The balls clack like teeth in a jaw and you're already down 12 points because scoring is backwards. My brain just. Can't. The table is this weird duplex thing, almost like playing on two realities at once and the goal isn't to pocket your own, it's to knock the opponent's balls in. So every time I settle into normal pool instinct I'm actively sabotaging myself. Muscle memory from some bar in college screaming at me while two girls in lingerie lounge against the wall, occasionally stepping over to rub each other's shoulders or whisper things I'd sell my soul to hear.

I got stuck watching the blonde, Maya I think the file name said. She does this thing where she bites her bottom lip right before sinking a ball. Not for me, for the other girl. The whole support team mechanic just means they react when you fuck up or succeed but honestly I kept missing on purpose because the consolation animations are hotter. Look I'm not proud of it. The redhead bends over the rail to "fix the chalk" in ways that make the actual billiard physics feel irrelevant. At some point I realized I hadn't blinked in like forty seconds.

Then there's a streak where nothing happens for three rounds and you remember oh right, this is a game with pool in it. The strips come slowly. Frustratingly slowly. But when they trigger it's with this grainy real model video quality that feels like late night cable scrambled channels from 2003. Not high art. Exactly what it needs to be. The arcade structure means one wrong move and you're starting from zero clothes again which made me actually yell at my laptop.

I still don't know if the inverted scoring is genius or a prank specifically designed to make me feel like my hands are made of wet bread. The lesbians seem to be having fun at least. Someone should check on them. They've been playing the same game for six hours straight while I fail basic geometry. The redhead winked at me once and I think that's going to live in my head rent free until I'm dead.