My virginity transforms into a tiny talking head attached to my shoulder, but I have a date scheduled with a talent scout who hunts for potential television personalities. We’ve been messaging on Bumble for a week, and she believes I’m days away from captaining a top-of-the-line vessel with a golden retriever I don’t have. At the restaurant, she waves me over to a booth and, my virginity, which I have instructed to behave, introduces me as its bigger wingman. It introduces itself as my virginity and tells her I do not own a boat.
Inevitably, my virginity boards the express jet to Reality TV royalty. Before a live studio audience, the host of a popular talk show calls the viral talking head heroic, an emotional savant, and the tale of a lifetime. I imagine she winks at the camera a lot but wouldn’t know, because I’ve chosen to mask myself in the same tube sock which I’d previously used to mask my virginity. Our PR manager has reassured us this is for the best: viewers more readily empathize when they have a desire to place themselves in the story. “The public wants the 30 something man’s virginity,” he’d explained. My asymmetrical nose and background editing safety documents for a jet ski manufacturer might jeopardize my virginity’s appeal to the public eye. There’s also the DUI from my senior year in college. While I sweat beneath my suit, the talking head wows the crowd with a yarn about self-actualization and its years-long pursuit for acceptance. It gushes over the display of popular support. Though I consented to this new Hollywood venture for a second date with the talent scout and the benefit of my bank account, I nod along, envious of my virginity’s natural eloquence, which in no way feels like mine. During the Q&A, a woman in the audience asks the talking head for an account of its relationship with me. “The dude in the mask,” she clarifies. My virginity validates her question and expresses gratitude for the concern. “He and I are working on our bond,” it replies. It apologizes and declines to comment further.
On set to shoot a promotion for my virginity’s upcoming hit movie, my phone receives a text alert from the talent scout: she’s not interested in a second date. “This is on you,” I tell my virginity, “She must’ve decided I’m weird, because I lied about owning a dog.” My virginity says I lied about a lot more than a dog and I need to practice personal accountability. “You hate yourself,” it observes. In a show of dominance, I pop my virginity in the kisser. Members of the film crew rush to restrain my arms. “Hands off your virginity,” they shout. They tell me to leave my virginity alone.
In my virginity’s upcoming hit movie, a popular Australian actor gets cast to play my virginity’s body. He has cool tattoos, a defined jawline, and flawless facial symmetry. “He looks nothing like me,” I drawl, baffled by my confliction. “Perfect for the part,” my virginity exclaims, reasoning the movie about our life might inspire me to realize my own potential. I do not see how this much differentiates from the liberties I’ve taken with my identity online, but because I admire the Australian actor’s tattoos, I bite my tongue. At the studio, we consult the writers’ room while they doctor the script with finishing touches. They want to incorporate a skydiving scene while staying faithful to my virginity’s true story. They ask if we’ve ever been skydiving and, if not, when can we make it happen.
Watching the trailers for my virginity’s upcoming hit movie has become America’s new favorite pastime. To capitalize on the success, our publicist arranges for us a series of high-profile cameo appearances across the country. I petition him for a superior face mask, one which offers a better view of my surroundings, but he doesn’t want me to change cosmetics during the height of the talking head’s career, so in unfamiliar cities, without an entourage to guide us, I depend on my virginity to navigate. “Left to pass the dancers in butterfly wings,” it says at an outdoor music festival. “Turn around and walk straight to pose for a picture,” it chirps in a restaurant. Sometimes, if I refuse to sign autographs or flash a thumbs up, it says I’m my best interests’ biggest enemy and retaliates by coaxing me to stumble into public fountains, a stunt which leads to the online circulation of some humiliating snapshots. Upon discovering one of the images, captioned with the phrase “TFW The Body Fails Its Virginity,” I phone our publicist from a hotel room and tell him call me FDR because I want a new deal. “How about free plastic surgery?” he asks. “The nation’s gone and made a meme out of me,” I press, exhausted. He tells me to tell my virginity we should roll with the joke while he sees about how we acquire the meme’s copyright. “For licensing purposes,” he adds. I tell him I want a new life, not a new line of lunchboxes, and my virginity clears its throat. It asks me to elaborate on the lunchboxes. […]
Subscribers can read the full version by logging in. |
___________________________________
Tom Kelly earned a PhD in poetry from FSU’s Creative Writing Doctoral program. His fiction and poetry in New South, Ninth Letter, decomP, Redivider, Passages North, ALR, and other journals. He lives in Tallahassee, FL.