Does it count as cheating if it’s just messing around with objects? Like, let’s say some guy, not me, another guy, has a girlfriend, and maybe they’re the kind of boyfriend and girlfriend who are very sexual with each other, like, just thrusting themselves into one side or another of one another any time they are together, never or rarely ever stopping to say something normal and sweet like I love you, or what do you want for dinner, or should we watch another episode, or it was lovely to hang out with your friends and I can’t wait to do it again. And what if the girlfriend suddenly always has some place to be, say like soccer practice, or class, or girls night out, or overseas some place, like France or some place, and the boyfriend, who hasn’t been alone like that since they started dating, tries to buck up and stop feeling so bummed out about it, like making sure to surround himself with things that remind him of her, like her things. What if it wasn’t that he was compelled to her by things themselves, per se, but by the girlfriend who owned them? Like it had nothing to do with her pillow or her clothes or her bedroom but just her. Is anything that happens in a girlfriend’s absence cheating? What if it’s her things that penetrate the boyfriend rather than the other way around? And what if he doesn’t love it, or what if, when he does it, it immediately feels like punishment by the missing girlfriend? Is a searing purple scar made by a girlfriend’s curling iron, say, on the surface of a boyfriend’s nipples, evidence of love or betrayal? What about the smell of his burning chest hair? What about the pus that has started to gather beneath his skin?

What does an object need to consist of to cheat on a girlfriend with anyway? What if it’s barely solid? Can you cheat on your girlfriend with something that’s as clear as tears? As voluble, as eloquent as wax? What if it morphs as it caresses the divots and curves on and between a boyfriend’s fingers and relaxes his tightest of grips? What if it drops out in pearls, spreads out onto him in a slobber, becomes a bath to ease his mind? How much lubrication does it take to shape the truth of a boyfriend’s desires—an almond sized dab, a generous squirt, the limitless flow of a fountain?

Right off the bat I want to say that Alison, my girlfriend, is real. And that me and her, we are not sexual. That part was made up, but the other stuff is real. Alison is real, and I love her very much. Way more than I have loved any other girl before. I know it might not sound convincing coming from a twenty-year-old virgin shrimp like me, but the love I have for Alison is for-real for real. People should know, I am devoted to Alison, like Dee Vo Ted.

For example, we’re still together even after she rejected the promise ring I spent a whole month picking out for her. It’s not like I dumped her, even though, at the time, I admit, it really did send me. And it’s not like she dumped me either when I told her that I didn’t think that having sex, or even talking in a sexual way, was a good idea if she wasn’t going to wear the ring I bought her; or when I told her that the kind of sex she wanted to have, like the stuff she saw in those old movies she likes to watch, was honestly pretty dangerous for both of our mental health… like, a really slippery slope; or when she thought that I was telling her all this because JJ and Curtis had said it first, rather than what I, Jarvis, thought should happen—all of which, I know, really did send her.

No, Alison and I, our intimacy meter is off the charts. And really it’s all only gotten stronger since I quit my job to follow her to France. The thing is, I did not realize just how rich Alison’s family was until I called her on Facetime to tell her that I would be with her, by her side, in like six hours (between us, this was one of JJ’s ideas). At first she was just totally quiet and just stared at me, as if she were just a picture on my phone and not a girl standing on a street in Paris. But then her eyes started to roll in the cutest way and I knew we were good. Okay fine, Jarvis, she said, I know you don’t love the city, which she’s right, I really don’t, I’m one-hundo-and-ten a ‘burbs guy, but it’s okay because I’m going to get my driver to take you to a chateau of your very own, at which point I was like wait, are you serious, what do you mean a driver, what’s a chateau? That’s when she told me all about how her family has these huge, unused basically mansions all over the country, and that I could stay in one all by myself in this place called roo-, ro-, Roissy, I can’t pronounce it, but it’s just five minutes from CDG, so I was like wow sure Alison, yes. I love you so much, I told her.

Sure enough, a driver named Théo was waiting for me when I landed. Nice guy. Really quiet. He picked me up and drove me straight to my, I mean the chateau, which like crazily I’ve been at for over a month now. I’ve had to chase her around a bit, Alison, who I thought would join me out here, but mostly stays in Paris, which she knows I don’t like very much. You’ve got an entire chateau to yourself, she told me the one time Théo drove me out there. And I mean, she is right, this place is huuuge—I think there are like eighteen bedrooms in it, and walls covered in velvet with old paintings, and rooms inside rooms inside rooms, and a massive backyard. No pool but a fountain and a cemetery but no people. I only see Théo when he drops my Amazon packages and French tacos off to me, and otherwise he doesn’t really bother me. He spends a lot of his time outside actually. I can see him in the cemetery through my bedroom window. He stands there and I guess sort of talks to this tombstone with a big O carved into it. I guess every guy has his own Alison.

Anyway, this morning I got out of bed as I normally do, by texting Théo to bring my espresso pot and my madame croque up to Alison’s bedroom, where I spend the first couple hours of the day doing the things she’s told me to do: alternating between reading, however slowly, the first part of this multi-season book by this old French person named Proust and taking selfies of myself doing hip thrusts for her while lying flat against the antique Romanian rug on the floor beneath me. The book, she says, will keep my mind as “ripe” and “perky” as the thrusts will keep my backside, which I know she loves. Sometimes I think more than my mind. There I was, moving my hips up and down when, just before hitting my morning thou’, I felt the rug slither out from underneath me to reveal a trap door in the floorboards.

