by Dani Wyatt
“Sure, let me grab a towel and at least clear off the dust.”
Thirty minutes later, I know what a login is, a password, and I’m all about Google and Gmail.
“So, who are you going to email first?” Katie slaps her hand on the table with a hysterical howl. “Just kidding. Who else would you email? Me of course.”
My stomach fills with a billowing fury of dragonfly wings.
The last words Griffin said to me play on repeat as though he’s right next to my ear.
Send me an email. Just something please.
“I want to email someone,” I mumble toward my feet, my voice barely audible, my cheeks turning to hot coals. I swallow the lump in my throat and sit up straight, steeling myself. I thrust my chest forward, shoulders tug back and I think for the first time in my eighteen years, I feel the stiffness of my backbone. Then, I breathe deep and enunciate each word as clear as if I was delivering a valedictorian speech. “I want to email someone.”
Twenty minutes later, Katie is tapping her foot, leaning against the window in the dining room with a stupid smile on her face.
“Click send,” she says for the fifth time.
“Shut up. I’m not ready. I’m going to think about it.”
She lets out an exasperated sigh with her hand to the ceiling.
“Fine. Then, let’s go out. I’m starving and you need to fill out some paperwork at the restaurant before you can start tomorrow.” She grabs her coat and bag as I re-read the words I’ve written one more time.
I consider deleting it when Katie comes up from behind me and smacks the top closed on the laptop.
“I’m hungry.”
She turns into a bit of a monster when she’s not fed.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
I stuff my arms into my jacket, taking one last look at my laptop before we head out the kitchen to the back door. Wondering when I get home if I’ll have the courage to send.
C H A P T E R S I X
GRIFFIN
Talia,
I hope you had a good day. I imagine you sitting outside somewhere. You are bundled up, of course. I don’t want you getting cold. It’s a clear, crisp January day. The sun is out and you’re wearing a scarf and mittens and a warm coat. The sun is on your face and you’re smiling. Because I always wish for you to be smiling.
Tomorrow will mark ninety days since that night we met. Three months I’ve had you on my mind. Even though this has been a one-way conversation with all my emails, after writing to you for eighty-nine days, I feel like I know you more. Isn’t that odd? My friend, Derrick, is here tonight and he thinks I’ve lost my mind. LOL
He’s right, I have. I’m completely insane. Writing a girl to whom I can’t even send what I’ve written. A girl I barely know. But what he doesn’t understand is you can fit a lifetime of feelings into a single moment. I wouldn’t have believed it either before I met you. Some things you just can’t explain to someone who hasn’t been there.
Okay, well, he’s sitting here ready, waiting for me to finish this email so we can go see the Berlin highlights (meaning bars). You’ll be with me all night as usual, Talia. I hope you can feel me with you too. Because I’m there. Every moment.
Sweet dreams.
Griffin
“Okay. I’m ready.” I spin around in my desk chair and look over at Derrick, who is shaking his head at me.
“Seriously? Every day? Dude, that’s insane. I told you, that house is locked up tight. She’s gone, dude, get over it.”
See, Talia, I told you. Completely insane.
“We covered this, didn’t we? Why do you care anyway?” The snap of my words lets him know it’s time to back the fuck off. “I’ll find her. They said I probably can’t transfer out of this office for a year, but on Monday I can put in the request and get the ball rolling. I had to wait ninety days. I’ve got the paperwork all filled out. I can request to take a week off, though they said not to expect it to be approved until I’ve been there six months but you never know. And then I’m coming home and I’m going to find her. You’ll see. And then she’ll get every email.”
“Then she’ll get a restraining order.” He raises his eyebrows and clasps his hands behind his head. He’s dressed in a wrinkled, button down Polo shirt, khaki pants that are worn around the hem and apparently, he’s given up shaving for the last week. He’s a trust fund baby with a penchant for looking a tad homeless.
“We’re not discussing it.” My voice turns to stone. I do the same thing every day.
What Derrick doesn’t know is I actually write her twice a day, but those other emails are for another time. They’re more Penthouse Forum than the daily diary. I could be insane, I really could. From that first day I arrived here, before that even, in my head she was mine.
I started writing down all the things I wanted to do to her. With her. That second set of emails may just make me certifiable, or an erotica author, but my dick has a voice too. Because he was just as gone over her as my brain and my heart.
“Okay, okay.” He groans as he bursts up to his feet. “Just, man, I don’t get you. I mean look at you. Here you are. You’re single. You have a great job. You’re not actually that bad looking. A bit hulk with a dash of Cro-Magnon. You have this amazing city, with beautiful women all over. And you’re telling me you haven’t popped your——”
“No. Shut. Up.” I don’t even like him alluding to me being with another woman. For me there are no other women and there never will be.
“Something is wrong with you. I know you’re practically as pure as the driven snow, but when was the last time you even had a date? Anything, a hook up, a quick blow——”
“Stop.” I reach around to scratch the back of my neck as though his words cause some sort of rash to break out on me. My skin is crawling. “Jesus, why is my sex life—or lack of—so interesting to you?”
