Friend From the Internet

by Amy Cross

  “Yeah,” I reply, forcing a smile in the darkness even though I'm feeling more and more nervous.

  “You have a mole,” she says suddenly, and I feel her fingertips brushing against a mole just to the side of my belly button.

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh.”

  She feels the mole for a moment longer, before moving her hand a little further up my belly and then stopping again.

  “And another,” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh. I like moles.”

  “Yeah.”

  My chest is tightening now, with a mixture of fear and anticipation, and I can barely think straight. After a few seconds Paula moves her hand around to my side again and stops to feel another mole.

  “How many have you got?” she asks, and now she sounds as if she's no longer shivering.

  “I don't know,” I reply, which is just about the dumbest thing anyone could ever say in a situation like this. “I don't really think about them.”

  “None here,” she continues, slowly moving her hand across my chest. “Sorry. Is this okay?”

  “It's okay.”

  “Is it?”

  She waits, conspicuously not moving her hand.

  “Sure,” I say, although now my throat feel very dry. There's a part of me that wants to slip slightly away, but for some reason I don't do that. Instead I stay completely still, waiting to see what she does next.

  She moves her hand a little further across my chest, slightly brushing against my left nipple.

  “Yeah, that's not a mole,” she says with a nervous smile, before moving her hand to the space between my breasts. “Nothing here, either.”

  I bite my bottom lip as I wait to see what she'll do next. My heart is pounding, as hard as when I was being attacked earlier, and then a moment later I feel a tingle in my belly as Paula starts running her fingers back down onto my belly. I kind of wish she'd say something, just so I know what's going through her mind, and I can't help thinking that I'm probably completely misunderstanding the situation. This is probably just a totally normal thing for two friends to be doing.

  She moves her hand further down, until she reaches the line of my underwear.

  “Huh,” she says. “Maybe there's something down here.”

  “Yeah,” I manage to say, although I'm too scared for the word to really come out clearly.

  “Is that a mole?” she asks, moving her hand slightly to the side of my belly.

  “I think that's just a spot,” I reply.

  I wait for a reply, but now she doesn't move at all. It's as if she's waiting for something, but all I can do in return is wait as well. Paula's always good at being in charge, so I figure she'll know what to do. For the next few minutes, however, she doesn't do anything at all, and I start feeling worried that the onus is on me. There's a tingling sensation running all the way up my body, and my chest feel impossibly tight, but I don't actually know that I want this to stop.

  I just don't want to be in charge.

  I want Paula to choose, and I'll let her do whatever she wants.

  Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the bed creaks as she shifts her weight slightly. I feel her hand moving back up my body, back onto my left breast.

  “Just checking,” she says with a nervous laugh. “I thought maybe I...”

  Her voice trails off.

  Suddenly she lifts the duvet slightly and moves closer, and I feel a rush of release as I realize that my suspicions were right. Then again, I quickly tell myself that this might just be something completely normal, so I wait a moment for one more sign of confirmation.

  I should stop this.

  I've never done anything like this in my entire life and I never thought I would, but right now it feels too good to stop. She's going to kiss me at any moment, right on the lips, and I'm not going to stop her. I over at her in the darkness, waiting for her to make that move, but all I see is her eyes staring back at me. And then, slowly, she moves her hand back down on my belly and over my underwear, finally resting her fingers against the inside of my right leg's thigh.

  Instinctively, I open my legs wider, causing the duvet to rustle in the process.

  Suddenly she moves, causing the duvet to rustle massively as she slips further down the bed. I can feel her re-positioning herself, climbing over my wide-apart legs, and then she starts gently pulling my underwear down. I let out another gasp and lean my head back. I don't quite know where to put my hands, so I holds my arms out at the sides and grab the sides of the bed, waiting as my underwear gets slid down my legs and off over my feet. The duvet is rustling loudly now, and the bed is creaking, and slowly Paula puts her hands on my legs and forces them even wider. For a few seconds I'm not entirely sure where her head is or what she's doing, but I know I'm not going to stop her.

  Outside, rain is crashing against the window and the wind is whipping up into a frenzy.

  Extract from chat log

  Friday February 15th 2013

  From AardvarkQueen310293:

  Okay, it's been three days and you still haven't responded to my last message so I'm going to have to assume that you never will, which means you're either dead (in which case I'm sorry for thinking bad thoughts) or you're a rude fucking bitch who thinks she can toss people aside like they're not even important.

  FUCK YOU!

  FUCK YOU TO HELL!

  Do you think you'll get away with this? Do you think you can talk to me for months and months, and get to know me, and get me to open up to you, and then just flick me aside like I don't matter? Maybe you'll read this message and maybe you won't, Mayfly90330, but I want you to be absolutely sure of one thing:

  This isn't over, not until I say it is.

