hey midnite
Hello, I typed back.
i had a feeling about you
Did you?
mmmmm. where do you want to start baby?
A little conversation.
Disappointment flickered across her face, as if she’d rather have jumped straight to the show.
what do you want to talk about?
I don’t know, I admitted. I’d done this plenty of times before but felt strangely self-conscious, as if the camera feed went both ways, and Jasmine could see me as well as I could see her.
Where are you from? I asked.
hollywood.
I chuckled, knowing that the colour-coded rooms (I pictured them joined by a common hall, like cells) were in my city, a twenty-minute walk from my front door. They might not have advertised this fact on their website, but the information hadn’t been hard to find.
I decided to play along.
What’s the weather like in Hollywood?
hot, she wrote back with a grin. She was lying on her belly with her legs folded up behind her, ankles crossed
What do you do in your real life? I asked.
real life?
When you’re not on here. Do you have any hobbies or anything? let’s see… i like having sex, watching porn…
I laughed and shook my head, determined to break through, to make her real. What about your family? Do you have any brothers or sisters?
She stifled a yawn. nope.
I stared at the screen for a minute, not knowing what else to say.
so what do you do for a living? she finally asked.
I’m a writer
wow that’s exciting
No, it isn’t.
sure it is
I’m sorry, I wrote. I’m terrible at this.
at what?
Small talk.
so why don’t we do something different?
Before I could answer, Jasmine swung her legs around and brought the rest of her body into view. She unzipped her jeans and flashed a triangle of panties—pink, like the walls of the room. She reached for her keyboard.
want me to keep going?
Yes, I wrote back, helplessly.
She shimmied her jeans down and kicked them away. I caught a glimpse of colour on her inner thigh—a tattoo, an iridescent wing.
are you hard? she wrote.
Yes, I admitted.
are you touching it?
Yes.
tell me what to do.
Afterwards, I closed the laptop, flushed the toilet paper, and paced in front of the closed drapes. The need for a cigarette had returned, stronger than ever. I’d just taken out my pack when someone knocked at the door. I didn’t move. The knock came again, three firm raps, and I eased over to the door on the balls of my feet. Through the warped lens of the spyhole, I saw the superintendent’s tight perm, the unforgiving slot of her mouth. She knocked again, her knuckles just inches from my face. I kept as still as possible, breathing through my mouth, aware of the tacky residue of semen on my stomach. She had the key to every apartment in the building. I pictured them on an iron loop at her waist, dozens of perfectly notched invasions. I rested my hand on the doorknob. The superintendent lifted her fist to knock one more time, then paused, as if sensing danger on my side of the door. She gave a small shake of the head, then turned and passed out of sight.
When she was gone, I sank down to a crouch, my grip on the present moment weakening. The air in the apartment rippled and I found myself on a carpeted floor, looking up at my father’s delighted face. In his hands was a puppy the size of a well-fed gerbil. “Found her in a dumpster,” he said, grinning as if he’d conjured the creature from thin air: a blind, deaf thing with a pulsing sucker for a mouth.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You can hold it.”
I shook my head emphatically.
Dad laughed and dropped the animal in my lap, going off to look for my sister. The thing looked eyeless, tiny legs pistoning like parts on a windup toy. Its claws stabbed me, got traction in the folds of my shirt and propelled it up to my face, where it latched on my chin and attempted to feed. I flung the creature away with a shriek. It hit the wall with a decisive thump, just as my father and sister came back into the room.
“Jesus!” Dad yelled, scooping up the squealing puppy. “What is wrong with you, Felix?”
My apartment jerked back into focus. I could still smell the old house, still feel the thick carpet under my feet. My legs ached and I stretched them out on the laminate floor, wondering how long I’d been squatting there. Long enough for it to get dark. The hairs on my forearms quivered. I sensed Mathilda hiding somewhere in the apartment. Not the puppy I’d thrown that day, but the dog she became, a thick-necked, broad-chested animal who threatened anything that passed through her visible zone of dominion—a jogger, the mailman, a plastic bag animated by the wind. A humming insect swerved around my head, leaving me slapping at nothing. I heaved myself up and walked stiffly to the window, sparkles shooting from my knees to my toes. I listened for the Connors out of habit, missing their soft mutters, their careless laughter, their headboard tapping rhythmically at my wall. In the lit windows of the low-rise across the way, everyone was staring at a screen. My body strained for nicotine the way a submerged lung strains for air. After one last glance through my spyhole, I threw open the door and hurried to the stairwell, jogging down three floors to the back entrance of the building. The door closed heavily behind me. I fumbled with my lighter. Flame hit paper and I took a long and gratifying drag, then walked off quickly through the parking lot, making a moving target of myself to discourage anyone from talking to me. At the street, I kept going, mothlike and fluttering, heading instinctively for the brighter lights of the downtown shopping district. Individual strangers approached on foot and I felt myself drowning. But as the crowd thickened, my discomfort grew almost tolerable. I ducked into a twenty-four hour café, where I ordered a small coffee in a quavering voice and carried my cup to an isolated table beside one of the broad windows looking out onto the street.
This was what normal people did. They went out. They bought coffee.
I lifted my cup, but my hands were trembling so violently I had to set it back down without taking a sip. Outside, men dressed like boys and women dressed like hookers surged through the streets, mingling like dangerous tides. Two middle-aged men in ball caps and school jackets burst into the café, laughing. I hunkered over my cup as they ordered sandwiches, then sat down at the table next to mine. I pretended to look out the window, a hard tremor settling in my core. If I turned my head, I was certain I would find them staring at me. I was just considering what to do if they attacked, when my attention shifted abruptly to the view outside. A familiar figure was moving towards the window. She looked different out on the street, younger somehow, in an oversized sweater with the hood pulled up, but there could be no doubt who it was. Jasmine. She met my eye through the glass and I could tell that she felt herself recognized, or was aware, at least, of the possibility. Then her eyes flicked away and she passed out of sight.