Текст книги "Cam Girl"

Автор книги: Leah Raeder

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

—8—

VADA: are you awake?

ELLIS: Yes. Hi.

VADA: hi

VADA: sorry about freaking out earlier

ELLIS: No, I’m sorry for barging in. I feel like an idiot.

VADA: don’t

VADA: it was an unplanned private chat

VADA: not your fault

ELLIS: Can I still feel like an idiot?

VADA: okay, but only if I can feel like one too

ELLIS: Why are you still up?

VADA: having a weird ass night

VADA: why are you still up?

ELLIS: Having a weird-ass night.

ELLIS: Plus, you know me. Every time I make a faux pas, I analyze it to death.

VADA: you make the best faux pas

VADA: remember when you got drunk at Umbra

VADA: and went behind the bar and tried to “help” the bartender

VADA: and they kicked us out

VADA: and threatened to call the cops

ELLIS: Oh my god.

ELLIS: How do you remember that?

VADA: I wasn’t as drunk as you

ELLIS: You passed out in the taxi!

VADA: that was just a power nap

VADA: and do you remember when we went to the cat shelter

VADA: and you kept asking how many cats you could legally adopt

VADA: in this really quiet, intense voice

VADA: and they escorted us from the building because they thought you were going to experiment on them or something

ELLIS: If you’re trying to make me feel better, this is the opposite of that.

VADA: #sorrynotsorry

ELLIS: I wanted to adopt them all because they were going to be put down.

VADA: I know

VADA: you big softie

ELLIS: Big psycho, apparently.

VADA: you’re too good for this earth

VADA: we should send you back to Krypton

VADA: with the other supermen

ELLIS: Ha, ha.

VADA: Elle?

ELLIS: Yeah?

VADA: did you mean it, about not moving on?

ELLIS: Why do you ask?

VADA: I don’t know

VADA: curiosity, jealousy, confusion, loneliness

VADA: take your pick

ELLIS: Remember when we threw the key into the ocean?

ELLIS: I meant what I said.

ELLIS: Now please tell me what you were doing at my house.

VADA: trying to figure out who Brandt Zoeller is

VADA: Elle?

VADA: hey

VADA: come on, don’t just ignore me

VADA: I thought you wanted us to talk things through

ELLIS: Did you talk to him?

VADA: who is he?

ELLIS: I can’t believe you’re going behind my back.

VADA: I can’t believe you’re hiding shit from me

ELLIS: Really? You can’t?

ELLIS: After you hid our relationship from everyone?

ELLIS: Made me feel like some kind of dirty secret?

VADA: that’s not fair

VADA: I hooked up with girls before and everyone knew

ELLIS: Oh, so I’m special.

ELLIS: I’m the only one you felt compelled to hide.

VADA: fuck, what do you want me to say?

ELLIS: Something real.

VADA: it wasn’t easy for me, okay?

VADA: my entire life revolved around you

VADA: and one night you decided to just walk out of it

ELLIS: It wasn’t one night. It was every night.

ELLIS: Every night you dangled me on a string while you waited for someone better to come along.

VADA: oh, my bad

VADA: so I was supposed to know exactly who I was at age 22

VADA: and exactly who I wanted to be for the rest of my life

ELLIS: No.

ELLIS: But when someone lays their heart at your feet, you could at least have the decency to say you don’t want it.

VADA: I didn’t fucking know what I wanted

VADA: aside from not losing my best friend

ELLIS: Well, that happened anyway.

VADA: because you put all the pressure on me

VADA: you left me to decide our entire future

VADA: do you get that?

VADA: how you made it all or nothing?

VADA: either you wanted me entirely or not at all

VADA: that was an impossible choice, Elle

VADA: one I wasn’t ready to make

ELLIS: Brandt is my cousin.

ELLIS: He has health issues and needed a place where he could recover.

ELLIS: My aunt offered to pay all our bills if I took him.

ELLIS: Happy?

VADA: why couldn’t you just tell me that?

ELLIS: Why should I?

ELLIS: You won’t tell me the truth about that night.

VADA: you weren’t driving

ELLIS: I know you want to protect me.

ELLIS: But protecting me from the truth isn’t a good thing.

VADA: Ellis, I promise

VADA: I didn’t lie about that

VADA: and no one will lay a finger on you

VADA: they’ll have to get past me first

ELLIS: I wish I could believe you.

