Jason opened the door to his room and saw a chubby man in his thirties, with short brown hair sitting at the table, smoking a cigarette. Jason pulled up a seat across from him. “So you’re the grandmaster?”

“I’m Duncan North,” he said, then exhaled a plume of smoke while extinguishing the stub of his cigarette. “There was an independent movie about me, The Tao of Steve, which is based on my system for being successful with women. I’m here to help you, and believe me, you need the help.”

Jason looked at the guy, who was average-looking at best, and the gut on him wasn’t helping to make him any more handsome. “Shouldn’t I be getting advice from Rudolph Valentino or Errol Flynn?”

“Someone better looking?” Duncan laughed. “Some guys can get by on their looks, but other guys like us, who are never going to have modeling careers, need to have a system. Some say that Rudolph Valentino wasn’t what he was portrayed as on the screen and died a virgin.”

Jason looked at Duncan suspiciously, then shook his head. “If you’re talking about that pickup artist stuff, it’s all phony, and you can count me out. I’m not going to be fake.”

“Look at women, who wear foundation, blush—which makes them look like they’re aroused—eye shadow and mascara—which make their eyes look larger—get electrolysis for their facial hair, get hair extensions and wear wigs, dye, curl, crimp, and straighten their hair, get breast implants, breast tucks, wear padded bras, pushup bras, wear jewelry, carefully adjust their cleavage for maximum effect, wear colored contact lenses, trim or shave their eyebrows, wear girdles and figure-sculpting nylons, wear high heels to accentuate their calves and butts, get butt implants, wear underwear or girdles with butt pads, get tummy tucks, liposuction, rhinoplasty, collagen injections, and other plastic surgery, while wearing lipstick that makes their lips look like they’re aroused, have their nails done and get pedicures, get dermabrasion, Brazilian wax jobs, and Botox injections, then spend an hour making themselves up before they go out, where they play hard-to-get. But that’s not fake?” Duncan looked Jason in the eyes. “Somehow it’s phony and morally wrong for you to try to learn how to be successful with women?”

“I just want to be myself.” Jason got up to pour him and Duncan a shot of liquor from the Jameson’s whiskey bottle that Father Milligan left behind. He slid a glass over to Duncan, while keeping one for himself.

“You plan to go into the boxing ring. Did you decide to be yourself? Your natural, ignorant self who wasn’t training and who knew nothing about boxing?” Duncan asked rhetorically. “No, you got help, started learning how to box, and began training. That doesn’t make you ‘fake.’”

The grandmaster took a sip of his Jameson’s and smacked his lips appreciatively, before pressing his point. “You’ve succeeded with women in the Midas Game only because we’re throwing you carrots. In your real life, how successful are you with women?”

Feeling uncomfortable, Jason looked down. “Not very.”

“Not at all.” Duncan let that sink in, and waited for Jason to try to object, but the young man knew it was true. “Are you ready to get some help? To try something different?”

Jason’s shoulders slumped in resignation. “Okay. Yes.”

“Here is my system: Be Desireless, Be Excellent, Be Gone.” Duncan ticked them off on three fingers. “You want to tell Maureen how you feel and then confess that you’re not really a priest. That will get you slaughtered and kill any chance you might have had with her.”

Jason was stunned. Maybe he wasn’t the smoothest guy with women, but how could he be totally wrong? “Why shouldn’t I tell her how I feel?”

“Rule 1: Be Desireless. When you tell her have feelings for her, or desire her, that is the exact opposite of desireless. Research shows that women are turned off by men who ‘self-disclose’, meaning they talk about their feelings.”

“But wait, how can I be desireless, if the whole point is that I like her, I desire her?” Jason asked. “Have you seen how hot Maureen is?”

“Believe it or not, you’ve actually been doing it right.” Duncan swirled the whiskey in his glass and sniffed it, before taking a sip. “While all the men at the shelter are flirting with Maureen, trying to get her attention, complimenting her, constantly approaching her and trying to figure out the right thing to say, what have you been doing?”

Jason considered the question. “I thought she was a minor, and off limits, so I avoided her.”

“Bingo!” Duncan pointed a finger at Jason. “When she came on to you in the car, she put her face in your lap. What did you do? Say, ‘Yeah, that’s it, baby’? Make crude remarks, try to make a pass at her?”

“She was drunk,” Jason explained with a shrug.

“Yes, she was drunk, but that didn’t keep the Rowdy Murphys from acting like horn dogs around her. The key is that you were desireless. You weren’t needy. She was throwing herself at you, but you turned her down.” Duncan shook a finger at his own head. “Think about it. She’s smokin’ hot, so she’s not used to that.”

