JAKE: Did she invite you before or after you talked about me?

  ISH: After – / but –

  JAKE: / Pfft – as I’m some kind of ‘wank-Borg’ – she’s totally interested.

  ISH: – I really don’t think –

  JAKE: Classic chick move. She’s meeting with you so she can learn more about me. You said I was a friend, right?

  ISH: – I kind of framed it with more of a ‘Jake’s a friend I’m concerned may be stalking you’ vibe –

  JAKE: This is what we call the ‘indirect suss-out’. Make friends with the friends. Get the inside track. She’s considering options. Tell you what –

  He reaches for his wallet.

  JAKE: [Placing money in her hand] You keep the eight-fifty, and this is another thousand for what you did today – and, once you’ve met up with her and reported back, there’ll be a thousand more.

  ISH: What if I don’t want to meet up with her?

  JAKE: I thought you’d appreciate the opportunity for a free meal.

  ISH: Wait – is this how corruption works? Because I’m a women’s studies major and the situation just never comes up.

  JAKE: All you have to do is describe me to her in favourable, pro-Danish terms.

  ISH: You want me to lie to her?

  JAKE: I want you to tell the truth!

  ISH: ‘This ex-Pickup-Artist who I don’t even know turned up in my office one day and offered me a thousand dollars to have coffee with you.’ I get that chicks can be quirky, but no one is that fucking quirky.

  JAKE: Chick gets told a stranger is willing to pay a thousand dollars to get to know her better. In some places, that sure sparks some interest.

  ISH: It’d spark my interest to get an intervention order.

  JAKE: How many times has a guy put up a thousand dollars for your time?

  ISH: You’ve done it three times in 24 hours.

  JAKE: Dropping money on women isn’t my regular game – but it does work for some.

  ISH: So what is your ‘game’, then? You want me to unpick your learned behaviour, your unpicker is right here.

  JAKE: Right now?

  ISH: How soon do you want to eat Danish for breakfast?

  JAKE: OK, basic game: you approach –

  ISH: – You approach me when I’m on my own, I’m gonna think you’re a rapist.

  JAKE: I never approach a woman alone, just for that reason. Better to approach a group. Makes you seem bolder.

  ISH: Bold. Like a pirate?

  JAKE: What?

  ISH: Can’t get bolder than a pirate. Rum and staggering around on wooden legs and treasure chests, me hearties!

  Sorry, carry on. What do you approach with?

  A cutlass, right?

  Beat.

  JAKE: Always a question – you’re trying to open her up –

  ISH: Arrh, arrh!

  JAKE: – to build a connection, so you want to seek out her opinion.

  ISH: What on?

  JAKE: Anything. Like ‘Hey, my friends and I were just discussing whether blue is the new black or not.’ I’ve used that before.

  ISH: – How can you obtain a meaningful answer when the question isn’t even substantive? Who gives a shit about blue and black?

  JAKE: No one does – it’s just an icebreaker –

  ISH: Surely it’d be better to ask her a question about politics, or the economy –

  JAKE: ‘Economy.’

  ISH: For example: ‘My friends and I are discussing the government’s plan to increase the marginal tax rate. Will that be a change that affects you personally? Will it be a net gain or net loss?’

  JAKE: Why the fuck would I go into a bar and ask girls questions about tax rates?

  ISH: So her insight can enhance your own understanding. It’s basic dialectical reasoning.

  JAKE: Have you – ever had sex with a human man before?

  ISH: The things I have learned about marginal tax rates are the reason I limp a bit when I walk.

  JAKE: Learned from actual men in bars.

  ISH: You realise progressive taxation underpins the economic prosperity of Denmark, yes?

  Beat.

  Please continue.

  JAKE: The conversation continues, and this is where you have to raise your status.

  ISH: By showing her your talking parrot!

  No – wait – an impromptu demonstration of your talent for nautical knots!

  JAKE: I’m not paying you to mock me.

  ISH: Don’t worry, the mockery’s totally thrown in for free.

  You just keep making this face –

  JAKE: It’s my game face.

  ISH: – like a baby who’s bitten a lemon.

  JAKE: Game face.

