Tko's Dik Dot Friend

I. A Troll and a Scare

"Did I tell you of the time my ex-girlfriend's parents paid me fifty thousand dollars to stop dating their daughter?" Caleb asked as his voice cracked with excitement. My jaw hung in mid-air as I stared at Caleb, who was friends with Nathan, a boy I was ending a casual romantic relationship with that had lasted all summer.

Caleb stood about fifteen feet away from Nathan and me, next to his two-thousand gray two-door sedan with a couple of dents on either side of the front doors. Caleb stood at about five feet ten inches and had a skinny frame. His long auburn hair always found its way across his face. He leaned against his gray sedan as if waiting for a hot girl to walk out of the house and into his car. He either had a smug plastered across his face or a frown that made his face appear longer. I had never seen him with any other expression in the five months I had come to know him. Our interactions were usually brief due mainly to his awkward behaviors, creeping up behind you when you least expect or staring at you excessively, which generally sent chills up my spine.

"Whoa! You told me they paid you off, but you never told me how much. That's a lot, bro." Said Nathan cleaning his dirty fingers with an equally dirty rag.

"Why did they pay you off?" I asked as I exchanged glances with the two guys.

"They hated me." He replied with an uncomfortable giggle. Seeing the unsatisfactory look written across my face, Caleb took a reluctant breath and an eye roll before diving into the story.

"I dated this Japanese girl a few years back.

I met her while she was attending the University of Portland. She was very ambitious and was going for her Ph.D. in International Business or some shit like that. We were quite serious.

We flew back to Japan to meet her parents after a year of dating. Her parents just could not stand me despite how hard I tried." His voice ending on a high note.

"They didn't think I was good enough for her. They hated me so much that they offered to pay me to break up with her. Can you believe that?!"

He chuckled as he relived the experience in his head, eyes rolled back and head-shaking a few times.

"And what did your girlfriend think all of this?" I was glued in by now.

"She was distraught, of course. She was even more upset when I accepted the money." He smiled.

"Did you not love her enough to resist? I mean, I can't say I blame her. I'm sure it made her feel like a commodity that could easily be traded off." I pressed on as I felt my blood boiling over as if it were happening to me.

"All right, all right, don't start with the feminist BS of how I treated her like she is some transactional commodity. Her family wanted nothing to do with me! Do you know how that feels?! When someone makes you feel inferior? He yelled, daggers flying full speed from his almost cloudy eyes towards me. Just then, Nathan grabbed my hand, trying to calm the tension. I nodded.

"I do know how that feels, actually, but it's not about me. I apologize if I hit a nerve. Please continue." I said, which seemed to calm the storm brewing inside him. I had never seen him that upset before. He took a deep breath and continued.

" I needed the money, so I took it. She stopped taking my calls, and I got it. Do I regret it? No." He shook his head to snap out of his current emotional state and returned to a somewhat upbeat attitude.

"So before I flew back home, I went to a tattoo shop and got a tattoo of her initials on my left butt cheek, and I also got three dots, Japanese style on my pelvic region, right next to my penis. It looks pretty cool" he nodded in approval while my jaw dropped in horror.