I flipped the door open to find a compartment about three feet deep and extending into the darkness, in which there was an underground closet full of odd gadgets and instruments, some of which were familiar, while others honestly confuse me the more that I try to describe them. I found a pair of shiny black gloves; a sturdy rope; a package of syringes; and a long rubbery strap that could be, I guess, used as a whip; I found several belts; two reels of shrink wrap; a series of pumps; a rubber sleeve; and a strange contraption made of leather and studded with spikes that, as it turns out, miraculously fits around my shoulders. I found a whole set of rings—none of which, thank goodness, appear like promise rings, but instead have some give to them, such that they might be used as a bracelet or something to tie up a lady’s long hair; I found several L-shaped PVC pipe connectors; a box of matches; and a couple rounds of duct tape. So curious, I thought to myself. Just then, I heard a knock at the door, and a voice call out from behind me.

“Monsieur Jarvis.” It was Théo, who, as I’ve already mentioned, never bothers me. I saw his feet shuffle in the gap below Alison’s bedroom door, which, from where I stood, was at eye level.

I paused my search until I could be sure he was gone, then crept further into the dark crawl space, fixated by what could have possibly brought these strange household objects together. With each new object I pulled out, a sharp heat, I guess you could say, along with a strong muscular agitation, panged the space below my waist (by which, yes, I mean my sexual region): I pulled out an owl mask, followed by a pair of scissors; then two steel spatulas; and a bottle of the Dior perfume called J’Adore; a keyring of different sized party hats, each of which came with a strong rubber holster; and a spiky icon resembling a prickly pear with cursive writing that read “Amo la Sicilia”; I pulled out a jug of bleach; a bag full of differently sized balloons; a box full of mysterious powder followed by an opaque bottle which read “Blue boy”; then another opaque bottle which read “Double Scorpio”; and a bendy corkscrew; and a case of lightbulbs; and a pair of miniature alligator clamps, presumably meant to clamp the battery of what I imagined was some extremely small car. Where was this little vehicle that needed revving up, I wondered, pinching the tiny clamps between my fingers in the dank air before me.

Then, tucked away behind all these objects, I found this giant plastic container, like the bag you find inside a box of wine but like bigger, like way bigger than my body even. It was filled with this strange, clear substance. Much thicker than water or wine, I realized, as I pressed my hand up against it to see the unmoving bubbles trapped inside. At one end of the bag, I found a giant hose, and at the end of the hose, I found a nozzle, and attached to the nozzle, I found a small paper tag.

“Astro-Glidé,” read the tag. A French word. Below that, scrawled in black sharpie, was some cursive writing I recognized immediately as my own Alison’s: “Squeeze me!” read the simple command. Without skipping a beat, I grabbed the hose, snaked it up onto Alison’s bedroom floor, and pressed the nozzle assuredly down, delighted by my girlfriend’s insanely romantic gesture. The moment the first squirt hit the center of my palm, I felt my nipples harden like sharp little knives. The agitation I’d started to feel in my sexual area now throbbed with more intensity than perhaps I’ve ever felt before. Sure enough, I looked down to find that I’d squirted out some of my own goopy liquid, I guess, staining my basketball shorts, as if I were the bag, and someone out there was pumping and squeezing me. All I knew to do at that moment was to squeeze the nozzle over and over again. And out spat long strings of gelatinous fluid.

Then, again, the voice of Théo called out, “Monsieur Jarvis.” Followed by the sound of his shoes, once again, shuffling by.

“Attendez mec! I’m naked,” I yelled. It was true. By that point I’d fully removed my shorts and smeared the romantic substance over all the parts of the hairless expanse I call my body and deep into that void Alison loves at the center of my backside; the little entrance I had my entire life been so timid about was now a sopping hole, a well, a port to a place as limitless as an ocean. I felt my ass, as it were, summon me, like the chateau must have summoned a history of Alison lovers before me, to fill it.

And so, I obeyed, inserting into myself whatever object increased that great feeling. But first, to express glee for my gift, I pumped out large handfuls of the elixir from the vat in the chamber below and applied its unctuous matter to everything around me, such that Alison’s room glistened with a uniform shine, like the inverted surface of a glazed jelly donut. A thick oily slick encompassed my as-of-yet unfinished volume of Proust; a scintillating light bounced off the espresso pot as I tipped its contents directly into myself, the warmth of the sediment yet another welcome surprise. Swirls of glassy waves covered the patterns and figures woven into the Romanian rug, which, now slathered, I could use the center of my six pack to spin around on, like a baby seal at the edge of a sea.

The utensils Théo had brought up had become extremely useful here. Without them, I don’t know how I would have gotten all the hot egg or the sticky cheese or the slices of ham or the saucy bread of my madame into my crevice so readily, followed by the cloth napkin, and then finally the utensils themselves.

This activity was starting to feel extremely sexual to me, and definitely not like eating, I thought to myself, as the door swung open to reveal the blank face of the kind and gentle Théo, and standing by his side, the serene, beautiful, approving face of my perfect girlfriend Alison.

“Mon amour, Alison, Bonjour!” I yelled to her, with love.