Mabel Darling
Cat in lap, I sit down at the computer and check my settings, the way I was taught. I never mess up, but even so, I always double check before I get started. If it weren’t for a crash course in high school, I wouldn’t know the first thing about IPs and VPNs and what it takes to be truly invisible. I thought I did, but back then, I was a na?ve little hatchling who thought incognito mode made me disappear online and wearing no makeup made me disappear in person.
I have Baron Dolce to thank for my true education.
Once I’m reassured that I’m untraceable, I pull up a message board and scroll, searching for a topic that might be fun. Finally, I enter a gamer chat. A lot of the guys are younger, but not all of them, and I haven’t hunted here before. The minute I post my age and avatar, they come swarming like sharks to fresh blood. I smile absently and stroke my orange tabby as I drink in the hate and lust that flow like hy when a hot girl enters their space. It’s almost too easy.
Thirty minutes later, I hook and move over to OnlyPics, an app where we can video chat.
“God damn,” says the doughy-faced creep. “I was afraid you’d be some fat forty-year-old in real life.”
Like you?
“Nope,” I say, smiling brightly. “I’m the real deal.”
I don’t like looking at him, with his thinning hair and pale, watery eyes. His skin is waxy and gives the illusion that it might melt off at any moment. Instead, I watch myself as we talk, like any good narcissist. The picture of me in the corner of my screen smiles with me—white teeth, a dark red bob with bangs, a tan face contoured to within an inch of its life with pounds of makeup and hours of work, inch-long black lashes, black liquid liner as thick as my pinky finger tapering to a cat-eye as sharp and lethal as the blade of a dagger.
With all that on my face, I could be forty and he’d never know. But I’m only twenty. Still probably too old for him, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
A bridge.
A terrifying leap.
A boy with hate so cold it froze the fire they set inside me.
Shaken by the flood of memory, I excuse myself and walk to the window after setting down Seeley Boots. I look down over the street, where cars are parallel parked along each side. I don’t close my blinds. I never do.
Blinds don’t protect a person, don’t hide them. If they want to find me, they will.
A shiver builds along my spine, creeping slow and then racing quick as a spider up my back, prickling the hairs at the nape on my neck. I let out a gasp and wrap my arms around myself.
They will.
I smile softly and turn away from the window when I don’t see any sign of movement. They’re not here yet, but they will be. And when they arrive, I’ll be ready.
I’ve been expecting them.
*
It takes two weeks for Geoff to ask me out. I don’t mind. I’m a patient girl. I’ve waited far longer for far better men.
I spin my web slowly, each thread intentional, drawing him closer. At last, the night arrives. I fix myself at the mirror, then stand back, surveying my work. I look like… Bait.
Like it always does, the darkened window that overlooks the street calls to me, and I find myself standing at it, staring down, stroking Seeley’s head as he perches on the sill. As usual, nothing out of the ordinary catches my attention below. I sigh and pick up my bag.
I’m about to turn away from the window when Boots lets out a fearsome sound that’s halfway between a hiss and a shriek. He leaps from the sill and streaks across the room, darting under the bed. His silver-moon eyes gleam from the shadowy recesses. A prickle slowly climbs my spine like icy threads of barbed wire come to life. My heart gives hot, hard thump before it slowly and dreadfully crystallizes in my chest. Only person has ever elicited that reaction from my cat.
He’s here.
I shiver again, this time violently. For another minute, I watch the street, searching, scrutinizing. I can’t find a single car out of place.
Still, I know it. I can feel it too.
I can sense my nightmare lurking in the shadows, as if his ragged breathing still echoes through my room after the screams have ceased.
After three years of silence, he’s going to make contact, to end the delicate dance we’ve been doing for months.
I stand at the window staring out, waiting. When I still haven’t spotted him, and I’m going to be late for my date, I check Seeley’s food and water and then head downstairs. I don’t bother locking my door. There’s no reason to. If he wants to get in he will. A lock has never stopped a Dolce boy.
I don’t ask myself if I imagined it, if I’m going crazy. I stopped asking that years ago, when every else did it for me.
Why you acting all crazy? It’s not like we haven’t d it before.
Why are you protecting them? Have you lost your fucking mind?
We are sorry to inform you, we have no record of a student by that name…
I drive slowly all the way there, checking my rearview mirror every few seconds. At last, I spot a pair of headlights that keeps a few blocks back and never changes lanes, and I know that I have him in my snare. I park my Volvo outside the restaurant and hurry inside, knowing he can’t park and grab me that fast. I request a table by the windows, smiling spitefully to myself.
Schooling my expression into of nervous excitement, I turn and survey the waiting area, searching for the familiar face of the gamer man. When I spot him, I sway my narrow hips seductively as I mince over to him on my kitten heels, giving a flirty wave of my fingers.
