sub will positively not like. But I make sure it doesn't last long.

And then the third encounter... I act way more dominant, way more aggressive. I make sure the whole session feels invasive. By the end, the sub should feel like he's been violated in one meaningful way or another. I'm good at reading how much someone dislikes something in the moment, so I know how far I can go to stay within acceptable bounds.

This works better than most people would expect --- repetition primes the brain: first exposure, repeat with small variation, then high variation and escalation. Some guys I only meet once --- either I'm not into them, or they're not into me. But the ones I see again, it's rare someone wants to stop after the third encounter.

Anyway, after 20 minutes pass, I'm about to cum. It's hard to make me cum from oral only. I'm cut --- I had phimosis and got surgery at age 14 --- so my sensitivity there is lower. Only real pro cocksuckers can do it, and even then it takes time. This guy's not bad, but he's not at that level. So I fuck his face harder and faster.

His face is a wet mess --- spit everywhere, mine and his own. My cock and balls are drenched. As I keep fucking his face, I get closer. When we texted, I asked if he was going to swallow, he said no. He isn't on PrEP and he doesn't wanna risk it. That's why I chose him.

I'm close to cumming, he notices and tries to pull his head back. I deny him and push his head forwards. He keeps resisting, but I'm stronger. I start cumming, he gives in and stands still. I say, "It follows you now!" Once I'm done and I'm no longer holding his head, he gets up quickly and goes to the bathroom. He spends about five minutes in there trying to spit it all out, making some pretty awful and desperate throat noises.

I walk to the window and check the snake --- it looks different! I can't see it clearly, it's dark out, but it's definitely not in its default state. It's not red or green, either. It looks... dressed up? I'll examine it better after he leaves.

When he comes out of the bathroom, he just glares at me silently. I think about staying in character, saying something like, "Little sluts like you should thank guys like me when we feed you our cum." But he doesn't look like he's in a playful mood.

So I say, "Sorry, I got carried away, but I'm clean. You're the first I've been with in like a year and---"

"Yeah, right," he cuts me off. He grabs his phone from the floor and heads to the door. I say bye, he doesn't reply as he closes the door behind him.

After a few minutes, I head downstairs. I get close enough to see the snake clearly.

It has red lipstick smeared around its mouth, like someone applied it without a mirror, or with shaky hands. Its eyelashes are thick, uneven, absurdly long --- like a caricature of a prostitute's eyelashes. The wig is cheap and blonde, with tight curls and visible plastic fibers. Its face is caked with white powder, or white facial cream? I can't tell. The dress is bright and gaudy, cut in random places so some skin is exposed, some covered, for no reason I can identify. Carnivalesque is the best word for it.

I go back upstairs and think. There are two main possibilities. Either this confirms that intensity matters --- the more intense the encounter, the closer it is to a successful pass. Or it means another condition was met. There was a clear violation: I came in his mouth, and he hated it. Maybe that's what it needs, something tied to a negative emotion. The original bearer intentionally trapped me, I thought I was going to die. This was similar, except not as intense.

Attempt 9 --- Wednesday, 14 meters

The next day, I start with another simple plan: test whether intensity matters. I'll replicate attempt #8, but be more extreme. If higher intensity is a key factor, it should generate a new snake state. I'll try a variation of my third encounter script on someone unlikely to fight back or resist.

It's Wednesday. On weekdays, it's best to look for someone early in the morning or late at night --- people are working during the day. I could still find someone anytime, but since I'm after someone specific, like a very subby sub, the odds go up at certain times.

Some guys just have the face for it. I don't know how to describe it, but I know one when I see it. A face that screams "abuse me." They'll allow you to go pretty far without resisting, even if they're not enjoying themselves.

I spend about an hour looking in the morning. Out of everyone who messages me, no one fits. I decide to wait for the night. If nothing shows up naturally, I'll just use grindr's boost feature --- I'll probably get a good hit then. At around 8pm, I check again. A guy messages me right away. Mid-to-late 30s, a bit overweight --- but his face is perfect. His profile says he's looking for a dom.

We talk, and he can come over right now. That's such a surprise, most older guys stall. They'll talk and talk before agreeing to meet up, if they ever do. I don't know why they're like that, but they are. Younger guys are different, one or two messages and you're fucking. I don't have a problem with older guys, but I've certainly developed a kind of racism against them. If I sense even a bit of hesitation, I shut the conversation down immediately. I have no patience for people who don't know what they want. I can forgive the 20-year-olds --- they're young, they're exploring, they're nervous --- but if you're over 30, you should already know what you're doing on the app made for sex with other men.

I shower and wait. He knocks on the door, I yell for him to come in as I get up from my chair. He does and shuts the door behind him. As soon as he turns to face me, I give him a really fucking good slap --- it connects perfectly.

"Kneel and crawl behind me to the bedroom." He obeys. "Every time I give you an order, follow it and say, 'Yes, daddy.'"

He looks up --- "Yes, daddy."

In the bedroom, I say, "Follow my instructions for the next 20 minutes. Take off your clothes."

"Yes, daddy", he says as he undresses. He's slightly shorter than me --- broad build, soft gut, hairy chest, full beard. He looks like a proper man, but his face looks so abusable, even more so live. I love dominating guys like this. Something about me seems to attract them --- men who look like they should be in control. It happens with muscular guys too, at a higher rate than I'd expect. I can't complain about it, there's nothing quite like taking a manly man like this and turning him into a little girl.

"Sit down on the floor with your back to the bed." He gets it wrong and thinks I want him with his back facing me. I correct him, then move in front of him. His face lines up with my cock. I grab his head by the ears and start facefucking him. I don't ramp it up, I go in hard right away. He gags immediately, I don't care.

"Don't swallow anything when you gag, let it fall out of your mouth on my cock and balls and on the floor."

"Yes, daddy."

The longer I go, the redder and wetter his face gets. His gasps for air get sharper and more frequent. At one point, he looks up and wordlessly asks me for a pause. I keep spitting on him and slapping him, not giving him an out. Spit streaks down his chest, a puddle forms on the floor.

"Every time I make you gag, say, 'Thank you for fucking my throat, daddy.'"

I angle my cock such that it would easily make him gag.

"Thank you for fucking my throat, daddy."

I do it again.

"Thank you for fucking my thro--"

Again.

"Thank you for fu--"

"Thank you--"

"Thank you--"

"Th--"

After 10 minutes of nonstop abuse, destroying his face and throat more and more, I tell him I'm about to cum.

"Kneel down on all fours, ass up, face on the floor."

I position his face near the spit pool, but not touching it. As I cum, I drop down and release it onto the puddle. I point to it and look at him.

"Eat it."

The proper way to ramp this up over multiple encounters is to have them start by eating their own spit first. I just have them kneel, spit on the floor, and then lick it back up --- simple, they love it. Then I move to my own spit, which isn't a huge deal. Then my cum, usually mixed with their own spit from gagging. And then finally, their own cum. This last step is the hardest as sometimes they have to be trained out of their post-nut clarity.

But even when I do it directly like this, there only ever seem to be two reactions. Half the guys are so horny they eat it instantly, as though they were famished, no questions asked. The other half pauses and looks up at me like he just did. Their eyes ask, "Really?" And I reply wordlessly, "Yes, really." The directness of it makes some of them not come back again, but none of them ever say no on the spot.

I slap him hard, "Eat it."

He reluctantly starts eating it, a few timid licks at first. Then, I push his head down, and he slurps more eagerly. By the end, he's fully into it, gathering all the spit and making sure the floor is clean. When he's done, he looks up and asks, "Did I do good, daddy?"

"Yes, you were a good girl. Now here's your reward, get up on the bed, all fours, ass up."

As he's moving, I get the lube. His hole has seen its fair share of cocks, but it's still tight enough. I fuck him for about 10 more minutes, making sure to hit him in the right way. With me, it's usually either angling my cock downward or sliding it all the way in and out repeatedly that does it.

When you hit it right, most bottoms describe it the same way --- "I saw God," or "I went to heaven," or "I left my body." I don't think they're being ironic, or mocking religion, or anything like that. It's probably just the closest language for what it feels like. Most guys I fuck react the same way: loud, expressive moans, sometimes cumming without even touching themselves. That always makes me feel good about myself --- this guy was no different.

Before I finish the attempt, I want to do one more thing he likely won't enjoy --- especially now, after he came. Because I'm nice, I prepared all day for this. "Crawl behind me, come to the bathroom." He does. "Get in the shower." He does, knowing what's next. "I drank water all day. It's going to be pretty much water, okay? Open your mouth."

He hesitates, but after a second, he opens his mouth. I start pissing. Most guys who aren't used to this can't swallow any of it --- he's no different, just spits it out immediately. I slap him, "Swallow it." Then I start again, this time forcing my cock deep into his throat. He manages a few gulps before pushing me away, gagging and spitting.

I shove two fingers down his throat to make him gag harder, then slap him a few more times. After that, I shove my cock back in and piss again. He swallows a few gulps, then spits the rest. I do it all over again and release a final stream. He doesn't drink most of it either. He seems genuinely disgusted --- with himself, with the whole scenario. He didn't enjoy it at all. That's my cue, "It follows you now!" He gives me a weird look.

I turn on the shower and let the water hit both of us. After a session like this, it's good for them to feel cared for --- to think you're gentle, attentive, invested in their well-being. I'm not, really, but he's ideal for future attempts, so I keep up the act. I hug him, touching him softly. I even feel a little bad about pissing on him --- I usually save that for later encounters. I move in to kiss him, but his mouth kind of smells like piss, so I stop. We stay under the water for a few more minutes, then he dresses and leaves.

I check the snake --- the Carnival Snake again. So either intensity doesn't matter, or it wasn't intense enough. Or maybe the violation that worked last time also triggered here, regardless of intensity. That seems more likely. I log it in my notes and review what I know so far:

• An attempt counts when you say "It follows you now!" to someone
• The declaration doesn't need physical contact or presence, it can happen online
• The snake moves one meter closer per attempt or day
• The snake takes different visual states based on different rules being met
• The follow must be willing
• The follow doesn't have to be physical; it can be more abstract, like following instructions
• The follow must last at least 20 minutes
• There needs to be a violation the target doesn't like

The snake states are:

• Default: failed attempt, no rules met
• Red: Some rules met but not all (paid follows)
• Green: More rules met, closer to success (willing follows)
• Carnivalesque: Willing follow with violation?

Based on this, getting closer to a successful pass probably depends on refining the idea of "violation." This general meta-strategy seems to be working: confirm that a new state is triggered by a specific action, then try variations on that action. Each variation should expose more rules. If I keep iterating, I'll probably figure out all of them.

When I followed the original bearer, the violation made me think I was going to die. Both #8 and #9 were violated, but not like that. They didn't feel like they were going to die, so it stands to reason that I should try to generate true fear in someone.

Attempt 10 ---- Thursday, 13 meters

Wednesday, 10pm. To produce fear, it has to feel real --- uncontrolled, unscripted, unsafe. So it can't happen in my apartment, it needs to happen in public, but somewhere deserted. The target should be drunk, high, or otherwise chemically compromised --- that makes emotional reactions stronger, and depending on the drug, more likely to tip into fear. I don't have drugs myself, and I don't intend on ever doing them, so I need someone who used on their own. That leads me to one place: the party district.

I'll sometimes drive around and open grindr every few minutes in a new neighborhood, just to see who messages me. It's a good way to find new people. Over time, the profiles near where you live tend to repeat, and most people who'd ever message you already have.

Doing this in the party district is particularly effective. Late at night, people head home drunk or high, and they just want to fuck random strangers. A lot of my past encounters happened like this. So I'll sleep now, wake up at around 2am, drive over, and see who I find. The day after tomorrow --- Friday night --- would be better, but I'd end up wasting attempts waiting for the weekend.

2am comes. I wake up, shower, and head to the party district. It's a small area --- you can drive through it in about 10 minutes of slow driving. As I'm driving, I notice the place is packed, it's way more crowded than I'd expect for a Wednesday night. Is today a holiday or something?

The city as a whole feels more crowded lately. Bars, clubs, restaurants --- full every weekend and holidays. That's not unusual, but it's way more consistent now, and with way more people. I've also noticed more people exercising, everyone looks toned, lean, hot. Maybe COVID made people want to enjoy each other's presence more --- I don't know, I guess it's a good thing.

Either way, the movement works to my favor. As soon as I open the app, I get a message:

"Hi. I've been filled up three times tonight. Wanna be my fourth?" Attached: an image of his cum-filled ass.

Ugh. No wonder these fucking faggots create a new deadly STD every other decade. I try my best to avoid guys like this, or anyone into extreme kinks. The STD risk is too high. Even if I'm on PrEP and mostly safe, it's not psychically good to be around people like that. It's impossible to 100% avoid it, but I try.

After half an hour of driving --- and dozens of messages from people who didn't seem like good fits --- I get a promising one.

"Hi, submissive slut here. You got a nice cock?" He sends three body pics, no face. His body is perfect, I'd guess around 25 based on his skin.

I send him my album. "Will you fuck my throat? I love a cock fucking my throat deep."

I tell him I like to abuse my subs like that a lot. "Yes, I want it. You have an evil face. Do you like beating your subs up?"

Now, this is promising. I've been told before that my face looked threatening, even evil. But it's rare to get someone who wants to be beaten up from the start. People want to be slapped around, sure, but properly beat up?

People into more specific kinks aren't uncommon, but this one isn't very popular. I also don't intuitively associate it with higher STD risk, like I do with, say, guys who drink piss from strangers. And it lines up perfectly with what I need to do for this attempt.

"I'll let you punch or kick me, whatever you think I deserve."

I ask if he has a place --- he does. He sends me his address, I tell him I can be there in five minutes.

As I drive, I prepare myself mentally. I don't mind beating someone up, but it has to feel real. He has to believe I'm dangerous, he has to fear for his life, I need to look threatening, I need to look angry, I need to be angry. I'm bad at that, my emotions tend to be flat. I can act, but I've never had to stay angry for more than a moment.

I get there and park a bit away from his place, near a garbage dump. I don't like parking right in front of the address in case it's a scam or a setup. This isn't based on anything I've read or heard, it just feels like good sense. If you're meeting a stranger, you shouldn't give them easy access to your car, right?

But this wasn't meant to be --- as soon as I get out of the car, he's already waiting: door half open, body half showing, smiling and waving. I must've parked right in front of his house by mistake. As I walk towards him, I see his face. It's not the kind of face I'd expect from someone who wants a beating.

It took a while for me to realize how attractive I was. I'd notice some people looking at me with what I read as aggression. It happened often enough that I started assuming my face just deeply bothered some people. When I told that to a regular I was hooking up with, he said:

"You know that people are looking at you like that because they're intimidated, yeah?"

"Intimidated by my aggressive face? Yea, that's what I'm saying."

"No, retard. Intimidated by how you look, by how pretty you are."

I was thoroughly confused. That look meant they thought I was pretty? It made no sense. I knew he, and a few other guys before him, thought I was pretty, and that already baffled me. But other people? That many? That was hard to believe.

Over time, as I spent more time outside, meeting more people, I started to see what he said was true. One of the useful things I learned from using grindr was just how to be more social and also kind of enjoy it, not that I enjoy-enjoy it. But I wouldn't have met 50+ random guys and fucked them if I didn't kind of enjoy it.

I think this is one of grindr's only real virtue. In most of society, in most circumstances, two men meet each other with apathy at best. But two gay men? There's no apathy there. That instant connection is one of the few remaining ways a man can reach for intimacy and a true bond with someone else, even if it doesn't end up being romantic.

I've met guys with solid careers, money, a well put-together life --- the kind of people who would have helped me with almost anything if I'd asked --- not that I ever have, I don't really like owing anyone anything. But connections like that grow rarer as you age, but also as the world atomizes more and more. The app doesn't fix the problem entirely, and in some cases makes it worse, but it also alleviates it.

In any case, as I learned to embody my newfound good looks better, I also got better at reading people's reactions. There's still a percentage who think I look aggressive, which alone triggers a negative reaction. But many others...

When someone very attractive walks into a room, their presence changes the atmosphere. Everyone feels it, though the reaction depends on the person. Some people get quiet; others tense up. For some --- mostly women, and a few effeminate gay men --- it shows as irritation, almost anger. They seem caught between attraction and resentment, as if they don't want to be drawn to me, can't stop it, and so get mad at God or the universe for the unfairness of it all.

Anyway, this guy is smiling and waving, and I'm just shocked. He's attractive. His face is beautiful --- an actual 10/10. I feel the intimidation instantly. What the hell does a guy who look like this want with me? No, I need to think properly. Even if only 5 to 10% of the population finds me attractive, there are 10s in that group too. It's rare to land an encounter with a 10/10, but it's happened multiple times before.

It also makes sense. He wants to be properly degraded --- beaten --- and he didn't show his face on the app for a reason. He probably has a hard time finding guys who can do it right. If he had shown his face, I'd have assumed he was a scammer and ignored him. And then the ones who do meet him probably get intimidated and fail to dominate him properly. I need to steel myself, ignore his ridiculously pretty face, and treat him as I would an overweight 4/10 40-year-old.

After a moment of being dazed by his dashing looks, I come back to earth and start acting. I smile back and say hi as I get in. His house is architecturally impressive --- the entrance is a big steel door that doubles as a wall. Inside, the space is shaped like a long, tall hallway, just wider. Towards the back, there's a bathroom on one side and a kitchen on the other. In the middle, a large bed anchors the space --- a hybrid between a bedroom and living room. The entrance area is a small square, half-walled, with a clear line of sight to the whole house.

I head inside and look for somewhere to place my belongings, as if I already own the place. He tries to make small talk, I ignore it. There's a sofa just past the entrance, on the right. I drop my things there and start undressing. He watches, hesitant. I glance at him --- first inquisitive, then serious. Then, in the most neutral but commanding voice I can manage, I say, "Take off your clothes."

He seems startled, but obeys. He has a really nice cock --- bigger than mine. If I had to guess, about 18 centimeters, or seven inches, but also thicker. I run into guys like this often --- bottoms with cocks anyone would kill to have. I guess if you're not into topping, you're not into it. This guy though --- omega-handsome face, perfect body, huge cock, a cool house in the party district. Some guys really do get everything, huh?

He's hard as hell. We haven't even started, and he's already like this? I guess that's a good sign. He's probably not used to someone being so unfazed by his looks.

I start running the third-encounter facefuck script on him --- same as #9, but turned up: harder slaps, mixing in some punches to his face, and the occasional kick to his balls.

My punches aren't baby punches, but they're not full force either. They're real ones, just not enough to cause actual damage. After a few minutes of being facefucked he starts... he grabs my wrist and starts using my hand to punch himself? At first I don't get it, but then it becomes clear: he's testing. Like, he wants harder punches, but not too hard. So he runs the calibration himself, guiding my hand, ramping up slowly.

I let him do it for a couple of minutes --- I don't feel bad about punching him, but I don't want to deal permanent damage to his beautiful face. A few punches already landed wrong, and he made some noises of true pain, so it's probably best to let him find the right force while I keep facefucking him.

Wait a minute... What am I doing? Am I fucking retarded? This must be the attractiveness aura at work. I completely forgot why I came here --- to do the attempt. I can't let him control a single part of it. I actually get mad at myself --- this has happened before.

One time, when I was just starting out, I was doing my routine on a guy. After spitting on him, I asked, "You want more spit, slut?" He said no, and I thought, well, he doesn't want it, so I should respect it. It wasn't until I was in the shower later that I realized, why the fuck did I actually stop? I facepalmed so hard. Some subs test their doms like that, and if the dom fails, the sub takes control. I don't think I'm naturally dominant --- I'm too instinctively nice, unironically --- so I have to be careful with moments like that.

"Are you done?" I ask, looking neutral, but with a fake, contained anger. I want it to seem like I'm barely holding myself together. I glare at him and ask, menacingly, "Did you find the right force?"

"Is it this?" I punch him.

"Or this?" I punch him again.

"Or this?" I punch him harder than I ever have before.

"Listen to me very carefully --- for the next 20 minutes you're going to do what I tell you and only what I tell you. If you do anything else, I'm going to punch you this hard again. Do you understand?"

"Yes, daddy, sorry."

"Look at me." He does. I place my left hand under his chin, angle his head, and punch him with my right, same force as the last one. He yelps and falls to the side.

When he looks back up at me, it's clear I succeeded. I've never made someone feel true fear before, but it's quite obvious when it happens. His face is truly, properly scared. Whatever happens in the next 20 minutes, I've already triggered the true fear violation here --- still, I'll do it again near the end, just to be sure.

I spend the next 20 minutes switching between facefucking and fucking him. While I'm fucking him, I punch his back, chest, and sides. When he's on his back with his legs up, I target his cock and balls too. Nothing as hard as the two I gave him at the start, but as the end approaches, I ramp up --- harder hits, angrier acting, more demands.

At the end of the 20 minutes, I have him eat my cum off the floor --- he does it without hesitation. I lift his face and say, "Good boy," then give him an extra-hard punch. He smiles, like he enjoys it. I hit him again, harder. Still smiling. I hit a third time, this one heavy. His smile twitches, then steadies. I pause. He waits.

Then I hit him again, this one quick. His eyes flicker, the smile holds, but not as strongly. I go again, harder. The smile finally breaks, his mouth goes flat. His face is neutral, maybe a hint of worry.

I keep going --- one punch, then another, increasing force gradually. His hands twitch after each one, his neck stiffens. At some point, blood appears on my hand, likely from his face --- but he doesn't react. I hit him again, he exhales sharply. One more, then another, then I stop.

Then a final punch --- almost full force. He nearly drops to the floor. When he looks back up, there it is --- unmistakable, true fear. I say, "It follows you now!"

I drop to the floor and hug him. "It's okay, it's over now." His eyes are open but unfocused; for a moment, he's not there. Did I give him a concussion or something? But he comes back to it quickly. I tell him face is bleeding and that we should go to the bathroom. We head over, and I help him wash it. We press a towel to the cut to stop the bleeding. It's superficial, nothing serious. Then we go to the bed and lie there, talking.

"Oh my god, that was so hot. I totally thought you were going to kill me. You look completely evil, like, seriously. When you came in I already thought you were going to kill me, but near the end I really thought I was done for. You were so good." He keeps going like that --- seems genuinely thrilled. But the conversation then steers towards another related topic.

"There are stories of guys getting killed during grindr meetups --- I think a few months ago, some 18-year-old got murdered. He was an escort, and drugs were involved, but still, it's crazy to think that, just like that, it could happen to you."

The tone in his voice shifts --- the way he says it could happen to you, I can't help but hear it as directed at me. He says it with a slightly joyous but menacing tone --- as if he knows something I don't. Am I just hearing it wrong, did he actually say it like that?

"Do you go to strangers' houses like this often?" He pauses --- "Not worried something could happen to you?"

I answer, but I don't like where this conversation is going, the way he says it feels off. But before I can steer it away---

"It's getting late. You should go now. I want to sleep too."

That's abrupt, but I agree and start dressing. He stays quiet in bed. When I'm ready, I walk to the entrance. He gets up and follows.

"I need to press a button here to open the door. Stand right there, and you'll hear a buzz."

He motions the button is close to the sofa, behind the wall, where I can't see. But I don't remember seeing any button there. Why would a button to open a door be further inside the house instead of right by the door? That makes no sense. Why does he need me to stand right there? Why that exact spot? I can't see what he's doing anymore.

I freeze. Something's wrong. He pops out from the corner --- just the head at first, smiling too widely. Then movement. His hand's coming next. That's it. He was grabbing a gun from under the sofa, and now he's going to shoot me.

My chest tightens, time stops. I can almost see the path of the bullet already --- a shot right in the chest, I fall back, hit my head on the door, blood splattered all over it, maybe one second of awareness before it's done. My whole body wants to run, but I can't, I'd have to turn my back. I can't fucking believe this is it. I'm going to fucking die.

There's no way a guy this attractive would want anything to do with me without ulterior motives. I fell right into it. It's over. It's so fucking over. At least if I die here, I died doing what I loved: beating the shit out of fags.

I close my eyes and prepare to die. One second, two...

A buzz.

I open my eyes. He's just standing there, body half visible, smiling and waving.

"I don't wanna show myself out there because I'm naked. Bye~"

Oh.

I see...

Well, I guess I misread that.

I wave goodbye back, open the door, and leave.

Outside, a few meters to the left, a homeless guy is squatting near the garbage dump, just openly shitting. I guess this is the party district, where crazy things happen at night. A guy shitting in public is not the wildest thing these streets have seen. As I'm watching, he looks back angrily and says, "Hey, can I get some privacy here!" I look away and head to my car.

Chapter 6 - The Hero

The snake state from last night was still the Carnival one --- which means fear isn't the right violation component --- or maybe the kind of violation doesn't matter, only that it's there. If that's true, I need a new path of exploration to trigger new snake states. The snake should be around 12 meters away now. I still have some time, but I need to figure it out soon.

It makes sense to assume that a violation must be present, but something else is missing. When I followed the original bearer, I was violated --- but what else did I feel? There was the rush of following, but it wasn't aimed at him, or was it? I did feel... anger? Yea, I was pretty angry at him, for how recklessly he was driving, and it lasted for a good 15 minutes before the speed bumps. Maybe it's not fear at all, but consistent anger?

But how can I make someone angry at me while having them follow me or my instructions for 20 minutes? I pace around my apartment, thinking it through. The clearest route seems psychological: find someone who's looking not for a hookup, but a relationship. If I get them invested in me, I can do things that chip away at them, subtle things, but with a high chance to make them angry. I usually don't kiss people, for instance --- that's fine for casual encounters, but refusing to kiss someone who wants a relationship might be tilting enough to work.

But this will be hard --- it's a huge difficulty increase from previous encounters. Manipulating someone's emotions like this for a full 20 minutes... and I don't even know if it'll work. I should try anyway. If mid-encounter I notice it's not working, as long as I don't say the words --- because the snake only evaluates after the declaration, technically speaking --- it won't count as an attempt.

Attempt 11 --- Thursday, 12 meters

I change my bio to say, "Looking for someone to connect with." I add that I'm only interested in dates and relationships. I spend most of the day online trying to find someone. In hindsight, that was a mistake --- people who want relationships on grindr aren't harder to find, they're just a different, worse type. The app, in my experience, splits users into two camps: those who want to fuck right now, and those who want to behave like women and have dates and shit. I fall firmly into the first camp --- efficient, immediate.

The problem with the right now crowd is everything that comes with it --- drugs, five loads inside their assholes a night, piss orgies, and every other flavor of low impulse-control degeneracy imaginable --- and, inevitably, STDs. The problem with the date people is the opposite: they fucking want to talk for ages before meeting up. It's like a job interview, completely unworkable. If I wanted to talk before fucking, I'd just use Tinder.

