The Game

neighbor just bought two dogs, and she wants to name them after an eighties or nineties pop duo. Do you have any ideas?” When you start talking to a group of people, their first concern is, “Are we going to be stuck with this guy all night? How do we get rid of him?” So you give yourself a false time constraint. “I can only stay for a minute,” you

was just Mystery’s wing or Ross’s disciple or Steve P.’s hypnotic subject. Now I had to prove myself every time I went out. Guys in the community would ask behind my back, “How is Style? Is he any good?” If I didn’t walk up to a group of girls and make out with the hottest one within fifteen minutes, they’d think I was a fraud. Before I joined the

We showed our Moldovan visas, and that was when we were told that we were no longer in Moldova. They showed us the local passport—an old Soviet document—and yelled something in Russian. Marko translated: They wanted us to drive back to the military checkpoint on the bridge we had crossed three police bribes ago and obtain the proper documents. “I w

pulled in front of a small building, and we walked inside to find an elderly Serbian man presiding over an empty shop. Mystery sat me in a chair, told Marko to instruct the barber to remove my tumbleweeds, and then supervised the procedure to make sure the barber shaved down to the skull.

He paused. “Well, sometimes when I sleep, I have wet dreams.” “See. God is trying to tell you something. It has to come out.” He laughed and patted me on the back. His gestures were slow and his laugh condescending, as if he had spiritually bypassed toilet humor. “I go by my Hebrew name now,” he said. “It was given to me by one of the highest rabbi

origin in the name of one of Ross Jeffries’s cats, Sargy. An hour after I sent him my phone number, Grimble called. More than Mystery, it was Grimble who would initiate me into what could only be described as a secret society. “Hey, man,” he said, in a conspiratorial hiss. “So what do you think of Mystery’s game?” I gave him my assessment. “Wow, I

“Isolate her,” Sin said. I suggested sitting down, and we walked to a bench. Sin followed and sat behind us. As I’d been taught, I asked her to tell me the qualities she finds attractive in guys. She said humor and ass. Fortunately, I have one of those qualities. Suddenly, I felt Sin’s breath on my ear. “Sniff her hair,” he was instructing. I smell

He snapped, freeing her from her trance. “Or did it take time?” “Well, we broke up,” she said. “But it took a while. We were friends first.” “Isn’t it so much better, though, when you just feel that sense of attraction”—he moved his hand up like an elevator and her eyes began to glaze again—“right away for someone.” He pointed to himself, which I a

wires. And I saw my life below them.” “Listen,” I said. “I need Patricia’s phone number.” The tears came now. He looked like a big baby. A big baby who was about to kill himself. “Can you tell me Patricia’s phone number?” I asked again slowly, gently, as if speaking to a child. He gave it to me—slowly, gently, like a child. I hoped that Patricia wo