Page 1 of Thirsty
Chapter 1
Charlie Wever’s inbox was overflowing with tales of yearning, delusion, and despair—letters from people who needed his help. Normally he loved perusing the inbox for his advice column,Wise Old Crone; poring over the toxic drama and ridiculous entitlement and confused longing that people sent him, and thinking of how he could help. But right now, when he looked at all the many letters, all he could think wasI can’t use any of this.
His editor, Ava, did not agree. Emails kept leaping to the top of his inbox as she forwarded them back to him, searching for the very best ones. Each forward came with a little note of her commentary, likeOMFG this can’t be realanddyinngggggg. do this one!He tried to ignore her; he had a draft column going already, responding to a woman whose children had ruined a family wedding with their squabbling over entrée options and now wanted her to pick which one of them to blame. It was...incredibly boring.
is this even possible???Ava wrote on top of another email, and he hissed with annoyance. It echoed in the empty coffee shop; at least there was no one but a bored barista to witness his encroaching mental breakdown.
He clicked away from his terrible column to the warm embrace of his DMs, where he found his thread with Ava.I can see the letters. It’s my inbox. Stop.
She responded to him instantly.then pick one!! and write something!!!
I’m writing right now.It was essentially the same column he’d already written dozens of times before, but at least it was something.
The dots of her drafting appeared, and then she sent back:,,,another wedding meltdown?
It hit him like a punch to the gut—like she had somehow peered over his shoulder and seen his trash writing all the way from New York.Thanks, he wrote, his face burning.
I’m sorry!He could hear it in her voice, warm and sincere. He missed the days when he and Ava had worked almost shoulder to shoulder in their tiny cubicles, when she’d been more than a message box in the corner of his screen.I’m just trying to help! I want to get you PAID
He ground his teeth.Yeah, of course, he said, while he clicked back over to his awful column and deleted it without saving.
He had been good at this at some point, right? He wouldn’t have landedCronein the first place if he’d been a shitty writer from the jump. He had to hold on to that thought or else he’d give up completely.
He’d been proud of his writing, and his column—once.
When he’d first gotten into it, as a staff writer at his college paper, he’d called his advice columnNo Cosmic Lover, after a line from his favorite track offHedwig and the Angry Inch. He loved that name, but when he’d graduated and been lucky enough to land a full-time position atMidnight, the after-dark, counterculture online mag, they’d said the name was too niche.
So he’d picked a new persona: the Wise Old Crone. He’d meant it as kind of a joke—y’know, your fat gay friend who never gets any actual dates but listens well and gives great advice. He might as well be a decrepit old woman in the village, handing out bowls of possibly magical soup and quests, probably. It was just his kind of self-deprecating humor—trying with all his might to turn a weakness into a strength, and getting the feeling he was only half pulling it off.
ButWise Old Cronedid take off, and he got plenty of dates, thank you. Truthfully, it was kind of nice using a proper pseudonym—it allowed him to feel like there was at least some separation between his real self and his advice-giving persona. It made him feel like a real writer.
Now he was just one more real writer who’d gotten fucked over by the media industry’s death spiral. A VC firm had boughtMidnight, and one of their “innovative” cost-saving moves had been to shift him from a salary to a pay-for-clicks model that meant he couldn’t make rent anymore. The stress made writing feel like pulling teeth, which just made him more stressed, causing a vicious spiral of writer’s block and misery.
His last fewCronecolumns had been aggressively mediocre, both in actual quality andengagement, much as he loathed that word. He was getting so sick of posting the links online and watching the numbers barely gurgle in response. His next column was due after the weekend, and he was starting to seriously contemplate whether it would be worse to get fired for not submitting anything, or for sinking beneath some mysterious click threshold they’d never stoop to actually explain.
If he couldn’t manage to write something in the next few days, the choice would be taken out of his hands completely.
Tension flared in his gut like a firework, and he ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets to try to dispel it. Whenhe blinked his eyes open, Ava had DMed him again.you know I hate this. fuck the new owners! let’s make them choke on all your clicks!! and on all the money they’ll be paying you!!!
He ignored the gross and seemingly contradictory metaphor. Of course Ava wanted him to write something scathing and sensational that would break the internet and force the new management to keepWise Old Cronegoing and pay him more than a pittance. She’d probably get a raise too. He took a sip of his tepid coffee and typed:Ava, I can’t just wish my column into going viral.
I know! but you need to pick juicier letters
He sighed, dreading this next part.Like what?
Another dozen emails flew to the top of his inbox as Ava re-forwarded them. Grimacing, Charlie opened the first one.
Dear Crone,
I am a cis male werewolf married to a wonderful human man, but my mother-in-law is testing my boundaries on the issue of kids. Specifically, she’s been reading a lot of 2010s-era Teen Wolf fanfic and as a result seems to believe not only that mpreg is real, but that I have been holding out on her by, in her words, “refusing to let her son get me pregnant.” Crone, I don’t have a uterus, and my husband and I have no interest in having kids, whether via fantastical pregnancy, adoption, or any other means. How do I talk some sense into her, or at least draw a reasonable boundary?
Sincerely,
Wolf With No Womb
He stared at it for a few seconds, then clicked to the next one.
Dear Wise Old Crone,