“Oh,” he says, drawing back in surprise. After a moment’s hesitation, he adds, “It’s you.”
I give him my most coquettish pout. “Of course it’s me.” I do a little twirl so that my little white skirt flares out around my bare thighs. “Have you forgotten me already?”
“No,” he says quickly, standing and wiping his hands on his chinos. “It’s great to meet you, Skyler. I—I just didn’t expect… Let’s go sit down.”
We head back to the table, ignoring the host’s judgmental look. She tries to hide it, but I’m good at reading people. I can guess what she thinks because I’m thinking it too.
We sit at the window, and when she’s g, I smile across the table, spreading my napkin open my lap.
“You don’t look like I thought you would,” Geoff says at last, taking a nervous swallow of his water.
I laugh at that. “You met me online. We video chatted.”
“I know, but you were all…” He trails off, gesturing vaguely to my face.
I cast my gaze down as if I’m shy, but really, when I tuck my hair behind my ear and slant my face toward the window, I’m hoping he’s out there. That he’s watching me squirm, and he thinks it’s real. “I went to a lot of effort to look good for you when we chatted,” I say to Geoff. “I was afraid if I didn’t wear makeup, you’d think I wasn’t old enough for you.”
“Actually, I prefer the more natural look,” he says, glancing around nervously before adding, “But you do look very young.”
“I just wanted you to think I looked eighteen.”
I don’t giggle, but Skyler giggles, and this is Skyler’s night to shine. Her last night. The next time I do this, I’ll be Mackenzie or Makayla or Maddy.
“Age is just a number,” Geoff says. “What matters is maturity.”
“Do you really feel that way?”
“Of course,” he says. “Don’t you?”
“I definitely do,” I assure him, reaching across the table but hesitating, as if uncertainty is what holds me back, before I steel myself and force my fingertips to graze his soft knuckles. A white line circles the ring finger of his left hand where his wedding band has been all these years.
“You’re married?” I ask, widening my eyes at him.
“Separated,” he says quickly, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
He squirms and shifts again, unable to get comfortable as his chair gets hotter and hotter. Suddenly it bursts into flame, engulfing him. He screams and jumps up, but the fire is already devouring his clothes, his hair, leaving bubbling blisters and red, shiny patches of exposed muscle when the skin sizzles and falls away in chunks. He collapses to the floor, writhing in agony, screaming for help. I smile as I sit calmly eating my starter salad.
“I won’t tell if you don’t tell,” I say with a wink.
The waitress comes, and we put in our drink order—wine for Geoff, lemonade for me.
“So,” Geoff says when she’s g. “When’s your birthday, Skyler?”
“I have a little confession of my own to make,” I say, spreading my napkin across my lap the way my mother—or was it my stepmother?—taught me. “Before you spend my on me, I should come clean.”
I chew at my lip and peek up at him through my lashes.
“What is it?” he asks. “You know you can tell me anything, hy.”
“I’m not eighteen,” I say, then hurry to add, “Not yet.”
“Oh,” he says again, swallowing and glancing around nervously, like he thinks some will overhear.
I shake my head, casting my eyes down, as if I’m the who should be ashamed of myself.
He leans forward, dropping his voice. “When’s your birthday?”
“December.”
“So you’re only seventeen for six more months? That’s not so bad. You’re nearly there.”
“Well, that’s the other thing,” I say, shifting myself. People love it when you mirror their movements, not just their facial expressions. Every’s a narcissist. Most people are so narcissistic they don’t look outside themselves long enough to realize it.
I give Geoff a quick glance before taking a big gulp of my water. “I’ll actually be seventeen in December.”
“You’re only sixteen?” he asks in a whisper.
Leaning forward and holding his gaze, I whisper, “I’m very mature for my age.”
“That you are.” He sits back in his chair and swallows hard, watching me for a long moment. Just then the waitress arrives, her ponytail swinging. “What can I get for y’all?”
“We might need a minute,” I say, giving Geoff a questioning look. This is his chance to back out before his fate is sealed. “Or… We might be going?”
“No, we’re ready,” Geoff says. “I’ll take a bottle of your best red, and two steaks well d with a side of mashed potatoes for me and French fries for her.”
When she’s g, I sit back, letting out a sigh that sounds relieved. Inside, there’s a different feeling.
Disgust that he wants a girl who he thinks is only sixteen.
Triumph that he’s firmly in my snare.
And the slightest whisper of disappointment, the same I feel every time a man proves to me that he’s just like other men. Sometimes, I tell them before we meet in person and let them back out if they want to. So far, not man has. Sometimes I present myself as sixteen or even fourteen online and let them approach me already knowing. Disturbingly, that hy draws the most flies. While I’m never surprised by them anymore, a little sliver of disappointment still hangs around, even now. That’s the surprise—that after everything that’s happened to me, I’m able to maintain even a single thread of hope that maybe day, of them will be different.
