Falling for the girl who did porn online

We met a a coffee shop that she knew about. It was a good thing she did, because after having been in the state of Maryland for all of three weeks, I still didn't have the city figured out.

I was used to the gravel roads, the long stretch of road that went from the neighborhoods right down to the freeway off-ramps. I'd never lived in a city, never had the desire to live in the city. All the noise, the people, the assholes, the idiots. No thanks.

But her...

Fuck, she made it worth it. Not to say she didn't come with a price, literally and figuratively. We met online, as most people do in 2023, and something about her made me smile. I, had been, married to a good woman, but not the kind of woman who understood things like touch, silence, serenity, peace, as a love language. She had been more of a "don't touch me" "don't ask to have sex with me" "what's wrong with this picture" kind of a wife.

Not to say I hated her. No I loved her. Her smile, her laugh that scrunched up her cheeks, the way she'd asked me in a soft, tender voice to take care of small household chores.

I loved her, for everything she did and all she was worth. But I was, in my minds eye, to young to be married. To young to be taken off the dating market. Too young to be tied down. A naïve and curious soul lives inside of my body, and it despises things like commitment and being told to do things.

So I changed my life. I told her I wasn't ready to be with her, to be with anyone, even after five years of a very loving but spiteful relationship.

She told me it was someone else, like it had been before. I told her the truth, that it was someone else. Then she screamed at me, and for the first time in that five years, I screamed back. Pent up rage and pushed-down feelings came out, and it was almost volatile.

But I reigned it back in. The hate and curses hung in the air around us, but the words couldn't be taken back.

Family was the next step. They hated me for it, shunned me, swore at me, told me I was making a mistake. My own family understood me though, told me they would help me through this part of my life as best they could.

I told everyone I didn't need help. Solitude and stubbornness had always been my allies, and they were still with me.

When we split up, packed up, divided up, then it was time for me to go. I had everything I could call my own packed tightly into my car and trunk. I got in the car, backed out of the driveway of a now empty home with the lawn cut just three days ago. It the end of summer, the sunlight overhead bearing down on me as if to ask,

"Why have you ruined your life?"

But because the sunlight couldn't hear me, I didn't answer. I drove down the street, drove onto the freeway, then settled back in my car. I tried not crying in the firs three hours, but I did it anyways. I could still smell her, still feel the way she spoke to me in my head. She had been my world for five years, and now she was gone.

Life is a bitch, but she's not without her silver linings. When I was six hours into the drive and the sun was leaving it's soft orange light in the sky, I pulled over for the night at a hotel. I had eight hours down, and eight more hours to go.

After a lot of driving and lot of guilt-tripping, I arrived. Passing the state boarder sign of Baltimore I sort of... just exhaled really. I swallowed then, a fist of guilt, sadness, concern, fear all pressing their fingers into my gut.

But I swallowed them all down, and called the girl I had uprooted my entire life for.

She answered with a simple: "Hey! Jack, did you make it okay?"

"I did," was my answer.

Then she told me where she was, out shopping, and where I could find her. We ended our phone call, and then I kept fucking driving. All I'd done for the last day and a half was drive, and I wanted about a week of not being in my car before I drove anymore.

When I found her, I told her I was waiting outside. She finished up her shopping, then I saw her. semi curly black hair, a soft face with red cheeks, a girl on the bigger side. Her breasts were tucked into her shirt and hugged her body, and she saw me across the street. I waved at her, she waved back, and motioned me over to her.

She walked to her car, put away her shopping bags, and then we both looked at each other for a moment. She held her arms out to me then, and I let her take me in a hug. I swallowed back a sob, and she shushed me, holding me close to her as if she was my mother. A loving, nurturing energy came from her, and that made me feel safe. Secure even.

Now this girl that I chatted online with sold nude photos and videos of herself to make a living. I respected it, in the dog-eat-dog world we live in, and harbored no prior judgements against how she made a living. I liked her, had feelings for her. She admired what I did for work as a published author, and I was convinced that Maryland had an audience of avid readers I could ply my trade with.

We went for that coffee this story started with at this point in time. Down a block of the city street, where we ended up sitting outside with the first days of a crisp Autumn starting to roll in.

Now came all the questions we wanted to ask each other three months ago, but didn't ever get around to, on account me buying nudes and videos from her, and deciding I was going to end a marriage I was cheating in for this girl.

"What's the plan now?" she asked me.

"I need to find a good publishing company out here," I said from behind my coffee, "I'll look into them today. A place to stay would be be ideal too, a hotel or something?"

"I have a roommate, you know about her," she said then, "but there's no reason you can't stay with me right now."

"You've had guys stay over before?" I asked, "roommate must be pretty cool."

"She's cool with what I do," she nodded to me now, her eyes soft behind her glasses, "no reason she'd tell you, you know "nah you can't stay with me," she laughed then.

I smiled at her, taking it all in at that moment. I'd driven just under eighteen hours to meet this girl, leaving my wife and letting my whole life fall apart in the process, for what?

"I needed a change," I said to her then, "I don't recall if you ever asked me why I was willing to do this with you."

"It was your business," she shook her head then, "also it really wasn't my place to persuade you to end a marriage and go off chasing some internet bitch who sold you nudes."

"It really wasn't even about the nudes," I shrugged then, "you've got a good energy about you, and I think I needed that. I felt trapped, kind of pinned down in a way with how life was. As if I couldn't ever do anything with it."

"Your a published author and you feel trapped?" she asked me with a scoffing but smiling tone, "I love that you're so successful."

"Just trying to get by. Nobody ever tells you that, when you start to really live your dreams, they stop being dreams and just turn into another reality."

She smiled at me again now, taking a drink of her coffee.

"You're sure," she paused to lick her lips, "you okay with what I do? I know most guys think I'm some internet hoe trying to get by in life. Which makes since, because I am."

"I'm in place to tell you the life your living is wrong," I shook my head, "I've done bad things and guilty things in my own life, and I've gotten stronger and learned more from then."

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing, Jack?" she asked me.

"You're doing what you have to to get by in life," I nodded to her, "that counts for so much more than what other people think about you. If someone tells you you're living life wrong, you hold your held up higher than them."

"You really did just change your whole life around for me, didn't you?" she asked me then.

I smiled at my coffee cup then. I was smiling at her too, but it wasn't a direct smile.

"Change is a good thing," I said to her, "and I think that me changing is good for me too."