The cursor blinks at her.
Lizzie has been staring at the same row of data for forty minutes. Column G, cells 847 through 912... product codes for some server component she's never heard of and will never think about again after she hits submit. The numbers are swimming. She presses her fingers against her eyes until she sees phosphene starbursts, little explosions of colour against the dark, and when she opens them again the flat looks exactly as it always does: grey February light pressing against the window, the radiator ticking its useless tick, a mug of tea gone cold at her elbow.
The argument is still in her head. Not even an argument, really. That's the word she'd used when she'd lain awake at 3 a.m. watching the ceiling.
Argument.
Because it feels more dignified than the truth, which is that it had been a performance. Don performing disappointment. Don performing patience. Don performing the great, exhausting burden of being married to her.
It had started over the Sainsbury's receipt.
She'd left it on the kitchen counter. Foolish, she knew even as she did it, some self-destructive instinct she can't explain. And he'd come home from Kempton Park smelling of beer and winning, which is actually the worst version of him, the one inflated to twice his normal size.
"Eighteen pounds on mushrooms and fancy bread?"
"It's sourdough. I thought I'd make..."
"I don't care what you thought you'd make, Lizzie. I care that we have nothing put by. Nothing. You understand that? If the boiler goes tomorrow we're finished."
She'd stood very still at the sink. This is a technique she's learnt over years, making herself small and vertical, a target with reduced surface area.
"You were at the races today," she'd said, quietly, because sometimes quiet works.
"That's different."
"How is it..."
"Because I earn it." He'd said it without raising his voice, which was more final than shouting. He'd set the receipt down on the counter with a small, deliberate click of paper against tile. "I earn twice what you do. That's the reality we're living in. If you want a say in how money's spent, maybe work a few more hours. Plenty of companies need data entry. It's not exactly a specialist skill, is it?"
She'd said nothing. She'd washed the mug that was already clean.
"I'm not trying to be cruel," he'd said, and this is the part that always undoes her a little, this pivot, this sudden reasonableness. "I just need you to understand the situation. You get in your head, Lizzie. You make yourself sad and then you can't see clearly. It's not me, it's the thinking. You've always done this."
She'd nodded, because nodding ends it faster.
Now it is half eleven in the morning. Don is at Sandown, or Lingfield, she hadn't been listening. He won't be back until late. She has a spreadsheet to finish, four hundred more cells of product codes, and the flat is so quiet she can hear herself breathe.
She types G849. Deletes it. Types it again.
The thing about loneliness, she's discovered, is that it doesn't feel like emptiness. It feels like pressure. Like the walls of a room slowly, incrementally moving inward. Not enough to notice on any given day, but you wake up one morning and realise you can't fully extend your arms.
She thinks: "I don't really see a way forward."
She doesn't mean anything dramatic by it. It's just a thought, the kind that arrives now with increasing frequency, matter-of-fact and grey, like weather.
She looks at the window. Then at the spreadsheet. Then back at the window.
And then, in a movement so sudden it surprises her own hands, she opens a new browser tab and types: random chat.
She stares at the words. She doesn't delete them.
She hits enter.
She isn't sure what she'd expected. Something like the chat rooms she vaguely remembers from being fifteen... blocks of text, cheerful anonymity, strangers discussing music or nothing in particular. A conversation. Just a conversation with someone who doesn't know her name or her failures or how much sourdough costs.
The first site on the list loads.
She recoils from the screen.
A vudeo window has opened immediately, from the first random man she's connected with. And he's naked. His fist is clenching his small cock and she can hear him breathing.
"Show yourself," he pants at her, "show me your cunt!"
Oh God. She clicks frantically, swiping away, her face burning, a sound escaping her that is somewhere between a laugh and a groan.
A next video window opens. Another man. Just as naked. Fat. Hairy. Frantically masturbating.
No way...
She swipes him away as well. One after the next. Some have the decency of offering a chat first. Like: "Hey gorgeous! Fancy a fuck? My big cock's already hard!" But most is just a parade of penises in all shapes and sizes.
Absolutely not. No. What was I...
She almost closes the browser.
Her hand is on the trackpad and she almost does it.
But something... she will think about what that something is, later, lying awake... something holds her still for just another three seconds. Long enough for the site's random-match algorithm to do its quiet, indifferent work.
