The screen name, yeah. Darkroom. That explained it.
Another line from the letter that caught my eye: “I love the videos you have sent. I watch them alone almost every night. But I can’t get past the dream of touching you in person. My God, you are truly gorgeous!”
I thought about it for a moment before I said, “Is he making this up? Or did she really send him videos?”
“I… I think she really did send this dude videos. A very heavy gig going on here, man. And she hadn’t even met the guy. Unusual.”
“But why? This is a nice woman. An intelligent woman.”
Tomlinson echoed what I was already thinking: “Her husband tells her she’s fat, rotten in bed and then he shacks up with a much younger woman. Isn’t that the way Amanda explained it? So she needs reassurance and she needs it quick ‘cause she’s at about rock bottom. Maybe headed for a nervous breakdown. Yeah, she is a nice lady and she’s smart. Smart enough to know that it’s dangerous these days to get out there on the dating scene. Plus, she doesn’t know any men. So she lets herself get involved in a hot cyber-screw. You know, an on-line affair. No muss, no fuss. No blood tests required, no need to hose down the decks afterward. Oral sex. Real oral sex, because it’s nothing but words. A mind-fuck pure and simple. That much makes sense.”
“Does it?” I said. The tone I used told Tomlinson that I thought it was idiotic.
He was unruffled as always. “It’s like weed, man. Don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it. Right now, I’ve got three cyber affairs going. All with happily married ladies. Or so they say. Honestly? I think one of them’s a guy. You never know on-line. Hell, you can say you’re anything, how you gonna check? Him I only write out of a sense of fair play. Nothing against the flute-tooters-they’ve got to be born that way, right? — but I just don’t see the charm.”
“But why? Why would you do something like that?”
“Because they’re lonely, man. And I understand what it’s like to be lonely. You know me, I’ll do anything to help another human being to get over the hump. It can be one painful bitch of a life, so why not cooperate when someone asks. Hey, don’t look at me like that”-he was smiling-“I can’t whack off and type at the same time. I’ve tried it, it just doesn’t work. So it’s more like a… a public health service I’m offering. If the ladies want to type sexy notes back and forth with a man they’ve never met, who’s it hurt? These two women, my cyber mistresses, they got kids and professions and happy husbands. But we screw like crazy through E-mail and instant messages.”
“You don’t even have a telephone on your boat.”
“I plug the modem into the connecting block outside the gift shop. You didn’t wonder why I was spending so much time at the marina? A couple of nights ago, I had sex with one of my cyber girls while we were hidden by a curtain in a crowded restaurant. No panties and she pulled her dress right up over her head. Her idea, man, not mine, although I loved it. She says that the things we do, I’ve saved her marriage.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “And it’s all imaginary. You’ve never really met her.”
“Don’t even know her name. Not for sure, anyway. She calls herself Phaedra. And yeah, she definitely has a couple of kids and her husband’s a big successful honcho. That much I’d bet on. We met in a chat room and we’ve been having sex for two, maybe three months. An on-line affair, it always starts with little hints about horniness, then escalates pretty fast. The first few letters, I’m talking about. We follow Darkrume ’s letters back, I’d bet that’s what we’d find. Little hints about this and that, just joking around, but mostly writing about what nice, thoughtful, honorable people they are, before one night they decide to let it happen. Sending videos, though, that’s above and beyond the call of loneliness.”
I was looking at Darkrume ’s words on the screen-something else troubled me about the letter. It wasn’t the content. It was a word or a term or phrase… something that was out of place. What?
Tomlinson said, “I know why you’re shaking your head. It’s because none of this makes sense to you. The first time we met, Doc, I took one look at your face and I thought: This man is living a chronological nightmare. That face of yours, I’ve seen it in photos by Matthew Brady. John Ford’s films, same lost expression. It’s like the karmic mailman stuck you in the wrong slot.”
I said, “What?”
Tomlinson said, “You, Doctor Ford, were not made for these times. That’s all I’m saying. Know who’s got exactly the same problem? Your uncle. Yeah, Tucker Gatrell. Both you guys got sent to Earth a couple of generations too late.”
Tomlinson and Tuck: Each assumed he was an expert on the other.
He said, “This whole Internet business has got to be like fingernails on a blackboard to you. Or like teenagers arguing.”
After two joints and three hours looking at a computer screen, this is what I had a right to expect from Tomlinson.
Time to change the subject.
I said, “What I want to do is read all these letters in order. All of Darkrume ’s first. He and Gail had this weird relationship going and I don’t like the business about her sending him videos. We need to check around the house, see if she really does own a camera.”
“She does. I was snooping in one of the closets while I was waiting for you to get out of the head. She’s got a video camera on a tripod. Perfect for taking self-portraits. No cassette in it, though. I checked that, too.”
“Then I don’t like it. Some guy wins her trust, she sends him self-made videos and he uses them to blackmail her. I can see that happening. How long were they E-mailing each other?”
Tomlinson reached over my shoulder and took the mouse. He clicked it, clicked again. “ Darkrume started writing her about two weeks before Merlot did. The letter we just read was sent in late August, so they’d had a couple of months together. Plenty of time to get a hot and heavy cybersex deal going. It’s scary how easy and fast you can win someone’s trust if you’re writing every day.”
I started to tell Tomlinson that something about the letters still troubled me. Was it a word? Yeah, maybe… maybe a word. So what I wanted to do was spend the next few hours and read each and every letter. Use the laser printer beside the computer to get them all on paper. That way, maybe put everything in perspective and figure out the detail, the nagging little detail, that continued to bother me. One by one, read Darkrume ’s letter, read Gail’s reply. Read Merlot’s letter, read Gail’s reply. Go back and forth. Keep it orderly.
I said, “We’ve both seen her photograph. A woman this classy, it’s tough to imagine her writing graphic sex scenes to some stranger.”
“Not a stranger, he was her E-mail lover. There’s a big difference. This is America, man. For the last forty years, we’ve learned that our dreams can come true on a television screen. A TV screen is exactly what we’re looking at now. We trust this screen, man, it’s part of our family. What better place to find romance? You don’t believe she’d do it? Let’s check the lady’s letters and see.”
We checked and, yes, she’d replied to Darkrume. Replied with enthusiasm, too. Ooohhh, it was okay to do that and that and that to her, but what she really wanted was for him to do this and this and this…
The description went on for many paragraphs.
After reading the letter, Tomlinson said, “Far out! Now I can understand why your buddy was in love with this lady. Match the photo I saw with these words, and this is one of the great bedroom women I’ve ever had the honor to be associated with.”
Feeling an irrational animus, I flipped his hand away from the mouse and closed the file. He gave me a look like, Whoa, buddy, lighten up!
But enough. I’d read enough.
I said, “Just for the hell of it, let’s see what Merlot was writing at the same time. These letters are listed chronologically, right?”
I opened another file and surprise, surprise. Merlot was also concerned about Gail’s involvement with her Internet lover. A couple of lines written during the same week in August: “My beautiful friend. When I left your house tonight I was so worried about you I drove straightaway to the beach. Even with all my investors hounding me for details, all I could think about was you and the mistake you might be making in trusting Darkrume too much…”
And: “… you don’t know this person. If he cares so much for you, why does he refuse to write to me, your closest friend?”
And: “… I promise you this. If he ever hurts you, I will be the friend there to help you. Why? Because you see me the way I am. Not the way I look. I will always be your servant because of that.”
I removed my glasses and cleaned them on the sleeve of my blue chambray shirt. I was about to comment
