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DENTACLE PORN

I t’s starting to get heavy—this strange, chaotic dynamic with Timmy. Every time I buy something for myself, I feel the tugging obligation to buy for two. At first, it seemed like a sweet gesture. It’s not that he demands it, because Timmy rarely asks for anything outright.

It’s the way he looks at me when I have something and he doesn’t—a flash of need, followed by that wide grin when I give in. He’s always so appreciative. His eyes light up like a child at Christmas, and he’ll wrap me in his big arms, pressing kisses to my forehead. “You’re the best, my love,” he murmurs. And in those moments, my doubts float away, carried off by the tide of affection he pours over me.

But each little expense is chipping away at my savings, and I can feel it—subtle, but insistent. I didn’t budget for this. When I moved here, I imagined my expenses would be manageable—just me, living on my own terms, maintaining my corporate job. I never planned to be thrust into unemployment, let alone also financially responsible for another grown adult, all while trying to build my fledgling author business. But Timmy has a way of turning everything into an adventure, convincing me that it’s fine to split a plate of fries or share a beer. It feels romantic, like we’re a team, and it’s not like he’s pushing it, trying to order the most expensive items on the menu or anything like that.

Except, I can’t help but feel twitchy. There’s something in the back of my mind—an old memory stirring. Years ago, I had a friend who played this same game. They’d accompany me to restaurants and bars, insisting they didn’t need anything, only to end up sharing half of mine, because of course I’d inevitably offer them some, rather than have them sit there watching me eat and drink. Or worse, I’d cave and buy them their own, just to avoid the awkwardness. And here I am again—buying for two, convincing myself it’s not a big deal.

It’s not just the money. It’s the slow erosion of a boundary I swore I’d never cross again. I told myself I wouldn’t let someone mooch off me, not like before. And yet, here I am, tangled in the same web.

The difference this time? Timmy isn’t just some friend crashing on my couch. He’s the man I love, the one who says all the right things and makes me feel special in ways I’ve never experienced. And that scares me.

After the work call is over, Timmy busies himself decorating my kitchen with the random trinkets he revealed on the beach. It’s all stuff he brought over from Matty’s—things that are either bizarre or useless. A spice organizer that looks like it belongs in the 1970s, tiny plastic animals, random shells, and of course, the miniature skateboard.

“I cleaned everything really well,” he says proudly, as if he’s just performed some grand act of service.

I smile, but internally I’m cringing. The last thing I need is more clutter. Still, it’s a sweet gesture, in its own strange way. He’s trying to make this place ours, filling it with things that make him smile. And I love him for that, even if I plan to discreetly disinfect everything later.

For lunch, I whip up my famous potato salad—my go-to recipe for barbecues and gatherings. The smell of garlic, capers, and freshly boiled potatoes fills the apartment. As I mix everything together, Timmy sneaks over, dips a finger into the bowl, and takes a taste.

“Fuck, that’s delicious!” he says, grinning at me like a kid who’s just stolen a cookie from the jar. “I’m so glad I’m with someone who cooks.”

“Same,” I reply, smiling back. In these moments, I feel the warmth of our connection. It’s not all bad. We share these little joys—me through food, him through spontaneous affection.

He likes to share food plates with me and feed me, so we have our potato salad from a shared plate.

“Blow on it first. It’s hot,” he’ll say when he puts the spoon near my mouth for me to take a sip of one of his soothing broths. “I don’t want you to burn your mouth.”

They’re such simple gestures, and they’re touching. A little weird, I suppose. I know it gives some people a major ick, but when he feeds me, it makes me feel like he really cares about me. There’s a gentle tenderness about the way he does it as well.

But then, mid-dishes, something shifts.

He grabs my brand-new chef’s knife and, with no warning, stabs it through a lemon and into my new wooden cutting board, splintering it down the middle.

“Timmy!” I exclaim, heart racing. “You just ruined the cutting board and probably damaged the blade! Why did you do that?”

He shrugs, a smug grin on his face. “Because it looks cool.”

I stare at the ruined cutting board, stunned. He pulls out his phone and snaps a picture, uploading it to Instagram without a second thought.

“Can you please be more careful with my things?” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “Just… don’t go around stabbing stuff, okay? It’s unnecessary.”

He freezes, the grin slipping from his face. His expression shifts, darkening. His jaw tightens, and his nostrils flare. For a moment, I think he’s going to laugh it off, but his eyes narrow, locking onto mine with an intensity that sends a chill down my spine .

“It’s just a stupid fucking cutting board,” he growls, his voice low and sharp.

He yanks the knife out of the board with a jerk, the blade clattering into the sink, making me wince. I know, without looking, that one of my new dishes is now chipped as well.

“You care more about that dumb piece of wood than you do about me,” he mutters, his tone bitter.