A new window opens.
No video. Just a text box, thank goodness. And in it, as though he has all the time in the world:
Hi, I'm Michael. Nice to meet you.
She stares at it.
She types: Hi.
A pause of perhaps five seconds.
First time on one of these?
She almost lies. Instead she writes: That obvious?
Little bit. Same here. And I have to say, what a disappointment. Most women swipe away immediately. They're looking for... something else.
His words intrigue her, though she's wary. He may just be going about it in a more sophisticated way than the others.
And you?
Another small pause.
I'm just here for a good chat.
She feels, against all reason, a small involuntary smile arrive at the corner of her mouth.
Where are you? she types.
Melbourne. You?
Southeast England. Little town, you wouldn't know it.
I know roughly where southeast England is, I promise.
Fair enough. She pauses. Melbourne. That's quite far.
About as far as you can get, really. Which has its advantages.
She isn't sure why, but she types: What advantages?
And he replies: Well. It's night here and morning there, so we're basically talking across time. Different days entirely. Feels like a reasonable place for a conversation that doesn't count.
Doesn't count?
No tethers. No obligations. Just talking.
She reads that twice. Something in her chest that has been clenched all morning... all year, possibly... loosens by a fraction.
I like that, she writes.
Good. So. What's your name?
Lizzie.
Lizzie. Right. I'm going to make a coffee. You want to tell me how your morning's going?
She does tell him. She hadn't planned to. She'd planned nothing about this, it is all impulse, it is all the fluorescent randomness of loneliness finding any crack in the wall. But he asks in such an ordinary, attentive way, and the distance helps, and the fact that he is forty-eight to her twenty-seven helps too, somehow, makes it feel less like oversharing and more like telling the truth to someone who has enough years on him to receive it without flinching.
She tells him about the flat. About the data entry. About the way Don moves through their home like a minor dignitary, collecting small deferences. She tells him about Kempton Park and the receipt and the clean mug and the "it's not exactly a specialist skill, is it?"
She tells him, in as many words, that she has been slowly disappearing.
Michael doesn't say I'm sure he means well. He doesn't say have you tried talking to him? He doesn't say relationships are hard, it takes two sides.
He says: That sounds exhausting. Not the data entry. The having to manage another person's opinion of yourself every day. That kind of thing wears you down somewhere you can't easily reach.
She sits very still.
Yes, she types. That's exactly it. Somewhere you can't easily reach.
You're not what he says you are, for what it's worth. You're clearly sharp. You're funny. And the fact that you've spent years trying to hold things together while someone tells you it's your fault they're falling apart. That's strength. That's loyalty outlasting its welcome, I'd even say.
No-one has ever said anything like that to her. She doesn't mean no-one recently. She literally means no-one.
She realises her hands are shaking slightly, a very fine tremor, the kind that comes not from cold but from something suppressed finally being given a space.
How old did you say you were? she types.
Forty-eight. Does it matter?
No. You just write younger. Younger than the men I know, anyway.
I'll take that. You write honestly. That's rarer.
Minutes become something she isn't tracking anymore. She glances at the corner of her screen and finds it is past one o'clock. Her spreadsheet sits dormant in its tab. The cold tea is still on the desk.
She types: I can't remember the last time Don said anything kind to me. I keep trying to remember and I can't get there. And I can't remember the last time...
She stops. Starts again.
It's been a long time since anyone wanted to be close to me. Physically, I mean. I miss it. I miss being held. I miss someone wanting to... She deletes the last sentence. Rewrites it smaller: I miss feeling like someone wanted to look at me.
She is mortified the moment she sends it. She watches the little ellipsis that means he is typing.
That's one of the most human things anyone can miss, he writes. Being seen. Not just looked at. Seen.
Yes.
I hope you know I see you. Across twelve thousand miles and a webcam I haven't switched on. I see you.
She presses her lips together.
Can I ask you something? he writes.
Yes.
Would it be all right if I turned my camera on? You don't have to do the same. I wouldn't ask that. I just... I'd like you to be able to put a face to this conversation. Only if you want to.
She understands, in the careful, considered way he's phrased it... only if you want to... that this is a different kind of man. She's known men who ask permission the way they knock on a door they're already opening. This isn’t that.
All right, she writes.
