SoBlue: no.

SoBlue: letting yourself be vulnerable in front of strangers is hard work.

SoBlue: what you’re doing is a type of performance art.

I laughed again, darkly.

SoBlue: i’m serious.

SoBlue: the other reason it’s cash is because you’re not a child.

SoBlue: those men who dress you like a doll are afraid of you.

SoBlue: they’re afraid of women.

SoBlue: your sexual power over them.

SoBlue: they want to control you.

SoBlue: i want to free you.

“You do, huh? Like Han Solo freeing Leia from being a sex slave?”

SoBlue: that analogy is impressively on point.

“Yet here I am, your captive instead of theirs.”

SoBlue: you don’t have to be here.

“Taking payment without rendering service is unprofessional.”

SoBlue: i’m not paying for service.

SoBlue: and i don’t care about the money.

SoBlue: spend it. donate it to charity.

SoBlue: it’s yours.

“Come on. Nobody’s that selfless. Even altruism is motivated by some kind of subconscious self-interest.”

SoBlue: i thought my ulterior motive was obvious.

“Enlighten me.”

SoBlue: if you’re talking to me, you’re not talking to anyone else.

SoBlue: you’re all mine.

I shivered. “So it is about control. You want me all to yourself.”

SoBlue: i’m not noble.

SoBlue: i don’t want anyone else looking at you this way.

“How are you looking at me, Blue?”

SoBlue: like nothing else exists.

SoBlue: like i’d tear the world down just to touch you.

In my head, I saw him. Leaning over his laptop, the cool glow tracing his jaw, the skein of tension running along it.

And I felt guilty, that this lonely guy had fixated on this unavailable girl.

So I did what I do best.

“Listen, this is fun, but I have personal rules about clients. I don’t get involved. This is my job.” I shrugged. “I cam for other men. I get off with them. I’m not yours. The only person I belong to is me.”

It was pure bravada, but the more I sold it to him the more I could sell it to myself. I didn’t need anybody else. Not Ellis, not anyone.

SoBlue: i believe you want that to be true.

SoBlue: but part of you wants to belong to someone.

SoBlue: and i want it to be me.

“You’re paying me, Blue. I’m performing for you. It’s an act. I’m an actress.”

SoBlue: it’s never real?

“Sometimes I fantasize to get in the mood. Like method acting. But that’s just . . . mental lube. It’s an aid, not genuine.”

SoBlue: do i make you feel anything real, morgan?

My breathing sped up. I stared at the screen for a moment, then typed.

Morgan: this feels different

Morgan: you’re different

SoBlue: how?

Morgan: you don’t demand I get you off

Morgan: you don’t pose me like a doll

Morgan: but I still feel how much you want me

Morgan: it’s infuriating

Morgan: you’re the biggest clit tease ever

SoBlue: how poignant.

SoBlue: two sexually unfulfilled people, torturing each other.

SoBlue: dancing around it dizzyingly.

Morgan: you’re a sadistic bastard

Morgan: what are you getting out of this?

SoBlue: i want to see how long you can go.

Morgan: until what?

SoBlue: until you beg me to fuck you.

I pushed back from the keyboard, riled. “I have the power. You’re paying me.”

SoBlue: you’re right.

SoBlue: let’s try shifting the balance.

“What does that mean?”

SoBlue: it means this.

SoBlue: you have your money.

SoBlue: enjoy your night.

SoBlue left the room.

Session ended. Total: 35:44.

I stared at the screen for a good minute after he logged off, dumbstruck.

Then I started to laugh.

You sweet, sadistic bastard.

My night was mine.

This week of literal wallowing meant my room was a sty of dirty clothes and lowball glasses sticky with whiskey like caramel. Time to clean. I opened the windows to let the night breeze in, heady with brine and rust, elemental. Starlight winked on the water like fish scales. On my way back from the laundry room my foot hit something crinkly on the attic steps.

A bag of gummy bears. No note.

Ellis.

I clutched it to my chest, my heart going fast.

Max was digging into the accident reports. He didn’t believe my story. He’d tried to talk to Elle alone, knowing she’d buckle without me to guard her back.

If he went after her again, he’d find me square in his path.

Our last meeting played over in my mind. The gun, and his hands on my body. He wanted closure. Maybe he wanted something else, too.

That gun, though.

Why had it been in police evidence? Why did Ryan have it that night?

Something happened, something Max wouldn’t tell me. Something that made him feel like a bad father.

For the first time since the accident, I googled Ryan Vandermeer.

When people die today they don’t disappear, leaving only their best legacies, their highlight reel. Now we leave behind an epic mess of the mundane. Drunk texts. Offensive Facebook comments. Dick pics. Hate memes. All the splintery, slimy flotsam of a life, the stuff that used to be swept out to sea when we died, forgotten.

Now it remains. And you can collect it like driftwood and piece together a life.

Did you know your son was depressed, Max?

Ryan’s Twitter didn’t contain much. Mainly he retweeted others, but the retweets were telling: angsty lyrics, moody black-and-white photos. Quotes about self-loathing and despair.

His Twitter name matched a Tumblr full of photos.

I recognized Maine: long, empty roads running naked to the ocean. Pines so still they looked almost fake, painted in. Profound silence in those photos, a strangled, breathless quiet.

Over time he switched from landscapes to macro shots: broken bottles glinting in the weeds, bullet holes peppering a road sign. Rust so thick you couldn’t tell what it had once been eating: a railroad spike, a chain link, a key.

Body parts.

Hands at first: lithe and long-fingered, rivered with veins. Gripping, clenching. Fists. Then the arms, and then the cuts in the arms, thin hashes from wrists to elbows, bright red ribbons against white skin.

His skin.

Boys who self-harm are at a higher risk of suicide than girls, because cutting is seen as a “girl problem.” We expect boys to lash out and girls to turn inward, on ourselves. Gendered violence. We ignore the signs in boys, more worried that they’ll bring a gun to school, or refuse a girl’s no.

I saw a pain boiling so deeply not even cutting himself open relieved the pressure.

Artists were no strangers to self-harm. Van Gogh sliced his ear off. Petr Pavlensky’s whole career revolved around self-mutilation: he sawed through his earlobe, sewed his mouth shut, nailed his balls to the ground. In a way, tattooing was similar: a rite of pain that forever altered the body, our skin a living canvas. My scars were called “art.” Ryan’s scars were just scars.

He’d captioned some of his photos with fragments of thoughts, feelings.

who am i

i don’t recognize myself

all i see is a stranger

And the most telling, and most cryptic:

there’s a bomb inside me, waiting to explode

There was something wrong with Ryan before Ryan ever got in that car. And Max was trying to hide it. Shift the guilt to someone else. If he found a scapegoat, he’d pounce in a heartbeat.

I knew this because I knew he was like me. Expert blame deflectors. Masters of denial.

And he was eyeing Ellis as a potential target.

If he thought I’d let that happen, he had no idea who I was.

You can fight for your ghost, Max, but I’ll go down fighting for mine.