7

THE NIGHTS GET LONGER and the days get shorter as September gives way to October.

Jer is working longer hours, traveling more. This will be our marriage, I realize. Me at home, bored and lonely, while he travels and works. If we have kids, will I raise them alone? Will I still talk to Stranger? In a year? In six years?

He and I chat all day now, every single day. I let him in when I told him about the review, trusted him with my own insecurities, admitted to my lies. He made me feel better. A dam broke loose somewhere between us, and a whole wild waterfall gushed out.

He eats eggs. The smell makes me gag. I eat wheat toast with peanut butter. He thinks that’s weird.

We eat together. Take a writing break and chat. He eats sandwiches for lunch most days, tuna or turkey with carrots and apples. He’s healthy, this stranger of mine. I eat salads because I’m always dieting for a wedding I should be planning but am not. A wedding that gets closer by the day and yet somehow feels farther and farther away.

We chat about nothing. The best pizza we ever had, our favorite drinks, travel and TV shows, books and movies. How annoying passwords are and the systems we use to keep track.

He has a spreadsheet to track his passwords, and always uses names of beer for his.

He never makes mistakes. Or so he says. My dad always says everyone makes mistakes.

I use fruit and numbers and have to reset my passwords constantly because I forget them.

He reads serious novels, ones about death and suicide and the state of the universe, I read trash and I’m proud of it. He says he’s proud of nothing, but I know it’s a lie. He’s proud of a lot of things. He’s proud of what he’s accomplished. He was in the Marines. His dad died when he was twelve. His mom had trouble paying the bills, so he started stealing and dealing drugs. I can’t even imagine that life. While I spent my summers in Europe, he was in foster homes, group homes, juvenile detention centers.

With Stranger, there’s a lot left unsaid. I can read him, not that I’d tell him that. I can tell he feels guilty about leaving his brother behind when he joined the service.

He can read me too. Far too well. And he keeps me guessing, off-balance. Randomly disappears all day. I’m left anxious, checking constantly, desperate for the red circle, feeling frustrated, resentful, irritable. But then he comes back with a silly anecdote about a hike he took early in the morning with his dog, and all I feel is relief that he’s back. That I’m not alone anymore.

I know what he’s doing most of the time, when he goes for walks, when he writes, when he sleeps and eats. And he knows the same about me. I tell him about Jeremy and Annie and the babies. He knows about my mom and my dad, my brother Danny.

I convince myself it doesn’t matter, whatever I feel for him, because this is the internet.

He’s opening me up, dissecting my brain, unearthing hidden parts of me I’d never even thought of. I didn’t know I could connect this way with another human being. I had no idea men could talk like this. My dad only talks about golf and football. Jer only talks about work and himself. But Stranger...

He’s like the best girlfriend I could ever imagine, with a little extra added layer of dominance, sex and danger.

When Jeremy sleeps over, I lie beside him in the night, listening to his quiet even breathing and I wonder what Stranger sounds like when he sleeps. Does he snore? Does he kick? Does he like to cuddle?

It makes me smile, thinking about him and imagining him somewhere thinking about me. There’s so much curiosity and doubt. Maybe I’ve inflated this in my head, maybe it means nothing to him, maybe he just pities me.

Or maybe he’s jerking off somewhere to a picture of my face on the phone of his screen like a perverted stalker. Does he get turned on reading my sex scenes?

He’s my mysterious stranger, my dark secret, my private escape, and part of me revels in the doubt and secrecy and wonder of it all.

I REACH FOR MY PHONE first thing in the morning. It’s still dark outside. The streetlights cast their orangy glow against my curtains. The temperature must have dropped overnight, because my room is cold.

Jer slept over last night. He’s still asleep on his side of the bed, a distant, breathing lump in the covers.

My belly hitches. He hasn’t said anything like this before. We’ve both been so careful. We’ve never played our hands before. We’ve always kept it neutral. Kept it professional—at least since the cum bucket conversation.

But I’ve had the very same thought about him so many times I’ve lost count. I’m starved for clues about this man. This is another turning point.

He doesn’t answer right away. I knew he wouldn’t. It makes me laugh, imagining him staring at the screen, vaguely annoyed. He tries to control the flow of our conversation. He thinks he can predict what I’ll say next. I try to make sure he can’t.

When I come back, Jer is dressed in his suit, standing in the kitchen, freshly shaved. His dark hair is smoothed and gelled, his tie perfectly knotted. He’s looking thinner than usual these days. Maybe he’s feeling the stress of the coming wedding too.

He smiles when he sees me, and I ignore the flash of bitter guilt and irritation.

Jer has this way of smiling that makes him look bashful and sweet at the same time. He holds out a hand to me and even though I’m all sweaty and he’s wearing a suit—and he’s meticulous about his suits—he tugs me against him and wraps me in a big bear hug.

“Sorry we couldn’t run together. I slept in. Still jet-lagged from the London trip.”

I grab a bottle of water from the fridge. “Sure, I was going to take sushi out to Annie, and help with the babies. Around seven. Want to meet there?”

He presses a kiss to my neck. “You’re a good friend. You two have your girl time. I’ll grab something on my way home and stay at my place.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath through the relief that he won’t stay over tonight, because then I can spend my evening glued to my phone. How will this work after we marry and move in together?

I need to focus on Jer, on our lives together, on the wedding, on finding a house. But somehow, the thought has my throat tightening. Is this just cold feet? Is Stranger a symptom of some sort of quarter-aged crisis?

