Deep Desires by Charlotte Stein Read Free Book Online

don’t know what his question mark
is
. I can’t fathom it out. I think he knows what happened to me – I can feel it in his deliberation and the slow patience of his approach. But what do I know about him? There are only clues: his rigid habits, his need to get fucked into oblivion. The sense of isolation that settles all around him, wherever he is or whatever he’s doing.
    I can’t make out anything distinct from them. I can’t even find out anything particular about him online, apart from:
Ivan Orlinsky obtained his Master’s degree in computer science from Eldridge University. He is the owner and founder of Desinik.
    And that’s it.
    That’s all.
    Which is probably why I end up going with this for my first note. My first contact, through the glass, the gifts, the lens:
    Tell me about yourself
.
    No question mark. At the very least I know this about him, after all: he doesn’t crave choice as much as I do. He didn’t crave a choice from that musclehead, and I don’t think he’s going to want it here.
    Until I’ve posted the note and spent three days pacing my apartment … and then I’m right back to having no idea. Maybe he absolutely loves choice. Who the fuck knows? He might like forcing a kangaroo up his left nostril – it’s all Greek to me. I’m still in the beginner’s pool of sexual …
things
. I’m not ready for this level of emotional alienation and kinky tricks, and I know I should just tell him so.
    Keep my curtains shut in the future.
    Never speak of this again.
    Never. Never. I swear it’s going to be never. Better to have rarely loved and hardly lost, than ever to have loved at all. Better to be safe than sorry, better to stay out of the kitchen if you don’t want to get burned. And I don’t, so I promise this to myself. I promise that I’m going to end my weird association with Ivan right now.
    Shame, really, that the toughest resolution of my entire life is so easily broken by a phone call. I pick up, expecting my manager from the store, and instead get this:
    ‘What do you want to know?’
    My heart stops. Mainly because it’s forgotten how to go on beating. Of course I can’t blame it under these conditions: I thought we were stalled at strange encounters through glass, and now he’s calling me up. He doesn’t even say hello or offer any kind of introduction.
    It’s just straight down to business.
    Not that it bothers me. It doesn’t even bother me that he sounds like an insurance salesman, following up on my query. In fact, that somehow makes this sweeter. More intense. His voice is so tightly drawn, so cool and collected, that all I can think is this:
    Do I have the power to heat it up?
    I guess in one way I already have. He doesn’t strike me as the type who gives words away freely, but he’s giving them to me right at this moment. Now all I have to do is think about what I want him to tell me. What do I most want him to say?
    The design company, I think, ask him about the graphic design company he owns. Keep things light, and then gradually work towards darker stuff. Find out about his hobbies, his favourite books. Tell him yours in return!
    Oh, my mind is full of truly excellent ideas. My mind should go speed dating some time, and have fun conversations with bland people that the rest of me doesn’t actually care about. While this rest of me asks Ivan the only thing I want to know.
    ‘Was he your lover?’
    I just blurt it out, breathlessly, running on instinct and adrenaline.
    ‘That’s a rather provincial question, don’t you think?’
    I barely even care about his response, because, oh God, I can hear he has an accent. I couldn’t hear it before but I hear it now, buried beneath his words. He sounds almost American, until he gets to the ends of his sentences. Until his glassy tone rises, at the hint of a question mark.
    And then I come back to reality, and focus on the words he actually used.
    ‘Provincial?’
    ‘Well, what you’re really asking me is: am