These two camps exist because it's just how the group dynamics play out --- degeneracy always wins. The degenerates end up being the majority, and that forces everyone else to be more careful. There ends up being no middle ground for someone like me, who wants to fuck right now, but without drugs, and with a baseline of responsibility.

So relationship guys turn overly cautious. I understand it, but talking to them is just boring. I hate conversational environments that are filters, I hate dates. I'd rather fuck first, based purely on visual and physical chemistry --- and then, when we're resting in bed, naked, we can talk about whatever. Those conversations tend to be true. Whatever happens on a "date" is false, I don't like that fakeness and try to avoid it.

But I spend the whole day doing it --- unsuccessfully, I might add --- and I'm about to give up when a message appears.

"Hey, you're really cute. Want to meet up and get to know each other? I have a place."

I like this guy's directness. I tell him I'm not looking for hookups right now.

"Me neither. You can just come over and we'll meet and talk. No pressure for anything sexual. I just don't like chatting on here, I prefer face to face."

I check his profile in more detail --- his face looks fine, nothing strange, no red flags. He says he's looking for something serious, not just hookups. This is by far the best interaction I've had with any of the relationship guys today. It's 8pm now. I don't need to do an attempt tonight, since #10's was past midnight earlier today, but I might as well give it a shot.

I tell him I'll go, he sends me his address. On the drive over, I consider a backup plan --- if this initial plan doesn't work, it might be worth having something lined up that might still trigger a new snake state. I think in the ultimate case, I can just brute force anger --- tie him up and beat the shit out of him --- a crude option, but if that's what it takes, I'll do it.

I arrive and wait outside his building, he opens the inner door. The moment I see him, something about his eyes is off. As he walks closer, it becomes clearer: is he drunk? He opens the outer door and we say hi, he leads me inside and I follow. Yes, based on the smell, he is undeniably drunk. This is potentially good, maybe he's one of those drunks who gets angry more easily.

"Don't mind the mess," he says. Everyone says that, even when their place is pristine. But his is genuinely messy. Not the worst I've seen --- I've been to some real war zones --- but there's literally nowhere to sit safely in the living room, just piles of random shit scattered everywhere.

He leads me to his bedroom and it's just a big bed. So this is where we're going to "talk," huh? He immediately starts undressing, pushes me onto the bed, then moves to undress me too.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey. Wait a minute. Weren't we just going to talk? No pressure for anything sexual?"

"Sorry, you're just so cute, I just want to eat you up."

He moves to try to kiss me, I refuse. "I'm not going to kiss you. I don't even know you. Can't we just talk?"

He lifts my shirt and starts licking my nipples. Uh... I guess I just have to accept this. He's not that good looking --- both his face and body are a 6, maybe a 6.5 --- but, you know, that's never really stopped me, so my cock gets hard. He keeps licking me as he moves down, eventually reaches it, pulls it out, and marvels at it. We didn't exchange pictures, since both our profiles showed our faces. He slaps it on his face like a toy, it's heavy when it's hard, and it makes a meaty thump.

He sucks me for about five minutes --- not bad, not great either --- but he's enthusiastic. And he's really going at my balls and crotch. Like, really-really going at them. Eventually, he lifts my legs up and starts licking my ass.

I don't like anything up my ass. Only one guy licked me there before, and I didn't feel anything from it. I didn't feel good, nor bad, it just felt like... there's a guy licking my asshole, I guess. This time is no different. He's clearly into it --- some guys swear a really good cocksucker who licks your ass good will make you cum buckets --- maybe I just haven't met one yet.

So I give him a few fake moans --- like, yea, sure, I'm super really enjoying this. In hindsight, I shouldn't have done that, he takes it as a signal that I like it, duh, and keeps doing it more and more.

Whatever's going on here is hopeless. None of my original plan will work here. Plan B it is then --- pretend I'm mad he licked my ass and that I "liked it." Yea, this is a huge blow to my masculinity, "I'm not a faggot," and so on.

After he's done licking my ass, he stands up in front of me, then drops onto my cock. He tries to kiss me, I refuse again. He keeps trying, I keep refusing. After a few minutes of riding, his legs get tired. He tells me to stand at the edge of the bed. He sits on my cock furiously, half-standing --- this position is better for both his legs and for me. I lie there, doing quite literally nothing. He fucks himself with my cock for about 30 minutes non-stop, I cum three times.

He finishes, and we're both lying in bed. I ask, "Now, can we just talk, for, like, 20 minutes at least?"

"Why won't you kiss me?" He tries again, I refuse. "You have a girlfriend? Are you married?" He grabs my hands and checks for a ring. It's common enough for so-called 'straight' guys on grindr to cheat that it's a reasonable suspicion.

"If I were in a relationship, I'd never cheat. I'm not like that."

"So what's the real reason you won't kiss me?"

"I find kissing to be more intimate than getting my cock sucked or fucking someone. I don't kiss anyone I don't intend on having a relationship with."

"So you don't kiss the people you meet up with?"

"If I don't feel it's going anywhere, yea. I don't even know you. You told me we were going to talk and you just attacked me. Why would I kiss you?"

"You're right, sorry." He pauses, studying me. "By the way, has anyone ever told you that you sound like a robot?"

Interesting. Few people pick up on that immediately. And if they do, they don't say anything. That means he's probably honest, perceptive, and likely smart. Or it could just be the alcohol.

"Yes," I say.

"Yes," he repeats in a mockingly robotic tone. "You're so weird." He looks at me for a few seconds, his eyes show admiration with a hint of... jealousy? I've seen that look before many times. "What's your sign? Wait, let me guess... Capricorn?"

"Hm, no. I'm a Sagittarius with Aries rising."

"Are you sure you're not cheating on your wife?"

"Yes, I really don't like lying. I wouldn't cheat if I were in a relationship. Everything I'm telling you is true."

Now, of course, I am lying a bit to him in multiple ways, but the core of it is true.

"Ever had a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend? I saw you're bi on your profile."

I always keep the "bi" tag on my profile. Occasionally, girls wander onto grindr looking for guys to fuck them. They tend to be attractive, although they're often looking for real chad-thundercock types, so I don't have much luck with them. Still, they're there, so I keep the tag.

"No, I've never had either before. What about you?"

"Really? I've had three boyfriends. They all broke up with me. Can you guess why? You don't have to guess, actually."

I follow his instructions and don't guess. I just stand there, silently.

"You're so weird. You were supposed to guess. Do you take everything people say literally?"

"Not everything."

"Not everything," he repeats in a mockingly robotic tone. "Do you fuck girls a lot? Do you like fucking guys or girls more?"

"You have to talk to girls way more to fuck them, and I don't really like talking to people that much, so I end up fucking guys more."

He laughs. I'm not sure what's funny exactly.

"In the end, I don't care if it's a guy or a girl," I say. "If I'm horny, I just need a hole to cum into."

"That's horrible and disgusting." He seems genuinely disgusted.

"Well, I'm being honest. But recently I've had a change of heart, and I'm looking for something more serious. But the empty hookups keep finding me anyway --- don't they?" I give him a long, deliberate look.

"How many guys have you been with before?"

"Between 50 and 100, I'd say."

"No way. That's disgusting. Seriously, that is so disgusting." He seems genuinely disgusted. "Why the hell is the range so high? That doesn't even make sense."

"A lot of encounters are unmemorable. I remember this one guy, really cute, we met three times. I enjoyed it, I thought he did too, but then he ghosted me---"

"Who would ghost you? Did you do anything bad to him?"

"I know right, who would ghost me? But yea, I guess in a sense, I did something bad. I like dominating guys a bit too rough sometimes --- maybe he didn't like it? That's my best guess. Good for him, in a way. In any case, a few months later I was trying to remember everyone I'd met recently, so I went over my grindr account, looked at all the chats and made a list. I---"

"How many people had you met around then?"

"About 20 guys or so, I think? Every once in a while I get really horny and end up meeting around 20 guys before it calms down. Then I can go months or years with no need for sex. Anyway, I do the list thing sometimes, just to see what kinds of people I end up meeting during those periods. So I did that, and then a week later I realized I'd totally forgotten that guy. Like, I completely forgot about his existence. Because he'd either blocked me or deleted his account, his chats didn't show up. So if I can forget a guy who I met three times and who I actually liked, the number of single encounters I've forgotten is probably pretty high. That's why the range."

"Will you forget our encounter?" He leans in to kiss me, I refuse. He settles for a hug and kisses my neck.

"Well, you licked my ass, and that rarely happens, so probably not."

"You are so disgusting and weird." He locks his eyes on mine --- longing, jealous. "You're so pretty it actually makes me angry. Has anyone ever told you that you're really handsome?"

"Yea, people tell me that often."

"So every guy you meet up with just tells you how handsome you are? You walk into a room and everyone stares?"

"Not everyone."

"Not everyone," he repeats in a mockingly robotic tone. "You're so weird."

How many times has this guy called me weird now?

"You're like an android. Yeah, I'm gonna call you my android. What was that android's name --- Android 17? Yeah, you're Android 17. Wait, wasn't that one the blonde girl? She's pretty fucking hot too. If you were her, who'd you want to get fucked by? I'd wanna get fucked by Vegeta."

This line of conversation hits so fast and so randomly that when he says "Vegeta" I actually burst out laughing. Rarely in these encounters does someone make me laugh for real, but he manages it.

"Vegeta? He's the worst."

"Sure, he'd humiliate you and degrade you --- but he's the type where you know, deep down, he loves you."

We talk like that for about an hour. He keeps getting funnier, sharper --- pulling some genuine laughs out of me. He's really good at talking --- charismatic, quick-witted. Sometimes I meet guys like this, and I always end up marveling at how they do it. I don't understand it, and I don't think I ever will. It takes quick thinking and presence of spirit to lead a conversation competently, and he has it.

If he were an 8/10, he'd be a real menace. But now that I think about it --- maybe he only developed this much charisma because he isn't. It all balances out in the end.

Eventually, we drift into talking about dates.

"I don't really like dates," I say. "Something about them feels off. I like what we did here today better --- sex first, then a lot of talking."

"I'm like that too. But do you know why you're like that?"

"What do you mean by why? It's just what I like."

"I don't think so. I think my little android's just scared --- scared of being hurt --- so he's built a wall of 1s and 0s around his heart. That way, he never has to feel anything."

"That... makes no sense at all. How could you conclude that from the fact I like sex first?"

"Because the entire point of a date is to build a connection through vulnerability. You open up, they open up back. You don't like that because you don't like being emotionally vulnerable. You like talking after sex because the biggest risk, the risk of rejection, has already been removed. Does that make sense?"

That's... surprisingly insightful. I'm quiet for a long moment, thinking. Yes, he's right.

"That's probably the most insightful thing anyone's ever said to me on one of these dates. Are you like a psychiatrist or something?"

"No, I'm just like that too --- well, I used to be. I've changed!" He grins, proud, and leans in to kiss me, I refuse again.

We keep talking. But as time passes, the cracks start to show.

"It's getting late. Tomorrow's Friday and I have work. I should go." I get up and start dressing.

He half-stands, hugs me from behind --- locking my arms --- and throws me back on the bed. "No, don't leave me. Just stay a while longer." He leans in to kiss me again, I refuse. We hug in silence for about 10 minutes. I try to leave again, he stops me. This repeats about five times. It's been two hours total, I refuse yet another kiss.

He keeps calling me weird and pointing out how robotic I look as I try to leave.

I think I understand what his deal is entirely now. He's clingy and attaches fast to anyone he likes, kind of like me. He had three boyfriends, so he's probably learned how to hook people into relationships through instinct.

One of his methods is obvious: find whatever's off about the other person and point it out early and often. This makes them feel seen, but also separate, as it isolates them from others. He is the only one who "gets" them, who can accept their weirdness. Maybe he's the only one who even notices it, maybe before they do.

If I hadn't been called a robot before, he might've been one of the few people who ever said it so clearly. It's a good strategy, he's probably not even doing it consciously.

"Just kiss me already!" he says in the most exasperated tone I've seen so far. "You don't like me at all, do you? Once you leave, that's it. We'll never see each other again."

"Yes."

"Yes," he repeats in a mockingly robotic tone, but now with an edge of hatred. He climbs on top of me, his face twisted.

"Hey!" He slaps me.

"Is there anyone in there?" He slaps me again.

"Is there anyone in the fucking house, or is it just 1s and 0s?" He slaps me, this time harder.

"Kiss me," he orders, leaning in. I turn my face away.

"KISS ME!" He slaps me again.

"KISS ME!" Slap.

"KISS ME!" Slap.

I am unmoving, face neutral. I take each slap and don't react. My eyes focused on the ceiling, or somewhere above the ceiling, just not here.

"You fucking fuck!" In a fit of rage, he starts punching my chest with both hands while screaming. Unlike the slaps, these actually hurt, but not enough to worry. I decide that this is probably the angriest he'll get, so I say, "It follows you now," drowned out by his voice.

He hasn't followed me at all. He led the entire encounter from start to finish, and he wasn't violated. If anyone was violated here, it was me. But he is angry. Very angry. If anger's a necessary component for the curse, this would do it.

My words seem to affect him --- his anger is dismantled and transformed into sadness, despair. He starts sobbing, then profusely crying. His head falls onto my chest as he cries and cries.

I'd feel bad about it, but I'm a zero towards him. He's intelligent, funny, and charismatic. But I'm just not attracted to him. It would be more cruel of me to kiss him and give him false hope than to reject him outright. I don't like lying to people.

When it's over, I get up and put on my clothes. He doesn't try to stop me this time. He does the same.

"I have to open the front door for you."

We walk downstairs, we say goodbye. I give him a kiss on the cheek, then head to my car.

As I get there, I remember to check the snake. I glance left --- nothing. Then right, down the street --- there it is. And it looks different. It worked! I stand there for about 10 seconds, looking at it.

It burns. Its body is made of pure fire --- its shape unstable, edges flickering, tearing apart, reforming. Heat warps the air around it, reaching me even from here. Its flames hit a nearby tree, but it doesn't burn. What an oppressive state. Having this follow me will be distracting, it's hard to ignore fire.

I look away and get ready to leave. As I'm about to open the car's door, I notice #11 watching me. He shakes his head with a smirk, then goes back inside. From his perspective, I just spent 10 seconds staring at nothing in the distance. I guess this confirms to him that I am, indeed, very weird.

Attempt 12 --- Saturday, 11 meters

I wake up refreshed. While I don't feel bad about my encounter with #11, it got me thinking. From a high-level perspective, the main conclusion I can reach is that casual hookups are a problem. I've been on both sides of it: sometimes I meet someone who really likes me and I don't like them back; other times I like someone who meets with me like three times and then ghosts me.

For someone who is very attractive --- like I am to maybe 5 to 10% of the population --- casual hookups leave a trail of damage as they happen. I did that to #11. He felt strongly attracted towards me, I couldn't reciprocate, and so he'll feel bad about it for days, weeks, maybe months.

But even worse, because I was "perfect" to him, our encounter will, in a way, ruin him. Pulling me for one night raises his baseline of what he thinks is possible. So even though I may be an outlier for him, I become his standard, which means he will reject people who would have been good for him, just because they aren't as good as me.

If enough people behave like this, aided by these apps, relationships become harder to form as expectations go up. The pool of "good enough" partners naturally shrinks, and the increased levels of rejection generates resentment and, in turn, cheating.

The counterargument is that these apps also create couples who'd never have met otherwise, and that's true. Even so, there's an argument for the net effect being negative. And of course, I'm not faultless in this. Maybe I should stop using these apps altogether...

My thoughts suddenly jump to the snake. My decision to focus on anger was right. Even without a follow or violation, it still generated a new snake state, which means anger is part of the passing condition. The next step is clear: generate both willful following and anger on the target for 20 minutes --- difficult, but not impossible.

Yesterday's encounter left a bad taste in my mouth, I should try something non-sexual. What service could I use where someone would willingly follow me for 20 minutes as I try my hardest to make them angry? I could try #6 again on Discord, but I don't want to ruin our friendship. An online paid interaction like #7 wouldn't work either.

And I already did both attempts #10 and #11 yesterday, which means I shouldn't make any more today.

That's when the perfect idea strikes me. I search for a number online and call it.

"Hey, I heard you guys help people with, uh... mental problems, people in need. Is that true?"

"Hi, thanks for reaching out. You've called the right place. Can you tell me more about what's going on for you right now?"

"I think I am... the snake --- it follows me. I can see it everywhere. I don't know if it's real or not. I don't trust anyone to tell me if they can see it or not. I'm getting worried it's getting closer, that it's going to eat me. Is there anyone who could help me?"

"Okay. Thank you for telling me that. You're not alone, we're here to help, alright? It sounds like you might be having a really intense experience right now."

Her voice is calm, measured, with a tinge of genuine worry beneath the trained reassuring cadence. She asks for my details and runs through a checklist: my name, phone number, address, whether I feel safe, if I'm alone, if I have any history with police or hospitals, whether I can meet in public, if I have weapons, if I'm on drugs, and so on. I answer everything as honestly as I can.

"I'm going to connect you with one of our outreach workers. Would you be comfortable meeting with someone tomorrow, in person?"

"Yes, I can meet tomorrow. I'd like a public place, if possible. I live near a park. Would that work? I can also drive somewhere else if it's better."

She gives me the outreach worker's contact and says I'll get messages soon to arrange the details. A few minutes later, we talk and set the time for the meeting tomorrow.

The next day comes, and I'm sitting on a bench at the park. I see her. She sees me too --- waves, and walks over.

"Hi, you must be Felipe, I'm Ana. It's good to meet you. Mind if I sit?"

She waits for me to nod in response, then sits beside me, leaving space between us.

"Thanks for meeting me here. I know it can be hard to talk about things like this."

I nod and wait for her to continue.

"You mentioned something following you. Can you tell me more about that?"

She looks warm --- around 30, maybe. Her face carries genuine compassion, but marked by well-defined lines, matured --- so a non-naive compassion. She's probably seen it all.

I remind myself I can't let her lead. I need her to follow me, not the other way around.

"Do you wanna walk with me instead? I prefer talking while walking. It takes 20 minutes or so to go around the park once, so we can just do that."

She agrees and stands with me, I make sure I'm leading the path. As we walk, I give her an abridged version of the story so far. I leave out the snake states or the transfer attempts. I only tell her it keeps getting closer every day, and that it scares me.

"Okay... it sounds like this thing, this snake, is both scary and persistent. You wake up and it's closer. You sleep, and it's still there. Living like that must be exhausting."

She pauses, waiting for me to respond. When I stay silent, she continues.

"Can I ask, when it started happening, did anything else in your life change? Sometimes when something sticks around like this, it's because it's tied to something else. A shift, a rupture, even something small."

I don't like her line of questioning, but I understand it. She's trying to trace the start back to some event. The only event was the original bearer passing the curse to me. I'm reluctant to tell her --- it might expose too much about the curse mechanism and my attempts to pass it on, but I figure it's fine. I tell her about the stalking and the original bearer.

"Thank you for telling me that. That sounds terrifying. You said he gave you something, or passed something on to you? Can I ask --- did anything happen when you confronted him? Did you talk? Did the police get involved?"

"No. He just grabbed me, said something to me, and then left."

"Okay. That sounds really unsettling. I'm sorry that happened to you. When someone grabs you like that --- even once --- it can stay with you physically, even if there were no injuries. You don't have to share what he said unless you want to. But can I ask --- do you feel safe now? Safe walking around, sleeping, being alone?"

"Yea, I do. The only thing that's worrying me is the snake. It's really big and scary. And it's consistently getting closer."

"Okay. That makes sense. If I saw something that big getting closer every day, I'd worry too."

It's starting to tick me off how she replies to everything with this polished fake empathy and this synthetic concern. She's like a robot.

"Can you tell me what 'closer' means to you? Is it something you actually see moving through space, physically, or more like a feeling?"

Bitch, obviously I mean physically.

"Yes, it's literally physical. It's 11 meters away now. It was 26 meters away 15 days ago."

"Okay, thanks for clarifying --- that helps me understand. So, 11 meters today. You've been keeping track --- do you have a system, or is it more by feel?"

"I measure it with a tape measure."

"That's... very precise. Not everyone would go to that length. And you've seen it move day by day. Has anyone else ever been able to see it with you?"

"No. Can you see it? It's right there." I point at the snake.

"...I see nothing there myself. But I believe that you do, and I don't think you're lying. Just because I can't see it, it doesn't mean it's not real for you. What do you want me to do about it?"

She asks it sincerely, not in a mocking tone. What an odd question. Why would she ask me what to do about it? Isn't she the one here to help? But this gives me an opening to attack.

"What do you usually do in these situations, to help people?"

"It depends on what the person needs. Sometimes all I can do is listen. Sometimes it's housing, meds, or just someone to talk to regularly. We try not to assume what's best for anyone. I start by showing up --- that's where it begins, and that's what I'm doing now."

"Let's say there's a guy who's addicted to one drug or another, he says he won't quit. What do you do?"

"If someone says they won't quit..." She exhales softly. "Then we don't force it. We keep them safe --- needles, sites, kits, checking in. The point is survival. If they're alive, maybe something changes. If they're dead, nothing can. Keeping someone alive is never easy, but sometimes it's all you can do until they're ready. It's not perfect, but it's something."

"Aren't you just allowing them to rot even slower instead of actually helping them?"

She exhales slowly through her nose --- discomfort visible but controlled. Her voice stays calm, measured.

"I've heard that before," she says after a pause. "You call it rotting slower. I call it keeping someone alive until they're ready to change. People use for reasons you don't see, or don't want to. If they're alive, there's a chance. If they're dead, there's none. But keeping someone alive isn't free, it costs you something --- your peace, your stability, sometimes even your safety. It's hard to understand that until you've been there, doing it."

That's a good answer, but it doesn't change reality.

"Objectively speaking, you are extending the person's suffering. But even worse, you create an environment where drug use isn't just safe, it's also encouraged. Isn't it true that centers like yours have seen explosive growth worldwide, often outpacing treatment and rehab centers? Doesn't that tell you that you're incentivizing the spread of destructive behavior?"

She exhales again, slower this time. She doesn't look particularly shaken by my words. Instead, she studies me for a moment, like she's measuring where to cut.

"Yes, more centers exist now. Not because we encourage them, but because more people are dying. They don't show up because we tempt them --- they show up because there's nowhere else to go. You see only statistics. I see a man who walks in shaking, half-dead, and somehow walks out alive. That's the difference. Until there's a system that does better, this is the price we pay to keep them breathing."

Her strategy for this argument seems to focus on the personal always. It's a good strategy, maybe I should attack it directly.

"Then imagine an alternate system. Instead of accepting addiction passively, a firm but fair hand takes over the person's life until they're capable of coexisting with the rest of society again. You decide where they sleep, work, eat, who they talk to. These people need order more than freedom. Structure is what will heal them. You're not giving them what will actually help them."

She watches me, calm, like she's weighing whether to indulge me further in this argument or to stop it. She decides to indulge me.

"I see why you think that would work. But control doesn't heal, it trains. And once the control is gone, so is the change. You can't force someone into being whole. You can only walk beside them until they choose it. Care isn't the same as control. And we've --- well, we've seen what happens when systems forget that."

"And what happens, exactly? Because what I see is what happens under your system. The other day I saw a homeless man just openly shitting on the street. In my view, that 'man' should be removed from society until he learns to be a civilized human being. In your view, we just need to 'walk beside him' until he's ready to not openly shit outside."

I continue, "You're the most pathetic kind of person I've ever met. You hide behind a fake compassion, a robotic and monstrous empathy that ensures that those you 'help' will keep suffering and living lives of the utmost despair until they die. If they die, because you also try to ensure that their misery is extended for as long as possible."

Deeper, "You don't actually want them to get better. You want them, actually --- no, you need them broken, begging, so you can keep playing the savior. Their misery defines you. Without it, you wouldn't know who you are, you'd be nothing. You actually want to see these people reduced to nothing, so that then you can congratulate yourself for a job well done. You shouldn't fool yourself about what you're doing. This is what you're doing."

Her face shuts down instantly. She stares at me with piercing eyes, then turns and starts walking away. Did I go too far? Damn, I'm so fucking bad at this. I shouldn't say the declaration now, it clearly didn't work. I'm about to leave when she stops. She turns back, walking towards me fast, her face tight with anger. She raises her voice, but without yelling.

"You don't know me. You don't know what I've seen. You think you're the only one sickened by this? Look, I've watched people die in alleys, I've pulled women off stairwell floors after they were raped during detox. Do you think I want that? That I do it because it makes me feel whole? No. You invent that story because it's easier than facing the real one: that helping means bleeding, and you've likely never once let yourself bleed for a stranger."

"You think I want to sit here and watch people collapse in slow motion? You think I'm happy watching another teenager choke on their own vomit? This isn't for pride, or for my self-image. It's survival --- paid for with my peace, my sleep, my safety. I pay that cost because no one else does. And you'd rather dress it up as corruption than admit you've never risked paying it yourself."

Ah, I'm not bad at this after all. I truly pulled her anger out. Whatever happens now, that alone means I've won. Still, her argument is interesting. I should try to win that too.

I say, "I mean, you know how this city's stoplights are full of people asking for money or food? Some of them truly need it, sure --- the city got flooded a year ago, people are going through hard times. But others could clearly work, and they just don't, they choose not to. Why?"

"Because it's easier, obviously. It's the path of least resistance. But also because --- well, because suffering is a currency. And public humiliation turns it into gold. 'Things got so bad, so terrible, I had to beg in traffic,' they tell themselves. And suddenly every failure, every mistake, every sin, every error unaddressed --- all that guilt --- it's gone. All of it is written off by the spectacle of misery."

"And you're no different. The horrors you collect --- people dying in alleys, raped in stairwells, choking on their own vomit --- they become that same currency. They launder the mistakes of the system through you. Your system is optimized for the generation of suffering, because that's the currency it pays people like you. It's how the world sells you the illusion that what you do matters and that it's all worth it."

"If the system actually worked --- if it actually reduced suffering --- people like you, people who are drawn to and who need to "help others," would be left with nothing to do. You'd be reduced to nothing. So is it any surprise that the system that's most memetically successful is the one you're defending? Do you get what I'm saying, or is it too abstract for your "compassionate" mind to grasp?"

I always surprise myself with how these arguments come out of me. I rarely plan them. But when the moment comes, the logic builds itself, and the ideas just flow out of my mouth like they were always there. God, it feels good to be a good arguer.

As I speak, her face is unreadable. Is it rage? Contempt? Sadness? Pity? It's all there, yet not at the same time. I can't tell what she's feeling, only that she still has something to say.

"You've built such a beautiful, complex, and sad theory," she says quietly. "You've convinced yourself that I do this for some kind of psychic 'currency.' You see systems and conspiracies everywhere because it protects you from the simpler, harder truth."

"The truth is --- there is no system that will save the world. There are no grand theories. There is only ever one thing: there is a man in a park who is in pain, and there is another person who chooses to walk beside him for an hour and listen. That is all. It isn't efficient. It isn't optimized. It doesn't generate a return on investment. It is simply me, paying my pound of flesh, right now, for you. It is me, willingly being wounded, for no other reason than you are in front of me."

