Anxiety, Mi Amor

By Alex Rogers

Off. Off. Off. Off.

Pete Dwindle checked the stove.

Off. Off. Off. Off.

He’d already checked the stove several times before.

Off. Off. Off. Off.

The stove had four burners and Pete checked all four of them all over again.

Off. Off. Off. Off.

One. Two. Three. Four.

I declare a thumb war.

Knock it off, Pete! He scolded himself within. Stay focused!

Now, once more, he’d have to check that all four of the burners were turned off.

He made crucially sure that the notch on each dial aligned with each printed word…

Off. Off. Off. Off.

He glanced at the kitchen clock.

Seven minutes left.

You got this, Pete, he told himself with kinder thoughts. He straightened his spindly posture, pointed a thin finger at each of the burners, and checked them again, slower now.

Off…Off…Off…Off…

This could be maddening.

Pete Dwindle had a problem. And he knew it, he just didn’t dare admit it, but he knew that, for some reason, he couldn’t plainly trust what his eyes could clearly see. His eyes reported a factual truth to him: all four of the stove burners were, and had been, fully turned off. Oh, he’d used the left-most burner to cook up some sausages, but that had been an hour earlier, and since then, the left-most burner, along with the remaining three burners to its right, had been successfully, completely, totally turned off. But, for Pete Dwindle and his personal condition, visual facts weren’t often enough. Sure, he could intellectually, biologically, mechanically, even verbally, confirm that the entire stove had been, indeed, turned off, but still!

That awful gnawing feeling.

Maybe he missed something.

Maybe his eyes were lying to him.

Maybe each time he checked one burner, the dial on the previous burner he’d checked somehow slipped just a few degrees off from the Off position.

He glanced at the kitchen clock.

Six minutes left.

Pete knew he was entering a risky window of time. He really should’ve left the house by now. But here he was, stuck in place, checking this damn stove, again and again and again. Sweat dotted his brow and he voluminously exhaled, now speeding up the count.

Off-Off-Off-Off.

Again. Faster.

Off-Off-Off-Off!

Again. Faster.

OffOffOffOff!

This wasn’t working, either.

Pete Dwindle turned away from the stove, irritated, even exasperated. After all, he only had six, no, less than six minutes left. Why did his condition have to start acting up now, when he needed to be at his sharpest, most capable, most professional, most reliable self?

His team was counting on him.

They’d deputized him, hadn’t they? They pinned a tin star on the chest of his salmon-colored onesie, didn’t they? That was a tin foil hat they put on his head, wasn’t it? Well, actually, the tin foil hat in question was made of aluminum, not tin, but nobody really cared about that, however, the tin star in question absolutely was made of tin, but nobody really cared about that, either. What mattered was: Pete Dwindle had been recruited, he was part of the team, and he had a mission to accomplish.

So, finish what you started, soldier! Pete commanded his mind.

He turned back towards the stove and pointed his thin finger at the dials once more.

Off. Off. Off. OFF.

There. Finally. It was done.

The stove had been off the entire time, but this time, it all felt and looked right.

Pete grinned, shaking his head, marveling at how he could be so hung up on checking the stove in the first damn place. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

He glanced at the oven. He didn’t have to check that.

He then glanced back at the kitchen clock.

Five minutes left.

Time to make a smooth, if not somewhat hasty, exit.

Wait.

Something else needed checking, too.

Pete left the kitchen and strode down the hallway, turning right at the open bedroom door.

He checked to make sure the bedroom lights had been turned off. The evident dimness proved it, but Pete’s condition insisted he should turn on the lights just once more, just to see a comparison, and then he would turn the lights off one final time, for good.

When his thin fingertips flipped up the switch, the lights came on, and the people who owned this house were right where Pete had left them: tied up and gagged in their own bed.

A man and a woman.

Spouses.

Prisoners.

Lights on, Pete took a closer look at the dehumanized couple. He then reached into the right breast pocket of his salmon-colored onesie and took out his phone, swiftly swiping his thumb across the screen until he arrived at what he was searching for, which was a photo of what these two people looked like normally.

The faces in the photo on the screen looked healthy, happy, and hopeful.

The photo’s caption read:

Ted and Elaine Lelouch, the power couple behind The Seaweed Project.

Pete took another look at the pair of lumps in their bed, making a quick study of their tear-swollen eyes and runny noses and bruise-bound limbs, then looked back down at the photo.