The video window opens.
He is sitting at a kitchen table somewhere in Melbourne's night, a lamp behind him throwing warm light across his face. He is older than Don, older than anyone she's been attracted to, and she is surprised to find... that he is handsome. Not in a constructed way but in the way of someone who inhabits himself comfortably. Dark hair silvering at the temples. Quiet eyes. He raises a hand in a small, unselfconscious wave.
"Hello, Lizzie."
She can't reply out loud — she hasn't opened her mic, hasn't been asked to — but she types: Hello.
He smiles. He has a good smile.
He speaks quietly. She's turned her speakers up, her heart hammering in a way that is half embarrassment and half something she hasn't felt in so long she'd half-convinced herself she'd imagined it. Michael's voice is low and certain, the voice of someone who knows exactly what he is doing and has decided to do it as an act of generosity rather than imposition.
"Would you like to... watch?" He asks with his funny Aussie accent.
Her heart is hammering in her throat.
Yes, she types, her fingers shaking.
He stands up, his movements slow. He pulls the t-shirt over his head, revealing a lean, firm abd surprisingly hairless chest. He unbuttons his jeans, pushing them down his hips, and then he’s standing there in his boxers. He looks at the camera, as if asking for one final permission. She finds herself nodding, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement.
He slides the boxers down. And there it is. His penis. It’s not the aggressive, angry-looking thing she’d seen in those fleeting, disgusting windows. It’s long, maybe seven inches, and perfectly formed, curving slightly upwards towards his navel. The head is a smooth, blushing pink. He’s circumcised, and the skin looks clean, soft. There’s hardly any hair on his legs either, just a neat, dark triangle of pubic hair that frames him beautifully. He looks… wholesome.
He sits back down on the stool, his body relaxed, open.
That is what undoes her, more than anything that follows. He doesn't perform. He doesn't make anything of it. He settles back into his chair in front of the camera as though this is the most ordinary thing in the world, as though two people can exist like this, one clothed and one not, one in the February grey of southeast England and one in the heat of the Melbourne night, and talk, just talk, with nothing left to hide behind and nothing needing to be proved.
"Still there?" He asks.
Still here, she types.
"Good," he pauses, "You went quiet for a moment."
I was just... I was looking at you. She hesitates, then adds: I hope that's all right?
"That's rather the point, isn't it?" He says and she can hear the smile in it. "You can look for as long as you like."
Somehow, miraculously, they are back where they were. Except that something has shifted in the way that walls shift when they are taken down, brick by brick until suddenly you look up and there is nothing between you and the sky. She finds she can say things now that she couldn't say before, or perhaps it's that she can say them more completely, more honestly, as though his willingness to be seen has given her permission to be seen in return.
Can I ask you something? she types.
"Anything."
Why did you do that? Just now. You didn't have to.
He considers this for a moment, his eyes moving slightly off-camera the way they do when he's thinking.
"Because you told me you felt invisible," he replies, "and I want you to understand that being seen goes both ways. I'm not asking you to be anything for me, Lizzie. I just want there to be nothing between us."
She stares at the screen.
No-one's ever said anything like that to me, she writes.
"Then you've been talking to the wrong people."
She almost laughs. Instead she writes: I think I married one of them.
"Tell me," he says, "if you want to, of course. Tell me about the beginning of it."
And so she does. She tells him about the first year of the marriage, when she'd genuinely believed it would get better. She tells him about giving up the job in Brighton... a proper job, an office, colleagues, lunch breaks... because Don had said it made more sense, given the commute, given the hours, and how at the time she'd believed him when he'd said it was a practical decision and not a quiet removal of all the parts of her life that didn't require him.
I think I knew, she writes. Even then. But I didn't want to know, if that makes sense.
"It makes complete sense," he reassures her, "knowing means deciding. And deciding is frightening when you can't yet see what's on the other side."
I still can't see what's on the other side.
"Maybe you can't, or not just yet. But you're looking now. That's different."
She tells him about ringing her mum and pretending everything was fine, about the particular performance of a happy life on Instagram, the careful cropping of photographs to exclude the evidence of unhappiness.
God, the photographs, she writes. I've got hundreds of them. We look lovely in all of them.
"Cameras are very obliging that way."