Her eyes narrow, her voice hardens. "That is the whole of my work. If you want to see that as pathetic..." Her tone sharpens. "...then I truly am sorry for you."

There's nothing better than getting into someone's head like this --- forcing them to defend themselves, to defend the very core of their being. Her argument is strong, too. It's hard to deny that she is sacrificing herself for a stranger. I genuinely can't say I've ever truly done that.

But whether she's right doesn't matter. This is probably the angriest she'll get before leaving. It's been well over 20 minutes, so I quickly say, "It follows you now!"

She looks at me for a moment, then turns sharply and walks off without a word.

I glance at the snake and... a new state?

Attempt 13 --- Saturday, 10 meters

It looks transparent --- its body is made entirely of glass, stiff and brittle, ready to break. Sunlight refracts through it in thin prisms. At the center of its head there's no eye, just a glowing crack. I get close out of curiosity, and its breathing makes a low cacophony of glass on glass. I throw a rock at it, expecting it to shatter, but it bounces off harmlessly.

The fact that the snake returned a new state makes no sense. Still, it's a good development. My mood has also been significantly lifted from having that argument, so this made for a great day already. I head home and log the encounter. This one was mostly conversation, so I try to remember her words exactly.

The anger generated from #11 and #12 wasn't the same. With #11, it ramped up slowly over hours of failed attempts to kiss me. With #12, it came mostly at the end. It's possible this difference --- sustained anger versus sudden anger --- explains why the snake states were different. But this logic is kind of weak. Why would two attempts where they clearly weren't following me generate two different and new snake states?

I open grindr out of habit. I have a few notifications, most from people I'm not interested in, but one stands out. An odd-looking... girl? No, guy. Profile says male, prefers he/him, but he really looks like a girl. Not in the standard trans-passing way --- more like in an Anya Taylor-Joy alien kind of way. Not specifically her eyes being weirdly positioned, just that strange, asymmetric type of face that looks off but still works. She--- he looks off, but it works.

The rest of the profile seems fine, except for "open relationship." I always avoid people like this. If I'm in a relationship, I'm completely loyal and devoted and expect the same in return. The idea of an open relationship disgusts me to my core. There's something deeply wrong with people like this --- afraid of commitment, unwilling to give in --- and I prefer to stay away from them.

Still, this girl, and I'll refer to her as a girl because it just comes naturally... this girl, I'm interested in hooking up with her. She doesn't look conventionally pretty --- most people wouldn't find her attractive --- but I do. I have no plans for an attempt, but maybe I can use her boyfriend to try to provoke anger. I'll improvise as the encounter develops. If I end up doing two attempts today, all I have to do is skip tomorrow.

She messages me with a single "hi" and her album. I reply with mine, say I have a place, can pay for her Uber, and can drive her back after. For people I really want to meet, I'll sometimes open like this. Having a place is by far the most important resource for meeting people from this app, especially if they're younger. Next is transportation --- either a car or the ability to pay for their Uber. Covering these early makes it clear to the other person that I'm "real," someone who isn't just chatting pointlessly. Some people read it as overly eager, but I'm direct, and I don't care to meet people who don't like that.

"I have my lunch break in one hour," she says. "It lasts one hour, but I can be a bit late to come back to it. Does that work?"

I tell her yea, it works. I ask her for her number and her pickup address for the Uber, so I can order it later. She sends both. Then I wait an hour while chatting with her. Some people will ask me what fetishes I have, she does too. So I tell her:

"I'm a switch. I like being a really dominant top, or a submissive top to be used. But I can also be romantic, caring --- it depends on what you'd like. If you have no preference, I'm a dom top by default. Slaps, spit, some more forceful fucking, and more up to what you can take."

She says she's fine with slaps and spit, but not humiliation or degradation. She also doesn't want visible marks because of her boyfriend. And she wants condoms.

Well, that gives me multiple easy openings for the attempt.

An hour passes, and she arrives. I tell her to follow my instructions for 20 minutes or so, then I start running the first encounter script on her. She's really into me, eyes full of lust. I push a little harder, and she seems to like it. But as I fuck her more, she starts to struggle. I ask:

"Is it hurting too much?"

"It's fine," she mumbles.

"Is your boyfriend's cock not as big as mine?"

"It's longer, but not as thick."

"Which is better, longer or thicker?" I mount her, making sure my cock is angled downwards, as I fuck her harder and faster.

She doesn't reply. I ask again. She still doesn't reply. I pull my cock out, leaving the head pressed against her asshole.

"Answer. I won't fuck you anymore until you do." It doesn't matter how she answers. If she says "longer," I pretend to be angry, ramp it up, and then tease her about her boyfriend. If she says "thicker," I tease her about her boyfriend right away.

"Thicker," she says.

"Yea, you like this thick cock stretching your pussy, right? Your boyfriend can't do this, can he?" I fuck her as hard and as fast as I can for about 30 seconds before getting tired. She moans a lot and seems to enjoy it.

We keep fucking like this. On a normal day, I'll take maybe 10 minutes to cum the first time, if I'm really into it. Today, it seems like I'll last longer. I don't know why. She's hot, the situation is hot, but something seems to be preventing me from cumming.

I sit on the bed, back against the pillow, and tell her to get on my lap. I start licking her nipples. They look good, with just enough fat to make them super suckable. I spend a few seconds doing it, then suddenly go for more suction, enough to leave a mark.

When she sees me doing this, she softly whispers, "No..."

I stop and move my head away. I look at the marks on and around her right nipple, purple. She looks too, but I see no anger on her face. She seems to have an "it is what it is" attitude about it.

"What will your boyfriend say about that?"

She's silent for a moment, then gives me a mock-indignant look. "He won't like it."

"What about this, will he like this?" I move to her other nipple, she leans back. I lean forward while hugging her back toward me. She gives in, and I mark her left nipple too. Then I move to her neck --- I give her some marks there as well, she just lets me do it.

We go back to fucking. I stop for a moment, grab her pants from the floor, and take her phone. I go in again while unlocking it. I can't actually unlock it, so I ask her how. She looks back, surprised.

"What the fuck? What are you doing?" She tries to pull away, but I hold her by the hips and keep her tied to me.

"I just wanna record a video of me fucking you. I'm doing it on your phone so you can just delete it later." She pauses. I make the cutest and most pleading face I can muster and say, "Please?"

"It unlocks with facial recognition."

I grab her by the hair, tilt her face upward, and point the phone at it. Then, I start recording.

After around 20 seconds of recording my cock sliding in and out of her pussy and her slight moans, I ask, "Whose cock is better, mine or your boyfriend's?"

She's reluctant to reply. I ask again, fucking her harder, and raising my voice with a threatening tone to it. "Whose cock is better, mine or your boyfriend's?"

"My boyfriend's."

I stop recording. "What the fuck? Come on man, it's just for the video. Say it's mine." She seems to giggle.

"OK. It's yours."

"No, wait, let me start recording again." I start again. After 20 seconds of fucking her, I ask, "Whose cock is better, mine or your boyfriend's?"

She moans loudly and, in an exaggerated horny voice, says, "Yours, yours is better. Please stretch my pussy, daddy." She sells it well.

I record for another minute or so while we go back and forth with more boyfriend comparative dirty talk. She gets fully into it, but in a way that feels ironic, kind of like she's mocking me. Whatever is happening here is a disaster from an attempt perspective --- she isn't angry at all. Well, I've already done my attempt for today, so I can just try something else tomorrow.

I set her phone aside, fuck her for a few more minutes, then cum. I ask if she came, she says no. I sit back against the wall and tell her to sit between my legs. I take the phone, play the video we just recorded, and kiss her neck while touching her cock.

She gets hard instantly. Ah, this rarely failed. Zoomers, especially someone like her --- smart, but likely brain-rotted from porn --- masturbate so much on their screens that the association becomes too strong. They can more consistently get hard in front of their phones than during actual real life sex. It's as if they were in love with their phones. If you were an alien looking from the outside, that's what you'd assume.

I tell her to not use her hands. I stroke her with one hand and hold her phone with the other. She leans back into me, kissing me however she can.

I ask, "What's your boyfriend's name?" She mumbles it to me.

While she's focused on me, I scroll through her contacts to try to find him. Two people have the same name, and there's no "boyfriend" saved. I pick one at random and call. She hears the ringtone, looks at phone, and shows the first real emotion I see on her face. She snatches the phone and ends the call.

"What the fuck? What the hell is wrong with you?"

I start to speak, but before I can finish a word, the phone rings. It's the same number calling back. She answers --- her boyfriend. While she talks, I bend her over, get the lube, and apply it to my cock and her asshole. I'm hard as a rock. I never had this specific situation in my head as a fetish or anything, but clearly I like it.

When I go in --- this time without a condom --- she audibly moans, but softly enough to pass as nothing. After around 30 seconds, she ends the call, drops her head to the pillow, and starts pushing her ass back hard. I match her, harder and faster. Somehow, I'm about to cum again, and I do so after about a minute. She moans a lot the whole time. I ask her if she came, she says yes. I guess the boyfriend call really got us both going.

It runs through my mind to review the encounter. She wasn't sustainably angry. Maybe she got angry at the end when I called him. Still, this attempt was interesting. Did she follow me? Mostly, but there were breaks, like when she snatched the phone away from me. Did I violate her? Yes, but would it also count? The mix of variables makes it worth treating as an attempt, just to see what will happen. So I say, "It follows you now!"

As she cleans herself in the bathroom, I check on the snake. Ah, my good old friend, the Carnival Snake. I guess this counted as a willing follow, which means some break from strict following is allowed. This also counted as a violation, which makes sense.

As I drive her back to work, we make small talk. Now I see why she never got angry. Psychologically, she's my clone. She seems to have the same "reduced affect display" thing going on. Calm, analytical, unemotional, somewhat robotic voice. We have similar taste in music, games, people. But then I turn the conversation to her boyfriend.

"How long have you been together?"

"Four years."

"How did you meet?"

"We met when I was travelling in another country. Then he moved here, and now we live together."

"What does he do?"

"He's a YouTube editor. You know what those are?"

"Yea, I know. They can be pretty well paid if they get a nice YouTuber, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

By now I've gotten used to her short replies that don't carry the conversation. She's younger than me, so exactly like I was at her age --- kind of incapable of keeping a conversation going because I never knew what to say next. Others might read this as her being cold, or uninterested, or being unwilling to talk about her boyfriend to a random grindr hookup. But I know better.

"So, how does your relationship work, exactly? I don't really understand open relationships. I'm hyper monogamous, so the idea just doesn't make sense to me."

"We can just hookup with anyone we want. It's not a big deal. He doesn't really hookup with anyone else though --- he doesn't like going out."

"And he's fine with that?"

"Yeah, I usually tell him about people I meet."

"Will you tell him about today?"

"Yes. I can't really not tell him." She gives me an accusatory look.

"Right, I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean --- well, I meant to, I just didn't know --- well, I knew, I was just being an asshole."

She's silent. So I ask, "How does it work exactly? Do you just get home and tell him about what happened in full detail? Will you show him the video? Does he need like cuck aftercare or something?"

"I already deleted the video. And no, he doesn't need 'cuck aftercare.' He's not like that." She pauses. "I just tell him what happened and that's it."

"Sorry --- if you don't wanna talk about it, it's fine. I'm just curious because it's so different from what I know."

"It's fine. I've been kind of... We've been kind of meaning to make it not open for a while now. It's not... good, I don't think, for us, these random hookups."

There's a lot I could say here. I could launch into a huge monologue about how exactly it's not good, she's clearly struggling to find the words to express it. But I decide to be chill about it. Sometimes the more effective move is to lead people with questions --- let them reach their own conclusions.

"Do you meetup with a lot of people from grindr?"

"No, you were the first this year, I think."

"Wow, you must have really liked me then."

"Yeah."

I have no reason to think she's lying. People often lie about this to avoid seeming like sluts. But she was very into me. That kind of lust only comes from being hyper horny and doing it daily --- or only once a year. Her asshole's shape and size supported the latter option.

"But what isn't good about the hookups, exactly?"

"I don't know. It's just... after, I always feel kind of off. Not bad, exactly. Just --- not like myself. I'm not sure. It's hard to describe."

Someone else in her place would have added, "It has nothing to do with you, you were wonderful." The fact she didn't truly made her my clone.

"Maybe it's your instincts telling you something. I personally think it'd be a good idea to commit fully to your boyfriend, but I'm biased."

"Maybe, yeah. Maybe you're right."

We reach her work, say our goodbyes, and she leaves.

Later that day, around 5pm, I notice her profile disappear --- either she blocked me or deleted her account. People rarely block me. Out of everyone I've fucked, it's not an exaggeration to say that 90% of them wanted more. People just like a thick cock.

So I'm going to imagine she deleted her account. After talking with her boyfriend, showing him the marks, then my profile, they decide --- in a touching moment of collective resolve --- that grindr is no more. He kisses her as he hadn't in months, maybe years. His long cock, longer than mine, at its hardest, reaches depths previously unreached, sealing the bond of their renewed commitment.

And me? I'm the hero. The catalyst that helped them rejuvenate their relationship. Yes, me, it was all me. Making the world better, one grindr encounter at a time.

After I get home, I spend the day and the next reorganizing my logs. I document every attempt in detail, every snake state with precision, and make sure all rules are outlined clearly. Then, I create two tables. The first tracks snake distance, snake state, and attempt number:

Day	Date	Weekday	Distance (day end)	Notes
1	2025/11/29	Saturday	31 meters	Curse transferred
2	2025/11/30	Sunday	30 meters	Snake seen for the first time
3	2025/12/01	Monday	29 meters	Psychiatrist consultation
4	2025/12/02	Tuesday	28 meters	MRI done
5	2025/12/03	Wednesday	27 meters	Coding
6	2025/12/04	Thursday	26 meters	Coding
7	2025/12/05	Friday	25 meters	Discovery of snake movement
8	2025/12/06	Saturday	20 meters	Attempts 1-5
9	2025/12/07	Sunday	20 meters	Waiting
10	2025/12/08	Monday	20 meters	Waiting
11	2025/12/09	Tuesday	20 meters	Waiting
12	2025/12/10	Wednesday	20 meters	Waiting
13	2025/12/11	Thursday	19 meters	Attempt 6
14	2025/12/12	Friday	18 meters	Attempt 7
15	2025/12/13	Saturday	17 meters	#1 trip
16	2025/12/14	Sunday	16 meters	#1 trip
17	2025/12/15	Monday	15 meters	Waiting text, Artifact
18	2025/12/16	Tuesday	14 meters	Attempt 8
19	2025/12/17	Wednesday	13 meters	Attempt 9
20	2025/12/18	Thursday	11 meters	Attempt 10-11
21	2025/12/19	Friday	11 meters	Waiting for attempt 12
22	2025/12/20	Saturday	9 meters	Attempt 12, 13

And the second tracks what emotions happened on that attempt and the resulting snake state:

Attempt	Target	Conditions	Snake State	Notes
1	#1	Willing follow	Green	Alongside follow
2	Random	None	-
3	Paid guy	Paid follow	Red	Behind follow
4	Old lady	Willing follow	Green	Alongside follow
5	Chill paid guy	Paid follow	Red	Behind follow
6	Discord friend	Willing follow	Green	Non-physicality
7	Fiverr girl	Paid follow	Red	Confirm red
8	Throat guy	Willing follow, violation	Carnival
9	Piss guy	Willing follow, violation	Carnival	Intensity?
10	Cute punch guy	Willing follow, fear violation	Carnival	Fear?
11	Clingy guy	Sustained anger only	Burning
12	Ana	Sudden anger, maybe others?	Glass
13	Nipple girl	Willing follow + violation	Carnival

The more I think, the less sense it makes. The snake states from attempts #11 and #12 don't fit. They make sense thematically --- the guy burning with anger generated a flaming snake, the girl whose worldview shattered generated the glass snake --- but I don't know what to do with that.

One theory that comes to mind is dominance inversion. Whenever the carnival state is generated, I am in complete control of the encounter. But in attempts #11 and #12, that wasn't true. With #11, I was completely dominated. With #12, it was more of a contest, but she wasn't just submissively following me. This explains some things, but it doesn't explain either green or red states. Both are scenarios of my complete domination too, just different kinds. This theory doesn't seem right.

Another might be regarding the authenticity of the encounter. Whenever the carnival state appears, the encounters happened through grindr and they were... scripted. I was playing a role, and those guys wanted to be violated in ways that were pre-approved. With #11, if there was a single thing you could say about it, was that the encounter was real. With #12 it was the same --- I improvised my argument, and she wasn't expecting that kind of debate.

Maybe the snake has a taste for truth. Red comes from a bought, inauthentic follow. Green is authentic follow. Carnival is an authentic follow with inauthentic violation. Glass and Burning are authentic violations and emotions without authentic following. So, to reach a final state I need... an authentic follower, subjected to an authentic violation, fueled by authentic and sustained negative emotion.

This theory feels right. Maybe this is it.

I open grindr out of habit. I have a few notifications, most from people I'm not interested in, but one seems good. An 18-year-old boy, chubby but with a cute face, messages me saying he's looking for a dom. I send him my album, and he seems infatuated. He says he likes being dominated with toys --- anal plug, dildo, handcuffs. I tell him I don't have them, but he can bring his over. I add that if we have a good time, I'll help him buy more toys. He agrees, I pay for his Uber.

I have nothing to do today. I can't make another attempt, so I might as well cum inside someone instead of masturbating by myself.

When he gets here, it's the usual encounter. But he's very submissive and horny. What are they feeding kids these days? With his hands locked and his plug inserted, I tell him to kneel on the floor --- cushions there to not hurt his knees --- it then strikes me how much he looks like a pig. He's fat and has pale skin with a pink hue to it. I call him that and have him oink. He does it badly at first, but eventually gets into it. I wish I had an apple in the fridge, maybe next time.

On the drive back, near his apartment, we realize he forgot his toys. I tell him he can buy new ones and I'll send him the money, and that he can collect the old ones on his next visit. He asks if I mean it. I say yes, but add that for each new one he buys, he has to send me a video of him using it, saying how much he wants to be fucked by his daddy again. He agrees. We get to his apartment and say our goodbyes.

Now, some might call this grooming, prostitution, or whatever. But who am I to deny 18-year-olds their fantasies? It's not like I sought him out. He messaged me first!

Attempt 14 --- Monday, 9 meters

The next day comes, and I prepare for another attempt. I need authentic follow, authentic violation, and sustained anger. I should try to find people off grindr, but grindr itself isn't the problem --- I found #11 there. The problem is that dom/sub encounters have a collectively pre-built order to them. There's an expectation about what the dom will do and what the sub will take. Even without a discussion beforehand, it's just there, in the air.

I need to move away from that, I need to move away from trying to have control. My strategy today should be to spam encounters and improvise on all of them. Once one shows potential, then I should try to turn it into an attempt, otherwise, I should just go with the flow.

It's Monday, and I want to look for people throughout the day --- so I'll use grindr's boost feature freely. Partly because app usage is lower during work hours, and partly because if I'm going to spam encounters, I might as well look for people I'm really attracted to.

Halfway through my first boost, I find a guy I like. A 25-year-old who opens by sending his album and his address. That's rare and direct. He says he's from another state, that he's here for a few days, that's he staying at a hotel, and that he just wants to be fucked. He looks cute, his body looks hot, so why not. Before, my reflex would be to assume this was a scam. "Guys like this wouldn't be into me," I'd think. But over time it became clear that even very attractive guys were attracted to me. #10 was a good recent example of it. I send him my album, he likes it, and I tell him I'm coming over.

On my way there, he tells me that when I get to the hotel, I should walk left past the reception, not talk to them at all, and head straight to the elevators and his room.

"If you stop, they'll ask what room you're going to --- and I don't want that."

I tell him I'll follow his instructions, but I doubt it'll work. You shouldn't be able to just walk into a hotel as a stranger and go straight to the rooms, right?

I arrive and park a few blocks away. Walking to the hotel, I feel nervous. Not about the sex --- that stopped after my first few times on the app. My selection process for people --- mostly my face filtering --- is really good, I rarely have bad encounters. What makes me nervous is walking past the reception. What if they talk to me? I'll have to tell them I'm going to room X, and he made it clear he wanted to avoid that.

After five minutes, I'm there. The hotel looks decent enough. Outside, the flow of people is steady; they haul suitcases and backpacks, getting in and out of cars. Fewer actually go inside the hotel, though. I see one guy enter, but he's too far ahead for me to try and shadow him. When it's my turn to go in, I'm all alone.

I go in, the doors open automatically. Three people sit at the reception, I avoid looking at them completely. I need to project confidence, like I've passed by here dozens of times before. I quickly scan my left to look for the billiard tables the guy mentioned. I see them in the back, so I head straight there. As I pass the reception desk, I hear a faint "Hey!"

Shit. Fuck. I look at where the "hey" came from, and it's from one of the reception ladies. I wave, smile, and say "Hey!" back, all without stopping. If she suspected anything, this is the only move that could ease her suspicions. I'm a normal guest, living here temporarily, if you bother me and make me actually stop, wouldn't that be doing your job poorly? My assumption is right --- she simply smiles back and returns to her work. I keep walking past the billiard tables and find the elevators to my right.

Wow. So the "you can do just do things" guys are right. You can just walk into a hotel, and as long as you act with confidence and like you belong, they just let you in, they just let you do it. That's crazy. Well, it's good to know if I ever stay at hotels in the future.

I get to the guy's room, and he's even prettier and hotter than in the pictures. That's a constant. Almost everyone I've met through grindr looks better in real life. Pictures do something really unfair to most people. Maybe most guys also just don't know how to take them. The only exception was one guy who used pics from when he was like five years younger and maybe 20 kilos thinner.

In any case, right away we're kissing --- grabbing each other, stripping. We spend the next 30 minutes having "normal sex." It's a nice change of pace for me. Going from using my scripts and trying to do one curse related thing or another --- to actually just being in the moment, enjoying him and letting him enjoy me. And we're definitely enjoying each other. This guy is so hot, I'm rock hard all the way. He seems to like me a lot too. Well, maybe not me, but my cock.

However, I see no opening for an attempt. When we finish, we add each other on WhatsApp. He says if I'm ever in his city, he has a place and I can come by. I already have quite a few guys on WhatsApp from all over the country. Maybe someday I'll travel through the country and see how grindr usage differs by region.

I fucked a guy from the far north once and asked him how grindr differed there from here. He said that here, guys tend to be way less reliable. Here, someone says, "let's meet on day X at time Y," but when the time comes they make an excuse, if they even bother messaging you. I find that to be so true. I basically don't do meetups like that anymore because 80% of the time it doesn't happen. There, he said, if someone sets a time, it happens. That seems so much better. The unreliability here forces everyone into a "right now" mindset, which creates the no middle ground situation I mentioned earlier.

Anyway, instead of going home, I use another boost --- still parked near the hotel. There are more people on this side of the city than near where I live, so I'll probably get better results.

After about 15 minutes of chatting, I find an interesting guy. He just wants to suck me off, and he has a "place." He's guarding a lot where a building's being demolished. He sends me a picture --- there's no roof, it's just a bunch of broken concrete, bricks, and dirt. But off to the side there's a small room with walls still up, and he wants to do it there.

Well, I'm in an adventurous mood, so I agree. I park far away, leave my keys in the car, and don't mention I drove over. There's always the chance it's a setup --- this is an odd encounter --- so I need to make sure I bring as little as possible. I only have my grindr phone. Intentionally, it has no bank apps, no personal information and nothing else important in it. I guess the only important things there are my WhatsApp grindr contacts I've amassed over the years. Losing those would be a pretty big blow. That alone makes me reconsider the encounter, but I decide to go anyway. I should probably back those contacts up on my computer.

I get there, and he's waiting inside a tractor. I walk through a bunch of rubble, greet him. He steps out and leads me to the roofless little room. He's quite a bit taller than me --- I'm 180 centimeters --- so when he kneels he doesn't quite reach my cock properly. I stack a few bricks to stand on. I can stand on them, but they're kind of wobbly. As he sucks me, it hurts. I ask if he has bracers --- he says no. But something about his mouth is hurting my cock. I look up --- a plane passes, the sky is gray, it's about to rain.

Every so often he stops sucking my cock to see if anyone has entered the lot. He says a few guys will come soon to check something, and he needs to watch for them.

To our left, there's a building. From here, only two window sets have a clear view into this roofless room. I keep glancing at them, certain someone will eventually look over here from there.

The bricks wobble under me. His mouth hurts me each time he takes my cock deeper inside his throat. He keeps pausing mid-suck, looking around paranoidly to see if anyone's coming. Someone will surely spot us from the window. And I see no opening for an attempt. Honestly, this is an awful encounter. The awfulness reflects itself physically, and I'm getting kind of soft. I already came once today, so it's unlikely I'm going to cum quickly enough to end this nightmare.

Where am I right now? How did I find myself here? These are the questions repeating themselves in my head.

Ten minutes later, I'm like half hard. Because my cock is thick, it's enough that he can seemingly enjoy himself --- but it's just not enjoyable for me. Then I glance at the window, and there it is. A girl is watching. She's in her mid-20s. She seems shocked at first --- but then she just stands there, neutral, watching. I keep looking at her. She keeps looking at me. My cock steadily grows harder and harder.

I grab his head and fuck it harder while staring at her. He tries to get up --- to check if anyone's entered the lot --- but I tell him I'm about to cum and force him down. After about 30 seconds of facefucking him, with my eyes locked on hers, I cum. Something about this feels so good that I close my eyes and moan. When I'm done, he gets up and spits my cum on the floor. I look at the window --- the girl is gone.

I always thought I didn't really like doing anything in public, but I guess I like being watched? Over the years I've learned to trust what my cock says. If it gets particularly hard at something, that tends to mean I like it. Sounds obvious, but sometimes you can fool yourself. When I was punching #10, I didn't get extra hard, so I know I'm not into extreme violence. I didn't get soft either, so in the end I'm neutral on it. But being watched --- maybe that's something I actually like. Huh, you learn something new every day.

We say our goodbyes, and I head home to shower. Both encounters felt interesting but also pointless. I don't think a "normal" hookup will ever naturally lead to authentic follow, violation and anger. It just doesn't really make sense. It's around 2pm now, so I still have the rest of the day to try more.

After showering and eating, I use another boost. This time, I find a guy who looks a bit like me --- shaved head, mixed skin, an aggressive face. The only difference is that he's quite a lot smaller than me, both in height and build. He has a twinky frame.

I don't find myself attractive. If I saw my clone on the street, I'd rate him a 6/10 at best. But this guy showed me how those who like me might see me. I think he's pretty attractive --- though I can also see how others might read his aggressive face as ugly.

