I sighed happily, listening to the music playing in my ear. I felt Selena pull me closer, I felt like I was either about to die or fall asleep, neither would be too pleasant considering how hot it was outside. I looked out through the sheet of hair that covered my right eye, blushing lightly when I realized how many people were looking at us. So many of them I recognized, so many of them I knew would be here, so many of them I knew where they would be in an hour. Why did I know this information? The tune played in my ear, a complete contrast to the outside world.
It was another one of those things that betrayed Selena’s flawless and caring nature. The hard, fast beat played in my ear accompanied by such vulgar language, language that made me shudder knowing that people actually thought along the same lines as the lyrics playing in my ear. I knew she wasn’t the angel that she had become in my life. She was flawed, temperamental, violent, and vulgar. But she made an effort, something I had never seen anyone do. Selena was constantly catching herself, trying to hide what she was about to say or suggest. Why did she do this? She had money, lots of it. She would never have to work a single day in her life with her family’s fortune. The Martin family owned all the major night clubs in the city, and several more across the province. They pulled in more money than most people would make in a year every night.
So why? I felt so terrible about it, about our relationship. A relationship? It was serious now wasn’t it, two weeks and we were never without contact. I felt jealous, unrightfully so, when she looked at other people with those eyes. I always felt so happy seeing her catch herself looking at someone else, watching her torture herself mentally for my sake. Was I abusing her feelings and her wallet? She bought everything, she paid for everything. She even made me leave my job, which sounds terrible when worded in such a way.
I had changed, didn’t I? When I moved into the tenth grade I started dressing as a boy, rolling my shoulders forwards and taking on terrible posture to hide myself. It was such a seamless transition, a haircut and a change of posture and suddenly I was the same as my friends, I didn’t look so out of place beside Devon and Ryan. I stayed that way until I met Selena, I even caught myself feeling as if I was suddenly cross-dressing on occasion. Was it the shelter that I was suddenly given that made me let my hair cover my face, allowed me to stand straight and confident? I hated my body, it was so wrong that I could change gender roles in a second and worse that I had developed an entire attire and style that let me do so on demand.
It was more than that though. I felt obliged to take on a male persona when I turned fifteen, in high school. I felt obliged because of my home life. It was terribly sexist, a trait that I despised in other people, but overlooked in myself. I felt as if I had to be a male because I had looked after myself my entire life, because of how much time I spend in front of the computer and how messy I allowed my room to get. Because I only had male friends, because I had never had any real male influence in my life. No, that was wrong. I didn’t have any real gender influences in my life. Devon was sexist, he hated males and at the same time hated how his gender immediately identified what kind of person he was. He wanted to be a female, and he had never had any male influences in his life either so he couldn’t count as either a male or a female influence. Ryan was distant, he was our friend but we didn’t hang out, we were a group but we didn’t identify with each other or even have anything in common.
The sun was melting me, cooking me in Selena’s grasp. I watched as she wiped beads of sweat off her breasts, then as she wiped them off her forehead. It wasn’t even noon, and it hadn’t even moved into real summer yet. It was late spring, ten in the morning on a Saturday and it was past thirty five degrees out. She pushed lightly with her arm, signalling me to stand up. I pulled the earbud out and handed it back to her. I heard her voice, so gentle compared to what I had been listening to for the past half hour.
“Let’s go, it’s getting to hot out,” she said as she raised her self off the park bench and stretched, her hands reaching into the air. I followed suit, interlocking my fingers and pushing them as far back behind me as I could. I heard pops running all the way up my back, three years of intentionally horrible posture and time spent hunched over my desk had its ill effects. “Where you wanna go?” Her fingers interlocked and found their place behind her neck. She looked so casual, so normal, absolutely stunning in her natural beauty void of her old make-up and over sexualized attire. People were still staring, I felt so exposed standing out in the park in view of everyone. As a male I blended into the woodwork, nobody recognizes another depressed looking boy walking down the street alone, but everyone seemed to notice me as a female. Or rather they noticed two girls cuddling on a bench in the park.
“No clue,” I answered, glancing around at everyone, my hands sliding into my pockets. My voice still felt so strange, a change of pitch and the sound of confidence were another change from my male persona. They seemed so foreign to me, and so many times I’ve startled myself thinking someone was speaking right behind me. “Hopefully somewhere air conditioned. I don’t feel like resigning myself to my computer this early in the day.” I laughed to myself, hearing her join in.
