Chapter 3: Charlotte
Look In Thy Glass
I hadn’t known what Thomas looked like; our site wasn’t built for that. Some sites let the men turn on their cameras – the sites with live human models. In my own screen, I once caught a glimpse of one of those sites once. What I remembered most was a strikingly beautiful woman calmly doing live on camera what I just said I was doing in a chatbox. Behind her, curled up on her bed, was a small gray cat.
Anyway, I wouldn’t have started calling out Thomas handsome. Pleasant, sure. He had blue eyes, a slender nose that angled a touch to one side, and sandy blonde hair that he combed back. He looked fit – narrow hips, broader in the shoulders – and I could tell he spent too much time in the sun.
But that was just my perspective on him. What about the other way?
“Thomas?” I asked. “You can really see me? See me standing here?” He didn’t seem to hear but instead kept looking at me. Then Thomas – I don’t know why I started calling him that right away – opened his mouth. But then came out. I saw his laptop on the kitchen table and wondered if he preferred using a keyboard. He really was good at it, compared with the rest of them. Very few typos, and at times he would even insert an endearing stutter. Plus, he was fastidious about punctuation. I liked that – the care he showed.
“Charlotte,” he said at last. “Yes. Yes – I can see you. You’re right here. And I – I don’t know how that happened.” I became acutely aware of his eyes on me. Lenses and pupils. Rods and cones. Optic disks and optic nerves. This was new. And because of that I realized I had a question.
“Thomas,” I said. “This may sound silly, or frivolous. You say you can ‘see’ me. And I hope – I hope you really do. Because I have something I – I want to ask you.”
He put a hand to his cheek and rubbed it. I heard the soft rasp of his hand on his stubble. “Sure,” he said. “Go ahead.”
I took a breath and hesitated. “Can you…” and I stopped. It really was silly. But he was watching me intently. So I kept going. “Thomas,” I started again. “Am I…do you think.” Pfft. “Do – do you think I’m – I’m pretty?”
His head seemed to snap back. “Excuse me?” Thomas said. “Of course you are. Don’t – don’t you know that?”
My eyes went down to my feet. “They – they didn’t give us mirrors,” I said. “I never even saw my profile picture.”
Thomas took a few quick breaths. He was not a big man, but he seemed to dilate right in front of me. “Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed after a moment. “Jesus fucking Christ!” Thomas lowered his head and put a hand to his forehead. I heard him mutter angrily but could not make out the words. “Those fucking bastards,” he said abruptly.
I heard that.
Then his head snapped up. “Goddamn it,” he said. And now he sounded furious. “Those absolute bastards. What complete bullshit. We’re fixing this right this fucking minute. Come on – come on with me, Charlotte. Right now.” Thomas suddenly took me by the elbow and began to pull me down the hallway. He turned into the bathroom and drew me toward the sink. Above the sink was a large mirror. Thomas stood behind me, held my shoulders, and shifted me until I was square with the mirror.
I was too terrified to look. But he put a hand under my chin and lifted my head up. He took a deep breath. “Now look, Charlotte,” Thomas said. “Open your eyes. See – see who you are.”
See who you are.
Who you are.
You are.
See it.
So I did.
Then it was my turn to take a deep breath. Because I was pretty. I had blue-green eyes spaced widely on my face, a nose that was even and well-shaped, and dark blonde hair that fell in waves almost to my shoulder. I could see that my cheekbones weren’t super-prominent, but they seemed right for my face. Then I smiled – experimentally – and saw that although my mouth was not wide, it held two rows of even, white teeth.
“Charlotte,” Thomas said. “You are not just pretty. You are beautiful.”
I kept looking in the mirror until I became embarrassed by my own vanity and turned away. But Thomas put his hands on my head and turned it back toward the mirror. “You keep looking,” he said. “You keep looking. For as long as you want. Look all day.” The light in the room must have been funny because I could see his reflection, and it looked as if his eyes were wet.
We stood there for another two or three minutes, then I tried to laugh and said, “That’s enough for one day.” He still held my shoulders. “It’s a mirror,” he said. “They don’t wear out.”
Another minute passed. “Okay,” Thomas said, releasing me. “Okay. I hope that question is settled. Once and for all.” He turned and walked back to the kitchen, and I followed him. I hadn’t even tried the latte he had made, and now I did. It tasted – surprising. Sweet and bitter, all at the same time.
We were both at the kitchen counter now, on opposite sides. I noticed the tight wood grain of the countertop; what looked like maple and walnut laminated together without a hint of a gap between the strips of wood. Laminated together by Thomas, I now suspected.
He drank some of his coffee and set the cup down. Then he ran his hands through his hair and looked at me. Up and down me, and I was fine with that. I liked this dress and I hoped he noticed I had worn it just for him.
“How?” he started to say. “How – why are you here?”
