My Presentation


 An excerpt from High School Romance

︎︎︎ Marston Hefner

︎ MAR 28, 2022


If this video is in anyway coming across as “formal” or “scary” I urge you to talk to the other women in the office who aren’t Amy. So you’re scared? Hell, I was scared making this video! But honey, I made this video, I went right into that sucker called fear and said, “Where do I fucking sign up?” I put my best face on so it could meet your by now blushing little puckered cheeks. I know I know, the hardest hill to climb is the one that is not the highest but the one imagined. Do you hear me dear? That the hardest obstacles are the ones we make up in our very own squat-damned minds? I am no demon, I am no “bad toucher” as Amy has led you to believe. Just ask Carol what I did about her little boy Frank.

        Before you commit to an answer, there are some virtues I own and that I want to highlight. There are also some very difficult vices I need to tell you about which specifically have to do with feelings I have for my dog, certain family members, and When I looked at your face and how it made me feel. As to the virtues, I am confident they will wash over any doubts you have once I tell you about the vices. As to the vices, I cannot so confidently say I have them under control. For example, how I feel about your Instagram just yesterday, well I felt an irrepressible urge to holler, yes holler, mouth open esophagus wide, that I loved you and how I so loved you greater than, what was his name, Manuel Marrero despite his multitudinous amounts of postings and flirtations. Like a rabid feral dog, I felt myself to be, tearing through the midnight moon towards my kill, forever protective of you.

        I know it is so hard to be young these days and on social media. My 17 year old daughter tells it to me all the time in a kind of whisper / whimper that I’ve not only told her but also told her mother is unacceptable. She goes, “Why do all of these guys dm me on Insta?” So I now not only understand her but I also understand you. It is hard for people like you, ripe in the world, just looking for some sort of direction. It is clear to me that what you need is an older more experienced looking hand to show you the way.

        Believe you me I know you’ve by now checked my daughter’s Instagram. You may or may not have noticed the similarities in blonde bob and the way your lips both quiver in the presence of an authority figure. These similarities, well Tiffany, let these similarities be like oil on water. Let the eery way you both laugh verbosely be the opposite of a wake up call. Let me merely be a lulling feeling of “familiarity” when the time comes for us to consummate our relationship.

        If your coworker Amy at any time mentioned anything related to a supposed “free hands” movement, with me being the leader and sole member, which showed a lot of promise despite the misunderstandings, know that she, Amy, has struggled with mental illness. Because I am privy to such information and because we have gotten so much closer since the beginning of this video, I will make you privy to this information, that Amy started the rumor just after a very long and gruelling company outing involving numerous trust exercises with many hands all over everyones’ parts. Her HR representative Dan, I just call him Danny, has told me that after the trip Amy not only refuses to stop washing her hands but is also terrified whenever hands come near her. You of course know my hands are rather large and so an obvious target for Amy’s neurosis.

        As you watch this, I encourage you to bring this to your best girlfriend. Ask her, in all honesty, if I would make a good fit in your life. Pontificate with her if my brain is wrinkled enough to guide your very youthful and exuberant frame through not only this ruthless workplace but the magical nights of disarray youth get into these days. Get a differing opinion, perhaps from someone older that you trust, a father figure comes to mind, and ask him what kind of man makes for a good husband. I bet you he will say “wisdom” for one. You can even come to me, let me soothe those doubts in your head, the ones that go, “His fingers remind me of prunes.” Poo poo to the super-ego in your head, poo poo to the naysayers in the workspace, believe in those who have tread this lonely road before, who are saying, “Let my large hands guide your fresh and nubile face towards a promising and lucrative future.”









































































Marston Hefner
is the editor and founder of Young Magazine, a professional backgammon player, and has published work in New York Tyrant. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he prefers staying in, playing videogames, and reading over the nightlife and the glamor. Marston Hefner continues the legacy Hugh Hefner left him, exploring sexual taboos, finding radical self-love in humanity’s darkest unconscious desires.


*** High School Romance comes out August 2022 via CLASH Books. ***