That was a shock, the computer had been everything before, the internet bowing to my every wish and command. But now I wanted to be away from it, away from all those games, away from all my friends, away from that world. I wanted to be in this world, where I could hear the words of humans without a script, without a beat, without the sound of feedback buzzing in my ear when someone wanted to be heard. Where I could be with another human and hold them, feel that comforting and enveloping warmth that didn’t need to be plugged into the wall or constantly adjusted on a thermostat.
“Mall?” She asked quizzically, tilting her head at me. Selena gave me so much choice, an actual say in what I was to do next. What did I want to do, not what did they want me to do. I chose when to go to the computer, when to waste hours and in game money dying again and again to the idiocy of raid members, as opposed to when the guild wanted me to sign over my time. I had a say in what I spent my day doing, the wonders of that magical in-between year from high school to when colleges and universities would accept you. A person had to be nineteen to even submit an application, and that same person would typically graduate from high school the same year that they turned eighteen.
“We went yesterday.” We began to walk towards her car, it stood out between the lines of minivans and the family clunker. It was a convertible too, I felt like a star driving around beside Selena who actually looked the part. It was a guilty pleasure, I felt like I was abusing her money when I got driven around, like such a cliché riding in a convertible beside someone like Selena. But she had become modest, which made it less embarrassing. I swore over half the time my panicked and worried self made me look like a rape victim, at least to me having a sense of how she used to be.
She hopped in, over the door. So casual in her movements. For a moment I wondered how she stayed in shape drinking till dawn in night clubs and partying but I quickly realized the answer would ruin that sense of awe. I opened the door meekly, sliding into the passenger seat. I instantly felt the blast of cool air from the AC, such a contrast on my face to the kind of heat that would kill you in hours without water which seemed to be focused through a magnifying glass at the back of my head.
She tapped her fingers on the wheel, blushing slightly as she looked around. We were so out of place here, and it was easy to tell that we could be the token queen b***h and her lackie in any movie that involved a high school. I plugged my phone into the line in jack in the stereo, turning on my music. The first song that came up was one of my favourites, regardless of how short it was. Can’t Stop It by Bad Religion, such a strange band to listen to in this day and age, but I respected that they haven’t sold out in the slightest in the sixteen or seventeen years that the band’s been making music.
“The basement would be nice right now, but then we’d just spend the whole day inside.” I watched her sigh lightly, crossing her arms and resting them and her chin on the wheel. I leaned back, which I quickly realized was a terrible idea when I got the sun and all its heat bearing down on my face. I shot forwards fast enough to get a headache shooting straight across my skull. I heard Selena laughing beside me, laughing at me. It was funny, it wasn’t insulting, but it felt so strange. Any time Devon laughed at me he was mocking me, but Selena laughed because she thought it was cute. “Now watch, you’re going to make the same mistake in like ten minutes if we’re still here. Where do you want to go? I’m so bored!”
“Yeah well shut up.” I said, blushing lightly. I thought about it for a moment. Where did I want to go? There was so much in the city to do, but all of it was pointed at tourists, or only happened on certain events. “You want pizza? I’ll pay.” I offered, though she would turn me down and use her own money. It was always the same, but I felt bad not offering, because it always sounded like I expected her to do it. I did expect it, but not like I would feel betrayed if she didn’t, it was just going to happen because that’s how she was. “LAN Cafe?”
“Go into a CounterStrike server, shoot up nerd-boys and watch them rage about getting beaten by girls? Let’s do it.” The smile that spread across her face was just so perfect; I was surprised at how quickly she picked up shooters. Even more surprised that she had an ego to match her skill. I had been around the internet for so long that it had been hammered into my head that pretty girls who were social on shooters did it for a reaction from boys, and those girls who didn’t use the microphone to talk were the ones that were good. I never met one that covered both fields without coming off as a complete b***h.
I felt the engine start as I closed my eyes and leaned into the cool air of the AC. The LAN center was only a couple of blocks away, and was also air conditioned. I always felt weird going in with Selena though. Devon had worked there for computer time, and I’ve worked a couple shifts for under the table cash, but when I used to go they all thought I was a guy. It was awkward for a little while, but the owners quickly accepted it, if only because they were in their in their late twenties and Selena is very legal.
