The Man Child and His Lobster Advisor: A Case Study

He could probably stop being a virgin, but he refuses to do so. Chris has a formula of sorts to keep his virginity, to keep his purity. He’d sleep with only one woman per year, and so the time in between women is spent holistically jacking off to resurrect his virginity. In high school, Christopher made the mistake of asking Chris about his Virginity Framework. 

“It’s because I’ll forget how to do it and how good it feels, thus consequently becoming a virgin once again” said Chris, leaning back on the lockers and calmly throwing a piece of gum into his mouth. Christopher could only wish that this boy would “consequently” choke from the gum he threw in so nonchalantly while explaining a concept that no other sane pubescent boy within all 51 states would have. It’s a miracle how Chris’ chewing somehow managed to make audible staccato snapping noises in the busy high school hallway. 

“Aren’t you afraid she’ll remember you as a bad fuck doe?” said Christopher, now also leaning on the lockers with Chris, but with his shoulder rather than back. It takes a certain kind of high school boy to not be concerned with what girls think of them, especially for crude naïve fornication purposes. The pair, to be very honest, were only friends because they shared the same name and it was funny to be friends with someone you share the same name as. Who’s who? Chris P. or Christopher S?

“Why would I be afraid?” Of course, why would he? However, from top to bottom, there was absolutely very little that Christopher could find remotely desirable in this obviously disturbed boy. Auburn hair that stuck out, but not in the fluffy way but rather in the covered in sebum and oil type of all over, thick glasses with just as thick black rims, and a single mole below his thin lips. By memory, Christopher could probably just draw a stick figure with a few lines on the head, circles for glasses, and a dot below the lip and voila: it’s Chris S. If Christopher felt creative, maybe he’d use the colour Pumpkin Spice to draw in the awkward messy lines that accounts for Chris’ hair. That’s what any other boy probably would’ve done then. 

“Okay Chris… okay..” he’d say, raising his hands quick and fanning his fingers out paired with his body, slowly creating distance between the two. It was like watching a caveman back away from an unknown creature. 

Christopher then left school with his bag slung over one arm, wondering if he said goodbye to the boy but then remembering that there wasn’t really any point to it. Chris was not his friend, and Chris will not ever be his friend. Christopher’s projected future was to be working as a sports commentator for a channel that nobody watches, and he saw little reason to create any sort of lasting relations with Chris, the guy who was “seeing girls from Canada.” 

Christopher ended up doing just that. As he prepares for his ritual, Chris remembers hearing Christopher’s voice the other time. It’s simultaneously nasally yet deep set, and reverberated in an ambient kind of way behind the buzz of the shitty heater. Masturbating became a part of a larger ritual of sorts that Chris was unknowingly participating in, for his ritual generally consists of the following pattern: Firstly, every three months (in advance of the encounter) he will reach the peak state of attractiveness he could possibly be. Second, taking photos of himself in thought provoking positions (think along the lines of blurry in-motion pictures of him playing the guitar or selfies at some park with a cigarette looking pensively at the camera.) Third, finding a match on whatever hookup app was popular (right now it’s Hinge). Fourth, taking her to a two (or sometimes one) dollar sign dinner and splurging on the best wine there but not the food and then… finally, we get to fucking as the final official step is going to one of their homes and turning on the sports channel for background noise (so that it’s not too memorable or too silent.) Chris did used to try putting on shows the date and himself could actually watch and fuck to due to “the tension in the air” (intentional thigh and arm touching), but he found that sometimes he’d be more focused on the show and couldn’t make the orgasm the right one he was waiting for. Hearing a main antagonist’s villain speech between thrusts felt like such a waste of an environment for his one sexual encounter of the year.