Yeah, he thought. Close enough.

Then, he noticed the clock on his phone.

Four minutes left.

He turned off the lights and hurriedly exited the bedroom, ignoring the muffled pleas left behind in the darkness.

Further down the hallway, the open bathroom door snagged Pete’s focus, and he halted. He went inside. He clicked on the bathroom light. He checked to make sure the toilet seat was shut. It was. He checked to make sure the shower faucet wasn’t dripping. It wasn’t. He checked to make sure both the hot and cold handles of the bathroom sink had been turned off. They had.

As he was about to click the light back off, Pete caught his reflection in the bathroom’s grand mirror. He thought he looked pretty darn neat in his aluminum foil hat—that twisted point at the top was like the spiral horn of a metallic unicorn—and the tin star pinned to the left breast pocket of his salmon-colored onesie looked just like a sheriff’s badge. No, not sheriff. Marshal. That suited Pete Dwindle much nicer.

Gazing upon his reflection, peering into the tin star, Pete remembered standing at attention when his team leader had pinned it on him.

“Our country needs to be cleansed,” he’d been told.

Pete tapped the hard metal on his chest.

“The Seaweed Project cannot come to fruition,” he’d been told.

Pete tweaked the crinkled metal on his head.

“Only you can prevent it,” he’d been told.

Pete looked into the mirror image of his eyes and gave himself a curt nod.

Down went the switch, off went the light, and out he went from the bathroom.

Rounding the corner back into the kitchen, Pete noticed the oven again, but he still didn’t have to check that.

He then couldn’t help but also notice the kitchen clock, and this time, time had gotten critically short.

Three minutes left.

Only three minutes.

That’s okay, Pete rationalized. It’s not great, but that’s okay. Still, I better be off!

But then…that word…stuck in his brain.

Off.

Oh no.

Off. Off.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Off. Off. Off.

Was it worth checking once more?

Off. Off. Off. Off.

There he stood, in front of the stove, checking it all over again.

With less than three minutes to go.

“Fuck!” Pete Dwindle shouted.

What I need is a witness, he rapidly thought. If I could just call someone, someone who’d just confirm with me that the stove is really off, then I wouldn’t have to keep checking it!

But who could Pete call? He was far too embarrassed to call his team leader, let alone his fellow teammates. And to call his family was out of the question.

Wait.

He thought of someone.

Pete whipped out his phone and thumbed the most cherished app on his screen:

goddesswhore.com

He was auto-logged-in. His thumb tapped the icon titled favorites.

And he found who he was looking for.

Johana_Squirt.

She was online. What a relief!

Johana_Squirt was the absolute favorite of Pete’s favorite webcam models.

Her user icon depicted her standing alone on a Brazilian coastline with her yellow bikini top losing the soft battle against gravity as it slowly slipped from the swollen fringes of her plump purple nipples.

Pete tapped that.

Next, his phone screen revealed Johana_Squirt, in real time, deep at work in her office.

Now, for a webcam model like Johana_Squirt, an “office” looked more like a bedroom. In fact, it was a bedroom—a gaudy boudoir of garish colors and guilty pleasures—and laid back though it appeared, this was just one of many goddesswhore.com offices in a large building peopled with many goddesswhore.com employees, and these ladies hustled those bedrooms better than any Wall Street tycoon could ever wetly dream upon.

And Johana_Squirt was a top earner.

She knew how to play.

She performed with brilliance for the unblinking eye of the omnipresent computer.

For this evening, Johana_Squirt was merely attired in a pair of torn denim short-shorts and a high-rising orange crop top. Hair up, wisps down. No makeup. And she was shaking her delightful curves to the swing of a rock-n-roll song blaring from her bedroom-office’s speakers—a rock-n-roll song that’d been recorded one hundred years ago that very night.

This was just how Pete Dwindle liked her.

However, Pete was not alone in his appraisal of Johana_Squirt. An unseen global audience of mostly-masturbating men were also here, online, to get lucky, to sneak a peak, or to take Johana_Squirt into a private chat. Endless writing. Endless urging. Endless jerking.

On the side-bar of his phone screen, Pete could see the scrolling mayhem of messages that all the other users were sending her:

<Show tits!>

<Show ass!>

<Show feet!>

<Shaved?>

<Pee?>

<Vomit?>

<Blood?>

Assholes, thought Pete.

