The Muse (19 page)

“You’re making me blush,” I wrote. I squirmed on the stool and my undies wedged just enough to calm the quivering.

I stared at the word ‘gorgeous’ for several minutes, enjoying how it sat prominent, in all caps. This one word massaged out all kinks, put to rest all stress, placed me in a complete state of nirvana, similar to that state of elation from a bottle of wine, only magnified by a few hundred percent. Her one word caused my blood to surge as if powered by hundreds of turbines. The rush intoxicated me.

I logged onto email needing more, praying for more. She didn’t disappoint. Eva’s response to my email sat in between my bank statement alert and a notice from Harry and David’s announcing their early bird sale. I hovered above it for a few seconds trying to control my sputtering breaths, and then dove in head first ready for whatever waited at the other end of it.

“I don’t understand what’s happening between us. But, something is. Do you feel it, too?” she asked. “I’m completely attracted to you, and this picture is just feeding that hunger to meet you even more. What are you doing to me, pretty lady?”

I exhaled and hung my head between my knees, repeating an exorbitant amount of wows. I stared down at my naked feet and even they took on a blushed hue. I rose to the occasion and landed back on Twitter.

“You just made my day.”

“I want to kiss you,” she wrote.

My tummy rolled. “Seriously, the blushing is out of control now (wink).”

“Nice sweet lingering kisses.”

I indulged in the ride. “I’d love to feel your soft lips on mine.”

“Janie, honey, you are full of charm.”

I floated again. “Mmm. You are rolling my tummy.”

“I just love your tummy. It’s yummy.”

I placed my hand on my tummy and imagined her lips traveling around it. I closed my eyes to take in the heat. “You really know how to make me feel good.”

She continued. “I bet you’re very soft. I’d love to kiss your tummy. Just imagine my tongue on your navel.”

My vagina twitched. “Oh my goodness. Look who has the charms here. This thought will be with me the rest of this day.”

“I want it to be with you for the rest of the day and way into the night.”

I hugged myself, taking in this sweet journey. “Your tongue on my navel is an incredibly provocative image. It will definitely carry into my night.” My bold words spun around me in lovely pirouettes.

“And how would you like my tongue circling a little lower?”

I throbbed.

“How do you think I'd like that, hmm?”

“I think you'd love it.”

My whole body trembled in delightful ripples, insanely, incredibly wondrous ripples that warmed me to the core. I was practically cyber sexing with Eva Handel. “(wink).”

“You’re a sweetheart,” she wrote. “I hope I didn’t go too far. I can’t help myself. Your new picture is teasing me with that playful eye of yours.”

“I enjoyed it.” I exhaled then sent her a virtual kiss.

“Hey. Control your tongue. It tickles,” she wrote.

I could tickle her all night long. I didn’t want it to end. I also didn’t want to ruin a good thing by overstaying the welcome. My body flared, and I feared total explosion. “Take that tickle to bed with you and think of me, okay?” I flirted with attitude.

“Yeah, I’ll go ‘relax’ now,” she wrote. “Be in my arms, okay?”

“Absolutely, babe.” I logged off and sat on the edge of a breath too heavy to exhale.

I highly doubted her idea of ‘relax’ matched my typical idea of relax. I needed to rid my body of this energy before it imploded on me. I looked to my new bike and decided to try her out. I mounted her and started pedaling away. I pedaled fast, so fast that my crotch rubbed up against the seat. The faster I pedaled, the more it rubbed, and the more it started to alter my mind in striking ways. My legs shook, a warm tremble drizzled through me. I floated again, then I sped up, running towards this mounting island of pleasure that called out to me, beckoning me to come to it, teasing me, luring me with slippery force into its graceful, peaceful arms where the room disappeared and all that saved me from hitting the ground was this incredible rush of ecstasy unlike anything I’d ever experienced. My whole body convulsed into a fit of shakes and trembles, I hinged on the edge of the seat dreaming of Eva and sharing this nirvana moment with her in my arms, clinging to her life force, becoming one with her, then slowly, falling like a feather against her soft skin, into her spirit where love light and peace swaddled me into the deepest relaxation I’d ever entered. I fell against the bike, hunched over it panting like I’d just ran to New York City and back on one lungful of air.

No romance book I ever read could’ve prepared me for this hallucinogenic freedom, a freedom that swept away all worry, all sadness, and all guilt from myself.

Chapter Ten

I lied in bed for hours, tossing myself around like a leaf in the wind. I cradled my arms around myself, imagining Eva wrapped up in them. We tangled, rolled, kissed, hugged, and stared deeply into each other’s eyes until I could no longer control my urge to get back on that bike again and release the pressure building in me, swelling that area between my legs that craved Eva’s soft lips.

I rose, vibrating. I wanted to reach that sweet spot again, just stare into its illustrious light and enter headfirst. So much energy swirled inside; it seemed a shame to waste it in quick release. So, I did what any good writer would do. I embraced it, fired up my laptop, and poured it onto the screen where I could later read it again and again and land right back in this sugary nirvana where colors shined like prisms dancing in the sunlight, plants smelled like forests after a spring rain, and the air buzzed with the echo of a thousand tree frogs deep in song.

With fingers perched over my keyboard, and my eyes planted on a picture of a tree-lined, sunlit path touting that success was a journey and not a destination, I strolled into a story about two women who met online and then wandered down this beautiful path towards each other, in search of tangible love not bound by the confinements of Internet connections and firewalls.

