Peter's Little Peter

Truth Out, Pants Off

If I had to make a list of the thoughts running through my head as Audrey drives us to a nearby pond, the list would look something like two parallel universes. 

In one universe, I tell Audrey the truth about my peen. I tell her that I lied, not because I wanted to deceive her, but because I thought it was essential that I impress her. 

I confess the cucumber deception. I tell her all the insecure, self-hating, self-sabotaging thoughts that ran through my head from the moment Becky Spade made that comment about my banana, to the time Nick Spears pantsed me in front of the school. 

I tell Audrey how it felt to have my peen plastered all over social media, like it was the punchline to some joke everyone but me thought was funny. I tell her about quitting social media, and how doing so eventually made me feel free, but how at first, and for quite some time, I felt isolated and alone. 

I tell Audrey about Elroy's hair-brained, but well-meaning scheme to help me regain my confidence, even if I thought it was about me gaining inches. I tell her how I turned into a bit of a monster, snapping at Elroy when the Chub Potion Number Nine didn't work. How I was so obsessed with size that I demanded Chub Potion Number Nine 2.0, even though I thought it might kill me - because better dead than small, or so I thought. 

I tell Audrey how I very nearly lost my dick to a crappy product called the Extender 2. How the pain in my peen at that moment was nothing compared the pain in my heart, that pain that you feel when you come up short.

I tell her how Elroy's sister, Judy, saved me, and how she said that the only thing I could do was learn to accept and eventually love the penis I have. And how I was trying to do that, or at the very least, not touch my penis so that it could heal, when Audrey unleashed her art project on the school. 

I tell her how Free The Peen made me feel. How at first I felt as though it was directed at me. How it stirred up a subconscious feeling that I would never measure up, that I would never make her happy. And that most of all, that if I told Audrey the truth, it would destroy me. It would destroy us. 

But that version feels like too much information. Or as the voice inside my head screams over and over again: TMI, Peter! Which is why the other list of thoughts running through my head is much shorter. It boils down to one item: if I keep my mouth shut, I'll see Audrey naked.

I know it sounds like I'm lying. But don't girls like the strong silent type? Han Solo didn't confess his love to Leia. He didn't get all mushy, or share his feelings. He didn't ask her about her plans to defeat the Empire, or if she liked being a princess. He said: I know. And it worked! It totally worked! If there's a lesson there, and I think there is, it's that girls do like the strong silent type. 

Of course, Han Solo wasn't hung like an Ewok. 

"Peen for your thoughts?" Audrey says.

Peen for my thoughts? What's with this girl? Was that some kind of twisted joke?

"I think the phrase is penny for your thoughts," I say. "Penny."

"That's what I said, penny."

I swear I heard her say peen. But there's no point in arguing.

"Did you think I said peen, Peter?"

I look over at Audrey. Her eyes are fixed on the road.

"Yeah."

"Let me guess, you can't stop thinking about my art project?"

We drive in silence for another mile before I say something.