Love Hacked

by Penny Reid

  Everyone was snugly situated in Marie’s tiny studio apartment. She never had enough chairs, so a few ladies were happily situated on the ground and raised their wine glasses in greeting at my arrival.

  Tonight the ‘everyone’ did not include Elizabeth’s husband, Nico. He’d started crocheting when they’d begun dancing around each other last spring and would—from time to time—join us on nights when we weren’t in public places.

  In addition to being Italian man-candy, madly in love with Elizabeth, and adorable, Nico was an irreverent comedian with his own talk show on Comedy Central. He’d just finished moving the entire operation from New York to Chicago, and the paparazzi still liked to harass him in public.

  “Oh, look! She finally made it.” Ashley stood to give me a hug, even though I’d seen her for coffee earlier that morning. “Where have you been?”

  “Sorry I’m late. I got caught jaywalking and had to give the policeman a hand job or pay a seventy-five dollar fine.”

  Kat snorted some of her wine back into her glass and coughed. I shook my head at her foolishness. “When will you ever learn not to drink when I’m talking?”

  Marie also pulled me into a hug. “That sounds like fun. But what were you really doing, and what do you want to drink?”

  “I was reviewing grant proposals; lost track of time. And I’ll take a hot toddy, thank you.”

  That was only partially true. I had lost track of time, but it wasn’t because of the grant proposals. I’d been thinking about Alex, pondering Agent Bell’s visit, and resisting the urge to research bitcoins.

  “Oh. Grant proposals. Sounds thrilling.” Ashley deadpanned, waving my words away, then she pinned me with a pointed glare. “Are you wearing one of your fancy T-shirts?”

  I sighed. “Sadly, no. I didn’t get a chance to change.”

  “I saw one that I want to get for your husband.” Ashley smiled, splitting her attention between her knitting and me.

  I smirked and shook my head. My knitting group loved my occasion T-shirts so much they’d started buying similar shirts for my future, theoretical, yet-to-be-named husband.

  “Oh, what does it say?” Elizabeth asked.

  “You’ll have to wait and see,” Ashley said while administering an eyebrow wag in my general direction.

  I was still hovering at the small entrance to the space, trying to find an open spot.

  “Come sit next to me.” Elizabeth patted the spot next to her on the small love seat and scootched over. “Without Nico here, I’m missing my furnace.”

  I liked knit nights at Marie’s place, especially during the winter, because we were forced to cuddle.

  I didn’t want to freak out my friends, but I was a cuddling sort of person. I loved petting and hugging and kissing. If I felt affection for a person, I wanted to always be close—always touching. I was aware that this tendency of mine could feel suffocating to others—in fact, boyfriend number two called my constant desire for physical contact needy and smothering and he’d listed it as one of the top three reasons for our incompatibility.

  Thus, I welcomed the warm fuzzies that came from being forced by circumstance to squeeze next to Elizabeth on the loveseat, and I was happily engulfed in her softness.

  The conversation picked up where it obviously had left off, interrupted by my arrival. Janie was discussing quantitative easing.

  “Wait, explain what it is again? All I know is that it’s not putting positive ease into a knit sweater.”

  “No. Quantitative easing is a monetary policy that central banks use to help grow the economy, but it’s much disputed, and universally recognized to be quite unconventional. Instead of buying and selling government bonds to maintain interbank interest rates at a specific value, the central banks….”

  Honestly, by this point, I had already tuned her out. But the conversation topic—money—was timely. Maybe it’s fate, I admitted inwardly.

  I waited until Janie paused to take deep breath, and then I blithely asked. “Janie, what are bitcoins?”

  She blinked at me, as though startled by the question. “Bitcoins? Oh, bitcoins are….”

  “Why do you ask?” Fiona interrupted I faced her and found her frowning. Her usually merry eyes were cautious.

  I shrugged. “No reason. I overheard someone today say it.”

  “In reference to what?” Fiona set her knitting on her lap.

  I studied her. “What’s wrong? Are bitcoins bad?”

