Elastic Heart (12 page)

I opened up a picture of a woman tied up and suspended from the ceiling. The caption read “for Sir”.

“Interesting.” I jumped at the voice, closed the website, and turned around to see Senator Morris looking over my shoulder. He had a peculiar expression on his face. Later, I would come to recognize that expression as guile.

“I was just…” I trailed off, not sure how to explain myself. Morris only chuckled and walked off. I was so embarrassed that he’d seen me looking at the website. So embarrassed that I’d been looking up my fetish at his office. I didn’t realize that I needed to be wary, that I needed to be watchful. Morris had seen something that made him think I was asking for it.

I stared at the website name, ready to open with a single click. I hated that Morris had taken that part of me. He had taken it before I even got to explore. Instead of feeling excitement, I felt dread. I was about to give up and close my laptop, when the website loaded on its own. I must have accidentally clicked, or perhaps fate intervened. The website opened and I stared at the sign-in page. I shook my head at it, prepared to close my laptop, when I found myself inputting my sign-in information.

What had drawn me to the website in the beginning had been its anonymity. Everyone acted under aliases (mine had been RecklessDream) and only gave out as much information as they wanted. There was even a built in app on the website called “Secrets”. The idea of “Secrets” was to post your most intimate secrets anonymously.

I had so many secrets. So many things I wanted to tell the world. Where did I start? Before my brain could process what was happening, I was typing in the small text box the app allowed.

“I’m afraid I’ll never be myself again.” Wow. That felt really good. Sending my most private thoughts into cyberspace was terrifying but completely freeing. The best part was knowing no one knew who I was. No journalists would overanalyze the meaning. No one would make a meme of it. It was my secret out in the world, but it was completely free of Nami DeGrace.

I posted another: “I’m afraid I’ll never love, but I’m really afraid I’ll never have good sex again.” I giggled when I hit send and Raskol popped his head out of the bag, giving me a curious look. I felt giddy. I hadn’t felt giddy in a long time. I was about to post another one when a text bubble appeared unwanted on my screen.

“U want some fuck?”

My eyes widened. I was about to respond unkindly to the person when another bubble appeared, overlapping the previous.

“I’ll give you good sex.”

Shit. What had I done? I’d had no idea about the message feature. Apparently my confession was an opening to every horny person out there. I looked at the message center, watching my unread messages rise from one to twenty in less than two minutes. My heart sank. I just wanted to send my confessions into the wind. I was naive.

Again.

Deciding to delete my secret, I returned to the home screen. Just as my finger rested on delete, I received another message.

“The darker the night, the brighter the stars.”

I smiled in surprise. The person had quoted Dostoyevsky’s
Crime and Punishment.
It was one of my favorite novels, obviously; I mean my dog
was
named Raskolnikov. Removing my finger from the delete icon, I went back into the app and replied, “The deeper the grief, the closer is God.”

I waited patiently for the person to respond, ignoring all the other messages that were popping up with some variation of “sex” or “fuck”. While I was waiting I clicked on the person’s info. His alias on the site was “Scarred” but that was about all the information he’d provided. There was no picture and the only information he shared was that he was male and straight. I couldn’t really complain, though, because all the information I’d given was that I was female.

At last Scarred responded and I clicked out of his bare profile. “You sounded like you could use a little Dostoyevsky. I assume you’re getting a lot of dick pics right now, too. So, you could definitely use some Dosto.”

I smiled. “No dick picks yet…wait.” I looked at the app’s notification center and saw a picture. “Never mind.”

“Saying sex on the internet is like yelling free beer at Oktoberfest,” Scarred replied.

I smiled, leaning back on my couch. “I’ve learned my lesson!” I saw three little dots appear in the text box which let me know the person on the other end of the computer was typing and I waited patiently for their response. For the first time in months I wasn’t wary, I was excited.

Conversation with Scarred

Scarred:
“So, internet noob, what’s your favorite book?”

RecklessDream:
“Asking me to pick my favorite book is like asking me to pick my favorite child.”

Scarred:
“Parents do that all the time. Mine did. Look, I’ll go first. Huckleberry Finn.”

RecklessDream:
“Really? I liked Huck Finn but I’ve never heard anyone say it was their favorite.”

Scarred:
“What? An entire generation said it was their favorite and declared it was a classic.”

RecklessDream:
“Touché.”

Scarred:
“You’re not getting away that easily.”

RecklessDream:
“Who me?”

Scarred:
“What’s your favorite book?”

RecklessDream:
“Dandelion Wine.”

Scarred:
“And I’m the weirdo for liking Huck Finn.”

RecklessDream:
“It’s like distilled happiness. Family and summer and sunshine condensed into a couple hundred pages.”

Scarred:
“I’ll have to check it out.”

RecklessDream:
“You’re making fun of me and you’ve never read it?”

Scarred:
“If I promise to read Dandelion Wine, you have to promise to do something for me.”

RecklessDream:
“Depends…”

Scarred:
“Give me your name.”

RecklessDream:
“You can call me Dandelion.”

Scarred:
“Fine then, until I know your real name, you can call me Huck.”

RecklessDream:
“Deal.”

We talked for a few more minutes about nothing; it was nice to talk about nothing. My months had been filled with drama and tragedy, so it was refreshing to talk about simple, silly things. Once we ended the conversation, I changed my alias on the website to Dandelion permanently. I noticed that Scarred also changed his handle, to Huck.

It was times like these that I wished I still had my best friend. Sure, I wanted my best friend for the rough times. It would have been nice to have someone to hold me while I cried. Honestly, though, what I really wanted was someone to talk to about boys and to scream hysterically with over silly things.

