“My mom says every time you watch porn, it stays with you,” says David “yeah, and you’re mom has never had a man stick with her, so maybe she should do some porn,” says David’s 8th-grade bully Nick Marsh. While Nick has a few years and a few inches on the 6th grade David Shiner, he does not have the intelligence or sensitivity David has been afforded thanks to Mrs. Shiner’s successful career in the legal field. In addition, Sharon Shiner, the ambitious, hard-working single mother to David, is on the verge of becoming a partner at her firm downtown, giving young growing David ample time to experiment with his growing body. 

At 12 years old, David is the youngest of his middle school peers to have an iPhone, his mother had given it to him to stay close, yet it only created more space between her and David. For one thing, David was quickly enamored with the capabilities of unfiltered, full 24/7 access to the internet, including the addictive algorithms of social media, and the more screen time David had, the more trouble he created for himself. Social media addiction quickly sapped his dopamine levels and mixed with his burgeoning puberty; it only took David two weeks to stumble his way into his first-ever private safari session. His mother working late and his bathroom door locked, David googles “how to jerk off.” 

wikiHow offers some crude demonstrations, all of which involve oils or lotion. David, worried about messing up his first-ever session and getting caught, quickly unlocks the bathroom door and bolts across the hall into his mothers’ room. Pants at his ankles, his napping oversized german Shepard Motely is awoken by his abrupt entrance begins to bark and run at young David. Flustered and afraid, David locks himself into his mothers’ bathroom. After about 4 minutes of barking and scratching, Motely returns to his bed, David too scared to leave the bathroom, figured he’d try it out in his mothers’ bathroom. Taking the lotion and rubbing on it his private parts, he begins to stroke-like the wikiHow instructs, his hands are slippery from the lotion; he feels the phone slipping out of his left hand while his right is vigorously creating a never before felt experience. The toilets shaking and rattling causes Motley to bark; David now impatiently yells, “quiet, Motely!” But Motely’s barking only intensifies; perhaps if Motely weren’t in David’s mother’s room, David would have heard the garage door opening and closing and his mother coming home early from work. 

Sharon walks upstairs and yells to David, “David, I just got home; what do you want to eat?” She hears no response, so she cries again as she pokes her head into David’s room, “David? David, sweetie, where are you?”  perplexed Sharon decides to call her innocent son David.

Off in the distance, Sharon hears David’s phone going off in what sounds like her bedroom. Approaching his first-ever climax, David ignores the call, Motleys’ barking growing louder and louder as Davids’ newfound self-created sensations grow more and more titillating. Suddenly Motelys barking is hushed, David so close to experiencing his first-ever orgasm powers through his arm soreness and another incoming call from his mother. This time his mother calls twice, causing more vibration than David can handle. David declines the second call, and his mother barges into the bathroom; she gasps and shouts, “OH MY FUCKING GOD! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! AW, YOU’RE SICK!” David, caught like a deer in headlights, freezes in sheer panic. His mother asks, “Oh my god is that my lotion?” David looks down while Motely pokes his way through the slightly closed bathroom door, causing Sharon to leap forward, David caught off guard, drops his phone into the toilet. 

Later that night, David laid awake in his bed, following a singular blade of his fan spin in an infinite cooling circle, cutting through the air and cascading it back down onto him. As the cool air hit his face, he could feel his heart still beating and pounding while his thoughts spun like the fan, replaying the shock and disappointment on his mother’s face on a loop. Finally, after being caught, his mother said nothing as David reached into the toilet bowl and grabbed his phone, then, with his pants still at his ankles, handed it to her, and both walked out of the room in silence. 

As he lay in his bed, he began to nod off, unlike he usually does. He was asleep, but he could see himself sleeping; awake while being asleep, he was consciously unconscious. He started to feel anxious; he still hadn’t felt like he slept a wink with school in the morning. He talked himself down, “just relax and sleep with what you can; the clock is the enemy, at least get some rest if nothing else.” Slowly David began to fall into a deep snooze while quick split-second dreams rumbled out of his unconscious into the forefront of his mind. Visions of schoolyard recess from elementary school jumpcut to ice cream runs in the warm summer nights, then jumpcut to a dark abyss cloud entering his room. He now saw himself asleep in his room in complete blackness, as a tall, slender man dressed in all black, wearing a white hockey mask lurched towards his bed. David squirmed and squealed with all his might, yet nothing could reach his laying body, David yelled, but nothing came out as the slender man approached his bedside, his dream jumpcut to a dark and dingy kitchen. 