  Janie interceded. “No. They’re not bad. They’re actually quite good.”

  “Depends on who you ask,” Fiona muttered, and gave me one last searching stare before she returned her attention to her knitting.

  “Well, I like them because they’re finite,” Janie said with her usual logic. “Meaning, there can be only so many of them. Unlike a government controlled currency, you can’t just print more or make more. And, I also like them because they’re based on mathematics.”

  Of course Janie would like anything based on mathematics.

  I shook my head. “But, what are they? Start from the beginning.”

  “Can I have one? I mean, can I buy one?” Marie asked, her face clearly confused.

  Janie nodded. “Yes. Anyone can buy a bitcoin. In fact, everyone can see who owns which bitcoin or what percentage of a bitcoin. You don’t have to buy an entire bitcoin; you can buy part of one if you want.”

  “Who owns these things?” Elizabeth glanced up from her work in progress.

  “All sorts of people.” Janie shrugged. “I actually own a few. I loved the idea when I learned about it, when they first came out. So I bought some in order to support the idea.”

  “Wait, let’s go back to what you said before. What do you mean, everyone can see who owns which bitcoin? How can they see it?” Marie was flexing her inner journalist muscle.

  “In the simplest terms, a log of all bitcoins and their owners is maintained on a public website—of sorts—called the blockchain.”

  “So people see that Janie Morris owns bitcoins?” Marie pressed.

  Janie shook her head. “No. My name isn’t there, my unique bitcoin account number is. I have a log-in to the blockchain; think of it like my bitcoin bank account number. It’s public, but there is also a certain anonymity.”

  “How do you spend them?” Ashley asked.

  “Lots of businesses take them, especially online, and even certain Vegas Hotels. In fact, PayPal is looking at adding the ability to trade in bitcoins. Of course, a lot of people use them as an investment. They’ve increased in value so much.”

  “Who owns the website? Who controls the blockchain?” Kat asked.

  “No one owns it. It’s hard to explain.” Janie appeared to be frustrated with herself. It was clear she wanted to give us good answers in terms we would understand. I had to give her credit because, typically, she spoke in technical terms, and we were all left in the dust. “You, or anyone, can help support the running of the blockchain with your own computing power.”

  “Or stolen computing power,” Fiona added under her breath, and I was the only one to hear the comment. I didn’t get a chance to ask her what she meant because the conversation continued, and I was invested in learning more.

  “Why would they do that? Why would anyone sacrifice their own computing power to help support the public log of bitcoin owners?” Elizabeth was no longer knitting. In fact, all knitting needles had ceased clicking.

  “If you support the blockchain then you get a percentage—or you can get a percentage, I should clarify—of each new bitcoin mined. It’s a self-sustaining system. No one needs to run it, no one is ultimately responsible for it, and it’s not tied to any country or government. It’s quite a superb example of a global computing cooperative utopia, actually.”

  She continued, trying her best to explain about bitcoin mining and supercomputers. I reflected how nice it was to have Janie in my life. Not only was she a fantastic human being, she was also my own personal walking, talking Wiki
pedia—but with better citations.

  When she finished, we all sat silently for a long moment, staring into space, absorbing the remarkably strange information—everyone that is, but Fiona, who was very pointedly not engaged in the conversation.

  Ashley was the one to interrupt our information absorption hush. “This is all completely fascinating. I tell you, nerds rule the world. We might think it’s the beautiful people, but it’s not. It’s the geeks who invent a currency out of thin air, based on math of all things, thereby convincing the king he has clothes on.”

  Marie was the next to stir. “I’m sorry, Sandra. I’ve been holding your hot toddy for the last few minutes and forgot to give it to you.”

  “Oh, thank you.” I received the cup from her with reverence. She was a cocktail culinary genius; therefore, she’d sprinkled the top with cinnamon and used rum instead of brandy.

  Nestled in place, hot toddy in hand, I retreated into my own mind and muddled over the afternoon’s revelations and lingering questions.

