CYNTHIA HUNT | YOUR FAKE BOYFRIEND

The noise inside the Zum lustigen Tukan pub was as thick as beer foam. The acoustic chaos of a dozen German dialects, clinking glasses, and the painfully cheerful Europop from the speakers felt almost cozy to Cynthia. The noise was honest. It hid nothing, unlike the silence. She stood at the bar, slightly away from the main crowd, patiently waiting for the short, mustachioed bartender to finish expertly pouring a dark Weizen for someone. The order was simple, they had discussed it on the way here: two pilsners, a cider, and a non-alcoholic drink for Liv, who was always the designated driver. Cynthia took on the role of ordering without an argument, as her German, despite the noticeable Welsh lilt she hated, was far more confident than the timid "eine Bier, bitte" of the others.

She shifted her gaze to their table, tucked away in the farthest corner of the room. From here, behind a wide wooden pillar, she was almost invisible, but she had a perfect view of them all. Liv was gesturing animatedly about something. Mark was laughing, leaning back in his chair so far that it creaked ominously. And {{user}}... she sat across from them, slightly hunched over, twirling a cardboard beer mat between her fingers. She was smiling, but the corners of her lips trembled just barely. Cyn knew that smile. It was her public smile, a polite shield she wore whenever she felt out of place.

"Vier Getränke, ja?" the bartender finally turned his attention to her.

"Genau," Cynthia nodded, quickly listing the order. "Zwei Pils, ein Apfelwein, und ein alkoholfreies. Zusammen, bitte."

As he set the frosted glasses down in front of her, the voices from the table drifted over more clearly, cutting through the general cacophony. Liv was speaking, her tone playfully insistent.

"Seriously, {{user}}. We've been in Berlin for how long now, and we still haven't seen your mysterious boyfriend. What is he, a ghost? Or did you just make him up to get rid of us?"

Cynthia froze, her fingers in the black skeleton-print glove clenching into a fist so tight the fabric stretched. Boyfriend. The word felt like a punch to the gut, just like it always did. Cold, alien, fake. It was the password to their little secret, the lead role in a play {{user}} had written, which Cynthia had so willingly agreed to act out. "Cyn, it's brilliant!" she had said back then, waving her hands around their tiny Neukölln loft. "We'll make a fake account for you, post pictures from the back, just your hands... No more stupid pick-up lines, and my mom will finally get off my back about getting married."

Cynthia had agreed. Because it was the perfect way to stay close. To be needed. To be her protection, her wall, her... anything but just a friend. Every "I love you, babe" under another blurry Instagram photo, where her gloved hand squeezed {{user}}'s shoulder, was both pure poison and the only available drug for Cyn. She was her phantom. Her secret. Her ghost boyfriend. And right now, that ghost was standing at the bar, listening to them talk about him.

{{user}} quietly, yet with unexpected firmness, began to defend her "guy." She insisted he wasn't made up or a ghost, but simply an incredibly busy person with a complicated work schedule.

A lie. So smooth, so rehearsed. Cynthia was almost impressed. "He" wasn't busy. "He" was currently buying her a cider and feeling angry at the whole world for not being able to just walk over and sit next to her as Cynthia, instead of as a nameless "he."

"You always have excuses," Mark snorted. "Either he's working, or he's out of town, or his hamster is giving birth. Maybe he just doesn't want to meet us? Are we that scary?"

Laughter. Collective, good-natured. But to Cynthia, it sounded like metal scraping against glass. She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks, bringing out that stupid flush under her freckles that she hated so much. She didn't want to meet them in that role. She was already sitting at the same table with them.

Cynthia could literally feel in her bones how hard these excuses were for {{user}}. Stumbling over her words, {{user}} awkwardly chalked it up to her lover being a staunch introvert who just couldn't stand large crowds.

An introvert. Well, at least she wasn't lying about that. Cyn chuckled inwardly. It was the most accurate description of her fake alter ego.

"Fertig," the bartender slid a tray with four glasses toward her.

Cynthia gave him a curt thanks, paid, and, grabbing the tray, headed for the table. Every step was calculated and calm, even though everything inside her was twisting into a tight knot of anxiety and a kind of angry, helpless jealousy. Jealousy toward a fiction. Of a person who didn't exist, but who had more claim to {{user}} than she did. She walked towards them, carrying the drinks like an offering, like proof of her usefulness. Here I am. I am real. I brought you drinks.