Afterwards and onto the next day, comes the unofficial last step: he’d then treat himself to a finer meal and review the night before when he “lost his virginity” again. Today, it’ll be the fancy diner. There is just something so addicting and undeniably lucrative about the godly control he had over his own virginity, a social construct that fits Catholic school girls better than a pathetically horny (normal) man like himself, and the fantastic cum of the year that made it all worth it. God, the orgasm! But also, god help this man forsake his temple of hypocrisy. The worship is never because of the girl or for the girl, but more so for the ayahuasca-like experience of being voluntarily deprived and picking when to stop edging himself. The release of his seed reminds himself as to why he doesn’t carelessly sleep around, because without such a wait the release wouldn’t be as fantastic now, would it?

And so, Chris searches the city until he finds the “right” woman, a woman who is both capable of making him feel like a scantily clad yet doe eyed Madonna on MTV, provocative in her pure existence. That, is who he will date and marry. Otherwise, he’s perfectly fine with tarnishing his body once a year with the bitch that answers. 

 Sat in a semi-populated diner’s plush couch, Chris stares emptily at the cutlery set and his just as empty plate. It’s dinner for one, what’s the point of having a sharing plate set when I’m the only one who’s going to touch and eat any of the food..? An uncharacteristically (for New York) jolly waitress with deflated balloon breasts reaches over to replace Chris’ empty plate with a steaming red lobster. Again, what’s the point of the empty plate if it’s just going to be replaced and taken, he questions internally and for what felt like an eternity regarding the diner cutlery dynamics. 

“Hey.”

At this moment, Chris would’ve preferred the diner to be far more empty so that it would make the series of events that followed far more substantial and rooted in reality. 

“Excuse me?” He whispers, after gathering some confidence to look like a schizo. His voice barely left his mouth, that was how quiet he was with his whisper and it’s not necessarily to be unheard but rather be able to pass off his words as sounds, in case this really is just a voice in his head. Hopefully not. 

“What?” To Chris’ surprise, the angry voice seemed to be emitting from the no-longer steaming crustacean. 

In the situation where one thinks their meal is speaking to them, there can only be two possible approaches. Ignore it and miss out on the potentially once-in-a-lifetime moment where his subconsciousness enters his story, or, address it and risk being heard. Chris could somehow very clearly and very viscerally see his loved ones be contacted through a dial phone by a busty nurse, meanwhile he’d be strapped in a straightjacket sent to the place where his favourite hobby will become staring at walls that look like sofas. That wouldn’t be so bad, he thinks. As long as he can rub himself on a chair or something every now and then he could survive being involuntarily celibate. Peering left and right, making sure there was no audience for his breakdown, he grabs the surprisingly light fork and knife and prepares to enact invasive surgery to the lobster. Just to check that all things were as they are supposed to be. Not to eat it, no the times’ past for eating.

“Calm down, Hannibal Lecter.” says the lobster. “You’re not getting shit out of me.” Shit. It pronounced shit as shee-yi-t rather than sh-eh-t. A lobster. It not only could speak, but had a twang to its speech, as if it saw a shitty cop movie set in New York but then watched another shitty show about drug lords in New Mexico. If it could talk, it might as well have a weird accent.

Because it spoke, Chris drops his table knife. The knife descends to the floor, making a resounding clang, it definitely made the scene seem far more dramatic than it was before. Could this be his breakthrough? This could be his main character moment where he will find his perfect woman with the help of his comical animal sidekick, or in this case, an ocean dwelling shrimp’s far off cousin. Or, perhaps this is a more spiritual encounter, the lobster will act as his guide towards nirvana and–

“Hey buddy, cool it with the whole mental deep dive and come back to reality, please.” It grumbles. Chris had never thought a lobster would speak to him, nor did he expect it to be so crude with language. In all sincerity, the only reason why he believed this to be a true occurrence in his reality is because it kept speaking and practically sorta begging him to not ignore it. After all, why else speak?

At this point, Chris had somehow convinced himself that the curses and weird lobster mobster persona are just a passive form of pleading rather than his supposed personified subconsciousness cussing him out. A much more agreeable way to frame things, stay positive as they say. 