VADA: want a selfie where I look all Xena Warrior Princess?

ELLIS: God.

VADA: you laughed

ELLIS: Vada?

VADA: yeah?

ELLIS: Have you moved on?

VADA: interesting question

VADA: let’s examine the evidence

VADA: exhibit a: I have your pics over my bed

VADA: exhibit b: I’ve paid a small fortune to redheaded cam girls who look vaguely like you

ELLIS: Wait, seriously?

VADA: quiet in the court

VADA: exhibit c: my cammer name is Morgan

VADA: your honor, clearly I have hang-ups about my former BFF/life partner/soulmate

VADA: the prosecution rests

ELLIS: You’re such a dork.

ELLIS: Do you really have hang-ups about me?

VADA: si, mi pajarito rojo

VADA: I really do

ELLIS: Good.

ELLIS: Because I have them about you, too.

The next day we sat in her kitchen, poring over data from the cloned drive. Ryan Vandermeer’s life read like a checklist of the All-American bro:

• Varsity baseball.

• ACT score: 20 (51st percentile).

• No college applications.

• Two arrests for alcohol possession as a minor.

• Application to United States Marine Corps (rejected).

“Huh,” I said. “Weird. Max told me Ryan signed up for the Marines, but not that he was rejected. Wonder why.”

“They’ll reject you for anything. It could’ve been something like asthma.”

“Yeah, but the rest? Cutting, arrests, shitty test scores? Something heavy was going on.”

Ellis took a nervous hit off her vaping pen. “Those are symptoms. We don’t know the cause.”

“Or do we?” I tapped my fingers on the counter. “On Tumblr he said he looked like a stranger to himself. He felt like there was a bomb inside him.”

She took another hit. She’d been going at it nonstop since I showed up with food: fresh prawns for asopao de camarones—Puerto Rican shrimp soup—and plantains to mash up for mofongo. Now I pulled ingredients from paper bags, and brand-new copper pots, shiny as mint pennies, and a bottle of wine.

“What is all of this?” she said.

“Happy housewarming.”

Her face softened. “Why are you so sweet to me?”

Our little phrase.

I looked away. My chest felt like an atrium full of small, ecstatic birds whirling around madly, smashing in puffs of bright feathers, no regard for glass or each other.

Her cheer didn’t last. She got up to pace, trailing a ghost ribbon of steam.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Max is digging into my life, looking for—I don’t even know. We’re both under the microscope. How can you be so calm?”

“Low blood pressure, little bit of weed.”

“I’m serious, Vada.”

In that case:

Guilt.

Fatalism.

Fatigue.

I knew what Max would find out about me. In a way I looked forward to it, letting that weight roll off my back. Letting go and seeing if I’d sink or float.

There’s a bit of a self-destructive streak in me. Nero fiddled while he watched his city burn. I pressed harder on the gas pedal.

People who create have to do a little destroying to stay sane.

“What about this Skylar person?” I said. “The other log-in on the laptop.”

“Dead end.”

Skylar had deleted her data shortly before Ryan’s death, and Elle couldn’t recover it. This girl knew how to hide her tracks.

“What if she knows stuff? Like why Ryan was so fucked-up, and why he hurt himself?”

“Those are some big what-ifs.”

“Got a better idea?”

Elle shrugged.

“She’s our best lead,” I insisted. “She was important enough to have an account on his computer.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘she’? ‘Skylar’ is gender-neutral.”

“Her log-in icon is a high heel.”

“Which proves what?”

“I’m not gender stereotyping. I’m making an educated guess based on statistical probabilities, Professor.”

She frowned. “What if the name was Ellis? What would you assume?”

“I’d assume it was you.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Just you.”

Elle exhaled, her eyes focused on something far off. This was my chance, I realized. To ask about Emily.

“It’s weird,” I said. “Your parents never struck me as the type who like gender-neutral names.”

“They’re not.”

“I guess people are full of surprises, huh?”

“They are.”

She’d never introduced us. Her parents were toxic, pretty much convinced their gay atheist daughter was the Antichrist. “But don’t pity me,” she’d said. “I don’t fear them anymore. I feel sad for them.”

I met her mother once. But I never told Ellis.

Me and my secrets.

There was no way I could prod more without setting off alarms.