  ISH: ANGRY LEMON.

  JAKE: You raise your status by lowering hers –

  ISH: This is the negative thing?

  JAKE: It’s something to get her attention – like, ‘Wow, you have really big eyes. They’re hard to avoid.’

  ISH: And she says: ‘Wow, you have a really big cock – why’s it growing out of your face?’

  JAKE: But she doesn’t say that. They never do. Pretty girl’s been told a thousand times how pretty she is. You neg that, you really make yourself stand out.

  ISH: If a girl’s been told a thousand times how pretty she is, why not be the guy who appeals to her kindness or intelligence?

  JAKE: Because she’s probably not kind or intelligent.

  ISH: Why on earth would you want to fuck someone who you didn’t find kind or intelligent?

  JAKE: Hey, sometimes you don’t even care if they’re pretty. Rare’s the man who hasn’t slept next to a monster just to enjoy the warmth of the cave. [Beat] Of course, always safer not to spend the whole night.

  ISH: Hey, cave-man; before you get too judgy round the magical kingdom, just remember you’ve had to hire a monster to turn you into a real boy.

  JAKE: You’re not a monster –

  ISH: I’m genuinely disappointed that you think so.

  Beat.

  JAKE: The next step, you build your emotional connection with the girl.

  ISH: Tell her she’s not a monster.

  JAKE: Tell her you see something in her that no one else sees. A pain she can’t hide, a loneliness she can’t confess, a person longing to live their dreams.

  ISH: Appeal to her uniqueness with a ubiquitous truism –

  JAKE: – Yeah. And while she’s telling you all her problems, you engage your kino.

  ISH: Is that a euphemism for the penis?

  JAKE: It’s what gets you to using euphemisms for a penis –

  ISH: – because God help us in the act of sex we should name the beastly thing itself.

  JAKE: It’s from kinaesethics! Touch!

  – you’ve got penis on the brain.

  ISH: I know, right? Ahoy!

  JAKE: Kino is your touch routine to build physical intimacy.

  ISH: Show me.

  JAKE: If you can’t get a touch on approach – that’s the palmistry thing, hand-massage, whatever – you try for with an accidental arm touch – not really accidental. Like this.

  Then you grip her arm to emphasise a point.

  You escalate. Touch her shoulder to make a point into her eyes.

  ISH: [Touching his shoulder] ‘I’m telling you, blue really is the new black.’

  JAKE: You deliver your next neg by patting her leg. ‘You really can’t let this blue thing go, can you?’

  ISH: ‘Blue thing’, fnar fnar.

  JAKE: Pat turns into a stroke. This is mid-kino.

  ISH: She shifts towards you, yes?

  JAKE: That’s usually what happens -

  ISH: The experienced player learns to read the subtle physical signs of resistance and consent –

  JAKE: You never overstep consent –

  ISH: You never overstep consent – your hand takes a firmer hold of willing flesh –

  JAKE: And soft touching –

  ISH: She reciprocates –

  JAKE: Yeah –

  ISH: You touch her hair –

  JAKE: I like to smell her neck –

  ISH: Yes –

  JAKE: Oh my god, the scent of her hair –

  ISH: And what happens now?

  JAKE: You ask if she wants you to kiss her –

  ISH: If she wants you to –

  JAKE: Does she want me to?

  He leans in.

  She pulls back.

  ISH: And this, children, is how even monsters are able to reproduce!

  She pats him on the leg.

  ISH: You know women are onto you, right? The ones who engage with your sexual clown act are only nodding along to get you into bed.

  JAKE: Women are not like that.

  ISH: Said the man. To the woman.

  JAKE: I have been with lots of girls and –

  ISH: – And lots of girls want easy sex with someone they don’t ever have to care about. This is the routine that reveals that you, Jake, are that someone.

  JAKE: They’ve screamed at me, cried, begged me to call them –

  ISH: You’re not getting laid because you’re some MasterLordEmperorWorm of Seducers, brother; you’re getting laid because you’re there.

  JAKE: – hands and knees, on the ground, begging to be my girlfriend –

  ISH: Maybe you should fuck girls more than two years out of high school? You know, ones who have outgrown a teenage need for attention and their shame at expressing desire.