“Because you’re my friend and this is starting to get more than just weird. OK, so this isn’t new behavior, but I thought before that you were just so fucking devoted to getting your degrees in some record time that you didn’t have time for chicks. But now? I just can’t figure you out. You could have had more tail that most guys dream of in their life.”
“Do you want to go out or not?” I spin around in the desk chair, crossing my arms over my chest, sucking some air through my teeth. The thought of another woman touching me tightens the muscles in the back of my neck.
He stretches his arms to the ceiling with a long sigh, twisting his torso side to side. He’s got the most even temper of anyone I’ve ever met. Nothing rattles him. “Yes, sure, let’s go out. I at least want to get drunk. I’m not sure what the fuck time it is inside my head, but I could use a few good German beers.”
“Let me grab some cash from the bedroom and change.” I’m still in my work clothes, so I leave Derrick doing some strange stretching calisthenics behind me as I work my way through the small apartment to the bedroom.
“I’m hopping in the shower!” I yell toward the living room.
I’m not sure you’d call me a clean freak, but I’ve got leanings. I’m a two shower a day minimum guy. And whatever, Derrick can wait a few more minutes. I’ve got too much Talia on my mind to go out into the world right now, so I make sure the water is more cold than warm.
The cold doesn’t help though. I still jerk off thinking about her.
I’m beyond hard just thinking about her as I let the cool water run down my back, my chin dropping to my chest as I flatten my soapy hands on my chest, then wrapping one around my neck. It’s no use. I reach down, my balls are heavy and the throb needs relief.
My mind takes me away. I think of the weight of her tits in my hand as my hand slowly strokes up and down in the slick soap. I wonder about her taste, the fucking size of her nipples. I imagine them rose colored, large round targets, and my mouth strays back and forth between them. Drawing her nipple out until it’s hard and she arches her back tearing her hands into my hair.
Her golden jade eyes are on mine, her soft curves on display for only me. I lower my mouth, licking my way until she spreads her legs for me, showing me all of her. My cock is steel as I fist the girth, nearly painful as I lean against the shower wall letting the fantasy take over and cum drips out of the slit, my balls tingling as I lick my lips, wishing I was tasting her.
“Say you love me” It’s become my obsession, hearing the words seems to be the only way I can come anymore. In my stroke sessions, it always ends this way, the image of her face as I climb over her softness, the tip of my cock poised at her hot entrance, holding myself there. The brush of her hard nipples against my chest.
Her eyes flicker with fire, dark lashes bat as I tease her clit with the tip of my cock, then press it low, spinning it in the slick cream that flows out of her.
“Say it,” I urge, her lips falling open and I think of them kissing my cock.
“I love you, Griffin. Please, I can’t wait... please fuck me.”
I’m done. I tighten a few more strokes as I rub another one out with her face and those magical words in my brain.
I cum so hard I have to brace an arm against the shower wall until I can see straight again. If I feel this way just from my fantasy, I’m almost scared to know what might happen when I touch her for real. Yes, ‘when.’ ‘If’ isn’t even in my vocabulary right now.
Ten minutes later, brushing a hand through my damp hair, I come out of the bedroom to find Derrick sitting at my computer.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I lurch forward to see all the emails in my drafts folder highlighted, all to Talia, and Derrick spins around with a wicked grin.
“Dude, you’re a nasty little beast aren’t you?”
“You’re a fucker. Stand up and walk away before I knock your teeth down your throat.”
Every part of my body feels heavy. The night before swirls back into my memory and I reach to my nightstand for the water bottle I thankfully left there when I fell into bed last night.
It’s Saturday. Derrick is leaving in another couple hours and the light is streaking in through the blinds, falling across the bed and lighting up my hard cock. It’s hard because I was dreaming of her. Even through the slight hangover, she never left my dreams. I’m not a big drinker, but I threw back a few last night with Derrick. Guess I was drowning my sorrows.
I take a few slugs of the water, letting it refresh me for a second before I try to move
I puff out a heavy breath and throw my legs over the side of the bed, bracing my arms on either side of my thighs, shaking the cobwebs out of my head.
“Derrick!” I bark, not wanting to walk out there without warning.
It’s just good bro manners to let someone know you’re coming. I listen, but don’t hear anything in reply. No way he hasn’t heard me, given that the whole apartment is only just wide enough for a bed. I mean, it’s nice, but even on my salary Berlin’s expensive. Besides, I budget to send almost half my pay home to my parents so this apartment is the best I could do.
Silence comes back from the living room so I turn up the volume. “Derrick, you fuck. Wake up, dude, you have to catch your train in a couple hours.”
I push off the edge of the bed and onto my feet a bit unsteadily and shuffle to the bedroom door, creaking it open just a few inches, then throwing it open all the way. I reach up, grabbing the top of the door frame and stretch my torso out. Looking over I see the futon is neatly put back and all the pillows and blankets are stacked on the side chair. I push the door open the rest of the way and realize Derrick and his suitcases are gone.