I closed my eyes and pictured Eva standing before me at work, her hair cascading down past her shoulders, tickling the edge of where her nipples peeked through her white, silky shirt. I imagined her teasing me by twirling a piece of her hair, her other fingers seductively brushing the sides of her breast as she did, her eyes intent, penetrating me, seducing me to come closer to her, to taste her lips, her tongue. I froze, too afraid to engage, to step closer, to latch onto this moment where our worlds collided and forced us together in an awkward moment when I, the shy girl, didn’t have a clue how to even move in for a kiss.

Saving me, my mind pulled Eva away from me and I stood alone in my cubicle.

I scanned the room and noticed Katie standing off near a floor plant snickering, curling up her big lips, and enjoying my defeat. Suddenly, the ground sucked me in like quicksand, pulling at my pants and pulling them down to my knees, leaving me stranded above the ground in just my red undies. The entire office got a kick out of this and started pointing and telling me my skin had turned redder than the undies. That’s when I dove. I dove into the ground and it took me in, caging me hostage under the fibrous carpeting where no one could see me, but I could see all of them. They laughed and hit their legs in obvious hysterics. Eva stared at the ground where I’d been standing, her face turning down, her eyes glazing over, her hand resting on her slender hip with a face that said, ‘Her? My sweet CarefreeJanie is plain Jane? Are you kidding me?’

I opened my eyes and all flutters had long disappeared, replaced by a gnawing that ripped at my insides, leaving me restless and sad and yearning for that one thing I knew at that moment I’d never have – the gift of love, of touch, of something as simple and wondrous as a first kiss.

With a melancholy tune playing on my heart, I began writing a far different story than I set out to write. The lead character, afraid to show her true self, hid under a visor and wore long sleeves to hide her scars. After years of writing back and forth, she finally agreed to meet her cyber lover in person after learning her lover would marry another the very next day.

She skirted around the bend in the road and stopped when she saw her lover sitting idle in the middle of the road cross-legged, head cocked to the side, a smile prettier than any rainbow lighting up her face. The shy girl with scars running up and down her body forgot all time and place and ran to her with arms outstretched, tears stinging her eyes, and landed in front of her lover’s shiny spirit. The wind picked up as she stood before the woman she loved and off flew her visor, exposing her scars and opening up a lifetime of vulnerabilities. Her hands flew to her face and her sleeves rolled up her forearms further exposing the ugly parts of her she had carefully hidden all of her life in the dark corners of her apartment overlooking the waterfront.

Her lover, pushing herself up off the ground in one strong leap, stood before her like an angel shining her light from within onto her. Love danced on her golden face and sparkled like diamonds on the spokes of her eyes. She reached out with strength and pulled her into her warm embrace, shouldering all of her hidden pain, willing for her to shed it at their feet.

Fearing nothing in the light of her girlfriend, she lowered her hands from her scars, rolled up her sleeves further and exposed herself in new light to the girl she waited too long to embrace.

The two clung to each other under a maple tree, under a bird’s song, under the shimmering rays of a sunlight shining through them, protecting them from all that threatened to steal their remaining time. Their heartbeats connected, beating as one until the sun sank below the tree trunks and the crickets sang them a lullaby. At this point the girl with the scars opened her eyes and realized she stood alone, clinging to her bed pillow in the dark shadows of her lonely bedroom where the only flicker of light shone from her computer screen, alerting her to a new message.

With no time to spare, the girl hopped up from her bed and prayed her vanity hadn’t caused her to be too late to embrace the one person in this world that mattered – her cyber lover who was about to get married to a man she didn’t love all because the girl with scars too deep failed to trust her or anyone.

I stopped typing. I reread my passage and an emptiness so loud deafened me to all else going on around me.

I no longer felt like screwing myself on a bike.

# #

“I dreamt about you last night,” Eva wrote.

I couldn’t type back a response just then. I needed coffee and time to absorb the loss I still carried with me since three a.m. This whole bantering thing had spun out of control. It could destroy me if I didn’t play carefully. Had I avoided pain and humiliation all my adult life only to throw myself in front of it willingly? What did I think was going to happen here? I didn’t know how to be that girl who could walk into a room and light it up and garner the attention of someone real like Eva.

I had to hand it to myself though. I did a remarkable job crafting CarefreeJanie. I showed up cute, spunky and full of life. I much preferred being her. In fact, on Twitter I racked up the followers. People from different countries that followed Eva started following me. Eva had over two thousand followers. I neared two hundred and got pretty excited about that. Two hundred people cared what CarefreeJanie had to say?

I started to build up CarefreeJanie by retweeting Eva’s quotes that she’d send out daily to me and to a good hundred or so other followers who happened to be in the film industry. She managed to grab the attention of a few actors and actresses each day. I knew this because I dove right into stalker mode soon after we hooked up online. They’d say something pleasant back to her about her quote and she’d offer them a wink or a smile. Lately, especially that morning, her breadcrumb trail of winks started to annoy me. I wanted her winks to myself. Yet, she tossed them to pretty actresses and good-looking actors like she tossed out hard candy at a parade. They, not unlike me, probably got a little excited because they’d flirt back a reply and she’d banter along with them. One girl started to ignite my jealous twitch when she started using pet names with her like ‘cutie pie’ and ‘sweetness.’