Effie Betancourt had been that person. I could tell her the most inane, silly thing and she would get just as excited as I did. Found a nail polish named “Rachel Green”? She would freak out too and
demand
we cancel everything to give each other pedicures, no matter how hideous the color.

Now, after talking to Huck on Secrets, I wanted Effie back. I wanted someone to be excited with. For the first time in months I was excited about something, and the only person I had was Raskol.

“And you’re a dog,” I said. He cocked his head slightly at my words. I smiled, picking him up. “You’re a great dog, Raskol, but sometimes I wonder if you even understand me.” Raskol jumped off and ran to pick up his toy, a look of triumph on his face.

“See, Raskolnikov, this is what I’m talking about. There is a fundamental problem in our communication. We really need to see someone about this.” I grabbed the rope out of his mouth and threw it across the room. He ran so fast he tripped over his paws and face planted into the carpet. That didn’t stop him though; he quickly recovered and grabbed the rope, returning to his bed. Raskol wasn’t one for fetch. He liked me to throw it once, then he took it to his bed and proceeded to chew on it. This would last for hours.

I sighed, leaning back into the couch. Effie was a horrid friend. She had left me when I needed her most. So why did I miss her? I should have been saying good riddance. Instead I held my phone and stared at her number. I still remembered it by heart and had dialed it into my keypad. If I pressed enter, what would she do?

Would she apologize?

Probably not.

Would she ignore me?

Probably.

Why couldn’t I just ignore her like she ignored me? She had thrown away ten years of friendship. Why couldn’t I do the same? Sighing, I pulled out my computer. At least I was getting better at avoiding that ever-expanding pit of despair in my stomach.

“You want it. Take it.” I fought him. I fought the sock in my mouth. I fought his big, slightly overweight frame. It was useless and futile, but I fought him. He had me tied down and gagged. I was like a stuck pig. “I saw the images you were looking at. Isn’t this what you want? To be fucked like some whore? I’ll fuck you.”

The image of a naked woman tied up in ropes stared back at me from the computer screen. It was two thirty in the morning; “Huck” and I had long since stopped talking, and I wasn’t going to call Effie, but I couldn’t sleep. I eyed the woman on the screen, a tingle forming in my lower abdomen that now sat alongside the ever-present nausea.

Sipping my tea, I clicked my trackpad and pulled up the next image. I’d always been interested BDSM—in bondage, to be more specific. People in ropes, gagged and bound, had me very interested.

I thought if I had friends, they would say it was post-traumatic stress. You know, since I was held down and gagged with my own sock when I was raped. I mean, that’s a perfectly okay theory. From the outside, I see how it makes sense. From the inside, my insides, though, I knew it was wrong.

I admired the girls who were tied up.

I was absolutely fascinated by them.

And I always had been.

To me, they represented a place so far away from me it was like Narnia. The women that let themselves be tied up for these photos and videos had absolute trust in the one doing the tying. I couldn’t begin to imagine having that trust again.

Taking another sip of tea, I clicked a different image. The woman was strung up, her legs and arms tied behind her back as she hung a few inches above a bed. She looked to enjoy it. Sure, the images could have been fake, but I didn’t think so. Unsurprisingly, there was a huge community that was big into bondage. Various forums and conventions confirmed what the tingling in my belly was saying: people not only liked it, they got off on it.

I’d been looking into shibari, which was a type of Japanese rope binding. Sure there was a sort of grim beauty to duct tape, but the rope knots and style of the bind of shibari was just so beautiful, and apparently the knots were supposed to hit certain erotic pleasure points as well.

I sighed, imagining myself tied up like the model on the screen. My fantasy was short-lived though. Even just imagining it made my throat constrict and my skin sweat.

I slammed my laptop shut, anger now coursing through my veins. Huck and shibari had been nice, fleeting retreats from my daily life, but I had a mission. My life no longer belonged to me. It belonged to vengeance. Vengeance didn’t get to imagine a happier life. Vengeance only imagined its goal: Morris razed and ruined. Preferably bleeding.

Grabbing my tea off the small nightstand I called a desk, I stood up and walked into the kitchen. Covering the various laminate counters were long scrawls of blue paper.

Operation: Make Morris Pay was now in full swing. First order of business, get a better name for the operation. Second order of business, break into Becca Riley’s house. Becca Riley was Morris’s campaign manager and basically the black, festering heart of the Morris Entity. She was the one who had spun Morris’s rape away from him and onto me. She had made me an alcoholic in the eyes of the public. She had made me a whore.

Becca Riley was a wretched, albeit brilliant, human being. She was bound to have information on Morris and the campaign. I wouldn’t be able to prove my rape or frame Morris without Riley’s files.

While interning for Morris, word spread about Riley’s massive and ancient home. Rumor had it that there was an intricate tunnel system underneath that even Riley didn’t fully understand. For the past few months I’d been petitioning the state for blueprints. Slowly I’d received each puzzle piece and that night, tea in hand, it all came together.

Under the dim kitchen light, I could clearly see the tunnels outlined on the royal blue paper. It was as if Riley had given me a personalized invitation to her home. It was time for step two. In one week I would enter Becca Riley’s home and steal her files, all while she slept in the other room.

Feeling like shit, having not slept in days, I opened up Secrets. It was t-minus three days until I would infiltrate Becca Riley’s house and I couldn’t stop speaking like a B movie spy, saying shit like “t-minus” and “infiltrate.” Maybe it was the lack of sleep.