So I’m asking you, my fair reader, does the prospect of destruction make it all the more exciting?
Or is it safety that gets you hot? Because I’ll just say it. I’ve never had an orgasm from a guy who promised a good retirement plan and no chance of heartbreak.
But maybe I’m just fucked-up.
Like the rest of the world.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Bungee Jumping
People back home invented this sport where you jump off a bridge with elastic attached to your feet. The free fall is short, terrifying, but you can feel the rope at your feet so you know that you’re not exactly going to crash and burn. But for a split second, your body forgets.
Then the mind catches up.
What I’m tryin’ to say, baby, is with me, you don’t have a rope attached, but I won’t let you crash either.
And FYI: I don’t have a good retirement plan.
But I do give great orgasms.
K
I gaped at the screen and typed my reply before I knew what I was doing.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re – Bungy Jumping
First of all, crunchy. And I’m not just saying that to impress you. I’m just not some kind of smooth-loving heathen.
Second of all, what are you doing in a warzone reading a women’s lifestyle magazine? Need tips on the five ways to know he likes you? Or perhaps how to pick the best waxer?
Laser is the new waxing. Just to let you know.
And you New Zealanders must get bored over there at the edge of the world if you must throw yourself off buildings in order to feel alive.
And about the orgasms—oh, honey, you might, but so does Bob. And he’s a lot less complicated, and there’s no free fall involved.
L
He’d worn me down. And surprised me. The fact that he was still interested while he was over there, doing whatever soldiers did. Or maybe it was only because he was over there that I was interesting. A welcome distraction. But then he went and read my column. And saw the meaning behind it that I didn’t even know I’d put there.
The reply was in my inbox within hours, right after I’d filed a story over smooth versus crunchy and what it meant for your personality.
I thought that one was a Nobel Prize winner. I’d mention Keltan in my acceptance speech.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Hitmen… again
Reminding you again, babe, I don’t hire hitmen either. I do the dirty work myself.
On a completely unrelated note, who the fuck is Bob and where does this fucker with the completely boring name live?
I bet he’s got ropes attached.
Glad to hear from you, babe. Even if I did have to go out and punch Duke for stealing my last tub of Marmite, thinking about Bob.
He isn’t talking to me.
Thinks I overreacted.
He obviously doesn’t understand how precious Marmite is.
K
And so it went. E-mails that said nothing and everything at the same time. E-mails that quickly became the favorite part of my day. That I could safely smile at because he wasn’t watching me from the screen, though sometimes I did wish it, despite a little thing called self-preservation.
I kept the Bob thing up for a long enough time before letting him know it was actually an acronym and what it stood for. It was safe to say the responding e-mail describing his utter excitement in getting “very fucking well acquainted with B.O.B” managed to get me beyond hot despite Marty spluttering with the flu not five feet from me.
I shut down that line of conversation pretty quickly. I didn’t do sexting. Nor e-mail sex. It was the real thing or nothing. Adding words to it quickly translated to feelings, and sex wasn’t a place for feelings. But then not having it was almost more dangerous, because getting to know him through a computer screen was more intimate, attraction not there to distract me. Though the memory of it was there and got me through a lot of nights with B.O.B.
He said he had another three weeks until he was back, and I was terrified.
Terrified of him coming back.
Of him not.
Of everything, really.
Which was why this conversation, back in the present, with my sister about how levelheaded I was, was almost laughable.
Polly chewed the side of her lip. Her face screwed up, the spattering of freckles on her tanned skin moving as she did so. “Okay, I guess not. Considering it was you who burned down the high school that time.”
I slapped her hand, despite the fact that it hurt me more than it hurt her on the account of all of her chunky jeweled rings. “We didn’t burn down the entire school,” I argue. “Just the science building. And that was an accident. And we were teenagers. And Mr. Hatrill deserved it. He would make Rosie go up and do demonstrations so he could look up her skirt.”