It was 7:24 pm.
God, why did dress sizes have to be so complicated?
Evelynn sighed.
God, why did dress sizes have to be so complicated?
Anon sighed.
Both were looking for dresses online, completely unaware that the other was doing the same thing. While Evelynn was looking for a nice blue one with spaghetti straps, however, Anon was looking for a different type of dress.
A maid dress.
"Women love men who have a soft side," Anon thought to himself. "And what could be more soft than a man who wears a maid dress? She won't be able to resist!"
Anon had TikTok, and he remembered seeing a video of a man dancing in a maid dress. Girls in the comment section were saying things like "OMG, this is so aesthetically hot!", "This is what I want!" and "Obsessed!"
At first Anon felt sick to his stomach. Was this really the state of modern masculinity? But, after considering things a bit more carefully, he made an important realization: if you want to win the game, you have to learn the rules. So, if Anon was going to win the dating game, he would have to learn the rules, and apparently one rule was that men in maid dresses are hot.
There was only one problem: they didn't make maid dresses that fit Anon's grotesque body shape.
He had searched the four corners of the web, but to no avail. He had even tried to contact some tailors, but the embarrassment of telling a tailor that he, a man, wanted a custom-tailored maid dress—one that could fit over his distending belly—was more than he could bear.
He couldn't give up though. He was already in too deep. The maid dress was probably his only shot at winning Evelynn's heart anyway. So he might as well give it everything he's got.
After hours of searching Google, Bing, Yahoo, Chrome, and virtually every other search engine on the planet, Anon at last caught a glimpse of hope in the darkness.
He felt a flash of excitement dart up his spine.
On the 17th page of a Microsoft Edge search, he had finally found a website that might have what he was looking for.
PlusSizeQueens.net.
Carefully avoiding the "porn" section of the site, Anon clicked his way over to the fashion page. Here there were all sorts of plus-size dresses, along with photos of models that Anon had to continually avert his eyes from, reminding himself again and again that these women were strong and beautiful.
A quick keyword search for "maid dress" soon led him to exactly what he was looking for, and he purchased it as fast as he could, swatting away pop-up ads for "get fatter, get healthier" cookbooks.
When the deal was done, Anon unplugged his laptop.
His screen slowly faded to black. The power button on the laptop continued to blink a few more times, but soon it went dead too.
Now Anon was shrouded in complete darkness, his room black as pine tar.
Perfect.
He removed the match box from his pocket, slid the tray out, and plucked from it a single match, running it over in his fingers.
He lit it.
While one hand held the flame, the other ran through his clumpy, stringy hair.
Anon hated that hair. He wished he could just get rid of it. It was curled up into little nests, and Anon was sure that lice were living there. His scalp was always unbearably itchy, and the warm water of the shower stung it.
He had nice hair once—his grandma had said so—and he even used to be proud of it. But not anymore. After high school, all of Anon's personal hygiene had gone to shit.
But it wasn't going to be shit for long.
Anon smiled, and tossed the flame into his hair.
To be continued...