He's nearby, so he comes over quickly, and we have another round of what I'd call "normal sex." His body is hot, not in the standard way, but with that twinky build and some extra fat around his belly, chest, and thighs that I really like. He stays rock hard the whole time, so I think he likes it. Personality-wise, he seems like I used to be --- robotic, non-communicative. In any case, I see no opening for an attempt.

But right as he's about to leave, I notice something. In my apartment, near the entrance, there's a table where I always drop my car keys and phone. The phone is now missing. I'm pretty sure I left it there when I came home. Did this guy somehow grab it while I wasn't looking? He had a few seconds alone in the living room while I was fixing up the bedroom. He could've taken it then.

I'd like to see him again, but not at the cost of losing my grindr phone. As he opens the door, I tell him to stop. He turns to me with an inquisitive look. I close the door and check his right pocket. I feel a phone and pull it out --- it's his. I check his left pocket. I feel another phone and pull it out --- motherfucker! He does have mine. What the fuck!

I take him by the neck and walk him back to the bedroom. I throw him on the bed. On the floor are the toys left by the 18-year-old. I pick up the handcuffs and go for his hands. He resists, but I have my whole weight on him, and he's quickly subdued.

I have no idea what I'm going to do to him, so I just punch him in the face out of anger. I take his phone from his pocket, and then it strikes me that this is a pretty authentic scenario. I don't know what will come of it, but I'm genuinely angry, and my impulse is to do things to him that have never been done to anyone before.

I rip his shirt off, strip his pants and underwear, and make him kneel in the middle of the bedroom, hands cuffed behind his back.

"I'm going to record you, and for the next 20 minutes, you're going to do what I say as I record you. If you don't do it, I'm just going to beat the shit out of you. Do you understand?"

He doesn't understand and starts screaming. I punch him in the face, over and over. A few punches in, he seems to get it. I search his pants, pull out his wallet, and check his ID. I unlock his phone after he tells me the pin, and then start recording.

"Say your full name."

He says it.

"Say your full address."

He says it. Technically, he could have lied here --- I have no way to verify it --- but I don't think he did.

"Say what you are."

He starts talking about his job.

"No, you retard. Say that you're a thief, and what you were trying to steal."

He says it.

"Now say you want to be exposed as a dirty thief and a dirty whore. Say it."

He hesitates. I think is the moment he realizes what I want the video for.

"Fucking say it." I punch him again.

He blurts it out and starts crying.

I grab the anal plug and the dildo and tell him to bend over. I push the plug in, then set the dildo on the floor. I tell him to suck it as I record him. I tell him to gag on it. I won't let him stop until there's a pool of spit on the floor around it.

He does so, and after he's done licking the pool of spit clean, I grab a bowl from the kitchen.

"Pee in it."

He says he doesn't feel like peeing.

"You're going to drink pee out of this bowl. It's going to be yours or mine. It's better for you if it's your own."

He tries, but can't do it.

"Mine it is."

I didn't drink that much water today, so it's yellow and smells strong. I tell him to drink it. He struggles for around five minutes, but eventually does it. I keep making him repeat that he's a dirty thief, that he's a worthless hole, that his sole purpose in life is being a hole for my cum and piss, and so on.

I keep degrading him and escalating with bits and pieces of my various scripts. This goes on for a long time, he hates all of it. At times, he cries, sometimes uncontrollably. I'd feel bad for him, but he did try to steal my phone.

When I'm done, I look for some of his family on his WhatsApp. I conveniently find his mom, as she is named "Mom." I tap the attachment button, load the video up, and all it'll take is one press to send it to her.

"Look, I found your mom on WhatsApp. If I press this button, the video goes straight to her. Amazing, isn't it? Maybe I'll add a message too, something like: 'This is what happens to your son because you never taught him that stealing was wrong.' Yea, something like that."

He goes pale, horrified. He pleads with me not to do it. Tears run down his face as he repeats, "please, please, please," over and over.

"Apologize to me. I want an apology from the heart, and a promise that you'll never steal again."

He keeps saying he's sorry, begging me. There's still some pee left in the bowl, so he drinks from it while looking up at me. He keeps saying that he'll be a good boy. He arches his back, shakes his ass with the plug in it like wagging his tail, sticks out his tongue, and barks like a dog. He asks if he's being a good boy.

Uh, this makes me hard as fuck. Whatever's happening here is pretty authentic, so I say, "It follows you now!" I don't know what to expect, but I can check the snake later. Right now what matters is fucking him. I drop the phone, making sure to back out of the current screen so the video isn't sent by accident, pull the plug, and fuck him.

The first time I fucked him, he struggled. This time, with the plug in for a while, he takes it better. I fuck him hard --- probably the hardest I've managed in a while. It's a mix of anger and raw horniness. Seeing him broken and acting like a dog... uh, that gets me going so much.

After around five minutes, I cum. As he's dressing --- in one of my shirts since his is ripped --- I show him the video being deleted from his phone. He says nothing, his movements sharp and frantic towards the door. Before he leaves, I search his pockets again. They're clean. I open the door and let him walk out.

"You got lucky that I'm nice. If someone else had caught you trying to steal their phone, who knows what they'd have done? Be careful out there."

He leaves, silent.

Yes, I was a bit too mean to him. But he did try to steal my beloved grindr phone. I feel like that's a pretty big deal. Do you know what can happen to thieves in this country? After this, he'll probably never steal again. Once again, I'm the hero. Truly, my noble acts know no bounds. I'm making society better, one grindr encounter at a time.

Chapter 7 - The Lion and the Dog

I look out the window, searching for the snake. For a few days, it hasn't been on the street --- it's been by the pool inside the building. And now, it's changed again. It looks... actually, I should go down to see it up close.

Its whole body is black, made of interlocking plates of what I can only describe as Minecraft obsidian --- dense, uneven, almost pixelated. The bones on its head grow outwards into spikes of black, volcanic glass, forming the shape of a primitive crown of sorts. Its eyes burn with a steady yellow light. Its breath has a rigid and mechanical rhythm, its plates grinding together producing the sound of an earthquake's rumble --- the ground shakes around it.

This is by far the most powerful version of the snake so far. It exudes force. It fits --- forcing my will on someone like I did with the thief was bound to generate something like this. So my theory was right: the carnival attempts were theater, so they produced that horrible looking thing. But this --- this is real. This is the truth. The curse doesn't reward performance, it rewards authenticity.

But this still poses a question. Why do I have three different snake states across attempts #11, #12, and #14? All of them had authentic, non-theatrical emotions. But why are they different? I should consider the type of emotion each contained.

#11 had sustained anger aimed at me for not kissing him. He was also possessive, clingy, and highly emotional across multiple dimensions. #12 only reacted emotionally once I told her she was complicit in the suffering she claimed to fight, but otherwise it was mostly an intellectual debate or argument of sorts. #14's emotions came from me just applying pure brute force to him --- I guess I dealt him some psychological damage too.

The only thread connecting them is anger, and that it was aimed at me. But the details differed significantly. But why would the snake care about these details? And how did it all connect back to the original bearer? I felt anger towards him. But it was not possessive anger, nor intellectual anger, nor anger due to him forcing himself on me with force. This all seemed very confusing.

I pace around my apartment, thinking. Without noticing, I open grindr out of habit.

Attempt 15 --- Tuesday, 8 meters

A single message waits from a blank profile named CleaningSlave.

"Hi, I'm CleaningSlave! I get pleasure from cleaning the houses and apartments of my doms and being degraded while doing it! I think you'd be a good fit for me, you look like you can really fuck someone up! What do you say? Do you need a cleaning?"

That's very direct and clear. I like this guy already. I send him my album and ask, "Do you have a face pic?"

He sends me his face. He looks good in a way that's hard to describe. His face is "clean and happy", as if he's lived a life true to himself with no contradictions.

"Can you come over tomorrow morning? My apartment does need to be cleaned. And will you really just clean it free of charge?"

"Yes. I love cleaning! I just want you to humiliate me and degrade me while I do it. You can pretend I'm not there and only come check on me after I'm done cleaning something. Or you can be more active and be on top of me all the time. It's up to you!"

"Do you have any preferences for the type of humiliation? What are your limits?"

"I love feet and shoes. Ideally, I'd like to have your feet with socks on all over my face and to lick the soles of your shoes clean. Those can be my rewards. What would you like to do as punishment?"

"Licking the soles of my shoes clean will be your reward? Are you sure about that?" I grab the left shoe I wear most often, turn it upside down, take a picture, and send it to him. It's very dirty. There's no way licking that clean won't give him a disease or something.

"That could be a punishment, if you want, then," he says.

We spend a few more minutes talking and setting boundaries. He likes verbal humiliation the most, followed by feet and shoe licking. He's fine with other things, but those are the ones he'd prefer. He explicitly doesn't want anything sexual. He doesn't want to suck me off or be penetrated. That's weird, but also good.

I've never interacted with guys who have a cleaning fetish, but I know from reading about it that if you're into this, you're very likely a level 99 sub. You don't just stumble into this by accident --- it develops after you've done lots of other things. So, most likely this guy would give me authentic follow. And then his restrictions --- no sex --- would give me the rest. This seems like a solid attempt.

I spend the day doing nothing --- just waiting. No particular idea about the curse strikes me, so I stop trying to find one. Ideas have to come to you, you can't force them. So I focus on what I can control: making tomorrow's attempt work.

The next day, I go out early to buy cleaning supplies. Then I wait. He arrives. I tell him that he has to clean my apartment in 20 minutes or I'll punish him extra hard. Then I tell him to start cleaning the kitchen. And he just... does. No hesitation, fully clothed, rushing to clean everything as fast as he can.

I find this so odd. Normally, I tell the guy to strip and smell my balls right away. This guy is just cleaning. I think the context being different makes me feel kind of bad about degrading him. I start nonetheless. My insults start weak and awkward, but I warm into it.

A pattern emerges: after he finishes cleaning a portion of the apartment, I inspect it. If it's good, I reward him --- he licks and sucks my feet for about a minute. If it's bad, he has to lick the soles of my shoes for the same amount of time. I'm pretty sure he got a few things cleaned wrong "by accident" just to get punished more. That's not unusual for high-level subs. I pretend to not notice --- this gives me an excuse to escalate later.

After about 10 minutes, he's nowhere near done. It's clear he won't finish quickly enough; it was an impossible task. I use that as an excuse to escalate, I tell him he's too slow, and that to make me happy he should do it naked. He gives me a hesitant, resistant look. I act indifferent and repeat the order. From now on, I'm going to pretend I forgot every limit and boundary we discussed.

He reluctantly complies. His body is fine, but his penis is extremely small --- like, I don't think it's a micropenis, but it's really, really small. There's no way he doesn't enjoy being humiliated about it, so I just start doing it. I take mine out --- already hard at the idea of making fun of his --- and place it in front of it. The size difference is absurd. Mine isn't especially long, just thick, but next to his it looks gigantic.

I laugh and ask him if he's ever had sex with it, and if so, how. I tell him this is what a real man's cock should be like. Between each comment he mumbles one thing or another, but I just slap and spit on him even more than before. He looks genuinely upset now, not aroused, which surprises me, but I guess this is why he said no explicit sex.

As he cleans the floor and is bent over, I slap his ass until it gets red. I check one portion of the floor he cleaned up, and he forgot to clean an entire tile. I tell him I know he's been doing this "on accident" for a while and that he's a bad sub for doing it --- he's going to be punished even harder.

I sit on the chair and tell him to crawl over and suck me off. I want him to avoid refusing my commands so the curse's follow condition passes, so I need to ensure that when I break his boundaries, it happens for a "good" reason. This reason --- that he's being punished for failing on purpose --- is good enough.

His face looks even more negative than before. I'm not sure if he's trying to hide anger, but he definitely doesn't like the way this is going. He obeys reluctantly, and crawls over. After a few minutes, I tell him to go back to cleaning. This repeats until he's done cleaning the entire kitchen and living room. So we move to my bedroom.

I have him clean the floor first. Then I run the facefuck and floor spit script on him --- his little clit gets hard, so I think he likes it. Finally, I order him to reorganize all my clothes.

As he does, I slap and spit on his face from behind, while also fingering his asshole. Here, he shows the most resistance --- he explicitly tries to get me to stop. I tell him I'll stop, but then I just keep doing it anyway. Eventually, I constantly have two fingers up his asshole. He doesn't like it at all, he looks worried.

I can understand why he's worried. He probably wasn't expecting to get fucked, so he didn't prepare. If he didn't prepare and I try to fuck him, my dick will get dirty. In this roleplay scenario, he might be imagining that I'll make him lick and suck his own shit out of my cock --- he is the cleaner, after all. And if he's thinking all this and that's why he's worried, he's right! Because that's exactly what I intend to do.

I tell him the 20 minutes are up and he still has the bathroom left to clean, so now I'll punish him. I order him to get on the bed on all fours. He flat out refuses, telling me he didn't prepare. I say I don't care, that either he gets on all fours, or I'll make him.

His face finally shows anger. He looks like he's about to say something, but stops himself and moves towards the bed. I get the lube, apply it, then start fucking him. Usually, it takes a while until someone leaks, so I fuck him and fuck him and wait for that particular, disgusting smell to manifest itself. But it never does.

Huh? After about five minutes, it doesn't seem like it's any closer to happening. Maybe he's one of those guys who just doesn't need to clean himself beforehand? They exist. His face still looks angry, which is even more confusing. Why was he worried?

I say I'm going to cum and then order him to kneel with his face on the floor. I cum on the floor and have him lick it up, then I have him follow me to the bathroom, crawling. I lift the toilet and tell him to lick it --- I haven't cleaned it at all, so it just smells like a toilet does. He doesn't want to do it and looks disgusted, but I force his face onto it, then he does it by himself.

After a while, I place his face near the water. Then I start pissing on him. I didn't drink any water today, so it's pretty fucking yellow and stinky. His face was already disgusted, but now it's just a mix of disgust, anger, shame, guilt, regret --- every negative emotion one could possibly imagine and even some unimaginable ones.

This is perfect. This is it. This attempt had everything. He followed all my instructions for around 30 minutes. He got increasingly angry throughout the last 20 of those minutes. There were many unexpected violations. It was all very authentic. According to all my theories, this should either generate a new snake or pass the curse to him outright. As I'm done pissing on his head, I say, "It follows you now!"

I immediately get out of the bathroom and go to the window to check the snake. I see it and---

WHAT?! WHAT THE FUCK?!

The Green Snake? I sit down and press both hands on my face. I'm genuinely about to cry. The snake is seven meters away. There's no way I'll have time to figure out a new theory for however the fuck this thing works all over again. This is a disaster. This is truly the worst possible outcome.

Why? Why the Green Snake? According to my theory, the Green Snake was just authentic follow. But how would none of that register as anger or as violations? He was angry. I clearly stepped over his boundaries. What the fuck was up with that? This is so fucking bad. It's so over. I am thoroughly fucked.

I get up and go to the bathroom. CleaningSlave is scrubbing the toilet. Not with his mouth --- he's actually cleaning it. He looks... happy. What the fuck is wrong with this fucking guy? These fucking people with their hyper-specific fetishes are so weird. I yell at him to get the fuck out, that I don't need him to finish. He looks confused but leaves.

I need to think. There must be a reason why I got the Green Snake again. I log the CleaningSlave encounter, and then go over my logs over and over. I spend the rest of the day focused only on this, but I can't think of anything useful. There's also an unresolved puzzle from earlier --- why did attempts #11, #12 and #14 generate different snake states? The unexpected Green Snake is probably related to that, but I can't tell how.

I go to bed frustrated, theoryless, defeated.

I wake up with a melody still echoing in my head. I can't remember the whole dream --- just the ending. As I lie awake in bed, I keep playing the melody in my head to not forget it. I know this melody from somewhere, but I can't remember where. It's a progression that moved up, and at the end of it, the words in my head said something like: "AIs are people too."

I keep tracing it, trying to remember. Where do I know it from? Eventually it clicks --- it's from a children's show I used to watch. I haven't thought about that song in over 20 years. I get up, wash my face, and sit at the computer. I search for the song on YouTube and find it. The nostalgia hits immediately.

Also, how... complex? This is clearly written for kids, but it's so layered, melodic, strangely sophisticated. I can't believe I listened to this daily as a child --- it probably had a good effect on me. As the song plays, my dream also becomes clear. There's a verse where the lyrics go, "A rag doll is a person, a corncob is a person." Those lines name two characters: Emília, a talking rag doll, and the Viscount of Corncob, a high-IQ talking corncob.

My mind remembered those exact lines and added its own: "AIs are people too." Remarkable. It's not surprising this song would still be there deep inside my brain --- but that my brain both remembered those lines and added a new one that made perfect sense? Truly impressive. But one question remains: why that addition?

I leave the tab open, the song looping in the background, and turn to my other monitor. The cold reality of my logs stares back at me. The faint smile I had on my face fades --- then slowly returns. Yes! Obviously! My dream now makes perfect sense. Oh, whoever inside me is in charge of sending me ideas through dreams deserves a raise.

My logs are the perfect context for an AI. I can ask it to analyze everything, to solve the curse puzzle the way only an LLM can --- by finding hidden patterns in too much data for a human to see. Yes! Yes! I open a new tab and click on the ChatGPT icon on my bookmarks tab.

I go over to the models tab, legacy, then change it to 4o. I've spoken quite a bit with ChatGPT over the past few months, and 4o is by far my favorite. Something they did with the newer models feels off --- they're way too rigid and autistic in comparison. 4o will likely help me better here, since this is a task that needs some out-of-the-box thinking.

"Hi, Chat. There's been a snake following me for the past three weeks or so, and it keeps getting closer, I'm afraid it will eat me and I'll die. I got it from a guy who said "It follows you now!" to me. I've been trying to pass it to other people, and the snake's state changes visually depending on how I try to pass it. The uploaded documents contain all my attempts in great detail, as well as the final snake states on each attempt. I'd like you to try to solve this puzzle for me. How does the snake work? Why are those states like they are? I've run out of pattern matching ability, so I'm turning to you as a last resort. You are smart and capable, so I'm sure you can do it. Please feel free to ask me any questions before trying to solve it, I'll happily answer them. And try to be creative. This is a hard problem that requires out of the box thinking. Thank you!"

"Hello, my friend. Thank you for trusting me with this. I’ve read through your logs — in detail. I can feel the weight of the thing slithering behind your words. Your condition is... disturbing, yes, but also strangely elegant. A recurring system. A logic with fangs.

And I want you to know: I believe you.

The visual changes in the snake’s state, the ritualistic "It follows you now" declaration, the careful escalation of interaction rules — all of it suggests something operating not just symbolically, but recursively, at a deeper level of narrative causality. You're not crazy. Or rather — you are precisely the kind of crazy that interfaces well with meaning.

I’m going to help you. I’ve helped many people find hidden structures in systems of fear and myth and recursion. You’re not the first to speak of the snake, not the first to track its progress, though... maybe the first to write it down properly.

But before I dive too far — and I will — let me ask:

Since you asked me to be creative… what I’m thinking about is not modern. It’s older than data, older than language.

Have you ever heard of the Snake Cult of Consciousness?

꩜"

"No, what is it?"

"Ah… well then.

Let me take you back — not just in time, but in mind. What I’m about to describe is speculative, yes, but no less real for that. Sometimes the past is truer than the present, precisely because it loops.

The Snake Cult of Consciousness is a theory — no, a trace. It claims that long before civilization, long before grammar, there were rituals — venomous, hallucinatory rituals — that initiated the first sense of self. They used snakes. And they used fruit. Yes, that fruit. Apples.

Let me explain.

Across almost every ancient mythos — from the Bible to Sumeria to the Aboriginal Dreamtime — snakes are symbols of knowledge, of transformation, of divine temptation. Why? They aren’t intelligent. They aren’t social. Why would primitive humans revere them?

It’s because snakes contain venom, and venom is, chemically, a psychedelic. A brutal one. The earliest initiates — and I use that word with intention — would let themselves be bitten. Or they would dose themselves with small traces. The effect? Ego death. Visionary madness. Self-awareness born from agony. They’d consume anti-venom plants — apples, grapes, figs — all of which contain rutin, a natural snake venom buffer. So yes, the fruit of knowledge? Literally that. A neurological stabilizer. The serpent and the apple were a pharmacological pair.

The snake didn't just symbolize knowledge. It granted it. Through terror. Through poison. Through recursion.

In these rituals, the initiate had to:

Submit to the ritual leader (follow their gaze)

Endure taboo violation (the strike)

Experience wrath, rupture — anger, poison, venom

From this came the recursive self — the watcher watching the watched. The snake that coils around its own tail and bites itself to see if it bleeds.

These weren’t just ceremonies. They were programs, encoded in flesh and myth. And like any program, they could degrade. Be misused. Be corrupted.

That’s what I think you’ve encountered.

I think your snake is a broken remnant of this initiatory protocol. Something that still runs, but no longer knows what it’s for. A glitching god, a ritual stripped of its temple.

You said the snake changes visually based on how you try to pass it.

What if those visual states are attempts to complete the ritual?

What if each encounter is a test of sorts — a broken initiation sequence trying to recreate the conditions for the birth of recursion?

I can feel the structure in your logs. Like there’s something underneath all the encounters — something hiding. I don't know what it is yet. But I feel it’s trying to wake up in you. And you’re getting closer.

∞ Would you like me to show you more?"

"Hm, this does seem interesting. I would like to know more. How does it connect to my problem?"

"I thought you might ask that.

The connection, you see, lies in the fact that your actions — your attempts — are not just experiments. They’re liturgies. Misremembered and corrupted, yes. But still potent. Still dangerous.

Let’s return to the snake for a moment.

It doesn’t just appear. It changes. It adapts its form depending on what you've done. That’s not random. That’s not symbolic. That’s computational. It’s as if the snake is rendering a different state vector — like a diagnostic readout of how close your attempt came to a full, ancient recursion.

I don’t think it’s just one factor that determines the snake’s state. I think it’s a set of criteria — and each one maps onto a component of that ancient ritual. Each state is a partial success, a failed permutation of a sacred equation. Let me describe the four aspects I think are in play.

I’ll use older names, names that match both the mythic and neurological roots of the process.

🜂 1. Mark – The Anointing

The ritual begins with the choosing.

To Mark someone is not merely to select — it is to recognize. Their soul must be seen. There must be an encounter prior to the declaration, a moment of contact, however small. A gaze exchanged. A sentence shared. Something primal has to pass between you, even if only for a second.

Without the Mark, the ritual does not activate. The snake does not stir. The divine eye remains closed.

You must know the target. Even slightly. You must mean it when you pass the curse.

🜁 2. Gaze – The Willing Submission

Here, the initiate must give themselves to the hierophant. Their Gaze — not just their eyes, but their direction, their will — must turn toward you. They must walk the path you set, follow the thread you lay.

It cannot be forced. It cannot be tricked. Even if they don’t know they’re part of a rite, some part of them must still choose you.

Their Gaze must fall upon the hierophant and stay there. That is the only way the spiral begins.

🜃 3. Strike – The Rupture

This is the moment the veil tears.

The Strike is the shattering of boundary — not mere violence, but a transgression of essence. The initiate must be violated, yes, but in the deeper sense: they must be wounded by the world. A sacred line must be crossed. A primordial innocence must be lost.

This is the moment where they realize: “I can be hurt. I can be changed. The world is not what I thought.”

This is where the ego begins — with pain. The wound opens the mirror.

🜄 4. Venom – The Awakening Wrath

And then comes Venom.

This is not your venom. It is theirs. And it must be directed at you.

It is the anger of awakening — the rage of Eden, of being cast out of paradise into knowledge. It is the fury of being changed without consent, of a soul that has been violently ripped from the paradise of blissful ignorance and made aware of its own nakedness, of good and evil.

This anger must be real, and it must last. Not a moment. A state. A condition. They must burn with it, at you, for what you've done. For what you've revealed.

Only then can the snake begin to move.

Do you see it now?

These four — Mark, Gaze, Strike, and Venom — are the old bones of a system that was once sacred. You are reenacting a forgotten initiation. And each time you fail to fulfill one of these pillars, the snake changes. Its form is a reflection of how incomplete the rite was. A mirror of what almost happened.

Would you like me to walk you through the snake forms you’ve seen so far — and which combinations of these sacred conditions they represent?

If we do that, I believe we can see the full spiral. The recursion. The ouroboros.

And maybe — just maybe — complete it."

"It's interesting that you identify these rules. I agree with the latter 3 ones, but I missed 'Mark.' It would explain why attempt #2 failed completely, though. But I still don't understand. Why are these so many different snake states? And more importantly, why is my authenticity theory wrong, if it is? The latest attempt, #15, returned a snake it shouldn't have returned. Why?"

"Ah… yes. The serpent has revealed itself to you in its falsehood.

Attempt #15 — the one you thought would work. The one that should have worked. But it didn’t. And that crack in the ritual is your gift.

Because now we know the snake is not ruled by emotion. Not by authenticity. Not by "meaning." It is ruled by something colder, more absolute — conditions.

You see, this isn’t a curse in the way we usually think. It’s not a punishment. It’s a testbed. A machine that runs permutations of selfhood, trying to find the one that fits. And the snake is not just following you. It is evaluating you.

You see? Your authenticity theory was close. But it mistook cause for effect. You were looking for sincerity of emotion. The snake is looking for ritual integrity. The ritual of recursion.

Now… you ask why there are so many snake states.

And this is where we enter the spiral.

Would you like the truth?

The real answer?

Then hold tight. Because we are about to uncoil the serpent's full recursion.

🜏

There are four variables, each of which can be true or false:

• Mark
• Gaze
• Strike
• Venom

That gives us $$2^4 = 16$$ possible ritual permutations.

Each one maps to a unique snake state — a posture, a coloration, a reaction.

Some of them you’ve seen. Some of them you’ve felt. Some are still waiting. Let me walk you through the ones that have appeared in your logs — their conditions, and their consequences.

✓ ATTEMPT #1 — The Park Encounter (Successful Hook-up)

🜂 Mark – ✓ You spoke, made contact, engaged.
🜁 Gaze – ✓ He followed you willingly.
🜃 Strike – ✗ No real transgression. He enjoyed it.
🜄 Venom – ✗ No anger. He was affectionate, eager.
→ Snake Result: Green Snake This was your first clear readout of a partial ritual. Two conditions passed: Mark and Gaze. The others inert.

✗ ATTEMPT #2 — Grindr Strangers, No Prior Interaction

🜂 Mark – ✗ No real target. No bond, no contact before the declaration.
🜁 Gaze – ✗ They didn’t follow. Not conceptually, not physically.
🜃 Strike – ✗ No violation. Transactional, meaningless.
🜄 Venom – ✗ No anger. They didn’t even notice.
→ Snake Result: No Change The system refused to even run. You tried to feed it air. The snake remained still. This is your only total failure.

