Chapter 3
“Oh, harder! Oh yes, right there. Oh, fuck me, Sunbern! Yes, YES, give me that Abercrombie cock!”
Isaac Sun-Bernard, better known as Sunbern, dutifully pounded into Debra, a married mother of three currently on all fours
in her home gym. Sunbern gritted his teeth, thinking about Shannon instead. Memories of Shannon were how he got through his
days.
Please don’t flip over, Sunbern thought as Debra flipped over. She was more attractive than he was used to, in that Santa
Monica yoga bitch sort of way. Her tits were big and fake, which was fine, but they pummeled at him unless he fully planked
above her, and that was quickly growing tiring.
“I like your tattoos,” Debra cooed as her fingers stroked his ink-lettered chest. Sunbern noted that there must be double-digit
carats of diamonds on her bejeweled right hand alone. “They look new. Did you just get them?” Her breath smelled like spicy
margaritas.
Don’t talk, Sunbern thought. Instead of replying, he just grinned at her with his blinding white teeth—ill-fitting veneers that hurt whenever he ate, but otherwise a good investment for a secret introvert who did not like to answer questions.
Debra’s eyes glowed back at him, captivated.
Whenever Sunbern flashed his winning smile, no one cared if he talked or not.
Debra grabbed his muscular arms, starting to pant. “I know you probably get told this all the time but . . .” Sunbern thrusted
extra hard to shut her up and she cried out, but then kept talking. “In high school, I had your poster in my locker and on
my bedroom wall.”
Shut up, shut up.
Debra giggled, scandalized by herself. “And I totally used to masturbate to you.”
Shannon in his old T-shirt playing video games. Shannon in the morning watering the plants. Shannon poking her head out of
the shower curtain to pull him in to join.
He felt himself starting to arrive. Debra in turn dug her manicured fingernails into his arms and began to moan. The two of
them came at the same time, but not together; his eyes were closed and far away.
Shannon throwing the ring back into his face. Shannon emptying their shared bank account. Shannon moving out without saying
goodbye.
“You wanna slide out of me now?” he finally heard Debra ask.
Debra led Sunbern through the grand foyer to the front entrance, unplugging the door camera before handing him an envelope
that had been sealed with a Cocomelon sticker.
Sunbern did not trust pockets. “You don’t have Venmo?”
Debra shook her head as she opened the door. “Of course I do, but Lola insisted that I pay cash. I even went to an ATM.”
Sunbern’s fist tightened around the envelope, crumpling it. Goddammit, Lola. Always changing the script. He just nodded and
turned to go. He was done for the day and ready for an edible and some Elden Ring at home.
“Do you take constructive feedback?”
Sunbern turned around swiftly. “Scuse me?”
Debra was looking him up and down. “Listen, I didn’t mind it, but I think Lola should disclose your tattoos to potential clients.
I mean, I think they’re hot, but I think that people are going to expect to get the classic Sunbern when they order you. You
were the ultimate all-American boy next door. Don’t get me wrong, you still look great and all, but you’re a completely different
vibe now.” She made a face. “Besides, who is Shannon?”
Sunbern was done. “Listen, Debra. I don’t know why you’re so thirsty that you paid a thousand bucks to get fucked by your
teenage spank bank, but I don’t ask. Do you know why?” He took a vape pen out of his pocket and took a drag.
Debra scowled at him. “No, why?”
He coughed out a cloud. “Cuz it’s none of my business.”
“My name is Denise, not Debra,” she snapped.
He shrugged. “My name’s Isaac, not Sunbern.”
Denise Not Debra slammed the door in his face.
As his old Camaro convertible inched its way through Monday-afternoon traffic, Sunbern suddenly felt a sharp pain . . . down
there. He pulled over at a busy gas station somewhere in West Hollywood and unzipped his pants, pulling out his penis to inspect
it.
What the hell? There were streaks of angry red running alongside the shaft, as though he had been dragged lengthwise over
a carpet. What was this, some sort of new STI?
Sunbern then thought of the many rings on Denise’s eager talons, the multitude of inlaid diamonds twinkling at him as she
had stroked him. He groaned as he gingerly handled his maimed manhood. He had been flayed alive by tacky second-wife bling!
“Yo, there’s a line here, can you whack off somewhere else!?” A muscle queen in a rippling tank top had gotten out of his Prius and was now leaning over Sunbern. Sunbern quickly tucked himself away and started his engine, trying to avoid eye contact. But it was too late.
The muscle queen cocked an eyebrow. “Hey, aren’t you . . .?”