The wind felt so nice, and the air conditioned made the car into the closest place to heaven you’re likely to find on earth. We arrived in a minute and a half, give or take five seconds. I didn’t know how I knew the exact time it took considering I was just enjoying the air conditioning, but when I checked my watch I was right on the money. I slid out of the car, watching Selena effortlessly pull herself out of the car without opening the door. She did it just to show off, but I that didn’t matter to me as I traced her body with my eyes. Instead of heading into the LAN Cafe that we were parked in front of I started off across the small parking lot to the Mack’s store.
I wanted snacks, there was nothing wrong with that, but sometimes Selena became aggravating not letting me pay for anything whatsoever. I loved fighting with her about it too in a strange way, I never won and I knew she wouldn’t let me win. It was just fun to watch her get so worked up about me spending my hard earned money on such trivial things as she said.
The Internet Cafe moving in across from the small convenience store was just good business, for both parties. The Internet Cafe didn’t need to sell food being so close to this store, and the Internet Cafe brought in customers that went to the convenience store for every morsel of food they required.
She followed, pouting at me. The parking lot was exposed and the asphalt made it hell to walk across. If I got ice cream I don’t think it’d last the whole four second walk. Selena didn’t like the heat, she was obviously pampered, it was hot and almost unbearable but those active people were out and doing stuff all day. I wouldn’t include myself since my time was either spent on the computer, or doing stuff with Selena. There was a compulsion that had just become second nature to me over the years when entering a convenience store. I made my way to the back of the store where the cold drinks were kept, my eyes scanning along the slanted rows of drinks. I pulled open the door, and knelt down. I could rarely find places that sold the exact brand and flavour of energy drink that I drank. Most carried the brand, Amp, an energy drink made by the same people who made Mountain Dew, but most didn’t carry the cherry flavoured ones. I knew the Petro-Canada gas stations always had a good supply, and the same with this store.
I pulled out one, two, three, and then the fourth. I wasn’t going to drink them all in one day, for obvious health reasons, but I liked to have a stock at my computer at home. I saw Selena grab two bags of chips, one for her and one for me. Most people didn’t even remember my birthday; I hadn’t received a single word from my mother in years let alone a birthday card. The only other person who knew my birth date off by heart was Devon, and he had never once forgotten. It was comforting having someone who remembers things about you, such as your favourite flavour of chips, or your favourite holiday.
I had the four energy drinks sitting on the floor in front of me and I reached over and grabbed a coffee flavoured one. The taste of it made me sick, but it was Selena’s favourite. She told me that on our first official date and I wasn’t likely to forget it. Carrying the five awkwardly over to the counter in the centre of the small store I noticed Selena was already at the counter paying for something. Cash? That wasn’t like her, she wasn’t paying for the chips though since they were pushed aside. I slid up beside her and put the five cans on the counter beside the chips and rested my head on her shoulder. She wasn’t much taller than I was, maybe an inch and a half, two inches at the most. Dyllen had been an inch or two shorter than me, and I was about an average height for someone a year younger than I was.
The small, plastic wrapped, pack slid across the counter to Selena. With a single, quick, movement she put the pack into her pocket. The cashier was Indian, I wasn’t sure where from exactly. Their family ran the store, but I didn’t talk to them other than to indicate how I was paying. I took a step to the side as Selena moved the chips and drinks back to the center of the counter to be scanned. I wasn’t aware that Selena smoked, she didn’t have that scent to her, nor had I ever seen her smoke. But that explained why she went to the ATM before she grabbed the chips. I pulled out my wallet only to have Selena snatch it from me. Well that was a new tactic. Instead of saying that she was paying she just made sure I couldn’t pay for it.
“These are on debit,” She said with a smile. She slid my wallet into her back pocket, and I just stared at it for a moment before I realized that I wasn’t staring at my wallet. A slight blush came forwards and I started looking anywhere but there. She either didn’t notice or was going to tease me about it later. Doing things like that only gave her reason to pressure me, and I knew that I wanted to. I watched her punch in her pin code and I could hear the tones. I always wondered why they said to cover up your pin, the buttons all made a clearly audible indication of what number was pressed, or maybe it was just my hearing was good. Well it wasn’t that my hearing was better than anyone else’s, actually in a test I found out that I could hear a smaller frequency range than most people. It was the interpretation of the information, the doctor said, that gave me the ability to hear subtle differences in tone and pitch.
The cashier put the five drinks into a bag and the chips into another, and I quickly grabbed the bags before Selena could. If she was going to pay I was going to carry the bags. I didn’t want to feel absolutely useless. I just stuck my tongue out at her as I lifted the bags off the counter. “Too slow, let’s go.” She nodded and smiled. The moment we exited the doors I stopped and just looked at her, I had a vacant, questioning look plastered across my face. “You smoke?”