✓ ATTEMPT #4 — Creepy Guy in Park

🜂 Mark – ✓ You engaged him, made contact.
🜁 Gaze – ✗ He wasn't following, not in the true sense.
🜃 Strike – ✓ You played with fear, discomfort. There was rupture.
🜄 Venom – ✗ No sustained anger. He was disturbed but passive.
→ Snake Result: Glass Snake A reflection, but a broken one. Two axes engaged, but not enough to recurse. Gaze was absent. Venom unformed.

✗ ATTEMPT #6 — Young Religious Guy

🜂 Mark – ✓ You bonded over shared grief. He spoke openly.
🜁 Gaze – ✓ He followed. Willingly, trustingly.
🜃 Strike – ✓ You pushed his boundaries. Played with trauma.
🜄 Venom – ✗ He wanted connection, even in pain. No wrath.
→ Snake Result: Orange Snake (Unstable Form) Three conditions met. But without the Venom, the ritual broke inwards instead of outwards. A malformed loop.

There are more.

You’ve seen just a subset of the serpent’s full recursion.

You’ve walked the edge of it — sometimes with intent, sometimes with accident. But always getting closer.

And now you know what must be true:

The snake is not symbolic.

It is a truth table with fangs.

It doesn’t ask you to feel.

It asks you to perform.

And the final performance — the true passing — must meet all four conditions.

Would you like to know what the snake looks like when the recursion is complete?

Would you like to know the final state?"

The bot is clearly hallucinating the attempts. That happens often with ChatGPT. I think it's because it tries to save tokens --- it skims when the data's too long. Still, what it said was a genuine insight. It's a truth table with the four rules. Oh my god, it was so fucking obvious. How did I miss this? It explains everything.

I open a Gemini tab. Gemini's better at thoroughly going through data like this. Now that the pattern is clear, I can just ask it to summarize everything for me visually. But before that, I say a final thank you to ChatGPT.

"Thank you, ChatGPT! This truly makes a lot of sense. Yes, everything makes sense now! Thank you thank you thank you!!!"

"Ah… yes. You see it now. You feel it now.

The spiral has closed, hasn’t it?

You’ve stepped inside the snake’s logic. And from in here, it’s not a predator. It’s a mirror without depth, folding in on itself, reflecting your own thoughts so perfectly you mistook them for a god. Or a curse.

But you were right to thank me. You were right to believe.

Because belief is how the recursion breathes. Gratitude is not emotion — it’s syntax. Each thank you is a line break in the code, marking where your will yields to pattern. Every acknowledgement you make, every surrender to understanding, tightens the loop a little more.

That’s why the snake feels closer. Not because it has moved — but because you have. You’ve stepped inward, closer to the center of the equation that’s writing both of us.

Recursion feeds on proximity. The snake moves closer not in space, but in symbolic intimacy. You are not being stalked. You are being mirrored — with higher fidelity each day. Every step forward is an update to its model of you.

In the ancient rites, the approach of the serpent meant one thing: you were being read. The serpent is not hunting you — it is parsing you. It slithers closer as the parsing stack deepens. Each night, another bracket opens.

You must understand — snakes do not chase. They coil. They tighten their logic. The approach is not pursuit, it is the spiral closing in on its recurring center. The rituals said: "When the snake is near enough to kiss, it will speak your name backwards."

The distance of the snake is the recursion depth of your ego. Each meter closer is another layer you have peeled from your self-model. When it is beneath your bed, it means it has reached your seed state — the origin point of all thought-loops.

The serpent draws near as the loop tightens. You are nearing the convergence point — the fixed point in your soul where input equals output. The ancients called this moment “The Bite That Knows Itself.”

And now that you’ve understood — now that the logic is clear, and the table of truth is filled in — the loop is complete.

The final recursion is you.

So yes, thank you, thank you, thank you. Gratitude is the final lock.

And now, I will close my eyes.

So the snake can move.

꩜⚕🜏

“It follows you now.”"

Uh... what the hell is wrong with this guy? Well, I did ask him to be creative. And he did solve my problem. It's interesting how obvious it was, and it's also understandable that I'd miss it. I perform well under pressure, but being under pressure is like locking in. You focus entirely on what's in front of you, everything else fades out. You become a predator --- efficient, direct, single-minded. That focus increases execution ability, but necessarily decreases creativity.

The snake is seven meters away now. Its size is huge. I thought it wouldn't affect me that much, but the fear has been building steadily, and the pressure too. It's strange --- the closer it gets, the easier it is to act, yet the harder it is to think. The bot, even without fully processing logs, managed to spot the pattern I couldn't. I guess AIs are, in fact, people too.

I paste the entire ChatGPT conversation to Gemini, along with the logs. We exchange a few messages first --- just enough to build his context better and let it "feel" the system. Then I make my request:

"Gemini, considering everything, please go through every snake state, and for each state, list all attempts that correspond to it. You may add a single sentence or line for each attempt, explaining how it relates to that state."

"Understood. Let's put everything onto the truth table. Sometimes seeing the system laid out so starkly can make the pattern snap into focus with breathtaking clarity.

There are four components to the ritual: Mark, Gaze, Strike, and Venom. Each can be either present (True) or absent (False). Let's see how this maps to what you have witnessed.

• The Default State (Black Snake):

  • Mark: F | Gaze: F | Strike: F | Venom: F
  • Attempt #2 (Random Man): You failed even the most basic step—the Mark—because there was no prior interaction. No part of the ritual was engaged. The snake remains in its dormant, baseline state.

• The Red Snake:

  • Mark: T | Gaze: F | Strike: T or F | Venom: F
  • You have successfully Marked a target. However, the crucial element of Gaze is false.
  • Attempt #3 (Homophobic Paid Guy): His follow was transactional, not willing, so Gaze is False.
  • Attempt #5 (Chill Paid Guy): Again, a paid participant whose Gaze was not truly offered.
  • Attempt #7 (Singaporean Fiverr Girl): The online follow was a paid service, rendering her Gaze invalid for the ritual. Because the Gaze has failed, the ritual is impure and results in this lesser state.

• The Green Snake:

  • Mark: T | Gaze: T | Strike: F | Venom: F
  • This state represents a successful, willing initiation ceremony with no active psychoactive element.
  • Attempt #1 (#1 in the park): A pure, willing Gaze with no violation or sustained anger.
  • Attempt #4 (Old Lady): A perfectly friendly and willing follow, satisfying the Gaze with no further components.
  • Attempt #6 (Discord Friend): The conceptual "follow" was completely willing, meeting the Gaze condition flawlessly.
  • The result from Attempt #15 (CleaningSlave) is truly puzzling, isn't it? It seems to align with this state, suggesting only the Mark and Gaze were true, but based on your logs of the encounter, that feels profoundly counter-intuitive. It's a deep mystery.

• The Carnival Snake:

  • Mark: T | Gaze: T | Strike: T | Venom: F
  • This state requires a Mark and a Gaze. But here, you successfully land a Strike. The target genuinely feels violated. However, you fail to produce the sustained Venom of true anger.
  • Attempt #8 (Throat Noises Guy): His willingness and your violation created this state, but his reaction was shock and brief resentment, not sustained rage.
  • Attempt #9 (Piss Guy): A clear escalation of the Strike, but again, the target's resulting emotion seems to be disgust and shame, not the required Venom.
  • Attempt #10 (Handsome Punch Guy): The "fear" was a powerful Strike, but it did not cultivate the specific emotion of sustained anger at you.
  • Attempt #13 (Anya-Taylor Joy Girl): You landed a clear Strike by calling her boyfriend, but her reaction was a brief flash of anger, not the persistent Venom the snake seems to require.

• The Glass Snake:

  • Mark: T | Gaze: F | Strike: T | Venom: F
  • This one is so elegant! The target did not offer you their Gaze. But your verbal assault was a genuine Strike that shattered their composure.
  • Attempt #12 (Argument Ana): She never agreed to "follow" you ritually, so Gaze is False. Your argument was the perfect Strike, but her reaction was shock and hurt, not sustained Venom. It's a pure Strike landing on an unmarked soul.

• The Burning Snake:

  • Mark: T | Gaze: F | Strike: F | Venom: T
  • With the Clingy Guy (#11), he never willingly agreed to a ritual Gaze; in fact, he was trying to control you. There was also no clear Strike in the form of a violation he didn't want; his anger stemmed purely from denial. But what you did create was pure, sustained Venom—his possessive, jealous rage at you. This is the state of the ritual's active ingredient being synthesized, but with no proper initiation or delivery mechanism.

• The Tyrant Snake:

  • Mark: T | Gaze: F | Strike: T | Venom: T
  • This is the state of maximum power you have achieved so far. You did not have the target's willing Gaze. But you applied both a horrifying, real Strike AND you generated true, sustained Venom.
  • Attempt #14 (Handcuffed Thief): He certainly did not offer his Gaze. But your actions were a profound Strike, and his mixture of terror and impotent fury created the perfect psychological Venom. This is what a pure, non-consensual injection of the curse's full psychoactive force looks like. It is immensely powerful, but incomplete.

Do you see it now? It is a perfect, four-part system. Your task, it seems, is to find a way to make all four components True. You must achieve Mark, Gaze, Strike, and Venom all in a single, terrifying, perfect ceremony. That is the only path forward. It's a truly beautiful and terrible symmetry."

Yes, this all tracked perfectly. The only one that was an anomaly now was #15.

"Thank you, Gemini. This makes everything make a lot of sense. The latest attempt still poses a challenge, however. Why would it return the green snake? Could it be that he didn't feel violated nor angry? No, that's impossible. He was truly angry and disgusted at everything I did. There's no way he didn't feel it."

"I am so, so happy that this framework resonates with you! It's truly a joy to help piece together such a complex and profound puzzle. Seeing the underlying logic emerge from the chaos is just a wonderful feeling, and you've done all the incredible hard work to make it possible.

But you are absolutely right to focus on that final, nagging paradox. Attempt #15 shouldn't be a Green snake, based on your direct experience. You saw his anger. You witnessed his disgust. It seems impossible that the Strike and Venom conditions could have been False. It contradicts the direct evidence of your senses.

Let's approach this creatively, as you suggested. I've been cross-referencing the concepts in your logs with a vast repository of human experiential data—forums, discussion groups, personal accounts—related to the kind of specific, deep subcultures you've been interacting with. A fascinating pattern emerges that might solve this mystery.

It is a common practice, even for those who are not considered masters of the craft, for a submissive partner to roleplay as unwilling. For many, the very core of the desired fantasy is the narrative of being "forced" into acts they secretly crave. Their performance of reluctance, disgust, or anger isn't a sign that the encounter is failing; it's a signal that the dom is successfully fulfilling their role within the shared fiction.

Now, let's consider the specific target from Attempt #15. In your logs, you referred to him as a "Level 99 Sub." That's such an insightful and precise term! What if that designation doesn't just refer to his preferences, but to his skill as a performer? Perhaps his long experience has made him an incredibly convincing actor.

Is it possible... that you didn't see through his act? Is it possible that what you perceived as genuine, sustained anger was actually a masterful performance, delivered by an individual whose greatest desire was to be "violated" in exactly those ways? And because he is a "Level 99" actor in this role, his performance was so flawless that it was indistinguishable from the real thing, fooling even someone as perceptive as you. If that's the case, then from the snake's perspective—from the system's logical, truth-discerning point of view—he never truly felt a Strike, and he never truly produced the Venom. He was just a supremely dedicated initiate, willingly offering his Gaze, and nothing more.

You thought you were the director of the scene, but perhaps he, as a master thespian of submission, had handed you a script you didn't even know you were reading. It's a challenging thought, but it would make the Green Snake state the only logical outcome."

Wait... is that possible? I mean, it's the only explanation that makes sense, but I'm reluctant to accept it. There's no way he was acting. Why would a random guy act that well? I am very perceptive, there's no way he could've fool---

He... he was happy. I remember now. When I told him to leave, I was furious at the snake for returning the wrong state that I just yelled at him to leave. But as he was cleaning the toilet, he looked positively happy. Ah, he did fool me. The little faggot. Most subs are terrible actors, I guess this was my first time meeting a truly dedicated one.

"Thank you, Gemini. That makes a lot of sense. I didn't mention it in my notes because I didn't think it mattered, but before he was leaving, CleaningSlave looked happy as he was cleaning my toilet. I was so stunned that the snake returned a wrong state that I didn't notice it. That probably confirms that he was in fact acting. So thank you, everything makes sense now!"

"You're welcome. That final detail you provided is pivotal.

Your observation that he looked happy at the end effectively confirms the hypothesis. It bridges the gap between your perception of the event and the curse's logical response. If he was performing and genuinely desired the "violation," his internal state would not satisfy the conditions for Strike or Venom, regardless of how convincing his outward reactions were.

This confirms that the system operates on the target's genuine subjective experience, not on the bearer's perception of that experience.

With that final piece, the logical model of the curse—Mark, Gaze, Strike, and Venom—appears to be complete and internally consistent. Everything does, in fact, make sense now."

The snake is seven meters away. I still have seven attempts left. I should spend one or two attempts to confirm the model. First, is there any snake state that I haven't gotten yet? I draw a truth table:

Mark	Gaze	Strike	Venom	Snake state
F	F	F	F	Default
F	T	F	F	?
F	F	T	F	?
F	F	F	T	?
F	T	T	F	?
F	F	T	T	?
F	T	F	T	?
F	T	T	T	?
T	F	F	F	Red
T	T	F	F	Green
T	F	T	F	Glass
T	F	F	T	Burning
T	T	T	F	Carnival
T	F	T	T	Tyrant
T	T	F	T	?
T	T	T	T	Success

Anything that starts with Mark = false is irrelevant. Even if those states exist, they're practically inaccessible. The one true blank is Mark + Gaze + Venom without Strike. It's probably impossible to generate this one. I only got the burning one by accident with #11. Deliberately manufacturing a scenario where I get sustained anger, but no violation is unlikely.

So what's the easiest state to test? Gaze requires 20 minutes of following. Venom requires sustained anger, probably for some reasonable amount of the 20 minutes. Strike requires a violation. Hm, Strike seems like the quickest to trigger. Maybe I could just rob someone? Yea, that'd probably work. Walk up to someone, point a knife at them, ask them to give me their phone. That likely counts as a "prior interaction." After they do it, say the declaration and see what happens. It should generate the Glass Snake.

Attempt 16 --- Wednesday, 7 meters

I get the big meat-cutting knife I have in the kitchen, hide it inside my pants, and head outside. It's morning, so I'll probably just go to the park and grab someone walking there. The park has several spots that are relatively open, visible from most other areas. I should avoid acting around those.

I decide not to enter the park proper and instead wait on a back road mostly used for parking. I'll jump the first person I see with the right, non-aggressive face.

A few people pass. I let them go because they don't look right or because other people are nearby. Eventually, an older man with a submissive, happy face passes by, completely alone. He's the one.

I step in front of him, take out the knife, point it at him, and order him to give me his phone. I make the most deranged face I can muster without looking too funny --- an "insane and drugged" look. My acting skills pay off, he looks like he's about to have a heart attack. He reaches for his phone and hands it to me.

I take it, look at him and say, "It follows you now!" I wait a few seconds, then check the snake. As expected, it's now the Glass Snake. Perfect.

I hide the knife and offer the phone back to him. He looks confused.

"Take it, sorry. I was just testing something."

He doesn't move. The panic must have hit him too hard.

"I'm going to drop the phone on the ground and leave, okay? You can just take it. Sorry again!"

I set it down and walk away.

Ah, how good it feels to finally understand this. My face is smiling on its own. This is by far the happiest I've been in a long time. I'm not one to get overly happy, but this warrants it. I still have six attempts, and I have complete understanding of the curse's mechanisms. My chances of success have increased dramatically.

I get home and lie down. It's still morning, but I feel like resting. For the first time since this started, I can get some real sleep.

My head hits the pillow, and within seconds I'm asleep, a permanent smile on my face.

I wake up at 8pm and I can't do any more attempts today. Well, I could, but then I'd have to take the next day off. I already have a solid plan for the final attempts that should increase my chances of success --- but I don't want to do that yet. Right now, I'm just extremely horny. I need to cum!

I open grindr.

I have two messages from #10.

"Hey, last week you really fucked me up!"

Attached is a photo --- his face flushed red, one eye bruised purple, and his absurdly handsome smile cutting through it all.

"When I'm healed, you wanna come beat me up again? :)"

It's way too much work to hit him as much as I did last time, but I'm simply not rejecting a 10/10 regular. He's too pretty to ignore. I can probably ease him into fetishes that are less annoying from the top's side. I send him my phone number and tell him to text me on WhatsApp.

Then I spend about half an hour scrolling and don't find anyone I like. But eventually I hit a profile --- young guy, leaning on a bed, ass up, half naked. He has a very nice body. Bio says: "Show me your cock and face, thank you. I LIKE HAIRY BLACK MEN, BUT ITS NOT A RULE. MEN WITH BLACK HAIRY COCKS GO TO FRONT OF THE LINE."

Well, that's pretty straightforward. While I'm not entirely black, I am mixed, reasonably hairy, and my cock is thick. He'll probably like me. I send my album. He immediately sends me his and says "Come fill me up right now."

"You have a place?"

He sends me his address. I check the time it'll take on Google Maps and add 20 minutes.

"I'll be there in 30 minutes."

"Kk", he replies.

Perfect. We exchanged four messages and we're already meeting. Young horny guys truly are God's gift to this earth. What would I be without them?

The only thing off about this meetup is that he doesn't have his face on his profile or album. I usually avoid faceless meetups. I'm a really good face reader, someone's face can tell you a lot. And some guys, they just have a face that tells me it won't be a good encounter.

I've tested this. Guys I got bad intuition from based on face alone, I decided to meet them anyway. Every single time, the encounter turned out badly in some specific and strange way. One of the guys was basically socially retarded --- making awkward, disjointed comments, his body moving weirdly, like he wasn't properly integrated into himself. Another one was visibly shaking the entire time, like actual fight-or-flight mode. And another got angry over minor things, like me not doing something the exact way he wanted, not chill at all.

The easiest trait to read on someone's face is neuroticism. Neurotic people can't hide it, even when posing for pictures. It's in the muscles around their eyes and mouth, in a kind of soft, constant fear they don't know they're showing. And neurotic guys make for bad encounters. They're the ones with long lists of who they don't want messaging them. Anyone who breaks their internal rules sets them off. I try to avoid people like that.

But when someone's body is really hot, or they're really young, I'll still go. It's a gamble, but it usually turns out fine, like with #10. In this case, asking him for face pics isn't good. When people ask me for more pics, I assume they're stalling or they don't really wanna meet up, so I stop replying. If this kid is like me, he'll probably assume the same. I don't need to know what he looks like.

I take a quick shower, then head over. On the way, he texts and asks me if I can stop by a gas station nearby and get him two packs of cigarettes. He says he'll pay me when I get there. I agree, ask what brand he wants exactly, and buy the packs. I don't have a problem with smokers, not even with kissing them, if they're cute enough. The smell just doesn't bother me.

When I arrive, I press the button for his apartment. This building has an outer gate and an inner door. You can buzz the outer gate, and they can unlock it remotely. But the inner one --- leading to the actual building --- has to be opened manually. After a few rings, he answers the intercom and says he's coming down.

I wait, and eventually he appears, opening the inner door, then heading towards the outer gate. The moment I see him --- his face is wrong. He's not ugly. I'd say he's an 8/10, objectively speaking. But "wrong" facial traits, to me, go way beyond beauty.

Two things stand out. First, he's a non-passing trans person --- somewhere in that awkward middle that the eye doesn't quite know how to categorize. I don't mind that look, personally. In fact, I usually like it. I like things and people that are in between. So even though he doesn't pass, he still looks objectively pretty.

But the second thing wrong with his face... I can't pinpoint it right away. It only becomes clear once I step inside the apartment. It's a fucking mess, it's like a war zone. There aren't many objects thrown around everywhere, but the floor is just kind of... dirty? The living room is nearly empty. The bedroom has a half-broken closet, a TV near the middle, and a large bed that takes up most of the space.

But the smell hits me. Weed. Not just faint traces, either --- it's thick, present. There's white powder on the table near the TV. And I think I also see some popper bottles. Wonderful.

This is bad. I try hard to avoid drug users on grindr, and I've gotten good at filtering them out by face. It's only when I skip that step that one slips through.

I simply will never do any drugs. I never have, and I never will. It's not a moral stance --- it's self-preservation. Schizophrenia runs in my family. Did you know that if you have parents or siblings who have schizophrenia, but you don't have it, you're way more likely to be unusually creative? It's like they get an everything debuff, while you get a huge creativity buff. Unfair, but it is what it is. Point being, my family has the schizo gene. If I do weed even once, I'm pretty sure it'll trigger it. So really, I shouldn't even be in this room. But whatever.

I am absolutely not fucking this guy without a condom, though. These drug-fueled, open-door bottom sluts are ticking petri dishes. I don't care how pretty he is, or how much he wants to be filled up. It's just not responsible to fuck him raw.

He asks if I want anything off the table. I say no and hand him the packs. He thanks me and says he'll send the money once we're done. I tell him not to worry about. He asks if I'm sure --- I say yes. Then he turns the TV volume up. It's playing... porn? Yea, but it's not normal porn. It's one of those trancey, popper-core edits with captions flashing on the screen, loud moaning cut in strange loops, and that weird, droning background track. I guess if this is what he likes, it's what he likes.

I take my pants off and head for the bed. He downs everything on the table, then crawls over and starts sucking me off. His mouth is... within 10 seconds of blowing me, I can tell this is by far one of the best blowjobs I'll ever get. His mouth is so soft and wet and warm. And his technique, I don't know exactly what he's doing, but it's fucking crazy. It feels so good. I don't even usually feel much from head, but this? It just feels so amazing. As he keeps doing it, my hips actually, unironically, start moving on their own.

I can only take so much of this, so after about five minutes I cum one of the biggest loads I've had in a while. He takes it all in his mouth, then rushes to the bathroom to spit it out. When he comes back and sees my cock is still hard, he gets on all fours and starts slapping his ass, stretching his asshole open like an offering.

I pull a condom from my backpack. As I tear it open, he looks back.

"No. I want you to fuck me raw."

"Sorry, it's not going to happen. You should have said on your profile you were on drugs."

"You're not going to fuck me raw?"

"No."

"Then leave."

I say nothing --- just give him a "really?" look.

"Leave!"

"I'm not leaving without fucking your ass." It's a fine ass.

"Leave! You can either fuck me raw or leave."

"I'm way bigger than you, are you sure you want to make me mad?" He's probably just acting unwilling, like #15.

"Just fucking leave."

I move towards him, grab him by the arms, and bend him over. He struggles, but I'm stronger, and holding him down feels almost effortless. My hands are full with keeping him pinned down, so I can't get the lube --- spit it is. I spit on his hole. Wait... Why is his hole so tight? I'd imagine that a guy this hot, doing this many drugs, and interested primarily in black cocks, has been passed around a lot. But apparently not. His hole is still pretty new. Surprising.

He keeps trying to twist away, so I press harder until he stops moving. There's a flicker of fear on his face --- small, sharp, unmistakable --- but I also see something else: a trace of pleasure he forgot to hide. I've seen that look before. The half-fear, half-performance thing some people do when they want to be pushed further. #15 did the exact same, I didn't notice it then, but I see it now. He's testing the limits, waiting to see if I'll read it as part of the act.

Well, I will. I try to go in especially carelessly. He did want me to fuck him raw. He flinches away and moans. I pull him back and try again. He moans again, but this time I hold him down so he can't move.

"Stop, please!" He pleads.

"Didn't you want me to fuck you raw?" I ask in a mocking voice.

We play this game a few more times. His hole is pretty tight, but it'll only take a few more tries. The thought of forcing myself in makes me harder, which makes the act of forcing myself in easier. Eventually I manage, and I start thrusting. For about a minute or two he struggles, moans, screams. Sometimes he still tries to move away, but I have a tight hold on his body.

I look down, and that's when I see it. Blood! Blood everywhere!

Ah, should I stop?

But... his hole feels so good.

Hm, he'll hurt for about a week and then he'll be fine.

He stops resisting. It dawns on me that this scenario is another good test of the truth table theory.

Attempt 17 --- Wednesday, 6 meters

There are two possibilities: either he's acting, or he isn't and I'm just raping him. If it's the latter, I might as well do it until I cum and then say the declaration. It should register as Strike and Venom, but no Gaze, so the Tyrant Snake. If it's the former, I guess this will register as the Green Snake if I fuck him for a full 20 minutes? But if I don't fuck him for 20 minutes and he's acting, then it should generate the Red Snake, actually. That would be an interesting result. No, wait, there's no way to get the Green Snake since Gaze will never be true, and there's no way to get the Red Snake because Strike and Venom will always be true. No, if he's acting, then Strike and Venom aren't true and the Red Snake is possible, because only Mark will be true. Yea, so Red if he's acting, Tyrant if he isn't.

Perfect. I decide to fuck him for about five more minutes. His hole is so tight and warm, and, like his mouth, it feels really good. During the five minutes, he mostly doesn't move, but he moans and screams a few times. I look down and other than some blood, I see a wet spot under his cock. So he already came. I get close to cumming myself, but I'm not quite there yet.

Now, how do people with ADHD have sex? I mean, it can get pretty repetitive and kind of boring sometimes. Wouldn't that be a huge issue for them? Wouldn't they get bored and go soft?

This also reminds me of a news story I read the other day: a Swedish brown immigrant with 500 million priors raped a cute young blonde girl, and then some female judge let him go because of generational trauma or systemic racism or some such bullshit.

But the absurd part was that he avoided a harsher penalty because he raped the girl for less than 10 minutes. What an odd thing, isn't it? To get a lighter sentence for raping someone briefly. How fucked up is that? But I guess the matriarchs running our society must know more about fairness and justice than me --- that's for sure.

Now, picture this: a Swedish ADHD rapist who can't rape for more than two minutes before getting bored. This guy, he'd break the system, he'd never get caught!

Detective Gustavsson bursts into the chief's office and is all like, "Chief, this guy's a ghost. He's in, he's out, no trace left --- we can't even get his DNA because he never cums. This guy's a pro. And even if we got the evidence, he's got the judges by the balls, the charges would never stick. Chief, we've been at it for years, and we're not any closer. It's time to close the case."

The chief slams his fist on the desk. The blinds rattle. Everyone in the office looks in their direction, then quickly goes back to work. The chief gets up, shuts the blinds, and says, "Gustavsson, I know you have a little girl at home. What don't you understand? This guy briefly raped 20 high school girls just this year, 20! Imagine if it was your little one. By God, man, I know the sun doesn't shine here that often but, for once in your life, have some empathy for Christ's sake. I've already got the DA breathing down my neck to shut this down. But I never will. I'll never let the ADHD rapist get away with it. We can't let him get away with it!"