I scan the apartment, the fog clearing from my eyes. It’s eight a.m., and we only got back here around three, so sleep has not been generous with me. That and a few beers on top mean it’s taking me a few minutes more than it should to process information. I release the door frame and step out into the living room, rubbing a flat hand over my bare chest. It’s silent and the kitchen is dark. I reach my hand upward and rasp my palm over my chin, which is already rough with just a night of beard growth.
I start to work toward the kitchen because coffee is mandatory and I think I catch a whiff of some already brewed in the air. I stop when I see the piece of paper folded in half and standing like a sandwich board on my open laptop written in Derrick’s hand writing.
A few steps later, I’ve got the paper pinched in my fingers and my head is about to explode. When I read the last line, I know why his coward ass is gone.
You’re gonna be mad, but you’ll get over it. You need to move the fuck on, man. This is just too weird. When I got into your email last night, I just couldn’t let you keep it up. Sorry, man, but you’ll thank me someday. Maybe it’s the beer that made me do it, but even if it is, it’s for your own good. Don’t write her anymore. Clean slate, go get laid. Pop your twenty-four-year-old cherry. It’s way past time.
Thanks for letting me crash.
Derrick
P.S. For a smart guy, you’re a bit of a dumb ass, you know? You’ve had the same login and password since we were sixteen, so you might want to change that. Someone could get into your email and really screw with you. I mean it, think of something a bit more original.
My fingers fly across the keys as my heart spasms in my chest. My email comes up, and I see it already. My drafts folder is empty. I feel like I’ve just lost the only person I’ve ever wanted.
My fists come down on my keyboard as my mind goes wild with a fury I’ve never experienced before. I hold my head in my hands and a bellow rises from somewhere inside me that wrenches when it lets go and fills the small living room.
All my thoughts, all the things I wanted to tell her, all the things I imagined doing with her and to her, they are all gone. I feel the loss as if someone had died. I guess a part of me has. I can’t explain it, but all those words were more than just words.
They’d comprised a story written just for her. Words and thoughts and memories I’ll never be able to get back. Our story. And they’re gone forever. I wanted to give her something of me every day so she would know our life together started that night. It was something I wanted to share with only one person and now it’s all gone.
C H A P T E R S E V E N
GRIFFIN
Closing my eyes, the pressure starts to build inside my head. The low throb at the crown has turned into a helmet of increasing pain. It’s not just from last night’s beer anymore, although that is not helping.
The sun is up above the building across the street outside the balcony of my apartment, showing its face over the mixture of old and new structures in downtown Berlin. The light coming through my window is casting my shadow long across the room. I can smell the coffee he’d made before he left. Derrick’s peace offering, I’m sure. I can picture him making it, like some sort of guilty criminal.
I don’t hate him. Like he’d said, I’m a smart guy. I took a few breaths, counted to ten, then scrolled around. The one hundred and seventy-nine emails are still there. In my trash folder.
But it only makes the pain in my head worse because maybe he’s right. Maybe this is the push I needed. How can I be unwound completely over her? I spoke to her for, what? Maybe a half hour? How can I be so sure she’s the one?
I have a choice to make. Monday I’ll file my transfer request. There’s an office in Chicago. That’s what I put down in my transfer document as my first choice since the Detroit office is clearly for the elite which I am not. Yet.
I’m so low on the totem pole I’m sure the answer will be no, but if it’s a yes then I need to find a way to live my life, be happy. There’s every possibility that I’m going to have to do that without her. So yeah, maybe this is for the best.
I don’t use this email account for anything else. I use my work email or the new one I set up when I got my Mac. I’m not sure why, but this one was still just for her. In a few keystrokes, it’s one more click and I can close this email account and all the emails forever.
Move on. Everything I wrote wi
ll be gone, but sometimes you need to shut the door and nail it shut. Leave no way to go back through.
I can’t fight the crushing feeling inside my chest. Is it grief? Because I know all the things I imagined with her were just folly and they will never be?
My cursor hovers over the last click I need to clean the slate.
Move on.
Three months writing her twice a day. Seems that maybe it was crazy after all.
Do it. Just do it. How can a rational, logical person like you have been so drowned in this fantasy for this long? Just click it. Be done.
The two sides of my brain are at war. It’s Derrick’s fault.
My index finger twitches as I raise it up and hold it there for one more moment, just savoring the last of that memory, like it’s the last mouthful of the most wonderful meal. Thinking of that kiss, thinking of every night when I emailed her, imagining tucking her into bed and telling her ‘sweet dreams’ in person instead of to an email that goes nowhere.
‘Are You Sure You Want to Permanently Delete 179 Emails from Your Trash Folder?’
I take a long, low breath; this isn’t what I want. I can’t.
The answer is ‘No.’
I click the answer to the question. If I never hear from her again, I’d still save every one of the messages I’ve written to her. Because they are part of us.
Maybe it’s lack of sleep or the hangover. I drop my head, my forehead meeting the cool glass of the desk as I fight the clutching in my throat. The burning that’s threatening my eyes.
I sit that way for who knows how long. Letting the silence of the morning vibrate around me.
I nearly jump out of my skin when my iPhone dings, lying face up next to the side of my keyboard. I lift my head, eyeing the screen of the phone and my heart nearly breaks straight through my ribs.
