May We Be Forgiven

wore the day you came over—no pun intended.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I save my underwear from every encounter, just in case …”
    “In case you feel the need to extort?”
    “How about you do me on the phone—I’ll talk you through it.”
    She somehow forces me to engage in phone sex with her, and even though I don’t want to be excited by it, I am slowly drawn in.
    “I keep thinking I’m supposed to be helping you—not enabling you,” I say as I unzip my pants.
    “I’m already so wet,” she says. “My hand is way up my pussy and I’m dripping—all I need is your cum gun to nail it. I want you to bang me. I want to feel your balls slapping my ass. I want you to do it to me doggy-style. Pinch my titty, pinch it hard.” And then she starts whooping—that’s the only word I can think of for it—kind of a charging, galloping sound like a rodeo cowboy, and I can tell she’s not faking. It’s kind of grotesque and kind of inescapably hot. As she’s coming I get more and more excited, and then it’s like I can’t stop myself—I’m sitting in George’s desk chair and just before I erupt I turn away from the desk, spinning in the swivel chair, and explode, shooting onto his bookcase, his volumes of American history and the silver-framed family photos. I immediately grab a tissue and try and clean up. “I have to go,” I say. “I’ve made quite the mess over here.”
    She laughs. “I knew you’d crack.”
    I’ve been had.

    M oments later, when Nate calls, I feel as though I’ve been caught with my pants down. I pick up the phone on George’s desk, clear my throat, and bleat hello.
    “You okay?”
    “Fine,” I bleat, clearing again.
    Nate is filled with energy and thoughts going about a hundred miles a minute—by comparison, I feel stoned.
    “Where are you?” he asks.
    “At your father’s desk, I was doing a little work.”
    “We can video-chat,” he says, excited. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. There’s a camera right there on Dad’s computer, it’s all set up. You just push the blue button at the bottom of the dock—it looks like a word bubble. Wait,” he says, “I’ll call you.” And seconds later, the computer makes a ringing sound. “Click ‘accept,’” he says, and without thinking I do.
    Nate is there, waving at me. “I can see you,” he says.
    “And I can see you too,” I say into the phone.
    “We can hang up the phones,” he says. And I do.
    “Can you hear me?”
    I can. A video camera mounted in the computer—it’s terrifying. What if someone has been watching me? “What do you call this?”
    “Facetime, iChat, or Skype,” he says. “It just depends on the program—the end result is pretty much the same thing.”
    “Skype,” he says, and all I can think of is Ella Fitzgerald singing skat.
    “What can you see?” I ask Nate, wondering how fine the resolution is.
    “I see Dad’s whole office, his bookcases, his prizes. Everything that’s behind you. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before—we could have been talking face to face this whole time. …”
    “Yes, we could have been talking like this all along,” I say, all the while obsessing about my earlier encounter, wondering if there’s any evidence left behind on the bookshelf—some missed bit of something. …
    Video chat is like talking NASA-style; there’s an ever-so-slight delay to the sound and images that reminds me of pictures sent from outer space, pixelated, like some weird postmodern animation.
    “Helloooo out there,” I call out.
    “You don’t have to yell,” Nate says. “I’m in the library; a normal voice is sufficient.”
    “Okay, then,” I whisper.
    “Where are we going over break?” Nate wants to know.
    “What do you mean?”
    “There’s a school break coming up, and I’m wondering where we’re going.”
    “Do you always go somewhere?”
    “Yes,” he says in an almost patronizing tone.
    “Does Ashley’s school have break at the same time?”
    “Yep.”
    “It seems excessive to take a trip for no reason,” I say.
    “Sometimes people need a break, a little time off.”
    “Where do you usually go?”
    “Skiing in Aspen, sometimes the Caribbean, or on an educational exploration, like to visit a turtle habitat in the Galapagos.”
    “And what about the summer, what happens then?”
    “Camp, summer school, travel, some time at the Vineyard. Mom has it all figured out. I’m sure there’s already a