Mister O(30)

I like your answers. What else do you like?

Princess: Smart guys.





I grip the phone tighter as I head up to Forty-Second Street, resisting the impulse to make a comment about smart guys in glasses. Because, ya know, it’s not the glasses that make the guy smart. It’s what’s inside the brain. But society has decided glasses are a symbol for intelligence, so if she wants to see me as a smart symbol, fine. I mean, sex symbol. Either one is good with me.



More. Tell me more.

Princess: I like soft lips and hungry kisses. Lots of kisses.





A bolt of heat courses through my body as I flash back to last night’s messages. To my long note about f*cking, and kissing, and more kissing. Maybe I’m reading into this, but it’s like she’s giving some of that back to me. Like she wants the exact same thing—the next chapter in that kiss that started outside her home. So I reply.



What kind of kisses?

Princess: Kisses that make me melt.





That’s the best kind.



I don’t want to stop this conversation. I’m greedy for more of her words, so I keep up the volley.



And so are kisses that go on and on.

Princess: And kisses that stop time.





That turn you on.

Princess: That turn to more. That start soft and slow, and then you can feel them in your whole body. All over your skin. Deep in your bones.





My throat is dry, and my mind is immersed in the memory of those fifteen seconds and the possibility of what might have happened had the seconds stretched into minutes. Maybe just one more note . . .



That take your breath away.

Princess: And drive you wild.





Metal connects with my thighs, and a loud oomph escapes my lips. I just walked into a trash can. I put the phone in my pocket and try not to think about kisses that make her melt, since I’d rather not get to know any more trash cans in this city.



Not only do we not stop, we speed up. We change lanes. We take turns. We veer off course. And we text and sext and write more.

The next night, I crack open a beer and settle in at the standing desk where I do most of my computer animations. I take a drink, spend some time with my drawing tablet, then write to her.



So, we’ve got arms, abs, briefs, brains, and lips. Anything else you like?



I swear I can feel her smile in the one-word reply that lands immediately.

Princess: Eyes :)





Though it might be the emoticon that’s giving me the warm-fuzzy. Or maybe just her when she adds another message.

Princess: I want to look into someone’s eyes and feel like he knows me, gets me, understands me. I want him to see my quirks and accept them, not try to change them. I want to know what that’s like.





Damn, her words are intense and so . . . naked. Something about this small screen makes her open up and reveal parts of herself to me. The sides she doesn’t show anyone. Except, she showed them to me at Speakeasy, and then at the coffee shop, and now it’s like an unveiling. The pieces of Harper she hides inside her top hat, or behind the red scarf, or just beyond a witty joke or quip. Most of the time she’s all now you see it, now you don’t. But this is a whole new part of her. Take away voice, face, and body language. Lean only on words and she . . . blooms.

I step away from the desk, pace across my apartment to the kitchen, then restlessly head to the bay window, staring out on the night sky of New York with the skyscrapers and neon gazing at me. I don’t want to say the wrong thing, and I don’t want to send her racing back to Veiled Harper land, so as I pick up my phone I choose a safe response, but one that acknowledges all her quirks.



You deserve all of that. I want you to have that.

Princess: I want it, too.





And quirks should never be changed. Keep all your quirks, Harper. I like them.

Princess: Same for you, Nick. I like yours, too.





I’m addicted to my phone. That’s something I’ve always tried to avoid, but I never know if she’s going to send me something that turns me on.

Except pretty much all her messages do, so I’m living in a state of suspended desire.

It’s fantastic and terrible at the same time. It feels amazing and also completely foolish. But this dizzy, heady sensation of wanting? It’s in charge right now, and it leads me on. I’d like to think this newfound infatuation with her texts is good for my show. Because this next episode is coming together like a dream, and after I leave a meeting with the head animator the next day, I make my way to the elevator so I can take off uptown to meet Tyler at Nichols & Nichols.

“Mister Hammer.”

The voice curdles my stomach.

“Hey, Gino.”

The network head strides up to me and straightens the jacket on his pin-striped suit. “Been thinking about The Adventures of Mister Orgasm,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows. “I like to think I have several things in common with the hero.”

I stifle a cringe and just suck it down, so hard I might choke on it. “That so?”

He tugs at his tie. “I’m a bit of a ladies’ man myself.”