“Put the wand down, Hermione,” I said. “We’re making lunch.”

She was better with sharp things and I was better with fire, so she cut and I cooked. I started the broth and peeled prawns, clumsy but determined; threw in minced garlic and cilantro; swept chilies from the cutting board while Elle was still chopping; and she grinned to herself and I knew she was remembering things, as I was. All those nights back in Chicago when we’d cook by candlelight and invite our friends over. Blythe and Armin from school, Hector from the ink parlor. Blythe joked that we were like an old married couple, and Elle blushed, and later Elle and Blythe hooked up and I joked to myself that old married couples were essentially platonic anyway, and besides, it wasn’t like I knew what the fuck I wanted.

I still didn’t.

We set the coffee table with tin camping plates, poured Chablis into jelly jars. Laughed at how fucking rustic it was. City people out here on a rocky shard of earth floating in a cold ocean. It felt more like home than anything had in a very long time.

We raised our wine and paused, fumbling for a toast.

“To good friends?” Ellis said finally.

“To good friends.”

Clink.

The cabin was heady with the scent of shrimp and spicy-sweet herbs. A water curtain of light moved across the table, gold and green spilling over us, pooling, running off. She’d taken the floor this time and left me the couch. I watched her hands, silver twirling through her fingers.

“Are you okay?” she said.

I should have burned my sketchbooks. Keeping them was sick. Like keeping the bones and teeth of a child, fragments of a precious thing, lost before it could reach its potential.

“I’m fine.” I ate a spoonful of something red and tasted only the metal.

Elle got up and fetched the wine bottle and topped me off without a word. I touched her wrist as she poured and the ribbon of pear-gold silk twisted, broke into ragged threads. The splatter on the table looked like drops of liquid sun.

My touch could still do that. Make her tremble.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she said, sitting beside me on the sofa.

“Not really.”

“When has bottling it up ever not backfired and exploded in your face?”

“I’m not bottling it up,” I said, literally stuffing the cork back into the wine bottle.

She tried not to laugh. “Come on. You’re supposed to be the one who’s in touch with her feelings.”

“I’m in touch with feeling stupid and whiny. Other people have it worse.”

“It’s not whiny, Vada. It’s life-altering. You’re allowed to freak out.”

“Freaking out means accepting that I’m a freak. I’m still in denial, and I like it here.”

“What are you afraid of?”

I made a fist with my bad hand and a razor thread pulled at my spine. “I’m not afraid. I’m resigned. This is it, Elle. It’s not going to heal more.”

“Are you taking pain meds?”

“I don’t need them.”

“I’ve seen you grit your teeth when you think I’m not looking.”

“I don’t fucking need them.” I picked up my spoon and tried to hold it level. After a second my hand spasmed and drooped. “This is the problem. Not the pain. This.” I tossed the spoon onto the table. “It’s fucking gone. I’m as weak as a baby and I’ll be like this the rest of my life. I can’t draw, I can’t do shit. All I have left is jerking off for random creeps on the Internet, like the loser I am.”

She watched me awhile. At one point she grazed my bare arm, made me shiver violently. Then she stood.

“Let’s do an experiment.”

“This isn’t the time. We haven’t finished eating.”

“It can wait. This is exactly the time, Vada. Trust me.”

I sulked as she moved around the cabin, searching. Finally she returned with a pillowcase and placed it in my hands.

“Blindfold me.”

“What happened to romance?”

“Just do it.”

She took her glasses off and I tied a loose knot. My pulse skittered.

This was not the first time I’d tied a blindfold on her.

“Okay,” she said, tilting her head this way and that. “Here are the rules: Lead me to the ocean. You may only speak in colors.”

“What?”

“That’s a pronoun, not a color.”

I gawked.

“I can feel that look.” She reached out, found my elbow. “Come on. You can do this.”

“I don’t even know what you want me to—”

Her hand traveled up to my jaw. She pressed her palm gently against my lips.

Her skin was so soft.

“Take me to the ocean. With your eyes.”

Pajarito loco, I mouthed, and swiveled her toward the door. “Um . . . green?”

She stepped forward, and I followed. I darted ahead and flung the door open.

“Red. Red. Okay, green. Green, green, green . . . red.”

Elle took halting steps onto the log stairs.

Jesus. This was going to end with a hospital visit.