“So what does this mean for us?” I ask peering up through my lashes again.
“Like you said…” Geoff’s voice lowers an octave, a conspiratorial smile twisting his lips. “I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”
A little shiver of exultation runs through me, and I offer him a smile, ducking my head and creeping my fingers across the table. I run my fingertip along his thumb, forcing myself not to react at the contact. The Dolces mostly cured me of my touch aversion, but I still don’t like the texture of skin. It reminds me of raw chicken.
Under the table, Geoff sandwiches my foot between his, and I draw a slow breath through my nose, remaining steady by focusing on something else. Like what kind of sap eats a steak well d? I like mine bleeding. But then, I like a lot of things bleeding.
After dinner, I check my surroundings expectantly as we step outside, but no darts from an alleyway or steps from inside a car with a gun raised or the pair of shears that feature in my nightmares. Of course the Dolces didn’t spare me when they pruned my brother’s fingers, like ten was too many. They wanted me to see. Baron was always testing me like that.
Geoff clears his throat, glancing around nervously, maybe expecting some to stop him from the crime he thinks he’s about to commit. I’m not nervous. I know they’ll prune off more than a finger from my date, but that’s kind of the point. I also know that if I were any else, no would stop him. The people who have the power to punish crimes like that are the s that commit them. That’s why I had to take matters into my own hands.
“Since I’ve been separated, I’ve been staying at this little motel on the outskirts,” Geoff says. “Do you want to continue our date there? Maybe open up a new bottle of wine and see where the evening takes us?”
“I probably shouldn’t,” I say, pretending reluctance. Sometimes they like that.
Usually they do.
“Right,” he says. “You have school in the morning.”
“Yes,” I say. “But my mom thinks I’m staying the night with a friend, so I can be out as late as I want.”
“Naughty girl,” he says, and I can tell he approves.
We linger on the curb. I wish they’d make their move now, but that wouldn’t be fair. Not when he hasn’t d anything except buy me dinner. I have to do my part before they do theirs. Those are the rules of the game.
“Is your friend waiting for you?” Geoff asks.
“Something like that,” I say. “But she goes to bed early, and she’d never tell.”
I am her and she is I, cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. Zip your lips and never tell, or you’ll end up in pits of hell.
I never tell. That’s why grown men trust me. That’s why they do terrible deeds.
That’s why they never suspect that I do them too.
“Does she know who I am?” Geoff asks, his waxy face going even paler under the streetlamp.
“Of course not,” I say, stepping toward him. “I’m very discreet.”
“Then it sounds like a perfect night to have a glass of wine or two,” he says, stepping a little closer, backing me against his car. My skin recoils as my entire body fills with revulsion, but he pulls away without making contact. “What do you say, Skyler?”
I bite my lip, duck my chin, and raise my lashes to heaven. “Maybe just .”
He opens the door for me and closes me in the passenger seat like a gentleman before sliding behind the wheel of his car. In the motel room, he pours wine into the plastic cups next to the sink, but they sit untouched on the bedside table as he leans in.
“I have to tell you something,” I say, toying with the button on his shirt. “I’m a little nervous.”
“We can do whatever you want, Skyler,” he says stroking my hair behind my ear. “We can go slow.”
I force myself not to flinch at his touch. “I’ve never d this before,” I whisper.
If there’s thing men crave more than young flesh, it’s untouched flesh. Offer them both, and there’s nothing they won’t do. They’ll walk out on their own children or straight into prison. They’ll throw away their careers, their wives, their lives. Too bad too few ask that sacrifice in return for their perversion.
“It’s been a long time for me too,” Geoff says. “My wife and I…” He trails off and shakes his head.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t want to get your hopes up and then let you down.”
“You’re not letting me down,” he says quickly. “We can take all the time you want. I’m a patient man. We don’t have to do anything until you’re ready.”
“I knew you’d understand.”
I wrap my arms around his neck, a spider finally making contact with the wasp she’s wound into her web. He lays me back on the bed, and soon his hands are under my clothes, over my scars, and I’m floating on the ceiling looking down on us, waiting for the moment they burst through the door and rescue me.
It never comes.
I was sure tonight would be the night.
It’s three days before a small article appears in the local news.
Gymnastics Coach Found Dead at Starlite Motel.
Boots purrs and stretches out on my lap while I read the paragraph on my computer screen. When I’m d, I lift of his white paws and kiss it. “How should we celebrate?”
I tickle his belly, and he bats at my hands with all four paws and gives me a playful bite.
“What a greedy boy,” I say admiringly. “You want to go hunting again already?”