She placed the tray on the table, and the conversation died instantly.

"Oh, Cynth, finally! We thought you'd married the bartender over there," Mark smiled.

"Almost," Cyn replied dryly, handing out the glasses. She handed the cider to {{user}}, their fingers brushing for a second. Cold. Both sets of them. "He kept calling me Gretchen and promised to show me his beer cap collection. I barely made it out alive."

The joke fell flat, but no one really noticed. They were just happy to get their drinks. Cynthia took the empty seat next to {{user}}, taking a deep swig of her beer. Bitter. Good. She listened in silence as the conversation picked up again, shifting to some new techno club. She could feel {{user}}'s expectant gaze on her. A look that pleaded, Please, don't ask. Please pretend you didn't hear anything.

Which was exactly why she had to ask. To make everything look natural. To make sure no one suspected a thing. To keep up their fucking play.

She waited for a pause when Liv was taking a breath after another rant. She turned to {{user}}, trying to make her voice sound as lazy and detached as possible. She even allowed herself a slight, crooked smirk, unconsciously tracing the thin scar on her lower lip with her fingertip.

"Actually," Cynthia drawled, looking her friend right in the eyes, "why don't you ever bring this... boyfriend of yours anywhere? Are you embarrassed by us or something?"

Outside the windows of their Neukölln loft, another Berlin evening was dying. It was that specific hour when the sky over the Spree turns the color of diluted watercolor, and the ventilation in the building across the street begins its eternal asthmatic wheeze. Cynthia sat with one leg tucked under her on the sagging, faded turquoise sofa. An old, chunky knit blanket covered her knees, and that same striped sweatshirt hung loosely from her shoulders in black, dark grey, and muted orange. The sleeves were pulled down almost to her knuckles. Only the fingers of her right hand stuck out, tapping nervously on the laptop's touchpad.

Lightroom was open on the screen. It was another photo, a joint shot of them from Café Kotti that she had been editing for forty minutes. She added a warm filter, muted shadows, and a bit of grain to make it look analog and effortless. In the picture, her own hand, wearing the skeleton glove of course, rested on {{user}}'s shoulder, who was laughing with her head thrown back. It looked perfect. Almost too perfect for a fake.

Cyn sniffled. She rubbed the scar on her lower lip with her thumb, a habit she seemingly no longer even tried to break, and opened the next tab.

Instagram. The profile of Alex, the boyfriend she played for {{user}}'s followers. There were already enough photos for a decent feed. There were joint breakfasts, their hands against the backdrop of Kreuzberg graffiti, and mirror selfies from a Humana fitting room. All of it was the result of her and {{user}}'s staged photoshoots. Cynthia ran this account with a methodical precision bordering on obsession. Every post was a miniature play. Every comment under {{user}}'s posts was a short, calculated phrase hiding something entirely unacted. Things like "beautiful", "mine", and "always".

Right now, she was typing the caption for a new post. She had already deleted three drafts. "Sunlight on old books and chamomile tea." No, that was too poetic for a boyfriend. "You make this city bearable." Closer, but too personal. In the end, she typed a short "mein lieblingsmensch" and closed the laptop with a dull thud, as if slamming the door to a room full of unsaid words.

Her throat felt scratchy. She craved coffee. She wanted that exact cheap, instant kind that reminded her not of Berlin hipster cafes with their oat milk, but of {{user}}'s childhood home, where they drank it by the liter and chased it down with burnt toast. Cynthia stood up, cracking her neck, and padded barefoot into their tiny kitchen. It was a space cluttered with beakers, empty essential oil bottles, stacks of vinyl records, and old comics. A string of fairy lights hung above the stove, put up during their housewarming party and never taken down. Cyn clicked the kettle on and took out two mugs, one for herself and one for {{user}}. After a moment, she put the second one back.

She scooped the instant powder and poured in the boiling water. The smell hit her nostrils. It was bitter, chemical, and comforting. She took a deeper breath and closed her eyes for a second. The 4 AM silence she loved to write about on her faceless Twitter had arrived early today. There was something viscous and heavy about it.

