Chapter 7

Saturday December 23

I listened to Hailey’s playlists on Spotify during my drive to Salt Lake City. One is called “Carbon Monoxide Dance”. Her mom said she didn’t leave a suicide note; maybe this is it.

I guess the themes are pretty much what you’d expect: loneliness, dissatisfaction, and unworthiness. For example:

Do you share the same sense of defeat?

Have you realized all the things you’ll never be?

Ideals turn to resentment, open minds close up with cynicism

I’ve got no judgment for you

Come on and ache with me

-- Ache With Me by Against Me!

But a couple of them, to me, sound hopeful...:

I can hear your bare feet on the kitchen floor

And I don’t have to have these dreams no more, and I’ve

Found someone just to hold me tight

Hold the insomniac all night

-- Insomniac by Billy Pilgrim

I guess, I just don’t understand how she could do it if she still had hope.

And on the topic of me not getting it, Professor Welsh wrote back:

To: Lexi Green

From: Nathan Welsh, Ph.D.

Subject: Re: Disappointed

Frankly, Lexi, I think you’re doing your friend a disservice comparing her life-ending depression to your sexual whims. She probably felt that suicide was her only way to escape something unbearable: psychological pain, perhaps. You, I gather, simply indulged in the taboo. I didn’t read any hints of desperation or lack of control in your last letter. You didn’t seem to be in the grip of an addiction or compulsion; you just let yourself go a little wild, like countless people do in Las Vegas every day.

I wouldn’t worry about what to tell your kids. If you live your life honest with yourself, your kids will learn the right lessons every day. I have my foibles but I’m proud of the men my sons are growing up to be.

He’s right: I’m a dick.

I met with Hailey’s dad in the afternoon. He was nice to me - nicer than I deserved. He knew about Hailey’s Hoover Dam scare - that’s part of why she moved here. She started seeing a psychologist, taking some meds, and going to community college.

She also joined a community theater troupe. She really liked being a part of a group, doing something big together. The play was As You Like It - Shakespeare - and her part was a semi-important character named Phoebe. Then word of the sex-video got out. They fired her from the cast. They were worried about negative publicity. So once again, just when Hailey had found a group of people to bond with, I took it away from her. I’m sorry, Hailey.

I wrote back to Dr. Welsh while I sat in my hotel room trying to figure out what to do next. Maybe I shouldn’t have written everything I did. But what the hell - he’s in prison, so it’s not like he’s going to stalk me.

To: Nathan Welsh, Ph.D.

From: Lexi Green

Subject: Re: Disappointed

You’re right: I’m a poseur. I didn’t mean to disrespect Hailey like that.

Okay, so tell me, what’s it like having a gargantuan porn-star dick? Do the guys bow down before you in the locker room? Do girls take numbers and line up outside your bedroom? Gimme the deets.

Oh, and the email I sent begging the admin to take down the Hailey sex video? The fucker posted it. The Chi Omicron girls identified Hailey as the other girl, and they roasted the hell out of her. They made fun of her suicide, and joked about calling her parents or harassing them on social media. I desperately hope those were empty threats. I just keep making things worse.

Sunday December 24

I prayed last night. I grew up going to Catholic school, so I’ve spent more hours than I can count praying, but last night was different. I think last night was the first time I really meant it. I begged God to be understanding with Hailey: to forgive her suicide and welcome her to His side. I told Him about all of the wonderful ways about her - how great she was, for me and the world. On the surface I guess it’s stupid: God doesn’t need my opinions to make His divine judgments. But then, maybe in my clumsy way, I wasn’t really trying to persuade God, but thanking Him for Hailey. I feel like He listened.

I met with one of the actors from Hailey’s play this morning: Scott.

“It was obvious from day one that Hailey was desperate to fit in,” Scott told me over pancakes. “I thought it was nice, but some of the girls said she tried too hard.”

“I liked her - I wanted to ask her out,” Scott continued, “but as time went on it became clear that she had her eye on someone else. Hailey was crushing on Sondra - the girl who played Rosalind. I didn’t like how she treated Hailey. Part of it was theater snobbishness - Hailey didn’t have any real theater experience. Like this is Broadway or something. Some of it was probably just that pecking order thing that girls do.”

I liked Scott. He seemed sincere. And he was an ally to Hailey, from the sound of it.

“Anyway, one day Hailey really put herself out there,” he said. “She invited Sondra to watch movies at her house - just the two of them. Sondra gave her a smackdown. She quoted Hailey’s own lines to her - Phoebe’s rebuke of Silvius - but in a really snide way.

“I don’t know the play,” I told him.