My mum thinks he's wonderful. She'd be devastated if she knew. A pause. Sometimes I think that's part of why I stay. Not wanting to destroy everyone's version of the story.
"That's a very heavy thing to carry," he ponders quietly. "Other people's fictions."
It is, she writes, and it is only as she sends it that she realises no-one has ever named it like that before. Other people's fictions. Three words and suddenly ten years of her life are legible in a way they weren't thirty seconds ago.
Michael.
"Yes?"
He forgot my birthday. Last March. Not forgot-forgot, I think... I think he just decided it wasn't worth the effort. She stops. Starts again. There was no row about it. No explanation. He just... didn't mention it, and I didn't mention it either, and we had shepherd's pie and watched something on the telly and I sat there thinking, is this it? Is this actually it?
As she types, her eyes fill.
She doesn't mean them to. She has trained herself out of crying in front of others over the years, because tears in front of Don only ever became evidence of her instability, ammunition quietly stored for future use. But Michael isn't Don, and she is midway through the next sentence when the tears come and she cannot stop them. She keeps writing anyway, the words blurring slightly, and when she reaches the end she simply sits there with a full chest and wet eyes, undone by the extraordinary experience of being listened to by this total stranger who's sitting there completely naked in the other end of the World.
I'm sorry, she types. I don't know why I'm telling you all this.
He looks into the camera for a long moment.
"I do," he says gently, "because you needed to say it to someone who wasn't going to use it against you. That's all. There's nothing to apologise for." Another pause, and then: "For what it's worth, the birthday thing... that's not a small thing, Lizzie. Don't let anyone tell you that's a small thing."
She presses the back of her hand against her mouth for a moment.
I feel like... she starts, then deletes it, then writes it again. I feel like I could put my head on your shoulder right now. Is that a strange thing to say?
He doesn't answer immediately. When he does, his voice is low and certain.
"It's not strange at all. I'd like that very much." He looks directly into the camera. "I'm right here. Pretend the miles aren't there for a minute. Just... I'm right here."
And she knows... she cannot explain how... that if the screen weren't there, if the miles weren't there, he would simply have opened his arms. Not for sex. Not with anything asked for in return. Just the plain, human comfort of one person saying to another: come here, you're safe, I've got you. He opens his arms and pretends to hug her and she can almost feel it. The solidity of him. The warmth of bare skin, a heartbeat beneath her cheek, the specific peace of being held by someone who is not holding you in order to own you.
She closes her eyes for just a moment.
Thank you, she writes, when she opens them.
"Don't thank me," he says. "Just remember this feeling. Whatever happens after today... remember that you felt this. Because this is what you're allowed to expect. This is the least you deserve, Lizzie."
She looks at him for a long time without typing anything. He doesn't seem to mind.
When she opens them he is still there, present, watching over twelve thousand miles of dark ocean as though she is the only thing worth watching.
I wish... and Lizzie cannot believe she's writing this... that you'd make love to me.
For a moment also Michael is speechless.
"I wish that too," he admits. "It's like I can feel you, the real you, here close to me, regardless of distance and impossible odds. And you're such a beautiful person to be with."
He shifts on his seat, spreading his legs some more to make his impressive erection even more evident. And she cannot keep her eyes off it. That gentle, perfect curve that would fit so extraordinarily inside of her. She almost reaches out to the screen, imagining she could touch it.
"Then let me make love to you, sweet Lizzie," he says and takes the camera, putting it on the floor in front of him whilst sitting down on his heels with his knees wide apart.
He wraps the tip of his cock in his fist, pretending it is her opening, and gently pushes forward with his hips. There’s nothing frantic or performative about it. His body rocks slowly, a smooth, undulating motion, as if he’s really making love to an invisible partner... to her. His hand glides up and down his shaft in time with his hips, his thumb occasionally circling the slick head. He’s not looking at his own body; his eyes are fixed on the camera, on her. It’s an act of profound intimacy, a silent conversation.
A warmth blooms deep in Lizzie’s belly, a slow, spreading heat that has nothing to do with the stuffy air in the room. She watches the way his stomach muscles tighten with each thrust, the way his breathing deepens. This isn’t the two-minute, grunting ordeal Don subjects her to once a month, his eyes closed, his mind a million miles away. This is… beautiful. This is making love.