“No, they’re for something else.” She dismissed the question almost completely and stared across the parking lot towards the LAN Cafe. I hurried after, but I couldn’t get that pack out of my head. She didn’t say they were for someone else, she said they were for something else; they were for her but she didn’t plan on smoking them. A ritual of hers? It wasn’t an OCD ritual or I would have seen it by now, so it could be for a yearly ritual of hers. Charles Rivas, a friend of Devon’s who worked at the police didn’t smoke either, but he bought smokes on the same day every year and took them and a small bunch of flowers to his partner’s gravesite. But Selena wasn’t sad, she was avoidant and obvious ashamed of buying them. I was dancing around the most logical answer, trying to avoid it. Could that really be what she was doing tomorrow night when she said she had a doctor’s appointment? She didn’t have any reason to lie to me about something like that, it would hurt and I would feel betrayed, but I would understand.
I would confront her about them when we got back to my place I decided. I followed quickly after carrying the two bags in my hand. The LAN Cafe was the one place that I would absolutely not allow Selena to pay for me at, it would just never happen. I was two paces behind her since she didn’t slow down for me after my question. Could it really be that bad? I got in through the door and was embraced by the chilling air of the air conditioning. How did people live in this valley before air conditioning was invented? People did live in hotter places without air conditioning; I guess I was just acclimatized for the indoor world.
Selena stood in front of the counter, already adding more time to her account. It was pretty empty, and most of the computers were still turned off. That made sense though considering they hadn’t been open ten minutes before we came in. I moved up to the counter beside her, engaging in light conversation about World of Warcraft and explaining why I hadn’t been coming to raids. It was strange though, the answer was standing beside me clear as day, why would they of all people ask that. He handed the debit machine over to me, I said I wanted to add ten hours which would be about twenty dollars because I was counted as staff. I got the machine and reached for my wallet, for half a second my face went absolutely pale. That’s right, she grabbed it from me earlier.
I reached over swiftly grabbing from her pocket before she could turn away, and even though I got the key ring and pulled the wallet out I felt like I grabbed more a** than wallet. She turned towards me and slapped my hand, her face was smug though. Not something I intended to do, but it happened. I paid for my time and we went around the desk to the back of the building to some of the more private computers.
“I’ll go grab us some headsets,” I said with a smile before running back to the front desk. I had left one of my own gaming grade headsets behind the desk so that I didn’t have to bring one from home every time I came. Selena did the same, of course after buying a brand new headset because she didn’t have one to begin with. She wasn’t a gamer, but she was becoming one. Was that just another change she was making for me? Or would she continue to play games if I disappeared. Disappeared, not left. That meant I never intended to leave Selena; that meant this was serious. I smiled, taking our headsets from the owner. Since when did I start analysing my own thoughts, and other people’s actions?
I headed back to my seat; Selena had already logged herself on. I tossed her headset to her from about five feet away, watching her nearly drop it. Sliding into the comfortable leather computer chair beside her I plugged my headset into the USB port before I hit the on button. I would have had to restart the computer if I had plugged in my headset while it was on. I liked my headset, mostly because I also used a USB soundcard. I didn’t like the computer mice, they were plain and didn’t have enough buttons to play World of Warcraft, but they were perfectly fine for shooters. The keyboards were alright, at least we got here before all the computers with the good keyboards were taken.
The login screen popped up, prompting me to put in my info. “What first?” Selena asked, now resting her head on my right shoulder. I scanned through the list, even though there were hundreds of games on all of the computers, there was still only a small list of games that were actually good. I scanned through the list before Selena stopped and pointed at one with a smile, “World at War?”
It was a great game by all means, and luckily it was a Steam game. Steam was a game launch platform that saved your games across any number of computers. You just had to log on, and the list of games you’ve purchased in their store show up ready to install or play. Steam also released a new feature that I particularly liked, it synced your game settings from computer to computer, and with my USB soundcard it would be almost exactly like playing at home. “Bolt-action only, no scopes, no ‘nades, no pistols.”
“Same as always.” We both logged on and launched the game. It was one of those games that now only the hardcore fans still played, so practically everyone was a pro. When the newest Call of Duty game came out everyone moved to that, leaving World at War to die peacefully. Selena and I always played the same server with the same rules. Of course this was still the one shooter that I could still beat her at, which had become so rare in every other game.