“Can I uh…” says Chris, as he reaches closer, neck straining a bit so that his voice would project in a narrow lane towards the lobster. “... Can I help you?” As much as he was sold on the idea of the talking lobster, he also wasn’t. How can a lobster hear out of water? Was there really a point to him stretching his body towards the plate so it could supposedly hear him better and more discreetly? Do lobsters have ears or do they just have holes on the side for aesthetic purposes?

“Can ya? Can you of all people help me?” Chris wasn’t sure if lobsters could deadpan, since this one was already cooked, thus dead, but it seemed to be doing something like that. 

Maybe it was his moment to prove himself, maybe it was an “in the moment decision” that resulted in him sitting the full duration of his cab ride home to his apartment with a sentient lobster carcass (shell?) in his jacket’s inner pocket. He even wrapped its body with napkins, as if it would cushion the space and make it more comfortable for the hard-shelled creature. On a normal post-yearly-sex day, he’d probably take the F train home, but he felt an anchor of guilt hang low in his chest when imagining his dead (but alive) friend (?) being exposed to New York metro lines. Even worse, what if the rats smell him on their turf and declare war? If talking cooked lobsters can exist in his psyche, so can a Yakuza of rats, he thinks to himself. While fumbling his outrageously spacious pant pockets, he found a gum wrapper, broken lighter, lint, a penny, and then eventually, his keys that probably should be on a key ring to avoid this exact issue of standing in front of his apartment at an hour where seedy folks lurk. 

“Hey…” he jams the main entrance keys into the front doors of the apartment. “Lobster.” The door barely gives in, and with a few thrusts to the right.. “Lobster!” a click, and he’s in the supposed lobby/mail area that holds a strong scent of astringent piss. 

The lobster did not respond, even when Chris sat on the first step of the cracked stairs with his hands to his head, even when he gingerly pulled the lobster out his pocket and flicked its antennae as if it’ll wake it up from its coma. Defeated, and without much purpose but rather curiosity, he walked up to his unit, went in and placed the lobster on the wood TV stand directly across from the head of his bed.

On all 362 days of the year, his studio apartment is a mess. It wasn’t uncommon for there to be piles upon piles of clothes on the floor and for his furniture to collect dust from lack of use. On 3 days within 3 years, his room is neat, minimalist almost. There’d even be a plant depending on the girl that would maybe come home with him. He didn’t care too much about what the girl thought of his composition, but instead cleaned for the sake of creating the close-to-perfect environment for him to fuck. If he can’t get the girl of his dreams, he can at least fuck the girls of reality in a space close to ideal. 

The lobster had stayed silent, until the next month. Who knows as to why it decided to speak up now, but as Chris climaxed by his own doings, the lobster spoke. 

“God, when will you stop? Everyday it’s you jacking off after work.” It pronounced it like jee-ya-ck and despite not having lips or a tongue or even saliva, spit somehow came out of the lobster’s mouth. Feeling as if he just got caught by his mom, Chris threw the blankets on top of his body and for extra measures, put his hand on the duvet where his crotch is, as if it would help protect his groin from the (formerly dead?) crustacean. 

“What’s there to be shy of? I’ve seen you do it three times a day for a fucking month. Get a grip” said the lobster, with no regards towards Chris’ need to recalibrate from his shame. Chris had never felt bad about masturbating, everyone does it. However, with each syllable and beat of the lobster’s speech, the tinge of dictatorial anger in Chris’ forehead grew larger. Get over it? I am over it, he thinks. His thoughts seemed to be reflected on his forehead, as creases began to appear from the furrowing of his brows. Yes, everyone does it and it is a crucial pillar of his Virginity Framework– why would he be embarrassed? If anything, he’s doing everyone a favour and enacting his civil duty as a functional member of civic society with his self-gratification. It’s not that girls don’t fuck him, it’s that he doesn’t fuck girls. There’s a difference, it’s all about framing. 

“You– You! You.. God, you’re a talking lobster and…” he trails off in response to the lobster. It has been watching him. It can speak. It was watching him masturbate and now chastising him about it, this is the lobster’s fault not his own. Chris’ face relaxes a bit.