  I still comprehended and accepted that Alex, due to all the factors I’d previously self-enumerated, was not an ideal life partner—youth, criminality, strangeness, prone to apartment-destroying temper tantrums, et cetera.

  However….

  If Alex wasn’t a gifted liar, then that meant—to him—that I actually was exquisitely beautiful. I was also sweet like honey and had a great personality. That would make his actions adoring and genuine and based on months—nay, years—of observation. He’d made himself vulnerable because he liked a girl, and that girl was me.

  And I liked him.

  Yes, he was young. But his youth only made his strangeness more significant and alluring.

  He was also tremendously, yet unassumingly, smart, and stealth smarts were devastatingly sexy. Nothing was worse than a handsome guy who became an ignorant toad when he spoke. Or, a smart guy whose intelligence was made obnoxious by the need to be acknowledged and lauded for his brain.

  These men were like gold-plated poop; value on the outside, excrement on the inside.

  But what does Alex have to do with bitcoins? I mused inwardly, my mind wandering far from the knitting group.

  “Sandra?”

  My lashes fluttered as I searched for the source of my name. I was greeted by Ashley’s expectant eyebrows, though the rest of her expression was that of concentrated aggravation.

  “Uh, yeah?”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  Ashley tsked then pursed her lips. “What do you think of Marie’s decision not to press charges?”

  “Against whom?”

  “Against the threatening, douch-kanoosh idiot bouncer from last week. Haven’t you been listening?”

  My attention shifted to Marie. “You’re not pressing charges?”

  She shook her head, wouldn’t meet my eyes. Her gaze and attention were seemingly focused on the gray lap blanket she was knitting.

  “Are you crazy?” I said the words at the same time I thought them. “He was about to show us his penis…all of it…right there…on the sidewalk.”

  Marie grimaced. “He was angry with me because of the article I wrote.”

  “How did you get him to show you his penis in the first place?” Janie asked. “And I also don’t understand what he thought he was going to prove by whipping it out last Tuesday. It was cold outside. A small penis plus a snowy day necessitates a magnifying glass, and I don’t carry one with me anymore.”

  “Are you kidding?” Marie snorted. “For that article all I had to do was ask the guys to show me. Men love showing off their junk. It’s why urinals still exist.”

  “Believe it or not, I don’t care about his penis,” I said, and chose to ignore someone’s subdued chuckle. “I care about you. And I’m concerned about your decision against pressing charges.” I narrowed my eyes at her to show her I meant business.

  “He’s not dangerous….”

  “He came after you,” Fiona pressed. She also appeared aggravated.

  “Yes. He did.” Marie cleared her throat. “And I’m not excusing what he did. His bark is worse than his bite, believe me.”

  “What makes you so certain?” Janie asked with unassuming curiosity. “It seems to me that a man who threatens another human being is, by definition, dangerous.”

  Marie’s jaw tensed. “He won’t be coming after me again.”

  “But how do you know?” Elizabeth pressed.

  “Because I know.”

  “But….”

  Marie abruptly set her work in progress aside and semi-shouted at Elizabeth, “Because he’s already had his revenge, okay? He’s already done his damage, and it was enough to satisfy his douche-kanoosh, tiny prick, jerk-face need for retaliation!”

  We all sat in wide-eyed silence for a long moment. The only sound in the room was Marie’s audible inhale and exhale. She appeared deflated and exasperated by her own outburst. But then her eyes watered and her chin wobbled.

  And everyone looked at me.

  I cleared my throat before I asked, “What happened, Marie?”

  She huffed a watery laugh and answered as though compelled. “David and I split up.”

  This revelation was met with another stunned silence. David was Marie’s long-time partner of six years. He was sweet and docile and a nice guy. We all liked him, mostly because he was a chef and often cooked for us.

  “What happened?” I asked again, and leaned forward and placed my hand over hers.

  Marie closed her eyes. “It didn’t take much, actually.” She laughed again. “The article I wrote was the last straw, I think. Stan—the tiny-penis-wielding bouncer—sent David a note, told him we’d had an affair. David believed Stan and not me. And that’s that.” She shrugged, though her shoulders appeared tense and burdened.