Getting her to ground level nearly killed me. Traffic colors worked, to an extent: green for go, red for stop, yellow for caution. But when we reached the forest floor and the thick tangle of exposed roots that she needed to climb over, I blanked.

“Uh, you need to—”

“Vada.”

“Goddammit. What are you trying to teach me, how to break your neck?”

Her cool glare radiated through the blindfold.

“Fine,” I said. “Be a masochist. Green.”

Her foot caught in the tree roots. I grabbed her before she fell.

How the fuck could I communicate how to climb?

Two squirrels scuttled up a tree, shredding bark. The air was alive with birdsong, trills and whistles and tweets, mutters, musings, a hundred voices spiraling into the sky. A trail of red ants boiled over the leathery tendrils at our feet.

“Red,” I blurted. “Fire-ant red.” What else crawled? “Caterpillar yellow. Spider black.”

Ellis toed the roots, crouched, and picked her way over on hands and knees.

I laughed triumphantly, and she smiled in my direction.

“You’re still insane,” I said.

“You’re corrupting the experiment.”

“Green. Emerald City green.”

The trail was mostly green, with patches of yellow and red where I had to drag branches out of her path. I ran through all the basic greens—kelly, shamrock, clover, grass—but that got boring fast so I mixed it up: watermelon rind, Mountain Dew, zombie skin, envy. The Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day. Then we reached a rock ledge, and I parked her with a cherry red and began hauling branches to make a ramp.

I was in the middle of this when a fox pranced into the path, a limp dove dangling from its jaws.

“Ellis,” I murmured, but if she removed the blindfold she’d probably spook it.

I had to show her.

“Red. Harvest red. A jacket of russet, and sienna, and umber.” She didn’t object to extra words, so I went on, “Soot-black socks. A vest of pure snow. And amber . . . buttons. Old, wise amber that holds the sun, and carries it into the darkness, like tiny lamps.”

“Is it a fox?” she whispered.

The fox arrowed into the underbrush, leaves shimmering with light in its wake.

I smiled and touched her arm. “Verde musgo.”

“What’s that?”

“The color of your eyes.”

I walked her through the woods, taking time now not just to guide but to describe things around us—the arresting scarlet of a tanager, pulsing like a plush heart, and a cache of violets rich as twilight that I plucked and wove into her hair, and the bronze of my skin in the shadows, like a cast sculpture. The trees thinned and we crossed a silty beach and I made Elle sit on an outcropping. Sky and sea fused into blue haze.

“Azúl,” I said, kneeling behind her. “Azúl infinito.”

I untied the blindfold and let it fall.

Ellis squinted at the water, then up at me. Her smile was big and guileless. “My hypothesis was correct.”

“What was it?”

“That you’re still an artist. No one can ever take that from you.”

Something was trembling in my chest, like a cupped leaf full of rain, tipping, starting to spill.

I touched her shoulder. Then I threw my arms around her and didn’t let go because I was pretty sure I was crying. “I get it. You trust me. And I trust you too, Elle.” Yep, that was a sniffle. “More than anyone in the world.”

“Vada—”

“You’ve always been there for me. You’re my prince, my—”

“Vada, I can’t breathe.”

I released. And hugged her again immediately, gentler, and she laughed but I spied tears in her eyes, too.

“Still think I’m crazy?” she said.

“In the very sanest way.”

I pulled back to look at her.

Come clean, I thought. Start small.

“I want you to know everything. I want to be that close again. I’ve been talking to someone online, Elle.”

“Who?”

“He calls himself Blue.”

And I told her all about him.

As I spoke she angled away from me, frowning. Coiled her bangs around a finger and tugged till the violets fell out. That little frown wouldn’t unknit itself.

Finally she said, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Guys have sugar-daddied me before. It’s not that weird.”

“He gave you a ton of money and you told him a ton of personal stuff. Like a paid informant.”

“It’s not like that.”

She scratched a nail on the rock. “What does he know?”

“Not enough to track me down.”

Elle’s frown deepened.

“What?” I said.

“For all you know, it’s Max.”

“It’s not Max. He’s too young. He’s like us.”

“Right, because Max wouldn’t act our age to get info.”

That was not a pleasant line of speculation.

“Why did you tell him about me?”

“You’re my best friend, Elle.”