  JAKE: Women a lot more than two years out of school have cried for me –

  ISH: Yes, some women grow up too slow and sometimes never, that’s real sad – but if Queen Anne of Denmark were that super-needy, I just don’t think you’d be so into her.

  Beat.

  I still reckon you open with tax policy.

  JAKE: How is that possibly a turn on?

  ISH: Any insight to character is a ‘turn on’.

  Building intimacy is how you make friends, remember?

  Remember, friends? They’re, like, people who you spend time with and don’t fuck or hate.

  You have friends, right?

  Beat.

  What are you most grateful for in your life?

  JAKE: Is this a taxation question?

  ISH: It’s a question you may wish to ask Anne. We’re going to try things my way. Like, foment the kind of intimate conversation in which a young woman, intrigued by your curiosity, may grow to like you.

  JAKE: I’m grateful for my hair.

  ISH: What – specifically – about it?

  JAKE: Chicks dig it, so I spend a lot of money getting it cut.

  Beat.

  ISH: Really?

  JAKE: It’s good hair.

  ISH: The thing – you are most grateful for – in your life. Is your hair.

  JAKE: Is this intimacy?

  ISH: Hair.

  JAKE: Have we built intimacy yet?

  Beat.

  ISH: OK, what’s the most important thing to you in a friendship?

  JAKE: To never let anyone touch my money.

  ISH: But, Jake, you have heaps of money.

  JAKE: – that’s because I don’t let anyone touch it.

  ISH: I guess you had a bad incident with somebody in the past –

  JAKE: No.

  ISH: Would you give a friend some money if they really needed it?

  JAKE: No, because I’d expect something back. And that would mean I was lending it. Unless I was buying a service. But that would have to be performed first, before a cash transaction. And that’s technically a job. So, still, no.

  Is something wrong?

  What do you want me to say?

  ISH: Anything human. Like, good human. Not ‘bad robot, who won’t lend money to his friends but will hand it all over to a shitty barber’ –

  JAKE: Hey – !

  ISH: When did you last cry?

  A silence.

  JAKE: That’s not something I’m going to talk about.

  ISH: So you don’t want to get the girl – You’re just paying me thousands of dollars to sit on your couch and piss you off. Best job ever – I’m happy to piss you off all day.

  – If meals are included.

  JAKE: Why would I ever tell a girl about the last time I fucking cried?!

  ISH: Not a girl. Me. I’m asking because I want to know. And I’m hardly a real girl. Look – I’m just mockery, with tits.

  Beat.

  JAKE: Shalane DiStasio.

  ISH: Is that some kind of infection?

  JAKE: Sure was. She was about my age at worked at Starbucks. Always got my name wrong on the cup. Jack, mostly. Jay, sometimes. Jock. Even wrote ‘Jick’ a couple of times. And one day I asked her out – and she said … Yes.

  Couldn’t believe it. Cut my hair, bought a new shirt. Rented a hot car just to take her to a movie. Can’t even remember what it was, I was just fixated on how close she sat next to me.

  Seventeen years old. I had it all planned out – we’d finish the movie, we’d go to this place Galactic Circus and play video games, we’d eat ice cream and walk along the river and I’d kiss her where the lights were lit up on the bridge.

  But the movie finished and before I could say anything, Shalane turned and said, ‘I shouldn’t have come. I don’t like you. This was a mistake.’ And she just picked up her coat and left.

  I just sat there. Then I cried. And an usher was coming to vacuum all the spilled popcorn from the seats, and he saw me and I saw him and he said ‘Chicks are bitches, huh?’. My face was all wet and he handed me a cleaning cloth. ‘Yeah, chicks are bitches.’

  Beat.

  ISH: Shalane didn’t owe you anything just because you asked her out.

  JAKE: I know. But rejection can sting when you’ve been drinking shitty coffee for a year.

  Beat.

  A car horn sounds.

  ISH: [Calling out] Coming!

  She stands.

  I have to go.

  DENYSE bounds up to and in the door.

  DENYSE: Are you ready? Toby’s out in the car –

  ISH: Can you tell him to give us two minutes?