Everybody has a proclivity towards a certain body part, and Pete was no exception. In fact, Pete was partial to belly buttons, and he’d learned it was classier to keep his partiality just between Johana_Squirt and himself, to be explored in the private chats they’d enjoy alone together. He now tapped the icon to take her into a private chat, but alas, this time it wouldn’t be for the benefit of the usual navel-gazing, so to speak.

There were only two minutes left, after all.

And that’s exactly how many credits’ worth of time he had left in his user account to give to Johana_Squirt, anyway.

“Hiiiiiiii, babyyyyyyyy!” she greeted him in her super friendly, heavily accented voice. “Welcome back to my room!” Johana_Squirt liked Pete. They’d shared plenty of pleasant interactions together, which often made her daily grind just a little less stressful. Of course, she didn’t really know Pete beyond his being a loyal and polite client, but loyalty and politeness were often hard to come by in a world of men who often come too hard.

Pete held up his phone and set it to camera-mode, so she could look at him as well as he could look at her.

“Hey, darling!” Pete said. Time crunch aside, he was truly glad to see her.

“How are you?” she asked him, and she sounded sincere about it.

“Not too shabby,” he matched her sincerity despite the circumstances. “You?”

“I’m fiiiiiiiine, my love, thaaaaaaank you!”

Johana_Squirt then leaned in closer to the cam, observing Pete’s image.

“Aí, you look so handsome in your tin foil hat.”

“It’s aluminum.”

She didn’t care, neither about being corrected nor about the elemental truth of the matter.

“Listen, darling,” he told her. “I’m only here briefly, and I need your help.”

“What is it, Pedro?”

He was momentarily taken aback by that. Pedro? Who the hell was Pedro? Then, Pete remembered that his chosen user name on goddesswhore.com was Pedro. Pedro_Hung.

He returned his focus to the moment at hand, and said, “Just…listen to my voice…and…pay attention to what I say. Okay?”

She looked concerned. “Okay, Pedro.”

“I’ll make it worth your time. Promise.”

She looked intrigued. “Okay, Pedro.”

One minute left.

This needed to count. Lastly and for all.

Pete pointed off-camera and clearly spoke to her what he saw:

“Off…”

With his other hand, he thumbed his phone screen and tapped an icon in the shape of a red heart, which activated a one-second vibrational surge through a specially hidden device tucked inside Johana_Squirt’s preferred spot.

She shivered and gasped.

“Off…”

He tapped the red heart a second time.

She trembled and hissed.

“Off…”

He tapped the red heart a third time.

She quivered and groaned.

“Off…”

He tapped the red heart a fourth and final time.

She shuddered and moaned.

After a short, respectful silence, he asked her, “Did you get all that?”

Being four heart tokens richer, she replied in a coolly refreshed tone, “Off, off, off, off!”

Pete sighed in giant relief, because now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, he finally knew that the fucking stove was off, off, off, fucking OFF!

He told her, “Thanks, darling. I really needed that. I know it probably sounded weird, needing you to hear me say such nonsense back there. But it helps. It helps me. I get…I get scared sometimes. I mean, I-I-I’m not crazy, or anything, I just…I get…I get…”

“Anxiety, mi amor,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said.

He felt very understood.

Thirty seconds left.

“I gotta go.”

“Oh,” she pouted, pointing at her bare midriff. “No belly button?”

“Aw, not this time, darling, so sorry, but thank you, again, I needed this, bye!”

“Okayyyyyyyy, babyyyyyyyy, byeeeeeeee!”

He logged off, pocketed his phone, gave the kitchen one final sweeping glance while still ignoring the oven, then opened the front door, and, at last, made his exit.

If Pete Dwindle had dawdled for even one second longer, then he might have been incinerated along with the rest of the house, as it suddenly exploded into a booming fireball directly behind him.

Right on time.

Author Alex Rogers

After reading Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, Alex Rogers figured, “How hard can this writing thing really be?” Rogers is a satirical fiction writer whose words range from goofy to grotesque, weaving narratives that are equal parts surreal speculation and comedic commentary. He’s the author of Rogue Helicopter Pilot, a novella you haven’t read yet that bends all genres in a psychedelic journey best described as “Dante’s Inferno meets Siddhartha for the digital generation." He lives in Los Angeles with his two cats, Merlin and Osha (the Tuxedo Twins). IG: @alexrogersvoice

See Junior Bases’ interview for more about Alex and his style.

Author Alex Rogers