He follows me on Instagram and leaves lengthy comments on my posts. Eric is sensitive about his age and about mine, and he makes a considerable effort to manage the twenty-three-year discrepancy. Of course, the context of my childhood-the boy bands, the Lunchables, the impeachment of Bill Clinton-only emphasizes our generational gap. The VHS of Spice World I received for my fifth birthday, the Barbie I melted in the microwave when no one was home. When I talk about my childhood, I only talk about the happy parts. Still, he describes his childhood home lovingly, the digressions of farmland between Milwaukee and Appleton, the yellow-breasted chats and tundra swans that would appear in his yard, looking for seed. How she was buried with a corn husk doll she’d made of herself.
He tells me about an aunt he loved who made potions with fox hair and hemp. Two weeks into our correspondence, he tells me about the cancer that ravaged half of his maternal family. It always goes well initially, but then I talk too explicitly about my ovarian torsion or my rent. I have trouble making friends, and men lose interest in me when I talk. Here’s a fact: I have great breasts, which have warped my spine. Otherwise, I have not had much success with men. Women look over my shoulder and smile, and I let them believe he is mine. I save the photo to my phone so I can look at it on the train. His face in the mirror, stern with quiet scrutiny. The dirty tile and the soft recession of steam.
His profile pictures are candid and loose-a grainy photo of him asleep in the sand, a photo of him shaving, taken from behind. In his first message, he points out a few typos in my online profile and tells me he has an open marriage. The idea that someone in the office, with that sweet, post-lunch-break optimism, might come across the thread and see how tenderly Eric and I have built this private world. The thrill of a third pair of unseen eyes. Of course I worry about IT remoting into my computer, or my internet history warranting yet another disciplinary meeting with HR. The empty text field is full of possibilities. He is fond of words like taste and spread. His messages come with impeccable punctuation. He tells me what he ate for lunch and asks if I can manage to take off my underwear in my cubicle without anyone noticing. He is uptown processing a new bundle of microfiche and I am downtown handling corrections for a new Labrador detective manuscript.
The first time we have sex, we are both fully clothed, at our desks during working hours, bathed in blue computer light.
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