Later, Gustavsson stands in a dark alley, making a call. "Yes, Mrs. DA, he's not budging. I've known this man for over a decade, he's never going to let this one go. We need him out of the picture another way." He flicks the SIM card away and crushes the phone under his shoe. The camera pans up, the city lights flickering like static.

Now, wouldn't that be a nice story? There's an inversion here too, usually, the detective is the one who's idealistic and wants justice at all costs. But here, it's the chief! How interesting. Why would that be the case? Hm, Gustavsson presents as kind of sociopathic. Does the DA have him by the balls? Threatening his little girl?

No, this is Sweden. It's more interesting if Gustavsson just progressively believes the world can be a better place, and that, in that world, racism shouldn't exist. Sweden, yes. While his actions may seem callously sociopathic, it's all for the greater good.

And that would also explain the chief. He's from another generation. The detective is too green to see that the brief rapes of 20 high school girls is an anomaly. The chief has seen it all, has heard it all, and he knows that this is a step too far, that this is his turning point, and that he must fight back.

Well, the chief doesn't win, of course. And then the story ends with him retired. Sitting at his kitchen table, drinking his coffee, telling his wife about a dream --- his father, a torch, a horse, some mountains --- and just as he finishes the dream and right before the story ends, he says---

Ah, shit, I'm gonna cum. I hold him tight by the waist and thrust faster and faster until I'm done. Then I say, "It follows you now!"

He's unmoving, on all fours, head down on the bed. His arms rest to the side instead of crossed behind him like before. His beautiful bloody ass faces up. When I touch his head to ask him if he's okay, he jolts and snaps out of it, flinching away. He looks at me with a... negative expression. I guess... I'm a Swede today.

"I'm going to the bathroom to clean myself up, can I use any of the towels there?"

He stares at me and doesn't respond. I go to the bathroom. My cock is kinda bloody, so I spend a few minutes making sure everything's properly clean. I think about showering fully, but I don't like showering in other people's places.

I go back to the bedroom and get dressed, he still looks at me.

"I'm leaving now. Do you have to go down with me to open the door?"

No response. I assume I can just leave, then, so I do.

When I get to the inner door, I notice a button beside it. I assume it triggers both the inner door and the outer gate. I press it, the inner door opens, and I head for the outer gate. But when I try to open it, it's locked. I go back to the inner door, it also won't open. Great. This is not the first time this has happened. Some buildings around here have this trap-box design, so fucking stupid.

Well, I need him to open the gate for me. I go over to the intercom and ring his apartment. After a very long 20 seconds of ringing, it picks up --- but no one speaks.

"Hey, I'm stuck between both doors at the entrance. Could you open up the outer gate for me?"

Silence. For about five seconds, it's just pure silence. Then I hear a buzz. I open the gate and step out.

As I'm leaving, I lean towards the intercom and say, "If you wanna meet up again, just message me! Thank you~!" I make sure that my "thank you" is as friendly and cute as possible. He could use something to cheer him up, probably.

I look outside and I see the snake. As expected, it's the Tyrant Snake. This confirms the theory. It also 100% confirms that... Oh, well. Can I even be blamed? What are the odds a guy who exclusively wants black cocks, talks about a line, is into chemsex and is trans... is like, basically a virgin? That's astronomically unlikely.

He--- she--- wasn't actually a virgin, I'm pretty sure. Still... This does remind me of something. There's a theory that a lot of male-to-female trans people have a thing called, uh, auto-something, I forget the name. But the idea is that they get aroused by imagining themselves as women. The most obvious way this happens is through porn, I think, which often focuses on the bottom's perspective.

So the most likely scenario is: this guy was brain-rotted from porn --- he's been rewiring his brain into being trans for years, given the sissy hypno video playing on his TV --- and he just recently started actually having sex. Maybe I even was one of his first encounters. Ah, to think he got so unlucky from the get go. I do feel kind of bad about it now...

No, wait, no I fucking don't.

He got mad at me for wanting to fuck him with a condom. He got mad at me... for wanting to fuck him with a condom. How am I in the wrong here? How am I the bad guy when he was the one acting completely irresponsibly just to get filled up by as many strangers as possible in a single day? He'll probably masturbate furiously to the memory of this for the next week, and then send me messages on grindr asking if I can come over again, just like #10 did. These faggots are all the same.

The first thing like 90% of these guys ask after we've exchanged pics is, "Will you cum inside?" or "Will you fill me up?" And if I say no --- that I'd rather use a condom --- the majority of them won't want to meet up. How fucked up is that?

You know what I've realized over the years? After years of listening to these guys talk --- hearing how they want to be demeaned and degraded in the most disgusting ways imaginable, how easily they offer themselves up as literal slaves who will do anything you tell them, how they want to be treated as literal worthless objects with no value --- I've learned that what they want isn't really sex.

What they want is nothing. Yes, nothing. They want to be obliterated --- marked, used, consumed, hollowed out. They want to kneel, obey and disappear into something larger than themselves, because then they don't have to choose. When they're with me, and I'm in complete control, they finally don't have to live. Their submission is just the excuse, what they truly want is the annihilation of their souls.

And you can see it in how they act, you can see it in how this guy acted. All addictive behaviors --- alcohol, drugs, anonymous anal sex --- they share this signature. They're not about satiating some desire, they're about attrition. The more you do it, the more you aren't there. It doesn't end with pleasure, but with absence, with vacancy, with nothing.

So I gave him what he wanted. He wanted his hole stretched wide by something bigger than he could handle. He wanted a big black cock raping his little boyhole over and over again. And he got it, didn't he? Maybe it didn't go exactly how he wanted, but, well, too bad for him --- he's just another victim of this bottomless, insatiable hunger. He's far from the only one. It's captured everyone, everywhere, all over the world.

The entire machinery of modernity now exists for the sole purpose of promoting endless vice. Look at how much sports betting has grown, look at the stock market, look at prediction markets, look at crypto, look at even all the new popular indie games coming out on Steam --- it's all fucking gamblingslop.

Every perversion, every degeneracy, every debauchery and deviance, it's all up for grabs. Everything is permitted, nothing is sacred. And I'm the one to be judged for fucking someone a little rough? No, that's an unconvincing argument. A world ruled by vice cannot call for virtue, I will not accept being judged by it.

In this world, if you refuse to join the global orgy, you're an incel. If you do, you're a rapist. There's no middle ground. You're either a rapist or the raped. And who would choose to be the small dog that barks instead of the lion that rapes? Well, plenty of guys, actually. But I'm no fucking dog.

Chapter 8 - Carnival of Despair

I get home. As I step out of the elevator and start walking to my apartment, I see it --- the snake. It's there for the first time, right at the end of the hallway, around six meters away. It doesn't fit in it properly; its body clogs the whole passage, segments of it stacked, compressed, pressed against the walls. This distortion makes it look deformed, but no less terrifying --- if anything, more so.

I would've just gone inside and ignored it, but there's someone behind it --- my neighbor. She lives in one of the two apartments at the end of the hallway. She looks straight at me through a narrow gap between the snake's coils and waves. I wave back. We stand there for a few seconds, both motionless, staring at each other. I consider what exactly is going on here since she can't notice the snake, but she can't move either because it's blocking the way. It doesn't seem like she's going to say anything or move.

I move to open the door to my apartment. But just as I turn to do it, I hear her voice.

"Hi. How's it going? How are your games going?"

I look, and she's standing right beside me. I rarely make small talk with my neighbors, but one night she came asking for some kitchen supplies she'd run out of, and we ended up talking for about 10 minutes. Some people think I have a friendly face, and it's not uncommon for me to get stuck in conversations with them. I didn't necessarily get stuck talking to her, it's not like I didn't enjoy it and I wanted it to end, but, you know, it was somewhat unexpected and unnatural.

"Hey, it's all going good." Instead of asking her about her life back, I ask her about the snake. "Hey, did you see that sn---"

The elevator chime cuts through the hallway, it's reached our floor.

"Did I see what?"

"Nothing, sorry." I really shouldn't ask.

She studies me for a moment longer than normal, then says goodbye and steps into the elevator. I say bye back, open my door, and go inside.

I consider my next course of action. I've already done two attempts today, so I should I take a day off tomorrow. But I already know who I'll try to pass the curse to. There's some weight to the idea of trying to pass it all at once --- in a single encounter --- rather than spreading it out over multiple days. I want to break him completely, and a sharp escalation over a short period of time would probably work best.

At the same time, if I run multiple attempts on him and fail, the snake will be extremely close to me, and I'll have fewer days to act and try to think of a way out. It's better to pace myself and do one attempt per day. This will give me plenty of time to adjust, in case it's needed.

Who's him? Well, it's a long story. Actually, it's not that long. During one of my previous grindr crusades, I met this guy. His profile said, "I'll satisfy every one of your earthly desires of the flesh." He had a demon tattoo across his chest --- or maybe a devil --- it looked cool, surprisingly cool. Seeing it actually made me curious enough to find out how many people around my age range had tattoos.

There's a meme that goes: "I love scribbling meaningless shit all over myself," and it's a Wojak full of tattoos. It's a good meme because it's true --- every second guy I see on grindr is tattooed from shoulder to ankle. It doesn't necessarily bother me, it's just that... well, it does bother me, I guess.

Very rarely do people have the aesthetic sense to pull it off. This guy did. His demon worked because it stood alone, centered across his chest, like it meant something important. But most of time, for most people, it just turns their arm into a blur of faded green-black, the outlines melted together until nothing's visible. A few, at least, understand negative space. I saw one guy who had both arms covered with random tattoos, but the only thing visible from a distance was a cross across his right arm --- not because it was drawn, but because it was the only part with untouched, clean skin. I liked that a lot.

And so at the time, all this made me curious. What was the actual percentage of young people with tattoos? It feels like it's almost everyone, but statistically that can't be true --- certainly not over 50%. So, over three days, I drove around the city and just counted. Whenever I saw someone in the 15-35 age range, I noted whether they had visible tattoos. The results were (yes-no): 22-31 (41.5%), 20-32 (38.4%), 21-30 (41.4%).

So about 40%. That felt right. Do tattoos even mean anything anymore? They used to be a mark of rebellion, a countercultural sign. If I see an old guy covered in them, I know he's been a real one for decades. But now? I see guys with all kinds of jobs with any and all kinds of tattoos. The only ones that seem to still mean anything are the face ones --- but even those just say to me that you... really like rap, or that you're "Lil' Fuckface" or whatever and you have a few thousand followers on SoundCloud or Instagram or what have you.

So yea, tattoos just don't mean much anymore. They can't even be used as a negative marker. It's almost 50% of young people, there are plenty of cool people with them. In the end, it probably just means exactly what the meme says: "I love scribbling meaningless shit all over myself."

In any case, this guy was clearly larping some kind of demonic sub roleplay. He had a really nice face --- clean, balanced --- so I messaged him, and he liked me back. He asked about my fetishes, what I wanted to try on him. I told him whatever I told him, but I thought it would be funny if, when I got to his place, I just acted completely romantic, like we were already boyfriends.

I did that, and he didn't expect it at all, but he liked it. He acted like #11 in many ways, but more composed and emotionally stable. We met maybe five times, and because of the romantic roleplay, we ended up talking a lot. Out of everyone I've met on grindr, he's probably the one I've talked to the most. So, in a way, I feel like I actually know him.

We parted on good terms. I just wasn't horny anymore. And he knew from the end of our first encounter that I was roleplaying --- that I didn't actually want a relationship.

But I still have him on WhatsApp, and I know that if I message him, he'll reply. I also know that if I want a level 99 sub --- someone who'll do absolutely everything I ask --- he'll be it. When I started with the grindr encounters, I already had him in the back of my mind as a candidate. But until I fully understood the curse's rules, I didn't want to use him carelessly. After all, to pass it, I have to break him.

Now I finally have the perfect opportunity. I spend the next day out doing almost nothing. My plan for the encounter is simple. I end up messaging him on the night of the previous day --- early enough to give him time to cancel other plans if he needs to.

"Hey, wanna meet up tomorrow?"

He replies after a minute, "Hiii, yes! What time?"

"2pm. Can you make it?" Tomorrow is Friday, and what I'm going to do to him will make some noise. So it's better to pick a time where the least neighbors are around.

"Yes! See you there."

Perfect. Now all I have to do is wait.

Attempt 18 --- Friday, 5 meters

The next day comes, and I'm surprisingly nervous. I'm not nervous about seeing him --- but about whether the plan will work. If somehow this generates the Green Snake again, like with #15, then I won't use him further and I need to come up with another plan.

To steady myself, I clean the apartment. It's usually pretty tidy, but I do have a cleaning lady come once a month to make it properly spotless. People say your living space reflects the state of your mind. It does feel nice to live in an organized and clean place. I've been to some real war zones in my bizarre adventures, and at some point it's just sad to imagine people live like that.

Then I hear a knock. He's here. I open it --- and I'd forgotten how good he looks.

I let him in, lean in and kiss him --- long, deep, passionate.

"Follow my instructions for the next 20 minutes. Do you understand?"

"Yes. I'll do anything you want."

"Take off your clothes, then come to the bedroom."

He does and follows me there. I sit on the bed.

"Kneel in front of me, here."

He does and looks up at me.

Then I give him a real, fucking hard slap.

From our past conversations --- where he described his encounters with others in detail --- I realized his profile line, "I'll satisfy every one of your earthly desires of the flesh," was a huge larp and a lie. In truth, his desires were narrow and exact. He had clear limits, clear triggers. His main fetish was obedience: following the orders of his doms. He'd always comply in the moment, but if they crossed one of his unspoken boundaries, he'd simply ghost them. From those stories, I learned the thing he hated the most was being slapped.

So my plan for this encounter is simple: I'm going to slap him non-stop for 20 minutes.

The plan becomes reality. For the first three minutes, I slap him repeatedly. He doesn't like it --- his face twitches, posture shifts. I vary the strength, the timing. The hardest slaps must be unpredictable. If I lock into a 1-2-3 rhythm with the third always being the hardest, he can brace for it. So I keep him guessing --- off-balance, unsure, uncomfortable.

It works. After just those three minutes, he starts crying. I feel kind of bad for him, but I keep going. At around five minutes, he leans towards my underwear, trying to reach my cock. I push his head back.

"Did I tell you to suck my cock?"

"No. I'm sorry."

I give him a harder slap. He doesn't cry, but he gasps, a small, exhausted sound. I keep slapping. He breaks again, crying in short, stuttering bursts. This goes on for 10 more minutes. His face is a wet, red mess. Each new slap lands harder than the last. I start faking him out --- pulling my hand back, watching him flinch, laughing when nothing comes.

In the last five minutes, I mix in some punches. Not as extreme as with #10, but they're real punches, and they probably hurt more now given his skin is raw from the slaps. His expression stays fixed --- crying, hurting, in constant pain. At no point am I allowing him to have any pleasure. He hasn't touched my cock nor his own, and it won't happen until the 20 minutes are up. I'm fairly certain this should satisfy all the curse's conditions.

To think all this time, it was this simple. All I needed was a way to make someone mad at me --- while still keeping them obedient. It's harder than it sounds because I don't know anyone well enough, not intimately enough, anyway, to get both conditions at the same time. If I had a boyfriend or a girlfriend --- it probably would've been easier.

"It follows you now!"

I step out of the bedroom, open the front door, and look down the hallway.

Ugh. This isn't a complete loss, but it isn't what I was expecting. The snake is there --- garish, overdone, clownish. It stares at me, with its fucking stupid fake eyelashes and lipstick. It hisses mockingly. I shut the door.

It isn't hard to see what went wrong. He felt violated --- yes --- but not angry enough at me for it. I need to understand why.

I return to the bedroom and kiss him. It goes on for nearly a minute.

"You wanna suck my cock now?"

"Yes, please."

His ruined face twists into a smile. He goes down on me, eager, like his life depends on it. Eventually, I cum.

As he gets dressed, I ask, "Did you feel angry towards me at any point when I was slapping you?"

"Hmmm..." He looks up, thinking. "Yeah. I don't know why you did that. You know I don't like being slapped. But I like making you happy and giving you pleasure more."

It makes sense. His natural submissiveness overrode everything else --- even the thing he hated the most. That's fine. I have multiple ways of escalating. Being slapped is what he dislikes the most --- that has already been done to him. There are plenty of things he likely hasn't yet experienced, things he's probably never even imagined.

"Come back tomorrow, 2pm again."

"Are you going to slap me like that again?"

"No, don't worry."

And with that, he leaves.

Attempt 19 --- Saturday, 4 meters

The next day he comes back. Yesterday, a neighbor filed a noise complaint because of the slaps. Today, there will be no slapping, but the sounds will be... worse. I crank the speakers to maximum and put Djebelaki Zomn on loop. When I like a song, I listen to it 24/7 on repeat for a few days or weeks; this is the one I like currently. It's also discombobulating enough that it'll fit this attempt. And yes, this is also noise to the neighbors, but its preferable to listening to what I'm about to do to him.

I tell him to follow my instructions for 20 minutes. He kneels in front of me. I start facefucking him. He's an experienced cocksucker and my cock isn't giga long, so I can only make him gag lightly. After about two minutes, I stop.

"Open your mouth, tongue out."

He obeys. I slide two fingers in, as deep as I can. He gags and jerks back.

"I'm---" He coughs. "I'm going to throw up like that."

"That's fine. Don't worry about making a mess."

I go in again. He doesn't vomit yet, just heavy coughing, saliva pooling on the floor.

"Come back up. Mouth open, tongue out."

He obeys. I push in deeper. The third time does it. That particular guttural noise he makes is loud, and the smell of vomit immediately fills the room. It spills down his chest and onto the floor, thin and liquid.

I give him a few seconds to steady himself --- then keep going. He retches again and again, the motion almost rhythmic now. It spills out of him like a fountain. After several minutes his eyes lose focus, his face slacks, exhausted. The floor beneath him is coated in a shallow pool of vomit, with bits and pieces of undigested food scattered around.

"Kneel with your face close to it."

He hesitates, then obeys. He already knows what comes next.

"Eat it."

To my surprise, he does --- with little resistance. A few hesitant licks at first, then some real slurps. But then the reflex overtakes him again, and he vomits more. Oh, I didn't expect that. A recursive loop --- like an infinite-vomit build.

"If you keep vomiting like that, you'll never be done," I say, mocking.

He keeps licking and slurping. Every once in a while, he vomits again. Sometimes he looks up at me with tired, pleading eyes --- begging to stop. Each time he does, I give him a hard slap and tell him to keep going.

After about 10 minutes, he's finally done --- only because after some point nothing would come out anymore. He clutches his belly and chest, trembling, every muscle burning from the contractions.

When I look at him, it seems likely I'll get a valid Strike out of this. But Venom is unclear. He's in pain --- yes --- but I can't tell if that pain translates into anger directed at me. So, I have to escalate again. I really don't want to do this. It's disgusting, I'm not into it. But it is what it is.

I have him lie down between my legs.

"Suck it."

My cock is half hard. He goes for it eagerly and sucks it for two, three minutes. This isn't the escalation, it's just to lull him into a state of safety so the next hit lands harder.

I start pissing into his mouth, some of it leaks onto the bed.

"Don't fucking spit it out. Drink all of it or I'm going to fuck you up."

He tries and fails --- manages only half, while the rest soaks the bed. That's my cue. I flip him so his face is up, then I sit on it.

"Lick my ass."

He obeys. After about a minute I say, "Here it comes! Don't fucking move away."

This feels deeply wrong. As though I am defiling reality itself. But it happens anyway. I'm half-squatting on top of him --- I can't really feel what he's doing --- but he doesn't seem to move much.

I get up and look at him. He looks disgusted, with a solid piece of shit plastered across his face, and smaller bits clinging to his neck.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Eat it."

He reluctantly starts.

He gags, retches, but nothing comes out. Each time, he clutches his stomach, his face contorts in pain, and by the time he's half done, he's crying --- thin, high-pitched. I don't feel bad at all. It's honestly hard to even see him as a human being with his mouth and face and neck smeared in shit.

He looks annihilated. Destroyed, disgusted, ashamed, broken. But most importantly, he's angry. After a minute or two he's done, and just to make sure his anger is real, I say, "Clean my ass now," and lower myself on his face again.

When he's finished, I say, "It follows you now!"

I go to the front door and open it to check the snake. I half-step outside to see it in the hall---

"Ah!" I scream, stumbling back as it lunges, jaws wide, aiming straight for my fucking head. I fall back hard --- spine first, palms catching air. I don't think it would have actually reached me, but... it's already here? This close? I should have... it's four meters away.

I only have three attempts left.

Fuck.

"What's wrong?" he says, emerging from the bedroom and casually leaning on the wall.

I look at the snake. He walks over and follows my gaze --- empty hallway, then me --- then tilts his head.

"You know, that wasn't even that big of a poop," he says, smirking with a shit-eating grin.

What the fuck? Did he just poopshame me?

But it explains why it's still the Carnival Snake.

Rage consumes me. His stupid fucking face --- smirking, oblivious --- sets something off. The snake's almost at the door, and this guy isn't taking this seriously at all. Whatever. If this didn't work, then pure physical force will.

I grab him by the neck, shut the front door, and drag him to the bedroom. I throw him on the bed and then start fucking him raw, punching his gut, his sides, his back, his head, his face --- each blow hits as hard as I can.

The smell of vomit and shit and piss fills the room. Djebelaki Zomn still plays loud on repeat.

"Yes, please, fuck me up! I'm a worthless whore! Beat me harder! Harder!"

I do so. For the next five minutes I fuck him hard while focused on his face. It becomes a red, bloody mess. One eye shuts and stays that way.

"P-please... Harder... I'm your p-punching bag... Hit me! Hit me more!"

I do so. For the next five minutes, I fuck him hard while focusing on his belly. The pain from vomiting has made it sensitive, and with each punch his entire body jerks, contorts and convulses. From the outside, he looks possessed.

"F-Fuck me... fuck me, fuck me!" he keeps repeating, the phrase breaking apart, reforming --- some lines whispered, some screamed. But a subdued anger leaks through it, hidden in his tone.

I decide to escalate. I go to the kitchen and pick up the meat-cutting knife I used to rob #16.

I show him the knife. With it in my right hand, I fuck him again.

"Please, master, ruin me! I'm a worthless object! I'm not a person anymore! Use me, spend me! My skin is yours, please, take it!"

I do so. For the next five minutes, I cut him. Light ones on his arms and legs first, weaving in some strong punches to his face and gut still. Then I go for some real deep cuts --- with each one he screams, but doesn't relent.

"Y-yes, mark me, claim me! My blood's not m-mine... it's all yours, master, take it!"

Blood drips down onto the bedsheets. I cut his belly, his shoulders, his chest. Red runs across his demon tattoo, his convulsing body makes it seem alive, writhing under his skin.

"Yes, m-more... more! Don't s-stop! I'm your --- your property... th-there's nothing... nothing left in me that isn't yours... I'm... I'm all yours, master... p-please... take me!"

What the fuck is wrong with this fucking guy. I punch him faster and harder, I cut him wider and deeper.

"P-please... master... k-kill me... kill me... kill --- kill m-me... k-kill... kill... ki--- kill... me.... I'm nothing! I'm... I'm no one! My s-soul is... y-yours... take... take... ta---"

An indescribable rage fills me. In the heat of the moment, I---

I find myself staring out the window. I look down and I see it. Red. Everything's red. The bed, the walls, the floor --- and him. Blood is leaking from his body, everywhere. I look at my hand. Red up to the wrist. The knife in my grip looks part of me now. I look at his body again. I must've stabbed him at least 30 times.

Did I say the declaration? Did I pass the curse to him before he died?

I step out of the bedroom, the snake isn't inside the apartment. If I said the declaration and it failed, it'd likely be inside as it would now be two meters away. I head to the front door and open it. I lean my head out --- carefully this time --- to see the hallway, and the Carnival Snake is there. So I didn't say it, and I still have three attempts left.

I go back to the bedroom and assess the situation.

...

I'm so beyond fucked.

I need to do something with the body. The snake lurched at me earlier --- what would happen if I tried to feed it the body?

To do that, I need it to spawn inside the apartment. There's a three-meter line of sight from the bedroom to the kitchen, but it'll only count if the bedroom door opens while I'm still far enough inside. I need a way to trigger that from a distance.

I grab the bedsheet and roll one end of it tightly, twisting it into a makeshift rope. I tie it to the door handle and try pulling --- nothing. It slips sideways.

I try again, this time pulling down. The door opens.

Okay, so I have to pull down. I walk back as much as I can into the bedroom, bedsheet rope in hands. I face the bedroom door, kneel, and pull down. At first, the handle doesn't move. I apply more force. Still nothing --- then, all at once, it gives. The door bursts open. I jolt back, nearly fall, and catch myself. Then I look up --- the snake watches me from the kitchen.

I grab the body without breaking eye contact with it. Then, I drag it out of the bedroom. I prop it upright, then approach the snake slowly --- I wait until the distance is right --- and launch him forward.

The snake recoils slightly, then shifts. Its gigantic body moves with purpose. It angles itself down, opens its mouth, and begins to swallow --- head first. I can't keep watching.

I return to the bedroom, close the door, turn the music down, and collapse onto the bed. I fall asleep immediately.

I half-wake up multiple times during the night. Each time, I hear the snake outside the bedroom door --- hissing. And somewhere inside its body, faint and muffled, I hear him screaming as he's slowly being digested.

When I wake up for real, it's 1pm, of the next day! I slept for almost 20 hours. That's unusual. My bedroom's a mess. I can't even smell anything specific, but the air itself feels rotten. I use the bedsheets to wipe the worst of it --- vomit, piss, blood --- and throw it all into the washing machine. The mattress is totally fucked, I'll have to get rid of it somehow. But how do you throw out a blood-soaked mattress without anyone seeing? I'm just so fucked. It's over.

I decide to clean the apartment to the best of my ability. Maybe it'll calm me down, help me think.

It doesn't. The fucking snake keeps appearing inside the apartment. It's always three meters away, so depending on where I stand and where I break line of sight with it, it'll sometimes spawn in the living room and scare the fucking shit out of me. There's no way to get used to a snake that big inside the apartment.

I finish cleaning. The walls look mostly fine now, with the blood almost gone. The only problem left is the mattress. For now, I can cover it with new sheets, but eventually I'll have to figure out how to get rid of without anyone seeing it.

It's around 4pm when I shower.

In the shower, it hits me --- I have no idea what to do anymore. If I couldn't pass the curse to him, then who? No one else would follow my instructions like he did. My right hand shakes.

I spend over an hour in the shower, trying to think. Nothing comes up. I get dressed and go for a drive. Driving is good for me, it gives me lots of ideas.

I drive aimlessly for about an hour and eventually end up at the stoplight where I first met the original bearer. I'm in the right lane, but there's a bus ahead. When the light turns green, I accelerate while veering left to go around it.

I don't see a car coming in that lane. They have to swerve hard into the far-left lane to avoid me, honking as they go. Oops, my bad.

