The Game

immense breasts that refused to be concealed by her sweatshirt. I broke the threesecond rule by about two hundred and fifty seconds but finally worked up the confidence to approach. I didn’t want to look like an AFC in front of Extramask.
    “I’ve been taking a course in handwriting analysis,” I told her. “While we’re waiting for our food, do you mind if I practice on you?” She looked at me skeptically but then decided I was harmless and consented. I handed her my notebook and told her to write a sentence in it.
    “Interesting,” I said. “Your handwriting has no slant. It’s straight upand down, which means you’re a self-sufficient person and don’t always need to be around others to feel good about yourself.”
    I made sure she was nodding in agreement, and then continued. This was a technique I had learned from a book on cold-reading that exposed the truisms and body-language-reading techniques that sham psychics use. “You don’t have a great organizational system to your writing, which means that in general you’re not good at keeping yourself organized and sticking to a schedule.”
    With each tidbit I told her, she leaned in closer and nodded her head more vigorously. She had a wonderful smile and was easy to talk to. She’d just finished a comedy class nearby, she said, and offered to read me some jokes from her notebook.
    “I open my shows with this one,” she said after my analysis. “I just got back from the gym, and boy are my arms tired.” This was her opener. She had it on a cheat sheet that she kept in her back pocket. Picking up women, I realized, was a lot like stand-up comedy or any other performing art. They each require openers, routines, and a memorable close, plus the ability to make it all seem new every time.
    She said she was spending the night at a hotel in town, so I offered to drive her there. As I dropped her off, I pointed to my cheek and said, “Kiss goodbye.” She kissed my cheek. Extramask kicked the back of my seat excitedly. Then I told her I had work to do, but that I’d call her for a drink when I was finished.
    “Do you want to go out clubbing with Vision and me tonight?” Extramask asked after she left.
    “No, I should see this girl.”
    “Well, I’m going out anyway,” he said. “But when I get home afterward, I’m going to pound out the biggest batch thinking about that girl who just kissed you.”
    Before leaving to pick her up that night, I printed one of the forbidden Ross Jeffries patterns Grimble had e-mailed me. I was determined to make up for my recent mistake.
    We went to a dive bar and had a drink. She had changed into a frayed blue sweater and saggy jeans, which made her look somewhat dumpy. Nonetheless, I was happy to be on an actual date with a woman I’d picked up. Finally, I had an opportunity to experiment with more advanced material.
    “There’s a way,” I told her, “that you can bring better focus to your goals and your life.” I felt like Grimble in T.G.I. Friday’s.
    “What is that?” she asked.
    “It’s a visualization exercise. A friend taught it to me. I don’t know it by heart, but I can read it to you.”
    She wanted to hear it.
    “Good.” I said, as I unfolded the paper with the pattern on it and began reading. “Maybe you can try to remember the last time you felt happiness or pleasure. As you feel it now, where in your body are those feelings?”
    She pointed to the center of her chest.
    “And how good does it feel on a scale of one to ten?”
    “Seven.”
    “Okay, now, as you focus in on this feeling right here, notice that you can begin now to see a color flowing from this feeling. What is the color?”
    “Purple,” she said, as she closed her eyes.
    “Good, now what would it be like if you were to allow all of the purple flowing from that spot to fill with warmth and intensity? With each breath that you take, I want you to let the purple grow just a little bit brighter.”
    Her body began to relax; I could see her chest rise and fall through her sweater. I was doing it now—evoking a response like the one I had seen Ross Jeffries get at California Pizza Kitchen. I continued with the pattern more confidently, making the color expand and grow in intensity inside her as she fell deeper into trance. I imagined Twotimer mouthing the word evil in the background.
    “How do you feel now, on a scale of one to ten?” I asked.
    “Ten,” she said. I guess it was working.
    Then I had her shrink