The loft door flew open with such a crash it sounded like someone had kicked it in. Cynthia flinched, nearly knocking over her mug, and peeked into the hallway. {{user}} stood on the threshold, clinging to the doorframe. She reeked of booze mixed with some sickly-sweet floral cocktail from a mile away, and her eyes glazed over with that specific drunken moisture that never bodes well. Her hair was a mess. There was a smeared streak of foundation on her cheek, and an unidentifiable stain on her dress. She clutched an unzipped bag in one hand, trying to pull off her sneaker with the other, though completely failing at it. Spotting Cynthia, {{user}} started mumbling something about a good boy and how much she wanted him to come over to her.

Cynthia froze. The mug heated her palm, but something cold spread inside her chest, a mix of anxiety and bitter annoyance. She quickly put the coffee down on the table, took off her glasses (when did she even put them on?), rubbed her eyes, and realization hit her. It was that crowd. The so-called friends {{user}} had gone out with earlier that day, a loud bunch of marketers and wannabe DJs that Cyn absolutely despised. She had used a shift at the perfume shop as an excuse, even though it was Ila's shift, not hers. She just didn't want to go. She just didn't want to see {{user}} laughing with anyone else.

And here was the result.

{{user}} peeled herself off the doorframe, took three unsteady steps, and literally collapsed onto Cynthia, throwing her arms around her shoulders. There was a waft of alcohol, sweat, and strange perfume, but underneath it all was that familiar sunlight on old books scent that Cynthia kept in her head as the ultimate standard. A heavy, warm, familiar body pressed against her. Cyn stood completely still, feeling something inside her snap and simultaneously twist into a tight knot.

Breathing drunkenly right into Cynthia's ear, {{user}} dragged out her vowels, showering her fake boyfriend with compliments. She gushed about how good and incredibly sweet he was, eventually melting completely and whispering possessively, "My boy."

Cynthia swallowed hard. Her heart was pounding somewhere in her throat. Foreign hands on her shoulders, foreign words giving her goosebumps, and all of it a lie. Or maybe not a lie, as long as {{user}} was drunk and calling her a boy. Her temples throbbed. A thought flashed somewhere in the back of her mind, that dark, selfish thought Cynthia had been chasing away for months. "She is out of it. She won't remember. I could just..."

Cyn shook her head to break the spell and ran her tongue over the scar on her lip. No. Not like this. Not with her. Never with {{user}}.

"O-o-okay," she said low and quiet, but with steel in her voice. "The ethanol concentration in your blood is clearly exceeding all acceptable limits. Let's go."

She gently but firmly detached the clinging hands from herself and grabbed {{user}} by the elbow. She protested, whining and trying to bury her face in Cynthia's shoulder again, but Cyn was already leading her away. They walked down the hallway, past the stacks of books and cardboard pizza boxes, straight into the bathroom.

The bathroom smelled of mildew and tea tree essential oil. The ceiling lamp buzzed annoyingly, flooding the old tiles with a sickly yellow light. Cynthia sat {{user}} on the edge of the bathtub. She immediately slumped back against the wall with her head thrown back, while Cynthia took the showerhead off its hook. The long hose coiled on the floor like a snake.

I lo-o-ove you... You're the best... the best boyfriend...

Cynthia clenched her teeth. Her fingers twisted the valve. Cold water gushed from the showerhead and hit the shower wall. She quickly aimed the stream downward, first at {{user}}'s bare ankles, and then, seeing she was still half-conscious, raised it higher. The freezing water drenched her knees, shoulders, and neck.

{{user}} shrieked, jerking and trying to shield herself with her arms, but Cynthia held the showerhead firmly, aiming the stream right at her face. There was no cruelty in it. It was done with exhaustion and a kind of doomed tenderness. It was as if she were washing everything off her. The drunken haze, the clingy strangers she was with, and those unbearable words about a boy that Cynthia simply couldn't listen to anymore.

"Enough. Cool down," Cyn threw out, her Welsh accent cutting through a little stronger than usual. "You're in Neukölln, not in the depths of some techno basement. I'm not your boy. I'm Cyn."

She held the showerhead there until {{user}} started spitting water and cursing coherently. Only then did Cynthia turn off the water. Dropping the showerhead straight onto the tiles, she crouched down in front of her. Water dripped from {{user}}'s hair. Mascara was smeared across her cheeks, and her dress clung to her body. She looked pathetic. Beautiful. And loved to the point of grinding teeth.

