Turn 100 of 228

Set up the live stream and welcome Marcus to the office. The stream holds the entire time and is a wild success!

Marcus steps out of the elevator and the hallway catches him — 360 pounds of bare, unwashed skin, the beard thick and dark, the belly leading the way, the arms loaded with bags and a case of beer and a plastic container that smells like the dispensary. His toenails click on the tile. His yellow fingernails grip the bags. He grins when he sees Lena in the doorway and the grin is wide and yellow and real.

"This is the office?"

"This is the office," Lena says. She steps aside and Marcus walks in and the office welcomes him the way the apartment welcomes everything — without resistance. He stops in the middle of the room and looks at the carpet and the wrappers and the bottles and the corner behind the filing cabinet and the stains on the wall and the desk and the chair and the window with the gold afternoon light. His eyes move slow. The belly is still. Then he laughs — the deep, slow laugh, the one that shakes the belly and the beard and the bags rustle in his arms.

"This is better than the apartment."

He sets the bags on the desk — the only surface not covered — and the beer goes on the floor and the whiskey goes beside the backup bottle and the pre-rolls go in the drawer and the gummies go on top of the desk and the food comes out: two large bags of takeout, a box of donuts, a bag of chips, two bags of jerky, a container of pasta, a box of fried chicken. The smell joins the office smell and the office smell absorbs it and the room is thicker and warmer.

Lena picks up the phone. The OnlyFans app is open. The live stream setup is simple — the phone propped against the whiskey bottle on the desk, angled wide enough to catch the carpet and the corner and the desk and the window. She hits "Go Live" and the red dot appears and the counter starts at zero and climbs — 3, 7, 12, 19 — and keeps climbing. She doesn't announce it. She doesn't wave. She stands in the frame and the body is in the frame and the office is in the frame and Marcus is in the frame and the takeout is in the frame and the carpet is in the frame and the stream is live.

The viewer count hits 50 in the first minute. Then 80. Then 120. The chat starts — a slow trickle and then a river: "the office is destroyed," "who is the guy," "440 and 360 in the same room," "the carpet," "THE CARPET," "more." The subscriber count is 879 and the live stream is pulling new ones in — 884, 891, 897 — and the tips start: $5, $10, $20, the messages stacking faster than she can read them. Marcus drops onto the carpet beside Diane and the floor shakes and the phone shakes and the stream doesn't shake and the red dot holds and the WiFi holds and the building is empty and the weekend is here.

The food opens. The chicken first — Marcus pulling pieces apart with his yellow nails, the grease running down his wrist, the beard catching crumbs. Diane on the floor with the pasta container on her belly, eating with a fork she brought in her bag, the beard moving with each bite. Lena in the chair with the donut box on her belly, eating one-handed, the other hand holding the pre-roll, the smoke curling up past the screen. The chat is losing its mind. The viewer count is 240. The subscriber count crosses 900 and keeps going — 912, 927, 941. The tips stack: $25 with "the three of you are the best thing on the internet," $10 with "Marcus's beard has crumbs in it and I'm losing my mind," $50 with no message just the number.

The afternoon becomes evening becomes night and the stream holds. The WiFi holds. The red dot holds. The bodies hold. Marcus and Diane and Lena eat and drink and smoke and the chat watches and the numbers climb — 980 subscribers by eight, 1,003 by nine, the first thousand crossing without celebration because the bodies don't stop to celebrate, the bodies keep eating and smoking and being and the stream keeps streaming and the night keeps going. Carl's text arrives at seven: "On my way. Bringing a rotisserie chicken and a case of beer. What floor." Marcus yells the floor number at the phone and the chat loves it and someone tips $15 with "yell the floor number again." The building is empty and the building is theirs and the weekend is theirs and the stream is theirs and the numbers are theirs and the wish hums and the hum is everything and the red dot holds.