The Game

arrive.
    “What’s your top score?” Sin leaned in and asked as I sat down. They were already assessing me, trying to figure out if I was in possession of a thing called game.
    “My top score?”
    “Yeah, how many girls have you been with?”
    “Um, somewhere around seven,” I told them.
    “Somewhere around seven?” Sin pressed.
    “Six,” I confessed.
    Sin ranked in the sixties, Mystery in the hundreds. I looked at them in wonder: These were the pickup artists whose exploits I’d been following so avidly online for months. They were another class of being: They had the magic pill, the solution to the inertia and frustration that has plagued thegreat literary protagonists I’d related to all my life—be it Leopold Bloom, Alex Portnoy, or Piglet from Winnie the Pooh.
    As we waited for the other students, Mystery threw a manila envelope full of photographs in my lap.
    “These are some of the women I’ve dated,” he said.
    In the folder was a spectacular array of beautiful women: a headshot of a sultry Japanese actress; an autographed publicity still of a brunette who bore an uncanny resemblance to Liv Tyler; a glossy picture of a Penthouse Pet of the Year; a snapshot of a tan, curvy stripper in a negligee who Mystery said was his girlfriend, Patricia; and a photo of a brunette with large silicone breasts, which were being suckled by Mystery in the middle of a nightclub. These were his credentials.
    “I was able to do that by not paying attention to her breasts all night,” he explained when I asked about the last shot. “A pickup artist must be the exception to the rule. You must not do what everyone else does. Ever.”
    I listened carefully. I wanted to make sure every word etched itself on my cerebral cortex. I was attending a significant event; the only other credible pickup artist teaching courses was Ross Jeffries, who had basically founded the community in the late 1980s. But today marked the first time seduction students would be removed from the safe environs of the seminar room and let loose in clubs to be critiqued as they ran game on unsuspecting women.
    A second student arrived, introducing himself as Extramask. He was a tall, gangly, impish twenty-six-year-old with a bowl cut, overly baggy clothing, and a handsomely chiseled face. With the right haircut and outfit, he would easily have been a good-looking guy.
    When Sin asked him what his count was, Extramask scratched his head uncomfortably. “I have virtually zero experience with girls,” he explained. “I’ve never kissed a girl before.”
    “You’re kidding,” Sin said.
    “I’ve never even held a girl’s hand. I grew up pretty sheltered. My parents were really strict Catholics, so I always had a lot of guilt about girls. But I’ve had three girlfriends.”
    He looked at the floor and rubbed his knees in nervous circles as he listed his girlfriends, though no one had asked for the particulars. There was Mitzelle, who broke up with him after seven days. There was Claire, who told him after two days that she’d made a mistake when she agreed to go out with him.
    “And then there was Carolina, my sweet Carolina,” he said, a dreamy smile spreading across his face. “We were a couple for one day. I remember her walking over to my house the next afternoon with her friend. I saw her across the street, and I was excited to see her. When I got closer, she yelled, ‘I’m dumping you.’”
    All of these relationships apparently took place in sixth grade. Extramask shook his head sadly. It was hard to tell whether he was consciously being funny or not.
    The next arrival was a tanned, balding man in his forties who’d flown in from Australia just to attend the workshop. He had a ten-thousand-dollar Rolex, a charming accent, and one of the ugliest sweaters I’d ever seen—a thick cable-knit monstrosity with multi-colored zigzags that looked like the aftermath of a finger-painting mishap. He reeked of money and confidence. Yet the moment he opened his mouth to give Sin his score (five), he betrayed himself. His voice trembled; he couldn’t look anyone in the eye; and there was something pathetic and childlike about him. His appearance, like his sweater, was just an accident that spoke nothing of his nature.
    He was new to the community and reluctant to share even his first name, so Mystery christened him Sweater.
    The three of us were the only students in the workshop.
    “Okay, we’ve got a lot to talk about,” Mystery