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I knew what he looked like, what his apartment and bedroom looked like, from Instagram where we started flirting. His face had angles, but there was a softness over them. Now I joke that the ice cream cone emoji looks like him because of the way his grey hair startles and rests in whorls like soft-serve. I couldn’t believe how much hair he had; I couldn’t even feel his scalp through it all. He would turn out to be warmer, sillier than I expected from his posts of latex clad punk-rock queens, Helmut Newton, and horror art. 

I wanted him, but first I had to leave the marriage that I was languishing in, bored and ignored. I’d married young when I had little sense of myself, when I feared any freedom that would allow me to follow my desires. I felt safe when my husband dismissed those things; it meant I didn’t have to face the fear of making them a reality. It took me thirteen years to understand that denial made me a ghost in my own life.

I’d capitulated so much to that fragile man that my life became a trickle, and it burst like a dam when I saw a post of a black and white photograph on Instagram one afternoon. It was of a woman’s waist wrapped in two dozen coils of rope, and the caption said only: “Tomorrow.” It was a promise, a sexy threat to someone who I now burningly wished could be me. 

I built my allure slowly, and eventually he started messaging me, then sharing images he thought I would like, and then videos of himself. 

~~~

There is some witchcraft to being able to accurately visualize the details of a person’s life when you’re trying to infiltrate it. 

Tonight, while my husband is out of town, I decide to drive by Lars’s apartment. The moon is full — excessively so — and I feel all kinds of magic in me. His building has an LA art deco charm to it, on a street with no parking. It’s set back on the property—I can’t see inside his window from the street, so I just roll past slowly in my car. A few blocks away, I pull over to message him, feeling cocky as hell.

“I drove by your apartment.”

Within seconds, I can see he’s replying.

“Come back.” Those words send my heart off to the races.

“I don’t think I should,” I text. 

“Yes, you should. I’ll come down.”

~~~

He is on the sidewalk, looking the other direction, expecting me to take a different route. I get out of my car, my face nothing but eyes. 

He embraces me and I put my forehead on his chest.

“I don’t know if I can kiss you yet,” I whisper, barely audible.

“Okay.”

I want so much to play the badass, but I can’t hide how raw I am.

“I’m shaking,” I tell him.

“I’ll just hold you until you stop,” he answers.

For once, I feel visible. I feel held by more than his arms. The shuddering stops.

I step back and we look at each other, sort of nodding as if to acknowledge this is really happening, and checking that the other person wasn’t disappointed. Our cheeks flush and our breathing quickens. He looks at me with his eyes wide open like a nocturnal bird hunting, and I feel like the most precious prey. 

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