Decameron: A Pinch of Alt [II/3]
Ken had just ignored his uncle’s third call of the day, but still somehow glanced over when he got the buzz that he had a new voicemail. He did this every time. Like everyone his age, he had stopped listening to voicemails a decade ago, but for some inexplicable reason he always checked the notification that came through a minute after he ignored the call, as if it were going to be a notification for something other than an incoming voicemail.
He had more important things on his mind though—in six minutes Ken and @PinchOfAlt were about to meet face* to face** for the first time after a month of steamy DMs. Well, not actually face to face because of, ya know, the quarantine. Also not actually face to face because @PinchOfAlt was intensely private and never showed his face in any of his tweets. It had taken weeks of flirting before he even agreed to talk on Google Hangouts and Ken was sure he would keep the camera focused neck-down. Ken wasn’t sure if he was paranoid because he had a public facing job or just closeted, but he didn’t care. He’d been in love since he’d first seen that sculpted torso and headless neck. Ken had never thought he’d be the sort of person who’d create a twitter alt just for porn, but the Shelter In Place rules had changed everyone a little bit.
His uncle Richard had bankrupted his parents when he roped them into a scheme to hoard hand sanitizer and N95 masks and then sell them at a markup. Richard was a congressman and had known about the serious threat the virus represented before most of the public, and he had insisted to Ken’s parents that it was a no-risk opportunity: they’d make the actual purchases since his high profile role as a congressman meant that he couldn’t. Well anyway, the state AG had confiscated all of his parents’ stockpile and now they were out their life savings and hopelessly in debt.
Another person joined the hangouts call.
His camera was tiled low so all you could see were his abs and torso. The first thing Ken noticed: his crush had a British accent. That was unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome. His mind wandered—what if it were a prince? Another royal? They have Earls and Marquis’s there, right? Someone who could transform his drab life, and maybe pay down his uncle and his parent’s debts? Anyway, it wasn’t—he was just a weird creep who wanted to see Ken’s feet and absolutely refused to show his face for the whole time they chatted. Nice body though. All in all probably the third worst first date Ken had ever been on.
Decameron is a newsletter recounting the 14th Century set of quarantine tales for 2020. Read the original story.