1.
I found you.
It took some effort, believe me! I haven’t slept in a little while but that’s okay! I really don’t mind, the sticky heat purging my eyes is fine. It’s only fatigue, little one. Just fatigue. Really! Really, don’t worry about me, (you’re so sweet, I know you’re worried, you just can’t help yourself—can you?) But I promise you that it was worth it.
You, little one, are worth it.
You’re playing makeup right now. I’m watching, I hope you don’t mind that I do that—watch. Is the makeup your mommy’s? It must be.
I need to ask you: did you ask for her permission or did you steal it from her master bathroom when she wasn’t looking? Perhaps busy making you some cherry pie? Cake? (What do you like to eat, little one?)
It’s okay if you stole it, you can tell me. I steal things sometimes too! I won’t judge you, my sweet thing.
I’m smiling, OH! I am smiling! You’re acting like you know what you’re doing with your mommy’s big, fat makeup brush and it’s making me smile! I know you’re pretending that you know how to use it, you’re so good at acting confident and sure of yourself!
My teeth are digging into my lip and I’m tipping back in my chair and watch you lean out of frame, perhaps to study yourself (the way I’m studying you now) in a mirror. Study your mommy’s blush on your cheeks—Almost crimson and flirty. (You’re definitely a cherry pie girl.)
You come back to face your laptop and for a moment we make eye contact, it’s brief and my heart kisses the idea of a heart attack as I momentarily think you can see me as well! But that’s not right—my head shakes and your mommy’s brush taps the bridge of your nose—watching from my computer is safe. It’s my little virtual one-way mirror. Then your eyes drop and I think you’re typing. You’re changing the tabs on your web browser, opening a new one I suppose, but that’s okay! I can still see you regardless.
Your eyes are so beautiful, little one. They’re bright, and round, and innocent above that sex stripped blush. Your mommy is going to make you take it off, you know. It makes you look like a whore. Like a little, internet whore.
I’m smiling still, and my pants are tight against my spread lap. Tighter now as you play with your mommy’s makeup and apply lipstick. Bright. Bright red! I can tell, even if the camera on your laptop is a little dim. I could kiss those lips, even through the gritty screen and low HD.
I watch you rub the back of your hand across the red wax on them and smudge it, just slightly. You’re quite peculiar, little one, and I’m touching my own lips with the back of my hand—mimicking you. Your lips are a faded red now and your cheeks are hot with crimson powder and you look like you just finished having sex. Do you know you look that way?
I’m sure you didn’t do it on purpose, but you’re grinning at yourself in the reflection of your computer screen and I swear you can see me! See right through me, and I want to tell you I can see you too! But I won’t, I won’t do that, little one.
Did you do your makeup like that for me? (You are so sweet, you just sighed at yourself and I could hear it in my headphones and I want to hear it again. It was pitched, and warm, and I want to see those lips do that sigh one more time.)
My hand is in my pants.
I really hope you don’t mind.
But you must because you flutter your eyes, and your hand drifts up above your camera and must’ve clamped over the laptop lid because suddenly my view of you is dropping and the screen is slivering into a smaller gap.
“No,” my voice breaks from my thoughts and reminds me in its cracked gruff that I haven’t spoken in over twenty-four hours, “no, no, no!” The screen goes black.
You closed your laptop!
My head drops forward as my hand unwraps from my half-hard penis and comes back out of my pants, sweaty and musty. The stench is bearable but I’d be embarrassed if you could smell it. I would never let you smell this, it’s dirty, you wouldn’t like it.
You and your red cheeks, and smudged red lips.
I have a headache. As my head hangs I can feel the sickness creep up like black talons over the muscle in my spine and I want to scream at you for it. This headache is your fault. You knew what you were doing to me, and then you just stopped. Was Mommy going to catch you with her makeup? Is that why?
“You could’ve left your laptop open.”
I stand and walk through the skeleton wake of my words to my bathroom. I have to get rid of the headache you gave me, I don’t have a choice.
I relieve it in the shower. The hot water good against both heads on my body. I think about you the whole time, little one.
I’m forced to look at myself when I get out of the shower and if I’m honest, I don’t look at the reflection the same way I look at you. I know we’ve only just met but I already love you more then the man with the smushed nose that always stares back at me over the sink. I think if I ever talk to you that might be the first thing I tell you; that I love you.
I think you’ll like that.
“If you ever talk to her,” I say and I can feel every living essence of my self esteem dissipate. I sigh, like you had sighed, and trail my hand over the low flat of my pelvic bone and tummy. I’ve gained a little weight.
I need to run again.
“Do you run?” I’m asking you, but I know you can’t hear me, “you’re probably too young to run, little one.”
Little one.
It sounds weird to call you that with my outside voice, so I repeat it, “little one.”
I sigh like you sigh and suddenly I wish my headache was back, just so I could relieve it again.
And again.
But I have to work now. Twenty-four hours awake to hack and search until I found you. It was worth it. But—
“Work is going to suck ass.”
Work always sucks ass, little one. But now that I have you, all I want to do is keep you. I can’t do that if I’m at work.
“I can’t do that if you shut your laptop!”
I sigh again and this time I do need to re-relieve myself. Your red cheeks and smudged lips back on my mind and my toes are digging into the tile bathroom floor and my jaw is locking, and—and—
Fuck.
I need to go to work.
