After spending over five hours researching and writing “Squirting: the Myth, the Legend, and the Porn Legacy” for my blog, I finally hit publish and sat back to wait for replies. It was well-researched enough to be in a journal. Extensive porn watching required. Though, oddly, the videos didn’t do much for me. I kept finding my thoughts wandering back to Scarlet. It had become a common thing. I woke up thinking about her, spent an embarrassing amount of my day thinking about her, and definitely had plenty of thoughts about her at bedtime.

We’d been having phone sex for the past three nights in a row, but I wanted more. Tomorrow night was the final event—the Vanity Fair party—and a part of me was afraid she’d vanish on me after her contractual obligations were met. Even though I’d made progress in breaking down her walls and moving closer, she still kept her deepest heart away from me. When I considered that I didn’t even know her name, the distance between us chafed.

I grabbed my phone to text her, but found a message from Jason instead.

Maybe this is what I needed. A distraction. A night with the guys to help me get my head straight about the Scarlet situation.

I fired off a text to Elias, who immediately agreed. He’d already heard about the eighty-five-inch TV, so he was all over it. Just to be fair—and not solely because I desperately wanted to see her—I texted Scarlet about the invite. She didn’t respond. But she rarely did during the day. I’d asked her what she spent her days doing besides impersonating and pickpocketing, but she hadn’t given me an answer. The more I got to know her, the more mysteries she weaved around herself.

After a quick, and super late lunch, I opened my mail. Beyond the bills and usual suspects, I found two boxes of samples. Advertisers were always sending me free stuff to get me to try it and then mention it on the blog. The first package was a new sort of tampon made entirely of recycled materials. No can do. I set the box aside and opened the next. This one had an assortment of bath bombs. I picked through them and found one called “Strawberry Feels.”

It smelled good, kind of feminine, but I figured it would rinse off fine and get covered up by my manly body wash. I scooped it up and headed to the bathroom. My tub wasn’t exactly grand, but it would do the cramped job of letting me test the bath bomb. While the bath ran, I shaved and cleaned up my sideburns as much as possible. They seemed to grow faster than any other hair on my body.

Once I was done, I dropped the little ball of bath goodness into the water and watched it fizz and dissolve. I climbed in, letting the sweet strawberry smell lull me into total relaxation. Leaning my head back, I pondered what Scarlet was doing right that second. Maybe she had a day job? Like a “schoolteacher by day, petty criminal by night” sort of arrangement. I wrinkled my nose. She didn’t strike me as a teacher.

My neck itched where I’d shaved, so I scratched it and widened my imaginings. Scarlet as a bakery assistant, flour handprints on her ass, Scarlet as a florist, flowers in her hair, Scarlet the circus performer, flexible beyond belief. The more ridiculous careers I concocted, the more my neck seemed to itch. It spread lower, the tender skin around my nipples starting to burn, and lower still, where my balls began to get a decidedly unfriendly tickle.

I glanced down and realized that—while the bath bomb had been pink in color—my skin was turning a vicious red.

“Fuck!” I stood and hit the drain, then turned on the shower head.

Cold water blasted me in the face. “Fuck fuck.” I leaned away from the spray until it warmed up. By then, I was itching everywhere the bathwater had touched me. It drained away slowly as I scoured myself with my loofah and body wash.

The itching subsided, but my skin was still raw from scrubbing, and hives had broken out around my knees.

I stepped out of the bath and studied my reflection. My neck where I’d shaved had fared the worst, the skin red and angry. “Holy shit.” Digging through my cabinet, I found some cortisone and slathered myself with it, taking extra care with my still-itchy balls.

By the time I was finished, I resembled a sun burnt hot dog covered with jizz patches. Perfect. At least the cortisone helped in the balls department, though my neck would need more time to heal up.

I picked up the bath bomb wrapper, wondering if they’d laced it with anthrax for that extra fizzy feel. It didn’t give me any clues as to the offending ingredient, but I was officially off bath bombs for the foreseeable future.

It was already around seven, so I dressed in a Megatron t-shirt and some jeans, then grabbed the cortisone so I could reapply to my mangled neck during the evening. Thank god only Jason and Elias would see me like this, and I prayed it would subside before the event the following night.

I opened the front door right when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Pulling it out, I’d received a text from Scarlet.

“Sure. I’ll come, but just for the free wings and beer. See you there.”

Swimmingly.