May We Be Forgiven

you stay overnight, spend some time with us?”
    “I can’t,” I say, not really listening. “I’m staying at George’s and I’ve got his pets to care for.”
    “Perhaps you could bring them—George misses the dog.”
    Online, someone has posted: “Are your breasts filled with milk? I j’adore breast milk and would like to meet a lactating or pregnant woman for daytime feedings. If you like I will also bury my face between your legs and tongue you to orgasm after orgasm till you tell me to stop. No reciprocation required. I’m a professional MWM, D/ D free, nonsmoker, gentle & respectful. Would like to do this on a regular basis at your place.”
    “Do you think you might come up sometime?” the doctor asks again.
    The ads are so specific, so uncomfortably arousing, that I have to look away from the computer for a moment.
    “I’ve been there,” I say, distracted. “Just the other day, I drove all the way the hell up there with his stuff and didn’t exactly have what I’d call a good experience.”
    “Yes. The hope would be that a scheduled visit would go better.”
    “We will see,” I say; I am a million miles away.
    “We’ll talk again soon,” the doctor says.
    “Sure,” I say. “Call anytime. I’m always here.”

    I am in the glow of the computer, bent like an old man hunkered down for the duration. The cat and the dog come to check on me.
    “Suburban Mom seeks friends for lunch, NSA.”
    I mistake “NSA” for “NASA” and wonder what the hell the space program has to do with women in suburbia making dates. I Google “NSA” and find it to be an acronym for everything from the National Sawmilling Association to No Significant Abnormalities and No Strings Attached—which is apparently the most modern and intended meaning.
    Somewhere between two-thirty and three in the morning, I fall asleep at the computer in mid-chat, and the woman I’m talking with asks, “Are you texting while driving?”
    “No,” I type, “not asleep at the wheel but at the desk.” The woman I was chatting to was (or said she was) the wife of a cop, waiting for her husband to come home—she says she manages her anxiety about her husband’s work by Internet-sexting.

    T he next night I am at it again, craving something, thinking it would be nice to have someone to share my wonton soup with.
    I post a listing of my own. There is a corporate headshot of George on his computer, taken a few years ago, when his hair was better, when he was thinner. I upload it as my own. “Home Alone—Westchester Man Seeks Play Mate; tired soul craving nourishment—meet me for a smoothie, my treat. NSA.”
    A minute after I post it, a woman e-mails, “I know you.”
    “Doubtful.”
    “No, really,” she says.
    “Happy to chat, but trust me no one knows me.”
    “Photo for photo,” she says.
    “Okay,” I say, and it feels like a game of cards—Go Fish. I search George’s computer and find a photo of him on vacation, fishing pole in hand. I upload it.
    She sends a photo of her shaved crotch.
    “I don’t think we’re on the same page,” I type back.
    “George,” she writes, terrifying me.
    “?,” I type.
    “I used to work for you. I heard about the accident.”
    “I don’t follow,” I type, full well knowing exactly what she’s talking about.
    “I’m Daddy’s little girl. We pretend Mommy’s gone out. You ask to check my homework. I bring it to your office 18th Floor 30 Rockefeller Plaza. I do whatever you tell me to—I never disobey Daddy. You ask me to suck your cock, tell me it tastes like cookie dough. You’re right. And then I bend over your desk, my breasts sweeping pens off your blotter while you have me from behind. The office door is open, you like the possibility that someone might walk in.”
    “Tell me more,” I type.
    “Oh come on George, it’s okay. I’m not with the network anymore. I quit. I got a better job. My new boss is a lesbian.”
    “I’m not George,” I type.
    “Your photo,” she writes.
    “I’m the brother.”
    “You don’t have a brother, you’re an only child,” she types. “That’s what you told everyone, you were an only child, the apple of your mother’s eye.”
    “Not true.”
    “Whatever,” she types. “Goodbye and good luck, George.”

    I n George’s home office, I find a small digital camera, shoot some pictures of myself, upload them, and see how bad I look—I had no idea. Retreating to the upstairs bathroom, I give myself an ersatz