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Despite being a few blocks from campus, Coffee Fix isn't one of the usual hangouts for students at John Wayne High School. Back in New York, lots of kids drank coffee, or at least they hung out in coffeehouses, pretending to be hipsters. But this is Texas. If you don't have a beer in one hand and a football in the other, people look at you funny.

Except inside Coffee Fix, nobody looks at me funny. Nobody comments on my ill-fitting jeans or my faded Star Wars t-shirt, even though there's an unfortunate mustard stain on Han's face - a result of my rush to eat the hot dog and get out of the cafeteria as soon as possible. Nobody cares that the Texas humidity has made my hair frizzy and unruly, like a wookie. Best of all, nobody recognizes me from the internet. 

I make a mental note to come here more often, because this looks like a nice place to hideout. But then I remember that I'm supposed to meet the author of the note. Whoever told me to meet them here goes to my school. So maybe Coffee Fix isn't a safe place after all. Instantly, I feel my body tense up. I am on guard.

"What'll it be?" the barista asks.  

The barista looks like she's about two years older than me. Her hair is short, almost like a buzzcut, and it's bleached white with dots of black, like a leopard. She wears a t-shirt for a punk band I've never heard of and a pair of baggy trousers held up by red suspenders. 

"Um..." I say, looking at the menu.

Back home, I'd order a coffee with extra room for cream and sugar, but that choice seems unworthy of a barista who as cool as the one standing in front of me. Also, I can't quite seem to find the word coffee at the moment. Which is just as well, because I know that my voice would probably betray me with a terrible squeak. This is what happens whenever an attractive girl talks to me, which to be honest, hasn't happened a lot in my life. And to be brutally honest, it hasn't happened at all since "the incident."

"Two cappuccinos, Audrey."

I turn around to see a boy from my grade. His name is a Elroy Nash. We have history and English together, but Elroy is one of those math and science geniuses who took courses with the seniors when he was a freshman, and now takes math and science at a nearby university. 

"Put them on my tab," Elroy says.

"You have a tab?" I ask.

Elroy nods with a friendly smile. Then he points me toward a table in the back, near an old poster for a French movie I've never heard of called Breathless.

"Jean-Luc Godard," Elroy says in reference to the poster. "His recent work is hardly worth discussing, but his early films are a revelation. In fact, he basically invented the jump cut."

"The jump cut?" I ask.

"An abrupt transition from one scene to another," Elroy says. "When Godard did it, the jump cut was jarring. Critics either loved it, or hated it. But anyone who's ever watched an internet video knows that the jump cut is pretty much a staple today."

I cringe at the mention of internet videos. I haven't checked YouTube since I deleted my account.

"Of course, that's probably because today's YouTubers are amateurs," Elroy continues. "It takes a real auteur to break the rules and invent the jump cut, but once someone breaks the rules, any idiot with a camera can imitate them."

My head spins. I knew Elroy was one of the smartest kids in school, but I figured he mostly knew about math and science. I wasn't expecting a talk on French cinema. Then again, I wasn't expecting Elroy at all, and as I shift in my chair, I wonder why he cares about my tiny dick?

"Of course, you didn't come here to talk about Jean-Luc Godard and his trademark jump cut, did you?"

"No," I say. "I came here because of your note. What you wrote about my dick."

For some reason, Audrey picks that exact moment to bring us our cappuccinos. 

"Is his dick something to write home about?" Audrey asks Elroy.

My face turns bright red. Knowing that everyone at school has seen my dick is humiliating. But hearing Audrey talk about my dick makes my stomach churn and my palms sweat. The thing is, I think she's cute. Really cute. But somehow talking about my junk doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would endear me to Audrey. In fact, her dropping into the conversation at this exact moment seems like a disaster. Because what if Elroy tells her that I'm the guy with the smallest dick in school? I doubt Audrey wants to date me anyway, but I was hoping that Coffee Fix might be a place to take refuge, and that it would take Audrey at least a week or two to figure out that I'm a total disaster when it comes to the love department. 

"His dick is a goldmine," Elroy says.

I'm not sure what Elroy is getting at, and from the look on her face Audrey doesn't get it either. But she shoots me a coy smile, and then she winks. Let me repeat that. Aubrey winks. At me! I feel my heart flutter for a second, and then she disappears back behind the counter, out of earshot.

"That was smooth," I say.

"That was the truth," Elroy says. "Your dick is a goldmine. Potentially."

As we sip our cappuccinos, Elroy fills me in on his plan. He's not sure how to make my dick bigger, but he assures me he as some ideas. He also assures me that there could be a lot of money in coming up with a cure for small penises. That's why he's so interested in my penis. Like pretty much all the kids who excel at science, technology, engineering, and math, Elroy's dream is to found his own start-up, just like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. 

"Billions," Elroy says. 

"Billions?"

"I did some market research," he says. "There are a lot of products out there on the market, but they're all snake oil."

"Snake oil?"

"Yeah, it means they're basically scams. There are pills, creams, all kinds of stuff. But none of it really works. None of it is scientific."

"And you want to use my dick as a... what? As a guinea pig?"

Elroy nods.

"To make snake oil?" I ask.

For some reason, my mind flashes to my penis. It's short and stubby, like a baby carrot. But what if it were a snake? Wow. Suddenly, I'm daydreaming of a huge penis, one that dangles between my legs like a python. One that would've shocked the entire school in the best possible way. One that would've catapulted me to internet-stardom instead of internet-infamy. I'd be the guy with the python-dong. Everyone would call me Snake. Guys would hi-five me in the hallway. Girls wouldn't snicker, they'd stare. Maybe I don't want an average penis, after all, maybe I want to be huge. Because if you're going to mess with nature, you might as well go big, or go home, right?

"Not snake oil," Elroy says. "Something that works. I want to invent a product that cures small dick syndrome. There's a lot of money in male insecurity, Peter. It's a growth industry."

"I'm in!" I say.

"Don't you want to hear about the risks first?"

"No. I'm in. When do we start?"

I extend my hand, and we shake.

"Cool," Elroy says. "I'm glad you're in, Peter. But I do need to warn you. There's a small chance you could break your penis."

What do you think Elroy has in mind? Should Peter trust him with his peter? 🍆

Also, do you think Peter has a chance with Audrey, or was that wink just a passing thing? 😘

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