The Game

killing myself.”
    He paused and wiped his eyes with the back of his gloved hand. “When I think of my father, I think of violence,” he continued. “I remember seeing him punch people in the face when I was really young. When we had to kill our dog, he took a gun out and blew its head off right in front of me.”
    The border guard emerged from an office and motioned for Marko to step out of the car. They spoke for several minutes; then Marko handed him several bills. While we waited to see if our bribe of forty dollars—the equivalent of one month’s salary in Trans-Dniester—was effective, Mystery opened up to me.
    His father, he said, was an alcoholic German immigrant who verbally and physically abused him. His brother, who was fourteen years older than him, was gay. And his mother blamed herself for smothering his brother with love to make up for her husband’s abuse. So, to compensate, she was emotionally distant from Mystery. When he was still a virgin at age twentyone, he began to worry that maybe he was gay. So, in a bout of depression, he began formulating what would become the Mystery Method, dedicating his life to pursuing the love he never received from his parents.
    It took two more bribes of equivalent sum, spread between two other officials, to grease our way across the border. It was never enough for them just to accept the money. Each separate bribe took an hour and a half of discussion. Maybe they were just trying to give Mystery and I more time to get to know each other.
    When we finally reached Odessa, we asked our hotel clerk about Trans-Dniester. She explained that the country was the result of a civil war in Moldova, triggered largely by former communist apparatchiks, military elite, and black berets who wanted to return to the glory days of the Soviet Union. It was a place with no rules—the Wild West of the Eastern bloc and a country few foreigners dared to visit.
    When Marko told her about our experience at the border, she said, “You shouldn’t have asked them to arrest you.”
    “Why?” he asked.
    “Because they don’t have jails there.”
    “Then what would they have done with us?”
    She shaped her fingers into a gun, pointed them at Marko, and said, “Pow.”
    When we returned to Belgrade, driving some five hundred miles out of our way to avoid Trans-Dniester, Marko’s voice mail was full. Mystery’s seventeen-year-old, Natalija, had left a dozen messages. Mystery phoned her back, but the call was intercepted by her mother, who cussed him out for hijacking her daughter’s mind.
    Natalija continued to call Marko after Mystery and I flew home, asking when he was going to come back for her. Finally, Marko put her out of her misery. “He was a wizard,” he told her. “He put a spell on you. Get some help and stop calling me.”
    Marko e-mailed me constantly in the months that followed, asking for a password to Mystery’s Lounge. He had tasted the forbidden fruit and wanted more. But I never let him in. At the time, I thought it was because I wanted to keep my new identity separate from my past. But the truth was that, despite all my rationalizations, I still felt embarrassed by what I was doing and the degree to which I was letting it consume my life.

MSN GROUP: Mystery’s Lounge
    SUBJECT: Sticking Point
    AUTHOR: Style

    I’m hitting a sticking point, which I hope you all can help me get past.
    Mystery and I just returned from Belgrade, where I met a beautiful, intelligent girl who probably would have been my Serbian girlfriend if it weren’t for my sticking point: I’m having huge trouble kiss-closing.
    For some reason, transitioning to the kiss is a big hurdle for me. I’ll feel the window open, and then instantly I start thinking all the “what-ifs”—“what if she rejects me,” “what if I ruin the rapport we have,” “what about that thing she said about her ex-boyfriend.” Then either I build up too much anxiety and go for it tentatively (and fuck up), or the window closes and I miss it and get pissed at myself.
    So what’s my problem? I’m so damn close to that golden ring of PUA-dom, but this little sticking point is holding me back.

    —Style

    MSN GROUP: Mystery’s Lounge
    SUBJECT: Re: Sticking Point
    AUTHOR: Nightlight9

    What if she rejects me? Yeah, and what if a meteor hits your house.
    You asked how to tell if she’s ready. The way to tell is the other threesecond rule. It works 100 percent of the time. While sitting close, just let