  “Oh, Marie….” Kat crossed the room and engulfed Marie in a hug.

  “When did this happen?” Fiona asked.

  “Three days ago. But I’ll be fine.” Marie rested her head against Kat’s chest for a brief moment then gave us all a brave smile, though a tear rolled down her cheek. “I will. It’s only been a few days, but part of me knows it was for the best. We were never….” she sighed and looked down at her hands then at her lap blanket. “David has never been very surprising.”

  “But that’s to be expected, after being together so long.” Fiona’s eyes were softly searching. “I know you loved him, Marie.”

  “I did. I do. I love him. However, Fiona, you and I may have strong personalities, but David isn’t like your Greg. You have a partnership. You argue and it’s okay to disagree. With David and me, I pushed and he gave in. He never wanted to argue about anything, and I think that’s why we ultimately kept separate apartments. I wanted him to change and he did—poof, he was always ready to surrender. Do you know how exhausting that is? How lonely?

  “For a long time I considered him safe and easy, but after a while, I realized he was a doormat. He didn’t want the responsibility that came with having conviction.” Marie sighed, and more tears slipped past her lashes. “I just wanted him to push back sometimes, you know? I tried to talk to him about it. I tried encouraging him to take the lead, but that just made everything worse.”

  Sounds of Marie’s soft crying filled the diminutive space, and I could feel my friends struggle with their helplessness.

  I felt sympathy for my friend, but my thoughts were also of Alex—.

  Alex, who didn’t seem capable of giving in or making things easy for anyone. My longing for him spiked; I wanted his stubborn evasion of my questions; his Alex swagger and sweetness; his zing-inducing kisses; and the concentrated, challenging burn of his cobalt eyes.

  I understood why Marie felt dually melancholy and relieved. She missed David because she loved him. But she knew they were never going to work. She needed someone who would challenge her.

  Though Fiona, Janie, and Elizabeth seemed to have found partners who were capable of matching or complementing the
ir robust temperaments and personalities, capable of holding their own, and maintaining conviction without becoming entirely overbearing, I feared that these kinds of men were rarer than a three-horned bull.

  Nothing we said or did was going to make this better for Marie in the long run. She would have to live through it.

  But, in the short term, there was something I could do.

  “Marie,” I said, and I squeezed her hand again. “What is your least favorite part of the male anatomy?”

  “Uh…what?”

  “Come on.” I nudged her shoulder. “You have to have a least favorite part.”

  Marie stared at me for a beat then blinked rapidly. “Really? I just pour out my heart to you and….”

  “Balls,” Ashley announced unceremoniously from her place on the floor.

  Elizabeth snickered.

  “Oh, my lord.” Marie covered her face with her hands and shook her head.

  I ignored her and leaned closer to Ashley. “I know, right? I mean, shouldn’t those things be on the inside?”

  Janie’s thoughtfully distracted voice chimed in. “I feel like the rest of the male body makes a lot of sense. And then…balls.”

  “Yes!”

  “It makes me think maybe God is an alien or ran out of alluring parts before he got to the male reproductive system.”

  “They never look nice; it’s basically impossible. You can’t dress them up, and I’ve seen a lot of balls in the ER. I’ve never seen a man’s balls and thought to myself, Now that guy has a great set of testicles.” Elizabeth added somberly.

  Marie’s shoulders were shaking, I assumed with laughter or tears or both. I couldn’t be sure.

  Ashley nodded and said, “If I never had to see another set of balls again, it would be too soon,” her voice completely deadpan as she picked up her cable needle.

  When Marie finally peeked between her fingers at me, her eyes were wet, but most of the melancholy was absent. It had been replaced with shining bemused amusement. “You are crazy.” The words were somewhat muffled behind her hands.

  I grinned at her. “I’m just trying to prove a point.”

  “Which is?”

  “You won’t miss everything about him.”