She kicked her foot irascibly. “I hate that you call me Red.”

“Why?”

“Like I’m the opposite of him.”

And then it clicked: she was jealous.

The epiphany shot a jet of helium into my heart. I leaned into her, and we looked out at the ocean. Water lapped the rocks and left a skim of foam, seaweed and wet lime mixing with Elle’s autumn scent. For a moment I forgot myself, forgot the rules and our history and thought about pushing her flat against the stone. Holding her body down with mine so I could feel her breathe, feel her bones creak, her blood slow. So I could show her how I felt about her. How much she was a part of me.

My love is savage and rapacious. It isn’t content to touch. It wants to be inside, crawl into the marrow, caress each vein until the cells are all mixed up and there is no you and me anymore, no secrets or shadows sliding between our skin. Only this endless devouring of each other. The ouroboros we call us.

Ellis shrugged me off. “Let’s head back.”

I trailed behind, spinning one of the violets between my fingers. She loves me, I thought, plucking a petal. She loves me not. She loves me. She loves me not.

She loves me.

We were drinking wine as the sun fell when we saw it. I almost spit and dropped my glass. Elle jerked back from the keyboard as if it had bitten her.

After hundreds and hundreds of Ryan’s pics, we’d grown complacent. Selfies. Alt takes of photos I’d already seen on his Tumblr. Bad shots, blurry, overexposed, a newbie learning his camera. Even the cutting pics weren’t shocking anymore.

This one was.

Ryan had a baby face, sleepy-eyed and pouty, skin smooth as cream. But it was barely visible beneath the bruises and cuts. One cheek swelled up fat and purple as eggplant. One eye was black, bruised shut. Puffy lips, cut and cracked in a dozen places.

Ellis tapped a key.

Pic after pic, all showing the same brutality: his face, wrecked.

“What’s the date on these?” I said.

“Day before the accident.”

“That’s it.” I clapped my bad fist into my good palm. “That’s what made him drink.”

Elle peered up at me. “That’s speculation.”

“Look at his face.” I butted in and flicked through the other photos. Couple more bruise pics, then nothing. “Someone beat the shit out of him, then he tried to kill himself.”

“You almost sound happy about it.”

I wheeled away, paced a circle. “Things are finally starting to make sense. It’s a relief.”

The relief of blaming someone else for what happened.

“It’s sick to feel glad that someone got hurt.”

“I’m not glad, Elle. But he’s a stranger to us. I can look at it objectively. We never knew him.”

“We still killed him.”

“Did we?” I pointed at the screen. “Or did the person who did this kill him? Because this is what made him drink, not us.”

She poked glumly at the keyboard.

I sat beside her, laid a hand on her knee. “You don’t seem surprised.”

Shrug.

“You already saw these, didn’t you?”

“I glanced through while I was copying files.”

“And didn’t tell me.”

She hung her head, hair shading her eyes. “I just don’t like where this is leading. We’re going deeper down this rabbit hole without getting closer to understanding. It’s only getting darker and darker.”

But don’t you see? I thought. If we’re not the reason he died, then everything’s okay. We can heal. Go on with our lives.

Forget all of this like it never even happened.

“I need closure, Ellis.” Her leg tensed beneath my curling fingers. “I need to know why Ryan did this so I can put it behind me.”

“We already know. He was depressed and his life was falling apart, so he drank.”

“That’s how it happened. Not why.”

“You’re looking for meaning in something meaningless. He was just in pain.”

I flung my hands up. “My whole fucking life changed that night. I lost myself, and you, and my entire future. If I can’t find meaning in that, how can I survive?”

“Is that really why you want closure?”

I didn’t answer that. Instead I said, “Don’t you want it to mean something, too?”

“I don’t know what I want anymore.”

My arm slipped around her. She was shaking. About to cry.

“Elle.” I stroked the back of her head, the fine short hair there. It still smelled like violets. “Why are you acting like this?”

“It makes me sad.”

“What does?”

“That someone hurt him for being the way he is.”

I touched her cheek. “Is this reminding you of your parents?”

The glint in her eyes was answer enough.

“It’s okay, baby. That’s all over.” I tucked her head beneath my chin. “You don’t have to be afraid of them anymore.”

“I’m not.”

“Then what?”

Her arms wrapped around my back.