  DENYSE considers the situation, she hops outside.

  ISH: So today’s lesson summary is this: Drop your entire routine. Anne is an adult woman, not a teenage girl. Speak to her like an adult – like you just spoke to me – and the rest is all down to attraction.

  Beat.

  – Though I did like the hair smelling.

  DENYSE comes back in.

  DENYSE: Toby’s happy to wait.

  ISH: Yes – a quality that’s come to define what it means to be Toby. [To JAKE] Is it safe to use your bathroom? There aren’t actual bits of your mother bleeding out in the bath or anything?

  He nods, ISH departs.

  DENYSE and JAKE.

  DENYSE: I know why you picked Ish for this.

  JAKE: Do you now?

  DENYSE: [Identifying objects in the room.] Consoles. Game shelf. You were once quite the gamer. Lot of dust on these, though.

  JAKE: I lost interest.

  DENYSE: When?

  JAKE: A while ago.

  DENYSE: Why?

  JAKE: I just got into other games. [Beat] Can I see your hands for a second?

  She allows him to inspect her hands.

  Do we really think you could have choked me to death with these?

  DENYSE: I reckon I could snap you like a breadstick.

  JAKE: It must be a relief to be strong if you’re not that feminine.

  DENYSE: I’m plenty feminine.

  JAKE: Maybe I can’t hear it amongst all your tough talk.

  DENYSE: And I thought we were talking about you.

  He places his hands on her shoulders, drops his head.

  He hums.

  JAKE: Nope, can’t hear anything.

  He hums again.

  JAKE: Still nothing.

  DENYSE: Maybe you should stop humming?

  JAKE: Then I’ll have to get closer.

  He arranges DENYSE’s hands to hold his shoulders. He holds hers.

  JAKE: Stay still.

  Close your eyes.

  He leans his head directly against DENYSE’s forehead.

  DENYSE: What are you doing?

  JAKE: Shh. I’m absorbing your thoughts. Through osmosis.

  DENYSE: Good move – you’ll probably get better at maths.

  JAKE: Shh. Almost done.

  He takes his head away.

  God – wow –

  DENYSE: Oh my god – I’m being gamed, aren’t I?

  JAKE: Wow, give me space –

  DENYSE: This is so exciting!

  JAKE: – all these numbers whirling around my head – streams and streams of complex equations – was that one quadratic? I can’t even tell – so many thoughts –

  DENYSE: Can you give me pi to ten characters?

  JAKE: Can you give me your phone number?

  With a pause, she hands him her business card. He rubs it against his head.

  JAKE: Hang on, the numbers are falling … They’re falling into binary – they’re forming sentences – oh wow – what they’re saying –

  DENYSE: They’re saying this is quite a performance, the pickup artist is very experienced.

  JAKE: – they’re saying that it’s not easy being the brainy girl all the time – they’re saying it’s really lonely when you’re so much smarter than anyone else –

  DENYSE: I want to hear this in the original binary –

  JAKE: I feel weak – I need to sit – I can’t speak loud, you’ll have to sit close to me – Denyse – they’re telling me that you compete with men to push them away – that it’s a pre-emptive shield against rejection – but Denyse – Denyse, give my hand a little massage – the only person who’s rejecting you is you –

  He strengthens his grip on her hand, stops his play-acting voice.

  You know that, right? Real men aren’t afraid of you. I’m not afraid.

  He’s rubbing her hand. He moves stray hair from her face.

  He pauses.

  You just smell too good to be scary.

  A toilet flushes.

  JAKE has timed kissing DENYSE to ISH walking out of the bathroom. He is kissing her when ISH emerges from the bathroom.

  ISH claps.

  ISH: Extraordinary work, Mr Newhouse. I’m sure that experience was revivifying.

  Denyse, get in the car.

  No one moves.

  Get in the car!

  DENYSE hops to it.

  JAKE dabs his mouth, puts DENYSE’s business card into his pocket.

  I realise your ego is hurting, but you’re not going to heal it up by tonguing an overgrown child who’s only knowledge of the world lies between a motherboard and a lab.

 

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