I turn in Jer’s arms, look up at him. I want him to kiss me, see if we have any real chemistry at all, maybe have wild sex right here in the kitchen just to prove we do.

He looks down with his kind eyes, leans in, and presses a chaste kiss to the side of my mouth. “Have a good day.”

IT’S ALMOST 9 a.m. when I sit down at my desk, showered and dressed for the day.

Jeremy. You love Jeremey. You’re wearing his ring. You’re marrying Jeremy. Focus on Jeremy. Jeremy.

I’m being cool. I’m not totally focused on Stranger. But I do have to check my phone, right?

Stranger: I know you’re not a man.

Mia: How can you be so sure?

Stranger: Worried I’m a woman?

Mia: No. I know you’re a man.

Stranger: How?

Mia: Just do.

Stranger: Ever wondered what I sound like?

Mia: Once or twice... Okay. Maybe a few hundred times.

Stranger: We could fix that. Very easily.

Mia: No. We really can’t. It feels like too serious a step.

Stranger: Talking to me on the phone feels like a serious step? What century are you from? I didn’t ask you to move in.

Mia: Ha. You’re an internet stranger.

Stranger: You still think of me that way?

Mia: As a stranger? I mean... you could be a pervert or a psychopath. God knows what you’re doing on your end of the internet or what plans you have.

Stranger: I am a pervert. And believe me, I have great plans for you.

Mia: You’re a pervert? Do you flash old ladies?

Stranger: No. But I have thought about fucking you five times today already.

All the air rushes out of my lungs in one giant gust. I whimper. I’ve waited for him to say something like this for so long. I’ve wanted it. I’ve dreaded it. He’s teased me. Starting hot and crazy, then going chaste. Right now, I could tell him to stop. I could tell him this is too much. It’s not appropriate. I’m engaged. We can’t go there. Or I could go there right along with him.

I’m supposed to meet with the florist later today to plan my wedding. I’m supposed to be thinking about Jeremy. I could rebuff Stranger now. Turn the flow of the conversation away. He’ll let me. I should do it. End this now before it gets worse, before it’s too late, before it destroys everything.

I have no self-control. I’m pathetic. I’m putty. I have to know how he’ll respond.

Mia: And? What do you think about?

Stranger: What we’d do if we met, where we’d go, how we’d be.

Mia: Make any decisions?

Stranger: We’d be fucking glorious.

Mia: How would it go?

Stranger: We’d meet in a public place. A restaurant or a bar. Someplace you’d feel safe, where we could settle in, have a drink. See what happens.

Mia: And then?

Stranger: Electric, Reed. We’ll be electric.

Mia: What if I’m not like I am online? What if I’m shy?

Stranger: You’d still be you inside. I’d just have to work harder to find it, make you comfortable.

Mia: What if you don’t like the way I look?

Stranger: Looks aren’t all that important.

Mia: What if I don’t like how you look.

Stranger: Looks aren’t all that important.

Mia: Then what?

Stranger: ...

Mia: ...?

Stranger: I sometimes hold back with you.

Mia: Why hold back? I’m a grown woman.

Stranger: I don’t want to shock you.

Mia: Shock me. Please. Make my boots shake.

Stranger: Fine. Fuck it. I want you in my bed, under me, I want to feel you on my skin, smell you, taste you. I want to ruin your panties, suck on your tongue, see how wet I can make you. I want to fuck you, fill you up, make you scream.

I’ve been on this planet for twenty-seven years. No one has ever said anything like that to me in my life.

I’ve written dirtier things, but that comes from my head. Crazy people online have said weird stuff, but I don’t know them. This is him. My bizarre fixation, my dangerous desire.

I’m really turned on. I have this sickeningly clear image of myself, licking our combined fluids off his fingers.

Mia: You just did ruin my panties.

Stranger: Good. Then why are you still wearing them?

Mia: What am I supposed to do.

Stranger: Duh. Take them off.

Mia: Uhhhh...

Stranger: Don’t think. Just do it.

He dominates me this way. I see it happening. Curiously, I like it. I don’t know what that says about me, but I do. I like the slither of fear that rides up my spine, I like that I’m so wet between my thighs I’m dripping. I like the danger of all this. He could be anyone. He could be a criminal. He could be a monster. He could be my dreams come true. He could be anything.

My eyes water with some unnamed emotion. Relief? Fear? Sadness? Like I’ve been looking for something my whole life and here it is.

My lips shake and a fat tear slides down my cheek. My nipples are so hard they hurt. And I wasn’t exaggerating about my panties. I reach under my dress and tug them down, let them slide down to the floor.

Mia: Done.

Stranger: Give me your number.

Mia: I don’t know....

Stranger: You want to hear my voice.

Mia: You probably sound like an old woman.

Stranger: I don’t.

Mia: Maybe you have a lisp.

Stranger: You’re curious.

Mia: I am. You really want to talk for the first time right now?

Stranger: Why not?

Mia: I always imagined it at night, pouring a drink together. Sitting down. Talking. Like how you described it, only without the bar.

Stranger: We’ll do that next.

Mia: I’m engaged.

Stranger: I know. I can back off if you want. Am I making you nervous?

Mia: A little. But I don’t want you to back off.

Stranger: So, you’re saying you want to talk?

Mia: Kindamaybesorta.

Stranger: Absolutelydefinitelyyes. Number, Mia. Now. Do it. Quit overthinking things.

Ten little numbers. I don’t let myself think. I just ruin my relationship with the man I’m supposed to marry.

­­­7

7