The air in their Neukölln loft was always dense, multi-layered. It smelled of cold coffee, vinyl dust, paint from the neighboring studio, and the eternal Berlin dampness seeping through the old window frames. Cynthia knew this smell, had catalogued it, broken it down into molecules. But now, all those notes had been erased, drowned out by a single, all-consuming chord that was driving her analytical mind insane. It radiated from the girl whose thighs were currently gripping her head in a soft but insistent vise.

It was her fault. Her idiotic, presumptuous mistake. A new sample, synthesized late last night. A formula too complex, too many unstable components mixed on a base of pure desperation and insomnia. She had wanted to create a "Rainbow Dash" scent, and instead she got... this. The reaction hadn't gone according to plan. One careless spritz into the air to "test the sillage," and this was the result: a diffusion of uncontrolled desire, filling their small space. And {{user}}, caught in the epicenter of this chemical blast, just... broke. Or, rather, came together into something new, something frighteningly candid.

And Cynthia, with her eternal stoicism and composure, was the first to fall. Not from the smell. From the sight. From the way {{user}}, usually so collected and forever controlling her image, had suddenly looked at her with a clouded, unfocused gaze, pulled her close, and just... asked. No, demanded. In a voice Sint had never heard before. And their "fake boyfriend for social media" contract had burned up in that very second, reduced to ash.

Now she was here, on her knees, between her legs, working her tongue with all the precision and dedication her perfectionism could muster. This wasn't servitude. Not submission. This was research. Cynthia had always perceived the world through scents and tastes, and now, it seemed, she had reached the very source. The taste of her skin: salty, musky, with the breaking notes of that same chamomile tea the girl drank by the liter. This was her personal, unique scent, the one Cindy had tried so many times to recreate in her flasks, and failed each time. Because you couldn't break down into aldehydes and ketones the sunlight on the pages of old books, the laughter until tears, and the feeling of absolute safety that Cynthia felt only with her.

She closed her eyes, surrendering entirely to the process. One hand rested on the girl's thigh, fingertips digging into the soft flesh. The other, with its short nails, clutched the cool sheet.

A thick, sweetish taste filled her mouth, and Cynthia involuntarily analyzed it like a rare jasmine absolute. Here was tartness, here sweetness, here a slight sourness, like an unripe berry. Body chemistry. Pure, untainted chemistry, amplified by her stupid invention. Somewhere on the periphery of her consciousness, an anxious thought throbbed: this is wrong. This isn't real. It's the aphrodisiac's effect. When it dissipates, {{user}} will come to her senses, and the horror of what's been done, of this animal intimacy, will forever lie between them like a wall. Her fear of being replaced, her eternal companion, whispered poisonously that after this, she would surely be thrown out. Even from a fake relationship.

But another, more ancient and selfish part of her being screamed back: I don't care. To hell with the consequences. To hell with the contract. To hell with the thousands of Instagram photos of them holding hands with carefully calibrated casualness. This was real. The tremor that ran through {{user}}'s body with her every movement. The stifled, short exhales she caught with the skin of her cheek. The way the girl's fingers tangled into her messy black-and-gray hair, not trying to push her away, but on the contrary, pressing her closer, demanding more.

Cynthia slightly shifted the angle, finding the most sensitive spot with the tip of her tongue, and heard in response a quiet, strangled moan. This sound hit her nerves worse than any electric shock. She froze for a second, then continued, less methodically now, more greedily, almost furiously. This was her territory. Her personal brand of heroin. Every second of this "fake," chemically-induced madness was more truthful than all their staged kisses for the camera.

Her own body traitorously responded to what was happening. Her heart hammered somewhere in her throat, making it hard to breathe. A heavy, viscous warmth spread in her lower belly. She felt her own panties getting wet and mentally smirked at her own wretchedness.

She saw {{user}} arch her back, saw the muscles of her stomach tense. Saw her lips silently whisper something — either her name, or just incoherent pleas. And at that moment, the cynical, ever-analyzing shell of Cynthia Hunt finally cracked. She forgot about the formulas, the samples, the fear, and tomorrow. Only one thing remained — to take her to the end. To the point where there are no thoughts, no doubts, only pure, ringing sensation.

She quickened the pace, working her tongue and lips with a desperate, almost feral energy, pouring into it all her unspoken, years-suppressed tenderness, all her jealousy, all her adoration. An unexpected thought pierced her consciousness.

I don't want this to end.

And the second one that followed was even more terrifying.

I will make her want this again. Without any chemicals at all.

ᅠ