This whole thing was freaking her out. Her nervousness earlier, the white lie about the photos. That comment about the rabbit hole. Still convinced she was behind the wheel.

I couldn’t blame her for being scared. But I had to know more, for both of us.

“Hey.” I swabbed her tears dry. “No being sad. It’s not allowed today. You know what today is?”

“What?”

“The best day I’ve had all year, because of you.”

She finally smiled. Sweet and small, unassuming. I slid her glasses off and brushed the wet glaze from her lashes. I couldn’t take my hands from her face.

“Stay the night,” she whispered.

Electricity arced from my spine to my fingertips and collected there, buzzing. I was sure she could feel the static I trailed across her skin. I ran my thumb over her lower lip, and when her mouth opened and she exhaled into my palm I felt suddenly weightless, no bones or heaviness inside me, just a shimmering mist of nerves. I thought of Dalí’s Galatea of the Spheres. A girl made entirely of translucent bubbles containing sea, skin, sky.

“What are we doing?” I said.

“Falling in love again.”

Heat flashed in my belly, lightning white. “I thought we were trying to be friends.”

“We’ve never just been friends, Vada.” Ellis circled her hands around the back of my neck. “Let’s not pretend anymore.”

She was irresistible like this, all tousle-haired and unraveled. So rare to see her careless, overcome with want. With loneliness.

“This isn’t a good idea,” I said, stroking her cheek. “Rushing back into things.”

“You like rushing.”

“I know. It’s weird being the voice of reason, for once.” I grinned. “You are so pretty right now. All I want to do is kiss you. But I don’t want to fuck this up again. I want my best friend back, Elle.”

“You don’t want me.”

“Of course I do.”

“No. You want your sugar daddy.”

Sucker punch.

It’s not that I wanted him instead. But Blue was going to drop another grand tonight to keep me off cam. While I was here, with her. It felt wrong. I knew it was mainly social conditioning—girls are taught that our bodies are currency, that we owe them to men for being nice to us, for giving unasked gifts to us, for not assaulting and raping us—and if Blue wanted to pay me to fuck my ex and further complicate our It’s Complicated–ship, that was his kink. Thank God for low-maintenance clients.

But I also thought: It’s not fair to him. He can’t touch me like this. All he has are his words.

And his words make me feel something that I want more of.

Ellis saw my hesitation. Hurt blossomed in her face. She wrenched away, left the room.

“Elle—”

“It’s fine. Go see him.”

Ask me again, I thought, and I’ll stay.

Ask me. Please.

But she didn’t say another word.

“Hi.”

SoBlue: hi.

I sat cross-legged on my bed, swishing a bottle of beer. Silence for a minute. “Bad day?”

SoBlue: no.

SoBlue: just feeling more ruminative than talkative.

A knot loosened in my gut. “Me too.”

SoBlue is typing . . .

Then nothing. Erased.

“Can I make a request?”

SoBlue: shoot.

“Press Enter instead of Delete. Before you second-guess yourself.”

SoBlue: ha.

SoBlue: deal. but you too. no self-censoring.

“I couldn’t censor myself to save my life. It’s a legit problem.” I sipped golden ale that tasted like malted passion fruit. From my window the sunset clouds looked oil-painted, a soft scumble of cobalt and coral. A gentle Monet sky. I wondered if Ryan had ever sat in his window and watched the paint melt off the troposphere and trickle into the ocean. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. I keep getting into situations where I have to make some life-defining choice. When does that end?”

SoBlue: when life ends.

Shiver.

“Something really bad happened to me once, Blue. I almost died. Someone else did instead. And I keep feeling like God made a mistake, that he let the wrong person live. The person who’s too afraid to even commit to her own life.” I took a swig. “There. No self-censoring.”

SoBlue: that can happen even when you think you know what you want.

SoBlue: someone i know used to be a star athlete.

SoBlue: golden boy. bright future.

SoBlue: but he had an accident and became disabled.

SoBlue: no more sports. whole life uprooted.

SoBlue: now he feels adrift, like you.

“Is he depressed?”

SoBlue: very.

“What keeps him going?”

SoBlue: pet projects, diversions, amusements.

SoBlue: but nothing truly fulfills him.

SoBlue: he’s hollow.

Is he you? I wondered.

SoBlue: point is, nobody knows what to do with this life.

