by Gabi Moore
Already deeply suspicious, I took his silence as a reply on its own, a reply from the gods themselves, an omen that everything I was worried about was in fact going to come true (didn’t I tell you teenage girls can get carried away with this kind of thing?).
During those two hours I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I sat with the sickening sensation growing in me that I was about to do something that couldn’t be undone. When he didn’t reply, I took it as my first bit of “proof”.
I sat down again and began to compose a short email.
Hi!
It’s been such a long time. Sorry about emailing, I’m not on Facebook anymore, don’t know if you noticed :) I thought of you the other day and wondered how you were doing. You must be finishing up school this year right? It would be great to catch up.
Annie :)
I read it through again and again. I looked at the innocent “Annie :)” and changed it to “Annie ;)” and then looked again.
Yes, there was no point being subtle. A winking face would be the perfect hook, just the right first breadcrumb. Of course, I didn’t want to blow my cover, and ultimately, any cheateriness would have to come from him, so I couldn’t lay things on the table just like that. I would have to strike a fine balance – set the scene for cheating, and see if he walked into it and played the part.
He still hadn’t replied.
I hit send on the email and imagined it shooting off into the ether. I wouldn’t have admitted it to myself then, but even by that point I was a little curious, maybe even a little excited to see what it would feel like to play another girl. To flirt with him, but as someone else.
I sat back in my chair, and waited.
Chapter 5
It was a school night, like they almost all are, and we were both curled up on the sofa, watching comedy shows.
I loved these moments; he was affectionately rubbing his bare feet against mine, and I was tucked into the warm space between his neck and shoulders. He was in a cheerful mood that day, and we had chatted earlier that day at school about him getting accepted into his first choice of college. I was a year beneath him, and this new development had been expected, yet was still strange now that it had actually come. I would join him later, of course, and nothing would change between us, but still.
Engrossed in the show, he stroked a distracted hand up and all the way down my back. We had never had sex, sure, but in many ways, his body was completely and utterly familiar to me. As familiar to me as my own, in fact.
His body was a friendly landscape, one where each of the features was lovable because it belonged to him: the pair of raised moles just hidden in his hairline on the left side of his head, his fingers that were stubby but gentle, nails always a little chewed; the way he always felt so much warmer than me; the freckle on his ankle; that secret, masculine smell of his collarbone; the way he would always pause after a kiss, as though his lips always took a little longer to make sense of things than the rest of him.
Of course, I was less familiar with other parts of him. I had seen him naked only once, and then only by accident, and I had quickly fumbled to shield my eyes, as though the sight of it would break some kind of delicate spell.
It was moments like these, when his mom was doing a late shift and we had some time to ourselves, that his body came the closest to mine. We had often slept beside one another, both in our underwear. I studiously ignored how hard he would get, and he pretended not to catch a faint trace of my scent as we sealed ourselves in the bed like it was our own private envelope.
“Sorry about yesterday. I was being an ass. I don’t want you to do any of that if you’re not ready. Seriously,” he said, still stroking my back.
I squeezed him tighter. This would have been the perfect moment were it not for the fact that now, I felt guilty as hell.
We watched on in silence. His phone bleeped and he took a few moments to examine it, answer a few texts and put it aside again. Had he read “my” email yet? Obviously he had. I had sent it yesterday evening already, which means he had by now had almost 24 full hours to respond. He seemed just the same. I wondered if cheating, before the big Jerry Springer-style reveal at the end, can be detected in the body somewhere. Did the flesh have its own ways of revealing the truth?
I nestled my head further into him, inhaling his smell and finding that everything was as it had always been. Hm.
Here’s something you learn when you turn into a jealous wreck: the worst thing you can encounter is something that seems totally, 100% legit and innocent. Why? Because that could mean that your partner is even more devious, even more clever than you thought. It’s a weird place to be. I got up to go to the bathroom and sat there for a while, contemplating at what moment I could count myself as in the wrong, when something strange happened: he replied. Right then.
I stared at my phone, a little stunned. Had he waited for me to leave the room before he replied? My mind whirred. Did that count as deceptive? Of course not, silly. It’s polite, if anything. Right? Or does it show a certain level of premeditation?
Sitting there perched on the toilet seat like an idiot, I opened the email and read it about 4000 times before tearing my eyes away.
Hi Annie!
Yeah it’s been a long time. Can’t remember the last time I emailed someone to be honest :) Really glad to hear from you again though. Are you still seeing that guy? I think his name was Anthony…
xxx
D
I pored over this like it was a precious artifact dug out from the side of a mountain. I was transfixed, staring at each and every word, none of which were technically meant for my eyes. I was in some parallel universe now, one that was cold and quiet and smelled of Body Shop shower gel, and here before me was the second breadcrumb, and I was terrified. What had I been expecting anyway?