  YOU'RE A FUCKING ARROGANT RUDE BITCH AND I AM GOING TO FIND YOU! Do you hear? Can you get that thought into your tiny, pathetic, arrogant little head? You think you can hide away from me behind your laptop screen, but there is zero chance of that happening. It might take a month, it might take a year, it might take a hundred fucking years, but I am going to track you down and prove to you that you don't get to treat people this way.

  And then you're going to pay. Big time. I am not the kind of person you fuck around with, bitch, and I'm just about in the mood to make an example of you. Oh, and by the way, I'm like an elephant, okay? I never, ever forget, and I will not calm down and forget about this. You'd better watch your fucking back, and keep looking over your shoulder, because one day I WILL catch up to you, and by then I'll have a really fucking good plan about what I'm going to do. It'll be so good, you won't see it coming until long after I've wrapped you round my little finger.

  GET READY, BITCH WHORE!

  WHEN I FIND YOU, YOU'RE GOING TO WISH YOU'D BEEN NICE TO ME!

  You'll see.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Today

  Getting to the bottom of the stairs, I look over at the living room window and see morning sunlight catching thousands of tiny rain drops that were left behind after the storm passed. For a moment I simply stare at those drops, preferring to focus on something simple rather than listening again to my raging, rushing thoughts.

  At some point, I'm going to have to figure out what I think about last night, but for now I just want to be at peace.

  I tug the front of my shirt, to get some creases out, before heading to the kitchen. Still in a kind of daze, I grab a glass and pour myself some water, and then I stand at the sink and drink slowly. To be honest, I barely remember very much of what happened in bed, or at least I remember things but not necessarily in the correct order. A few images flash through my mind, though, and I immediately feel embarrassed. Which is dumb, because there's no-one here in the kitchen with me right now.

  What am I going to say to Paula when she wakes up?

  What will she say to me?

  Maybe it was all a huge mistake. I should have stopped her, I should have told her it was too much too soon, I should have let her know that I'm not really i
nto girls in that way. Then again, I guess I can't really claim that anymore, so I guess maybe I'm not even quite who I thought I was. Still standing at the kitchen sink, I stare at the back window and see more drops of water shivering in the morning breeze, and I listen to the calm silence of the post-storm morning.

  I'm not me anymore.

  I can be, because the real me wouldn't have done any of that stuff.

  Then again, I'm obviously me, so that means the person I was last night wasn't the real me.

  Which means...

  Damn, I've never been good at this kind of thing. I'm obviously the real me, so I need to cut that nonsense out fast. That way lies madness.

  Finishing the glass of water, I hesitate again, trying to make sense of things. Then I head back through to the living room and over to the stairs, before stopping again as I realize that I was about to just go back up and climb into bed next to Paula. Is that right? Is that something I should do? I stand completely still, frozen by indecision, before looking at the window again and marveling at the drops of rain. Wait, am I stuck in some kind of loop?

  I look down at the table, and I immediately spot Paula's notebook at the far end.

  Although I know I shouldn't peek again, I desperately want to do something – anything – that delays me making a decision about going upstairs. I wander around the table and pick the notebook up, and I flick the front open to find more of Paula's drawings. She's a really talented artist, that's for sure, and as I look through the first pages I find that she's drawn a lot of faces. They're all girls, or women, of every hair color and every body shape and every ethnicity. It's as if she's been trying out lots of different styles, almost obsessively, although after fifty or so pages I start to notice that the faces are becoming more similar, as if she's been settling on a certain type. It's kind of fun to see the progression, although as the drawings go on I can't help but notice that...

  It's me.

  I feel a shudder pass through my chest as I realize that the drawings are starting to look more and more like me.

  I tell myself that I'm wrong, that I'm being big-headed, but page after page confirms my suspicions as I see the woman's face being redrawn over and over again as it's refined. And sure enough, a few pages later I find myself staring at a pretty accurate drawing of my face.

  And then there's more of me, over and over.

  At first, it's just faces. Then, as I get further through the notebook, I find drawings of me naked and in various poses, doing various things. There are close-ups of body parts, and different versions of some pictures in which she's drawn freckles and moles in certain places. It's as if she's been experimenting and guessing, and some of the drawings are extremely detailed. I tell myself that this is all just a compliment, but it's clear that she's been drawing me for quite some time and it's hard to believe that she's completed all these drawings over just the past few days. She must have started before she met me.

  There's text, too.

  Spidery text that I can't make out, but she's definitely been writing something.

  I turn the notebook around as I try to understand what she's written down the inside of the fold, but honestly she has the worst handwriting I've ever seen in my life. I tilt the notebook a few more ways, but frankly I'm not even sure which way up the handwriting is supposed to be and finally I simply turn to the next page and find more drawings of me. I keep telling myself that I should be flattered, but these pictures are becoming increasingly sexual and there's a lot of stuff in here that we did last night. I'm starting to realize that she must have been planning for us to sleep together all along, whereas originally I thought it just happened in the spur of the moment.

  And then I turn to another page, and I find a very different type of drawing.