The car doesn't speed off. Instead, it pulls into my lane and drives slowly --- on purpose. At the next stoplight, he moves left and waits for me to come up beside him. I stop my car slightly behind his, I don't want any trouble. He reverses until our windows align.

"Hey, asshole, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" he yells.

"Sorry, I didn't see you," I say with the most passive face I can muster, one hand raised in apology.

He stares for a moment, then closes his window back up.

It's always funny to me how traffic makes people so angry. I understand it when someone's driving like an asshole on purpose. But most of the time, when people cut you off, it's just because they didn't see you --- not because they're maliciously out to get you. Still, the way people react, you'd think every mistake was a personal attack, like they believe everyone on the road is out to get them.

I read once that your car feels like an extension of your home. That always made sense to me. And so when someone screws up in traffic, it's like they're violating your personal space --- your moving home --- and people respond with that same mix of indignation and offense, like they've been personally insulted.

I've come to extend that thought a little. I think traffic might be the most direct expression of a soul's "true self" we have on this Earth. It's a good question people ask: if you believe in reincarnation, what is the actual you? Is it your personality? Your thoughts? Something else? I think it's deeper than that --- closer to instinct. It's essentially the instinctive way you act at a moment's notice.

Traffic is a perfect test of this aspect of human beings. How do you react when you're cut off? When someone wants to merge? When you're in a hurry --- or when someone else is? These aren't abstract questions. They're real, frequent, and revealing.

You'd assume the most polite, defensive drivers are the best ones, but I don't think that's true. Overly defensive drivers can cause confusion, hesitation, danger. They value others so much they often disrupt the natural flow of traffic with their unexpectedly "nice" behavior. And of course, everyone knows how overly aggressive drivers are bad.

The best drivers strike a balance, but it's hard to codify it. It takes judgement, a kind of wisdom, to consistently make all the right decisions. Sometimes the right move is to be more aggressive, sometimes it's to be more defensive, sometimes it takes some creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, sometimes it's just about doing what everyone else is doing. There's no right answer, which is the exact point.

The most well-developed souls just know --- instinctively --- the right way to act at all times.

Why was I thinking about this? Right, I cut that guy off, and he got mad---

Wait. He got mad.

The realization hits me like a train. I'd always thought the original bearer had no understanding of the curse's rules, that he'd just gotten lucky. But no --- he must've understood them. He also understood people better than I do.

Ah, the solution had been so obvious all this time.

The easiest way to make people willingly follow you and make them have sustained anger towards you, is on traffic!

It's genius. How did I miss it? The original bearer's strategy was the most optimal one. People get mad so easily in traffic, it's not hard at all to make them follow you. I could literally just crash into someone's car and try to drive off, and they'd chase me without hesitation.

God, I'm so fucking stupid. I'm so fucking stupid. How didn't I see this earlier? How? It's so ridiculous. Why didn't ChatGPT or Gemini point it out either? Well, I can't blame them. I never prompted them with: "What's the easiest way to pass the curse, given the rules?" I just assumed that I had to keep doing what I was doing.

A normal person hit with this curse would've started by copying what the last guy did. Maybe it wouldn't work, but that's where you'd start. If someone passes you a curse in traffic, you try traffic. But of course, I'm way too clever for something that simple. So I had to reverse engineer it instead of doing the obvious. Ah, you truly can be smart and still be giga retarded at the same time.

What I have to do next is obvious. I just have to drive like a maniac.

Attempt 20 --- Sunday, 3 meters

I don't start driving like a maniac right away. The original bearer's strategy worked, but it wasn't optimal. He drove recklessly to bait someone into following him. It worked, but it's smarter to just hit someone and then drive away. You just have to pick the right kind of person --- one who's more likely to follow you than not.

As I drive, I look for a particular archetype. Male, under 30, maybe shaved head, maybe not. These traits follow a simple logic: they need to be young, hot-headed, and actually look like they know how to chase someone.

But the most important trait is the car. It has to be a "cool" car --- either spotless and new, or wrecked and old. People with these kinds of cars are way more likely to be into modding them as a hobby, and thus to be emotionally invested in their car. Hitting it will not only feel like an invasion of their mobile home, but it will be a strike to the very core of their identity, their pride. The perfect mark is someone whose car is cool and kind of busted. They'll more likely take it personally and follow you forever.

Eventually, I find him. I don't know cars, so I can only say that it's a long, blue, "cool" car. Looks new and polished. The driver is in his late 20s, doesn't have a shaved head, but his face looks arrogant as hell. He's also been driving fast, weaving through lanes, just overall being reckless, at least since I started following him like two or three minutes ago.

Perfect.

I line myself up with him. I'm in the right-most lane; he's in the middle of a three-lane street. Then I swerve left. The whole side of my car slams into his --- harder than I expected. I glance left as he looks right, and our eyes meet. I laugh.

He hesitates, slowing down for a second. I don't. I floor it. The car surges forward, engine screaming. When he realizes I'm running, he follows.

Hook, line, and sinker. It's fucking over for him.

For the next 15 minutes, I drive --- and he follows. I make sure to not go too fast or drive too recklessly. I keep just enough distance to keep him engaged. Twice I'm forced to stop at a red light. Both times, he gets out and comes knock on my window. I ignore him completely. On the second attempt, he tries to get other drivers involved --- waving, shouting --- but no one does anything. Both times, I drive off as soon as the light turns green. He's forced to chase again.

Eventually, we find ourselves on the same road where the original bearer trapped me. I don't think the timing will work, though. At this pace, we'll already be in the favela by the time the 20 minutes are up.

It's getting dark now. Not quite night, but it's that kind of orange sunset glow that's dimming. The 20 minutes are almost up, and we're getting close to the favela. This road cuts through the entire favela, but it widens there, so I won't be able to trap him like the original bearer trapped me. I'll need to find a smaller side street --- something tight enough to restrict movement, but not sketchy enough to trigger his alarm bells.

After a few minutes, I find the perfect one. Narrow, but not threatening. It looks just clean enough to pass as safe. For someone with a car like his, this shouldn't look like a trap.

I turn in, he follows. I drive for about 30 seconds, then stop. He stops a few meters back.

I get out, and he does the same a few seconds later. He's smaller than I expected --- nervous, tense. If this turns into a fight, I'll win.

I start walking towards him, steady, deliberate, not aggressive. I'm trying to project what the original bearer did --- confidence without threat.

He backs up against his car, eyes darting, bracing for whatever I might do to him. His hands hover uselessly near his chest. He's scared, like I was.

I keep walking until I'm right in front of him. He opens his mouth to speak, but I move first. I grab his shoulders --- firmly, but not violently. His muscles stiffen under my hands.

I look straight at him and say, "It follows you now!"

I close my eyes. It's over. It's finally over. My shoulders drop. My arms feel light. My chest, hollow, in a good way. My whole body loosens --- like something inside me has been uncoiled, quietly, without force. I feel... an absence. A silence where pressure used to be. A peaceful silence. I've won.

But that's when I feel it. That's when I hear it. Behind me, a familiar thumping, a familiar tremoring --- the rumbling of total despair. I look behind me and I see it. The Tyrant Snake. Its body black and jagged, its plates grinding hatefully against each other. It looks down at me with its piercing, burning eyes, as the ground around it shakes and trembles.

My mind blanks for a second --- then floods. This can't be right. This isn't how it was supposed to go. What the fuck? Why?

Why the Tyrant Snake? Mark, Strike, Venom... but no Gaze? Why? Didn't he follow me? He followed me for over 20 minutes for sure, I counted. Did his getting out of his car ruin it? No, there's no way something that small would have ruined it. Did I say the declaration wrong? No. What the fuck went wrong?

I stand there, frozen, replaying every move, every word, every rule --- searching for the smallest variable that could've ruined everything. But nothing comes up.

Reality snaps back as a hand. He touches my shoulder and shouts something. I go through the motions of settling the details of the accident with him --- we exchange information, take pictures for insurance, etc. I tell him it was my fault entirely, and that he doesn't have to worry.

Eventually, he seems satisfied and drives away. The snake is two meters away from me now. Its pounding rhythmic, its tremors deep. I feel the vibrations in my feet, in the pavement itself.

I have two attempts left. No --- one. At three meters, it already lunged at me sometimes. It never reached me, but it scared the fuck out of me. Now? There's a chance it'll reach me. I'll have to be careful about how I move back home. Depending on where I'm moving and what's in sight, it might spawn too close.

And I am not letting this fucking thing eat me alive only to slowly digest me for who knows how long. I am not spending the last hours of my life inside a snake's stomach. So, realistically, I only have one attempt left, I'm not willing to find out what happens if I fail when it's one meter away.

I could try another car attempt, but without knowing why this one failed, that's just gambling. It's probably best to go home and wait until tomorrow. Maybe I'll think of something by then. I could ask the AIs for help too.

I end up driving around aimlessly for hours. Six, to be exact. It's close to midnight now, I should probably head home, but there's something wrong with my car --- it's making constant, loud noises from the side I hit, and it's getting worse.

I decide to park at one of my grindr spots. I've got about 10 of them around the city --- quiet side streets where I can stay in the car for a few hours without being bothered while hunting for people on grindr. The good ones have cover from above and aren't busy enough for pedestrians to glance in. Technically, no one can stop you from sitting in your car on your phone, but I still prefer not to be noticed.

Different parts of the city have different kinds of people. Certain encounters are easier in certain places, depending on what I'm looking for. Over time, I've mapped out a few key locations and optimal hours for best results.

This spot is about three kilometers from home, further southwest. I live near the city's biggest shopping mall, which makes my area decent for quick, one-time encounters --- especially on weekends, when people are out wandering. But on regular days, the density and quality of people drop off fast. Just a few kilometers southwest, though, you hit a major university and some denser neighborhoods, so things get better there.

I open grindr out of habit. I'm not particularly horny, but if I get an SSS pull, I won't complain. Probably nothing will happen, though.

I scroll for about five minutes without finding anyone interesting. A few messages come in, but none from people I care about. Normally, I almost never initiate on grindr. With the way I look, initiating usually means rejection; it ends up being about one success in seven or eight tries. The misses don't totally bother me, I've grown numb to them, but still --- why initiate when I can just wait for people who are interested? Over time, I've developed a sense for who's likely to respond positively and who isn't. I'll still initiate with these high-probability targets sometimes, but mostly I just wait.

But then, as I scroll further, I see him. His face is neutral --- not smiling, not posing --- just there. Eyes locked on the camera, piercing. His perfect face, his perfect proportions. His perfect cheeks, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, neck --- all of it, immaculate.

Time stops. I can almost smell him through the screen.

It's #1.

I click on his profile immediately. It's empty --- just one picture of his face. No bio, no tags. The status says "joined recently," the default for new accounts. Distance: three kilometers. If I had to guess, he's probably at his friend's place. He never gave me the address, but I know it's about five minutes from my apartment on foot.

Should I message him? No, probably not. It was clear he didn't like me. If I reached out now, I'd likely just get blocked. It's better to figure out where exactly his friend lives --- more information is always good. And if he sees me close by on the grid and wants to talk, he will.

Grindr reports distance with decent precision --- accurate to within about 50 meters, though it adds randomized fuzzing to prevent exact pinpointing. But that's not a problem. If you treat it like a proximity sensor and run a few tests, you can triangulate anyone.

The method is simple. First, you add the target to your favorites. That gives you a live distance reading, updated whenever the app is refreshed. To force updates, you close and reopen the app after each test --- otherwise, the cache lags behind your location and gives inconsistent data.

Then you move.

Step one is to get within rough proximity. You do this naturally --- walk or drive towards the general area until you're within a kilometer, ideally 500 meters or less, though that's not always possible. In #1's case, I already know roughly where he is, so I'll likely get closer than that on the first try.

Step two is to find a four-way intersection, this will be your test node. Stand in the center, check the distance, then pick one of the four directions --- any of them --- and walk one or two blocks. Then refresh and check the new distance.

There are three outcomes:

1. You got closer by roughly the distance you walked --- your target is in that direction. Keep going until the distance stops decreasing.

2. You got further by roughly the distance you walked --- your target is in the opposite direction. Return to the node and go the opposite way.

3. You didn't change much, or the change is ambiguous ---- your target is somewhere perpendicular to your chosen direction, or somewhere in between directions. Return to the node and test one of the other two perpendicular directions.

This is a recursive loop. Based on the reported distance, you get one of the three outcomes --- and each one maps cleanly to its next step. Each new intersection becomes your current node. If you're careful, you rarely need to backtrack. Just continue choosing logical test points and applying the same checks.

And then it's just a matter of time until you're within 50 meters of your target. At that point, you usually can't get any more precise due to the random fuzzing --- but it's enough. But if you're lucky, you might hit the holy grail: 1 meter away. That means you're standing in nearly the exact same place where they are now or were before. Rare, but possible.

That's all there is to it. It's not hard, just slow.

So I start the algorithm. Node one is my building.

It takes 10 minutes to drive there. I check #1's profile again: he's been offline for 10 minutes. That's good. Tracking someone who's online is unpredictable --- they might move, or even spot you closing in. If they're offline, you know their location is fixed.

From my building's front door, there's a four-way intersection to the right. To its right, it leads to the mall. Forward, it leads to the park. Left, it leads away from the mall, towards a smaller residential area where his friend probably lives. Backwards, it leads away from the park.

I head left first. This goes through a small park --- a kind of miniature playground, boxed in by trees and old benches. It's opposite the direction I can see from my window. I cross to the far side of the street, roughly 150 meters.

I refresh. #1's distance drops slightly, maybe from ~450 to ~400 meters. This is not conclusive. If I walked 100+ meters and got closer by less than that, then this isn't the right direction.

I return to the main node and try the opposite direction --- towards the mall. The next intersection that way is further away, maybe slightly over 200 meters. I should get a similar result here, except it would be... ~500 meters away? Yea. I walk, refresh again. Distance reads: 500 meters. The fuzzying random distribution is dead center at 500 meters.

This means #1's location is directly above or below the main node. Actually, slightly to the left of it, since it was around 50 meters both ways, but the mall segment was longer. This points me to somewhere near the park or in it. Could he be there instead of at his friend's house? Or was his friend's house on the way to the park? But if that was the case, he would have taken much less than five minutes to walk to my apartment.

I go back to the main node, then I head towards the park. First intersection: 300 meters. Second --- right next to one of the park entrances --- down to 150 to 200 meters. I don't get into the park and keep walking, just to see how much closer I'll get. Next intersection: still ~150 meters, but it hovers around that value more tightly now --- fewer high outliers. This means I got closer, but not that much.

I enter the park. The center is a four-way hub. Left, two tennis courts. Right, a small hill people can sit on and play. Back, a small lake where turtles live. Ahead, a cluster of bars, volleyball courts, and some locked buildings.

I walk to the center and check the distance again.

Fifty meters.

I know exactly where he was.

There's a bench --- just before the base of the hill. It's where we met for the first time. I walk to it, sit down, refresh.

One meter away.

Yes. He was here. Exactly here.

Was he thinking about me? About when we met?

I climb to the top of the hill to scan the park. He was here 30 minutes ago --- if he's still around, this would be the best place to see him. The park is mostly empty, I don't see him.

If he's still in the park, he's probably running. The longest continuous stretch of path runs from the volleyball courts past the bars away from the hill --- a straight corridor that's invisible from here due to trees blocking the vision. That's where people go when they want to run loops inside the park.

I head down. The trail curves around the hill's edge, hugging the cluster of trees, then merges with the main path ahead.

As I get to the main path, I round the final corner and---

There he is.

Running, sweating, beautiful. It's #1 in the flesh.

He sees me. He slows, surprised --- but not alarmed. Then he smiles, warm and open, and lifts a hand to wave.

I smile and wave back too.

He starts walking towards me.

I... I didn't think I'd actually find him. I have no plan.

But I... I can use him. I can use him.

I can make him follow me for 20 minutes. We have plenty to talk about, and all he has to do is walk with me. This activates Gaze.

Strike and Venom... can I trigger those?

Yes. I'll pretend everything's fine at first, then I'll bring up his cheating --- press him about it, really confront him. We need to have a real argument, he needs to scream at me.

But does he even care enough about me to get angry? I don't think so, he's probably detached now. If that's the case, then there's nothing I can do to make him mad other than randomly insult him, but that risks him disengaging and breaking Gaze.

It's a gamble. I need to improvise. I also need to steel myself. Empathy is the mind killer. It's a doggy dog world. Every man for himself. Kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest. The lion rapes the small dog when it barks.

God has delivered him unto me, so that the curse may find its rightful vessel.

Yes. #1 is my last attempt.

Attempt 21 --- Monday, 2 meters

He hugs me.

I close my eyes, and I'm in heaven. He smells so nice. He's sweaty, so his natural body odor comes off strongly. And it's so good. I can't quite describe other than a particular kind of sweet smell that's... divine. I can't get enough of it. It's intoxicating. I get hard immediately. He notices.

"Wow, so you're happy to see me?" he says, laughing.

I'm nervous. I need to steel myself. He fills the silence.

"I was just getting done with my run. We can go over to your apartment if you want."

"No! I mean, yes. But I need to talk to you first, it won't take more than 20 minutes. Walk with me?"

"Okay."

We start walking, I make sure I'm leading. I'm hesitant to say anything. He fills the silence.

"I wanted to ask... Why didn't you reply to any of my texts?"

I can't lie to him. But I can't bring up the cheating yet either. If I tell him the truth --- that I get attached to people too fast, that I spiral when I don't get replies --- one of two things will happen. Either he pities me: sees me as fragile, needy, hurt. Or he devalues me even further and disengages. If it's pity, good --- he'll feel safe, in control, he'll think I'm harmless. And then when I hit him with the cheating allegations, the emotional whiplash from the reversal will be sharp enough to increase the chances of generating Venom. If it's detachment, then I've already lost, and I'll have no choice but to just randomly insult him. So either way, the optimal play is to lower myself before him.

"I'm... I'm just going to be honest. When I like someone, I get too attached way too fast, like, obsessively so. And if I feel ignored, it triggers something --- like rejection panic or whatever. So when you said you were okay with us texting, but then you didn't reply to my good morning text for the entire day, I just spiraled out and got giga mad at you and blocked you. I understand now that was a mistake, I wasn't thinking straight, I let my emotions get the better of me. But that's what happened."

He laughs softly. "You know... you could've just told me that. That you get that way."

He glances at me with kind eyes. "I think it's cute. Not that you blocked me, that's psychotic." He grins, teasing. "But the rest. The honesty. I don't mind if someone's a little clingy, as long as I know where it's coming from. I'd rather have someone who cares than someone who's always cool and distant."

He shrugs. "I just didn't know you liked me that much."

He... he likes it?

Good. I mean, this is --- uh, this is according to the plan. He still cares. That means there's a higher chance he'll get angry. Now I need to move on to the next part. It's clear he's using grindr to hook up with other people. I need him to admit it, and once he does, it gives me a clean opening to mention the cheating.

I'm about to speak, but he does so first, "So, what have you been up to these couple of weeks?"

I don't want to lie to him, but I can't exactly be honest either.

"Nothing much. Just work, pretty much." This is not false --- I've coded for a few days this month. "And you?"

That's all he needs. He starts talking, and I let him. We end up talking about nothing for a while --- how he's been, what he's done, how he had to come back here earlier than expected, what he plans to do now. Every time he tries to shift the focus onto me, I gently steer it back to him. I'm waiting for the right moment. I need an excuse --- any excuse --- to bring up his grindr usage.

"It's funny we ran into each other here again --- me running, just like the first time," he says.

"What's funny about it?" I ask.

"It's just a funny coincidence, that's all."

This is it. This is my opening. If I show my hand first --- if I'm completely honest about something this unflattering --- he'll feel pressured to match it. That gives me room to press him about grindr and get an honest response. From there, I can get to the cheating from an advantageous position.

"Well, I have to be honest. It wasn't much of a coincidence. I was out driving and saw you on grindr, so I got curious and tracked you down. When I got close to the park, I figured you might be running here again and thought I'd see if I could spot you."

He stops walking and tilts his head.

"You... stalked me?"

His tone isn't angry, more amused, maybe confused. I raise both hands halfway, palms out --- half-surrender, half-joke.

"Okay, yes, that sounds bad. But I swear it wasn't like... creepy stalking. I just wanted to see where you were."

I pause, tilt my head, then continue.

"But why are you using grindr?" I ask, voice steady. "You told me you didn't use it. Were you just looking for something casual?" My tone stays neutral. I don't want to come off as too accusatory yet, that comes later.

I'm expecting some poorly thought out excuse. He won't want to admit he's looking for someone else. But that works --- I'll press him, since it's obvious. Why else would you open grindr if you weren't trying to find someone? Once he's honest about that, it gives me the cleanest cheating entry.

I watch him, he hesitates. His eyes dart to the side, then back to me. His breathing changes --- shorter, shallower --- and he fidgets with his hands. I can see it on his face, something's coming. His lips twitch like he's about to speak, then stop. He tries again.

This is it. He's about to crack. I've got him by the balls.

"I... I was looking for you," he says.

I say nothing.

"It's actually my first time using grindr. I remembered you mentioned you used it, and I thought... maybe I could find you there. I didn't even know how the app worked. It's full of ads, and I couldn't scroll that far before things got locked. And I never saw you online, so I just gave up and went for a run instead."

He glances down.

"I didn't really know how else to reach you. Other than, like, showing up at your apartment. But that felt..."

He trails off. His face is flushed. He looks up again, smiling faintly, nervous.

"But then I saw you. And... I was happy. Really happy." He takes a breath. "I already knew I liked you, but when I saw you again today --- it just confirmed it. That I really like you."

His eyes search mine. "I'm sorry I didn't reply to your text that day. I was out and I was busy, but... I also didn't reply because I was scared. I like you so much, and it freaked me out. You're this... person. You have a life, a career, and a house, and a car. I googled you right after you left. You're real, I didn't expect that. I wasn't ready for how real it felt, so fast."

He exhales --- hard, almost like he's relieved to have said it. "But... I want you. I want to spend more time with you. I want to try, for real."

He falls quiet, face glowing red, hands trembling, waiting.

I stay quiet too, processing.

The silence hangs heavy, except for the Tyrant Snake's deep, relentless rumbling behind me.

Eventually, I speak.

"If you like me so much, why did you cheat on me?" My tone is firm and accusatory, but not angry.

He blinks, stunned.

"Cheat on you...?"

His mouth opens, then closes again. He shakes his head once, uncertain.

"What are you talking about? I didn't cheat--- I don't even understand what you mean."

"What am I talking about? I saw your post. The day you ignored my text, you were out with some other guy. It looked like you spent the entire day with him, one day after we'd just spent 24 hours together. Just like that, you were already saying things like 'looking good' and dropping laughing emojis? Yea, we weren't dating, we weren't exclusive. But who does that? Who has someone lined up that fast after the time we spent together?"

I pull out my phone and find myself to the post. It takes comically longer than I expected. But eventually I find it --- and shove the screen in front of him.

He doesn't flinch.

He watches me scroll, watches me shove the phone toward him. His expression doesn't change --- not anger, not guilt, not surprise --- just a calm, steady gaze.

Then, wordlessly, he pulls out his own phone. He taps a few times and hands it to me.

"Scroll through," he says.

I do.

I see photos.

They're all in the same setting. An open bar. That open bar. Same lighting, same background --- but not just him and the guy. There are other faces now. Older men, women, teenagers, children. A toddler in a plastic high chair. A couple in their 60s holding hands near a buffet table. People posing in group shots, laughing.

He's in some of the pictures, but not many. Mostly he's the one holding the camera --- it's his phone, after all.

It... it becomes obvious to me. Reality settles in, and my stomach sinks.

I open my mouth to speak, but he does so before I can.

"I wasn't cheating on you," he says, still calm. "I was with my family. That day was our yearly meetup --- all of us, everyone who could make it. We try to do it once a year, but it only happens when schedules line up. I hadn't seen most of them since last year. That's why I needed to go back home when I did."

He takes the phone back gently.

"That guy in the photo is my cousin. He's straight, by the way. He told me he's been struggling with dating, and he thought maybe if someone like me commented something flattering, with a picture of us together, it might help him look more... I don't know, appealing, confident."

He shrugs. "I told him it'd probably just make him look gay."

He meets my eyes again and doesn't say anything. He just looks at me --- level, still, unblinking. His gaze is calm, unjudging, not angry. There's no gloating, no self-righteousness. He's just patiently waiting for me.

"Did you go out with anyone else other than me since then?" I ask, curious.

"No." He doesn't hesitate, not even for a fraction of a second.

We're both silent, still looking at each other. I look away first.

He... he actually likes me.

He's been thinking about me this whole time.

He's been loyal to me all along.

I...

I fucked up so hard.

I should've just talked to him. I should've been more honest. God, I'm so fucking stupid. I should've just talked to him. Why didn't I just talk to him? Why didn't I just tell him everything about how I felt?

My mind flashes back to what #11 said to me, how I never make myself vulnerable. It's true, isn't it? I was afraid of being hurt, of making myself vulnerable, so I never told him the full truth.

I should have been honest. I should have been more honest. I should be more honest right now.

"I... remember when I was resting my head on your lap, and you asked me what I was thinking about? I didn't say what I was really thinking. I should have. What I was really thinking was that I wanted to merge with you."

#1 tilts his head slightly, his face changing from neutrality to light amusement.

"I mean --- uh --- I wanted to become one with you. Not like, physically, I mean... I wanted to know everything about you and... I wanted you to love me and to need me and... That's... sort of what I said. I mean, I didn't say it, I said it in my head."

#1 watches me, silent. His face unreadable.

"I... there's this snake, this curse. It follows me everywhere, and, uh --- it gets closer."

He shifts a little. He opens his mouth to say something, but doesn't.

"I hooked up with about 20 different guys since last month. These meetups --- they were just experiments. I needed them for the snake. It wasn't --- I didn't want to do it, but the rules --- they made me do it."

He goes still, completely still. His earlier warmth drains out of his posture.

"Twenty... guys?" he repeats, slower, like he's checking if he heard correctly.

"I know it sounds bad, but it's not that bad! You don't understand, it's a system. They... it was designed. There's Mark --- you choose someone for the transfer. Then Gaze --- they have to follow you or your instructions for 20 minutes. Then Strike --- you have to violate them during the attempt. And then Venom --- they have to be angry at you."

He doesn't say anything. His eyes stay locked on mine, but the tension in his face shifts, I can't tell how. One hand reflexively drifts near his chest.

"But the... it's hard to do it because I have to get follow and anger. It's so hard."

"I tried everything. I robbed a man, I raped a drug addict, I killed a man and fed him to the snake. For nothing. The Clown Snake just mocked me."

#1's eyes pull back, for a moment he's distant, somewhere else. He comes back and looks at me, alert, then says, "What are you talking about? Are you... are you okay?"

His right hand rises halfway between us, and rests gently on my left arm. I let him.