It still didn’t make sense to Jason. “I’m approaching her because I desire her, so how can I be desireless?”

Duncan looked up, as if at an unseen director. “Review. Lou’s Diner scene.”

Duncan and Jason stood outside Lou’s Diner, watching Jason drinking a cup of coffee, holding it with fingers poking through holes in his gloves. He was casually chatting with Vilma, the busty redheaded waitress who smiled and pushed over a plate of meatloaf, then displayed her shapely butt packed into a tight skirt when she bent over to get a saucer from a lower shelf.

“Look at yourself there,” Duncan instructed him. “She’s sexy, with a dynamite body, but how are you acting? Are you trying cheesy pickup lines, telling her how hot she is, or complimenting her butt, while telling her how much you’d like to get her into bed?”

“No. I was a bum and figured I didn’t have a chance with her.” Jason shrugged. “So I just talked to her.”

“That’s it! That’s being desireless.” Duncan removed a cigarette from a pack in his pocket and lit it up, before taking a long drag. “That’s how I discovered my system. Once my friends and I were at a bar when this hot blonde came in. They were all flirting with her, trying to get her number, trying to get her to like them, complimenting her looks and her body, while I didn’t think I had a chance, so I just talked to her. Later, I went out to get a smoke, and I was shocked when she followed me outside and handed me her number. Go ahead, ask Vilma out.”

Duncan looked up again “Let’s do a ringer.”

Jason was sitting at the counter, with the busty redhead sliding a plate of meatloaf over the Formica to him. “That looks delicious. Got catsup?”

She stretched over to reach a bottle of Heinz, exposing her shapely calves and a bit of her creamy thigh. “There ya go.”

“Thanks.” Jason opened the glass bottle and hammered the bottom with his palm to shake out the catsup. “There’s a matinee playing this Friday, The Blood Pirate. Let’s go see it.”

“Sorry, I can’t make it Friday,” the redhead replied apologetically.

Jason poured catsup over his meatloaf. “That’s a shame—The Blood Pirate is non-stop action. They say Eastwood, Schwarzenegger, and Stallone all patterned themselves on Flynn, who was the first action hero.”

“Who?” Vilma asked and stopped chewing her gum for a moment. She then leaned over the counter, resting her forearms on it and giving Jason a tantalizing view of her cleavage. “But I’m not working Saturday. That okay?”

Jason cut his meatloaf with his fork. “It’s a plan.”

Duncan now sat beside Jason, drinking a cup of coffee. Looking up, he gave the command, “Cone of silence.”

The noises of the diner, the rattling of cups, saucers, and silverware, as well as the sounds of traffic on the street behind them, went silent.

“You were desireless. Why?” Duncan asked.

“I saw her in marriage scenarios after she’d had two kids,” Jason replied. “Frankly, I was relieved when she said she couldn’t make it Friday. On another subject, why shouldn’t I tell Maureen that I’m not really a priest?”

“That’s why she’s attracted to you. Excuse me.” Duncan slid the saucer out from under Jason’s coffee cup and used it as an ashtray.

Jason gave Duncan a puzzled look. “Why would a woman want a priest?”

“Look at The Scarlet Letter, a novel in which a woman has a love child by a minister. At first, a minister seems unlikely, but in the story’s Puritan town the clergy are the leaders, so the minister is an alpha male. If a hundred women come to St. Michael’s, ninety-nine are going to be attracted to you, because you’re the leader.”

“Well, my competition is a bunch of drunk bums. But what if they were construction workers, like that guy from the Village People, only heterosexual?”

Duncan chuckled. “It doesn’t matter if the men at the shelter are underwear models in need of counseling, or Chippendale’s dancers in rehab. It’s not about looks, but about status and dominance. As the man in charge, even if you’re a priest, women will be attracted to you.”

It was a difficult concept to grasp, why a woman would want Jason over a Chippendale’s dancer, unless his rival was the fat Chris Farley Chippendale’s dancer in the Saturday Night Live skit, the one where he danced against Patrick Swayze in a tryout for the dance group.

“Rule 3 is to be gone. You retreat, which causes her to chase you. You put yourself in a position where she fears she can’t have you. By being a priest, you put yourself in that position, where you’re unattainable, which makes Maureen want you.”

“Why would a woman want to go through that kind of drama?” Jason wondered.