“God, turn off the porn, I beg of you!” There was something different about today compared to last month, when the lobster last spoke. The lobster had then talked without movement, its textured shell had stayed still and its mouth had stayed shut. This time though, the lobster shook a bit. Short tremors would follow every word with a discreet rattle on the dark oak TV stand, where Chris had left it last month. Chris followed the orders in haste to move onto a new topic, and closed the webpage on his phone. The Top 100 Songs Listened Globally playlist he was listening prior to choking his genitalia then replaced the violent moans and grunts from his pornography. 

A man and his lobster sat in the apartment with artificial ambiance from the generic radio hits. Rain drizzles outside, and Chris can feel his sanity drizzling alongside the weather. 

“Well, you could close your eyes next time– you.. You should’ve told me the first time that you could see!” said Chris. “Are you some kind of sick… perverted freak? You getting off from watching me?” He pinches his nose bridge with his index finger and thumb in a half worried half annoyed manner, as if this action would relieve his symptoms. A shrink should be the next step, prescribed antipsychotics sound good. It’s been a month, the lobster should be rotting now and he should’ve thrown it out by now, yet it somehow blended into the home decor so Chris had just left it there. Its existence didn’t particularly improve the home chakras nor did it ruin it, and it didn’t stink. If there was nothing good or bad about it, what’s the point of going so far as to throw it out? Chris likes things that are neutral, they exist by his mercy and so the neutral things in life have a kind guardian (himself) that rarely integrates into their neutral existence. Let it be, like the Beatles song, although he never really listened to the Beatles. That’s more of a saying he’d say in case to girls who liked to pretend that their “old school” music taste would somehow give Chris a reason to pay attention to them for more than four hours (thirty minutes for research and texting, an hour and a half for dinner, then two or so hours are allocated for commute, sex, and pillow talk.) It’s been 10 years since he’s developed the framework in high school, and 3 out of the 10 girls enjoyed the Beatles, Ramones and Pink Floyd, while the rest were more aligned with indie and pop. 

“This song, I like this song” says the lobster, “turn it up!” Chris decides to ignore the lobster this time. His mind and body were both being desecrated by the lobster’s judgemental black pea sized eyes. A sense of disappointment washed over Chris in surprise, as the red shell started to dance (but really it was just kind of shaking to the beat). The lobster had both looked and stopped Chris from enjoying himself, and so now his dick was just a sad penis laying lifelessly on his pubic area. If only It didn’t say anything.

Chris was sitting up when he heard the lobster speak again, but is now laying with his head sunk into his pillows, eyes staring at the ceiling fan. 

“Hello? Hello?” Haa-low. “Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?” ….. “Hellohellohellohow low, ya like Nirvana? I met Kurt once—"

“Shut,” Chris folds the pillow onto the sides of his face with his hands, “SHUT UP!” The song It asked him to turn up, the song that the lobster liked, is sung by a former teen pop star that managed to somehow crawl out of the boy band he was in and is topping the charts as of now. What appeal is there to this singer? 6 of the girls Chris slept with were die-hard fans, they’d go on social media to stalk the singer’s whereabouts, they’ve read thousands of fellow fan written stories about the singer giving them cunnilingus, they tell him that they’re in love with this singer, but never in love with an actual man who could actually give them cunnilingus. This singer shakes his ass for Madison Square Garden, he wears skirts and leotards, he sings about love and LSD, he only exists in fantasy, media and concerts, never reality. And that, is why Chris will never understand why women are so horny for this singer. Perhaps it’s the unattainable perfection the singer possessed that would in turn, possess women around the world. By that logic, how is Chris any different from the singer? He’s only available once a year, and loyal to nobody, just like any other Hollywood star. 

The lobster actually did shut up this time. It had flown into the trash bin beside the TV stand within a single blink. Chris isn’t sure if he was the one to throw it away or if It threw itself away. Good riddance, the subconscious is meant to be silent.