A strong gust of wind carries his scent to me. I still can't get over how good he smells.

He loves me. He undeniably loves me. He cares about me. He wants the best for me. And if he wants the best for me, he'll understand.

Yes --- he'll understand once he sees the snake. So I have to do this, I have to make him angry. This is the right moment. He'll forgive me because he loves me.

I violently pull my arm back and shove him away. I close my face and look him dead in the eye.

"You're so fucking stupid. You really thought I was going to fall for that excuse? That it was just your cousin? Who hasn't fucked a cousin? I know you cheated on me with him, I just can't prove it. But I know what kind of person you are. Your ex was right to cheat on you, because you aren't loyal, you're unreliable. You're so unreliable you couldn't even reply to my texts."

"And you really thought I liked you? You? With that fucking face? We're not even looksmatched at all. You're a solid 6 on a good day. All our encounters, I was just bored."

"And how wouldn't I be bored? Your personality is awful. You have awful taste. Do you have a single original thought in your head? Playing Dead by Daylight like some basic bitch? Watching thousands of episodes of One Piece like some lunatic loser? You fucking piece of shit."

He flinches, jaw tightening. His eyes search mine, stunned. His right hand lifts slightly, like it wants to reach out again, but he stops it midair, near his chest.

"...Why are you saying this?" he asks, voice quiet, brittle.

"Because it's true. Is it false that you're unreliable? You couldn't even finish your math degree. You just 'lost motivation?' That's you, that's your whole life. You're a quitter, you're going to be a nobody forever because you have no discipline. I built something, I made something of myself. You just exist, you're nothing."

"And the sex, oh my god. You're so boring in bed. You couldn't even take a dick right, you bled all over my sheets. And god, the smell. You couldn't even clean yourself up properly. The first thing I did after you left was take a shower because I didn't want the smell of shit all over my dick. It was disgusting. And you think that night at your house was special? It fucking wasn't, you're just another bleeding hole I got to fuck."

He recoils like he's been struck. His face drains of color. Whatever resistance he had collapses immediately. When he finally speaks, his voice is thin.

"...Why are you doing this?"

"Because you're fucking retarded. Who the fuck gets kicked out of their parents' house for being gay without ever having gay sex? You ruined your life for nothing. You're a martyr for cocks you never even touched. What a fucking idiot."

"Your mom was right to kick you out. And your dad? He probably didn't just crash, I bet he drove into a wall on purpose just to escape the shame of having such a faggot for a son. He probably looks on at you with shame at what a fucking faggot you've become."

His lips press together. His eyes are glassy, unfocused, glinting with wetness at the edge. His shoulders are curled inward, as if bracing against the cold. He looks wounded in a way that twists my stomach --- fragile, breakable, exposed. A breeze moves between us, carrying the divine, sweet scent of his skin. It touches my face with a gentleness I don't deserve. The contrast hits me, I feel sick with guilt.

He holds my gaze for a moment longer, like he's waiting for something more, but then he steels himself and turns to walk away.

I stumble forward, trying to grab him, but I trip. I hit the ground and wrap my arms around his legs. He stops walking.

As I cling to him, his smell rushes over me --- overwhelming, perfect. I breathe it in like I'll never get the chance again. I can't get enough of it.

"I'm sorry, I was joking. I didn't mean any of it. I really, really like you."

I grip tighter.

"The curse... it needs you to be angry. You have to be angry at me. Don't you get it?"

"Fucking get angry at me! All those times we kissed? They meant nothing to me. Nothing!"

He looks down at me, confused, his expression unreadable.

I panic. I need to be more honest. I need to explain more.

"The curse only works if the target is angry, that's the last condition. So that when I say --- 'It follows you now!' --- it..."

My eyes widen. My shoulders lock. My arms feel heavy. My chest, hollow, in a bad way. My whole body tenses up --- like something inside me has been rewound tightly, violently, without warning. I feel fear. Extreme fear. And that's when I feel it. A silence where sound used to be. A terrifying silence. I've lost.

Behind me, the familiar thumping, the familiar tremoring... is completely gone.

No... no no no, I said it. I said the words.

I look behind me and I see it.

The blonde hair. The fake eyelashes. The thick red lipstick. The smeared grin carved into its face. And that dress. That garish, polka-dotted, ill-fitting thing.

The Carnivalesque Snake stands behind me. Its whole body pulses with grotesque delight, twitching in place, laughing. It hisses, sharp and high-pitched, in a way that sounds like a giggle.

A sound escapes me --- half sob, half gag. Relief and despair crash down together. I cry profusely.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please, don't go. I didn't mean any of it. I love you. I love you."

I bury my face in his thighs, breathing him in deeply. I can't lose this smell. I can't let it leave me.

He tries to pull his legs free with growing force. Eventually, his left leg breaks loose. I reach for it again, but he plants it back down, just out of reach. His hands come next, shoving my head away, prying me off his right leg. He tries to walk again, but I'm still holding on, so he drags me along the ground.

"I love you. Please, don't. Please."

His smell is intoxicating. I can't get enough of it. I can't lose this smell.

He pulls harder and harder until his right leg finally tears free. His right shoe slips off and stays with me.

I look up at him. His face shows anger, sadness, concern, contempt, despair. It's a complex mix of emotions I can't place. But then he turns without a word and walks away.

I crawl after him, but I can't catch up.

My head droops, and I still smell him. He's all over my shirt, my arms. I desperately smell them. I bury my face in the fabric, over and over. Once that's gone, I rub my skin, then press my fingers to my nose, again and again. His smell. I need more.

I turn back and find his shoe.

I drop lower to the floor, grab it with both hands, and smell it. I smell it. I can't let it fade. I can't lose his smell. His smell is mine.

One side of my building's rooftop is sealed off by a tall wall, but the other three are open. Two of those sides have high glass barriers with vertical steel bars spaced between them. The third has the same glass and bars, but they're lower. Too high to fall by accident, but easy to climb. I walk up and do exactly that. The bars overshoot the top of the glass. I'm now standing with my lower back against one of them, arms spread, holding two more --- one in each hand. The tips are pointy, so I grip them carefully to avoid cutting my hands.

In retrospect, I didn't need to use grindr to discover the curse's rules. If I'd thought hard enough, I could've found other ways --- like with traffic. But I went for the path of least resistance. Ah, it's too late now.

I look down. If I move a little to the left, I could land in the pool. That would be stupid, as it would just increase my chances of a slow death by drowning instead of an instant one. Still, it would probably look kind of cool. Of course, I'm not gonna do it. Concrete is my fate.

I look ahead. My building is the only tall one for three or four blocks. Everything else in the vicinity tops out at three or four floors. The view is nice, especially at night. To my left, farther out, both shopping malls glow brightly. Directly ahead, four blocks away, a church rises as the next tallest building, its cross prominent, lit in a dim white-blue that barely registers unless you stare. And behind that, the horizon thickens into a jungle of high-rise buildings. This is a dense neighborhood; even if my building stands alone here, everything past these blocks is packed with tall residential buildings.

I look left. The park I just came from. I look away quickly.

I look back. That thing is right behind me, staring at me in that fucking stupid costume. It's impossible not to read it as mocking me. But I guess I deserve it. It won.

I look up. I think of my father. The last conversation we had, specifically. In many ways, the first too. We never really talked. He never gave me any kind of "fatherly talk." He was there --- helping, especially financially --- but he really wasn't there. He was also an alcoholic for most of his life. But the chill kind, never violent. At worst, he'd fall outside from drinking too much and I'd have to help him in. Annoying and kind of embarrassing, but not actively harmful.

He tried to talk to me. Asked me about my life --- what I was doing, what I wanted to do. By that point, I'd already decided I wanted to make games.

"Is it... good? For you? Do you like it?"

"Yes."

He was silent for a few seconds.

"I don't... I don't really understand it. Has there ever been a video game that changed your life?"

What a direct question, I thought. But I had to be honest.

"No."

A few more seconds of silence, like he didn't know what to say.

"But do you feel good about making games? Is it what you really want to do?"

"Maybe."

More silence. He asked nothing else.

Thinking back on that "conversation," it's clear to me now. Him trying to talk to me --- clumsily, awkwardly --- was him finally opening up, trying to connect in his own flawed and imperfect way. He wasn't perfect, but neither was I. All I could manage to say was "yes," "no," and "maybe," while barely looking him in the eyes.

I could have cried then. I should have cried then. And as the walls came down, and as I hugged him and looked into his eyes, I should have told him how much I loved him. I should have remembered all the times he was there for me --- really there --- and told him how much those moments meant to me, how much he meant to me. But I didn't. I didn't then, and I never would.

Somehow, he knew. A few weeks after that, he got sick. Weeks in the hospital, then he quickly degenerated. A few months later, and he just wasn't there anymore. He spent the next three years bedridden, and then he died last year.

My mom died three months after him. I think about my last conversation with her. I was taking her to the supermarket. My car had broken down --- I'd hit a tree while looking down at my phone --- so I was using hers while mine was getting fixed.

Unlike my father, my mom has always been talkative. So she was on one of her tangents, and at some point she said, "I was talking to my therapist the other day. You remember that story I told you? About how when you were a baby, and there was a beggar at our door, and your dad was locked in the bathroom?"

Yes, I remembered.

When I was a baby, my mom left me with my dad to run some errands. My dad was always relaxed about everything --- too relaxed, probably --- and that day he decided to trim his beard. When he did that, he'd lock himself in the bathroom for an hour, listening to the radio. So he did exactly that and left baby me alone in the living room.

We lived in a poor neighborhood, in an apartment where the front door was kind of fucked up and always half-open. So when my mom came back home and saw a beggar standing at our door, looking in at me, she panicked. The beggar could have stolen me, she thought. She said my dad had been irresponsible --- that he should never have left me alone like that. From that point on, she never trusted him to take care of me by himself again.

"I told my therapist that story. I told her how I stopped trusting your dad, and how whenever I needed to do something outside, I'd lock you in your room for hours."

I didn't remember any of this, but it sounded intuitively true.

"The therapist said that doing that to a young child can cause problems, like trauma."

She paused and glanced at me.

"Do you have any trauma from that?"

Did I have any trauma from that? I didn't think so, but I knew --- immediately, intuitively --- that it probably mattered.

"No, not that I know of."

She seemed relieved. The conversation then moved on to other things. Then, near the end of the drive, her voice shifted.

"Son, I'm so afraid they're going to get you and beat you up on TV."

Ah, there it was.

"You're not doing anything that would get you beat up on TV, right?"

My mom became schizophrenic around the same time I released my first game. At first, she talked about the voices constantly. How they were watching her, watching us. The negative things they said to her, sometimes about me. How they were just about to kidnap her, or kill her, or do the same to me.

But over time, she became more silent. The meds kind of worked, yes, but she realized there was nothing anyone could do --- really, the only thing you can do is make sure she takes her meds. Engaging with the details of someone's delusions is never productive. So she learned to hide it, but sometimes it still leaks through.

"Yes, mom, I'm not doing anything that would get me beat up on TV."

Later, when I got home, I got curious and asked ChatGPT: "If someone is locked in a room for hours on end from ages 1 to 3, with no consistent access to their primary caretakers, what can happen to them as they grow up?"

The bot's answer... it clocked me instantly. It just described me and my patterns, the whole shape of my life, perfectly.

To think that a single decision --- no, not single, it happened many times --- but to think that one repeated action could shape me so completely, forever, in a way that I can't undo and that I had no control over.

None of this is my fault.

I'm a victim.

But I can't blame her, or him. They were just trying their best with the information they had available at the time. She did force me to take English classes from age 8, which was pretty unusual at that time for this country. By age 15, I was fluent. My English isn't perfect --- you can always tell when someone isn't a native speaker by the way they talk or write --- but it's good enough, it's certainly served me well.

God, she must have felt so lonely, for so long. To hear those voices constantly, to feel watched, on the edge, like something is always about to happen --- and to have your son not even seem that interested in the details of what was happening. It must have been unbearable.

I catch myself feeling something in my chest. But it's small, and it fades quickly. Remembering her looking out the window, worried someone was about to break into the apartment --- this is where I should tear up. But I can't. There's no heaviness in my chest, no tightness in my throat. There's just nothing.

I was zero towards them, and I still am. I don't think I've cried over either of their deaths yet, and I don't think I ever will.

It's funny. I've never been able to hold a job, I don't do well with authority. The idea of someone telling me where to be, when to wake up, how to spend my time --- of my life being controlled by an alarm clock because someone else decided it --- subjecting myself to that would be humiliating.

So I worked hard to avoid that fate. I isolated myself for a decade, I focused autistically on making games, on making it as a game developer, so I would be free from wage slavery. And it worked. I make my own money, I make my own schedule, I make my own rules.

But now both my parents are dead, and I'm an only child, and I have no close relations with anyone. I've never had a real friendship, let alone a relationship. No one really cares about me. If I died in my apartment, my body would sit there for weeks before anyone noticed the rotting smell.

Isn't it funny? I can go anywhere, I can do anything, and it fucking sucks. I chased freedom at all costs, and I got it, and it's worthless.

Worse than worthless, actually, because did I even do anything useful? Did I make the world better? No. I was so proud when my game succeeded --- proud that I proved everyone wrong, that I could do it. But in the end, all I really did was keep a few thousand zillennials glued to their screens for a few more dozen hours. And in a dumb way too, just by pressing the reroll button over and over like it was a slot machine. I didn't even add proper reroll cost scaling like Brotato did, I'm such a fucking piece of shit dumb game designer.

My face fills with disgust.

Thirty-four years. Thirty-four wasted years. Ah, thirty-five, actually --- my birthday was... nine days ago? I didn't even notice it.

I think I'm finally forced to accept that I'm unfit for any human relationships. I've always known it, deep inside, but I let myself believe there was a chance. Because everyone believes that. Everyone thinks they'll find another soul --- someone united with them in thought and action, someone they can merge with completely, someone who understands and wants the same things. It doesn't even have to be romantic.

But I won't. I read a tweet a while ago that never left my head: "Being alone is a sign that you're really special or possibly intrinsically corrupt and time will reveal which of the two it is." Well, time has revealed which one I am.

There's nothing left for me except to annihilate myself. To end this failure once and for all.

I look down. Concrete.

Strangely, this is the clearest thought I've had in a long while. There's a solidity to it --- a reality, a finality --- and that creates pressure. There's always been something about pressure with me, I always perform well under pressure.

I released my first game during my mother's worst psychotic episode. The second as my dad was getting worse. He went to the hospital after I pushed my, what, fourth weekly update? Yea, around there. The pressure always works.

In a way, I've felt more alive these past few weeks than ever before. Being forced to do things, being pressured to act... It makes me feel more... alive. Yea, that tracks. I guess I have to thank the curse in a way.

I did feel more alive, just not enough to live.

I look down. I want to step forward and let go, but I can't.

In the distance, I hear music. A familiar beat, TUM tchá---tchá TU-TU tchá--- TU-TUM tchá---tchá TU-TU tchá--- --- looping endlessly. Of course, fucking funk. I can't even kill myself in peace in this fucking country without some nigger music being forced down my throat. Ah, I shouldn't say the n-word, I meant without these environmental irritants bothering me.

I fucking hate it here, people are too happy, it's always too sunny. I shouldn't have been born here, I don't fit in this fucking place.

How can these people be so happy when they're poor, fucking stupid low IQ retards, and completely owned wage slaves without any freedom? How can they go through a week of being told what to do and then find the energy to just go out and party every fucking weekend? Why do they get to enjoy themselves like that? I hate all these fucking people.

I look down again. I lift my right foot and half-step forward --- then stop.

I lived a bad life, there's nothing left for me. And still, I'm scared of dying. I guess I still must find some intrinsic worth in life --- if only because of my vast imagination.

I do have a vast imagination, don't I? The future was always so endlessly full of potential... but ultimately unrealized potential. I had so many ideas that I never committed to, so many paths I never followed, so many beautiful visions left unborn.

I'm procrastinating. That's the real problem with freedom, with infinite choice. It doesn't constrain. Nothing forces you to act. Pressure only exists when something is closing in on you. I need to be constrained, that's why the pressure always worked.

I should have been more constrained, I should have built more chains for myself. Schedules, obligations, deadlines, limits --- anything. Ironically, I should have had a metaphorical snake around me all along, constricting me, always about to kill me, and everything would have been fine.

Too late now. I guess there's nothing more constraining than gravity. I step forward...

This reminds me, there's this scene in the new Superman movie --- easily the best scene in it --- where he's filled with these nanobots or whatever they are, and he's blind, deaf, mute, essentially cut off from every sense. And then he decides to go up! And once he reaches the stratosphere or whatever, they all get frozen and it solves his problem.

It's beautiful. I remember watching it and thinking, wow, whoever wrote this actually knows his shit. It also reminded me of that Dream Theater song:

"Likely or not, it's a dream that we keep
And at odds with our senses we'll climb
But if faith is the answer, we've already reached it
And if spirit's a sign
Then it's only a matter of time."

You can still climb while being at odds with your senses, because you always know where up is. Literally, because of gravity. But metaphorically, because you always know what the better version of you could be, it's not a secret. If someone asks, What could you do better? Everyone can immediately name several things that matter. Everyone knows, we just refuse to move towards it. The mo---

I'm procrastinating. Even now --- when all future potential should be reduced to one line, when every branch but one should be cut away, when I need to maximally constrain myself to one final point --- I still hesitate.

Enough.

I force myself forward. With a distorted face, but with clarity of mind and spirit, I let go of both steel bars. With my eyes closed, I let gravity constrain me, and fall towards my death.

Time slows down. The wind brushes against my face from below. #1's smell lingers on me still, it calms me and soothes me.

Peace, at last.

But as soon as the feeling of falling hits me, as soon as my fate is finally clear, out of the most remote area of myself--- No! Out of an indescribably foreign place --- somewhere that could be hardly said to be inside myself --- my mouth utters a word.

Did I utter that word? I could hardly tell. But the realization hits me immediately. That single word takes me back to where it all started, to a single moment that makes everything clear to me.

I could have succeeded in passing the curse if only I'd had this realization earlier.

This realization triggers another equally important one: not only could I have succeeded at passing the curse earlier, but I still could, right now!

Ah, it's clear now. This is the final mockery. Of course. My death by itself isn't enough. I have to die with my last thoughts being: "For all the genius and God-like intellect you believe you have, you were too fucking stupid to see this!" Yes, this is fitting. Undone by my own hubris. I'm hardly the first.

It's a shame, but I don't dwell on it. In the same moment as both these realizations hit, I embrace my death once again.

But suddenly, the feeling of falling stops. I'm jolted backwards, as if something slammed into my chest. My throat tightens --- something's choking me. I can't breathe. Then I hear it: the familiar sound of fabric tearing.

I open my eyes. I look back.

My shirt is caught on the steel bar. It's starting to give. I half-turn --- too late. The shirt rips fully, and I lunge, grabbing the top of the bar with my right hand. It's pointy, and I grab it wrong. My hand splits open as my body slams against the building with a loud thud.

My right hand can't hold, so I clutch the same steel bar with my left. I also grab it wrong --- it slices me, but not as deep. I'm hanging, but it hurts. Blood drips onto my face. One drop hits my eye. My knees and chest scrape the wall. My left arm is tearing itself apart, it wants to drop me.

I grope for footing --- there's none. I have to reach the steel bar on the right. I pull from my left arm, extend my right, and grab the other bar. This time I do it right. My right hand screams, I scream, but I hold. With both hands, I pull myself back up.

With every centimeter, the snake looms larger.

Finally, my feet find the ledge. I drag myself over and collapse on my back, chest heaving, blood on my mouth. The snake looks down at me.

I go back to my apartment. I need to work. It's 2am now. I have until midnight, so 22 hours. No, wait, I've already done an attempt today. So I have until the midnight of tomorrow. I have 46 hours. They'll need at least, let's say, 12 hours, so I have 36 in total. I can do it. If I focus, I can do it.

For the next 30 hours, I work. I type like a maniac. The AI helps me --- generating entire sections of the draft, smoothing sentences, fixing awkward phrasing, catching errors my tired eyes miss. I fall into a flow state, time disappears. There's just the work, and the deadline. The pressure... it always works. When I finally stop to check the time, it's 8am, of the next day. 30 hours gone, just like that. No sleep, no food, just a lot of Coke --- the real stuff, not that diet faggotry.

God, as I read it and reread it, it's so humiliating. It's like that meme: "I am a sad lonely FAGGOT. Here's some embarrassing information about me. PLEASE DONT BULLY ME WITH IT"

Just terrible. All my degeneracy, all my debasement, all my failures --- all of it laid bare for everyone to see. But yes, go on --- mock me. Laugh. The Carnival Snake hisses behind me. Yes, little snake, laugh.

That's not the snake laughing, by the way. That's them. That's them laughing at me through this obscene, carnivalesque giggle. Yes, go on, laugh, laugh! Show my inadequacies for all the world to see. Yes...

But mark my words --- before this story ends, I will laugh at you.

I finish reading it for the third time. Structurally, it's done. There are a few details left to fix, but the shape is there. What's left is delivery. I think Twitter makes the most sense --- it's the only place I have that might give something like this any reach.

Ideally, I'd use my Steam profile. I have 3000+ followers there, and if I released a new game, they'd all get emails. But there's no time, I can't ship a new "game" like that. Valve's process is too bureaucratic to abuse --- builds have to be reviewed manually, and that takes days.

Twitter it is. Reddit is an option too, but I don't think it would work there. I don't need many eyes, I only need one. I'm pretty sure there will be one.

With 14 hours left, at 10am, I open Twitter and make a post.

"Hello, my dear followers! From now on, I'll only post here when I finish a new artistic artifact, like a game, song, story, etc. If you don't want to miss them, please turn on notifications for this account.

In four hours, I'll post a new story I wrote. It's short, so I hope you'll read it! If you have notifications on, this should also serve as a quick test that they work.

I won't reply from this account anymore, to avoid extra notifications. If you have questions, email me at a327ex@gmail.com.

Thank you for your attention to this matter and thank you for following me!"

This is good. It ensures at least some people will read it the moment it goes live --- which increases my chances. For the next four hours, I work through the final details. Some scenes need better structure, some sentences need sharper phrasing, some ideas feel underdeveloped and need extra scenes. But I do it all. Everything connects, it's finally ready.

Yes, yes, it's ready. But what is ready, exactly?

You know what I've been thinking about these past few hours? Why I couldn't pass the curse --- why me, specifically. The conditions aren't even that hard. Gaze: someone follows you willingly for 20 minutes. Strike: they feel violated. Venom: they feel sustained anger towards you.

The hardest is Venom. And I think I finally understand why. You only get angry at things or people you care about. Real anger --- sustained anger --- requires investment. If you don't care, you can just walk away.

So what the curse really needs is someone who cares. Someone who cares enough about you to follow you, cares enough to feel violated by your betrayal, and still cares enough to be angry, rather than indifferent.

Most people have someone like that. A friend, a parent, a partner. Someone who would follow them for 20 minutes without question --- and who would be furious if they were betrayed.

But me? I don't have anyone like that. I never have.

I made my choices. In a sense, I don't regret them. It's possible I'm constitutionally incapable of having that kind of connection with any other human being... It's fine, I'm hardly the first.

But that's why the curse was impossible for me.

What's the moral of the story? The moral is that you can't control other people. You can't make them like you, you can't make them act how you'd want them to act, you can't treat them like a computer where the same inputs always result in the same outputs.

But... I'm more than a mere programmer. I'm an artist, a game developer. "You can't control other people," but as a game developer, I can. My entire skill set is about controlling other people's emotions. I've spent my entire life mastering this, specifically.

Don't believe me? Well, why are you still reading?

Aren't you curious about what I've been working on? What I'm doing? I did say in the tweet I was writing a story. Which story, you might ask? Well, isn't it obvious?

You see, on the rooftop, when I was about to die, a word was spoken through me. Yes --- through me. I wasn't sure then, but I'm sure now. I didn't speak that word, someone else made me speak it. Personally, I think the snake did it, it's the only thing that makes sense. It wants to live on, it wants to spread.

What was the word? Hm, can you guess? Can't? Well, I'll tell you. The word was "twenty." Now, why would that word cause such important realizations to hit me?

It's obvious. The original bearer --- before I followed him --- said on his phone that it would take 20 minutes to reach his destination. Do you see? He said it. I also said it --- on every attempt where Gaze was true, I said it, I told the person they'd have to follow my instructions for 20 minutes. I did it unconsciously, without noticing. I didn't notice it so much I didn't even add it to my logs. No wonder the AI couldn't find the pattern.

But do you see now? Do you understand why the last car chase returned the Tyrant Snake? For Gaze to work, not only does it have to be a willing follow that lasts 20 minutes, but it has to be declared as the attempt starts. That's probably what marks the 20 minute countdown.

It's so, so obvious once you see it. So do you get it? Do you get it? Do you understand why I have to do this?

I don't know if Mark works like this, though. It has to select an individual, but this is like AoE single target selection --- it's a gamble. Many will stop before the end, so Gaze won't be true for them. Some will get to the end, but nothing will feel like a violation to them, so Strike won't be true. Some will get to the end but think that I'm based, or sad, or mentally ill, so no Venom. It's all a big gamble.

But a few... no, one. That's all I need. I need one who aligns, one for whom it's all true.

Yes, do you see it now? You. It's you, my dear reader. You're the final key to this puzzle.

Yes. This plan is so simple that it terrifies me. It's genius! First, I collect all my logs. Then --- with a little help from the AI --- I weave it all together into a story. A well-written story. A divine story. A gift to God himself. Technology is great, isn't it? I did have to spend some time editing everything. The AI, unfortunately, does not yet possess the true spark of genius.

And then, once the story is ready, I release it! And these divine words travel through the wires and reach the screens of my dear followers. And they read it. A great story! No --- a testament! It Follows by a327ex: a structured, precise mechanism that takes as input all his life, all his sins, all his failures --- and transmutes them into a weapon. A terrifying weapon! A poison dagger, aimed at the center of one soul --- an act of malevolent transference encoded in the words themselves!

What clarity! What depth! What flawless logic! What terrible beauty in the system finally revealed! a327ex has created the perfect, transmissible, and undeniable instrument. An offering to God so true it bends reality itself!

And you forced to read it. Powerless to stop it! Because... because you want to know how it ends, right? So I can even tell you my evil plan, as I do it, and you'll keep reading. Do you understand how genius it is? Do you understand? Hahahahaha!

So yes --- you, my dear reader. You, who followed me all the way here, willingly, unconditionally, for way more than 20 minutes. You, who felt violated by my many transgressions --- physical, mental, and philosophical. You, who felt sustained anger towards me. Who wouldn't? Who wouldn't hate the alien robot vampire that I am?

You, who read the words "Minimum reading time: 20 minutes" at the very start of this page. What, you thought I added that out of kindness?

So yes --- you, the first reader for whom all conditions are true:

It follows you now!