Flexible-Dose Study
Paul Toth

I am a notable fellow here in Hidden Ponds, this senior citizen camp where the ponds are so well hidden that no one can see them. The same cannot be said for erections. I've set the record, sixteen hours without complaint. Unfortunately, I'm happy to see to you, my love, not happy for you but me. But let me set the scene before I act.

I'm one of those who bear the hidden costs. For the vulnerable, the pills cause bursts of testosterone like meteors through the mind, hot sparkles of hate. In that hate, I do regret I must tote this erection like an umbrella through rainless fields. Oh, you know what I mean. I've tried to look away from the lubricants. It dissatisfies me to know that you do not, cannot want me, not the way those nurses would if I were eighteen, nineteen, or any of the early ages mentioned in that September song.

But this is February and I feel the frost. I will die in March. I know it, and if I am wrong, I will use that which makes you think I'm happy to see you.

Others like me exist here. Beware, my love. We have group meetings over salads. Someone whispered a secret and the secret somehow spread only to those who did not share it. We discuss those zones in our minds that must always have existed, the zone of fucking and killing, one in the same for some if not all of us. We discuss the way we see women again, working the barren fields, like desert peasants.

Some of us are worse than others. I, for one, wish these final days were different, but many embrace them. You will never see them sans erection; it is a threat they enjoy displaying.

And what am I to do with you, my love? Before the pills, I did love you. And though you were not impressed, of course, you never complained. But you did compliment me when I took the first pill, but this very compliment gray-skyed my mind, for then I saw red. Perhaps it was Mars smiling: "Come to war, my friend. She loves you not but for a chemical."

And it's getting worse. Those in my group support each other in the manner of prisoners whispering plans of future crimes. And all of this said over crumpets and shredded cheese.

I had an idea once. I would light a cigar and trigger the indoor sprinkler system. I would wet you like a garden. But facts are facts. The attendants would arrive, and from youthful experiments in showers, I know that water would not serve the function I intend.

So, come here my love. Feel my pocket. It pleases you, yes? Even harder than normal, like metal. Pull it out, yes, yes, and would you, just this one time, for old time's sake, with your mouth, yes, but close your eyes. I don't want you to know what's coming, but suffice to say I'm not happy to see you.

Paul A. Toth is the editor of Hit and Run Magazine and Sitting Pretty Magazine, and a novelist, poet, and short story writer. He previously served as assistant fiction editor for Small Spiral Notebook, storySouth and Mad Hatters' Review. Toth also works in multimedia. He produces two podcasts, TothWorld and Poesy Planet. Most of his work can be accessed from www.netpt.tv.