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But even now, after a day had passed, I stood by my decision. I would never have been able to bury a part of myself forever. I needed the mask and the second personality that came with it. Not because of the money I made with it. Not because I wanted to drive strangers crazy on the Internet. It was all about me. About the fun I had loving my body. Showing it off how I saw it, felt it, and experienced it.
After putting my bag in the trunk, I got into my car. I closed my fingers around the steering wheel and looked up the driveway at the mansion that sat there. As always, it looked inviting. Like a warm place where everyone was welcome. Usually that was true, but this invitation had clearly been withdrawn from me.
Maybe a solution would open up if I kept the desired distance. If I thought about how I could repair the damage and bandage the wound without causing more problems.
The balance of the last days was cruel. A secret revealed. A ruined wedding. A one-night stand. Getting thrown out.
I could now justifiably claim to have performed a mid-life emergency braking maneuver that turned the car a hundred and eighty degrees. If I stepped on the gas now, I didn't know if I'd hit a wall or be racing down the open highway.
Did it feel like everything was in shambles? Not entirely. Were there deep cracks in the glass? Absolutely. Now all that remained to be seen was whether it would shatter or hold together.
Audrey
ONE DAY LATER
Audrey
TWO DAYS LATER
Audrey
THREE DAYS LATER
Audrey
FOUR DAYS LATER
The book slipped out of my hand and hit the floor, which felt like breaking through the surface of the deepest part of the pool and gasping for air.
The last few days had been a blur, as if autopilot had kicked in and I was only functioning to protect myself from further damage.
I bent down to pick up the book and paused. Four days in this state between existing and living was enough. The situation could not be changed, and simply existing was not the answer. Instead of burying my head in the sand and waiting for something to happen, I finally had to become active again and regain, piece by piece, what I had lost.
Why hide? Alexander's opinion was set in stone, I certainly wasn't going to change, and the last stream had been six days ago. I had ordered a new camera, even though I was in a deep hole. If I could bring myself to do it, nothing stood in the way of the next livestream.
The only question was under whose prying eyes it would take place. Had Alexander memorized the website and would he spy on me now? Secretly and anonymously, because that was the least of all problems on the Internet? I knew the IP address from home, but once he was somewhere else, using the cellular network or encryption, I wouldn't know it was him. Unless he made some stupid mistake, like using a username I could identify. Or when he used one of the email addresses I knew.
As I put the book back on the shelf, I realized I shouldn't give it nearly as much thought as I was giving it. Whether he was watching me or not wouldn't make any difference, because Alexander would only feel more entrenched in his attitude. It would confirm how disgusting he suddenly found me.
So there was no reason to change my approach. As long as I stuck to my principles, everything would be fine. That included my phone, which exploded with a list of unanswered calls and countless ignored messages. I had seen them and registered them, but no signal had reached my brain in the last few days to entice me to respond.
At the moment, I couldn't even tell who these calls and messages were from. I had worked and slept, my dark memory told me, but what had happened in between could not be determined.
I hid between the shelves from the other employee and pulled out my phone. Except for one message from my cell phone provider, the bank, and the company that hosted my server, all the other messages were from Lei. He sounded normal at first, but more than worried by the end. I had ignored him, he didn't know anything about my father kicking me out and to be honest I wasn't sure if I should even approach him or if it was better to keep my distance.
After the night we had spent together and the closeness we had shared, I couldn't deny that I longed for more. But was it because of Lei himself? Or was it because he had opened up a world I had never known before?
Another question I urgently needed to answer before I continued spinning in circles, scaring away every last person on this island. Which Lei definitely didn't deserve after all the years we had known each other.
Would I have called him if I hadn't known he followed my streams? Would I have called him if I hadn't been in love with him? Would I have called him if he hadn't made me realize the night before that I could be a much happier person without Alexander?
To all these questions, the only answer wasno, because there was no denying that I possessed a soft spot for this man. Normally, I didn't get close to anyone. There were no one-night stands. I didn't respond to crude advances or when someone freely offered me sex. With Lei it had been different, because the second he had said he wanted to fuck me in that dress, a heat had spread through my body that hadn't left for hours. The night had not been nearly enough to satisfy the hunger I now felt in my stomach. A hunger that wasn't for sex. But for Lei.
I wanted to see how his body trembled under my touch and feel how he pulled me deeper into his abysses with each passing moment. For they existed, and so far he had only shown them to me from the outside, because I was not yet ready to give him everything he needed and wanted from me.
However, this did not change the fact that I had almost tied the knot with another man five days ago. How could I credibly assure him I was ready to commit to something else?
And most of all just because I wanted him didn't mean he felt the same way. It might be that he cared about me, but my father had also pointed out that Lei wasn't exactly the type of man to commit to a significant other. Let alone had one. Lei's reaction might have been clear, but how much meaning could I attach to it when it happened in a situation where he was about to fuck me?
