“How about it boy? You wanna have some fun with a daddy tonight?”

The look on the young man’s face said enough that Nick didn’t even hear his cold letdown, just watched the young man walk off and disappear into the throng of the dance floor, and he didn’t even have the energy to scowl. He reached into the pocket of his cutoff jeans and found the small vial he’d purchased months ago, but which he hadn’t had the courage to use yet. A love potion. It probably wouldn’t even work, but it had sounded, from the shopkeeper’s description, that if you used it, there wasn’t any going back for either party.

Still, what was the point of having something like that and not using it? Then again, what right did he have to use it on someone? He had the same angry conversation in his mind every night at the club, and every night he went home alone, and every night he jacked off in his silent apartment, and every day after he’d swear he was going to use it, just get it over with, and he still hadn’t. Fuck, he needed to piss.

He headed back into the bar’s small bathroom–just a single toilet and sink–and took a piss. He pulled out the vial again and looked at the hazy pink in the dull light of the bathroom. Give it to another to drink, and both of you will love the other for the rest of your lives. He was lonely, but was it really worth it? Knowing it was all premised on deceit? Even if it was worth it, he obviously was too much of a chicken shit to use it. Before he could think about it too much, he poured the potion down the toilet and flushed it down with his piss.

The bathroom was occupied for the rest of the night–Nick barricaded himself in with the toilet, and refused to let anyone else use it. The bartender had to break the lock, and even then he had to call the police to pry Nick away from the toilet, kicking and screaming, trying to explain that he loved it, that he needed to be with it, and drag him off to the drunk tank for the night. A somewhat more sober, but very agitated, Nick returned the next day, and after buying the club a brand new toilet, he hauled their old filthy one away back to his apartment, where he stayed for days on the bathroom floor, talking to it, cleaning it with his tongue, feeding it lovingly, finally happy. No longer lonely with his new lover, a love that would never leave him, a love he would keep until he died.