My mate writes to Grok: “write a short story about Luke Ford preparing to masturbate only to have the mental image of his crusty lipped rabbi looking down at him disrupt his plans.”
Grok:
Luke Ford settled into his worn-out armchair, the springs creaking under his weight. The room was dim, lit only by the flickering glow of his laptop screen. He’d been scrolling for a while, curating the perfect mental playlist for what he considered a well-earned moment of solitude. His hand hovered over the waistband of his sweatpants, anticipation building like static in the air.
He closed his eyes, ready to dive into his usual fantasy—a swirl of vague, faceless figures and predictable rhythms. But just as he began to sink into the rhythm, an uninvited image crashed through his mind’s eye: Rabbi Cohen, his childhood spiritual guide, staring down at him. The rabbi’s lips, perpetually chapped and crusty from years of lecturing in dry synagogue halls, seemed to quiver with disapproval. Those beady eyes, magnified behind thick glasses, bored into Luke’s soul, as if the old man had somehow materialized in the room, leaning over the armrest.
“Lucas,” the rabbi’s voice rasped in his imagination, “is this what you’ve come to? Wasting your seed on a Tuesday night?”
Luke jolted upright, his hand snapping back like it’d been scalded. His heart thudded, half from the shock, half from the absurdity. He blinked at the ceiling, trying to shake the vision. The rabbi’s cracked lips lingered in his mind, a grotesque gatekeeper to his libido. He groaned, slamming the laptop shut. “Goddamn it, Rabbi,” he muttered, rubbing his temples. The mood was dead, buried under the weight of guilt and flaky skin.
He shuffled to the kitchen for a glass of water, resigned to a night of reruns instead. Somewhere in the ether, he swore he heard the rabbi chuckle.