He had totally fallen for it and didn’t suspect a thing. I weighed up the “evidence” so far. He had matched Annie’s casual tone, and had been casual and curt; but then he was “really glad” to hear from her, which gave me pause, and then the last bit made me think, why would he be concerned about whether she still had a boyfriend or not?
Definitely, this was the most curious element to my new artifact. After all, he could have asked her about anything in the world, but he was curious, of all things, to know if she was single. The xxx was a weird touch too, and the D seemed overly familiar. Or did it? I shoved my phone in my pocket. I was being a jealous bitch, of course, and none of this meant anything. Obviously.
I stepped back into the living room and he was sitting there on the sofa, just as he had been before I left. I was ready to dismiss everything until I saw how casually he was sitting there, how there was nothing in the world to suggest that anything had happened at all. I thought, if he could be so easy like this, what’s to say he hadn’t cheated already? How many times had I gone to the bathroom in my life? And how many furtive messages had he sent, if it was this easy?
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the evening a tiny seed of doubt wedged its way into my crazy mind and split me in two. One part of me was regular old Violet, secure and content. The other was crazy and jealous and paranoid, and her name was “Annie”, and she was a long lost family friend, and she was sweet, interesting, carefree …and a total lie.
Chapter 6
D
Well, to be honest, things with him aren’t going too well. Don’t tell anyone, but I think we’ll break up soon. It’s for the best. Let’s just say we didn’t have the same needs and leave it at that. What about you? Any lovely ladies in your life?
Annie
Hey
That sucks! Hope you’re OK. Anything I can do to help?
D
All the rest of the week, I toyed around with these two flimsy bits of nothing, shorter than the Iliad by a factor of 1000 and yet much, much more epic.
I studied these little scraps like it was my job. I was a lawyer, looking for intent, for incriminating evidence or technicalities t
o hook into. I was a historian, trying out different translations to see if I could find anything in this communiqué between two mysterious tribes. There was sex somewhere in this exchange, and I was going to find it.
Exhibit A: David carefully avoids the question about me, that is to say, his girlfriend. Why not answer? Why not tell her that I was the love of his life and that he’d send her a 3000-word essay about how we met? Instead, silence. Why didn’t he want her to know he was seeing anyone? Answer: sex.
Exhibit B: In response to my deliberate trap (“didn’t have the same needs” …Annie’s a bit too forward here, even if I say so myself) my allegedly loving boyfriend doesn’t enquire about those needs but dives right in to “help”. This could either mean that he’s a caring soul who’s offering a shoulder to cry on, or, it could mean the other thing: sex.
Exhibit C: The crazy-jealous girlfriend, who really has no business questioning her boyfriend’s honesty when she’s already two full emails into an elaborate lie she hasn’t quite thought through to the end. Why did she have to lay traps at all? What was she going to do with the awkward fact that his emails were getting shorter and almost less friendly? What was she so afraid of anyway? Obviously: sex.
It was a strange few days. I guess I had almost expected him to just jump right in with something inappropriate, and that catching him would be simple. But, annoyingly, it seemed like cheating wasn’t just a question of putting cheater and hot girl next to each other and waiting for a reaction.
I thought about this and felt a little silly: of course, Annie would have to seduce him.
It was one thing being polite to an old friend, and quite another to turn down her obvious advances. Which I have to admit I, and I mean Annie, didn’t actually make. I couldn’t pay attention during my piano lesson that day, and kept racing through the piece and getting snagged on the same difficult bit, over and over again.
He walked me home that evening, as usual, but this time there was a girl walking beside us, a weird imaginary girl who I had been stupid enough to name. The sun had just gone down and both of our arms were crisping up with the cool air. Let me just say: I loved this boy with all my heart. Really. So that you’ll be less judgmental about what happens next. A steaming jogger wheezed by us, briefly making eye contact with us both and then bounding away, uninterested in any of my life’s dramas.
“She’s pretty, don’t you think?” I said.
“What?”
“That girl, she was so pretty.”
“Oh yeah? I didn’t notice.”
Liar.
“Yeah she was. She had really pretty green eyes,” I continued.
“Cool.”
“A pretty green, almost like a cat’s eyes. Really pretty.”
“Pretty eyes can be so nice on a girl.”
“Oh my god, David, do you have to objectify her like that?”
He turned to look at me, puzzled.
“What’s gotten into you?” he said, and I could do nothing but bat my apparently inferior eyes at him.
“Nothing.”
We walked on, and the space between us grew. I reached out and grabbed his hand and held it, and we continued walking like that, although this also felt wrong somehow. I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I had made my promises to him, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have my own …temptations. That I didn’t want him too. Keeping promises wasn’t easy for me either, you know. In fact, it was times like this that I would have given anything to just let go, and hold him as close as I could, both of us sinking into each other… Just because I was a romantic, it didn’t mean that I didn’t crave him. And his body.
I suddenly pulled on his arm and yanked him quickly behind a bush along the path, pulling him to crouch down on the ground with me.