I stand here, frozen, trying to make sense of the situation. All I asked was for him to be careful with my things, and now it feels like I’ve insulted him in some irreparable way. The shift in his mood is sudden, unpredictable—like the sky before a storm. I feel trapped, boxed in by his anger and the physical presence of him standing between me and the door.

I put it down to a joke. Nobody would react like that to such a small thing. He was just playing a part, acting in a role, and I’m the one misinterpreting it. Because nobody sane would ever act like that.

“Fuck it,” he snaps, and for a moment, the room feels like it might explode. But then, just as quickly, the tension dissipates. He picks up the remote, plops down on the bed, and acts like nothing happened.

“So, what should we watch?” he asks, smiling again, as if the last few minutes didn’t just unravel me.

Later, he finds Sabre’s banana bed and plops it on my head, laughing at how ridiculous I look. He snaps a photo, and shows it to me. I’m laughing, a goofy grin on my face. I hate people touching my head, putting things on my head. But with Timmy, I don’t seem to mind as much. He’s giving me cute attention, and it reminds me of the day he put the octopus toy on my head, and leaned in for our first electric kiss. It’s absurd, but it makes me smile. He’s back to being silly again, pulling me into his whirlwind of nonsense.

He stands across from me, a goofy grin plastered across his face, one hand holding a baby pacifier while the other clutches an oversized baby shark toy. His body is a strange contradiction—a large, fully-grown, shirtless man, with childlike enthusiasm.

He places the pacifier between his lips, and he lets out a high-pitched chuckle, totally lost in the moment, completely aware of how ridiculous he looks. I snap a picture and he cocks his head to the side, eyes growing large in mock surprise, as if he’s the star of a show that’s both hilarious and completely baffling.

And then he yanks off his pants and wraps his giant caterpillar around himself, like a diaper. “Take another picture!” he says, muffled by the pacifier.

In this moment, he seems to relish the attention, a combination of childlike wonder and unabashed silliness. He’s enveloped in being the center of attention, even though it’s only us, embracing his inner manchild to a degree I’ve never seen.

Then he takes it a step further. He removes the caterpillar and places the baby shark toy down on the bed, and picks up his deer skull with antlers attached. And then he places the skull on his semi-erect cock, the white bone stark against his skin.

My mind races at the absurdity of this. He has a way of challenging the bounds of comfort and normalcy, all while maintaining a carefree smile that invokes both laughter and disbelief.

“Take a picture!” he says, his voice playful yet daring, as if he’s presenting some kind of avant-garde art piece.

So I do.

He runs around naked and keeps getting me to snap pictures of him placing his hands above his head in the shape of devil horns. He’s excitable and definitely experiencing some kind of mania again. So I just let him do his thing and laugh, because some of his antics are quite funny.

“I’m obsessed with cuddles and sex and ice cream.” He says it with such joyful abandon.

“You definitely are obsessed with those three things,” I smile. “You speak the truth.” And none of those are bad things. In fact, they’re all wonderful things. He loves to make us special ice cream sundaes every night, and we sit in bed and he spoon-feeds me while we watch movies.

“Dentacle porn!” he yells at one point.

“Excuse me?” I quirk a brow at him, thinking I misheard him. “You mean… tentacle porn?” It randomly came up in conversation th e other day. He hadn’t heard of it before, and so I’d explained what it was. He seemed fascinated, instantly googling it and bringing some up on his favorite porn site.

“Nope!” He exclaims proudly. “Deep throat dentacle porn. It’s like tentacle porn, but with dentists. Or vehicular dentacle porn, which is all of that, but it happens in a car.”

I laugh and shake my head. He’s on one of his rolls where he just says weird shit. And that’s fine. He’s making me laugh. It’s one of his quirks.

“Be careful having that on the bed,” he says, pointing at my laptop at one point. “The computer will heat up. It’ll get brain damage, just like a brain.”

“There are 48 hours in a day,” he announces a while later, cracking up at his own comment when he realizes his math is off.

His antics are funny, and he has the funniest way with words. I can’t deny that. But beneath the laughter, a knot tightens in my stomach. He’s unpredictable, swinging wildly between moods—playful one moment, angry the next.

I have butterflies—but not the good kind. Frantic, heavy wings beat against my ribs, signaling that something isn’t right. My heart races, a persistent gnawing dread creeping through my veins. I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong—I don’t know what, but I can feel it in my bones.

It’s like I’m living on a knife’s edge, never sure which version of Timmy I’ll get. And the more I laugh with him, the more I feel like I’m losing tiny pieces of myself along the way.

He curls up beside me in bed later, spooning me, and whispers into my ear, “I really care about you, Margaux. I just want to be close to you all the time.”

His words are sweet, but they also feel heavy, like an anchor sinking into my chest.

I’m tangled in him now, deeper than I ever intended to be.

And I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pull myself free.