Her own body responds, a deep, insistent ache building between her legs and she can’t stop it. She can’t look away from the man in Melbourne, the man who is showing her what tenderness looks like.
Hesitantly, her right hand leaves the mouse and slides down her body, under the elastic waistband of her undies. Her fingers find her pussy, hairy, damp and swollen. She touches herself, mirroring his slow rhythm. A soft gasp escapes her lips as she finds her clit, the small, sensitive bud pulsing under her fingertips.
"I love you, Lizzie...," he suddenly sighs, reaching out towards the camera and she imagines he's saying that while he's bent over her, stretching her vagina with that beautiful cock of his while his hand is cupping her cheek in the most loving way.
Michael’s pace increases slightly, his hips moving with more purpose now. A bead of fluid glistens at the tip of his penis, and he uses it to lubricate his strokes, his movements becoming slicker, faster. His eyes are half-closed, his lips parted, and a low groan rumbles from his chest, a sound so full of pleasure it makes Lizzie’s own arousal spike.
She presses two fingers against her clit, rubbing in tight, firm circles as she watches him. The pressure inside her is building, a tight coil of pleasure winding tighter and tighter. She sees his body tense, his hand stilling for a moment before he begins to stroke with short, rapid movements. His back arches, and with a choked cry, he comes. Thick, white stripes pulse from his cock, landing on the floor in front of him. It’s not messy or disgusting; it’s in every way the most beautiful gift he could give her right now.
The sight pushes Lizzie over the edge. Her orgasm washes over her, a slow, powerful wave that makes her whole body tremble. She clamps her free hand over her mouth to stifle a moan, her hips bucking against her own hand. It’s a pleasure so deep and pure it feels like a revelation, a secret she only shares with him.
Then, they are both still. Michael is breathing heavily, a soft, satisfied smile on his face. He looks at the camera, his expression gentle.
"Are you okay?"
Lizzie pulls her hand from her panties, her fingers wet. She looks at them, then back at the kind, handsome man on her screen. She is more than okay. For the first time in years, she truly feels loved.
Yes, she types, her fingers shaking. You made me come too.
"Did I?" He asks, pleasantly surprised. "Well, I was hoping you'd feel it, because I definitely felt you."
Her throat tightens.
She realises, with some astonishment, that she is once more close to tears. The kind that come when something long-absent is suddenly returned to you and you hadn't realised how badly you'd been waiting.
Thank you for being here. For talking to me. She writes, which feels entirely inadequate for the thing she is trying to say.
"Lizzie?"
Yes?
"I'm going to leave you an email address. Not so you have to use it... you don't owe me anything. Just so you have it. In case you ever want to talk again. Okay?"
She presses her hand flat against the desk. This too, she thinks... the way he handles the ending... no net cast, no hook, no architecture of obligation.
Okay, she writes.
He types the address.
"Take care of yourself. Really. You deserve to be seen. Don't forget that just because someone's told you otherwise."
I'll try.
A small red heart appears in the chat window. She sends one back.
The screen goes dark.
Lizzie sits without moving for a full minute.
The flat reassembles itself around her. The radiator, the grey light, the cold tea. The spreadsheet waiting in its tab. Column G. Cell 850.
She becomes aware, slowly, of her own breathing. Of the fact that her face is warm. Of the fact that somewhere in the last two and a half hours she has become a slightly different person. Or possibly,... possibly,... recovered a slightly older one. Some version of herself that predates the receipts and the races and the mug washed for the second time. Some Lizzie who had known, once, that she was worth looking at.
She is married. She knows that. The thought lands with the weight it is supposed to carry and she does not dismiss it.
But she also thinks: I felt free. For the first time in years, I felt like myself.
She doesn't know what to do with those two thoughts. They sit side by side, not resolving.
She checks the time. Don will be back by six, maybe seven if the last race runs late. She hears his key in the imaginary lock, his coat dropped on the chair, the particular silence he carries with him that always makes the rooms smaller.
She closes the chat window. She closes the browser. She smooths her skirt against her knees without knowing why... it's some old, reflexive composure, the body knowing to tidy itself even when the mind is still miles away. Or rather twelve thousand of them, sitting in lamplight in someone's Melbourne kitchen.
She opens the spreadsheet.
G850. G851. G852.
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