Sunbern sped out of the gas station.
Every family has a handsomest male who is shoved to the middle of group photos whether he likes it or not. In the Sun Clan,
this was Isaac Sun-Bernard. Even as a toddler, he had always been singled out by clucking aunties, with his honeyed hazel
eyes and a mop of cowlicked dirty blonde hair that he had inherited from his French father. The first of the two boys in their
generation and younger only than his cousin April, he had been painfully shy as a kid, as though he’d always felt undeserving
of the attention.
Then he hit puberty and started liking girls, and he realized that his good looks were transactional with this new hobby of
his. He quickly got over his shyness. Running around Hollywood with a face like his and a fake ID was like having an all-access
pass in a hormonal theme park. At fourteen, he lost his virginity to the seventeen-year-old face of the Disney Channel, who
later released “Sunburned,” a bitter but catchy song about him that charted number three on Billboard and bequeathed upon
him his unforgettable moniker.
His elders realized they had created a monster. His grandfather, still alive at the time, was a pillar of Asian American elite
society, and the first grandson’s growing notoriety was not a good look. At his Aunt Roses’s mandatory suggestion, Sunbern’s
mother, Hyacinth, had pulled him out of the private high school he attended with his cousins and made plans to send him to
an all-boys boarding school in Montana.
By then an emboldened six feet tall, Sunbern was not ready to leave his playground. He cashed in on some fans and favors and
secured a modeling contract with the top agency in town. Within a few months, he had a billboard on Sunset Boulevard for a
certain all-American clothing company as part of their new diversity rebrand.
The day his first national ad campaign launched, Sunbern had bought a brand-new Camaro convertible and moved out of his San Marino childhood home.
He was a rising star with his whole life ahead of him, and as far as he was concerned, his world was an oyster chock-full of pearls.
Even back then, he’d known that defying his mother’s formidable family was an unforgivable act that would get him disowned permanently.
But full of vim and hubris, the teenager was not worried.
No one was ever going to tell him what to do again. Sixteen-year-old Sunbern was going to make it all on his own.
At a stop sign a couple blocks from his studio apartment in Koreatown, thirty-two-year-old Sunbern heard his old Camaro begin
to sputter. “No, no, no!” He panicked as the car stalled to a halt. He palmed his forehead. Both his babies—his penis and
his beloved Camaro—had fallen victim to the day.
Sunbern got out of his convertible to push it the rest of the way home. Each time his jeans zipper scraped against his tender
wounds, he thought about Shannon.
When he finally limped to his studio door, he noticed immediately the lights were on as he entered. That’s odd, he thought.
Then he saw a large motorcycle helmet on his kitchen table.
“Hey, big cuz!” a singsong voice chimed behind him.
Sunbern jumped a foot into the air and spun around. “Jesus Christ, Lo! You’ll give someone a heart attack.”
Lounging on his tattered futon with her feet up on the coffee table, Lola smiled impishly at him. “Just keeping you on your
toes.”
Exhausted, Sunbern collapsed onto the beanbag across from her, wincing on his way down.
“You okay there?” Lola asked. “You look like you’re in pain.” She was wearing a colorful Japanese bomber jacket and combat
boots.
He carefully readjusted his package. “Casualty of war. You know, Lo, you can’t just break in whenever you feel like it.”
Lola chortled as she kicked aside several old pizza boxes on his coffee table. “As if I’m dying to hang out with your cockroaches.
Do you ever clean up, or do you just hope your trash will decompose on its own?”
With a grunt, Sunbern pulled Denise’s envelope out of his pocket, waving it toward Lola. “Since when are we cash only?” he
asked, annoyed.
A waifish girl with freckles and waist-length hair piled high up in a messy bun, Lola Sun was Sunbern’s youngest cousin. Unlike
the other women in her family, she was decidedly plain in appearance, but she shared Sunbern’s disarming megawatt smile, except
hers hid a precocious mind that was constantly wheeling and dealing.
Lola leaned over and swiped the envelope from him. With her teeth she tore it open, revealing a slim stack of hundred-dollar
bills. “No more electronic trails,” she said matter-of-factly as she counted. “Do you want some gun-toting Westside husband
after your ass? Use your brain, big cuz.”
Sunbern grabbed the ashtray on the table and poked around at the mound of old joints until he found one that still had some
weed. “You said you’d do the thinking as long as I did the fucking.” He lit the sad crutch and inhaled mostly burnt paper.
“Touché,” Lola replied, handing him five bills. “Now go and buy yourself something pretty.”