Cam Girl

—10—

I walked from the patio down to the sea, the whispery sweep of waves like jazz brush drumming. Strands of tinsel moonlight floated on the water. The anxiety and unease in me all gathered into an ache at my elbow and I felt as if I could fire bullets from it, or set it on fire, or rip it out of the socket. Wasn’t sure whether I wanted the badness out or if the badness could stay as long as I escaped. Pain makes a body a prison, the same way desire does.

So I did something stupid.

This was bumfuck tourist-trap Maine, near the Canadian border. Whatever cell tower my phone triangulated to, it was hundreds of miles from my actual place of residence. And I was a little past caring anyway.

I sent an email to Blue.

I’m having the most surreal night

come talk to me before my brain melts

There. Done. He could trace the IP and see that I was in Bar Harbor if he wanted.

Not like my life could get any crazier.

I knelt on cold rocks at the water’s edge, my face flecked with stinging spray. In less than a minute he replied.

Skype?

no, private chat on my site

meet me in 5 mins

As long as he went through the cam site, the region ban would block Maine IPs. Not foolproof, but better than nothing.

Could I really picture Max going to the trouble of constantly masking his IP, then chickening out when he had the chance to touch me, in his house?

Could I have pictured Ellis as a convincing guy before tonight?

My visualization skills had obviously gone rusty.

“You know,” Ellis said once, “rust is just oxidation. The same chemical process as fire. Oxygen interacts with steel, electrons drift from one element to the other. So really, rust is a slow fire. Isn’t that weird? Water causes something to burn.”

Back in the hotel I put the burglar chain on the room door and opened my laptop.

He was waiting.

SoBlue: hi.

SoBlue: how long has it been?

“Three days.”

SoBlue: is that all?

SoBlue: only feels like three eternities.

“Miss me?” I said, my legs sprawling to either side of the keyboard.

SoBlue: not a bit.

SoBlue: and the fact that i’ve been jerking off to you nonstop means absolute zilch.

I sank against the pillows. “Bad boy. While you’re over there painting the walls white, I’m learning self-restraint.”

SoBlue: bad girl.

SoBlue: such vulgarity.

SoBlue: it’s hot as fuck coming out of your mouth.

SoBlue: but tell me what was melting your brain, before you melt mine.

I looked at his black rectangle. Then at the girl on my side: dark hair raveling around her shoulders, long brown legs spread. Beautiful but interchangeable. Another cam girl.

If I wanted him to be real, I had to be real, too. Not just this face and this body, but this heart.

“Blue,” I said, “I think I’m falling in love with two people at the same time.”

SoBlue: i see.

I would’ve killed to hear his voice then, gauge his tone. Jealous, indifferent, intrigued?

“And the scary thing is, I’m not sure I really know either of them. Not the way I thought.”

SoBlue: one of them is red.

“Yes.”

SoBlue: something happened tonight.

SoBlue: tell me.

“This will make me sound like a total asshole, I hope you know.”

SoBlue: i’ll probably still like you anyway.

“Probably?”

SoBlue: this will make me sound like a total asshole, but . . .

SoBlue: i’d like you even if you were a monster.

SoBlue: who frowned at puppies.

SoBlue: and tipped over wobbly kittens.

SoBlue: and thought comic books were for children.

SoBlue: and had a complicated pseudo-sexual relationship with her best friend.

I laughed, immensely relieved he framed it that way first. “Okay.”

SoBlue: this goes back to that night, doesn’t it?

SoBlue: when the bad thing happened.

SoBlue: that you don’t talk about.

“Yeah, it does. And now I’m going to talk about it.”

I told Blue the official story—designated driver; ice on the bridge; tragic collision—and then I told him the aftermath. How I lost Ellis, dropped out of my MFA program, became a cam girl, found Ellis again. How I got close with Max. How he flipped on me, tried to turn me against Elle.

I looked into the cam lens as I spoke, imagining different faces looking back. Max. Dane. Curtis. Even Brandt, whom I’d never met.

Names have power. They change the way the world sees you.

One man called himself Blue, and made me see him differently.

“Tonight,” I said, “Red cross-dressed and went stealth at a gay bar so we can learn who beat the shit out of a dead kid and solve a possible hate crime. This is my actual life.”

SoBlue: red cross-dressed?

“Yeah. Like, convincingly. Very convincingly.”

SoBlue: your voice goes strange when you mention her.

SoBlue: not the dead kid, or the father.

SoBlue: red is the one who bothers you.

“It’s weird. It’s just weird.” I grabbed a pillow and wrapped my arms around it, like a buffer. “Want to hear something fucked-up? When I saw her as a guy, I felt, like, turned on. And then I got depressed, because what if that means I’m actually homophobic? I have no problem with guys, but girls make me all conflicted.”

SoBlue: feeling conflicted doesn’t make you homophobic.

“If I hate the part of me that likes girls, it does.”

SoBlue: do you hate it?

“I don’t know. But moving halfway across the country to get away from it is a big sign, right?”

She was waiting outside my art history lecture one afternoon. The instant I saw her, I knew who she was: tall and willowy, her hair a fall of autumn leaves tumbling around her face, shades of russet, carrot, straw. An older version of Ellis.

She touched my shoulder warmly. Her eyes remained glassy and cool. “My name is Katherine. Do you know who I am?”

“I think I do, yeah.”

“Can we talk?”

She took me to a coffee shop and put five dollars’ worth of cappuccino in my hands. She drank plain green tea.

“Is this the part where you pay me to never see Elle again?” I said.

Katherine smiled as if holding a knife blade between her lips. “No.”

“If you think you have any hold on her, you’re out of your mind. She’s done with you. I’m her family now.”

The smile grew thi

“She told me everything.” Night after night Elle and I stayed up talking till the sky turned pink and tender. I heard the whole sad story. Distant father, manipulative mother. Church every week. Ru

She turned her mug with the tips of her fingers. “Imagine you’re a mother, and you watch your child suffer, day after day, when she’s too young to understand why. Would you want to stop the pain?”

“That’s your logic? That’s like mercy killing.”

“Sometimes we have to hurt the people we love to spare them a greater hurt.”

“You caused more pain than anyone.” I downed my drink in a big gulp. “Ellis is the best person I’ve ever met. The smartest, kindest. The most compassionate. Every day I’m grateful she got away before you psychos destroyed her.”

Katherine drummed her fingers on the mug rim. “I see what she likes in you. Tough life, hard attitude. Classic bad boy, but with a woman’s heart.”

My face went warm. “Don’t even. You don’t know either of us.”