Sudden Death. Phil Kurthausen
it. It was all-consuming, giving yet hungry, and it was like nothing she had ever felt before in her seventeen years.
She had rushed home from school; a day spent thinking about this moment, this time, her love. She could have used her phone but he had been very clear from the start that this was a private love, and he was right. She wanted to share it with her friends, but not her mother, of course, what did she know about love, real love? Yet she knew that in sharing it she risked diluting it, and it becoming nothing more than the currency of gossip and the shrieking hyperbole that her friends reserved for their silly schoolgirl crushes. He had warned about this.
The key had been in her hand since the bell rang signalling the end of another school day. She lived close enough to walk to school but she had sprinted home, unlocked the front door, ignored her mother’s weary greeting shouted from the lounge over the din of the TV and run up the stairs to her bedroom.
She flung her bag on the bed, still covered with a pink bedspread illustrated with little ponies that she loved, and pulled out her laptop from underneath the bed. She sat cross-legged on the bed and turned on the computer. She was breathless with the thought of what awaited.
The old laptop spent an age warming up before the blue screen and icons appeared. She had set her wallpaper to a picture of the Milky Way, which reminded her of her dad, now long gone. He had pointed out the constellations to her on a holiday in France on a clear, cold Brittany night as they stood outside their tent looking into the dark blue of the endless universe.
She didn’t see this now though. Now, she just hit the internet browser icon and clicked on one of her favourites, her only favourite these days if the truth were told. Then she waited.
She didn’t have to wait long. He was never late, he always did what he said would do, and she trusted him that he always would.
This corner of the chat room was always empty, private, reserved for her and her lover. She giggled as she thought of him that way but it was true, she had a lover for the first time in her life. He wasn’t like the boys at school with their immature attempts at impressing her and her friends with their pathetic displays of bravado and nervous gropings. He was a man. Her man.
She checked her watch. It was nearly 5.30 p.m. The excitement that drove her stomach to twist seemed to act like a furnace sending heat lower, causing her to groan softly with need.
There was a ping from her computer as he entered her private space in the chat room.
Ethan’s user ID was E-Z92 and his thumbnail picture – a picture she had spent countless hours studying, worshipping, loving – appeared next to the ID. She knew every inch of his face: the mop of brown hair that threatened to cover his right eye, his beautiful deep brown eyes and the smile, oh my God, the smile that she would do anything for, anything.
She hesitated for a second. This first moment before they spoke was always the worst; the moment of anticipation. Would he still feel the same way? Would the spell be broken?
A sickness replaced the excitement. She should say something. Would he finally recognise her as the girl she was, not the lover she wanted to be?
Letters began to appear on the screen.
Hey Babe, I’ve been thinking about you all day. I’ve missed you, I want you, I need you.
The nerves blossomed inside her giving birth to an almost overwhelming feeling of pure love.
She began to type quickly, not using text speak, which she knew he hated, and was, as she now agreed, the sign of a weak mind.
I’ve missed you too. I spend every moment waiting for us to be together … do you feel the same way?
She hit send and then the nerves were back. Was it too much? She always worried that this was the case. She wanted nothing more than to reveal herself to him, to let him know her, but the magazines, her friends always said no. You had to be a player, follow the rules of the game, hide yourself in case you came across as too keen or, the very worst thing that turned all men off, needy. The other girls teased her at school, said she was too fat to be loved, to know love, but they knew nothing of real love. She had seen them with their silly tales of love bites, grubby unfulfilling sex and there was nothing there that matched this love. She bit her nails as she waited for his response.
It came.
I feel the same way. You know how I feel. The love we have is everything. I miss you when we are apart. Sometimes it’s too much for me to bear. It’s like a pain, a pain that needs more pain to block it out.
She knew what this meant. It was their code.
Her fingers glided over the keyboard. Once she had typed and sent her message she jumped off the bed and went to the wardrobe. Hidden at the bottom under her old and forgotten soft toy collection – he had mentioned some time ago that he thought such things childish in a woman and she had agreed, removing them from her bed that night and consigning them to the wardrobe gulag – was a small tin, the type that some of her more foolish school friends kept their dope hidden in, which she carefully picked up and took with her back to her bed.
Excitedly, she opened the tin and pulled out its contents.
His message was on the screen waiting for her.
For us, to bring us together and take away the pain.
This was theirs and nobody else’s. She understood that he couldn’t be with her, it was impossible; she had seen the pictures of his daughters, the daughters his wife would kill if he left her. Ethan was in an impossible position; their love was all they both wanted, all that mattered. In this universe what else was important? She typed quickly.
I am yours Ethan. For ever. I’m opening myself now.
She nearly added some kisses automatically but they had agreed that this was another childish affectation and she remembered this just in time, her finger aborting the landing before it touched down on ‘x’.
She took off her jumper and slowly unbuttoned her blouse before pulling it down, exposing her left shoulder. The skin was pale and soft and she let her fingers trail lustfully over the flesh there. It was new and unbroken, unlike her right shoulder, which would carry the marks of her love for ever.
She picked up the craft knife and brought the blade down onto her skin. It was sharp and the pain, such as it was, was more sweet and lovely than all the summer mornings of childhood. She inserted the knife deeper now, feeling the flesh resist and then yield as she drew the blade forward, cutting into her skin, marking herself for love, for pain, for him. Blood, their sacrament, warmed her skin and she let it rest there for a second before placing the knife on the tin lid and picking up the cotton wool from the opened tin and dabbing at the sticky warm redness. The white wool darkened quickly and she needed two more buds to remove the blood that collected on her skin.
Her heart rate was up and she could feel it pounding in her chest and through her veins. She placed the cotton buds carefully on the tin and turned back to the computer. A message was waiting for her.
This is for us and us alone. Did you do it my sweet? Did it take away your pain?
It was true, it was always the same, the exhilarating, ecstatic pleasure. But already she could feel the darkness at the horizon inching closer inside her, soon it would be all she could feel and then she would be alone, curled up and waiting, praying for it to pass. Only he could save her from this.
Yes, but I will miss you.
There was a longer than usual pause. She fretted again, this time causing the darkness to accelerate rapidly, the weight of it starting to crush her, blocking her out.
The response was all she could have wished for.
There is a way we can be together for ever.
She began to cry softly.