Men, Women & Children by Chad Kultgen Read Free Book Online

been a computer in the store. Ray still felt computers were unnecessary on many levels and refused to even create an e-mail account for himself.
    Patricia laughed and said, “Yes, honey, I cleaned up her Internet.” Then they settled in to watch a syndicated episode of According to Jim , which was their favorite show.
    Upstairs, Brandy logged on to a Myspace account that she kept secret from her mother. Her username and identity on this account was Freyja. She decided on the name after doing a search on the Internet for “sexy goddess.” She was directed to a page devoted to Freyja, the Norse goddess of love and sex. Freyja was believed to have been pulled in a golden chariot by a pack of wild cats. Brandy liked cats. Brandy donned gothic makeup and took pictures of herself in her bra and underwear with her phone and then uploaded them to this account, erasing the photos from her phone immediately after uploading. She gave incorrect information about her age and location and, despite the fact that she had yet to experience her first kiss, filled the blog section of her Freyja account with fictitious descriptions of sexual encounters and sexual preferences that she assumed men would want her to have, including bisexuality, a predilection for anal sex, and the need to be choked or spit on.
    She communicated daily with her 5,689 friends and regularly made new ones. There were a few whom she communicated with more frequently than others. Dungeonmax, GothGod1337, and LovelyPallor were among them. They talked about a wide variety of subjects, mainly sexual, most of which Brandy knew nothing about, but could quickly research with a rudimentary Google search and then regurgitate, in some cases copying and pasting various bits and pieces of other blogs she would come across directly into instant messaging conversations. She was not overly interested in losing her virginity or performing any kind of sexual act at her age, but she found it an easy way to get the interest of moderate to large numbers of people who would engage in instant message conversations with her about a wide variety of subjects.
    Brandy had invented her Freyja identity in the seventh grade, when her mother and father moved to a school district that forced her to go to Goodrich instead of the junior high school her grade school friends attended. As an alternative to making new friends at Goodrich, Brandy found it easier to find meaningful and entertaining interactions with people online. She still maintained a friendship with her best friend, Lauren Martin, and saw her on most weekends.
    She worked very hard at keeping this secret from her mother, resetting her browser’s history, cookies, and caches every fifteen minutes or so just in case her mother should come in and demand a surprise check of her computer, which she had done in the past. She also kept this Myspace page a secret from her classmates, assuming that knowledge of its existence would find its way back to her mother if any of her peers found out about it.
    Freyja had eighteen new messages, many innocuous, two requesting nude pictures, and one from an obese married woman in gothic makeup from Tucson, Arizona, calling herself Lady Fenris and offering a ménage à trois with herself and her husband, who were both disease and drug-free.
    A few blocks away, Tim Mooney finished eating a twelve-pack of nuggets from Chick-fil-A that his father, Kent, brought him home for dinner, along with one for himself. As Tim stood from the table taking his trash with him to the kitchen, Kent said, “Want to toss the ball for a while?”
    Kent and Tim would frequently play catch with a football after dinner. It was something they did even before Tim’s mother and Kent’s wife, Lydia, left to live with this man named Greg Cherry in California who was in marketing. But since she left, Kent felt that tossing the ball brought them closer together as a father and son. It was something that solidified their bond as two