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Every line moved after I stepped over it. Once you give them more, the last thing becomes foreplay.

A month ago, taking my dick out on camera felt like a line. Now if I don’t get naked in the first ten minutes, the room gets bored and starts drifting off to some guy in Florida with better lighting and less shame.

So I bought the thing in the box.

My name on the label looks too official, like a warrant: CLINT DELUCA.

I pick it up.

Too light. Something causing this much noise in my head should at least weigh something.

I grab the scissors from the drawer under the TV stand.

I sit on the couch. The box sits on my knees.

Becca won’t be home for hours. The neighbors are quiet. The apartment is mine in the temporary way things are mine when someone else is gone.

Just silicone. It’s not a proposal. Not a conversion. My body, my choice.

I snort.

Then I immediately look around, even though no one is here. I hate feeling watched when I’m not even online.

I set the scissors on the table and stand up.

“Nope.”

I pull my shirt over my head as I walk toward the bathroom. It sticks between my shoulder blades for a second, damp and gross, and I have to tug hard enough to make myself stumble.

I toss the shirt into the hamper in the bedroom.

Her bed is unmade. Our bed, when I’m staying here. The sheets are twisted toward her side because she sleeps like she is fighting an invisible alligator.

On her dresser, she has a framed photo of us from two summers ago at the fair, both of us sweaty and sunburned, Becca smiling huge, me squinting like I’ve been asked to identify a bird at great distance.

We look happy. Probably were. Or close enough for a picture.

Bathroom. Shower. Normal human behavior.

I strip the rest of the way, kick my jeans toward the hamper.

The bathroom light is harsh. It turns every tile yellow and makes me look like a guy who should drink more water.

I turn on the shower and wait for it to warm.

I step in and let the water hit my chest.

Restaurant comes off in layers. Flour first, turning slick under my hands. Then sweat. Then the oil smell. I scrub my arms, my chest, under my nails. Soap runs down to the drain in grayish trails. I wash my hair even though there’s hardly enough to bother with.

Then my mind, being an asshole, goes back to the box.

Not yet, I tell it.

The shower curtain breathes inward and sticks to my thigh.

I slap it away. “Dude.”

I stare at the shower wall. The tile has a crack running through one corner, thin as a hair. I’ve noticed it before. Becca says we should tell the landlord, but neither of us wants him in here finding twelve other things to blame on us.