The kitchen was older than anything David had ever been in, tall vaulted ceilings with chipping white paint falling onto the molded and dirt-covered linoleum floors underneath. There were green wood cabinets with all the doors torn off, a few expired boxes of food sprinkled throughout the cabinets. As David entered the kitchen, he noticed a large island counter with a wood top and a cutting board full of cut celery and rat innards covered in blood. Behind the island was a stovetop with one burner cooking a large pot of what appeared to be soup; David leaned over the top, standing on his tippy-toes; he saw the pot boiling full of iPhones all playing different assortments of pornography. David watched in awe as he saw a lesbian three-way float down to the bottom of the pot while another phone floated up, playing a video of a horse mounting a severely obese female clown. David backed away slowly and shrieked when he bumped into the woman from the horse video. 

She was tall; to David, she looked like a giant, she was heavy set; to David, she looked like she had eaten a few other women. She spoke softly in a motherly voice, “relax; it won’t be ready for a few more years.” David found himself strangely comforted by her words, began to build a rapport with her. “You look a lot better in person than on video, my god, your breasts are massive; I just want to suckle them.” She snickered as she poured the cutting board parts into the pot. “Oh David, you little fucker, you already have” she turned and grinned down at David. As her face contorted, the dingy light hit her face, and David saw half of her face had been decayed as if she was a corpse dug out of a casket and forced to work in a kitchen.

Frightened, David began to back away but slipped and fell, to which she laughed and snarked, “you’ve been with all of us, David!” as she said this, David turned around and found the house full of naked,corpse-like women lurching closer and closer towards him, coming from all angles. David screamed as his dream cut back to his bed, where the slender man was now towering over his bed. He leaned over and whispered, “you’re mine now.” He began to envelop the room as David tried and tried to get his unconscious body to move or make a sound, but nothing would reach his sleeping body. 

Off in the distance, he heard a loud car drive by his window and Motelys barking. He shouted “Motely!” as to hope Motely would save him, but the slender man only inched forward. Motleys’ barking intensified and grew closer. Suddenly David was awoken by motley barking out his bedroom window. David woke up to find himself in a cold sweat with no slender man in sight. He breathed a sigh of relief and wandered into his moms’ room. 

“Mom,” David said as he stood over his sleeping mother, “mom! Mom! MOM!” Now poking and screaming, David woke Sharon. “wha , what, what time is it, sweetie?” “I don’t know. Can I sleep with you tonight?” “sure, sweetie, did you have a bad dream?” David began to weep, “there was this man..” snot and tears ran down David’s face as his mom lept out and hugged his waist. “It’s ok, it’s ok, sweetie. Here you can sleep on my side; it’s nice and warm” David crawled into bed as his mother spooned his backside. David, still sniffling and crying, began to apologize. “I didn’t mean to make you mad earlier, mom; you didn’t say anything; I knew you were mad when you didn’t say anything” His mother began to tear up, “oh sweetie, I wasn’t mad. I was confused; if anything, I was mad at myself for not being around more. You’re a growing young man; exploring your body is part of that. I just don’t know how to handle you playing with yourself with my lotion.” They both laughed, “I love you, mom.” “I love you too, sweetie, goodnight.”“Mom,” David said as he stood over his sleeping mother, “mom! Mom! MOM!” Now poking and screaming, David woke Sharon. “wha , what, what time is it, sweetie?” “I don’t know. Can I sleep with you tonight?” “sure, sweetie, did you have a bad dream?” David began to weep, “there was this man..” snot and tears ran down David’s face as his mom lept out and hugged his waist. “It’s ok, it’s ok, sweetie. Here you can sleep on my side; it’s nice and warm” David crawled into bed as his mother spooned his backside. David, still sniffling and crying, began to apologize. “I didn’t mean to make you mad earlier, mom; you didn’t say anything; I knew you were mad when you didn’t say anything” His mother began to tear up, “oh sweetie, I wasn’t mad. I was confused; if anything, I was mad at myself for not being around more. You’re a growing young man; exploring your body is part of that. I just don’t know how to handle you playing with yourself with my lotion.” They both laughed, “I love you, mom.” “I love you too, sweetie, goodnight.”