A week after sending the e-mail, I

A week after sending the e-mail, I walked into the lobby of the Hollywood
Roosevelt Hotel. I wore a blue wool sweater that was so soft and thin it
looked like cotton, black pants with laces running up the sides, and shoes
that gave me a couple extra inches in height. My pockets bulged with the
supplies Mystery had instructed every student to bring: a pen, a notepad, a
pack of gum, and condoms.
I spotted Mystery instantly. He was seated regally in a Victorian armchair,
with a smug, I-just-bench-pressed-the-world smile on his face. He
wore a casual, loose-fitting blue-black suit; a small, pointed labret piercing
wagged from his chin; and his nails were painted jet black. He wasn't necessarily
attractive, but he was charismatic—tall and thin, with long chestnut
hair, high cheekbones, and a bloodless pallor. He looked like a
computer geek who'd been bitten by a vampire and was midway through
his transformation.
Next to him was a shorter, intense-looking character who introduced
himself as Mystery's wing, Sin. He wore a form-fitting black crew neck shirt,
and his hair was pitch black and gelled straight back. He had the complexion,
however, of a man whose natural hair color is red.
I was the first student to arrive.
"What's your top score?" Sin leaned in and asked as I sat down. They
were already assessing me, trying to figure out if I was in possession of a
thing called game.
"My top score?"
"Yeah, how many girls have you been with?"
"Urn, somewhere around seven," I told them.
"Somewhere around seven?" Sin pressed.
"Six," I confessed.
Sin ranked in the sixties, Mystery in the hundreds. I looked at them in
wonder: These were the pickup artists whose exploits I'd been following so
avidly online for months. They were another class of being: They had the
magic pill, the solution to the inertia and frustration that has plagued the