“What are you…?” he started, but I kissed him hard, pinning both his hands down onto the damp ground with mine.
David, trusting, sweet, innocent David kissed back generously. As though I wanted to find something there, I sent a devouring tongue all over him, kissing his cheeks and chin and then pressing my lips hard against his again, delivering a slow, deep kiss. Then we looked at each other.
What if, horror of all horrors, he wasn’t even sexually attracted to me? What if I had denied him so long that he basically thought of me like a sister, or a friend? The thought made me colder than the cold ground we were kneeling down on.
I grabbed his hand, palm wet and studded with small stones, pulled down the waist of my skirt and pressed it between my legs. In this cold, horrible world, where all boys cheat eventually, this seemed like the last warm spot; just having him so close made me instantly wet. He had never touched me there before. All at once, his fingers were at the entrance of my pussy, against that silky wetness pooling there, but he instinctively pulled them away again, staring at me in horror.
He stood up, angrily, not quite knowing what to do with himself.
“What the hell, Violet? What are you doing?”
I was horny. I was sad. I didn’t know what I was doing. I stared down at my knees and the mud on them. “Do you think I’m pretty?” I asked pathetically.
“What? Why do you ask that? Of course I think you’re pretty.”
“But do you think I’m sexy?” I asked, more pointedly. I mean, obviously at that point, kneeling down in front of him in some muddy grass, on a school night, I wasn’t the sexiest thing you could imagine, but still.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” he said.
I know that I’m a pain in the ass. I know that I’m difficult to understand sometimes, and that I can be bossy, and that I get carried away. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t love him. Without thinking, I reached out to him and began to unbutton his pants, still on my knees and his crotch square to my face.
“David let’s do it. Right now. I’m so sorry. I love you. I want to…”
To my surprise, he was hard, and my hands worked quickly over the cotton of his boxer shorts to release his hot cock and a plume of his familiar scent, a scent that felt like my home, like the only remedy for the growing ache between my legs. I opened my mouth and tenderly took the warm tip between my lips, my tongue tasting the tiny bead of saltiness quivering there. A corresponding bead formed in my own mind: I had done this to him. I had turned him on…
“Violet this is crazy,” he was saying, and before I knew it he pulled away and was furiously zipping himself back up. All at once, that beautiful nakedness, that glorious bulk of his was gone and packed away in his pants again. Mouth hanging open, I stared up at him, hurt. I wanted to cry.
He was dusting the clumps of mud off his knees, trying to find something to say. He looked at me.
“I just don’t understand you,” he said finally. He extended his hand to help me up, but I refused it and stood up myself.
“I’ll just walk myself the rest of the way, thanks. I’ll see you in class tomorrow. I have some emails to write.” And I walked off.
Chapter 7
D,
Well, there is something you can do to help, honestly. Please don’t think I’m being too forward, but I always felt like I could open up to you, even though we’ve never really gotten the chance to get to know each other that well.
The truth is, Anthony and I broke up. I’m feeling pretty awful about everything. It’s been a bit of a nasty breakup, so it’s nice just to speak to someone who doesn’t really know him, you know? He was a great guy, but like I said, we were two very different people.
Can you keep a secret? It’s a little embarrassing. I tell everyone we grew apart and make up excuses, but the truth is that we broke up because he wouldn’t have sex with me. Ever. Maybe that sounds crazy, but it feels good just to share that with someone. He’s the kind who wants to wait till marriage. I couldn’t handle it. I guess you could say I’m just too passionate. Sex is very important to me. Hope you’re well.
Annie
PS: You never answered my question. Do you have a girlfriend?
So, the die is cast. The deed is done. I stared at this email for a long time, at each little pixel, pondering how such tiny things, when there were enough of them, could build up something so big.
I hit send.
But how much of this email was actually a lie, though? Maybe it was true that David and I were very different people. Maybe it was true that it felt good to finally just talk, anonymously, to someone about sex. And maybe …maybe the part about me being passionate wasn’t quite a lie, either. I looked at the tiny avatar of Annie, blond and generically good looking, oblivious to what was going on in her name.
I could be sexual, too. In fact, when I was ready, I fully intended to be a passionate, unbridled woman, to go at it every chance I got, and to fuck my heart out. Really. I slipped my hand into the band of my skirt again, finding faint traces of all the excitement that had happened earlier that day. Fingertips wet, I stroked smoothly over my clit, a dim swell of pleasure growing there, although I couldn’t tear my eyes from the screen.
When a new window popped up, I nearly leapt out of my skin. An instant message. From him.
I was still logged in as Annie. A telling green dot appeared next to his picture, and next to mine. I mean, next to Annie’s…
David: Hello
The air was still. It was late, my homework was done, and the night sat around me, waiting. One hand still down my skirt, my other hovered over the keyboard. I hate to admit, but just seeing his face there sent a delicious shudder through me. I typed with an awkward left hand and hit enter.
Annie: Hey
His words appeared almost immediately on the screen:
