Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

On the back end of the website were chat rooms, among them one for the members wanting sex. Critics said that organizations like the Helix encouraged bacchanalia, and that as leader Thurlow must be an incorrigible roué, but it wasn’t true. Or not entirely true. He’d made these rooms accessible by video because the I Seek You protocol rewarded disclosure at a clip, and faces could help. Or so he’d thought until the Play Room took hold. In there, what strides the video option had made toward facilitating intimacy were Pyrrhic.

Just last night he’d seen a man fellate himself with a Winnie the Pooh hand puppet, though what had Thurlow rapt was the affection and solicitude the man’s free hand lavished on the bear, as if the only way to thank ourselves for love received was through displacement. This show, one among thousands. People registering disbelief and gratitude for what was being offered them. A longing for more. Please don’t sign off until I am done. Don’t leave, please. It was a peacocking of misery that reasserted the virtue of what Thurlow was trying to do with the Helix, and so depressing as to keep him riveted for hours.

Now he fixed on a live stream of Sophie18, who was a man in thong and thigh-highs, watching Lena04, who wore the same. They were doing for each other what could not be done otherwise. And so, for a second, Thurlow loved this chat room because it was a mercy killing of at least some of the self-hate grown in his heart for what he was soon to do to the people who supported him most.

Before he signed off, he scanned a thumbnail list of users and noticed someone new. A guy not looking for pleasure; he just wanted to talk. He asked if his camera was working. He didn’t understand all this technology, but his wife had given it to him so that he might get out and make friends, he being incarcerated in his house and the Internet being the next best thing to bingo at the lodge. He was pecking at the keyboard with his index fingers. Thurlow wrote back immediately. He wrote:

Dad, can you find some other chat room to be in? There’s about ten million to choose from.

Dad, can you find some other chat room to be in? There’s about ten million to choose from.

But Wayne wanted to talk about how his life was being dismantled from the inside out. How his marriage was on the skids. The torpor and routine. Mutual disinterest in all things relating to the home, money, or politics. Thurlow wrote back.

But u don’t care about these things, Deborah or not.

Dont be smart ass.

But codependency and trust and comfort are important. Marriage is a sum of parts, some good, some bad, but maybe the sum is still good.

Wayne smirked.

Dad, sometimes u gotta take risks to get what u want.

??? Son wha ts the mater w/ y ou?

But u don’t care about these things, Deborah or not.

Dont be smart ass.

But codependency and trust and comfort are important. Marriage is a sum of parts, some good, some bad, but maybe the sum is still good.

Wayne smirked.

Dad, sometimes u gotta take risks to get what u want.

??? Son wha ts the mater w/ y ou?

This was not the first time they’d had a conversation that veered in this direction, though its precedents were few.

“Dad, stop typing — you are driving me nuts. We can talk, you know. There’s a microphone.”

Wayne got up close to the screen and pressed his ear to the camera, which felt like the lewdest thing Thurlow had seen in this room to date.

“Dad, stop it, just sit in your chair.” Only the volume was on high, and, since Thurlow was not whispering, Wayne recoiled from the speaker with shock and began to chowter, “Stupid machine. Who ever heard of this talking machine?” So Thurlow said, “Dad, I can hear you,” and again with the shock, and because Thurlow was so strung out he couldn’t remember who he was to whom anymore, he said, “Dad, don’t make me demote you, too.”

Finally Wayne sat back, which gave view to what Thurlow expected to be his room but was not his room at all.

“Dad, what are you doing in the commissary? You know you’re not supposed to be there. What have I not given you such that today, of all days, you were moved to leave your place of dwelling and venture into mine?”

“I was looking for the marriage counselor. I heard you called one in. And why are you talking like some poofcake?”

“I have not called in a counselor. Where’d you hear that? And what made you think he’d be in the commissary?”

“Last I heard, it was called a pantry. Son, are you all right? These four people here have been telling me some things”—and he glanced the camera at the hostages, who were supposed to have been returned to the den gagged, hooded, cuffed. Wayne, who was suddenly adept with the zoom function on the camera, had zeroed in on Anne-Janet’s nose, which was narrow up top but fanned at the base like maybe she’d spent her formative years face pressed to the window, waiting.

Thurlow said, “Dad, I don’t want to see those people.”

Wayne said, “You know, this one’s a professional arbiter, which is almost like a marriage counselor, right?” He framed in close on Olgo.

“Dad, what? You’ve been talking about your marriage? To them? What else have you been saying?”

“Not too many options for chat around here.”

“Dad.” But he stopped there. He could not expect to rationalize with this man. This man was his father; he was intractable. “Dad, you need to stop talking to those people. They are full of lies. Just stay put until I get someone over there.”

Wayne shrugged. “Where exactly would I go?”

“I’ll call for Dean, and he’ll escort you back to your quarters. There’s pink jellies in the kitchen, by the way. Edible foil. FYI.” He offered these as an olive branch because he didn’t like to be stern with his dad. He did like to take precautions, though, and he made a note to disable Wayne’s door opener and short the emergency override. Also: No more computer. And guards at his bed.

At last he got Dean on the phone. Dean, frantic, saying, Where the hell was he? Thurlow was so vexed Dean had left the hostages with his dad, he could barely contain himself. Only, Dean insisted Thurlow had called him not half an hour ago, demanding he meet him in the basement. Aha, so that mole Vicki had them played. Never mind. Just hurry up and get to Wayne. And reassemble the film crew. To hell with it — they had to make the ransom tape right now.

“Okay, Dad? You hear that? Dean’s on his way, so just sit tight”—which was when he noticed Wayne’s face derange and lock. Oh, crap. “Dad,” he said. “Not now!” But of course Wayne had no choice. He lowed, he bellowed, his limbs clenched. And though Thurlow had seen this happen many times, it never got any less awful, and today it seemed worse. Perhaps because where the footage should have lagged for being streamed online, it seemed to mayhem twice as bad. The tonic phase of the seizure lasted for thirty seconds, which gave Thurlow no time to get there before the clonic phase, which was more dangerous, insofar as Wayne could fall and hit his head, which he did. Some epileptics flail and twitch, but for Wayne the movement was more like the string of an instrument, a cello bass, that had been plucked too hard. Luckily, he had pitched to his side, which meant he wouldn’t inhale his own spit. Thurlow waited for Wayne’s body to slow down and then made a run for it.

He had never sprinted across the house, so he was surprised how quickly he got there. Less surprising was that he was winded and likely to convulse himself if he did not sit down. The hostages were appalled, but what was he supposed to do? Wayne was on his side, unconscious. Thurlow propped his head on his leg and waited. The hem of his jeans had crawled up one calf. A vein thick and soft like pasta showed under his skin. Wayne’s head weighed a ton. Thurlow had his back to the hostages, but he knew what they were thinking. He said, “It looks worse than it is, I swear.”