Gaming was an activity that my life almost revolved around, I wasn’t sure why or how everything could always lead to or relate to gaming but it did. Gaming on my own late at night, in the silent darkness that was my basement. There I played to win; I listened to music to drown out the sounds relying only on visual identification and reaction time. Gaming with Devon at the LAN Cafe or at either of our houses, a pastime while we discussed our lives and the universe. There I played on autopilot, barely registering what was happening.
Playing shooters with Selena was different, she was different. I didn’t play to win, I didn’t play as a pastime, I didn’t even play to be with her. She was a great sport, she was a great player, she was very sociable and didn’t argue much. She was a great person to play with all around, the ideal gamer for social gaming. But there was something that also intrigued me and frightened me at the same time. When she wasn’t speaking over the mic, wasn’t typing to other players, wasn’t talking to me, when she was staring at the screen and playing there was something interesting in her face. It was something Devon had pointed out to me before when I was playing in my basement listening to music. It was an inhuman focus, meticulous and planning ten steps ahead. Her eyes darted across the screen, focusing on every detail of every object and sight that came into view.
That intrigued me, it was something so foreign to her natural and regular carefree persona. Whenever she was faced with another player, facing her with a weapon in their hand, I noticed her teeth repeatedly being dragged lightly against her lower lip, it was a nervous tell that she also exhibited when playing poker. If the enemy pulled out a knife, or began charging towards her instead of strafing to cover whilst firing her teeth clamped down on her lip and she got progressively stiffer. It was stress, a stressful situation that set off signal flares in her head screaming to kill it or run for the hills.
These were normal, the longer a fight went on in World of Warcraft or any shooter the stiffer I became, the faster my heart beat, the more I started to sweat, the more nervous I became. It was a survival instinct, adrenaline just poured into every crevice of my body. But what frightened me was something that seemed to go past normal excitement or pleasure. When she gunned down an enemy this look of ecstasy spread across her face, the most twisted instead spreading like a plague through her muscles that created the most evil smile a human could exhibit. It wasn’t noticeable after the first kill, the first kill created the beginning, and the more kills she racked up in a row the more and more it spread.
It went far beyond the normal excitement that you feel, full of adrenaline after protecting your virtual livelihood against a pack of seemingly endless bloodthirsty animals. It wasn’t relief, it wasn’t the excitement of winning. For those moments, minutes, before her streak was finally put to an end by the hero of people, that inhuman focus combined with that true intent to kill. She even started to giggle, but it wasn’t the same giggle that she made when I did something dumb or said something funny.
Nobody would have noticed subtle signs like those unless they watched closely, unless they already suspected. Maybe I was fitting her unique experience whilst playing to what I feared she was hiding. A person’s nature could change, but that didn’t happen overnight, and it would always leave traces behind. I hid my concern though, whenever she noticed me staring at her, studying her, I just blushed and looked away.
Time flew by faster than I could have expected. Before long the entire LAN Cafe was starting to fill up. The more people that came in the more I was frightened that one of the regulars would recognize me. Most of the regulars were complete assholes, many of them obviously hate the fact that I follow the basic rules of society such as not smoking pot or dressing like a dumb white kid who wants to be black when he grows up. Because I was intelligent, did well in school, and still kept up to them in skill if not surpassed them. I supposed they would look at themselves when I beat them over and over again while I succeeded in life guaranteeing my future and realize how little they would have when all was said and done.
Four in the afternoon arrived as if only moments had passed. I had drained two of my four cans and had finished off the last of my chips hours ago. Selena took two long hours to finish a single energy drink, and three to even look at her chips. She was so involved in the game, but not enough so that I felt invisible. I stretched, letting out a huge yawn towards the heavens, when returned to my normal sitting posture to click the sign off button I felt her warm, gentle lips press against my cheek. My face seemed to have been talking to an interior designer who decided to match the color of my cheeks to the bright red obnoxious walls behind the monitors. At least I didn’t stand out I guess, but it always felt like everyone was staring at me.
“Let’s go. My basement and a very long nap are calling.”
Selena stood up and stretched, her already prominent breasts seemed to preparing a nuclear assault on the pizza store a block down the street. I giggled a bit when I thought that, I was obviously too hyped up on energy drinks and suffering from sleep deprivation. I was glad I didn’t have the same mental deficiency that Devon had that connected his thoughts right to his voice box before being processed.
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