  It's still me, that much is clear, but I'm partially-clothed now and there are bloody red patches drawn all over my torso and neck. She's drawn me getting butchered, and the next few pages are all similar. In fact, the injuries remind me of the things that I experienced last night when I was being chased through the street. I know that's not possible, but at the same time the proof is right here in front of me. I feel a growing sense of panic as I turn from one page to the next, seeing more and more gruesome and grotesque pictures until finally I find one where my head has been hacked clean away from my body and my eyes are -

  “You having fun there?”

  Startled, I drop the book and turn to see Paula standing completely naked – from top to toe – at the foot of the stairs.

  She looks at the book, then back at me with a faint, curious smile.

  “I woke up and you were gone,” she continues, stepping slowly around the table and making no attempt to cover her nakedness. “I figured you were down here somewhere.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble, forcing myself to look down at the book, which has landed open. I quickly close it and set it back where I found it, but by now Paula has reached me and I instinctively avert my gaze to avoid looking directly at her.

  After a moment, however, I realize I'm being dumb, so I look at her face.

  “I like drawing,” she says calmly. “It's a kind of release for me. I know I'm not very good, but -”

  “You're really good,” I blurt out, not wanting to upset her. “I mean you're really, really good. You could be, like, a professional or something.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “You could.”

  I swallow hard. She must know that I saw those pictures, but I guess she's waiting to see whether I bring them up. Which I won't do, of course, because I'm way too scared and because I need some time to figure out what's going on here.

  “So I was thinking,” she says, as she reaches down and scratches the inside of her right thigh, “I might want to take a shower. Do you want to join me?”

  “It's a really small shower,” I tell her.

  “I know. I was thinking of spending a while in there.”

  I wait, but now she's just staring at me with an expectant smile and I realize after a moment what she means.

  “I'll tell you what,” she continues. “I'll go and get it running, make sure it's nice and steamy, and you can come up in a minute or two. Does that sound like a good plan?”

  I nod, too scared to say anything.

  “Cool.”

  She starts to turn away, before stopping and glancing back at me.

  “Are you okay?” she asks. “You seem nervous.”

  “I'm fine.”

  “You're not funny about last night, are you?”

  I shake my head.

  “Okay, that's good. 'Cause I think it could be really fun to take a shower together, if you catch my drift.”

  With that, she turns and walks away. I watch as she makes her way up the stairs, and then I realize I've been inadvertently holding my breath. I listen to the sound of her going up onto the landing, and then I hear her heading into the shower, and finally I hear the sound of the shower being switched on. She's up there getting ready for me to join her, but I look back down at the notebook and then I open the front and double-check the drawings. Maybe I imagined the worst ones, maybe it was all in my head and...

  No.

  I quickly find the sexual ones, and then the bloodied ones showing me getting killed.

  They're just drawings, I know that, but I can't help feeling a rush of panic in my chest. And then, after a moment, I find a thick wad of print-outs folded in the back of the notebook. Slipping them out, I take a look and find that they're parts of some online conversation between Mayfly90330 and AardvarkQueen310293. She's printed out page after page, maybe even our entire chat history.

  I close the notebook and try to figure out what I should do next, although I'm pretty certain of one thing: I'm not going to be able to get out of sharing a shower with her. I guess I should just do that and hope for the best, and then make up some excuse to get away for a few hours and thing this through. Maybe later I'll have to talk to her and really find out what's going on, but for n
ow I don't want to worry her or do anything that seems rude.

  Stepping around the table, I'm about to go to the stairs when my foot bumps against something that's been left under one of the chairs. Hearing a metal clanking sound and feeling something sharp against my bare foot, I look down and see Paula's backpack.

  I freeze, as the shower continues to run upstairs, and then I crouch down.

  I glance at the bottom of the stairs, to make sure that Paula hasn't come back down, and then with trembling hands I start unzipping the backpack. I pull the main section open, and immediately several large knives come sliding out.

  Several large, blood-caked knives.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Frantically shoving the knives back into the backpack, I zip the flap shut and then get to my feet. I can still hear the shower running upstairs, but I know Paula'll be down soon to check where I am. My mind is racing and I can't quite figure out what's happening here, although deep down some inner part of me is screaming that I have to get the hell out of this house.

  Rushing to the downstairs bathroom, I open the washing machine and pull out some dirty clothes I loaded the other day but never got around to washing. I quickly slip into a pair of jeans, then into a jumper, and then I head back out into the living room and over to the front door.

  Stopping for a moment, I realize that the brave thing to do would be to go upstairs and confront Paula right now. After all, she's basically naked in the bathroom and it's not like there's much she can do to me, although I guess there's a chance she's got a knife or two hidden somewhere nearby. I wish I could be brave, but instead I open the front door and step out into the cold morning air, and then I pull the door shut.

  She's going to realize.

  Any moment now she's going to realize that I've bolted, and she's going to want to know why.