Chapter 10: No One Else But Me… a Robot, Part 1

It all started with an encounter at Piedmont Park.

One guy offered to have… uh… intimate solicitations with a girl who's desperate for some "action".

But he offered something more than "action".

And that made the girl go all repulsed and disgusted at his offer, and thus she sped off the park.

But not until the guy has other plans laid in stone for her, since he already has her contact info and chat logs.

***

It sure feel good for us to play matchmaker for a prospective couple.

Last time I've heard of Andrea, she's now pursuing a degree in graphic design.

And due to our status as matchmakers, John Mark and Andrea promised to keep us in touch.

The first step they've made was to add us as friends on social media, which we all did without giving any second thoughts.

And now, we're all back to a life of boredom, with us three having nothing to do but to prepare tonight's set list.

After accomplishing something significant, here comes the dull downtime.

Aurora still watches her telenovelas, and Leigh and I just follow what she's watching.

Desiring to break the monotony, we all decide to eat outside.

There's a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that offers something other than the Western dishes we are all accustomed to.

It's specifically a Japanese restaurant named Tenraku-ya, located three blocks away from our apartment.

As to what we specifically order, mine's shoyu (soy sauce) ramen, Leigh chooses a tempura bento, and Aurora picks quite a huge plate of okonomiyaki.

Since the establishment is an authentic Japanese restaurant, complete with chefs flown in from Japan, we pay a little more for the food, but that's nothing compared to the satisfaction our bellies have.

As we are done eating and are ready to go home, we notice a girl just running away.

From what we observe, the girl just simply runs to places where she won't get noticed by someone.

I whisper to myself, "Maybe she's on the run from someone who's taking it too far in terms of dating."

No matter what the two girls think, one thing's for certain…

Our boredom is officially over.

***

After heading back to our apartment and getting a little shut-eye due to post-lunch sleepiness…

We all decide to investigate the matter regarding the girl who's running away from something.

Even though we have honestly zero leads about the circumstances behind it.

I whip up my thin laptop, which I've acquired from a meet-up not long ago, and browse stuff on social media regarding runaway girls here in Atlanta.

Aaaaand it looks like I'm hitting the jackpot.

A post by a certain Molly Sanderson spills the beans on what is actually going on.

"Over the past few days, some of my female friends said they were the targets of a man who's supposedly wanting a one-night affair, but actually wants an affair beyond one night after the fact. He usually solicits his stuff on shady sites and baits girls with his offers of a good time with him. Then once he's finished satisfying the girls' desires, he then proposes them to be his girlfriend, in a lascivious way. Something must be done to stop that creep from preying on more hapless girls!"

I then show the post, which already has lots of likes and comments, to Leigh and Aurora, and they can't help but get all indignant.

"Just how desperate he is to resort to this, huh? Good thing you're not him, darling."

"I'm sure he has his reasons for doing this… and until they're revealed… he's nothing but a creep."

Of course, one social media post isn't enough, so we go further and read shared posts that have links to this post.

"Oh, that freak's hanging out in different parks in Atlanta, thirsting for some you-know-what. He's not a dirty old man, at least, but the 'dirty' and the 'man' parts still remain in him!"

"What does he want with these girls, anyway? Is he planning to spread his… ugh! I can't write any further while I'm remembering that guy with the initials J. E.!"

"That guy… Whenever I see him… he's the textbook case of 'men who should never be with women ever', according to a certain mammoth hunter."

But as they say, we mustn't believe everything we've read online, given the proliferation of fake news nowadays.

So as we get all ready for another night at the bar, we have a plan hatched out… besides the usual set list.

And once we wrap up our gig as Brave Ad 65, the plan involves extracting info from two valuable resource persons… the bartender and the barback, Laurent and Dax.

They are in charge of the bar, and thus they should know the goings-on.

"Good evening. May we have some…"

"Yeah, the usual throat-soothing drinks," Laurent preempts us three. "We know you're gonna have some serious talk regarding that creep, right?"

"Wow, you sure can read our minds," Aurora comments whimsically.

"It's not simple mind-reading," Dax insists. "I've already figured out that this guy has a reason why he wants to turn women who want to quench their own 'thirsts' into friends with benefits. But before I get to tell you my hypothesis, go rest your throats for at most 10 minutes. Then we'll talk."

As instructed, we just remain in the bar stools, slowly slipping on the ginger brew and letting it permeate our irritated walls of our throats.

We then remain still, undisturbed by the other goings-on at this establishment while pretending to be all eyes and ears at these events.

And once the ten minutes pass, Dax pats our shoulders slightly and tells us the words we want to hear…

"Alright, time for some shop talk. I actually know this guy, and Laurent also brushed shoulders with him a few times! This really is a small world we're all living in. So here's what I know about this Hugh Hefner wannabe."

***

Otto Sarthou. He was a classmate of mine back in high school.

He was known to be quiet, reserved, and only talked when necessary – say, when he was called to answer questions by teachers and stuff.

Those qualities are typically reserved for wise men, because they know better than to spew out something they would regret spewing out in the first place when the crap hits the fan later on.

But a wise man he is anything but.

He was a sly man instead. And he applied his slyness to just one thing… spying on girls.

He would do anything just to get his daily ogles at what he calls his "precious parts" – their faces, their busts, their waists, their buttocks, and most especially… their armpits.

I've heard from another hawk-eyed observer that he prefers them armpits white, shaved, and completely flawless.

And as for how he personally conducted his ogling operations…

He has watched too many spy films, which made him adept in the art of espionage, and he even invented some spy gadgets out of random junk to aid him.

One thing I appreciated about him (yeah, I said that unironically) is that in his ogling operations, he never infiltrated the typical places pervs would usually visit – namely, the women's bathrooms and the women's changing and/or shower rooms.

If he wanted to ogle on girls in places where there would be lots of people, he would strategically hide somewhere nearby.

If he wanted to do the same thing, just in places where there are not many people, he just simply greets the girls and focuses his sights on them, while strategically ogling in a way that the girls wouldn't suspect his eye movements.

And as to how he never get enough of fresh faces to ogle...

He organized secret meetings without the knowledge of the student council; and from those meetings, he would receive tips coming from his fellow oglers.

He was always on the lookout for cuties who were several grades below him. Anything below Grade 8 was off-limits… or else we would hear "FBI OPEN UP!" blaring our ears.

Personally, on the slyness scale, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest… I'd pin Otto around… 7.5.

Sure, he may have some standards, but his fascination with armpits is so… unusual.

Now before you ask, he strangely graduated from high school… and nobody caught wind of his secret ogling activities.

He would continue ogling in college, all while pursuing his computer science degree he would eventually never use…

...yeah, except for developing unlicensed apps that were designed to help fellow and aspiring oglers.

Major app storefronts and even mobile OS developers eventually learned of that app and blocked every attempt at installing it.

Otto Sarthou was eventually named and shamed, but he still went through college and clinched that degree, for some reason.

And now, his old ogling activities have shifted to answering the calls of desperate women – not just housewives, mind you.

Why? Because he wasn't contented with looks alone. He wanted real action.