Wells #2
Shit. Did she just tell me where she lives? I could have the rest inside a minute if I let myself: the name on the lease, the street, the door, why she's unemployed. But I made a promise to myself that I'd leave her anonymous.
The moment she has an address in my head, she stops being Masked_Maiden on my computer screen and becomes a woman I could go and find. When she becomes a real person, this ceases to exist. The whole point of this was that none of that could happen.
But I can't help myself. I want to know everything about her. If she's offering, then I'm not digging. "Peoria, Illinois?"
"Arizona. Peoria, Arizona."
"Ahh. Can I call you that? Peoria? It has a nice ring to it. I like it better than Masked_Maiden."
"You can call me whatever you want. What should I call you, then? Dallas? Des Moines? They're both in the Central time zone."
"You can call me Midnight. That's where I live."
"Midnight. Of course. So mysterious."
I don't answer. The less she has to connect, the better. We've never said where we're from, and I prefer it that way. I'm kicking myself for asking her now. Peoria, Arizona.
She pulls her knees up, wraps her arms around them. The mask is still in place, but everything else about her posture reads comfortable. She looks settled, not waiting for this to end, and that's what keeps me coming back for more.
She reaches for the water again and drinks half of it in one swallow, head tipped back, and I study her neck, the way it contracts when she swallows.
Then she sets the glass down crooked on the nightstand without straightening it.
I've spent seven weeks studying the parts of her she shows me on purpose, and it is the crooked glass I can't look away from, the careless small thing she would never bother to perform.
"You're staring," she says through closed eyes. The tips of her lips turn into a flirty smile.
"You can't even see me."
"I can feel it. You go quiet a specific way. But I like it, especially after the day I've had. I look forward to our dates."
Our dates. That garners a slight smile from me.
She knows my silences by texture now. No one else alive does. I give her more than I give anyone else because I can, because she knows nothing about me that I don't give her.
"Long day?" I ask.
"I had another interview this morning." She pulls her knees in tighter, her eyes flicking to the camera, to the black square where my face should be. She never pushes me to show it.
I don't say anything back. I don't want to know what she does because that's more information I don't need about a woman who is getting harder and harder not to want beyond a mask and a screen.
"The guy read my resume back to me like he was daring me to admit I made it up. He kept asking how a freelancer ends up doing actual work, what I did all day, whether I even understood what the role involved."
"Sounds like a prick."
"Total prick. And it wasn't even a job I wanted." She picks at something on the sheet. "I'm exploring."
The admission lands somewhere I wasn't guarding. "Anyone who makes you prove you're real isn't worth the chair."
She sighs and drops her head back against the headboard. "Ending the day here is the only part that hasn't felt like work, funnily enough, since this is my only paying gig at the current moment."
"Did you get it?"
"No idea. I'll find out this week." She shrugs. "Not sure it's the one for me anyway."
She exhales loudly and looks off to the side.
Her tone is light, but I hear the weight underneath. She needs the job. She wouldn't be doing this if she didn't, I imagine. A sudden thought occurs to me. What if she gets the job? Does this end?
I ash the cigarette and lean back in the chair. The air purifier hums as it works overtime to suck up the copious amounts of nicotine I expel into the room. Outside, a siren wails past, distant and fading fast.
"You'll get it. I have a feeling you're good at everything you do."
She tilts her head, and even through the mask, I can see the shift in her expression, her blue eyes narrowing.
"That's almost a compliment, Midnight. You going soft on me?"
"Is it a compliment if it's true? Just hope I won't lose our meetings if you get the job. I've grown to look forward to them."
She laughs again.
"As long as you'll have me, you won't lose me. I may not be able to stay on until the wee hours of the morning multiple nights a week, but I'm not going anywhere."
I don't think too much about the what-if's or get concerned about something that isn't even a thing yet. I take a drag of my cigarette.
We fall into easy silence. She stretches out on the bed, one arm tucked under her head, the other resting on her stomach, her pinky lightly flicking the belly ring.
This part is more dangerous than the rest of it. The sex is bounded by anonymity and is transactional. This is talking, just staying on the line because neither of us has logged off yet.
Eventually, she yawns, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.
"I should let you go." I stub out a cigarette. "Get some sleep, Peoria."
"Yeah, I have another interview tomorrow, and I don't want to look like a monster. You get some rest, too, Midnight. Even vampires need rest."
"I'll take it under advisement."
She leans forward.
"Same time Thursday?"
"Yeah."
"See you then. Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite."
The screen goes black. I sit in the dark, staring at the empty monitor. The city noise filters back in, filling the silence she left behind.
My hand rests on the edge of the keyboard. The other holds a cigarette, ash growing long because I haven't lifted it to my mouth in I don't know how long. My pulse has settled, and my breathing is even. The physical markers of the session have already faded, leaving my body the way they always do.
I take a drag carefully, finally, holding my face toward the ceiling to balance the ash on top before flicking it off in the ashtray.
The smoke hangs in the air, caught in the faint blue glow from the other screens still running along the wall.
I've got seven data feeds, every security channel in and out of Stone Intermodal, and terminal logs cycling through their automated updates.
All of it is silent except for the low hum of the processors.
This arrangement is exactly what I need right now. No complications, no exposure, no risk of her becoming more than the frame I built around her. The last woman I dated taught me how expensive access can get.
She didn't have enough to ruin me. That was the part that made it worse. A few private messages, some photos. She had enough context to make a headline ugly and enough truth under it that denial would only keep the story breathing.
I could have buried her digitally, identifying every weak point in her life and pressing until she wished she had never said my name.
But I wasn't going to do that to her, no matter how badly things ended.
I paid her, let the attorneys wrap the whole thing in paper, and watched her walk away with a number large enough to make her silence feel like a purchase instead of mercy.
That was the lesson that stayed, though if I'm honest, she only put a price tag on something I already believed.
I learned a long time before her that letting a person all the way in is just handing them the map to where you're softest, and the people who get that map always, eventually, use it.
So I stopped handing it out. The armor isn't a mood I'm in.
It's the only thing that has ever kept me whole.
The moment someone learns the name and the money behind it, I stop being a person and become leverage. I never catch it until the bill lands. So I'm putting my focus on work now and taking a break from dating.
That's how I ended up on OnlyFans. No names, no access, and no soft places someone can press later and call it love.
My hand moves to the touchpad, finger hovering over the close command, and then stops. I pull it back. Reach for the cigarette instead and take a final drag before stubbing it out.
Outside, Bourbon Street is winding down. The noise has thinned to scattered voices and the occasional rumble of a passing car. It's late enough that even the city is considering rest.
I lean back in the chair and close my eyes. Her voice is still there, low and warm and threaded through with humor.
Along the far wall, the Stone feeds run on in the dark, the whole machinery of who I actually am, every part of me she will never get near.