Page 152 of The Plus One Pact

I wish I knew anyway.

I'm hurt anyway.

Maybe that's trust. Saying I know it's a little ridiculous, but I'm hurt anyway. You hurt me.

And I'm fucking embarrassed that you hurt me, that anyone got close enough to hurt me.

But that's good.

That's progress, I think.

I got hurt, and I survived. And I still care about Ivy.

My phone buzzes.

The space fills.

A message from her. She beat me to the punch.

Ivy: A new episode is dropping in a minute. It says a lot I needed to say. A lot I'm struggling to say. I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you. I hope you're doing well. Call me when you have a minute. If you want to talk. And even if you don’t. I want to make sure you’re happy with how I handle the identity of my mystery lover.

I open my podcast app immediately.

It's there. A new episode of Sex and The OC.

The Truth, This Time.

I skip past the introduction and ad break, and I listen to Ivy pour her heart out.

Dear Listener,

It's me, Doctor O, though I suppose most of you have already heard the news. That a few people on the Internet have put together the identity of the man I hired. But that’s not what’s important here. Because this isn’t about his honesty. It’s about mine.

People are putting those details together too. I could say something to throw you off the scent, but I won’t this time. No, this time, I’m going to be honest.

My name is Ivy Vaughn and I go by the alias Doctor O.

Don't worry. I'm not changing my moniker. I'll always by Doctor O, in my heart, but I should confess something:

Until recently, my stories weren't mine. They were my wonderful producing partner's, Mistress Mayhem. See, she's the one who's brave about these things. She's the one who fearlessly charges into sexual situations with strangers.

I've always been on the more timid end of the scale.

At least, that's what I thought, because I only wanted to be with one person, and one person I knew well. A long, long time ago, I fell in love with a man. We had sex. It wasn't great, but it was good enough, and I felt close to him, and I thought that was all that mattered.

Then things changed. We were together long enough for the excitement and novelty to fade. I wanted to find new excitement together. He didn't want to talk about it. He escaped into this other world. Used porn to self-medicate.

And I thought if I tried hard enough, if I learned enough, if I became enough like those women in those videos, maybe he'd want me the way he did.

But it didn't work that way, listeners. Because his interest wasn't about the large breasts or blonde hair or perfectly waxes bikini lines.

He wanted everything on his timeline. On his schedule.

It's common with porn. But it's common in so many other areas in our modern lives too. We open up Instagram to order up socializing on demand. We swipe through Tinder to order a man like we're ordering a pizza. We text a friend because we're lonely, not because we're maintaining a relationship.

In our modern bubbles, we hide from rejection, from vulnerability, from the risk of really depending on someone.

I did that too.