“Women crave drama. For men, it’s straightforward—she’s sexy, so you want her.” Duncan tapped some more ash from his cigarette onto the saucer. “But women are conflicted. She wants a nice guy, but she’s attracted to the ex-con with tattoos. The very fact that having sex with you is forbidden draws her to you and makes her wet. Her inner conflict creates arousal. She wants you because she can’t have you, but once she can have you, she’ll lose interest.”

An idea occurred to Jason. “Maybe it’s like you’re being chased by a bear. As long as you run, the bear will chase you, but once you play dead, and you’re lying at her feet where she could easily kill you, the bear loses interest.”

“Good analogy. I think you’re starting to get it.” Duncan gave Jason an approving pat on the back. “Can I have a bite of that meatloaf?”

* * *

“1-2!” Gramps shouted, holding up focus mitts, which looked as though he had a baseball catcher’s circular glove on each hand.

Jason threw a jab and a straight left, each of which landed solidly on the gloves with a rapid, “pa-pow!”

“Three!” Gramps barked. “Hands up!”

That was the command for a right jab, straight left, followed by a right hook, which Jason threw in quick succession, blasting the mitt with each punch. At first, Jason had trouble with the hook, trying to punch with his arm, until he remembered the retired cop, Frank Mulroney, teaching him how to throw the palm sap. He recalled the gritty cop telling him, “The mechanics behind the slap, or the wallop, are like the hook punch in boxing: you’re not hitting with the arm. The arm stays bent, and the power comes from torque in the hips.” Sure enough, after that, Jason could deliver a smooth, powerful hook.

The two of them were in his grandfather’s garage, which was cold, until Jason did 25 minutes of jumping rope, followed by hitting the focus mitts.

“Okay, that’s a wrap,” his grandfather announced. “Let’s go inside so you can do abs where it’s warm.”

Gramps made himself a rum and soda while a very sweaty Jason dropped onto a yoga mat in the living room and started doing leg lifts.

“Gramps,” Jason huffed as the old man sat down in his recliner, “I’m focusing on my student loan debt, but Christmas is coming up.”

His grandfather nodded his head in understanding. “Yeah, I get where you’re headed. Businesses want to turn Christmas into a huge commercial enterprise, and you feel obligated to spend a bunch of money.”

Jason began scissoring his legs, crossing them over each other as he lay on his back. “Like Valentine’s Day, where you’re made to feel like crap if you don’t spend a fortune. And you’re worried if you don’t spend enough, you won’t have a girlfriend. What do I do?”

“Be up front,” Gramps advised him. “Tell people you’re trying to get your debt paid off, and that you’d like to exchange simple Christmas gifts, like treats or favors, say cooking a meal or mowing the lawn.”

“Sounds good.” Jason switched to a pedal kick, moving his feet up and down.

“People will go into debt at Christmas, spending money they don’t have, trying to impress people, or out of a sense of guilt.” His grandpa kicked his recliner back, then flipped up a side table attached to the chair to hold his drink. “Your first duty is to take care of yourself, get yourself in good financial shape. Anybody who cares about you will be happy to see you do that, even if they don’t get another Christmas gift they don’t need.”

Next, Jason did the bicycle, bringing each elbow to the alternate side knee, then switching. His grandfather enjoyed his drink as Jason worked out.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Jason said, but continued his ab workout, only now he did crunches.

Gramps went back into the garage and got the medicine ball, which was the size of a beach ball, but much, much heavier, wrapped with a tough leather casing. Jason lay on his back but brought up his knees so they were bent. His grandfather stood on Jason’s feet and threw the heavy ball at his stomach. Jason caught the ball with an ‘oof!” as it slammed into his stomach, then he did a sit-up, using the momentum of rising up to throw the medicine ball back to his grandfather, and the process was repeated, until Jason felt like the Rowdy Murphys had pummeled the hell out of his stomach.

“Okay,” Gramps said, and Jason’s jaw clenched. “Time for the stick.”

Jason stood up, dripping sweat onto the yoga mat as his grandfather grabbed an 18-inch stick, which he then whapped repeatedly over Jason’s shins, legs, stomach, and back. The drill came from Manny Pacquiao, who lost one of his early fights due to a body blow. After that loss, Manny swore that he would never lose because of a body blow and started the stick ordeal at the end of every training session. The blows weren’t hard enough to cause injury, but they hurt.

“That’s enough.” His grandfather set the stick beside his recliner and took a drink while Jason stretched out on the yoga mat. He breathed in deeply. “I’ve got some bad news.”

Jason looked up. “We’re not done with the stick?” Jason laughed, until he saw the serious expression on his grandfather’s face.

“You’re not going to want to hear this.”

Jason’s stomach sank. What bad news did his grandfather have to tell him?