SoBlue: and the second you think you do, your life will flip upside down

SoBlue: like this:

SoBlue:

I laughed. “Emoji zen, huh?”

SoBlue: some of my most profound thoughts are emoji.

“We are such Millennials.”

In the back of my mind I thought:

Or you’re really good at faking it.

SoBlue: i feel ancient tonight.

SoBlue: like a . . .

SoBlue: redwood tree. or something.

“Are you trying to say you’ve got some massive wood?”

SoBlue: maybe i am.

SoBlue: maybe you should take your shirt off.

I set the beer bottle on the windowsill. My thighs tensed and a pull started low in my belly. We’d never done anything sexual before. I was still amped from Elle, my blood fizzing. I checked myself in the cam: hair tucked into a lazy chignon, my body draped with shadow. This wasn’t my pro setup with floodlights and calibrated colors. But if he wanted that, he could’ve asked.

I grasped the hem of my tank and held eye contact with the lens until I pulled the shirt over my head.

Typically after an article of clothing came off, I’d flaunt the newly exposed area. Instead I just sat there in my bra, arms limp, feeling him look at me.

SoBlue: god.

SoBlue: you are so beautiful.

“Remember what you said, about seeing how long I could last?”

SoBlue: yes.

“This is how long. I want you to fuck me, Blue.”

SoBlue: you.

SoBlue: you have no idea how i’ve craved those words.

SoBlue: touch your belly.

I did, remembering how I’d asked Dane to do the same.

SoBlue: stroke.

A breath escaped me involuntarily as I complied. I ran a palm up and down my skin, slow, feeling the taut satin he must be imagining. He didn’t type for a while, so I let the hand stray. Up between my breasts, down between my thighs.

SoBlue: i can feel your softness.

SoBlue: all curves and silk.

SoBlue: open your bra.

On the upstroke I caught the clasp and flicked it open. When my breasts fell free I took one in my hand, ran my thumb around the nipple. My breathing grew pronounced, my breast swelling in my palm. I raised my chin, top teeth bared. That fuck-me look.

“Are you hard, Blue?”

SoBlue: like you wouldn’t believe.

SoBlue: put the other hand around your throat.

SoBlue: just below your jaw.

I did it languorously, fitting it beneath the bone and gripping till the carotids throbbed, two wings of blood. My nipples hardened. I dug my thumb into an artery and exhaled slowly, slowly, like the last sigh leaving the lungs at death. A pleasant buzz percolated over my brain.

SoBlue: tighter.

“You, too.”

SoBlue: i am.

SoBlue: i’m so fucking hard.

SoBlue: show me how you’d hold me.

My hand clamped and the head rush made my skull feel like a shaken bottle of soda. A vignette of fog gathered at the edges of my awareness, a dulling of all senses. I couldn’t keep this pressure up for long.

SoBlue: how does it feel?

“Like falling asleep. It’s fuzzy and strange but also . . . lucid. Dreamlike.” My voice was gauzy, drifting. Letters swam on the screen. I squeezed my breast and felt only an abstract tingling, as if my body were not fully here but ethereal, in between worlds.

SoBlue: release.

Letting the blood flow again hurt more than cutting it off, and that was part of the rush. Pins and needles in the brain.

SoBlue: take your shorts off.

He wasn’t giving me time to recover. Good.

Woozily I unbuttoned, slid out.

SoBlue: panties.

Those too. Then I was completely nude in front of Blue for the first time in private.

My head felt heavy and gimbaled, like a lantern in a ship, pivoting with the waves. Red had drained from the sky and now it was a deep hyacinth purple. The laptop lighting made me look like some creeper on Chatroulette. Between my thighs was only darkness.

“What are you thinking about?” I said, my voice thick.

SoBlue: my hand between your legs.

“Like this?”

I dragged my left hand up the inside of a thigh. Before I touched myself I could feel the wetness, and the thought that it was partly because of Elle and partly Blue turned me electric. In that moment when my fingertips traced my lips and every nerve sparked like a firecracker, I realized I had an image in my head: a tall, lean, fair-skinned man, hair and eyes of indeterminate shade. His hands I pictured clearly: those long elegant fingers, veins cording up his arms like fine blue vines spiraling up Grecian marble. Hands that typed with surgical precision, never misspelled. That would touch me that way, too. Laconically. Intensely. Not a single movement wasted.