He kinda quoted it for me, but I had trouble following, so I looked it up later:

“Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;

And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee:

Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;

Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,

Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers!”

“You could see Hailey’s heart breaking a little more with every word. She left crying while some of the girls laughed at her,” Scott said.

“What happened after that?” I asked.

“Well, she showed up to rehearsals and then the first two shows - did her part. But she barely talked to anyone,” he explained. “And then the sex video came out. Do you know about that? Hailey and some other girl going at it at a sorority party, they say.”

He clearly didn’t realize that I was the other girl from the video. No point in mentioning it.

“A lot of the guys started teasing her about it,” he went on. “Teasing Sondra, too - you know, dildo jokes and stuff. Sondra was really mad. It obviously got to Hailey but she tried not to show it. And then the producer kicked her out of the show.”

Scott was suddenly emotional: “I swear - I tried to be there for her. She just wouldn’t let me in.”

“It’s not your fault,” I told him. “She had been hurt so many times by that point ... Anyway, did she ever say anything about where the video came from?”

“No.”

“Okay. Do you know what happened to her after that?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Next I heard, she had killed herself.”

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m in a cheap hotel in an unfamiliar city. I tried calling Juliet - just to talk to a friend - but she was bitchy. She didn’t like how I had treated her brother, for fuck’s sake.

I tried calling Martin. He told me - get this - Mandy thought it would be a good idea if he and I didn’t talk much from now on. He needs to focus on their relationship. I’m trying not to be mad - Martin doesn’t exactly have a lot of experience with relationships and sex. I guess I should say I’m trying not to be mad at him. Fuck you, Mandy - I thought we were friends.

Mom and Dad are in Greece right now. At least Dr. Welsh wrote back.

To: Lexi Green

From: Nathan Welsh, Ph.D.

Subject: Re: Disappointed

Straight guys don’t usually kneel in front of each other naked.

I dare say I’ve had more sexual opportunities because of my endowment, but honestly I would prefer to be a bit smaller. There are some serious down sides.

For one thing, there’s no such thing as a “quicky”. If I don’t take things slowly, my partner gets hurt.

Oral is only good for a quick tease. Most girls can’t keep their mouths open that wide for long. Past a minute or two, it inevitably ends with teeth. Anal is out of the question, too, unless the girl has trained for it.

Still, my ego does appreciate the look on a woman’s face the first time she sees my manhood in person, and then again when she feels it.

My lawyers are in talks with the parole board. With luck, I’ll be out of prison and dating again by the end of the year. Wish me luck.

After that I took a nice warm bath fantasizing about getting fucked by Dr. Welsh’s giant cock. I even tried fisting myself but that was a total no-go: my vag couldn’t stretch anywhere near that far, and even if it could, that’s just way too awkward to do with your own hand. I did learn how to come from a bathtub faucet though.

I think I’ll go out and case Hailey’s shrink’s office. Maybe she has some notes that could shed some light on what Hailey was going through.

Ever wake up in the middle of the night to an important realization? I just did.

My emails with the Lexi Haters’ Club Admin were addressed just like that, but they were posted to the Haters’ Club forum by the screen name Not2xTapped - the same person who posted the Hailey sex video in the first place. More importantly, when he posted my email begging him to remove the video, he accidentally revealed the email address that the admin account was forwarded to: SteampunkHacker64@linuxmail.org.

That email sounded familiar so I searched through all of my files. Eventually I found it in the plain-text passwords file I had lifted from Desmond Ingram’s computer a year ago. Desmond fucking Ingram! I should have known!

Desmond was the uncouth IT guy at my part-time job. He tried to blackmail me into dating him with the naked pictures of me he’d found on the Internet. I refused, things escalated, and eventually he was arrested for his bootleg movie sales operation. I guess he must have squirmed out of trouble somehow - probably turned rat on someone. While I was fighting with him I snagged a copy of his master passwords file, unencrypted.

Anyway, SteampunkHacker64 was on his password list, but the password wasn’t any good any more. Unlike most people, Desmond is smart enough to change his passwords when he realizes they’ve been compromised.

I don’t know what to do with this information. I’ll have to think it over.

Monday December 25

This morning I went to mass. In the evening, I infiltrated Hailey’s shrink’s office.

The office was one of four suites in a small brick building that looked like a house. It’s clearly a one-person operation. There are no cameras and no alarm systems. Based on Facebook, the shrink is a practicing Christian, so there’s no way she would be working on Christmas. Tonight seemed like the ideal time for a little break-in. So, you know, the usual: hoodie, jeans, gloves, lock picks, thumb-drive.